1. Essays & Reflections: R. R. Reno, editor of First Things, initiated an important conversation a week ago when he published a provocative post titled
“Say ‘No’ to Death’s Dominion.”
According to Reno, “There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost. … the mass shutdown of society to fight the spread of COVID-19 creates a perverse, even demonic atmosphere.”
Are lockdowns and social distancing a cowardly surrender to “death’s dominion”? After seeing a Tweet by NY Governor Cuomo – “My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. We will not put a dollar figure on human life” – Rod Dreher at The American Conservative
responds with an emphatic “Yes!” Dreher: “When the Catholic editor of the leading conservative Christian magazine allows the fanatically pro-abortion Andrew Cuomo to outflank him on the issue of the sanctity of human life, well, we have a problem.” Read the whole response here.
2. Essays & Reflections: Brad Littlejohn, President of The Davenant Institute and Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Theory at Patrick Henry College, also responds to Reno.
According to Littlejohn, Reno’s position
“puts conservative Christians in a somewhat awkward position. After all, have we not spent decades denouncing the ‘culture of death’ that was more than happy to sacrifice the lives of the weak unborn, the vulnerable, and the inconvenient elderly for the pursuit of freedom, wealth, and material comfort. Now, it looks – at first glance at any rate – that the same Christians are denouncing as a ‘culture of death’ a society that is prepared to sacrifice freedom, wealth, and material comfort in order to preserve the lives of the weak, the vulnerable, and the elderly.”
The question, then, is do we have a duty to be fearless in facing death, as Reno suggests, or appeal not to self-love but love of neighbor, as Dreher and Littlejohn suggest? Or framed better by Littlejohn: “is it more loving to our neighbor to increase the number of people who will get sick and die in the near term, or to decrease our economic well-being in the near-term (thus, presumably, increasing sickness and death in the long run)?” For his answer, Littlejohn turns to The Lord of the Rings.
Read the whole piece here…it’s well worth your time.
3. Essays & Reflections: One more response to Reno (of many) that's worth your time: Timothy O’Malley’s “The Church’s Response Is Saying ‘No’ to Death’s Dominion,”
which argues that if we operate out of a hermeneutics of fear and focus exclusively on the darkness, we miss the presence of sacrificial love. Here’s O’Malley:
"A sacrificial orientation towards society will need to be cultivated after COVID-19. The world itself, as well as our nation, is primed for a renewal of the virtue of solidarity, of the bonds of communion that define what it means to be a human being. For the first time in decades, most of us in the United States are united in a transcendent project, a task that extends beyond my individual trip to Florida for spring break or my mimosa-filled brunch on Sunday-Funday. I am seeking the well-being of my neighbor, even if I do not know his or her name. I am offering a gift of quarantine, a gift of which there will be no immediate return.
Here, the Church has a specific vocation to place in the days after COVID-19. It is to fan the flames of this almost Eucharistic solidarity, a spirit of fraternal connection, that unites us the world over."
O’Malley suggests that post-COVID-19 the Church may have an opportunity to engage the political sphere with a different message related to the dignity of life. With pro-choice politicians like Gov. Cuomo already using the language of sacrifice and dignity of life (cf. Tweet above), without fully comprehending the logic or foundation underlying their arguments, we may have an opportunity to flip the tables on them: “If we can shut down restaurants, professional sports leagues, businesses, and every dimension of society to save a single life, then why can we not find a way to save the life of a single unborn child? To support families who seek to offer life to children? A migrant who has come to the borders? To care for the elderly who are tempted to pursue assisted suicide because they are treated not as a gift but as a burden?” Read the whole piece here.
4. Eighth Day Books Review:
Albert Rossi, in his book Becoming a Healing Presence, argues that our task is to surrender, to become a conduit through which God’s healing fire reaches others. And the keys he suggests for such a life have been forced on most of us in recent days: simplification, or as he calls it, “subtraction." Read the full review here, buy a copy from Eighth Day Books, and may our forced “subtraction” make us into a conduit of God’s healing fire.
6. Bible:
Is. 40:18-31, Gen. 15:1-15, Prov. 15:7-19. Online here.
7. Liturgy:
Today is the feast day of St. Hypatius, Bishop of Gangra in Paphlagonia (in the north of Asia Minor). He was present at the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea (A.D. 325) and was renowned by all for his pious life and miracle-working. The Emperor Constantius ordered that a likeness of Hypatius be made during his lifetime. The emperor kept this likeness in his palace as a weapon against all adverse powers. Once, upon returning from Constantinople, Hypatius was attacked in a narrow gorge by Novatian heretics and was thrown from the road into the mud. At that moment a woman from that group struck him in the head with a stone, and thus the saint died. Immediately the woman went insane and took that same stone and struck herself with it. When they took her to the grave of St. Hypatius, he interceded before God on her behalf. She was healed by the greatly compassionate soul of Hypatius, and lived the remainder of her life in repentance and prayer. St. Hypatius died and took up his habitation in the Eternal Kingdom of Christ our God, in the year 326. ~The Prologue of Ohrid
8. Word from the Fathers:
This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors. ~St. John Chrysostom
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