I’ve been doing some etymological research. Bishop, you might know, is a modernized version of the Old English bisceop, derived from the Latin episcopus, which comes from the Greek episkopos. And epi-skopos means “one who watches over.” Not surprisingly, this wasn’t a New Testament neologism—episkopos was originally a title for government officials, applied analogously to apostolic Church leaders.

All of which is a long way of affirming that, yes, bishops by their very title, not to mention the power bestowed in ordination, are called to watch over their flocks. Which makes Anthony Stevens-Arroyo’s quibble on the Washington Post religion blog so odd, however unsurprising it may be. Stevens-Arroyo is pleased that there’s been an apparent hiatus in the refusal of Communion to pro-choice politicians, but he’s not so happy when bishops issue verbal reminders of Church teaching. Specifically, he takes offense at “press releases” admonishing public figures not to profess in actions what they do not profess in words.

In case you haven’t noticed, Catholic bishops have stopped denying communion to politicians in this 2008 political campaign. The new approach is to invoke spiritual counseling and then publish a press release.
Such was the path chosen by Cardinal Egan in New York, who counseled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani not to take communion; and by Archbishop Naumann, of Kansas City who did the same to Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.
. . .
I am not against Catholics in office following the moral teachings of the Church: but I question the wisdom of a bishop publishing his “spiritual” advice. There are better ways of counseling Catholics than issuing press releases. Is the Archbishop so focused on Catholic values that he has misunderstood politics? Or is he so focused on politics that he has misunderstood Catholic values?

Egan, if I remember correctly, privately spoke with Guiliani, and it was only when Guiliani received Communion at the papal Mass in St. Patrick’s—an eminently public act of outward union with the Church—that Egan publicly responded. Of course, there’s always the question of what is most prudent and what is most pastorally effective, but so long as the Church is comprised of flesh-and-blood people who are part of a larger public society, it is only natural that the bishop will also need to assume public (i.e., clear, open, vocal) leadership. And when the press is asking questions (to put their interactions with the Church in the most charitable terms), the bishop might even need to preach through a press release. It’s not a particularly novel approach—Had the Areopagites had newspapers, I wouldn’t be surprised to find an op-ed therein signed “Paul.”

[One more etymological musing: Bishops, from the earliest years of the Church, were her official preachers. And preach is, of course, from the Latin predicare, meaning “to publicly proclaim.” To publicly proclaim the Truth of Jesus—revealed in the Gospel, manifest in the Eucharist. For that, at least, we hope and pray.]

Yesterday, Thomas Hibbs gave a praising review of Christopher Nolan’s latest achievement, The Dark Knight here on the First Things website:

With the record-setting release of The Dark Knight, his sequel to Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan . . . stakes his claim to be our most inventive and most philosophical filmmaker. . . . What makes Nolan’s latest film such a success is not . . . Ledger’s compelling presentation of evil, on which critics have focused their attention, but the way in which he uses that character to bring out the depth and complex goodness of the other characters in the film, including Batman. The title of the film is not The Joker but The Dark Knight.

New York Press reviewer Armond White has a darker perspective: “The Dark Knight is not an adventure movie with a driven protagonist”; according to him, it’s no more than a “psychodrama in which Batman/Bruce Wayne’s neuroses compete with two alter-egos: Gotham City’s law-and-order District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), and master criminal The Joker (Heath Ledger)—all three personifying the contemporary distrust of virtue.” He goes on:

We’re way beyond film noir here. The Dark Knight has no black-and-white moral shading. Everything is dark, the tone glibly nihilistic (hip) due to The Joker’s rampage that brings Gotham City to its knees—exhausting the D.A. and nearly wearing-out Batman’s arsenal of expensive gizmos. . . . This pessimism links Batman to our post-9/11 anxiety by escalating the violence quotient, evoking terrorist threat and urban helplessness.

But what White considers deplorable moral gray area, Hibbs considers Nolan’s strong point: his expert ability to highlight a novel angle of the hero’s burden.

Consciously making use of classic noir thematic and stylistic elements, Nolan specializes in the dramatic portrayal of quests for which there is no possibility of a traditional happy ending or a complete recovery of what has been lost. The best that can be hoped is, as [Al] Pacino’s character [in Nolan's previous film Insomnia] puts it, that we “not lose our way.”

A similar premise undergirds Nolan’s retelling of the Batman myth. . . . Batman Begins invests the backstory of Bruce Wayne’s embrace of the Batman persona with philosophical depth. Scarred and formed by witnessing his parents murder and the impotence of the legal justice system, Wayne crafts a “symbol” to intimidate evildoers. Batman’s quest to restore justice in Gotham is often hard to distinguish from the pursuit of raw vengeance. Thus, Batman himself is always in danger of becoming what he fights against; as Alfred (Michael Caine) warns him in the first film, “don’t get lost inside the monster.”

While White considers The Joker’s taunt, “What would I do without you? You complete me,” as a message that “confus[es] our sympathy” and indicates our “hero is as sick as his villain,” Hibbs finds it indicative of Nolan’s complex villain “whose amoral destruction has as its goal the discovery of someone at the other end of the spectrum, his complement.” Hibbs continues,

The Joker espouses a nihilist philosophy concerning the arbitrariness of the code of morality in civilized society; it is but a thin veneer, a construct intended for our consolation. If you tear away at the surface, “civilized people will eat each other.” . . . The Joker’s attempt to bring down the entire system of civilization has the scope and feel of terrorism; in fact, the film features many genuinely terrifying scenes. . . . [But] the film does not succumb to The Joker’s vision. It is not nihilistic; it is instead about the lingering and seemingly ineradicable longing for justice and goodness that pervades the film. As Batman put it in the original film, “Gotham is not beyond redemption.”

And although it comes as a small light in the darkness, I agree there was hope at the end: The Joker failed his final terrorist attempt to push civilian and prisoner hostages to “eat each other.” And our protagonist Batman distinctly attributes it to human hope in his concluding dialogue with The Joker, extending what’s considered heroic not just to icons like him, but to the average citizen who takes the courageous path.

If you haven’t already, you should check out Hibbs’ full review, as well as his latest book, Arts of Darkness: American Noir and the Quest for Redemption.

Continuing in my role as RJN’s press secretary, readers might be interested in this write-up on the Anti-Catholicism panel. The New York Times “City Room” blog reports:

Experts say that anti-Catholic sentiment — much of it originating in, or as a response to, immigrants in New York — remains an enduring force in American culture.

That was the consensus of a panel assembled at the Museum of the City of New York on Tuesday night to consider the question, “Is Anti-Catholicism Dead?”

The panel is part of the exhibition, “Catholics in New York, 1808 to 1946,” which runs through Dec. 31.

Like the exhibition, the 90-minute discussion — moderated by Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal magazine, a Catholic biweekly opinion journal — was heavy on history, but the speakers also raised questions of contemporary significance.

…

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus — a leading conservative intellectual, a former Lutheran pastor and the editor of the leading Catholic journal First Things — offered a surprising view on the question.

“To be a Catholic is not to be refused positions of influence in our society,” he said. “Indeed, one of the most acceptable things is to be a bad Catholic, and in the view of many people, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic.”

Father Neuhaus dismissed the notion that anti-immigrant sentiment was related to anti-Catholicism, since many Latino immigrants to the United States are Catholic. (But he did note that the church, which has been strongly pro-immigrant, could be seen as having a vested interest in the immigration debate, since immigrants are a major source of members.)

He added that anti-Catholicism was as likely to come from the left — sometimes from commentators who believe that a “threatening theological insurgency is engineered and directed by Catholics,” with evangelical Protestants merely as the movement’s “foot soldiers.”

…

It was only during the question-and-answer session that the church’s child sexual-abuse scandal came up. Mr. Steinfels said the scandal put fundamental issues about “sexuality, celibacy and the priesthood” before the public, while Father Neuhaus received applause when he said that Catholic bishops should have responded early in the scandal by acknowledging the extent of the scandal and begging for forgiveness.

Fr. Neuhaus has penned a reply to Doug Kmiec on Catholic political obligations and pro-choice candidates. It’s in the National Catholic Register, but only available to subscribers.

The Pro Ecclesia blog has posted some excerpts:

… The question is that of justice for unborn children. When one candidate supports the unlimited abortion license and another wants the abortion question returned to the states, it is disingenuous to suggest that they are equally pro-choice. And to say that the first candidate’s position is closer to a Catholic understanding of subsidiarity is, I am sorry to say, risible. Catholic teaching and the mandate of justice is that all members of the human family, born and unborn, be protected in law. To deny that protection is a grave injustice.

The candidate who would return the abortion question to the states so that citizens working through their elected representatives can enact laws protecting the unborn is, in taking that position, pro-life. The candidate who, by supporting Roe v. Wade, would deny to citizens that opportunity is pro-choice. It is a great disservice to try to obfuscate such an obvious distinction.

***
It is deeply regrettable that Mr. Kmiec cites Archbishop Chaput’s 1976 support of President Carter, who endorsed Roe v. Wade, as evidence that one can rightly support his preferred candidate today. Archbishop Chaput can speak for himself, and he has, both on the First Things website (May 20) and in his new book Render Unto Caesar. He makes it unequivocally clear that he regrets that 1976 decision, which he rationalized at the time along lines very similar to those now employed by Mr. Kmiec.

The archbishop says that he does not believe there is a proportionate reason — a reason he will one day have to give to the aborted babies — to justify support for a pro-choice candidate. Nor has Mr. Kmiec indicated such a proportionate reason. Mr. Kmiec claims his candidate wants to reduce the number of abortions by reducing the incidence of unwanted pregnancy, and he will do that by encouraging “responsible sexual behavior.” One may be permitted to point out that four decades of sex education, including the massive promotion of contraception, has not been a great success in reducing unwanted pregnancies or abortions.

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