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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.