Denver Catholic

18 AUGUST 12-25, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Questions of competence I t's a safe bet that 99.95 percent of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics have never heard of La Civiltà Cat- tolica [Catholic Civilization], a journal founded in 1850 by the Jesuits of Rome to combat the evils of the age (then taken to be s e c u l a r i s t l i b e r a l i s m and free- m a s o n r y ) . Its current circulation is perhaps half that of First Things, and while it has recently made attempts to broaden its readership by publishing English, Spanish, French, and Korean editions, it's also a safe bet that Civiltà Cattolica will remain a small-circulation magazine with a readership confi ned to what we might call "Catholic profes- sionals:" clergy of various ranks; papal diplomats; ož cials of the Roman Curia; academics and pundits. And the vast majority of them will read (or at least scan) it, not for scintil- lating content, but because its articles are vetted by the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, and are thus assumed to have some sort of quasi-ož cial status: which means that those articles are taken to refl ect the cast of mind of the current pontifi cate. So if you want to be in the know, you read (or at least scan) Civiltà Cattolica. On occasion, however, that can be a journey through the looking glass and into Wonderland. Last month, Civiltà Cattolica featured an article co-authored by its editor-in-chief, Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, and Pastor Marcelo Figueroa, who edits the Argentine edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. The article purported to analyze a startling "ecu- menism of hate" in the United States, forged by ultra-conservative Catho- lics and evangelical Protestants, and creepy-dangerous for its indulgence in a new Manicheanism that distorts the Gospel and divides everything in the world into rigid and narrow- ly-defi ned categories of good and evil. This bizarrešscreed generated weeks of controversy in the blogosphere, during which Father Spadaro tweeted that the article's critics were "haters" whose vitriol confi rmed the article's hypothesis – a Trumpian outburst ill-becoming a paladin of "dialogue." My friends and colleagues R.R. Reno, Robert Royal, and Fr. Ray- mond de Souza have ably replied to the comprehensive inanities of the Spadaro/Figueroa article: its ill-informed misrepresentation of American religious history; its surreal descriptions of 21st-century Ameri- can Catholicism and evangelical Prot- estantism; its obsessions with mar- ginal fi gures in contemporary Ameri- can religious life like R.J. Rushdoony and Michael Voris; its misreading of the dynamics of religiously-informed public moral argument in American politics; and its weird description of the premises of current Vatican diplo- macy, which will give comfort to the likes of Vladimir Putin, Raul Castro, and Nicolas Maduro. Those who care to sift through this intellectual dump- ster can consult Dr. Reno's article, Dr. Royal's, and Fr. De Souza's. The questions I'd like to raise here involve Civiltà Cattolica's relationship to its putative overseers in the Vatican Sec- retariat of State. What kind of vetting did this mis- begotten article get? Were any knowl- edgeable experts on U.S. Catholicism or American evangelical Protestant- ism consulted on what the overseers must have known would be an incendi- ary piece? Does the Spadaro/Figueroa article really represent the views of the Secretariat of State about today's debates at the intersection of religion and politics in the United States? If the answer to the last is "Yes," then what does the Secretariat of State make of the American situation as described by the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Chris- toph Pierre, in his addresses to the U.S. bishops – a description that bears no resemblance to the wasteland of madcap pseudo-theology and hatred described by Spadaro and Figueroa? If the answer is "No," then why was the Spadaro/Figueroa article cleared for publication? Does the Secretariat of State share the authors' seeming view that mur- derous jihadists rightly think of those who oppose them as "crusaders"? And can it be true that the Holy See's approach to confl ict situations in the world has abandoned the notions of "right" and "wrong," as the Spadaro/ Figueroa article suggests? Because of its relationship to the Secretariat of State, Civiltà Cattolica has long been read, not in the way serious readers read serious jour- nals, but like ancient augurs read the entrails of sacrifi cial animals. Perhaps both the future of this venerable jour- nal and the credibility of the Secre- tariat of State would be better served by severing the connection. For at the moment, the auguries raise deeply disturbing questions about the com- petence of both parties. The Catholic Di® erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Living out the Cabrini Option T here's much current debate about The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, the recent book by Rod Dreher about the need to create tight-knit faith com- munities. Here's another option, well established in Catho- lic social teaching: The preferential option for the poor. Let's call that the Cabrini Option and understand how we can all pursue that, right here, right now. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was born in Italy in 1850 and died in Chi- cago in 1917. Her missions included Colorado, memorialized at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden. "Originally a summer camp for the girls from the Queen of Heaven Orphanage, the property became a place of prayer, pilgrimage and devotion after the canonization of St. Cabrini in 1946," according to mothercabrinishrine.org. A statue of Mother Cabrini with two orphans "stands as a symbol of the love, com- passion, concern and care Mother Cabrini and the Sisters had for the poor and the homeless, especially children." If Mother Cabrini were alive today, she undoubtedly would still be caring for those in the greatest need. For Catholic Charities, that means women vulnerable to abortion, home- less women and single women with children. This month, Catholic Charities will have the grand opening of the new 150-bed Samaritan House Wom- en's Shelter in northeast Denver. The administrative ož ces of Catholic Charities will be co-located there. The $5 million project included $1 million from the city of Denver. That facility is in addition to the existing Samaritan House downtown, which shelters an additional 100 women each night. That's signifi cant, but con- sider that there were more than 1,700 homeless women in the seven-county metro region on one night in January, according to the 2017 Point-in-Time study from the Metro Denver Home- less Initiative. For women who are pregnant and may be vulnerable to abortion, and also for single women with children, Catholic Charities created the Mari- sol Services' continuum of care in health, housing and human services. We renovated our two pregnancy centers in Denver and Lafayette into Marisol Health medical centers, with medical care provided by Bella Natural Women's Care and Family Wellness. With one dozen Gabriel House locations throughout northern Col- orado, we provide infant formula, diapers and clothing, as well as access to parenting and fi nancial literacy classes, among many other services. With the support of the Archdi- ocese of Denver, we launched a new Marisol Homes location that provides housing for 16 women experiencing homelessness, along with their chil- dren. There are three other Marisol Homes locations, with capacity for 12 additional families. In September, Archdiocesan Hous- ing, an až liate of Catholic Charities, will open the 47-unit Guadalupe Apartments, a $13.5 million a¡ ord- able housing project in Greeley, with a range of social services. This is just some of what the Cath- olic Church can do when we focus on serving others with the love, mercy and compassion of Jesus Christ. Mother Cabrini, pray for us. Larry Smith is the president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver. Visit online at ccdenver. org or call 303-742-0828 to learn more, volunteer or make a donation. LARRY SMITH

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