Farming in the frigid north; or, lessons in the fragility of life

Every morning, my routine here on the farm begins with outside chores. As dawn breaks, I don extra wool socks over my regular socks, then winter boots, a thick coat, leather work gloves, and a hat. I may have grown up in Wisconsin, but after four years in Texas, and another four in North Carolina, I readily admit that I've forgotten just how cold it gets here. With a cold front firmly settled over the Midwest right now, this past week has definitely been a period of reeducation for me.

Nevermind their warm winter coats, the bucks insist that they are not fans of the lower temperatures.

A few mornings ago, I was greeted by a temperature of 11 degrees below zero fahrenheit. For my friends in the south, I need to describe how there is an instinctive feeling of danger at that temperature. I step outside, and everything is perfectly silent. Then I hear--and see--myself breathing, and my breath starts to crystallize on my beard. When a branch breaks in the woods, the sound crescendos, carried through the still air with a peculiar dry snap. Then I feel the cold start to spread from my nose and ears, and inward from my fingers and toes. As I go about my morning routine, I stamp my feet and shake my hands, curling my fingers inside my gloves to warm them, with ever decreasing success, and with an ever increasing desire to get back inside as quickly as possible.

My Wisconsin friends are probably chuckling at this description. After all, 11 degrees below zero is only the beginning. I just saw that 17 below zero is in the forecast as the low for New Year's Eve. I still remember the feeling of bundling up and going for a run at 36 below zero during my years in college in Minnesota. And I know that, historically speaking, it can get even colder here in the Midwest. Then there is the wind that can accompany the cold up here on the ridge where our little Wisconsin farm is located. Eleven below zero on a still winter morning is one thing; eleven below zero with the wind blowing at your face at 30 miles per hour is an altogether different beast.

Whatever the low temperature, there is something to that instinctive feeling of danger that accompanies a downward trending mercury.  For humans, a healthy body temperature ranges between 97 and 99 degrees fahrenheit. For horses it's a little higher, at 99 to 101 degrees, and for goats it's even higher, at 102-103 degrees. It's remarkable how little ability we humans have to cope with extremely low temperatures. Right now we have the outdoor wood furnace going full blast, enabling us to keep even our drafty old farmhouse at a toasty 72 degrees. And that's certainly not a bad thing given that we have a three week old baby in the house.

It's equally remarkable, though, to observe the farm animals cope with the cold. Down in the barnyard, I find the pigs cuddled together every morning, having buried themselves in hay with only their snouts exposed. Seeing me, they shake the hay off slowly and reluctantly, only their stronger desire to eat able to overwhelm their desire for warmth. The goats, too, sleep in pairs or trios, sharing body heat and staying as still as possible through the long, cold nights. Even our two bucks who are pictured above, who usually spend their time fighting with each other, cuddle together out of the wind in their little shelter, sharing body heat, trying make it through one more night, trying to winter through to that renewed warmth that, instinctively, every creature knows will follow the cold as inevitably and as regularly as the earth circles the sun on its tilted axis.

For all these instinctive coping mechanisms, it's all remarkably fragile. Every morning the animals clamor for their doubled rations, and when they're not staying still in order to conserve warmth, they're busily eating hay in order to generate it. At 11 degrees below zero, I find myself breaking ice even on the electrified water buckets. The animals run over and drink thirstily, hydrating themselves before a sheet of ice forms yet again. The first very cold morning, I found myself with a frozen pipe in the milkhouse. Thankfully it hadn't yet burst, and a heater applied to it for a day followed by a better wrapping with insulation and a longer length of heat tape seems to have taken care of the problem. For all their instincts, the animals themselves also aren't always helpful. A few mornings ago, our bored horse decided to entertain himself by taking the heating element out of his water tank despite my having placed it under a large rock. Thankfully I rectified the situation before he had an entirely frozen tank of water, but I still have to find a better way to secure that heating element. Really, it's all so fragile, so tenuous. The water needs to be kept free from ice, the hay needs to be replenished, and the wind needs to be blocked. If any one of these things goes awry, or any one of countless other things, then warmth turns to cold, and life slowly ebbs away.

Later today, as the temperature creeps toward the zero degree mark, I need to head out to the barn once again. The goats are all bred for January kiddings, in order to provide goat meat for folks who want it for the Easter holiday. Although I've worked hard to get the barn finished, even adding a plastic strip door to block the wind, I still have to finish the individual kidding stalls to separate out the mothers and their new babies. So, pray for a mid-January warm-up and successful kiddings for us here at Kleinshire. The goats and all our other animals are amazing me with their remarkable adaptability, but the extreme cold of the last few days has also reminded me that it's all remarkably fragile.

Stay warm, everybody!

It's still Christmas, please don't take down that tree!

This is the day when discarded trees begin to litter the curb, awaiting trash pick-up. Admittedly, Christmas begins to wear thin after awhile. The presents have all been unwrapped, the warm cider drunk, and the cookies eaten. The guests have all gone home, and today most of us are probably back at work. As regards the tree itself, at least if it's the real thing, the needles are probably beginning to fall off. From a practical standpoint, it's totally understandable that we're ready to move on to New Year's with resolutions and fresh starts and all.

But for the love of God--seriously, for the love of God--please make a resolution right now not to follow the horde!

A Christmas tableau from the Christmas Vigil Mass at St. Peter's, Middle Ridge, Wis.

The problem, of course, is that our secular, consumerist-oriented society has started turning the wheels of Christmas too early, and we've been madly spinning like hamsters ever since in order to keep up the frenetic pace. There is a collective groan every year following Thanksgiving, when the Christmas sales begin. Actually, in recent years I've seen Christmas sales as early as Halloween. The lights have been up since the beginning of the month. I've learned the hard way that you can't show up at tree farm and expect to get a tree after mid-December. There simply aren't any trees left by that point.

There are economic forces at play here that don't need to be belabored. But most of us are at least vaguely aware of how the ever-earlier Christmas has robbed us of Advent, that period of expectation and anticipation. Have you ever tried to avoid hearing Christmas carols, even to the beginning of the octave prior to the Lord's Nativity? The distinction would be between Joy to the World, the Lord has come, which implies Christmas is here, and O come, O come, Emanuel, which signifies that we are still awaiting the Savior's birth. Don't turn on the radio or visit a Christmas market if you're trying to avoid the early celebration.

Of course, we're too late for these warnings. Yet somehow we need to live in the world even as we strive to live the distinctiveness of our faith. I'm actually serious: Continuing to celebrate Christmas is striving to live our faith, the very sort of counter-cultural example that we Christians are called to be. I can't think of a clearer instance in our culture where one consciously declares, "I am a Christian," than in continuing to celebrate with earnestness at least through Jan. 6, Epiphany, the traditional twelfth day of Christmas.

So how exactly does one continue to celebrate, especially if one is already experiencing Christmas "fatigue"? Here are a few practical examples from our own family efforts:

-- First of all, do keep the tree up. Add water to the base and vacuum up those needles. With LED lights, there really is little fire danger, even if the tree is dead. You simply need a visible symbol of Christmas in your house, and in our American culture that's principally the tree.

-- We also continue to illuminate our outside Christmas lights through Epiphany. After New Year's, we're practically the only ones with lights still on, but again, that's the counter-cultural example that I mentioned above.

-- Keep things fresh. We do little things, like gradually moving the Wise Men from one side of the room to the other as they make their way toward Bethlehem. Of course, you have to keep the Nativity set up, too. But that's the point. You can also keep things fresh from a culinary point of view. Christmas cookies keep very well in the freezer. We make a huge batch before Christmas and continue to enjoy them all through the season.

-- Commit to attending a few daily Masses. With our move to the country and with the overall busy-ness of farm life, we've attended fewer daily Masses than we used to. But even if you can't make it to church, you can still follow the liturgical cycle and the special feasts of the Christmas octave--the martyrdom of St. Stephen today, the Feast of St. John the Apostle tomorrow, the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents the day after that, and so on. The liturgy is a tour de force of the events surrounding the Nativity and the early Church, and participating in it can rekindle the Christmas spirit.

So, just a few practical examples. It's true that there can be too much even of a good thing. Nonetheless, we need to extricate ourselves from the hyped, consumerist version of Christmas and reclaim it for ourselves. Really, we haven't experienced the "good thing" yet. We're missing out if we quit now. Again, I'm not saying that we can't live in the world and enjoy Santa Claus and presents and all. But our faith calls us to so much more than this world offers, and continuing to celebrate Christmas is a practical, hands-on way to live our faith and be a light to the world

The Domesticity of the Sacraments

Many of you already know that I'm a liturgical curmudgeon, a traditionalist, a lover of solemn ritual, of the Latin language, and of older form of the Mass. I firmly believe that many--not all, but many--of the liturgical changes following Vatican II were emphatically not for the better, and that the plummeting church attendance of the past four decades is ample evidence that I am right.

So I've become a liturgical radical in my own small way, most recently as the sacristan at our small, rural Wisconsin parish. I made some first moves for Advent, introducing the "Benedictine" altar arrangement of six candles and a crucifix. I veiled the chalice, and I polished and returned to regular use a beautiful, shining ciborium that had been tucked away in a dusty cupboard in the sacristy. We're still a long way from ad orientem, or a Latin-language canon, or even the purchase of cassocks and surplices for the altar servers, but even these first small changes have lent a degree of solemn reverence to our liturgies, a hint at the full beauty of our Catholic liturgical tradition.

I was thinking about what is attractive in traditional Catholic liturgy this past Sunday after the baptism of my newborn son, Cornelius Michael Ambrose. I had convinced our temporary parish administrator, a good, faithful priest in his eighties, to conduct the solemn ritual using the older liturgical books. It was his first baptism using the Rituale Romanum since the early years of his priesthood, and there were many stops and starts as we made our way through the ceremony. There were pages lost and then found, mispronounced Latin words, rambunctious children peering over the rim of the baptismal font, chattering and running about, tugging on sleeves, and even on this patient priest's alb.

Yet somehow, through all the missteps, and the noise, and the children's chatter, Sunday's baptismal ceremony moved inexorably forward, with the full force of its majestic symbolism. Thankfully the salt hadn't yet been exorcised and blessed when a youngster tipped the bowl off the table and broke it. A quick trip to the sacristy for a replacement took care of that matter. And it didn't matter that there were children running ahead up the aisle as the priest protectively draped his violet stole stole over the newborn baby and led him, carried by his grandmother, into the church while everybody recited the Creed and the Our Father. Symbolically, this was Cornelius Michael Ambrose's entrance into the Church, an entrance to be ratified in the saving waters of baptism, and the symbolism of that literal entrance, step by step up the aisle, was beautifully clear.

There is something about traditional Catholic liturgy, with its regularity, its repetitiveness, and its symbolism, that preserves reverence in the midst of the distractions of everyday life. It actually begins with the structure of the church building itself, with its steeple and cross rising above the surrounding houses, a constant reminder of sacred, unchanging things in the midst of the secular world. It continues as one enters a church and sees the statues, the stations of the cross, and the ubiquitous flickering red of the tabernacle candle, a reminder of the real presence of Christ and his promise to remain with us always. It is seen in the division between the nave and the sanctuary, where the priest and the servers carry out sacred actions according to set formulae, no matter what is occurring in the pews, be it the dozing of elderly people or the cries and chatter of a discontented children. There is a predictability in the priest's "The Lord be with you" and our response "and with your spirit," a familiarity that the believer can focus on, something that is constant and unchanging, to which we bring our ever changing needs and petitions.

The beauty of Catholic liturgy is that, in it, the sacred reaches down and touches the world with the eternal, unchanging promises of something more than what the world can provide. The unchanging nature of heaven's promises is mirrored in unchanging language, ritual, and symbolism, all comforts to the mind that there is also something unchanging in God's promises to us, no matter how much change there might be in our fickle life circumstances. The sacred meets us where we are at and accepts us as we are, distractions and messiness of everyday life all, and then elevates us out of ourselves, at least for a moment providing a foretaste of where we are headed and what we are to become. Sometimes, sacramentally, the touch of the sacred has enduring effects, as a newborn is born yet again, indelibly marked as a child of Christ, or as bread and wine become Christ's body and blood, his real presence in our midst. The appearances remain, but the transcendent, unchanging reality veiled behind mere appearances gives joy to the believer's heart.

We had invited parishioners to stay after Mass for Cornelius' baptism and reception. Not many took us up on the offer, but among those who did was a young couple visiting from another parish. They remarked to me afterward that the ceremony had seemed so welcoming, so much "like family." That comment made me happy, for in the sacraments we become one family of faith, gathered together in the one house of God our Father, for sixty minutes, or for ninety for those who can bear it that long, to experience a foretaste of our eternal heavenly home before we head back outside into the world, back to our many, varied, temporary abodes.

Of holyday obligations and mortal sin

Recently, the priest who is serving as temporary administrator of our little country parish mailed off a rather strongly worded letter to all parishioners, urging us to return to the sacrament of penance during Advent and reminding us of the importance of attending Mass. In this letter he even made that statement that one so seldom hears these days-- that failure to attend Mass on days of precept is a mortal sin.

He is an older priest who actually grew up in this particular parish, and I have a feeling that when he looks out at the sparse congregation on Sundays, he wonders what went wrong. Where are all the people who filled the pews when he was young? Where are all the young families who used to pack into church for every Sunday and holyday Mass, for Stations of the Cross during Lent, for adoration and benediction every Wednesday throughout the year, for manifold devotional practices and daily Masses whether attendance was mandatory or not? This beautiful country church, majestically overlooking the verdant, rolling hills of God's country, even used to boast of its own school, a school which has sadly been closed for decades. These days, CCD classes feature perhaps a half-dozen kids at most. Indeed, what has gone wrong?

Of course, it is partially demographics. Simply put, there are fewer people out here in the rural Wisconsin countryside. Small farms have been shuttered and sold off, leading to bigger operations and fewer farming families. Even if they still live out here, many people choose to drive into Cashton, Bangor, or La Crosse to attend bigger parishes with a parochial school and more modern facilities. The families themselves are smaller than they once were, but that, too, is a matter for another post.

It's undeniable from the ebb and flow of attendance, and from manifold anecdotal evidence, that very few Catholics believe what this good priest had the courage to write--that missing Mass on a day of precept is a mortal sin, that is, the type of sin that deprives us of the life of grace and leaves us in danger of hellfire and eternal damnation. Unlike in previous generations, people simply do not come to Mass on every single day of precept. My guess is that many people, even if they're good, faithful, Mass-going Catholics, would probably say that they just don't believe missing Mass is a mortal sin, or at least that it's very often not the case.

Yes, yes-- there is plenty of nuance to missing Mass being a mortal sin. Missing Mass is a grave matter, but like with any other grave matter it doesn't become a mortal sin unless one is fully aware that it is a grave matter and nonetheless freely chooses to go through with it. Obviously there are numerous impediments to freely choosing to miss Mass-- personal ill health or the ill health of someone in one's care, genuine lack of transportation, severe weather, multiple-week shifts on an oil rig (really, this is the situation for a relative of mine!), etc., etc.. Generally we're pretty good at discerning what constitutes an impediment, but most priests don't mind parishioners asking for a dispensation if there's any lack of clarity, especially since canon law leaves the granting of a dispensation to the pastor's discretion.

Again, I think the matter is not so much people's confusion about what constitutes a true impediment to attending Mass, but a deep-down feeling that missing Mass isn't really such a serious matter after all: Surely God knows that I'm a good person. Surely God knows how little I get out of this or that priest's sermons and out of the other people in the pews whom I hardly know and whom I don't really like very much anyway. If you haven't felt these things yourself, my guess is that you at least know people who've expressed them. Of course, they display a total lack of understanding of what is occurring at Mass and why we're there. But how do you convince people of that without starting catechesis all over again? For my own part, I haven't had much success.

Additionally, I think that many people have a problem being "told" what to do. After all, the only reason missing Mass on a day of precept is a mortal sin is because the Church, by her authority, has designated a particular day as a day of precept under pain of mortal sin. Some days make more sense than others--like Sunday, the commemoration of the Lord's resurrection. Even if Christmas occurs on a Monday--as it does this year--at least secular society pays heed and considers it a holiday. But what of a holyday like tomorrow, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception? On such a day requiring attendance at church seems capricious and arbitrary, an inconvenient intrusion into one's normal Friday evening routine after a hectic work week. Why attend church that night? Sure, church is important, but I've got other things to do, and I'll be there on Sunday anyway. It just doesn't seem reasonable, and personal judgment is more important than authority in our modern, secular culture.

Apart from love of God and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary--things that can be quite insufficient impetus if one has numerous rambunctious children, for example, or important dinner plans, or if one was just to Mass a day before, as will be the case on Christmas this year-- all that is left is the fact that the Church has decreed our attendance. Do we truly believe that the Church has the authority to decree church attendance on a random Friday in December under pain of mortal sin? She does have that authority, from Christ Himself, but I don't think most people are convinced of this.

Or perhaps it's a general feeling that hell isn't real, or that even if hell is real, that a loving God surely wouldn't condemn me to eternal hellfire for skipping Mass due to my rambunctious children or that important dinner date on a random Friday in December. 

How to untangle this mess, of that I am unsure. But I feel for this good priest, because someone of his age has been witness to a cultural transformation where so much more than demographics has been lost. Alas, his letter of a few weeks ago has not led to a dramatic uptick in attendance at our little country parish. But he's speaking hard truths. That's at least a start. Pray God he's not too late for a little jewel of a parish with far too few regular Mass attendees in the rolling hills of God's country.

'What I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!''

The past several months, I've been bringing Holy Communion to an elderly woman in a nursing home on First Fridays. This past Friday, I showed up at the nursing home, only to learn that she had been admitted to the hospital the previous evening after experiencing difficulty breathing-- the beginnings, I was later told, of congestive heart failure. So, after a quick mental note to inform our priest as soon as possible, I was off to the hospital in search of this dear woman, so that she could receive Jesus in the Eucharist if she was physically able to do so.



Soon enough, I was making my way through the labyrinthine hospital corridors to the proper room. There she was, dozing upright in a chair with oxygen tubes, a ventilator, and the flickering lights and regular blips that are part-and-parcel of a hospital room.

There was also the ubiquitous hospital television set blaring God-knows-what cable infomercial programming at a high volume.

To me, there was something so jarringly out of place in that flickering television screen and its perky, artificial liveliness. There was a relative in the room, and I was able give the elderly woman Holy Communion in a brief moment of wakefulness. To me, her folded hands and attempted sign of the cross made the visit infinitely worthwhile.

But as I drove back to the farm, empty pyx in the seat next to me, my mind kept wandering back to that television set and its banalities. Really, what goes through someone's mind as he or she sits there immobilized, helpless, knowing that their earthly sojourn is nearly at its end, listening to an anonymous suit-and-tie attempt to market the latest cosmetic cream, or blender, or vegetable parer?

Is it agonizing to observe the world passing one by with whatever modicum of conscious thought remains? Or is it, perhaps, the Devil's way of lulling a person into an eternal embrace, keeping his weakened cognitive processes occupied with whatever first reaches the senses, focused on unimportant trivialities until it is too late to think about what truly matters?

Before our Catholic culture collapsed, a dying person would be listening to the recitation of the rosary at times like this. But really, we fallen human beings are awfully adept at keeping busy, with avoiding life's big questions and the life-changes that acknowledging these questions would entail, whether we are in a hospital room or still in the full vibrancy of youth or middle age. I think that the Devil too often manages to keep us asleep and in thrall, lurching our way from day to day, from purchase to purchase, from entertainment to entertainment, until this world passes us by. Too often, we fail to wake up, to live intentionally the one life God has given us in which to know, to love, and to serve him, so that we can be happy with him forever in the next.

The antidote, from today's Gospel reading:

Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: "Watch!"

Farmer 'What-a-Waste'

In my years as a seminarian, I encountered the label "Father What-a-Waste." Women applied it to good-looking young priests or priests-to-be who would make great husbands. How could they possibly give up the chance for marriage, a family, and success in the world? With my dashing good looks, I'm sure that the title was often applied to me during my seminarian years. No matter that I never heard it in reference to myself in my seminary years, but still... surely...

More to the point, I was thinking about that silly old label in regard to a few comments I've gotten since quitting my full-time teaching job at a prep school last spring to try my hand at farming. Am I sure that I will be able to support my family? Am I using the talents that God gave me? What about writing? What about teaching? How can I give it all up to shovel manure and pull weeds?



Farmer 'What-a-Waste,' I guess. Ironically, a few of the more worried queries have come from priest-friends from my seminary years. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

To emphasize, this is not a paean to my abilities as a writer or a teacher. I'm sure that there are many former students of mine out there with ready complaints about my heavy-handed grading and often scatter-brained, tangential lectures. But the fact is, I did give up a secure, salaried position in a profession that I loved in order to throw myself upon the vagaries of an unstable climate, a heavy-clay soil, and the fickleness of the free market.

Oh, there are the practical responses that I've used to deflect these queries in the past few months: We returned to the support of family back in Wisconsin. I continue to teach part-time, and I've easily found free-lance work writing and translating, just as I had expected. Really, it's not as radical a transition as it sounds, and I'm continuing to use my talents, whatever they might be.

But I wish that I would cease and desist with these practical responses. At least implicitly, many people view farming as something one gets stuck with when nothing else pans out. In my own family, on my father's side, after emigrating from Poland my great-grandfather farmed for a few years in rural Hull, outside of Stevens Point, before raising enough money to open a hardware store in town. My grandfather continued the hardware store, and my father is a lawyer--with nary a farmer in sight.

Given the farm crash of the '80s, it is understandable that many people understand farming to be a last-resort profession. Financially, it has become impossible to farm as past generations have. A 35-cow conventional dairy farm, as the farm my wife and I have inherited from her parents once was, is now a financial impossibility. Yet for those who remain, farming is not, per se, an impossibility.

A few of my farmer-neighbors thrive by buying up shuttered small farms and increasing the size of their operation. Personally I'm not a fan of mega-farms--but that's a subject for another post. Other farmers--Rosemary and myself included--have embraced the organic label, where premiums are higher and the market continues to grow. We firmly believe that there is a future in organic farming as people become more educated and concerned about their food, where it comes from, and how it was grown.

So, there is a practical response to be had as to farming being an exciting, cutting edge profession. Part of my hesitation in offering the practical response, though, is that people get lost in its complexity and detail. But another pat of my reluctance comes from the fact that it's not really the main reason I switched professions to farming.

The main reason, put simply, is the search for contemplatio. It's not that contemplation is impossible in other ways of life and other professions. But I am convinced that living close to the land and elemental things--the raw, inexorable life-force of plants and animals; the life-giving richness of the soil; the harsh embrace of brisk ridgetop air-- is especially conducive to thinking deeply about the ends of things more broadly. What are things for? What are we for?

Whatever it is, it isn't to be exciting or cutting edge. It isn't to be rich, or to make a lot of money.

I was thinking about all that the other day, during deer hunting, as I sat shivering in my stand and looking over my fields. There is an impermanence to the alfalfa that has browned and died with the hard frosts of the fall, an impermanence that matches the impermanence of life. It was deeply humbling to think over the failures that occurred in those fields--the frustration of constantly broken machinery; the banality of mulching hour after hour, day after day; the meager squash harvest that barely covered expenses.

To be sure, there is a humbling helplessness to throwing oneself upon the land. But vagaries--that's the word I used before--is perhaps not the right word after all. The right word, rather, might be providence, which is an altogether different thing.

Whatever it has been, it has been quite the first growing season. I've learned a whole lot, and I'm grateful to God, for the one thing that I'm more sure of than ever is that it has not been a waste.

Valedictory

On the occasion of my departure from St. Thomas More Academy, Raleigh, North Carolina

Every year, newly minted St. Thomas More Academy alumni disembark for colleges and universities near and far. Every year, at least for those who continue to sail in this sea of contrary tides, there are new faces to recognize, new names to memorize.

Through all the change, STMA remains the same. Ask any alumnus, and he will confirm that it’s true. Yes, the hallways are paneled now; yes, the chapel looks spectacular. Yes, the courses are streamlined. Every four years, the students are all new, and even the faculty come and go. Yet STMA remains the same Catholic, classical, college preparatory academy, and all graduates need to do, no matter how long they’ve been away, is walk the hallways for the memories to come flooding back.

The enduring nature of this fine institution is worth reflecting on, especially as seniors prepare for commencement. The yearbooks have been distributed, and everybody is depicted—at least twice, I’m told. There will be a valedictorian and salutatorian whose names will be engraved on the plaque that hangs in the hallway. Some senior’s thesis will bring that student praise and renown. Indeed, at graduation every single senior’s name, regardless of class rank or academic prowess, will be read off for everybody to hear, to mark down, to remember.

Everybody wants to be remembered; everybody wants to endure. Everybody wants the goddess to sing of his or her brilliance for all generations to come. Really, though, who will remember that you walked these hallways? Who will page through the old yearbooks in the center, point out your picture, and reminisce about the years when you were filling these hallways with joyous noise?

Goodness, even teachers want to be remembered. Some of us have taught at STMA for a year, others for a few years. Still others have invested their professional careers into making this school the institution that it is, and especially that it is becoming. But, God willing, this institution will outlive even the longest teacher tenure. Not even teachers are immune from the ravages of time.

If you’ve made a mark that will endure, it has not been, nor will it be, on the sports field, neither by having your name engraved on one of those plaques up front, nor by being singled out for praise at commencement. Indeed, if my fellow teachers and I have made a lasting impression, it will not be in the A’s, the B’s, and the C’s, or in the little Luddy Lecture yearbook blurbs, as finely written as they surely are.

If any one of us, teacher or student, has made a mark that will endure, it is in each other’s souls, and in the soul of the school, for Cardinal Newman says that even institutions can have souls. Students come and students go; goodness, as I prepare for my own next adventure in Wisconsin, I know well that even teachers come and teachers go. Yet to this day, I have fond memories of my own high school—of the teachers who challenged me and of my fellow students, and friends, with whom I grew and matured during those four formative years.

Memories are not ephemeral. Though the details fade, they are an indelible impression upon the soul. You are different for having walked these hallways, for having sat in these classes, for having been challenged day in, day out, in company of these teachers, these fellow students, these friends; these happy few, this band of brothers.

So take STMA with you whenever you leave, whether it be next week, next year, or, for a select few, at the end of a long, happy, and prosperous career. As the years pass, let it be with flowing cups freshly remember’d, for such happy remembrance is the lifeblood of the soul. So shall it be with me; so should it be with you, too.

 Published in the Chancellor Quarterly, May 25, 2017

'Thou art dust'

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris. Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

I've been thinking about dust quite a lot these days. Dirt, that is. The fine stuff that trickles through one's cupped hands or cakes them with clinging clay. The elemental stuff in which plants grow, flourish, and live, which incorporates back into itself things that have themselves ceased to be alive.

The USDA has a remarkable interactive map incorporating soil survey data for most of the United States. I've been poring over it eagerly these past few days. Our little homestead here in North Carolina is sandy loam. Our new farm in Wisconsin, at least according to the USDA, is comprised of various types of silty loam (Brinkman, Valton, Elbaville--not that I really know the difference between these). I'm actually a little skeptical as regards the silty loam classification, though, because my own experience mucking around in that soil harvesting garlic last summer has left me empirically certain that it's more accurately ridge-top clay than silt.

At creation, man was formed from the dirt: "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).

That man's name, of course, is ha-adam, simply the Hebrew word for man, a word etymologically linked to ha-adamah, the word for dirt. My vague recollection from class years ago is that the word is also linked to the word for the color red, making hah-adamah not only dirt, but red dirt, something people down south, say in Georgia, would immediately identify with clay.

Not only was man formed from dirt, but specifically from clay. Why clay? Is it significant? That's what I am pondering today, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when the priest traces the sign of the cross on our foreheads with ashes, murmuring, "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return."

The three main components of soil are sand, silt, and clay. They are all important, and all liabilities without the presence of the others. Sand allows for drainage, silt contains the organic matter on which new life feeds, and clay--what does clay do? My basic understanding is that clay helps soil to retain its moisture. Obviously retaining moisture can cut both ways. Midsummer here in North Carolina, for example, I was adding mulch in order to emend the soil. In Wisconsin last summer, on the other hand, a lot of the garlic that I pulled from the ground was already beginning to rot from an overabundance of moisture. It was fine for seed, but it wasn't really saleable.

So what of us human beings, clay-people, retainers of moisture? Again, just scattered musings composed in a bit of a rush, so take them for what they are worth:

We immerse ourselves in the saving waters of baptism, dying to ourselves in order to be born to eternal life. We are called to become vessels of God's mercy, pouring out the saving waters through our words, deeds, and actions in our lives as Christians. Historically, Lent was a time to accompany catecumens on their journey toward baptism at the Easter Vigil, a time to recall and renew the promises of our own baptism, an opportunity to immerse ourselves anew in Christ.

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are the three-fold traditional means of that reimmersion. Clay-people that we are, perhaps we can soak up the sweet rains of God's grace during this Lenten season, storing them for the periods of spiritual drought and dryness that are sure to come.

I don't know, maybe my simile breaks down: Surely an abundance of grace doesn't rot the soul like water rotted my garlic. Then again, grace is something that by its very nature needs to be shared. Clay-people though we are, we need the irritating sand of difficult situations in which, of difficult people to whom, we can share the grace, love, and mercy that Christ has shared with us.

So the difficulties of daily life are like the sandy component of soil, giving us the opportunity to drain God's mercy into the lives of those who need it; silt is our daily death to ourselves, from which new life in Christ springs.

And we ourselves? Again, we are clay-people, specially formed from the clay of the earth to soak up the sweet rains of God's grace.

Thou art dust, but very special dust indeed.

Farming, Philosophy, and the Miracle of Baby Goats

Apologies for the light posting, but we've been particularly busy these past few weeks, especially with things related to farming and the impending big move. Next week our house finally goes on the market, and a great deal of effort is going into sprucing things up. This past Monday also marked the first class session of the N.C. State Extension's "Farm School" program. And while our kidding season this year most certainly won't hold a candle to kidding seasons in future years, this past week we also welcomed five little babies to Kleinshire Farms. One of the Nigerian does should also be kidding within the week.

Brownie, one of our Boer nannies, with one of her hungry triplets.

Both kiddings that have already occurred went well, with minimal assistance from me and Rosemary. One of the Boer nannies gave birth to triplets--two doelings and one buckling--and the other to twins--a doeling and a buckling. There is a lot to be thankful for in those numbers, as they put us above average both in the number of goats born and the number of doelings. Of course, since we will grow our herd to 40 or more nannies in Wisconsin, we were especially glad to see those three beautiful doelings. The bucklings and doelings alike all look promising, though, all with excellent conformation, which is not entirely surprising given the pedigree of their sire.

One of the beautiful things about farming, I think, is the opportunity to reflect so frequently on the miracle of life. Maybe when we're kidding 50 or 60 babies next spring instead of a half dozen, it'll be a different story, but for now I'm still in awe. Immediately after making its entry into the world, each newborn baby goat's airway needs to be cleared quickly. The baby takes its first gulps of air and then fills the air with its little cries. Even before its siblings are born, it is already shakily on its feet, seeking out the warm, comforting nourishment of its mother's milk.

The mother, for her part, is frantically looking around for something to lick clean even before the first baby comes out. Although she is not really thinking through the process of clearing the airway and drying off her baby, that's precisely what nature impels her to do. The baby's first few pitiful cries help to direct the mother's attention. So much could be written about the way that the mother immediately bonds with her own babies by their smell, and about the determined insistence of the baby in seeking out those first draught of its mother's milk. It is God's gift to the farmer--what keeps him from going crazy, I suppose, in the midst of all the hard work and all the things that don't go right--to witness this sort of primal miracle.

I'm thinking about all of this in light of a book that I'm reading right now together with a few juniors in the honors section of my philosophy course: biophysicist Cornelius Hunter's Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. Writ large, Hunter is making the case that Darwin's theory of evolution is predicated on theological premises, most relevantly that if God were really guiding the process of evolution, then He would surely have chosen more efficient, less redundant biological processes and structures. Hunter makes the excellent point that biologists are not competent in making theological presumptions of this sort, and that, in fact, it violates the scientific method to make metaphysical presumptions of any kind. What business do biologists have--indeed, what business does any one of us have--presuming God's methodology in guiding evolution?

Hunter's book is a good read so far, and I found it relevant last week as I watched the mother's inefficient efforts to clean her babies, and as I attempted again and again, without much success, to get a particularly spunky little doeling latched onto her mother's teat for the first time. The marvel, the miracle, is that life works at all.

It's funny that we presume God's efficiency when all the evidence is that He is immensely wasteful with the largesse of life. Although He may be perfect, and perfectly ordered, within Himself, the material universe is by definition lacking, imperfect, individuated. The real miracle is God's patience with material imperfection, and His ability to write straight with crooked lines. That's certainly the case with the biological processes and structures that Hunter describes in his book, such as the appendix, a vestigial organ that Darwin believed serves no purpose, but that modern science has discovered plays an important role in helping the body maintain proper levels of healthy gut bacteria. Not an efficient solution, but it works, and it is a marvel, I would argue, that it does.

It is also the case with the creatures God created in His own image and likeness, who so often make their own path toward heaven more complicated through their freely willed choices. Thank God for the patience He lavishes upon us and our imperfections, with a wastefulness akin to Mary Magdalene's in pouring out pure nard on the feet of her Savior.

Thank God, the inefficient shepherd, therefore, who seeks out every last sheep, with nary a thought to the agricultural money-speak of acceptable mortality rates (15% or more from birth to weaning in commercial small ruminant operations, by the way). Mortality rates or not, new life is a miracle, in all its inefficient glory. Sometimes the birth of baby goats can lift the veil for a moment and soften even the seasoned farmer's hardened heart.

Update: You can actually watch one of the kiddings on our Facebook farm page!

'You're a big supporter of Burke?' Well, yes

"You're a big supporter of Burke?" So runs the query that I saw on social media a few days ago accompanied by a link to the National Catholic Reporter's summary of an interview with recently reinstated Knights of Malta grand chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager, who basically implies that Cardinal Burke lied about the wishes of the Holy Father. Well, yes, I suppose that I am a "big supporter of Burke," even if that's not exactly the way I would put it--think 1 Cor 3:4: "Whenever one of you says, 'I belong to Paul,' and another, 'I belong to Apollos,' are you not merely human?" Nonetheless, I will stand up and say that Cardinal Burke is a good and saintly priest, and a humble prelate with an abiding love for Christ and His Church. Fact needs to be separated from fiction as regards the controversy that currently swirls around him in his official position as cardinal-patron of the Knights of Malta, the millennium-old religious order that has the status of a sovereign state, and that today operates mainly as a charitable organization.

A family photo with Cardinal Burke when he came 

to celebrate Mass at St. Catherine of Siena Parish 

in Wake Forest back in December 2015.

What follows is, therefore, a narrative of the facts, not just in regard to the Knights of Malta, but in regard to all the controversies that have surrounded Cardinal Burke since the election of Pope Francis. I have separated these as best I could from the fiction, hyperbole, and sensationalism. This labor comes in response to a multitude of articles like the one above, which nearly universally paint Cardinal Burke as a Vatican "hard-liner," an insider "at odds" with Pope Francis, someone bent on "stoking papal tensions." It is intended for anybody who is utterly bewildered by the barrage of events and the caricature that the media have created of this humble, diminutive prelate who hails from the dairy state. So, read on if such an account may be helpful for you.

*****

By way of background:

Cardinal Burke grew up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin. As a priest he served in the Diocese of La Crosse and later in the Roman Rota as defender of the bond--more or less ensuring that proper procedure was followed in annulment cases. He returned stateside in 1994 as bishop of La Crosse, and he was later archbishop of St. Louis before his 2008 appointment as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura--basically the Vatican's chief justice. Pope Benedict created him a cardinal in 2010.

Cardinal Burke participated in the conclave that elevated Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the See of St. Peter in 2013. Pope Francis immediately signaled that he wanted to move quickly on matters to which both Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II before him had called attention--especially the dramatic decline in sacramental marriage, and, at least in the first world, the alienation felt by Catholics who have divorced and then remarried civilly without the benefit of their first marriage being annulled. Pope Francis called for a Synod on the Family, which subsequently met in 2014 and again in 2015. Specifically in Cardinal Burke's area of competence, the Holy Father also took action to simplify the annulment process, calling, among other things, for it to be cost free, quicker, and easier.

*****

All good things in principle, and, again, all things that Benedict and John Paul II had also called for. What was different, however, was that Pope Francis's twin documents Mitis Iudex and Mitis et Misericors Iesus, published in 2015, established norms that many expert canonists agree weaken the Church's understanding of the indissolubility of sacramental marriage.

It was in regard to these changes in canon law, when they were first proposed, it seems, that Cardinal Burke and Pope Francis may have found themselves "at odds." Knowing something of Cardinal Burke's principled nature, I have a hunch that he understood his duty to be slowing things down. It's not that he disagreed with the Holy Father's wish to streamline the Church's annulment process, but that any such streamlining needed to be balanced against the need to protect the integrity of the Church's teaching on marriage. If the Church began to rubber-stamp annulments, or began even to create that impression, then Christ's own words on marriage would mean start to mean very little. The principled stand of St. Thomas More against King Henry VIII, to give just one example, would become but a perplexing footnote in history.

Whether and in what way Pope Francis and Cardinal Burke were actually at odds is a matter of ongoing speculation for professional vaticanisti. What is fact is that Pope Francis did not renew Cardinal Burke's original five-year mandate as prefect of the Apostolic Signatura in 2013, and that a year later he was replaced by Cardinal Dominique Mamberti. A year after that, with Cardinal Burke no longer being the prefect, the pope's aforementioned documents were issued. Although Cardinal Burke was technically not removed as prefect, one must admit that it was highly unusual that his mandate was not renewed for another five years given that he was only 66 years old at the time.

Despite Cardinal Burke's relatively young age, Pope Francis made him cardinal-patron of the Knights of Malta, an honorary ambassadorial position mainly reserved for retirement-age cardinals. Despite Pope Francis' claim in an interview to have need of a "smart American" as patronus of the Knights of Malta, the media are probably not being inaccurate in interpreting this appointment as a "demotion," especially since around the same time the Holy Father also replaced Cardinal Burke on the influential Vatican congregations for divine worship, the interpretation of legislative texts, and the appointment of new bishops, among others. At present, Cardinal Burke's only appointment besides Malta is as a voting member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Yet things have to be more complicated than a simple "demotion": As Pope Francis himself noted in that same interview, he had delayed appointing Cardinal Burke's replacement at the Signatura specifically so that the cardinal could participate in the first session of the Synod on the Family. For all Pope Francis' desire to move things forward when his mind is made up--and, as one vaticanista has put it, to let the finer doctrinal points work themselves out, which, relevantly, is the very antithesis of Cardinal Burke's own method--the Holy Father still evidently believes in the collegial dialogue and debate that he has repeatedly championed.

For his part, Cardinal Burke provided precisely the debate for which the Holy Father asked in his vigorous synod rebuttal of Cardinal Walter Kasper's proposition that the divorced and remarried be granted access to Holy Communion. I put very little stock in the breathless media accounts of the "anger" of the Holy Father in the wake of Cardinal Burke's spirited comments. Yet it is telling that the Holy Father did not take the initiative to invite Cardinal Burke to the 2015 meeting of the Synod on the Family, despite the pivotal role that he had played in that first meeting. Evidently Pope Francis wanted collegial dialogue. But at the same time, many believe that there are grounds, among them his own championing of Cardinal Kasper's ideas, for holding that the Holy Father wanted to change the Church's pastoral practice in regard to Holy Communion for the divorced-and-remarried.

Cardinal Burke probably didn't endear himself to Holy Father either, with his observation in a 2014 interview that for many the Church seemed to be as a "ship without a rudder." A close reading of that interview shows that Cardinal Burke wasn't even talking about the Holy Father specifically, but about a general perception that many of the faithful have as their bishops debate changes to pastoral practice that may be hard to square with the unchanging truths of the faith. In my mind, that's a fair statement. It's too bad that one can't make a point without the media finding a way to sensationalize it.

Whatever the case, the dubia of Cardinal Burke and three other cardinals, publicly released in November, could be understood as a plea to the Holy Father to take the helm of that ship and to provide a sense of clarity and direction to the faithful in confusing times.

The dubia are a series of questions posed by these cardinals in order to clarify a confusing footnote in the Holy Father's 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia that seems to adopt the Kasperite proposition and open the door for the divorced-and-remarried to receive Holy Communion. To date, the dubia of Cardinal Burke and the other cardinals have not been answered, and the Vatican has implied that there will be no answer because Amoris Laetitia is perfectly clear on the matter. Various Vatican officials continue to insist on the clarity of the exhortation even as some dioceses say that the divorced-and-remarried can receive the Eucharist and others say that they can't; even as bishops in Germany and Malta say that it's up to the individual faithful, and Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, says that it's not.

It's perplexing, to say the least. Everybody knows that the footnote is confusing. And Cardinal Burke's name is very much in the mix of it all in pointing this out. And so the matter stands, irresolved as the bishops in one place steer the Church in one direction, and as bishops in another place steer it in another.

*****

To all this strangeness of the status quo, of course, is added that of the recent goings-on of the Knights of Malta, to which, recall, Cardinal Burke is patronus. The Knights' grand chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, it seems, had concealed from the rest of the leadership that the charitable branch he oversaw had unwittingly participated in the distribution of condoms. In a December meeting at which Cardinal Burke was present, Fra' Matthew Festing, the Knights' grand master, had asked for von Boeselager's resignation. When the grand chancellor refused to resign despite his vow of obedience, Fra' Festing removed him from his position and from the order, a decision subsequently confirmed by the rest of the order's leadership.

According to various accounts, Fra' Festing had said at that meeting, in Cardinal Burke's presence, that it was the Holy Father's wish that von Boeselager resign. What led Fra' Festing to this conclusion, however, is yet another matter of speculation. It seems that there was a letter from the Holy Father to Cardinal Burke expressing significant concern about the condom situation, and even the possibility of Masonic influence in the order. Whatever the cardinal shared with Fra' Festing from that letter, it gave the grand master the impression that he should go so far as to compel von Boeselager to resign from his position. Did that letter imply that Fra' Festing should ask for the grand chancellor's resignation? If not, should Cardinal Burke have intervened in that meeting, at which he was merely an observer in an ambassadorial role? There are simply too many variables and possibilities for anything other than wild conjectures--of which, sadly, there have been many.

Yet from there, things got even stranger, as von Boeselager protested to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, who established a commission to look into the matter. After the fact, Cardinal Parolin insisted, whatever the contents of the letter to Cardinal Burke, that the Holy Father had wanted dialogue, not an actual resignation. Fra' Festing, for his part, responded indignantly, refusing to cooperate because from his perspective the Vatican had no standing in the matter. The position of grand chancellor was part of the Knights' sovereign governing structure, not part of its religious character, and the Vatican, another sovereign entity, had no role in matters of internal governance.

Various vaticanisti accounts have Cardinal Burke counseling Fra' Festing through the whole matter, even "masterminding" the grand master's resistance to Cardinal Parolin all through December and into January. One journalist describes how the cardinal drove to Fra' Festing's residence the morning of the Jan. 24 to urge the grand master to continue his resistance at the papal audience that afternoon, at which the Holy Father would ask for, and receive, his resignation. How these journalists got all that from the plain fact that Cardinal Burke met with Fra' Festing is beyond me. It seems more likely that Pope Francis had asked Cardinal Burke, in his role as patronus, to inform the Knights' leader that he would be asking for his resignation, and to prepare him to offer said resignation later that afternoon.

Conspiracy theories aside, Fra' Festing has stepped down, replaced by an interim grand master, and von Boeselager has been reinstated as grand chancellor. The Holy Father has appointed Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, an official in the Secretariat of State, as a "special delegate" to the Knights, with stated duties that mirror closely Cardinal Burke's, even as the latter continues to hold the title of patronus.

*****

Is the appointment of Archbishop Becciu as "special delegate," with duties practically equivalent to Cardinal Burke's, the Wisconsin cardinal's final demotion? Is this prelate from the dairy state now to be wholly pushed aside as an "opponent" of the Holy Father, a "hard-line" insider too "at odds" with the Successor of St. Peter to be of service to him?

If so, it's only because the sensationalized, media-driven version of Cardinal Burke has wholly supplanted the unfailingly kind, diminutive prelate that anybody who has ever actually encountered him knows that he is. And that would be a tremendous shame. Cardinal Burke has been a staunch defender of the faith and a loyal fellow worker in the vineyard to three successive popes, up to and including Pope Francis. You may think that Pope Francis moves too quickly or not quickly enough, but it's indisputable that the Vatican needs fewer 'yes' men and more prelates of the likes of Cardinal Burke. Pray God that Pope Francis keeps Cardinal Burke close. He is only 69, and he still has a lot to offer to the Church he loves. 

Every year, my wife and I send Cardinal Burke a Christmas card, with a family letter and a promise of prayers. And every year, he dutifully responds, writing out our names and the names of each of our children and signing the card himself. He always encloses a pamphlet with the Holy Father's monthly prayer intentions. Long live Cardinal Burke, and long live Pope Francis. I'm a big supporter of them both. 

Our Pastors Have a Duty to Speak on Prudential Matters, and We Have a Duty to Listen

Many Catholics, it seems, would be happier if bishops and priests stuck to preaching the non-negotiable, unchanging truths of the faith: in regard to abortion, that all life is sacred; in regard to immigration, that the stranger is to be welcomed. As the reasoning goes, transforming these truths into practical action is a task for an individual's well-formed conscience.

I'm not always a great listener, but I'm trying my best, at least in this years-old picture of me with Jerome Listecki, currently the archbishop of Milwaukee, Wis., whom I consider a dear friend.

To tell educated Catholic layfolk whom to vote for, what legislation to support, what policy best fits Catholic teaching--these sorts of things seem pretty universally to rub us the wrong way when they come from the pulpit.

It's no surprise, therefore, that bishops and priests generally steer clear of sharing their own prudential judgements. You will hear a priest say that life is sacred, but not quite so often that you can't vote for this or that abortion-supporting politician; you will hear a priest say that we ought to welcome the stranger, but not specifically that we need to march in the streets next Sunday in protest of Trump's recent executive order temporarily suspending entry of refugees from several Muslim-majority countries.

The U.S. Bishops' statement two days ago is case-in-point: "Our desire is not to enter the political arena," Cardinal DiNardo and Archbishop Gomez, respectively president and vice-president of the USCCB, write, "but rather to proclaim Christ alive in the world today."

To which I say, baloney and hogwash.

The dichotomy between entering into the particulars of the political arena and proclaiming Christ is, by and large, false and unhelpful, perhaps worse.

More refreshing, in my opinion, is New Jersey Cardinal Tobin's statement that "[c]losing borders and building walls are not rational acts."  Or Chicago Cardinal Cupich's statement that "[t]he executive order to turn away refugees and to close our nation to those, particularly Muslims, fleeing violence, oppression, and persecution is contrary to both Catholic and American values."

Before the more conservative crowd whom I associate with de-friends me or throws eggs at my house, let me hasten to add that I think Cardinal Tobin in particular grossly overstates his case. I know plenty of people who've made reasonable cases for stronger border security. Following up with a statement that "[m]ass detentions and wholesale deportation benefit no one" is a total red herring on Tobin's part. Nobody outside the radical fringes is calling for that. Trump himself isn't calling for that, at least not since his early campaign hyperbole, which is found nowhere in these executive orders.

My point is not that Cardinals Tobin and Cupich are right, but that if we want to know what they think, we need simply to read their statements. They proclaim that the stranger must needs be welcomed, and then they make a reasoned case that this non-negotiable truth makes Trump's executive orders contrary to the faith.

There's nothing of subterfuge in the statements of Tobin and Cupich, nothing implied, nothing merely hinted at, nothing that must be read between the lines, unlike the official USCCB statement.

Again, don't get me wrong. It annoys me that Tobin in particular so overstates his case. The reason that faith leaders have a duty to speak on prudential matters is that due to their seminary training and their prayer life, they ought to be good at modeling prudential judgements.

Ought, of course, is the operative word here. The actual training and prayer life of faith leaders varies wildly from one to the other. They are human, and they are therefore as prone to imprudence and bad judgement as anybody else.

But I strongly believe that it is part of the charism of the sacrament of holy orders to model prudential judgement to the lay faithful. Holy orders sets a man apart and transforms him; it makes him concerned for the things of God, not the things of the world. Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo Exercituum. It's not that we aren't all called to be concerned for the things of God, but bishops and priests don't get married, they don't collect wealth; it's built into their very charism as clerics not to be concerned with the things of the world.

Ought, again, is the operative word. But the priest's duty to model prudential judgement is why we hunger for the sage advice of the confessional. It is why we accost our parish priest after Sunday Mass to ask for his advice in whatever domestic situation confronts us. It is why priests make such great marriage counselors.

What is true of the confessional, of the pastoral conversation, and of the counseling session is also true of the cleric's reading of public life and politics.  Our faith leaders have a duty to speak out clearly, forcefully, and unambiguously, and in many places in the world they still do. Especially in Africa and Latin America, bishops take stands against individual politicians and work to promote specific pieces of legislation. They not only proclaim the truths of the faith, but model the way to apply these unchanging truths to contemporary issues and situations.

Of course, here in the United States there is the old Protestant canard that bishops and priests are under the sway of the pope, a foreign head of state. There is also the unfortunate amendment to the tax code a half century ago that prohibits churches and other non-profits from endorsing political candidates. Finally, there has been an emphasis since Vatican II on the role of the lay faithful in forming their consciences and making prudential judgements of their own.

Part of making prudential judgements, however, is considering carefully the judgements of others, especially those older and wiser--and holier--than we are.

That's where our duty to listen comes into play.

Listening and heeding are not necessarily the same thing. It may be that a faith leader doesn't have all the facts, or that his prudential judgement is flawed. But we do need to listen. Regardless of whether we end up heeding them in prudential matters, regardless of whether they're right or wrong, let's stop condemning our bishops and priests when they speak clearly and forcefully in regard to particulars.

So thank you, Cardinals Tobin and Cupich. Thank you, bishops and priests who speak out on this matter and others. Pray God that many more faith leaders follow your good example. Pray God that we lay faithful have the humility to listen to whatever you have to say.

Why I Do Not Support Trump's Wall

Phew, I'm back from the March for Life in Washington, D.C. It was a long day, especially with being on a charter bus full of rambunctious high school freshmen, but the trip was worth it in every respect. There was a special energy and purpose to the march this year, and the crowd was huge. The media coverage may have been grudging, partial, and condescending, but who cares? All it would take is a good Supreme Court nominee next week for me to retract my skepticism about President Trump's pro-life statements.

In a few political posts, however, I've let slip that I think Trump gets other issues related to human dignity dead wrong. Not that I won't stand behind Trump all the way in regard to overturning Roe v. Wade and restricting abortion in any other way, but these things do need to be said.

Which brings me to the border wall.

Yes, yes, reasonable people can disagree about prudential matters. But reasonable people also reason about prudential matters. So, please, hear me out.

Shantytown poverty on the outskirts of Lima, Peru.

Even Pope Francis, who implied during the campaign that Trump would not be a Christian if he built a border wall, has said elsewhere that "those who govern must also exercise prudence" with respect to controlling their borders. So, the pope's unfortunate hyperbole during the campaign aside, building a wall between the United States and Mexico is not per se un-Christian. To say that those who support the building of the wall are ipso facto not Christians is equally unhelpful.

There are many devout, serious Christians, including many whom I count as friends, who sincerely believe that the border wall is a necessary and prudent measure in order to protect integrity of the southern U.S. border. It is indisputable that millions of dollars worth of drugs and weapons pass over the border every year. Dangerous criminals cross back and forth over the Rio Grande with impunity. Human traffickers extort desperate people and regularly put them in harm's way.

But what effect would the border wall have? How would these matters change for the better if we were to build a wall stretching the length of the U.S.-Mexico border? A reasonable person needs to ask these questions before supporting the construction of a wall at the cost of billions of dollars. Given the drug-running tunnels that border agents regularly discover in populated areas, I would wager that a significant percentage of the illegal activity would continue unabated, no matter how many miles of wall were added to the border. Remember, these tunnels are usually constructed in highly populated areas, including, for example, the half-mile tunnel discovered last year extending from a modest house in Tijuana to an industrial park near San Diego.

Where there is cash, there is a way. Criminals, drugs, weapons--all these will continue to flow into the United States no matter how high a wall the Trump administration builds. Increased funding for border agents and patrols would certainly help, and yes, I know that's also part of the plan. A physical brick-and-mortar wall running the length of the border, though, not so much.

Again, reasonable people can disagree on prudential matters. That's what the pope was getting at in the second of the quotations that I provided. But reasonable people also discuss the facts on the ground in order to make prudential judgements, for example, whether to support the construction of a border wall or to oppose it. For myself, I am unconvinced that the facts on the ground related to drugs and terrorist activity support the construction of this wall.

The wall, however, might make it harder for innocent people to cross the Rio Grande in search of a better life in the United States. For all the hyperbole of Pope Francis' comment about Trump not being a Christian, for all the imprudence of his saying so during the election cycle, it makes sense in light of the thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees who have fled from starvation or persecution only to drown in the Mediterranean or suffocate in the back of trucks in Austria and Turkey. The Holy Father sees Europe's reaction to the influx of Muslim immigrants as xenophobia, a repudiation of Christ, who said, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).

With the recent bombings in France and Germany, with the cold-blooded killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel in the midst of celebrating Mass, European Christians aren't universally receptive to the Holy Father's message. Despite Church leaders conflating these issues, I will leave the European crisis and Trump's executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries prone to terrorism for future posts. The facts on the ground are different in these different cases. Reasonable people disagree, and the Holy Father's impassioned comments aside, prudential decisions may differ.

With the U.S.-Mexico border, however, we are not talking about potential terrorists. Latinos have been crossing the border to the benefit of everybody for decades. They pick our produce, trim our Christmas trees, and clean our office buildings. They pay taxes, even if they crossed the border illegally and make use of a fake social security number. In the second generation, they are our classmates in high school and college, our colleagues at work. The particular irony for Catholics is that these strangers are, by and large, fellow Catholics. The stranger we refuse to to welcome is not a stranger at all, but family.

What is at stake except a matter of basic human dignity? Take away terrorist threats and drug and weapon trafficking, as I think an examination of the facts on the ground will do, and what will be left except an un-Christian fear of the other?  Far be it from me to level the charge of xenophobia against my serious-minded friends who support the border wall, but I haven't seen any benefit to the border wall except making it harder for us to welcome the stranger. While reasonable people disagree on prudential matters and come to different conclusions, that doesn't make all conclusions equal.