Initiatives Chicago, IL 60629 Number in Support of Christians in the World 256
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National Center for the Laity January PO Box 291102 2021 Initiatives Chicago, IL 60629 Number In Support of Christians in the World www.catholiclabor.org http://twitter.com/InitiativesNcl 256 Covid- 19 reflects on gratitude, the opposite of which is resentment. “These days the virtues hardly get a Virtues, says Aristotle, come from look-in,” writes Julian Hughes, a British expert habitually doing good things in the home. Then, on geriatrics. The popular media and academia sound institutions reinforce virtue. Also, virtues lack a vocabulary for virtues. Commentators on come by way of literature, drama and Covid-19 and medical ethicists speculate about biographies. decisions amid a shortage of equipment. There Beth Ann Fennelly, Mississippi poet are plenty of employee handbooks and laureate, says that “literature improves us algorithms plus lots of protocols and guidelines. emotionally, cognitively and spiritually.” She But with Covid-19, “what is indispensable is that cites studies showing a link between reading clinicians exhibit the virtues,” says Hughes. literature and helping the needy. (Notre Dame Our default philosophy is utilitarianism Magazine [Spring/20], 500 Grace Hall, Notre or cost-benefit analysis. In extreme Dame, IN 46556) circumstances—nay in any circumstance—how William Donnelly (1926-2016) was a does one accurately calculate utilitarianism’s VA physician, a professor at Stritch School of greatest good? Hughes mentions a nurse who “at Medicine and a friend of our NCL. “Describing a the end of a long shift” stayed on the unit to help sick person only as a biological specimen” leads a Covid-19 patient who was expecting a call to “premature, incorrect diagnosis [and] a loss of from a loved one. The nurse did not consult a important information,” he said. Plus it soon handbook. She was “simply disposed to act as enough saps the morale of the health care she did.” (The Tablet [9/26/20], 1 King St. provider. Donnelly’s students were assigned Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 OGY, literature and performed scenes from stories in England) order to highlight virtues. A favorite was the Dr. James Drane, for whom Edinboro 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo University named its Bioethics Institute (230 Tolstoy (Bantam; $6.95). This and others Scotland Rd., Edinboro, PA 16444), argues for a provide “an opportunity to learn from the virtue approach to health care in Becoming a vicarious experience of another’s suffering” and Good Doctor (Rowman & Littlefield [1988]; they challenge students to bring “compassion $16.95). into their practice of medicine,” Donnelly In too many medical settings, writes believed. Drane, care providers miss “the face of the Our medical professionals are person being treated.” With charts, standard overwhelmed during this unique time. Yet the procedures, insurance reimbursement rates and virtues are on display in hospitals and clinics. “the malpractice crisis,” the medical world is Adherence to protocols is not enough for our diminished and depersonalized. A sick person recovery. We utterly depend on people of virtue. has little agency. A remedy, Drane continues, is For a primer on virtue ethics, try The “a venerable tradition in ethics that focuses on Road to Character by David Brooks (Random persons, on virtue and character.” It can help House [2015]; $18). “both younger and older practitioners of medicine today.” Attention Readers There is no official list of virtues. Drane explores a few, including friendliness and Thank you to all for your notes of beneficence. Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) named encouragement. four: practical wisdom, fortitude, self-discipline NCL is a little short of meeting its 2021 and justice. Catholicism adds faith, hope and budget goal. There is an opportunity to donate on charity. These days your INITIATIVES’ editor page eight of this newsletter. Taking the Initiative Taking the Initiative On Race Relations On Making Saints “We’ve reached a time in America By one count St. John Paul II (1920- where if we don’t say uncomfortable truths, then 2005) canonized 482 saints, most of whom were we will never make any progress when we deal clergy or religious. Yet John Paul II often spoke with racism,” says Fr. Bryan Massingale of about the need for lay saints. A poem attributed Fordham University in a Commonweal interview to him reads: “We need saints without cassocks, (www.commonwealmagazine.org/podcast; without veils. We need saints with jeans and 6/5/20). He calls out the Catholic Church for tennis shoes. We need saints that go to the “never summoning the courage or will to address movies [and] that listen to music [and] that hang [the sins of racism] directly.” A major factor for out with their friends… We need saints for the this failure is that “the Catholic Church wants to 21st century with spirituality appropriate to our deal with these issues in ways that won’t disturb new time… We need saints to live in the world, the comfort of white people… If white comfort to sanctify the world and to not be afraid of sets the limits of conversation, then that means living in the world.” we will never face the difficult truth: the only John Paul II’s successors followed the reason for the persistence of racism is because pattern of canonizing mostly priests and white people benefit from it.” religious. Massingale considers the “normative There are some lay saints the pipeline. whiteness” in the church as a form of idolatry. Let’s start with the half dozen Blacks from North “What makes the Church white and racist,” he America. Our Sunday Visitor (200 Noll Plaza, adds, “is the pervasive belief that European Huntington, IN 46750) has a 39-page pamphlet, aesthetics, European music, European theology, Holy Black Catholics, profiling them. and European persons, and only these, are Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) came to standard, normative, universal, and truly New York City from Haiti. He arrived with “four Catholic. In other words, when we talk about strikes against him,” writes Arthur Jones in what makes something Catholic, the default is Pierre Toussaint (Doubleday [2003]). “He was always to the products that reflect a white Black, a slave, a foreigner who didn’t speak the cultural aesthetic. Everything else is seen as language and a Catholic.” He was a talented Catholic by exception.” hairdresser and after his owners ended his To address racism Massingale believes slavery, Toussaint was sought by many wealthy that Christians need to practice the neglected clients. Toussaint was a one-person charity virtue of courage. He cites St. Thomas Aquinas, machine, giving his time and money to OP (1225-1274) who says that courage is the individuals (orphans, the unemployed, refugees precondition of all virtue. It allows one to and others) plus to institutions. He and wife surmount fear and opposition in order to follow Juliette (d. 1851) could be canonized together the gospel. “Moral courage,” concludes because she too practiced charity. Obtain more Massingale, “is what translates conviction into information from the Pierre Toussaint Guild action.” (1011 First Ave. #700, New York, NY 10022; He also calls for a positive kind of www.obmny.org). anger, again referencing Aquinas. There are Julia Greeley (d. 1918), born into three kinds of sin by anger: by excess, by slavery, was a housekeeper in St. Louis. After inappropriate object (misdirected anger), and by the 1865 Emancipation Proclamation she moved deficiency. Massingale describes deficiency with the family of William Gilpin, the first anger as “when we’re not angry when we ought governor of Colorado Territory. Greeley was to be, as in the presence of injustice.” Massingale attracted to Catholicism because of Julia Gilpin, concludes: “What [Aquinas] says is beautiful. the governor’s Catholic wife. Greeley was Anger is the passion that moves the will to devoted to her parish and involved in charitable justice…Thomas understood that unless we are efforts, distributing money, food and clothing. angry in the presence and reality of injustice, She became a Third Order Franciscan. Denver then the status quo will all too often continue.” firefighters regarded her as their chaplain. Liguori Publications just published An Hour With Julia Greeley by Fr. Blaine Burkey, OFM Cap ($1.50). It draws from his biography, In Service of the Sacred Heart (Julia Greeley Guild, toward” young adults, he writes in Cardijn 1535 N. Logan St., Denver, CO 80213; Studies. It was imposed. It wanted “to reclaim www.juliagreeley.org). Christendom and guard against the perceived Daniel Rudd (1854-1933) is not in the dangers of communism and modernism.” Today final six, but he is an ININITIATIVES’ favorite the threat is secularism. because he was a journalist for justice. His By contrast, Cardijn’s specialized American Catholic Tribune with a 10,000 Catholic Action was “an inductive or bottom-up circulation was the only Catholic journal model” in which young adults formed one published by Blacks. He was never satisfied with another in an apostolate of like-to-like. “It the separate but equal formula, writes biographer contrasts with the new ecclesial movements,” Gary Agee in A Cry for Justice (University of Ahern continues. It also “contrasts with many lay Arkansas [2011]; $22.95). Rudd was an 1889 groups linked to religious congregations [and] founder of what is today National Black Catholic from many contemporary models of working Congress (www.nbccongress.org). with young people, where the direction and Canonization by a pope does nothing decision making is left to professional youth or for the deceased and does nothing for God. The campus ministers.” benefit is for those who aspire to holiness. Why The only formation that lasts is “a then wait for officialdom? Why not popular spirituality of action,” Ahern emphasizes.