March 2009
Mainline Marital Melange
We know the stereotype, do we not? Eyes like marbles, jaw clinched tight as a bear trap; icy baritone voice; accusatory finger slashing the air. Yea, brothers and sisters, hear the word of the Lord, Who condemns . . .
For some wacko reason, popular culture (you know what I mean—talk shows, movies, plain old bar and workplace chit-chat) portrays the ministers of God as prigs and bluenoses forever trying to snuff out honest desire while making others, idealistic young people in particular, as unhappy and guilt-ridden as they themselves. Nobody would say such dreary folk don’t ply their trade in this church and that one. A more truthful, as well as useful, thing to say is that the stereotype has things backward and inside out, most of all when the topic is America’s Mainline churches.
Everything In Its Place
On December 9, 2008, as I read through the federal criminal complaint against the latest Illinois governor to be indicted for the merest portion of his crimes, I could not help but feel uneasy. Sure, it was great fun to imagine Governor Hot Rod sweating it out in his holding cell, awaiting arraignment later in the day. Even the most casual observer of Illinois politics knew that Milorad Blagojevich, our S.O.B., had to be corrupt. After all, you don’t get elected governor of Illinois as a reformer if you actually are one.
Valor
A review of Valkyrie (produced and distributed by United Artists; directed by Bryan Singer; screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie) and Slumdog Millionaire (produced by Celador Films; directed by Danny Boyle; screenplay by Simon Beaufoy; from Vikas Swarup’s novel; distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures)
In Valkyrie, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and director Bryan Singer tell the story of Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic German Catholic who led the conspiracy that almost assassinated Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. While considered a national hero in Germany, Stauffenberg is not nearly as well known in America. So strong is the propaganda coloring America’s understanding of what happened in Europe from 1933 to 1945 that many of our citizens tend to think of all Germans as Nazis. In the popular imagination, Germans are either the monocled, heel-clicking sadists on display in Casablanca or the buffoons of Hogan’s Heroes. It’s just this kind of historical caricaturing that Stauffenberg sacrificed his life to prevent. He agreed with his fellow conspirator, Henning von Tresckow, who said that they had to kill the Führer “to show the world that not all of us are like him; otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.” They failed, and thus many in our overeducated, underinformed land think Hitler and his circle were the German norm in the mid-20th century.
Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon . . .
terrible as an army with banners?”
—Song of Songs 6:10
“Si direbbe che persino la luna si è affrettata stasera—osservatelo in alto—a guardare a questo spettacolo.”
(“One might almost think that the moon—just look at him up there—hurried up tonight to see this spectacle.”) These were words that Pope John XXIII extemporaneously addressed to the crowd gathered in Piazza San Pietro on the moonlit evening of October 11, 1962, the opening day of the Second Vatican Council. The blessed pontiff spoke warmly of his expectation that the council would conclude “prima di Natale,” which being interpreted is “before Christmas.” On this point at least, “Good Pope John” was not a prophet. But how could he have thought otherwise? Everything had been meticulously prepared; the documents were all ready, expounding the Faith and refuting modern errors with vigor and copious footnotes. Well, no, as the saying goes, “the Rhine flowed into the Tiber,” and by Christmas the carefully worded schemata were practically all gone (except the “easy” one on liturgy: another less-than-prophetic but, in this case, collegial, not papal, surmise), and the council’s work indefinitely to-be-continued.
Marriage in America—March 2009
PERSPECTIVE
Self-Evident Lies
by Thomas Fleming
VIEWS
Mainline Marital Mélange
by William Murchison
When the culture preaches to the church.
Immigration and Marriage in America
by R. Cort Kirkwood
Beyond definitions.
Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos
by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.
Romancing the self.
