While We’re At It

♦ In Palm Sunday reflections posted on his website, Coram Fratribus, Bishop Erik Varden observes:

In the Saint Matthew Passion, Bach intersperses a chorale when the Twelve, at the Last Supper, after hearing Jesus’s words, ‘One of you will betray me,’ ask: ‘Is it me?’ The text of the chorale exclaims, on behalf of us all, quite as in the chorus of an ancient Greek tragedy: ‘It is I! I should do penance!’ 

I would add that the same holds on Good Friday. As ­Pontius Pilate presents Jesus, asking if the innocent man should be released, all of us are incorporated into the crowd that bellows, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

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♦ Fr. Jakob Rolland is a French-born priest who serves in Iceland. In March, he participated in a radio program. The host asked him whether homosexuals can receive communion. Fr. Rolland explained Catholic doctrine on the matter: A same-sex inclination is not sinful; however, acting on the inclination is. A person who is engaging in homosexual sex, Fr. Rolland noted, “must undergo conversion, go to confession, and truly consider the possibility of changing [his] life and living in chastity in order to receive Communion.” All of this seems straightforward, plain vanilla moral and sacramental doctrine. But in Iceland, it is a crime to seek to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, punishable by up to four years in prison. LGBTQ groups on that island nation launched a public campaign against Rolland. A member of parliament denounced the priest, saying that Icelandic society “has nothing to do with the Catholic Church” (undoubtedly a true statement). Fortunately, the Ministry of Justice has defended the priest’s right to speak as he did. But the climate of opinion remains hostile to the truth of the matter. Rolland noted that LGBTQ ideology is taught to children as young as five. He warned, “That’s the great danger in Iceland: People are sleeping amidst a dictatorship. They don’t dare to speak out.” And not just in Iceland. Plaudits to Fr. Rolland for speaking out.

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♦ Last year, Vauban Books issued a new translation of Jean Raspail’s dystopian novel of cultural suicide, The Camp of the Saints. The book features an introduction by Nathan Pinkoski, which draws upon his fine essay in our pages (“Spiritual Death of the West,” May 2023). The book sold well on Amazon—evidently too well, because in mid-April, the online vendor removed the title from its website, having deemed its content “offensive” and thus in violation of company policy. Vauban Books ­cofounder and editor in chief Ethan Rundell speculated, “While we cannot say for certain [why Amazon] has taken this extraordinary step, it may be no coincidence that the listing was removed one day after New York Magazine published a critical article on Vice President Vance that referenced the book.” In the event, Amazon restored the listing, and sales went higher still. Although we cannot say for certain what motivated this reversal, it may be no coincidence that the Trump administration has made clear its determination to combat progressive censorship.

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♦ Mike Woodruff drew my attention to a Walker ­Percy aperçu: “To live in the past and future is easy. To live in the present is like threading a needle.” 

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♦ Ryan Burge reports on church attendance by age cohort. In the 1970s, 33 percent of Boomer evangelicals were attending church weekly. Among Boomer Catholics, 39 percent were attending weekly. Fast forward to today: Sixty-three percent of Boomer evangelicals go to church weekly; only 29 percent of Boomer Catholics do the same.

It’s interesting to note that since the 1970s, rates of church attendance have increased in all evangelical age cohorts: Silent Generation, Boomers, Gen X, and the Millennials, while all Catholic age cohorts saw ­declines—except for Millennials, whose church attendance has sharply increased since 2020. 

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♦ Burge also reports on the theological outlook of Catholic clergy, plotted according to their year of ordination. The chart is striking. Sixty-eight percent of those ordained between 1965 and 1969 describe their theology as progressive; only 16 percent describe it as conservative. First slowly, then rapidly, the tables turn as the date of ordination gets further from the close of the Second Vatican Council. Among those ordained in 2020 or later, 2 percent call themselves theologically progressive, while 84 percent call themselves theologically conservative. Perhaps younger clergy have observed a trend. As progressive theology came to dominate, Mass attendance fell. The great experimental spirit of Vatican II and the 1960s men who carried it forward turned out to be failures. The conservative turn may reflect the wisdom of C. S. Lewis, who noted that when you are going in the wrong direction, the way to correct course is to stop and go back the way you came. 

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♦ Three readers seek to form new ROFTers groups in their areas. Please contact them if you’d like to gather monthly to discuss articles in the latest issue of First Things:

Peter Craig, Utica, New York: pcraig821@gmail.com

Gregory Wiatrek, Washington, D.C.: gwiatrek19@gmail.com

Dan McQuillan, Dublin, Ireland: dmcquillan38@gmail.com.