bearing blog

The seventh corporal work of mercy.

Philando Castile (whom I mentioned in a post the other day) was laid to rest here in the Twin Cities on Thursday. Mr. Castile's funeral was hosted by the Cathedral of St. Paul at the request of Valerie Castile, his mother. There are some moving photos taken outside the building here at this article from the St. Paul newspaper website. There you can also view photos of the program detailing the chosen readings and speakers.

At the end of the article are comments, which I in no way recommend you to read. Some of them gave me the impression that the Archdiocese has received some comments from persons identifying as Catholic who object to the Cathedral's welcoming the Castile family to bury their son at a public ecumenical service. Castile was not a Catholic, and a Baptist minister was invited to deliver a sermon, while the rector of the Cathedral delivered introductory prayers.

My impression was strengthened by the Cathedral's release of the following statement:

 

The Archdiocese was honored that Philando Castile’s mother, desiring that her son’s funeral be an opportunity for “people to come together in a new way,” thought our cathedral could be a fitting setting for an ecumenical service at which our community could unite with her family to pray for peace and reconciliation.

During his general audience on September 9, 2015, Pope Francis said “the assembly of Jesus takes the form of a family and of a hospitable family, not an exclusive, closed sect.”

At this difficult moment we feel privileged to have the opportunity to offer hospitality to the Castile family and to our hurting community.

We are praying that our cathedral might serve as a place where all might encounter a God who offers consolation and hope.

 

I endorse this wholeheartedly.

Some of the objections to Mr. Castile's burial from the Cathedral are of a character that I will not dignify with a rebuttal.

On the other hand, the question "Why can Mr. Castile, a non-Catholic, have a 'Catholic funeral?'" is a reasonable one, even if expressed--rather insensitively--during the funeral in question, to judge from the time-stamps on the various comments. So is the corollary continuation "....when my brother/dad/son/grandpa was not allowed to have one?"

Let me just offer some context for that one.

The term "Catholic funeral" is imprecise. There is such a thing as a Requiem Mass, which is the quintessential "Catholic funeral." It can only take place inside a Catholic church or Catholic chapel.

There is also among the ecclesiastical funeral rites a "Funeral Liturgy Outside Mass," which is also a type of Catholic funeral. If you have been to a "Catholic funeral" in a funeral home chapel, in a private home, or in a cemetery chapel, that is what you most likely experienced. Sometimes (for example, in families that include Catholic and non-Catholic members) this is deemed the most fitting pastoral choice regardless of the location of the funeral.

It is also permitted (in fact it is encouraged!) to hold ecumenical prayer gatherings inside Catholic churches, presided over by Catholic and non-Catholic clergy, for many different reasons. These can include funerals and memorial services. Mr. Castile's funeral would seem to fall into this category.

Finally, at any memorial service at all, at a gravesite, in another church, at a wake, in someone's home: if a Catholic priest happens to be in attendance, he might accept an invitation to offer prayers or a blessing.

The first two categories, because they belong to the ecclesiastical funeral rites, are properly called "Catholic funerals." The latter two are not.

 

The diocese and the pastor have leeway in deciding who may or may not be buried according to the ecclesiastical rites, anyway. In some dioceses, under some circumstances, a baptized non-Catholic may be buried with full funeral rites. In other dioceses and in other circumstances, it may not be allowed. It can seem as if the standards are looser for non-Catholics than for Catholics, because in some dioceses a so-called "non-practicing" Catholic might not be permitted a "Catholic funeral" while a person who never was a Catholic might be permitted one, or at least might be buried in a Catholic cemetery.

It is undoubtedly upsetting for a bereaved family, at a vulnerable time, to be told that their loved one cannot receive a requiem Mass, or that a requiem Mass cannot be held at the location and/or time that they are planning to have the funeral, or that the deceased is ineligible for the ecclesiastical rites at all. Some of the commentary and pushback probably comes from this place.

To that I can only say: This post is the short answer giving reasons why Philando Castile could be permitted a memorial service in the Cathedral. There really is no short answer as to why some particular person might not be permitted the type of funeral desired by his or her family. You would have to talk to the pastor, and listen to the explanation, and then possibly do a lot of reading, in order to understand that. No short answer. I am sorry I cannot help relieve that pain.

 

The purpose of Catholic ecumenism is to foster true Christian unity. When Valerie Castile called the Cathedral and asked that it host her son's funeral "for people to come together in a new way," this was precisely what she was asking -- and she asked it not just of the Cathedral parish, but of the whole local church, the diocese. In a sense she asked it of our universal Church.

Who are we to turn her son away?

If I had been the one to take that call, I would have wept in humility before Mrs. Castile. It was she who honored our church, not the other way around, by reaching out to us.

Furthermore, everyone knows that Mr. Castile's funeral was not just a funeral. It was also a gathering to call for peace, justice (in the Christian sense), and love in the wider community.

For what the Catholic Church has said about ecumenism, I encourage you to refer to the Pontifical Council's Directory for Application of Principle and Norms on Ecumenism (link). Here is an excerpt:

108. Where appropriate, Catholics should be encouraged, in accordance with the Church's norms, to join in prayer with Christians of other Churches and ecclesial Communities. Such prayers in common are certainly a very effective means of petitioning for the grace of unity, and they are a genuine expression of the ties which still bind Catholics to these other Christians. Shared prayer is in itself a way to spiritual reconciliation.

109. Prayer in common is recommended for Catholics and other Christians so that together they may put before God the needs and problems they share—e.g., peace, social concerns, mutual charity among people, the dignity of the family, the effects of poverty, hunger and violence, etc. The same may be said of occasions when, according to circumstances, a nation, region or community wishes to make a common act of thanksgiving or petition to God, as on a national holiday, at a time of public disaster or mourning, on a day set aside for remembrance of those who have died for their country, etc. This kind of prayer is also recommended when Christians hold meetings for study or common action.

110. Shared prayer should, however, be particularly concerned with the res- toration of Christian unity. It can centre, e.g. on the mystery of the Church and its unity, on baptism as a sacramental bond of unity, or on the renewal of personal and community life as a necessary means to achieving unity. Prayer of this type is particularly recommended during the "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity" or in the period between Ascension and Pentecost.

111. Representatives of the Churches, ecclesial Communities or other groups concerned should cooperate and prepare together such prayer. They should decide among themselves the way in which each is to take part, choose the themes and select the Scripture readings, hymns and prayers.

I see no evidence at all that Mr. Castile's memorial service was not a suitable instance of the sort of ecumenism discussed in this document.

(Incidentally, paragraphs 120 and 121 of this same document explicitly grant to the local ordinary -- normally the bishop -- the discretion of offering full funeral rights as well as prayers and blessings of other types to non-Catholics.)

For a deeper examination of the role of ecumenism, one could consult two documents of the Second Vatican Council in particular, Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio.

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I am grateful to Mrs. Castile for reaching out to our diocese, and I am glad that our Cathedral rector responded with welcome. I'm sorry that anyone calling themselves Catholic publicly objected to the rector's decision, which was entirely in accord with Catholic teachings. May Mr. Castile rest in peace, and may eternal light shine upon him.

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St. Francis de Sales on fasting.

First in a series for Lent.

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The first of the Lenten sermons of St. Francis de Sales treats of a fairly typical Ash Wednesday topic:  fasting isn't virtuous in and of itself, but to be salutary must be done in a particular way.  

Here's the structure:

Introduction:  Fasting profits some and not others, because some do it well and some don't.  Jesus instructed his disciples on how to fast fruitfully.

Three principal conditions (among many) for fasting well:

I.  Fast with our whole heart, all our senses, and our understanding, memory, and will.

II.  Never to fast through vanity but always through humility and charity, not in one's own way but in the ways prescribed and recommended, neither more nor less.

III.  Do everything to please God alone, for his reasons, not trying to rationalize the reasons for them nor to improve on the prescriptions by substituting one's own.

Summary and conclusion in the name of the Blessed Trinity.

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I'm just going to pull out some quotes.

I.

"The first condition is that we must fast with our whole heart, that is to say, willingly, whole-heartedly, universally and entirely."

[St. Bernard] says that fasting was instituted by Our Lord as a remedy for our mouth... Since sin entered the world through the mouth,  the mouth must do penance by being deprived of foods prohibited and forbidden by the Church...

But [he] adds that, as it is not our mouth alone which has sinned, but also all our other senses, our fast must be general and entire, that is, all the members of our body must fast.  For if we have offended God through the eyes, through the ears, through the tongue, and through our other senses, why should we not make them fast as well?  And not only must we make the bodily senses fast, but also the soul's powers and passions -- yes, even the understanding, the memory, and the will, since we have sinned through both body and spirit.

This seems fitting.  We know that in the description from Genesis of the first sin, the act of eating is an outward and efficacious sign.  It is the concrete act that enacts a deeper reality, a total interior act of self-will, rationalization, and disobedience, a suicide of the spirit.  Because of the mythical language of the type of inspired story of Genesis, we can also take the small, singular act as a representation 

The mere act of eating even a forbidden fruit in the absence of certain interior dispositions (such as knowledge of its forbiddenness, or total freedom to choose) would not enact such a reality.  

And so it is for us:  The act of fasting is an outward and efficacious sign of a kind of interior fasting, if and only if we have the appropriate interior dispositions.  And it's all looking forward to a different act of eating that is itself an outward and efficacious sign -- the anti-apple, so to speak.

How to fast "universally and entirely?"

How many sins have entered into the soul through the eyes...?  That is why they must fast by keeping them lowered and not permitting them to look upon frivolous and unlawful objects;

the ears, by depriving them of listening to vain talk...

the tongue, in not speaking idle words and those which savor of the world...

We ought also to cut off useless thoughts,

as well as vain memories

and superfluous appetites

and desires of our will. 

...In this way interior fasting accompanies exterior fasting.

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II.

"The second condition to be met is never to fast through vanity but always through humility."

A.  To fast in charity is to fast in humility.

St. Francis first turns to the famous discourse on love ("charity") from 1 Corinthians 13 as a set of criteria here.

(I wish I would remember more often to run my actions and intentions through 1 Cor. 13 as a check on them.  They are truly generally applicable, and so St. Francis freely asserts that they apply to Lenten fasting.)

 

St. Paul in the epistle that he wrote to the Corinthians... declared the conditions necessary for disposing ourselves to fast well during Lent.  He says this to us:  Lent is approaching. Prepare yourselves to fast with charity, for if your fast is performed without it, it will be vain and useless, since fasting, like all other good works, is not pleasing to God unless it is done in charity and through charity.

When you discipline yourself, when you say long prayers, if you have not charity, all that is nothing.  Even though you should work miracles, if you have not charity, they will not profit you at all.  Indeed, even if you should suffer martyrdom without charity, your martyrdom is worth nothing and would not be meritorious in the eyes of the Divine Majesty.

For all works, small or great, however good they may be in themselves, are of no value and profit us nothing if they are not done in charity and through charity.

... It is almost impossible to have charity without being humble and to be humble without having charity.... the one can never be without the other.

So, one check upon our humility is to look at the discourse in First Corinthians.  Are we impatient? unkind? envious? boastful and proud? easily angered?  etc.

B.  "Now how can one fast through vanity?"

According to Scripture there are hundreds and hundreds of ways, but I will content myself with telling you one of them...

To fast through vanity is to fast through self-will... It is to fast as one wishes and not as others wish; to fast in the manner which pleases us, and not as we are ordered or counseled.

...On this matter... we find ourselves confronted with two groups of people.   

Some do not wish to fast as much as they ought, and cannot be satisfied with the food permitted (this is what many worldly people still do today who allege a thousand reasons on this subject)... 

The others... wish to fast more than is necessary.  It is with these that we have more trouble. 

We can easily and clearly show the first that... in not fasting as much as they should, while able to do it, they transgress the commandments of the Lord.

But we have more difficulty with the weak and infirm who are not strong enough for fasting.  They will not listen to reason, nor can they be persuaded that they are not bound by it [the law of fasting], and despite all our reasons they insist on fasting more than is required... These people do not fast through humility, but through vanity.  They do not recognize that... they would do much more for God in not fasting ... and using the food ordered them, than in wishing to abstain through self-will.  For though, on account of their weakness, their mouth cannot abstain, they should make the other senses of the body fast, as well as the passions and powers of the soul.

Yes, I think we've seen that.

C.  On the apparent contradiction between "let your fasting be done in secret" and the Church's practice of public penance, e.g., ashes.

This is always a necessary topic in an Ash Wednesday homily, isn't it?  I like St. Francis's take on it:

Our Divine Master did not mean by this that we ought to have no care about the edification of the neighbor.  Oh no, for St. Paul says [Phil. 4:5]:  Let your modesty be known to all.  

Those who fast during the holy season of Lent ought not to conceal it, since the Church orders this fast and wishes that everyone should know that we are observing it.  We must not, then, deny this to those who expect it of us... since we are obliged to remove every cause of scandal to our brothers.  

But when our Lord said:  Fast in secret, He wanted us to understand:  do not do it to be seen or esteemed... Be careful to edify them well, but not in order that they might esteem you as holy and virtuous. Do not be like the hypocrites.  Do not try to appear better than others in practicing more fasting and penances than they.

St. Francis goes on to say, essentially, "By the way, don't talk to me about St. Paul the Hermit or St. Simon Stylites; they were acting by special inspiration and we're not supposed to imitate them."  But we must move on to...

III.  "The third condition necessary for fasting well is to look to God and do everything to please him..."

We must not make use of much learned discussion and discernment to understand why the fast is commanded, whether it is for all or only for some.  Everyone knows that it was ordered in expiation for the sin of our first father, Adam... Many have difficulties on this subject... No one is ignorant that children are not bound to fast, nor are persons sixty years of age.

Lots of people are not satisfied by the simple idea that the fast is ordered in expiation for sins.  This is too mystical for them and they bring in lots of other reasons which seem to them more rational.  ("Solidarity with the poor," anyone?  "Treading lightly on the earth" with environmentally friendly meatless Fridays?)

And lots of people, oddly enough, argue about who is and isn't supposed to fast.  The church is clear on it.  We don't have to make up our own rules just because we don't like the Church's.  We shouldn't drop hints that healthy and robust 62-year-olds really would do better to fast, for example, laying a burden on someone they do not have to carry.

St. Francis gives three examples to back this up:  

• Adam and Eve discussing why it was okay to eat the fruit (Genesis 3:1-6);
• Jesus's disciples who discussed and questioned the notion of His giving of His flesh and blood for them to eat and drink, and were rejected;
• and an episode from the life of St. Pachonius in which the saint rebuked a cook for imposing extra discipline on some young religious, contrary to orders.

Conclusion

This is all that I had to tell you regarding fasting and what must be observed in order to fast well.

  The first thing is that your fast should be entire and universal; that is, that you should make all the members of your body and all the powers of your soul fast:  

• keeping your eyes lowered, or at least lower than ordinarily;
• keeping better silence, or at least keeping it more punctually than is usual;
• mortifying the hearing and the tongue so that you will no longer hear or speak of anything vain or useless;
• the understanding, in order to consider only holy and pious subjects;
• the memory, in filling it with the remembrance of bitter and sorrowful things...
• keeping your will in check and your spirit at the foot of the crucifix...

The second condition is that you do not observe your fast or perform your works for the eyes of others.

And the third is that you do all your actions, and consequently your fasting, to please God alone...

That, with the sign of the Cross, is the end of the sermon.  It's simple and direct, and like most of what St. Francis de Sales writes, very practical.

The next sermon, which I think I will try to look at on Friday, is on the subject of temptation.

Taking notes; and the photo shoot of the saints.

Today was the first day that I had to scrape ice off the windshield. I got up at 7:30 so I could grab a cup of coffee before heading off to the 9:00 Mass for the Feast of All Saints.

In our archdiocese, the obligation tis lifted when the feast day falls on a Saturday or Monday, so I took the opportunity to go to Mass all by myself, and relished it. It is rare that I manage to get to Mass both on All Saints' and on All Souls'.

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Recently, as the 4yo gets closer to being a 5yo and easier to handle, and as Mark has been taking over more of the duty of carrying the baby around during Mass, I have found myself less frequently occupied with childminding and more often with my hands free. I've started doing something I have long thought about doing but worried about how it might look: Taking notes in Mass, at least during the homily.

I spent more than half my life as a student, you know, and I am a note-taker: pen on real paper, the sort that draws circles around important words, adds lots of arrows to connect ideas, goes back and finds the main points and numbers them. I listen so much better with a writing instrument in my hand, and I retain so much more -- even if I never go back to those notes again -- if I once write the information down. Not to mention that the task of catching the important parts, distilling them into bits concise enough to keep up, and recording them -- a survival skill I worked on for years and years -- focuses me on the words instead of the little distractions of my mind and body -- what else I have to do today, what on earth I am going to say to so-and-so the next time we talk, when I will be able to have lunch.

I decided all of a sudden that I don't care if anyone looks at me funny during Mass. I have a little notepad in my bag anyway, and I started pulling it out at homily time (sometimes during the readings if something in the readings strikes me) and taking notes.

It's made a lot of difference in my ability to take what I hear, find something fruitful in it, and carry it around in my mind -- out of the church and into the places where I can actually put it into practice. Also, it's easier to discuss it with Mark or with the kids later, because -- what's new -- I remember it more than five minutes after Mass is over.

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I really liked an image that our pastor used in his homily this morning. Children getting ready for picture day at school often protest at the dressy clothes and the sitting still; but when we are older, and it is time for us to pose for a group picture for some club or association or even friendship that we are happy to belong to, we don't want to stand out as the guy who doesn't seem to belong; we want to fit in, are eager to show through our image, our appearance and our expression, that we belong to this and it belongs to us. It is not superficial if the desire to be a part of the group is real.

Putting on saintliness here on earth is like that, because we belong already to the friendship and association of all the saints.

The notion of standing in rows and saying Cheese with my friends here on earth, and with St Therese and St Paul and St Josemaria and St Thomas and St Gianna and St Andrew and all the rest, just has tickled me all morning.

So. I am glad I wrote it down, because otherwise I might have been thinking about lunch instead.

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The Salesian preventive system, or, how to not punish kids.

My personal parenting/discipline ideal has always been to avoid punishing kids.

I get the impression from other people that the idea alarms them, because it sounds a lot like "avoiding discipline;" perhaps it calls to mind the stories of parents who insist their offspring can do no wrong.  You know, the kind who sue the school when their child is suspended for cheating on a test or something like that.

That's not my point.  By punishment, I mean those arbitrary unpleasantnesses inflicted in return for misbehavior:  the spanking, the grounding, the confiscation. Mrk and I aren't what you'd call permissive parents.  We try to be authoritative, if not authoritarian.  We use the term "obedience" with the kids and are clear about what it means and why it's important.   But (this is our ideal, mind you, not always the way we manage to make it work) we try not to get to the point where we need a "punishment" in the first place.  

We try to let them experience the consequences of their actions, insofar as it isn't dangerous.  

• Didn't pack an extra dress like you were supposed to?  Well, I guess you'll be wet and uncomfortable now that you've run through your friend's sprinkler in your clothes.  
• Refused to eat your lunch at lunchtime?  Ooooops, snack time isn't till 3:30, I guess you can have some of these plain almonds I keep in the car for emergencies.
• Shrieked at each other in the car while we were running errands?  After all that, I (honestly) don't feel anymore like taking you out for lunch, so instead we're going home and having tuna sandwiches.

On the occasion when something truly egregious happens -- such as when one of my kids came to me and admitted that a long string of perfect scores on math assignments had been faked -- consequences are meted out rather than merely allowed to happen; but we really try to have it make sense.  In the case of the spurious perfect scores, since I had no way to know whether the child understood the material, the child was assigned double math lessons for as many days as the lessons had been faked, each day doing the regularly scheduled lesson and at the same time re-doing one of the lessons from before.  That plus a long conversation about honesty.  And dangerous misuse of a tool around here is very likely to result in revocation of privileges to use said tool until competency and proper respect for risk is demonstrated; that's just common sense, not a punishment.  

It was difficult for us to figure out when our first was very young, but we hit our stride eventually, and he grew out of the normal frustrations of toddlerhood into an earnest child and now a delightful teenager, and that has given us a lot of confidence as we continue to bring him up, him and the four that have followed.  It's true that I yell more than I wish I did, and lose my temper.  It's an ideal I fail to measure up to.  But I still strive for that "no-punishment" ideal.

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I notice, however, that this isn't language I tend to hear from my fellow Catholic parents much.  Indeed, at more than one parish I've seethed while listening to a priest (including in the homily at my daughter's baptism) cheerfully recommend vigorously and frequently spanking small children.  

I think this is an American Catholic phenomenon, borne of being caught between a decadent permissive culture and an army of evangelical Protestants -- in many ways, serious American Catholics are constantly playing "keeping up with the Bob Joneses," and so, for better or for worse, we have been inculturated with what I personally see as a break-the-child's-sinful-will, thou-shalt-honor-us-because-of-the-ten-commandments sort of  attitude toward child discipline.  

The exceptions are the super-crunchy attachment parenting Catholics.  Am I one of those?  Sort of; as a young parent, AP wasn't good enough for me and if you were foolish enough to ask me about it I would talk your ear off about how I was into "CC" parenting, which stands for "continuum concept," which, well, some other time....    

I did have plenty of role models for the way that I felt was right for me to parent my kids, but I lacked Catholic ones.   And that's why I was so excited when I first learned about the educational philosophy of St. John Bosco.  AKA "Don" Bosco (1815-1888) because that's what you call a diocesan priest in Italy.   Here's Wikipedia on him, for some background:

At that time the city of Turin had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. It reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization: numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city, having come from the countryside in search of a better life. In visiting the prisons Don Bosco was disturbed to see so many boys from 12 to 18 years of age. He was determined to find a means to prevent them ending up here. Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry inefficient. He decided it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops, offices, market places. They were pavers, stone-cutters, masons, plasterers who came from far away places, he recalled in his brief Memoirs.

The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time they stole the blankets; the second they emptied the hay-loft. He did not give up. In May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valesia, in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860 and 600 in 1861, 800 being the maximum some time later....

In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and one high school boy and formed them into the "Society of St. Francis de Sales." This was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work....In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the "Daughters of Mary Help of Christians." In 1874, he founded yet another group, the "Salesian Cooperators." These were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians, but would not join a religious order.

Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education."

Don Bosco explained his "preventive system" in an essay, "The Preventive System in the Education of the Young," which can be found here.  It begins by contrasting his "preventive" system with the "repressive" system.  The "repressive" system, he says, has its place "in the army and in general among adults and the judicious, who ought of themselves to know and remember what the law and its regulations demand."  

The repressive system consists in making the law known to the subjects and afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws, and inflicting, when necessary, the punishment deserved.

According to this system, the words and looks of the superior must always be severe and even threatening, and he must avoid all familiarity with his dependents.   

In order to give weight to his authority the Rector must rarely be found among his subjects and as a rule only when it is a question of punishing or threatening.  

But Don Bosco's system is different:

[The preventive system] consists in making the laws and regulations of an institute known, and then watching carefully so that the pupils may at all times be under the vigilant eye of the rector or the assistants, who like loving fathers can converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction;  in other words, this system places the pupils in the impossibility of committing faults.

This system is based entirely on reason and religion, and above all on kindness; therefore it excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement. 

"Excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement" being what I was going for all along, I was so glad to find this.  

The basic idea is that children are closely supervised at all times by leaders who care for them, model good behavior, encourage reception of the sacraments, participate in their games, and converse with them frequently about behavior norms in a way that "appeals to [their] reason" and "generally enlists [their] accord."  Close supervision and "forewarning" means that there is little chance for a child to commit a fault. Don Bosco believes that young people misbehave, initially at least, because of inattention, not malice:

The primary reason for this system is the thoughtlessness of the young, who in one moment forget the rules of discipline and the penalties for their infringement.  Consequently, a child often becomes culpable and deserving of punishment, which he had not even thought about, and which he had quite forgotten when heedlessly committing the fault which he would certainly have avoided, had a friendly voice warned him.

To apply this system Don Bosco lists several principles of education and discipline.

1.  Close supervision by the people entrusted with the children.  "[The Rector] must always be with his pupils whenever they are not engaged in some occupation, unless they are already being properly supervised by others."

2. Moral teachers who actively lead the pupils to and in each new place or activity. "Teachers, craftmasters, and assistants must be of acknowledged morality... As far as possible the assistants ought to precede the boys to the place where they assemble; they should remain with them until others come to take their place, and never leave the pupils unoccupied."

3.  Allow rowdiness and physical activity.  "Let the boys have full liberty to jump, run, and make as much noise as they please.  Gymnastics, music, theatricals, and outings are most efficacious means of obtaining discipline and of benefiting spiritual and bodily health.  Let care be taken however that the games... are not reprehensible.  'Do anything you like,' the great friend of youth, St. Philip [Neri] used to say, 'as long as you do not sin.'"

4.  Encourage and promote, don't force, the sacraments.  "Frequent confession and communion and daily mass are the pillars which must support the edifice of education, from which we propose to banish the use of threats and the cane.  Never force the boys to frequent the sacraments, but encourage them to do so, and give them every opportunity.... [L]et the beauty, grandeur, and holiness of the Catholic religion be dwelt on..."

"Avoid as a plague the opinion that the first communion should be deferred to a late age... When a child can distinguish between Bread and bread, and shows sufficient knowledge, give no further thought to his age... St. Philip Neri counseled weekly and even more frequent communion."

5.  Exclude bad materials and trouble-making people.  "[P]revent bad books, bad companions, or persons who indulge in improper conversations from entering the college.  A good door keeper is a treasure for a house of education."

6.  Brief daily reflections -- a sort of community examen.  "Every evening after night prayers before the boys go to rest, the Rector or someone in his stead shall address them briefly, giving them advice or counsel concerning what is to be done or... avoided.  Let him try to draw some moral reflection from events that have happened during the day... but his words should never take more than two or three minutes."

7.  Love before fear.   "An educator should seek to win the love of his pupils if he wishes to inspire fear in them.  When he succeeds in doing this, the withholding of some token of kindness is a punishment which stimulates emulation, gives courage, and never degrades.... With the young, punishment is whatever is meant as a punishment.... in the case of some boys a reproachful look is more effective than a slap in the face would be."

8. Do not  shame children.  "Except in very rare cases, corrections and punishments should never be given publicly, but always privately and in the absence of companions."

9.  Employ patient reason and religion. "[T]he greatest prudence and patience should be used to bring the pupil to see his fauly, with the aid of reason and religion."

10.  No corporal punishment.  "To strike a boy in any way, to make him kneel in a painful position, to pull his ears, and other similar punishments, must be absolutely avoided, because the law forbids them, and because they greatly irritate the boys and degrade the educator."

 11.  Clear communication of expectations.  "The Rector shall make sure that the disciplinary measures, including rules and punishments, are known to the pupils, so that  no one can make the excuse that he did not know what was commanded or forbidden."

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I think these principles of Salesian education and discipline are sound ones that speak for themselves, principles that seek to form and transform human nature rather than to fight against it, and principles that respect and elevate the dignity of both child and educator.    When I discovered Don Bosco I felt I'd finally found someone who was truly on my side.    

If only I'd known about him when I was having to make post-baptism chitchat with Father Spare-the-Rod!

Advent is on.

Just in time for the start of the Season of Joyful Expectation, I have now entered the part of pregnancy that I refer to as the "what was I thinking?!?" stage. It arrives when my energy levels start to drop at the same time that my to-do list suddenly lengthens. I am doing a lot of pre-emptive resting, and that is definitely good for me physically, but often I lie there in my nest of pillows fretting about the things I am not getting done.

Sunday afternoons are the worst. Probably because they are the best time to lie down and rest a lot, since Mark is home and no one has to go anywhere. But I am always thinking of the things I could do to get ready for Monday. Ergo, more time to rest equals more time to fret.

This pregnancy has really forced me to accept that the world will not stop turning if I don't get it all done. Whatever "it all" is.

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I did pull together all the Advent stuff on time. (What's this? Is she actually getting a sense of proportion and perspective? Figuring out what the important things are and what things are small stuff not worth sweating?)

It helped that we had a four-day weekend right before the first Sunday of Advent, and also two-day free shipping.

My kids' chocolate-filled Advent calendars arrived on time, for example.

And! I got a belated birthday present of cash with strict instructions to spend it on something I wanted, just as I was wishing we had a proper nativity set; so I put the money toward a Holy Family and three kings and a shepherd and a flock of sheep. Porcelain would have been nice, but I trust I can upgrade from the Handpainted Unbreakable Polymer when there are not quite so many little people around. Anyway, now I can look forward to adding a figure or two each year for a while, which should be fun.

Also, Simcha Fisher posted her Advent Chains activity and I got it all printed out, on purple and pink paper even! Totally recommend this one as it is nearly no work to set up, and if you print it on white paper instead you can even use it to do the Jesse Tree thing as it gives you a little coloring-page ornament every day. And the Advent wreath is operational too.

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Our Advent wreath is Scandinavian-style, made of wrought iron with glass cups to hold ball candles. I bought it in our first year of marriage; at the time it seemed an extravagant purchase for an item that is meant to beused one month out of the year, but by now I am very glad of it. I like it because it is not very large, and the center of it comes up in a decorative handle so it can be easily moved without tipping it or accidentally taking hold of the loose glass holders. Both features are important in our compact house, since we have to use our dining table and countertops all day long as a work surface and can't have any sort of centerpiece that just sits there and looks pretty.

I cleared off a shelf above the computer and that is where it resides during the day (along with the aforementioned Nativity figures); in the evening after the dinner dishes are cleared away, I grab the wreath by its handy handle and set it on the table, and right before bedtime snack we gather around it for our Advent ritual.

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That ritual, we keep fairly simple, and always the same. First, one child lights the candle(s); they take turns each day. Next, Mark leads us in a short prayer -- a different one each week -- that I downloaded from somewhere. My daughter has the privilege of taking a loop off Simcha's Advent chain and reading the scripture verse aloud. Then we sing a verse or two or seven of an Advent hymn -- sometimes "People Look East" or "O Come Divine Messiah," because those are so much fun, but the kids are convinced that "O Come O Come Emmanuel" is proper. I have the verses printed out in Latin and in English this year. Finally the three-year-old gets to blow out the candles, his privilege as the youngest. The reason for that privilege should be obvious.

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My daughter, and not any of the boys, gets to read all the scripture verses for a less obvious but quite specific reason. The parish we attend reserves altar service to boys, and I want her to have some roles that she can keep for herself.

This is not a form of protest. I support a return to the "altar boy" tradition, for a number of reasons both practical and theological. But I am sympathetic to my seven-year-old's annoyance that there's this thing her brothers are invited to do that she isn't. The reasons, compelling as they are to me as an adult, are not all that accessible to seven-year-olds.

(Especially when the seven-year-old in question frequently goes to Mass at other parishes and notices that 90 percent of the altar servers at the other parishes are girls.)

Ours isn't a faith that operates one hundred percent at the "accessible to seven-year-olds" level, so I don't necessarily see this as a problem; but I have taken pains to point out to her that women and teenage girls have visible and important roles at Mass too. When the boys were younger, we treated it as a matter of simple expectation that when they were old enough they would serve at the altar, learning how to reverently handle the patens and candles and such and how to walk just so and how to pay attention during Mass. Similarly, we treat it as a matter of fact that when my daughter gets old enough she will serve too, probably as a lector. She has to wait longer (in our parish, teenage boys and girls can read the readings at Mass after confirmation, whereas the youngest altar boys are only ten), but she is looking forward to it.

Anyway, that is why it is always her privilege to read aloud any scripture passage that is part of a family devotion. She is practicing to be a lector.

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As for the chocolate Advent wreaths, I only have one thing to say: Once you get your kids the kind with chocolates behind every door, you will not be going back to the plain paper kind. So don't try it unless you are committed to keep it up for the rest of your years as a parent.

Kids love ritual. It is amazing how quickly a single year's activity can become "but that is the way we have done it for as long as I remember and so we have to do it every year." I suppose it is less amazing when it involves eating chocolate before breakfast.

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Enacting mercy, whether or not it exists.

The works of mercy are all the works of almsgiving or "charity." According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The traditional enumeration of the corporal works of mercy is as follows:

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To harbour the harbourless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy are:

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead.

 

From Disputations:

Rocco Palmo quotes Pope Francis:

"We cannot follow Jesus on the way of charity if we don't love those around us first of all. It's necessary to do the works of mercy with mercy! The works of charity with charity!"

Which is probably why I don't often find instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner brings me much peace.

Um.  Yeah.

So here's the question of the day.   If you can't summon up mercy and charity in your heart as the reason to perform any of these works...

...if you have some other reason...

...is it better to try to fake it and perform them anyway, or is it better to refrain?

 

 

Vocations and altar servers.

One somewhat-controversial topic in liturgical circles is whether altar servers ought to be all boys, or boys and girls.

Serving at the altar used to be a no-girls-allowed thing until fairly recently. (Girls still can't serve at Masses in the extraordinary form.) Even now, bishops are permitted to restrict altar-serving to males in their own dioceses, and where bishops have permitted girls to serve in this way, pastors are permitted to restrict it to males in their own parishes.

Unsurprisingly, some folks would rather live in a parish with children of both genders serving at the altar, and some folks would rather it be only boys. I suppose the arguments on the side of girl altar servers are pretty obvious: Rome permits it, so there is nothing inherently wrong about it; men and women are equal before the Lord, and even if men and women properly play different roles it is rather complicated to explain that to children; girls who want to serve should be able to, etc. Arguments against it have to do with the reality that the priesthood is open only to men, that vocations to the priesthood are nurtured in altar service, and that more boys serve when altar serving is restricted to boys.

I attend a parish in which only boys are altar servers (though adult men and women both assist as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, and sometimes assist with serving). Anecdotally, the notion that more boys serve when girls are excluded is supported here: We have upwards of a dozen servers at each ordinary Mass, and 75 is not unheard of.

I think I prefer the boys-only tradition, as long as it is accompanied by careful catechesis, because it is more supportive of our male-only priesthood -- it echoes the reasoning, and it brings more boys into close contact with the Eucharist, and it is a seed for vocations. I think the dearth of altar servers today (typically only one to three at many parishes) is an unintended consequence of opening the role to girls. (Who would have expected that fewer children would serve if twice as many became eligible?) But I don't fault pastors and bishops for choosing to permit girls to serve, now that permission is available. Rome permits it, and that means the decision is theirs to make.

I wonder if perhaps a more fruitful attitude would help both boys and girls who serve at the altar. Pope Benedict recently gave remarks to a pilgrimage audience of French altar servers, both boys and girls:

Pope Benedict told the young people they were blessed to be "particularly close to Christ Jesus in the Eucharist. You have the enormous privilege of being close to the altar, close to the Lord."

The pope prayed that being an altar server would help the young people deepen their friendship with Christ and enthusiastically share God's love with their friends and families.

"And, if one day you feel called to follow the path to the priesthood or religious life, respond generously," he told the youngsters.

 

Luckily for you, I can read French, so I can give you the whole quote from the Vatican website. Here is my translation:

It is with affection that I greet the dear altar servers, come from France for their national pilgrimage to Rome, as well as Monsignor Breton, the other bishops who are here and the chaperones of this important group.

Dear young people, the service that you faithfully carry out permits you to be particularly close to Christ Jesus in the Eucharist. You have the enormous privilege to be near the altar, near the Lord. Be conscious of the importance of this service for the Church and for yourselves. Let it be for you the opportunity to grow a friendship, a personal relationship with Jesus. Don't be afraid to transmit with enthusiasm to those around you the joy that you receive from his presence! Let your entire life be resplendent with the happiness that comes from this nearness to the Lord Jesus! And if one day you hear the call to follow him on the way of priesthood or the religious life, respond to him with generosity!

To all of you I wish a good pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul!

I generally accept that one of the purposes of having young boys serve at the altar was to nurture vocations to the priesthood, and that's why I generally support the decisions of pastors to restrict altar service to males (though, as I tried to express, I am not hostile to the pastoral decision to permit girls to serve at the altar). I know there are plenty of traditionally-minded Catholics who feel similarly to me, that boys-only altar service will better serve the Church's need for priesthood vocations.

But Pope Benedict's remarks make me wonder if we who feel this way haven't perhaps lost some of our focus on vocations in general. After all, vocations to the priesthood are not more noble than other vocations to religious life (or than marriage, for that matter). Perhaps part of the lack of reverence and lack of appreciation of the importance of altar service is not really caused by the admission of girls, though perhaps that change might have triggered events that revealed more symptoms of the problem. Maybe the problem is that we aren't looking on altar service as a place where religious vocations of all types are planted and grow.

At least in our parish, where the connection between vocation to the priesthood and service at the altar is preached explicitly, and where the pastor has made it clear that he is deliberately reinforcing the connection by restricting altar service to boys, families willingly and joyfully encourage (or require) their sons to serve at the altar and hope that from among these boys new priests will step forward.

But why not, in a parish where girls are permitted to serve, still try to make a connection between service at the altar and vocations to the priesthood, or to consecrated virginity, or to contemplative religious life, or to active religious life as a sister or brother? Why couldn't it be, in such a parish, that families willingly encourage sons and daughters to serve, and express hope that from among these boys and girls that new priests, brothers, sisters, vowed lives of service to the Lord, will emerge?

I admit that I have never really seen such a connection made explicitly, except in the parish I attend now. I have always attributed it to the boys-only policy. But maybe the real reason is something deeper than which of two permitted pastoral choices the pastor has made.

 

The Amish population.

Do you think of the Amish as leading an "endangered" lifestyle? Maybe it's that we associate them with being old-fashioned, so to speak, but I confess that when I have considered them -- whether when teaching my kids about the impact of Wisconsin v. Yoder or buying preserves from a farm stand -- it has been with a sort of wistfulness. Surely they won't be able to hold out forever against the encroachment of the wider world around them.

Not so: in fact the Amish are one of the fastest-growing religious groups in the country, according to an Ohio State University census:

The study, released July 27 at the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, suggests a new community sprouting every three and a half weeks.

Nearly 250,000 Amish live in the U.S. and Canada, and the population is expected to exceed 1 million around 2050.

The growth may not be visible outside Amish country, but the rural settlements definitely see the boom.

"This place has grown," said Daniel Miller, 52, who has spent his life on an Amish settlement here. "It's because all of the kids."

...The Amish double their population about every 22 years, said Joseph Donnermeyer, the Ohio State professor who led the census project as part of the recent 2010 U.S. Religion Census.

Interesting, no?

 

Catholic geeks.

Yesterday, SF author and blogger John Scalzi wrote a piece  entitled, "Who Gets To Be a Geek?  Anyone Who Wants To Be" that delighted me.  

(The piece was in response to an article at CNN by Joe Peacock, believe it or not, disparaging -- for not being genuine geeks -- pretty, sexily-dressed women who come to events like ComicCon, including the ones who are hired by sponsors to work at the booths.  I am not the sort of geek who goes to that sort of convention, so I really can't judge the Peacock piece on the merits of its claims.)

But I loved John Scalzi's response, because of the way he encapsulated geekdom:

Geekdom is a nation with open borders. There are many affiliations and many doors into it. There are lit geeks, media geeks, comics geeks, anime and manga geeks. There are LARPers, cosplayers, furries, filkers, crafters, gamers and tabletoppers. There are goths and horror geeks and steampunkers and academics. There are nerd rockers and writers and artists and actors and fans. Some people love only one thing. Some people flit between fandoms. Some people are positively poly in their geek enthusiasms. Some people have been in geekdom since before they knew they were geeks. Some people are n00bs, trying out an aspect of geekdom to see if it fits. If it does, great. If it doesn’t then at least they tried it.

Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think — and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking — that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It’s the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love.” When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER.”

Any jerk can love a thing. It’s the sharing that makes geekdom awesome.

This is wonderful.  I mean, really wonderful.  

For one thing, it neatly skewers the notion that being a geek is really all about being an outcast because The Greater World doesn't understand the stuff the geeks do understand.  If that were so, it would be impossible to be a geek about anything that happens to be, at the moment, popular.  The boundaries of geekdom would shift with the winds of popular culture.

But you know, and I know, that being a geek is something about who you are, not about who accepts you or even about who accepts your interests.

The reason that the world stereotypes socially inept outcasts as geeks, and geeks as socially inept outcasts, is because -- these days, anyway -- the world considers it socially inept to betray a deep interest in any subject.  To care about an idea, or a subject, and to care about getting the details right more than caring about what other people think.  

Some people have the sort of charismatic personality or way with words -- or other sort of attractiveness -- that makes them perfectly able to publicly express enthusiasm in a way that infects others.  Not all geeks have this gift, because the world is mostly turned off by people who don't have the habit of disparaging deep interest.  The habit of cool -- figuratively, being at most lukewarm about everything and everyone, because warmth betrays caring. 

Geek and cool are opposites by nature.  And "cool" is highly prized today.  Fortunately, there are other ways of standing out -- society's not so far gone that it doesn't sometimes appreciate the not-cool.  And so geekdom and outcasts are not identical sets.

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Although once my husband called me "nerdy-cool."  Which is just about the most romantic thing I can imagine.

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Here's another place I found the term "geek," or sometimes its almost-interchangeable synonym "nerd," is useful.  

A few weeks ago when Bearing Blog Epidemiologist ChristyP was in town for a conference, she introduced me to a colleague, whose name I knew well because he has published numerous articles about natural family planning and about the bioethics of reproductive health.  

He asked me, "How is it that you found out about NFP?"  

I started with "Well, I'm Catholic --"

He said, quite correctly, "That isn't a sufficient answer."

I paused and said slowly: "I'm kind of a Catholic nerd."  Turned and looked to ChristyP -- "That kind of sums it up, doesn't it?"  -- and she indicated that it would do, at least for the purposes of that brief conversation!

Thinking back on it, I believe it does suffice.  (I used "nerd" because I wasn't sure whether "geek" has too recent a vintage to mean something to this gentleman -- indeed the usage frequency of "geek" has lagged about 8 years behind that of "nerd" since about 1980.  But I meant something exactly like the "geek" of Scalzi's piece.)   

I mean, I think most of us who intend to live Catholic doctrine as if we really believed it, as written, to be correct sometimes use shorthand like "orthodox Catholic" to refer to others who decline to dissent in any way from Church teaching, but that term doesn't satisfy.  For one thing, it's easily confused with "Orthodox Christian" which is a distinct ecclesiastical community, or it may be construed as some weird kind of shorthand for Eastern Rite Catholics.  

For another thing, it's often used as if it were the opposite of terms like "progressive Catholic" or "liberal Catholic" or "social justice Catholic", when that's really not so.  One can adhere to every bit of what's in the catechism and yet feel more affinity with liberal or progressive politics (remember:  we operate in every country in the world) or perceive that one's particular evangelistic calling is centered around topics that get classified as "social justice."  

For a third thing, although it's useful shorthand in private conversation with others you agree with, I doubt that "orthodox" is understood the same way by the wider culture of English-speaking Catholics.   Self-identified Catholics dissent for a lot of reasons -- many are intellectually honest, informed, and deliberate, many "own" their position, but others are lashing out in anger and hurt, while still others oppose a strawman.  I haven't taken a survey, but it strikes me that a large number of those people would take some umbrage at us toe-the-line types for claiming the term "orthodox."  And terms are no good in discourse unless you agree on the meaning.

For a fourth thing, and I mean no disrespect -- I don't think all the "orthodox Catholics" are also "Catholic geeks."  (And likely as not there are Catholic geek dissenters.) 

But "Catholic nerd," though, or "geek," seems to fit the bill pretty well, and more precisely than just "orthodox" -- at least for me.  With that term, I'm trying to get across that I'm interested  in Catholic theology, liturgy, and moral life.  I'm interested in getting it right, in being able to split hairs, because ZOMG I LOVE IT PLEASE COME WITH ME AND LOVE IT TOO. 

It implies, I hope, not just that I wish to toe the line, but that I have, in fact, drunk the Kool-Aid.  TASTE AND SEE.

In many ways a geek is a geek.  Others call us hairsplitting or even jesuitical (Jesuits:  Perhaps the original Catholic geek organization, regardless of where they find themselves today), but it's no less fun to pick apart difficult moral questions than it is to have passionate arguments about, say, literature or physics.  

I mean, really:  there's a certain affinity among these:

• having a passionate argument using fluxes and mass balances about the question "Does running in the rain make you wetter or dryer than walking?"  (real example I remember from the lunch table in graduate school)
•  having a detailed email discussion on the question  "If a woman has suffered multiple ectopic pregnancies, is it licit for her to request surgical removal of the Fallopian tubes, because of a reasonable suspicion that there is something wrong with them, on the grounds that it is generally permissible to remove a 'diseased body part' and that the consequent sterilization is a secondary, undesired effect that is nevertheless permitted under the principle of double effect?  Or does double effect not apply, because in fact the directly desired effect is prevention of all pregnancies, this being the means by which the prevention of a specific disease in the Fallopian tube  is to be brought about?"
• insisting that it's a vital blow to the preservation of American film culture that George Lucas whitewashed the fact HAN SOLO TOTALLY SHOT FIRST?

All of these are the kinds of questions that only true geeks care about, at least deeply enough to argue about it at length instead of doing what other people might call "getting on with their lives."

Frederick Douglass and an inspiration: a rhetoric-based approach to high school history?

First, the Douglass.

Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy has posted the entire text of Frederick Douglass's speech of 160 years ago today, "What July 4th Means to the Negro."

Since this is a blog of religious practice among other things, I am excerpting (emphasis and some paragraph breaks mine) this part about the Fugitive Slave Act (which, among other things, required all states to enforce within their own boundaries the property "rights" of slaveholders):

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were nor stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

...But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines!

They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and with out hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation-a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons, and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea’ when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”

...The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.”

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday School, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery, and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds, and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared-men honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning... [G]reat religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example of the Hebrews, and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.2

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are....

...[T]he anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead of a hostile position towards that movement.

The whole speech is long, covers many more points than this one, and is a wonderful piece of argument.

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Now, the inspiration.

I am preparing to teach 19th-century American History again this fall with a crop of late-elementary school kids, and Frederick Douglass is one of the personages whose biography we'll highlight; this piece makes me wish it were easier to teach 19th-century American rhetoric directly to kids under eleven or so.

In my vision for homeschool high school, I have generally assumed that a "survey of American history" course would be a necessary evil -- you know, pack the entire thing into one school year, anchored by a text that necessarily runs broad but not deep. I thought the best I could hope for would be to find a really well-written text (and that not necessarily a text made for schools).

I wonder now if, especially given the way I taught elementary school history, if I couldn't put together a sufficiently informative U. S. History course based primarily on pieces of rhetoric. I think you would still have to have the history spine to hold it together, provide a time-sequence, and give context, but perhaps I would not have to work so hard to find a wonderful "main text" if the intellect and imagination were fed by primary sources -- not meta speech, but speeches. And pamphlets, and laws, and opinion-pieces, and court opinions, even advertisements.

I suspect I would have to cut back a bit on other literary analysis in order to fit it in -- or conversely, I could make that the same year that "literature and writing" focuses on persuasion, analysis, satire, and the like -- er, rhetoric, I suppose -- so that History and Literature/Language Arts dovetail.

Thoughts?