COURAGE IN THE AGE OF COVID
NEWS: COMMENTARY
Who will champion timeless truth?
Some years ago, I attended a college alumni event at the Santa Monica home of an alumnus who had obviously done well for himself. This was circa 2005, shortly after Goodnight and Good Luck had opened to the predictable fawning reviews for what was another superficial and small-minded whitewashing of media communists outed during the McCarthy era.
The event had come at the suggestion of an older alum who had worked at CBS in New York during that time and who had been a member of the Communist Party. Said gentleman did not arrive wearing the combat fatigues of Fidel Castro, but a tasteful tweed sport coat over a pale blue button-down shirt opened at the collar. He explained how the McCarthy era had been frightening for communists like himself, who only wanted to improve the lives of the poor and usher in a more egalitarian society. They had to keep their party affiliation secret, lest they be fired and have their careers ruined. I asked if he had taken a loyalty oath denying that he was a communist, and he said he had to.
I explained that I couldn't reconcile the ideas that his involvement in the Communist Party was undertaken with good intentions but that he had to lie about it. "What else could I do?" he asked. "They would have fired me." I replied, "You could have let them. You see, I'm a Catholic, and we're kind of proud of our long legacy of martyrs, who valued the truth enough to die for it." He was claiming to believe in the good intentions of communism but was unwilling to walk away from a cushy job. That didn't impress me. In fact, it suggested that this communist bloke was more materialistic than most of the "capitalists" I knew, and a lot less honest.
The disconnect between how one talks and the path one walks has always been a sticking point for me. I'm reluctant to accept fear as an excuse for moral contradictions. I understand that prudence often counsels a low profile, especially in matters uncertain. But people claiming to possess the truth, to be living in truth, should be more courageous.
Last week saw the repatriation of the remains of such a man. The Wichita Eagle reported that 70 years after he died in a North Korean prison camp, Fr. Emil Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain, came home to rest in his native soil. An American in the vein of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Fr. Kapaun had a chance to escape from his captors but chose to stay with the soldiers he considered his flock. He did not want them to suffer without the consolation of the sacraments. He stayed to hear confessions and administer the last rites.
A story is told of how an enemy soldier was going to execute an American captive who was not walking fast enough during the forced march north. Father Kapaun sprang toward the soldier's arm, deflecting his gun. Impressed with the priest's courage, the officer in charge allowed both Americans to live. Unfortunately, within months, Fr. Kapaun succumbed to starvation and disease.
Father Kapaun, living in truth, conquered fear. His was the courage of that long line of martyrs I referenced earlier. Sadly, such courage is not widely evident in the Church today. Few seem to be singing "Faith of Our Fathers" and girding themselves to face dungeon, fire and sword. Rather, the Church today is plagued by leaders who cave in and shut down in the face of a virus with a 98% survival rate. And when I say "cave in," I am referring to prelates' manifest willingness to abide:
- The unborn being harvested for medical experimentation
- A population being subjected to a new, unproven and possibly dangerous gene serum
- Congregations being denied the sacramental life that is necessary to bestow sanctifying grace
- An overreaching government hostile to religious freedom
- The widespread violation of well-formed consciences
In this present crisis, all moral concerns are jettisoned, and what matters is rendering unto Caesar whatever Caesar demands. It's a policy reversal unworthy of a Church that was once the bulwark against communism.
I'm not claiming to have straightforward answers to the pandemic, but I can raise legitimate questions — questions like:
- Were mistakes simply made in "the fog of war," or were blunders like putting COVID patients in nursing homes deliberate?
- What's with the suppression of remedies that have anecdotal support from frontline doctors?
- Why is every question about vaccine safety being shouted down instead of addressed?
- Why are credentialed scientists who raise questions being smeared?
- Just what happened in those animal studies?
- What's the science behind mandates A–Z?
- Why are lockdowns crushing middle-class businesses while enriching über-wealthy oligarchs?
- Why is myocarditis being downplayed when a Navy surgeon says it has a five-year mortality rate of 66%? and
- How does the phrase "never let a good crisis go to waste" play into all of this?
Our American system of government, unlike, say, communism, is based on checks and balances that restrain government from rash, overreaching courses of action, where damage can be sudden and long-lasting. It may have been hard to counsel prudence in the face of what looked like a deadly emergency, but isn't that the job of a class of leaders claiming to hold prudence as a virtue?
Instead, claiming to have the best of intentions for all concerned, our shepherds cower, retreat from their duties and suppress good priests — those who want to live their Faith courageously and inspire their congregants to do the same. The latest horror is the threat made against unvaccinated priests: that they will be removed from public ministry if they do not get vaccinated. Is there science behind this draconian measure? Of course not. Science is a COVID casualty, along with the suddenly obsolete "least restrictive means" test. Is there concern for the souls of congregants who might not have access to the sacraments? Apparently not, which would seem to send a message diametrically opposed to official Church teachings on the necessity of the sacramental life.
Like tweed-donning commies who publicly swear allegiance to policies their souls find abhorrent, too many bishops seek to hold their cushy, bourgeois jobs at the expense of truth. But even worse than merely holding fast to their own upside-down priorities, many prelates pressure their congregations to do likewise — all the while paying lip service to principles for which they lack the conviction to sacrifice.
Such men lack courage because they do not live in truth, and like my communist acquaintance, they are materialists, missing the supernatural Faith that might empower them to champion moral principles in a time of crisis. Thus, they encourage their flocks to take a materialistic view of life, where prosperity, comfort and security trump eternal life.
Last Friday, I joined a number of concerned and faithful Catholics in a Rosary rally at the Paterson Diocesan Center to pray for an awakening of Catholic leadership — in particular, Bp. Kevin J. Sweeney of the diocese of Paterson, who is threatening unvaccinated priests with removal. I hope that Bp. Sweeney will hear the words of Raymond Cardinal Burke, a staunch defender of the Church's moral teaching in this bleak time. Cardinal Burke has fulminated, "It must be clear that it is never morally justified to develop a vaccine through the use of the cell lines of aborted fetuses. The thought of the introduction of such a vaccine into one's body is rightly abhorrent!"
Likewise abhorrent is the removal of a good priest for his refusal to engage in abhorrent behavior simply because Caesar demands it. Here's hoping that prayers will open hearts to what Christ demands, which is the Cross, not our comfort, and that the example of great Catholics like Fr. Kapaun will inspire the Church in this present struggle.
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