SOLEMNITY OF SAINT PETER AND SAINT PAUL, APOSTLES, June 29: What is an Apostolic Church?

[first published June 29, 2014]

by Dr. David Pence

Every Sunday at Mass, Catholics stand to profess in the Creed that we believe in "the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church." What does it mean to say the Church is Apostolic, and why is the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul one of the ten holy days of obligation in the Catholic Church? The feast day reminds us that the Church wants us to reflect on these men and their office as apostles, in the same way we reflect on Mary’s Immaculate Conception or Christ’s Ascension into heaven. These are central truths that organize the way we understand reality and live our common life as a Church.

                                                       

Saint Paul

                                                                                 
Both Peter and Paul had their names changed in their encounter with Christ.  Saul became Paul and Simon was re-named Peter.  Christ the new Adam re-organized humanity, not as the blood sons of Adam and Eve, but now as a sacral brotherhood that would allow entry into the life of the Trinity. “Those whom He foreknew, he predestined to share the image of His Son, that the Son might be the firstborn of many brothers.” David drew Jonathan (the blood son of Saul) away from his own kinship claims to succession, into the newly anointed Davidic Kingdom.  So Christ configured the first twelve apostles - all loyal sons of Israel - into the new priesthood that would be the twelve foundation stones of the Church. Calling Paul an apostle a decade later showed that some vital aspect of the apostolic duties and office of the original Twelve would live on in other elected men through the ages. The joining of Paul to the apostolic office and his mission to the Gentiles gives evidence that the Church built on a highly localized brotherhood of Galileans was to spread all over the earth, and yet still be fully manifested in such crucial Catholic local forms as the parish Mass and the diocesan Bishop and his presbytery.

The fraternal relationship of Christ to his chosen men forms the living sinew of the new Temple, in which the presence of God will be carried to the ends of the earth. This is the sacramental order that the Church establishes as the central organism to reorder humanity under the Father. Holy Orders is the third of the sacraments which imprint an indelible mark on the soul; and, like Confirmation, it shows again how indispensable is the communion of the bishops to the Church’s sacramental order. Peter and the apostles live on in the pope and the bishops, and the bishop and his diocesan priests. These are the patriarchal fraternities that mirror the Trinity, and provide the Catholic framework for the baptizing of nations, and the public ordering of human beings necessary to prepare for the Second Coming.

To this priestly apostolic order are given particular powers to forgive sins, cast out demons, and definitively proclaim the message that God dwells among us and invites us to dwell in Him.  This priestly authority to beseech the Father -- to send the Spirit to bring us back in the presence of the Son’s sacrifice -- is the Mass. The priests have been given the keys to a mysterious "time/space machine" which binds dispersed humanity into the one Body of Christ.

                                 

"Crucifixion of St.Peter" - Rubens

                                                                       

It was Peter’s proclamation, not that Christ was the Messiah (a big deal in itself) but that he was the Son of the living God, that evoked from Christ His ordaining of the Petrine office. Christ did not award Peter’s faith. In fact, he told him clearly that Peter was not talking on his own. The Holy Spirit allowed Peter to profess the divinity of Christ, and upon that central theological truth was the Church built. The real rock is not so much Peter, but the accurate testimony of Peter that Jesus is God-become-man.  Christ is the cornerstone, and the apostles are the twelve foundation blocks. The keys are given to Peter to unlock mysteries in teaching, and unlock jail cells in releasing men from their sins. It is no mistake that the second reading of the feast day is an angelically engineered jailbreak for Peter -- recalling an earlier prison tomb that was evacuated so that hell might be harrowed. The priestly powers  are conferred, not on every man who chooses Christ, but on certain men whom Christ chooses.  Peter was not Superman dressed like a fisherman who burst out of prison to work miracles.  He was Peter who was led out of prison by an angel, and called out of his fishing boat by Our Lord. And that Peter was given the authority to work the miracles of healing the sick and, more importantly, forgiving men their sins.

Christ asked, “Who do men say the Son of Man is?”  Whenever Christ called himself the Son of Man, he was affirming his human identity. In Hebrew, he would have called himself the Son of Adam.  Peter, by power of the Holy Spirit, answers Christ’s directed question to the apostles about his identity: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That was the instance the Holy Spirit spoke through Peter, speaking for the whole church with an infallible statement. We share that infallible authority every time we also comply with the Spirit, and read Scripture or profess the Creed together at Mass. It is all part of being an apostolic church with real authority given by Christ through the Spirit.

In these recent weeks of the Church liturgical year, we meditated on the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Trinitarian nature of God on Trinity Sunday, and the presence of Christ in the Eucharist on Corpus Christi. Today let us give thanks and praise for the Apostolic priesthood that bridges  those spiritual realities and our lives in the practice of our sacramental life. The rule of the Father and filiation of the Beloved Son passed down through the Scriptures find in the Eucharistic Apostolic fraternity that restoration of brotherhood under the Father meant from the beginning as the destiny of man.  

                                                       

'Good Shepherd Sunday' -- The Shepherd: protector or nursemaid?

[first published April 26, 2015]


by David Pence

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn't own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them. The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn't care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I'm known by my own; even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep."  

                                     (from the Gospel of John, read on Good Shepherd Sunday)

The heart of the shepherd is that of a protector ready to shed his own blood in the face of wolves attacking the sheep. It is unfortunate that the dominant iconography of the good shepherd is not a man standing in front of his flock taking on a wolf, but the image of a usually mawkish Jesus cuddling a lamb in his arms. Now, Christ himself said in Scripture that he would leave the ninety-nine sheep to go find the lost one, and "lay it on his shoulders, rejoicing." That image was also well known in the ancient world as the kriophoros—the “ram bearer” as a figure preparing for sacrifice.
                                                                                 

But the shepherd in today's Gospel is in a different stance. There are many traits of the Shepherd which Scripture teaches, beginning with the clarity and recognition of his voice by his sheep. Abel and Abraham and the first Christmas witnesses were all shepherds. I always think of those noble shepherds of Christmas night coming to protect the babe in the cave from wolves and beasts, who in nature often sense the vulnerability of birthing. Certainly, Satan might have thought to send an animal precursor to Herod’s men. But Joseph had his shepherd brothers there. Like so many times in history when strong good men are present, there is no vicious tale to tell, and thus the work of the protective peacemakers is unheralded.

The greatest of the shepherds until Christ was, of course, King David. He has never been confused with a nursemaid. David was consecrated by Samuel, but he won the allegiance of the men of Israel by his courage against a wolf-giant that had frightened Saul’s soldiers into their tents. When King Saul berated David as no match for Goliath, the son of Jesse reminded him:

“When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after him and [attacked him], and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God.”

                                                   

The pope wears a pallium over his shoulders made of lamb’s wool to show his authority as a shepherd. Let us make for every bishop a new icon of the Good Shepherd—a picture or statue of a man seizing and striking a lion or bear to protect his flock. The feast of the Good Shepherd reminds us that the first service of the ruler is to protect—even if that means death. For today’s priesthood that means to risk reputation and career pathway to clean out the soft wolves among the shepherds, those men who have emasculated the apostolic fraternity. This corruption of the masculine protective personality has paralyzed the nations of Christendom. Our fathers have left us wealthy, well-organized, and well-armed; but as our fellow Christians are slaughtered in Africa and the Mideast, we watch like hirelings behind the bushes.

The evil we are hiding from was foretold in the Book of Revelation. Satan was infuriated that he could not harm the woman who was giving birth to her Son. "Enraged at her escape, the dragon went off to to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God's commandments and give witness to Jesus."

Lest we allow ourselves to become too comfortable that this bloodletting from afar is an inevitable work of the Evil One causing us sadness but no protective response, we should look to Revelation again for the last of the Biblical references to the Shepherd: "She gave birth to a Son -- a boy destined to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod."

                                                                     

                                                            David the Shepherd as Slayer

HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

Ash Wednesday: a few thoughts on Inquisitions and Penitentiaries

[first published March 3, 2014]
             
                                     

                                  
An interview with Dr. David Pence:

We've come round to another Ash Wednesday. Do you remember how Father Neuhaus [the late founder of First Things magazine] referred to the American bishops' response to sexual abuse as "The Long Lent of 2002"?

The American bishops and their fraternity of priests never had a long Lent or any Lent at all! Lent is confession of sins, repentance, reparation, and reform. There has been no real confessing of sins nor repentance nor judgment and punishment of any group of bishops or priests inflicted by churchmen on churchmen. Newspapers have exposed and courts have punished, but the Church herself has not acted to purify the priesthood by her own standards.
                                 

Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the prisons visited by Tocqueville in 1831

                         

You contend that Church leaders have to use ecclesial institutions to punish priests who have offended. Why does it seem that nowadays if an evil priest hasn't been convicted in a criminal court, we shower him with "disability pay" and other perks?

Reform in a hierarchical Church comes from the Pope and bishops, but each in his own place. Diocesan reform will be initiated by a particular bishop who has a critical mass of priests with him ready to truly purify an existing diocesan prebytery. The reform of bishops will require another mechanism, but it will be more local and synodal than papal. Just like we need model saints who inspire all of us, bishops need a model bishop to clean not the whole world but a particular diocese. A bishop who wants to lead the bishops of his nation and the Church must put his net down right where he is -- and reform his local presbytery. The diocese will be the locus of the deepest reform.

All reform will start with a true aggressive investigation and assessment of priests. This can be carried out by a well-known Catholic instrument: the Promoter of Justice. This man must look much more like Eliot Ness searching for the trails of crime than an ACLU lawyer insisting on Miranda rights. This is what once was called an INQUISITION. An aggressive questioning in pursuit of real justice for the Church which means unfaithful, sacrilegious, and immoral priests are pursued, confronted, judged, and punished. Professor Mirus does a good job of explaining this in a recent column.

Offenses against the Creed, the Sacramental/Liturgical Order, and Morality are the standards by which bishops must purify the priesthood. These are sections of our Catechism. No court of law will uphold these standards. No secular newspaper will be outraged at a breach of these duties. The Church has a legal system and a demanding code of conduct. Pope Benedict, in an interview in 2010, talked about the role of punishment in church governance:

"The Archbishop of Dublin told me something very interesting about that. He said that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950’s. Admittedly it was not perfect -- there is much to criticize about it -- but nevertheless it was applied. After the mid sixties, however, it was simply not applied anymore. The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but rather a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people. 

Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate. In this respect there was in the past a change of mentality, in which the law and the need for punishment were obscured. Ultimately this also narrowed the concept of love, which in fact is not just being nice and courteous, but is found in the truth. And another component of the truth is that I must punish the one who has sinned against real love."

(ADDENDUM AUGUST 2018
A description of the liturgical rite of by which a bishop was degraded of his office.  Benedict XIV promulgated this ritual in 1862)

Explain your notion of how we provide for these priests according to canon law, while having them live a life of penance. And what is this about donning a distinctive cowl?

We hear that canon law requires that the local diocese must "provide" for all priests. "It's simply justice," they say. Well, fine... let's be serious. Get a building, and provide housing and simple food while requiring prayer and labor. They should wear a distinctive garb showing they are penitents, and special markers if they are sexual predators. This is meant as punishment. It is meant as reparation -- and if a priest will not comply -- then his disobedience is grounds for laicization. Criminal priests are exploiting their clerical state and playing on the interests of their superiors in preserving an employment entitlement program. The idea that these guys are on a voucher system which we owe them, is a sham perpetuated by clerics who see the priesthood as lifetime employment. This is how the previous vicar general, Fr. McDonough, sounds in most of his pronouncements on these questions -- he was an unholy blend of urban ward-heeler, union steward, and defense attorney.

No reform in any diocese could bolster the worldwide church more than instituting a real place of penance and public acknowledgement of betrayal by predator priests. This reform must be enacted by a local bishop; it cannot be a papal reform. The pope knows what we all know.  Local bishops must govern; and to govern is to punish when crimes are committed. Abbotts too. A place like St John’s Abbey [in Collegeville, Minnesota] should immediately require a clear and distinctive garb for all monks under restriction. St Benedict in his original Rule provided a multitude of ways to distinguish monks following the Rule and those being disciplined.

The Church did not sin. Men sinned, and individual men should do penance -- not Holy Mother Church, who Herself has been besmirched.

                                       

"Christ among the Doctors of the Law" (Paolo Caliari, 16th century)

           

What is your reaction to the comments of Fr. Kevin McDonough in this recent news story at MN Public Radio? How could the vicar general thoroughly delude himself that a pastor -- arrested separately for trolling for young men in a public park and in a bookstore -- posed no danger to the boys in his parish?

Father McDonough throughout his career has run interference for the huge homosexual subculture in the St Paul Seminary system and the local priesthood. This most notably included his homosexual priest brother who was teaching seminarians “the gift of gay celibacy” decades ago. It is an axiom in the Catholic gay subculture that homosexuals are no threat as pedophiles. (It was a corollary that they made better priests because of their sensitivity and non-interest in football, war, or any male group effort to organize the protective use of force). That is why McDonough remains so adamant to this day that "there was no evidence Curtis Wehmeyer was a threat to children." For Father McDonough, stubbornly not "outing" the homosexual proclivities of a predator took precedence over protecting young males.

The corrupting role of an influential secretive "gay subculture" in a priesthood -- whose most fundamental oath is tied to a purity code -- is the story that the vicar general kept hidden for decades, and that our secular newspapers still can't quite figure out how to tell. The Church will properly practice Lent when a bishop takes his priests behind closed doors as individuals and as a group, and institutes a program of priestly purification which must include aggressive questioning (call that the Inquisition) and just punishment for the sins of omission and commission which have corrupted the fraternity (call that the Penitentiary). We could call that a good Catholic Lent.


If a Catholic is completely fed up with the decadent rot of the Petrine face of the Church -- almost tempted to flee -- how should he fight that?  

He must focus on that reality of the Church which has never sinned. The Marian Church is still pure. The Church herself has been defaced and dragged through the mud, but still she is holy. Churchmen have sinned, not the Church. Ponder the heart of Mother Church. Do what the devout women did during the 1970s: they kept alive the adoration of the Eucharist while trendy seminarians ridiculed the “wafer worshipers." The spotless Church and her corrupted priesthood has the Eucharist; and we must eat to live.

The Church has the Spirit, and He will reform the Church. The Ark has a noxious stench, and a lot of the present crew are cowards or worse, but we can’t jump the Ark. It was built at too high a price. Look outside before you jump; the Flood waters are even worse.
                                   

JANUARY 1 -- Consecrating Masculine Fraternity: the formalized covenant of circumcision

[first published New Year's Day 2015]

Dr. David Pence writes:

"When eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Christ, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived."

On New Year’s Day we celebrate a Divine resolution to reorder the public life of humanity and the material cosmos. The old order of the cyclic movements of stars and planets – that ends in the burning out of the stars and the dissipation of matter in an expanding universe – demonstrates how the Laws of Matter alone lead to death. But as Christ's blood is shed publicly for the first time, the spiritual message of an angel is no longer hidden in the womb of Mary. The young male is incorporated into the public covenant of Jewish brotherhood under God. He is not just Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah of Israel. He is named Jesus: "He who saves," the Deliverer, the one who rescues. His mother will be known as Theotokos ('God-bearer'). We will come to see that this Messiah to the Jews is named Jesus, not because He will free Israel from the Romans but because He will save mankind from death and the Dragon.

The human species has been recalled to our original mission to live forever in communion with God, who created the visible and invisible world. Most of the material world and many angels of the immaterial world are being cast out into oblivion and isolation, but humanity is meant to be drawn into the eternal life of communion and interpersonal love with the Trinity. A new Adam is named this day and will conform His will to the Father – as the first Adam failed to do. Part of his flesh is discarded as a prelude to the discarding of the old man by every Christian in the sacrament of Baptism.  The first patriarch’s failure to accept the rule of the Father led to the murder of brother by brother. Because Adam failed as a son, he could not rule as a father; and the fraternity of his sons was replaced by fratricide. The great communal strength that Adam would have known as the father of sons in brotherly harmony was never to be. The new Adam, however, paints us a vivid picture of the fraternal bonds he forges, beginning with his circumcision and naming. He has allowed His blood to be shed, and has been incorporated in a Chosen People set aside as a holy nation to be a blessing to all the nations. He will show us the missionary nature of patriarchal fraternity – the miraculous incorporation that the love of Father, Son, and brothers has instituted for all humanity.

On New Year’s Day we remember Christ submitting to a religious ceremony for males, which binds them in a common duty to shed blood for the group defined by this Covenant with God. Forty days after His birth, Jesus alongside other firstborn males will be presented to God in the Temple of Jerusalem. The male covenant engenders a great communal strength that can tempt men to violent acts of domination. That is why numbering the able-bodied warriors was often depicted as an act of pride. The male covenant is necessary for survival, but it must always be subordinate to the will of God.
                                     

"God said to Abraham... This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you."

This fraternal shedding of blood foreshadows the Apostles' priestly participation in the "blood of the New Covenant." Just as the masculine covenant of circumcision will define Israel, so the priestly sharing in the chalice of Christ's blood will define the Apostolic Church. (The sharing of the priestly chalice with the laity was a central liturgical demand of the Protestant Revolution which eventually proposed a Church built on Baptism not Holy Orders.) The Judaic formalization by circumcision  of  shared male protective duty limited by the defined territory of a Promised Land will become the republican template of the nations. The public relationship (res publica) of shared masculine  duty will become the fraternal lattice of classical politics and citizenship.

"It appears clear that contemporary ethical systems remain incapable of producing authentic bonds of fraternity, since a fraternity devoid of reference to a common Father as its ultimate foundation is unable to endure. True brotherhood among people presupposes and demands a transcendent Fatherhood. Based on the recognition of this fatherhood, human fraternity is consolidated: each person becomes a ‘neighbor’ who cares for others."
(POPE FRANCIS -- January 1, 2014 --
FRATERNITY: THE FOUNDATION AND PATHWAY TO PEACE)

The Pope speaks of fraternity in its most generic form: all men and women acting as brothers and sisters under God. That general fellowship, however, has an undeniable masculine foundation in biblical communities. Peter and Andrew, Phillip and Bartholomew are blood brothers in a spiritual brotherhood. These bonds are not set against each other, but reinforce the anthropological nature of male spiritual accord. The high calling of classical citizenship has a similar masculine character. In all classical thought, man as "a political animal" (politicos: a member of a city) refers to a shared form of piety, protective duty, civic friendship, social status, and masculine identity.

Fraternity to be most effective must be formalized. The polis is defined by city walls and social contracts. Nations need their boundaries and constitutions. This formalization of male duty for the group is expressed in Catholic sacramental life through the priesthood and the diocesan character of the Eucharistic bishop and his priests. Fraternity is formalized in civic life by young men being socialized as citizen soldiers, city fathers, state militias, and other masculine covenants to protect a defined territorial group. This public male bond of shared duty and law transcends kinship and the family justice system of blood vendettas. Formalized male socialization systems are foundational to the merit-based and duty-bound "wide radius" social trust systems that Francis Fukuyama explains in his books on Trust and The Origins of Political Order. Both the Pope and Mr. Fukuyama seek a richer deeper social bonding at the heart of political life. Neither one is quite ready in this feminist age to see masculine socialization as the source of that social capital. Shared fraternal duty elevates man's political vocation far above the soulless instrumental state managing the claims of atomistic rights-bearers. Patriarchal fraternities were foundational expressions of the Christian way manifested in those most pivotal institutions of the Christian republic: the monasteries.

The masculine territorial relationship "sacramentalized" in circumcision provides a form that limits the boundless ambitions of empires, utopias, and universalistic ideologies. The personalities of male protectors guard particular lands and cheer for the athletic victories of the local club. There are no Pollyannish laws against bullying, but many well-placed men who do not tolerate the strong exploiting the weak.

Men are meant to live together in communal work and protective groups. Patriarchy and fraternity constituted the original plan of love for Adam and his sons, the prophetic structure for Abraham and the nations, and the fulfillment of the Kingdom found in Christ and the apostles.

The Gospel is meant for all the nations – it is not a creature of "the West." It came out of one nation to all the nations. Jesus the Savior of the world, the Messiah of the Jews, was marked in his manhood as a living part of God’s plan of old. He circumcised the souls of his apostles with the character of the priesthood to ready them to go forth and call back the sons of Adam into one Body. He called men from one territorial region: Galilee. Those men who shared the local ties of a common fishing district would be shaped into a priestly brotherhood for the cosmos. They would be sent out to find men in their tribes and cities and nations; and baptize those natural fraternal ties of land and country into the Universal Church representing our common humanity. In the ancient liturgy of the Church, the priest looked north to proclaim the gospel. The priest directed the good news to the periphery. The apostles were sent to preach to the nations -- Biblically depicted as the 70 grandsons of Noah. The 70 different nations under a common God and descended from a single patriarch is the Biblical blueprint for humanity's public life. We are not trying to eliminate the bonds of the nations, as at Babel; we are trying to baptize them. The oneness of humanity comes from religious incorporation in Christ. The natural form of the nation was consecrated in the circumcision covenant, which marked Israel in a special way. The other Abrahamic nations were blessed as well, but in a different manner. All the nations, though, would be blessed in Israel by adopting an analogical masculine form of communal duty and civic life. Baptizing the nations does not necessarily mean bringing them into the Church, but bringing them into fraternity under God, which allows the Temple of the Church to be built within the walls of a just city.

The Jesus, who was named on this New Year’s Day, had bigger plans for the nations than allowing them to fight it out like so many new Cains and Abels. He called a fraternity of men to drink a blood covenant with Him; and establish a Kingdom set above all the nations, and yet living within each of them. The nations must answer to a transcendent authority. Because both priests and presidents can be corrupted, it is good that there are many nations, and good that there are the two swords of Church and State.

                                         

Eight days after we celebrate the birth of Christ, with the joy of this season still reverberating, we honor the shedding of a Son’s blood necessary to establish the new Kingdom. The circumcision of Abraham is no longer necessary for salvation, but the new priestly blood covenant will provide the Baptismal and Eucharistic bond to Christ by which the human species will participate in eternal life.

New Year’s Day is a public setting of our calendar to the Supreme Authority who manifested on this day His Name as Savior. His name carried by the angels was planted in a covenant of fraternity, which was public, masculine, and sacrificial. Such covenants are the heart of our nations and the order of the Eucharistic priesthood of the Church. They mirror the interpersonal unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The new commandment Christ gave to his apostles was to love one another as the Father loved Him, and He had loved them. That is very different and much more profound than loving others "as we love ourselves." True masculine loves are driven outward in a saving mission to all humanity. The love which bound the Father to the Son is the love than binds men together as fellow Christians, and is leaven to the love of fellow citizens.

Because the world is beset by evil, fatherhood needs a faithful son and a band of brothers (fraternity) to effectively exercise authority. The fighting missionary bond of men was the proper formation to strike and defeat the principalities and powers which held the material world in slavery. The word "Israel" derives from STRUGGLE. Men cannot be good fathers unless first they are good sons, as Francis teaches. But it is also true that men cannot be good fathers unless there is a public socializing fraternity which strengthens, teaches, and assists men to safeguard families from the vicissitudes of nature, the marauding of criminals, and the perversity of Satan. No man can guard his house alone. A large group is needed because of the strength of our foes. A large group is needed because of the harshness of winter. A large group is needed because young males look not only to their individual fathers, but social groups of larger spatial-temporal consequence to establish their identity in the world as men. Most of our obstacles in nature and our enemies (seen and unseen) cannot be overcome by a man alone. When the male bond is broken, it is the widows and orphans who weep and the predators who cheer. It is the young males who become lost and disoriented.

On the day our Savior was named, Jesus entered the consecrated communal bond of Israel which He would reconstitute in priestly and political forms. Through His priestly Church and the baptized nations, He builds His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Fraternity is not only the foundation and end of peace – it is the pathway as well.

                                       

Our full set of essays on Catholic Sociobiology

Nov 30: Saint Andrew and the 2,000 Byzantine monks on the Holy Mountain

[first published November 30, 2016]


MOUNT ATHOS in northeastern Greece is one of the powerhouses of prayer that keeps our tired old world going -- because sturdy men of faith submit their hearts to God.

On this feast day of the Holy Apostle Andrew, it is right that we deepen our understanding of our Christian brothers in Greece and Russia. East and West, the bonds of a praying brotherhood define the monastic and Apostolic Church. But in the heart of this all-male environment where even the animals must be male, there is a special presence and she is decidedly feminine.

"There are 20 monasteries on Mount Athos of which 17 are Greek, one Russian, one Serbian, and one Bulgarian. There are also twelve Skites (similar to monasteries but much smaller), a large number of Kellia (large farm houses), Kalyves (smaller houses), Kathismata (small houses for a single monk) and Hesychasteria (hermitages or caves in desolate cliff faces, for the most austere hermits)."

             

                                   

                                                   

From the parish bulletin of a Russian Orthodox church in Minneapolis:

Last October, Fr. Andrew and I visited Mt. Athos, affectionately known as the Garden of the Theotokos. As we experienced this beautiful place where God’s glory seems to radiate from everything, we were made aware of her presence. When we spoke to the monks in that holy place, they would refer to her and say things like: "Whatever the holy Mother wants." They live in humble submissiveness to her and understand the value of her intercessory prayers and guidance. We met an older monk on one of the remote walking paths by his hut (it was very old and abandoned-looking), who explained to us that he had lived 30 years alone with the Mother of God in "her garden." 

Sit back and enjoy one of the finest segments that has ever appeared on "60 Minutes."

               

UPDATE: Here is a short video of one of President Putin's visits to Mount Athos. He was joined by the Patriarch of Moscow.

Let us praise Andrew, the herald of God, / the namesake of courage, / the first-called of the Savior’s disciples / and the brother of Peter. / 

As he once called to his brother, he now cries out to us: / "Come, for we have found the One whom the world desires!"

HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

Ash Wednesday: a few thoughts on Inquisitions and Penitentiaries

[first published March 3, 2014]
             
                                     

                                  
An interview with Dr. David Pence:

We've come round to another Ash Wednesday. Do you remember how Father Neuhaus [the late founder of First Things magazine] referred to the American bishops' response to sexual abuse as "The Long Lent of 2002"?

The American bishops and their fraternity of priests never had a long Lent or any Lent at all! Lent is confession of sins, repentance, reparation, and reform. There has been no real confessing of sins nor repentance nor judgment and punishment of any group of bishops or priests inflicted by churchmen on churchmen. Newspapers have exposed and courts have punished, but the Church herself has not acted to purify the priesthood by her own standards.
                                 

Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the prisons visited by Tocqueville in 1831

                         

You contend that Church leaders have to use ecclesial institutions to punish priests who have offended. Why does it seem that nowadays if an evil priest hasn't been convicted in a criminal court, we shower him with "disability pay" and other perks?

Reform in a hierarchical Church comes from the Pope and bishops, but each in his own place. Diocesan reform will be initiated by a particular bishop who has a critical mass of priests with him ready to truly purify an existing diocesan prebytery. The reform of bishops will require another mechanism, but it will be more local and synodal than papal. Just like we need model saints who inspire all of us, bishops need a model bishop to clean not the whole world but a particular diocese. A bishop who wants to lead the bishops of his nation and the Church must put his net down right where he is -- and reform his local presbytery. The diocese will be the locus of the deepest reform.

All reform will start with a true aggressive investigation and assessment of priests. This can be carried out by a well-known Catholic instrument: the Promoter of Justice. This man must look much more like Eliot Ness searching for the trails of crime than an ACLU lawyer insisting on Miranda rights. This is what once was called an INQUISITION. An aggressive questioning in pursuit of real justice for the Church which means unfaithful, sacrilegious, and immoral priests are pursued, confronted, judged, and punished. Professor Mirus does a good job of explaining this in a recent column.

Offenses against the Creed, the Sacramental/Liturgical Order, and Morality are the standards by which bishops must purify the priesthood. These are sections of our Catechism. No court of law will uphold these standards. No secular newspaper will be outraged at a breach of these duties. The Church has a legal system and a demanding code of conduct. Pope Benedict, in an interview in 2010, talked about the role of punishment in church governance:

"The Archbishop of Dublin told me something very interesting about that. He said that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950’s. Admittedly it was not perfect -- there is much to criticize about it -- but nevertheless it was applied. After the mid sixties, however, it was simply not applied anymore. The prevailing mentality was that the Church must not be a Church of laws but rather a Church of love; she must not punish. Thus the awareness that punishment can be an act of love ceased to exist. This led to an odd darkening of the mind, even in very good people. 

Today we have to learn all over again that love for the sinner and love for the person who has been harmed are correctly balanced if I punish the sinner in the form that is possible and appropriate. In this respect there was in the past a change of mentality, in which the law and the need for punishment were obscured. Ultimately this also narrowed the concept of love, which in fact is not just being nice and courteous, but is found in the truth. And another component of the truth is that I must punish the one who has sinned against real love."

(ADDENDUM AUGUST 2018
A description of the liturgical rite of by which a bishop was degraded of his office.  Benedict XIV promulgated this ritual in 1862)

Explain your notion of how we provide for these priests according to canon law, while having them live a life of penance. And what is this about donning a distinctive cowl?

We hear that canon law requires that the local diocese must "provide" for all priests. "It's simply justice," they say. Well, fine... let's be serious. Get a building, and provide housing and simple food while requiring prayer and labor. They should wear a distinctive garb showing they are penitents, and special markers if they are sexual predators. This is meant as punishment. It is meant as reparation -- and if a priest will not comply -- then his disobedience is grounds for laicization. Criminal priests are exploiting their clerical state and playing on the interests of their superiors in preserving an employment entitlement program. The idea that these guys are on a voucher system which we owe them, is a sham perpetuated by clerics who see the priesthood as lifetime employment. This is how the previous vicar general, Fr. McDonough, sounds in most of his pronouncements on these questions -- he was an unholy blend of urban ward-heeler, union steward, and defense attorney.

No reform in any diocese could bolster the worldwide church more than instituting a real place of penance and public acknowledgement of betrayal by predator priests. This reform must be enacted by a local bishop; it cannot be a papal reform. The pope knows what we all know.  Local bishops must govern; and to govern is to punish when crimes are committed. Abbotts too. A place like St John’s Abbey [in Collegeville, Minnesota] should immediately require a clear and distinctive garb for all monks under restriction. St Benedict in his original Rule provided a multitude of ways to distinguish monks following the Rule and those being disciplined.

The Church did not sin. Men sinned, and individual men should do penance -- not Holy Mother Church, who Herself has been besmirched.

                                       

"Christ among the Doctors of the Law" (Paolo Caliari, 16th century)

           

What is your reaction to the comments of Fr. Kevin McDonough in this recent news story at MN Public Radio? How could the vicar general thoroughly delude himself that a pastor -- arrested separately for trolling for young men in a public park and in a bookstore -- posed no danger to the boys in his parish?

Father McDonough throughout his career has run interference for the huge homosexual subculture in the St Paul Seminary system and the local priesthood. This most notably included his homosexual priest brother who was teaching seminarians “the gift of gay celibacy” decades ago. It is an axiom in the Catholic gay subculture that homosexuals are no threat as pedophiles. (It was a corollary that they made better priests because of their sensitivity and non-interest in football, war, or any male group effort to organize the protective use of force). That is why McDonough remains so adamant to this day that "there was no evidence Curtis Wehmeyer was a threat to children." For Father McDonough, stubbornly not "outing" the homosexual proclivities of a predator took precedence over protecting young males.

The corrupting role of an influential secretive "gay subculture" in a priesthood -- whose most fundamental oath is tied to a purity code -- is the story that the vicar general kept hidden for decades, and that our secular newspapers still can't quite figure out how to tell. The Church will properly practice Lent when a bishop takes his priests behind closed doors as individuals and as a group, and institutes a program of priestly purification which must include aggressive questioning (call that the Inquisition) and just punishment for the sins of omission and commission which have corrupted the fraternity (call that the Penitentiary). We could call that a good Catholic Lent.


If a Catholic is completely fed up with the decadent rot of the Petrine face of the Church -- almost tempted to flee -- how should he fight that?  

He must focus on that reality of the Church which has never sinned. The Marian Church is still pure. The Church herself has been defaced and dragged through the mud, but still she is holy. Churchmen have sinned, not the Church. Ponder the heart of Mother Church. Do what the devout women did during the 1970s: they kept alive the adoration of the Eucharist while trendy seminarians ridiculed the “wafer worshipers." The spotless Church and her corrupted priesthood has the Eucharist; and we must eat to live.

The Church has the Spirit, and He will reform the Church. The Ark has a noxious stench, and a lot of the present crew are cowards or worse, but we can’t jump the Ark. It was built at too high a price. Look outside before you jump; the Flood waters are even worse.
                                   

JANUARY 1 -- Consecrating Masculine Fraternity: the formalized covenant of circumcision

[first published New Year's Day 2015]

Dr. David Pence writes:

"When eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Christ, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived."

On New Year’s Day we celebrate a Divine resolution to reorder the public life of humanity and the material cosmos. The old order of the cyclic movements of stars and planets – that ends in the burning out of the stars and the dissipation of matter in an expanding universe – demonstrates how the Laws of Matter alone lead to death. But as Christ's blood is shed publicly for the first time, the spiritual message of an angel is no longer hidden in the womb of Mary. The young male is incorporated into the public covenant of Jewish brotherhood under God. He is not just Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah of Israel. He is named Jesus: "He who saves," the Deliverer, the one who rescues. His mother will be known as Theotokos ('God-bearer'). We will come to see that this Messiah to the Jews is named Jesus, not because He will free Israel from the Romans but because He will save mankind from death and the Dragon.

The human species has been recalled to our original mission to live forever in communion with God, who created the visible and invisible world. Most of the material world and many angels of the immaterial world are being cast out into oblivion and isolation, but humanity is meant to be drawn into the eternal life of communion and interpersonal love with the Trinity. A new Adam is named this day and will conform His will to the Father – as the first Adam failed to do. Part of his flesh is discarded as a prelude to the discarding of the old man by every Christian in the sacrament of Baptism.  The first patriarch’s failure to accept the rule of the Father led to the murder of brother by brother. Because Adam failed as a son, he could not rule as a father; and the fraternity of his sons was replaced by fratricide. The great communal strength that Adam would have known as the father of sons in brotherly harmony was never to be. The new Adam, however, paints us a vivid picture of the fraternal bonds he forges, beginning with his circumcision and naming. He has allowed His blood to be shed, and has been incorporated in a Chosen People set aside as a holy nation to be a blessing to all the nations. He will show us the missionary nature of patriarchal fraternity – the miraculous incorporation that the love of Father, Son, and brothers has instituted for all humanity.

On New Year’s Day we remember Christ submitting to a religious ceremony for males, which binds them in a common duty to shed blood for the group defined by this Covenant with God. Forty days after His birth, Jesus alongside other firstborn males will be presented to God in the Temple of Jerusalem. The male covenant engenders a great communal strength that can tempt men to violent acts of domination. That is why numbering the able-bodied warriors was often depicted as an act of pride. The male covenant is necessary for survival, but it must always be subordinate to the will of God.
                                     

"God said to Abraham... This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you."

This fraternal shedding of blood foreshadows the Apostles' priestly participation in the "blood of the New Covenant." Just as the masculine covenant of circumcision will define Israel, so the priestly sharing in the chalice of Christ's blood will define the Apostolic Church. (The sharing of the priestly chalice with the laity was a central liturgical demand of the Protestant Revolution which eventually proposed a Church built on Baptism not Holy Orders.) The Judaic formalization by circumcision  of  shared male protective duty limited by the defined territory of a Promised Land will become the republican template of the nations. The public relationship (res publica) of shared masculine  duty will become the fraternal lattice of classical politics and citizenship.

"It appears clear that contemporary ethical systems remain incapable of producing authentic bonds of fraternity, since a fraternity devoid of reference to a common Father as its ultimate foundation is unable to endure. True brotherhood among people presupposes and demands a transcendent Fatherhood. Based on the recognition of this fatherhood, human fraternity is consolidated: each person becomes a ‘neighbor’ who cares for others."
(POPE FRANCIS -- January 1, 2014 --
FRATERNITY: THE FOUNDATION AND PATHWAY TO PEACE)

The Pope speaks of fraternity in its most generic form: all men and women acting as brothers and sisters under God. That general fellowship, however, has an undeniable masculine foundation in biblical communities. Peter and Andrew, Phillip and Bartholomew are blood brothers in a spiritual brotherhood. These bonds are not set against each other, but reinforce the anthropological nature of male spiritual accord. The high calling of classical citizenship has a similar masculine character. In all classical thought, man as "a political animal" (politicos: a member of a city) refers to a shared form of piety, protective duty, civic friendship, social status, and masculine identity.

Fraternity to be most effective must be formalized. The polis is defined by city walls and social contracts. Nations need their boundaries and constitutions. This formalization of male duty for the group is expressed in Catholic sacramental life through the priesthood and the diocesan character of the Eucharistic bishop and his priests. Fraternity is formalized in civic life by young men being socialized as citizen soldiers, city fathers, state militias, and other masculine covenants to protect a defined territorial group. This public male bond of shared duty and law transcends kinship and the family justice system of blood vendettas. Formalized male socialization systems are foundational to the merit-based and duty-bound "wide radius" social trust systems that Francis Fukuyama explains in his books on Trust and The Origins of Political Order. Both the Pope and Mr. Fukuyama seek a richer deeper social bonding at the heart of political life. Neither one is quite ready in this feminist age to see masculine socialization as the source of that social capital. Shared fraternal duty elevates man's political vocation far above the soulless instrumental state managing the claims of atomistic rights-bearers. Patriarchal fraternities were foundational expressions of the Christian way manifested in those most pivotal institutions of the Christian republic: the monasteries.

The masculine territorial relationship "sacramentalized" in circumcision provides a form that limits the boundless ambitions of empires, utopias, and universalistic ideologies. The personalities of male protectors guard particular lands and cheer for the athletic victories of the local club. There are no Pollyannish laws against bullying, but many well-placed men who do not tolerate the strong exploiting the weak.

Men are meant to live together in communal work and protective groups. Patriarchy and fraternity constituted the original plan of love for Adam and his sons, the prophetic structure for Abraham and the nations, and the fulfillment of the Kingdom found in Christ and the apostles.

The Gospel is meant for all the nations – it is not a creature of "the West." It came out of one nation to all the nations. Jesus the Savior of the world, the Messiah of the Jews, was marked in his manhood as a living part of God’s plan of old. He circumcised the souls of his apostles with the character of the priesthood to ready them to go forth and call back the sons of Adam into one Body. He called men from one territorial region: Galilee. Those men who shared the local ties of a common fishing district would be shaped into a priestly brotherhood for the cosmos. They would be sent out to find men in their tribes and cities and nations; and baptize those natural fraternal ties of land and country into the Universal Church representing our common humanity. In the ancient liturgy of the Church, the priest looked north to proclaim the gospel. The priest directed the good news to the periphery. The apostles were sent to preach to the nations -- Biblically depicted as the 70 grandsons of Noah. The 70 different nations under a common God and descended from a single patriarch is the Biblical blueprint for humanity's public life. We are not trying to eliminate the bonds of the nations, as at Babel; we are trying to baptize them. The oneness of humanity comes from religious incorporation in Christ. The natural form of the nation was consecrated in the circumcision covenant, which marked Israel in a special way. The other Abrahamic nations were blessed as well, but in a different manner. All the nations, though, would be blessed in Israel by adopting an analogical masculine form of communal duty and civic life. Baptizing the nations does not necessarily mean bringing them into the Church, but bringing them into fraternity under God, which allows the Temple of the Church to be built within the walls of a just city.

The Jesus, who was named on this New Year’s Day, had bigger plans for the nations than allowing them to fight it out like so many new Cains and Abels. He called a fraternity of men to drink a blood covenant with Him; and establish a Kingdom set above all the nations, and yet living within each of them. The nations must answer to a transcendent authority. Because both priests and presidents can be corrupted, it is good that there are many nations, and good that there are the two swords of Church and State.

                                         

Eight days after we celebrate the birth of Christ, with the joy of this season still reverberating, we honor the shedding of a Son’s blood necessary to establish the new Kingdom. The circumcision of Abraham is no longer necessary for salvation, but the new priestly blood covenant will provide the Baptismal and Eucharistic bond to Christ by which the human species will participate in eternal life.

New Year’s Day is a public setting of our calendar to the Supreme Authority who manifested on this day His Name as Savior. His name carried by the angels was planted in a covenant of fraternity, which was public, masculine, and sacrificial. Such covenants are the heart of our nations and the order of the Eucharistic priesthood of the Church. They mirror the interpersonal unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The new commandment Christ gave to his apostles was to love one another as the Father loved Him, and He had loved them. That is very different and much more profound than loving others "as we love ourselves." True masculine loves are driven outward in a saving mission to all humanity. The love which bound the Father to the Son is the love than binds men together as fellow Christians, and is leaven to the love of fellow citizens.

Because the world is beset by evil, fatherhood needs a faithful son and a band of brothers (fraternity) to effectively exercise authority. The fighting missionary bond of men was the proper formation to strike and defeat the principalities and powers which held the material world in slavery. The word "Israel" derives from STRUGGLE. Men cannot be good fathers unless first they are good sons, as Francis teaches. But it is also true that men cannot be good fathers unless there is a public socializing fraternity which strengthens, teaches, and assists men to safeguard families from the vicissitudes of nature, the marauding of criminals, and the perversity of Satan. No man can guard his house alone. A large group is needed because of the strength of our foes. A large group is needed because of the harshness of winter. A large group is needed because young males look not only to their individual fathers, but social groups of larger spatial-temporal consequence to establish their identity in the world as men. Most of our obstacles in nature and our enemies (seen and unseen) cannot be overcome by a man alone. When the male bond is broken, it is the widows and orphans who weep and the predators who cheer. It is the young males who become lost and disoriented.

On the day our Savior was named, Jesus entered the consecrated communal bond of Israel which He would reconstitute in priestly and political forms. Through His priestly Church and the baptized nations, He builds His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Fraternity is not only the foundation and end of peace – it is the pathway as well.

                                       

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