Harrison Butker’s Thoughts

Like Harrison Butker, the embattled kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, I was once a brash 28-year old, working in an industry that supports sole breadwinners, and attending a Catholic parish that adhered to the Missal of 1962- the Traditional Latin Mass. Nostalgia for Catholic Integralism of mid-century Spain, Italy, and big-city America; and Christian Democracy of France and Germany, ran strong. Yes, I was 28 when I lauded the Dobbs decision as a harbinger of a New Deal for families. (For the one-year anniversary of the decision, I issued a Mea Culpa on this blog, as I did not then realize the lack of compassion of many so-called “pro-life” legislators in the South). What is so appealing about fighting the “diabolical lie”, which to Butker is concept that career comes before family? For many middle-class families- especially those without a four-year degree, the single income family is still an ideal. For those with masters and doctorate degrees, this concept is an anathema. Thinking as a neoliberal, one must be a reactionary- a neanderthal- to be willing to shrink the GDP. Would such a focus on the family be “turning back the clock”? In the United States, dual income households had been on the rise since 1940, despite some retrenchment at the end of World War Two. With this option came an increase of living standards, followed by an ever-consuming increase of living costs. In Promised Land, an economics book I recently read, David Stebenne explains that this switch between freedom and necessity of a second income happened around the 1958 recession, earlier than the peak era of second-wave feminism. During the 1950's, investment in business development had lagged, in favor of high wages for the working class. It was not sustainable. The single wage earner never completely disappeared, at least for the part of the middle class that obtained special skills and education at reasonable cost. In fact, such a concept proves to be an unbreachable wage floor during labor negotiations. The appeal for motherhood and domesticity; in contrast to harsh, male-dominated industrial environments, provides the rallying cry for better contracts. Maybe in the future, emotional appeals will be gender-blind, but for now, Butker’s ideas buttress the middle class way of life.

A Decade of Jewish Existentialism

 Source: Humans of JNF (www.jnf.org)

Long before the rise of Adolf Hitler, establishing a Jewish state became the rallying cry of Zionists. Subject to the Jewish Question for centuries in Europe and the Middle East, through persecution, exile, pogrom and finally, systematic extermination; it appeared that other remedy could suffice for the Jewish people.

Trouble existed from the beginning. From 1948 to 1967, Jews lost access to their historical monuments and worship sites as Jerusalem came under Palestinian control. The Jewish state was tentative, perhaps a false promise or aberration in the course of history. After Adolf Hitler died in his bunker, many Jews continued to live a psychological holocaust, resulting in secularization, loss of ties to Judaism and the Jewish community.

Survivors of the Holocaust were prolific in writing and thinking in the post-war decade, reviews and analysis of which can be found in the Arts section of The Wall Street Journal. Where was G-d, who let this horrible thing happen? What about the psyche of Jews of America, still excluded from certain neighborhoods, social clubs, and held at an arm’s distance by those in power? Could it happen here, considering the sensational Rosenburg trial that conflated Jewish tenets with communist ideology?

In contemporary evangelical thinking, the Six-Day War of 1967 was fulfilment of a biblical prophecy. Outnumbered by Islamic forces, Israeli soldiers defended and overpowered the assault that was predicted to end the existence of the Jewish state. In the following decades, Israel became a beacon guaranteeing the survival of the Jewish people. The state received persecuted Jews from the Soviet Union, and from Ethiopia.

It has become popular to criticize the existence of Israel. The younger generation of Americans do not know that Israel’s survival was far from certain; or that Israel is merely the size of New Jersey, requiring a strong defensive posture against Hamas’ missiles and guerilla tactics. Nor do they consider that Islamic allies have not offered broad-based residency visas for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.   

A New Golden Age of Medicine

Imagine the 1950s in medicine. Within a generation, public health advances had eliminated communicable diseases; medical discovery brought antibiotics, vaccines, and new medicines; and surgeons performed daring operations to correct conditions of the heart and brain. The family doctor was an approachable, respected professional who often performed house calls. With memories of premature deaths and disability caused by now-treatable conditions, people were grateful for the work of medicine.

Ahead of the establishment of Medicare in 1965, the government discovered that some seniors and the chronically ill did face financial difficulty due to medical expenses. In general, though, medical care was affordable for the out-of-pocket payer: Walt Lillehei was the best in his field, and charged just $400 (or $4,000 today) for each cutting-edge heart surgery he performed in the 1950s, and often did not deposit the check, anyway (1). There were fewer healthcare administrators and managers to take a cut from the surgeon’s pocket; in contrast to today, hospitals were run by experienced physicians, not businessmen.

Things changed. Institutional Review Boards for medical research, informed consent for every procedure, the rights revolution of the 1970s (both on the new age left and the religious right), legalization of physician-assisted suicide, and widespread skepticism seemed to slow progress. Research doctors no longer worked in clinical practice. FDA regulations and the threat of massive lawsuits forced a risk-adverse approach to new medicines, devices, and treatments, to the detriment of patients waiting for a cure.

The convolutedness of medical billing forced a focus on quantity over quality, and closed many private practices: few new doctors today imagine opening their own office. Access to healthcare has improved marginally- many Americans remain uninsured and delay medical treatment due to cost. 1 million Americans declare bankruptcy each year due to medical expenses (2).

At some point, things have to get better. Recently, my friend quit his job in finance and went to medical school, following his old passion: he conducted small public-health research projects in high school, and his father is a physician. Operation Warp Speed, the American effort to discover and produce vaccines against COVID-19, was a demonstration of new prowess. The leading vaccines use mRNA research, which had been conducted behind the scenes for decades, and finally implemented for cancer treatment ten years ago. It is being released to the American public on Emergency Use Authorization: a breakthrough of red tape. Due to the costs of approval, promising treatments for small populations and the developing world had been left to wither, as there was no commercial viability. Hopefully, the new public focus on medical research and clinical trials will push government officials to do what is right for patients. This could be the herald of a new golden age in medicine.

 

(1) King of Hearts, book by G. Wayne Miller

(2) Medical Bankruptcy Statistics (thebalance.com)

Fruits of Vatican II

A Roman Catholic priest in a small Greek parish stood at the altar. His colorful vestment read “Jubilee 2000”.  What a figurative flash to the past! Folk mass, felt banners and banal vestments represented the short-lived embracing of faddish cultural trends. This was part of an unwritten zeitgeist summed up as the “Spirit of Vatican II”, or “change for change’s sake”, which claimed dozens of priceless high altars in its wake. 

During this era, say from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, vocations to the priesthood or sisterhood plummeted. From a practical perspective, young people taking vocations become tied to the institution they served. They need a sense of stability, whether the vocation is in the Church or the Military. I saw this in friends who resigned from NROTC during the transformational tenure of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. Seminary attendance had stabilized under Pope Benedict XVI, who pontificated on subjects as mundane as clapping at mass, calling the specter “religious titillation”. Young revolutionaries today work outside the Church, and the seminaries attract a more philosophically and spiritually mature candidate.

The Vatican has long been a powerbroker among the royalty of Europe, and a temporary retreat in the late 19^th century was an aberration to norms. The First Vatican Council (1870-1871) can be seen as an ecclesiastical retreat from the world at a time when Italy and Germany had just been unified. This council reinforced the authority of the Pope Pius IX, urging the faithful to look to him as an empirical bedrock of stability in a changing Europe. Piety and transcendentalism, Archangels and Demons, dominated Catholic spiritual life.  This era gave birth to parish churches with astonishing high altars and stained-glass windows; many of which in America can be seen around large-city downtowns today.

 The Church did not wait until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960’s to reengage the world. Instead, it was drawn back into contemporary affairs not long after it had retreated:

Pope Leo XIII expressing concern about the dignity of the working man and his family in the age of industrialization;

Pope Pius X ensuring charitable assistance to American immigrants arriving from Southern Europe;

Pope Benedict XV and Emperor Charles of Austria working to limit the devastation of the   First World War;

Pope Pius XII asserting Vatican authority over Mussolini’s fascist rule in Italy, on issues such as protection of Jews.

“Opening up the church” is a common catchphrase about Vatican II. Indeed, Italian clerics dominated the Papacy and other key Vatican offices. In the United States, Irish-Americans dominated the priesthood. To the chagrin of Southern European newcomers, these Irish clerics retained the mark of WASP oppression, preferring the Low Mass, and remaining reserved from parishioner’s daily lives.  Some describe the intellectual environment of the priesthood and Catholic scholarship as rigid and stultifying.

If anything, Vatican II gave a long-awaited green light empowering the faithful to use their talents to further their understanding. This in turn has refreshed philosophical debate within members of the Church, especially concerning the interface with political governance. As far as lay leadership is concerned, cracks in a hierarchical veneer emerged by the 1930’s. After receiving threats from the Ku Klux Klan, Father Charles Coughlin took to the radio with messages in favor of Christian social democracy, and against “the international money-changers in the temple”. Bishop Fulton Sheen also took to the radio, but worked from official Church teachings. Dorothy Day, a laywoman, started the Catholic Worker Movement. She printed a newspaper, advocated for labor rights, and provided relief for the poor. The internet today provides a platform for Catholic-focused websites such as EWTN, Church Militant, and One Peter Five.

The New Saint Basil’s Hymnal, printed in 1958 and still used in traditional parishes, excised “good old hymns” of the Victorian Era on the grounds that they contained lackluster theology and doctrine. In the same decade, Pope Pius XII removed redundancies from the Tridentine Missal. Recognizing that centuries of add-ons had complicated religious observance, the Church simplified rules on fasting and prayer routines in the 1950’s. 

 “Vatican II opened the church, and the people left”: Yes, the Catholic Church has attrition issues. But think of the many Christmas-and-Easter Catholics, who are peripherally attached to the Church. The decline of Mainline Protestantism serves as a cautionary story. For the Greatest Generation, attending mass on Sundays was a social obligation. When asked, many couldn’t elucidate on tenets of the faith, or on personal spiritual beliefs. Later generations did not feel a need to attend mass or even affiliate with the church. For an increasingly sophisticated and middle-class audience of Cultural Catholics, self-discovery is real learning, and pastors should guide with a fusion of approachablility and moral certitude is required: a “no judgement zone” policy has decimated the stature of once-solid institutions like the Episcopal Church; and too much “judgment day” talk- think the Mormon faith- deters wandering souls.

Importantly, Vatican II encouraged dialogue between neighbors, statesmen, and global citizens of different faiths. This is essential in an increasingly connected world, but was discouraged in a different time, lest the faithful be drawn to heresy. Father John Main, a Benedictine Monk, developed Christian meditations from his travels to Southeast Asia. Politically, social tensions have emerged in the Muslim world, especially in places like Indonesia, where limited ecological resources pit neighbor against neighbor. Today, snippets of Catholic teaching float around the halls of Congress, and into the courtroom; under the mantle of Natural Law. Catholicism, like Judaism, is not merely a religion, but also the basis of philosophical and moral codes.