Glenn T. Stanton, director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family, writes in:

Doesn’t it always happen like this?

Here we are, getting ready for our big week, reflecting on our Savior’s death for humankind and celebrating the triumph and miracle of his resurrection, and then we get the news from Newsweek that we as a movement are now dead. Well, not quite dead, “but less of a force in U.S. politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory.” Still, quite a bummer.
In this week’s cover story, “The End of Christian America,” Jon Meacham, Newsweek’s editor, makes 3 basic points.

1. American is no longer a Christian nation

2. Christianity has less influence on American politics and culture than five years ago.

3. Items 1 and 2 are very good news indeed.

Curiously, nearly nothing in the two primary sources that Meacham draws upon—the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS 2008) or the recent and curiously named Newsweek opinion poll “A Post Christian Nation?”—would lead any honest analyst to the conclusions Meacham creates in points 1 and 2. In fact, they would lead many honest readers to the opposite conclusion

1) America is no longer a Christian nation

First, this phrase “Christian nation” is a famously confusing one. No recognized leader in the so-called “religious right” has ever called for America to be a theocracy or believed it ever was, but this is what Meacham accuses. He asks, “What then does it mean to talk of ‘Christian America’? Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles.” Well, if you talking about the biblical principles of not slandering, stealing or murdering, then, yes. But I don’t recall any of us ever proposing that it be the law of the land that everyone, say, confess their sins, one to another, or that we lock people up when they chose to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. We do however believe something close to what Meacham himself admits in his article, which he offers as a corrective to people like us. He would have us understand that,

[America's] foundational documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, not the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (though there are undeniable connections between them). This way of life is far different from what many overtly conservative Christians would like.

Well, actually not so different. We understand that Christianity had a deep impact on our nation’s founding, its guiding documents and our national growth. Deep, but not singular. We thankfully live in a country of religious freedom.

But let’s examine his case as to what he believes has changed of late.

Meacham references ARIS 2008, released last month, which is a mix of bad, good and interesting news on religion in America. But what got Meacham’s attention were two points.

First, the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, moving from 8 percent in that year to 15 percent in 2008. ARIS refers to these as “nones.” This development is indeed stark and concerning, but doesn’t mean that all of these belong to the group called “whatevers,” who either believe nothing or everything. It is very possible the “nones” are believers of some sort who don’t want to be labeled by pollsters and shoved into their boxes.

Second, Meacham notes the percentage of self-identified Christians has declined 10% between 1990 and 2008, from 86 to 76 percent over that period. Only 1.2 percent of Americans identify as a Jewish, and Muslims accounted for 0.6 percent of our nation. Atheist and agnostics make up only 0.9 and 0.7 of our nation’s population, respectively, even though this is nearly a four-fold growth rate since 1990. Clearly, the overwhelming majority of our nation remains Christian in identification, even as the overall Christian numbers shrink relative to population growth. And what Meacham doesn’t say in his article is that his own Newsweek poll reported that 81 percent of Americans self-identify as Christian, with the largest subset being “Evangelical Protestant”. Can we really be “Post-Christian” as Meacham says we are, when 76 to 81 percent of citizens identify as Christians? What group, or marketer, would not be delighted with such numbers? But of course, how we live according to this self-identification is another matter entirely, one that Meacham doesn’t concern himself with.

Regarding the decline of Christianity, of course it is the mainline Protestant churches that have seen “a significant fall in numbers” since 2001, according to ARIS. Meacham does admit that a “notable finding” in ARIS is the rise in the preference to self-identify as ‘Born Again’ or ‘Evangelical’ rather than with any Christian tradition, church or denomination.” They continue, “The Protestant denominations, mainly composed of conservatives and sectarian groups, have grown in size and proportion . . . [which] suggests a movement towards more conservative beliefs and to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.” The ARIS authors call this growth an “important historical trend.” I wonder how Meacham figures something is declining when it is actually growing?

Meacham, in his case for a shrinking Christianity also recognizes “the popularity of Pentecostalism,” which he describes as “a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally . . .” (emphasis mine). In the same sentence, he admits, “there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe.” But he could have accurately used the phrase “remains vibrantly Christian” in this statement because it is not generic religions that are growing notably, but the conservative, Pentecostal and evangelical forms of Christianity, although at slower rates than the “nones” and the agnostics and atheists of late. But doing so would have cut into his thesis.

2) Christianity has less influence on American politics and culture than five years ago.

Interestingly, Meacham offers only one data point for this consequential statement: “Two-thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is ‘losing influence’ in American society.” You would think that since this is an article on the declining influence of Christian conservatives, and that Meacham employs this figure in his story, that respondents are saying these Christian conservatives are losing influence, but the poll question asked more widely about “religion as a whole” losing influence in American life. However, conclusions from the poll tell a much different story, which Meacham didn’t share with his readers. This Newsweek poll found that 74 percent of Americans who think religion is gaining influence believe this a “good thing” and 81 percent of Americans who believe religion is losing influence feel this is a “bad thing.” Did Meacham not think that was an important tidbit to share with us? Additionally, this poll specifically asked whether “Evangelical Christian conservatives” have greater or lesser influence on American politics in recent years. The responses were essentially evenly divided (26 and 25 percent, respectively) while 37 percent of Americans believe evangelical influence has essentially stayed the same. Also, 74 percent (!) of the public told Newsweek‘s pollsters they have “old-fashioned values about marriage and family” a question so poisoned from its phrasing that it is stunning it got such a strong positive response.

Interestingly, Meacham does explain that fewer people believe “the United States is a Christian Nation” today than when George W. Bush was President, but fails to explain that more believe this today than did the first year the question was asked in this poll, 1996. Meacham, as the magazine’s editor, can’t claim that all this critical information was in his original draft, but his editor scrapped it.

And if evangelical influence and “Christian America” is waning, someone should explain how our nation passed 43 state laws in the past few years protecting marriage from same-sex redefinition, as well as 30 state constitutional amendments, no small legislative feat. And wasn’t it an evangelical pastor that single-handedly hosted, according to most reviews, last year’s most thoughtful presidential debate and offered an unapologetically Christian prayer, launching one of our nation’s most significant Presidential Inaugurations? Find anyone, besides Newsweek, who would pooh-pooh such influence?

3) Items 1 and 2 are very good news indeed.

Even though items 1 and 2 are demonstrably untrue, they would in fact not be good news for those of any political stripe who desire a vibrant, participatory democracy. Princeton University Press has just published an important new book by Claremont McKenna professor Jon Shields entitled, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right, which explains,

The Christian Right has therefore helped to reinvigorate American democracy and eliminate the end-of-ideology politics that the New Left held in such contempt . . . [and] as the ink dried on Robert Putnam’s now famous ‘bowling-alone’ thesis, conservative Christians were turning out to vote in record numbers.

Newsweek, who has seen their own actual and significant declines in both circulation and newsstand sales, seem to be of the David Byrne school of thought who sang, “facts just twist the truth around.” But if, as FOLIO magazine reported last December, Newsweek is interested in transitioning “from a newsmagazine to ‘thought-leader,’ something more akin to the Economist,” it won’t be able to do so by continuing to place the process of actually thinking at contradictory angles with those nagging things called “facts.”

Not wanting to be outdone by the Times, the Washington Post followed their lead in denuncing the Pope today, all in the name of science.

Sundry blogger and pundit have been raking the Pope over the coals for the past day for his comments on AIDs and condoms. A New York Times editorial this morning summarizes the basic complaint:

Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.

As reported on Tuesday by journalists who accompanied the pope on his flight to Africa, Benedict said that distribution of condoms would not resolve the AIDS problem but, on the contrary, would aggravate or increase it. The first half of his statement is clearly right. Condoms alone won’t stop the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Campaigns to reduce the number of sexual partners, safer-sex practices and other programs are needed to bring the disease to heel.

But the second half of his statement is grievously wrong. There is no evidence that condom use is aggravating the epidemic and considerable evidence that condoms, though no panacea, can be helpful in many circumstances.

No one, of course, would accuse the New York Times of playing politics with science, but let’s consider what the experts say.

Edward C. Green, the director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and Allison Herling Ruark, a research fellow at the Center, wrote just one year ago in First Things:

In fact, the mainstream HIV/AIDS community has continued to champion condom use as critical in all types of HIV epidemics, in spite of the evidence. While high rates of condom use have contributed to fewer infections in some high-risk populations (prostitutes in concentrated epidemics, for instance), the situation among Africa’s general populations remains much different. It has been clearly established that few people outside a handful of high-risk groups use condoms consistently, no matter how vigorously condoms are promoted. Inconsistent condom usage is ineffective—and actually associated with higher HIV infection rates due to “risk compensation,” the tendency to take more sexual risks out of a false sense of personal safety that comes with using condoms some of the time. A UNAIDS-commissioned 2004 review of evidence for condom use concluded, “There are no definite examples yet of generalized epidemics that have been turned back by prevention programs based primarily on ­condom promotion.” A 2000 article in The Lancet similarly stated, “Massive increases in condom use world-wide have not translated into demonstrably improved HIV control in the great majority of countries where they have occurred.”

Faith communities are not shutting their eyes to evidence when they choose to emphasize the “core recommended strategy of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage.” These behaviors have, in fact, proved far more effective than condom use in curbing HIV transmission for the vast majority of any population. A 2001 study of condom use in rural Uganda found that only 4.4 percent of the population reported consistent usage in the previous year, a rate that is probably typical of much of Africa. In contrast to the estimated 95 percent or more of Africans who did not practice consistent condom use in the past year, studies from all over Africa show a solid majority of men and women reporting fidelity over the past year, with a majority of unmarried young men and women reporting abstinence.

…

Thus far, research has produced no evidence that condom promotion—or indeed any of the range of risk-reduction interventions popular with donors—has had the desired impact on HIV-infection rates at a population level in high-prevalence generalized epidemics. This is true for treatment of sexually ­transmitted infections, voluntary counseling and ­testing, diaphragm use, use of experimental vaginal microbicides, safer-sex counseling, and even income-­generation projects. The interventions relying on these measures have failed to decrease HIV-infection rates, whether implemented singly or as a package. One recent randomized, controlled trial in Zimbabwe found that even possible synergies that might be achieved through “integrated implementation” of “control strategies” had no impact in slowing new infections at the population level. In fact, in this trial there was a somewhat higher rate of new infections in the intervention group compared to the control group.

The New York Times officially endorsed cloning this morning. You remember how for the past 8 years, whenever the topic of embryonic stem-cell research came up, the proponents told us that they just need the so-called “spare” embryos, “left-overs” from IVF clinics, that were “going to die anyway”? Remember how they’d scoff at anyone who said this will undoubtedly lead to cloning? (Anyone with eyes to see knew that it would, after all, be medicinally required for the hoped-for therapies to work.) Remember, too, how just last week with great fanfare Obama pronounced that cloning “is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society” . . . and how he made sure to qualify it as only applying to “reproductive” cloning?

Well, it’s no great surprise that the Times wants the rules that govern stem-cell research to be defined “as broadly as possible to allow the greatest potential for advances.”

They go on to explain to readers why they made smoke-cloud arguments about spare embryos for all these past years: “This single-minded focus on the surplus embryos — left over after patients’ fertility treatments were completed — was mostly because a strong moral argument could be made that these microscopic, days-old embryos were doomed to be discarded anyway. Why not gain potential medical benefits from studying their stem cells?” What they presented as the end-game was really just the first baby step.

And now they tell us what they really want: “Scientists believe that one way to obtain the matched cells needed to study diseases is to use a cell from an adult afflicted with that disease to create a genetically matched embryo and extract its stem cells. This approach — known as somatic cell nuclear transfer — is difficult, and no one has yet done it.” Oh, right, “somatic cell nuclear transfer”—-cloning and then killing.

Fr. Neuhaus’s voice still rings clear: “Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethics, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on the way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as the unexceptionable.”

First it happened to Jody’s beloved Hoyas, now to Mary Rose’s Friars.

During Q&A at the February 6th House Democratic Retreat, President Obama renewed his pledge to fund embryo-destructive stem cell research even though promising alternatives exist. “I guarantee you that we will sign an executive order for stem cells. … God gave us power to make smart decisions, to cure diseases, to alleviate suffering,” he said.

Earlier in the week, during the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama said: “But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there … is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.”

How quickly we forget.

Mary Rose, one wonders whether scientific theorizing isn’t hard-wired in the brain, too . . .

AP has the story here.

In today’s Washington Post:

Few issues are likely to generate more emotional opposition than federal funding of stem cell research. Handled wrongly, it could energize conservative opponents and derail Barack Obama’s presidency. There is no question that we must move ahead, but caution is key.

In today’s New York Times:

Social conservatives are threatening to roll out Arkansas-style adoption bans in other states. And the timing couldn’t be worse: in tough economic times, the numbers of abused and neglected children in need of foster care rises. But good times or bad, no movement that would turn away qualified parents and condemn children to a broken foster care system should be considered “pro-family.”

Maggie Gallagher and the New York Times debate the public display of the Ten Commandments and Seven Aphorisms.

This left me speechless. So I’ll just point to what Maggie Gallagher has said:

The Return of Open Attacks on Religious Minorities: Prop 8′s Legacy [Maggie Gallagher]

Well this is certainly change.

The voices of tolerance in California are concluding their campaign against Prop 8 with this TV ad, which engages in a level of blatant religious hatred I’ve never seen in American politics. Ever.

I don’t think its been seen in American politics since the late 19th Century attacks on Catholics, which may be why the Catholic Conference in California was so quick to denounce the ad.

It depicts two young Mormon missionaries (they are identified as LDS) invading a home and ransacking their belongings. It’s ugly in the extreme.

Remember, a vote for Prop 8 in California leaves same-sex couples protected by full marriage-equivalent civil unions. None of that matters. If you think marriage means a husband and wife you are just like a racist and you can be treated any way they want.

Apparently people who think they are the civil rights movement of the century do not think they have to behave with even minimal decency towards those of us who disagree with them.

These are not some outliers in the wacky blogosphere. These are the leaders of the gay marriage movement in America who made and ran this ad.

A very revealing (and scary) moment.

Every decent voice needs to stand with the LDS folks against this kind of vicious attack on their faith community because as American citizens, they have exercised their civil rights to vote, organize, and donate.

. . . only if you believe the media-stereotypes and don’t know any conservatives first-hand. Both of which, of course, are true for many who have spent their entire lives in the academy. So this article in today’s New York Times didn’t strike me as particularly surprising at all. The results, however, surprised the researchers:

Indeed, the conservatives did rate the traditional golf and marriage jokes as significantly funnier than the liberals did. But they also gave higher ratings to the absurdist “Deep Thoughts.” In fact, they enjoyed all kinds of humor more.

“I was surprised,” said Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University, who collaborated on the study with Elisabeth Malin, a student at Mount Holyoke College. “Conservatives are supposed to be more rigid and less sophisticated, but they liked even the more complex humor.”

Jody, you’re entirely correct in your summation of “Catholics In Alliance.” Last week the political scientist Michael New analyzed their recent study on abortion—where, you know, they concluded that we should just focus on the “root causes,” just like a certain presidential candidate. New concluded that their conclusion was bunk:

Unfortunately, their study did not acknowledge any of the previous academic or policy research on pro-life legislation. As such, they did not engage or find fault with previous research indicating that pro-life laws were effective. Overall, it seems that Catholics in Alliance was primarily interested in making the case that welfare spending was the best way to reduce abortion. They even refused to properly acknowledge and publicize their own findings which indicated that certain types of pro-life laws were effective.

So I hear you loud and clear on that. But that’s not the worst thing about this Catholics in Alliance video: Did you hear the music? Ugh. A psuedo-Church-Choir rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Musically it’s painful to listen to. And lyrically? Well, consider the lyrics:

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

No heaven, no hell, and no religion—then all the people will live life in peace. That sounds like the perfect theme song for Catholics in Alliance.

Edward Cardinal Egan, the Archbishop of New York, asks us to just take a look.

The Wall Street Journal offers the following pop quiz:

Who’s donated the most money to an effort in California to defeat Proposition 8, an initiative on the November 4 ballot that would define marriage as between a man and a woman in the state?

A) Gay-advocacy organizations

B) Civil-rights groups

C) The California Teachers Association

If you guessed “C,” you understand the nature of modern liberal politics. And if you didn’t, perhaps you’re wondering what exactly gay marriage has to do with K-12 public education. The high school dropout rate is 1-in-4 in California and 1-in-3 in the Los Angeles public school system, odds that worsen considerably among black and Hispanic children. So you might think the CTA, the state’s largest teachers’ union, would have other priorities.

Yet last week the union donated $1 million to the “No on Proposition 8″ campaign. Of the roughly $3 million raised by opponents of the measure so far, $1.25 million has come from the teachers’ union. “What does this cause have to do with education?” said Randy Peart, a public school teacher in San Juan who was contacted by a local television station. “Why not put that money into classrooms, into making a better place for these kids?”

In fact, the CTA and its parent organization, the National Education Association, have used tens of millions of dollars in mandatory teachers’ dues to advance all manner of left-wing political causes. And members like Ms. Peart are right to ask questions. In some years barely a third of the NEA’s budget has gone toward improving the lot of teachers themselves.

In addition to vigorously fighting school choice and other reforms that benefit underprivileged children but threaten the public education monopoly, the NEA has directly (or via state affiliates) bankrolled Acorn, the Democratic Leadership Council, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and, naturally, the Human Rights Campaign, which lobbies for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights.”

Public school teachers of America, take note. This is your dues money at work.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports:

In the end, it all comes down to eggs.

On Nov. 4, California voters will be asked to decide on Proposition 2, an animal rights ballot measure that would grant the farm animals in California the opportunity to spread their hooves and claws, rather than being confined to restrictive cages, as many chickens, sows and veal cattle now are.

But because veal and pork are not major industries in California, the battle over Proposition 2 is focused almost exclusively on the state’s henhouses, which opponents say will be hard hit by higher production costs if the measure passes.

“This is a well-intended initiative for animals with some very negative unintended consequences for people,” said Julie Buckner, a spokeswoman for Californians for Safe Food, the leading anti-Proposition 2 group. “It’s going to wipe out the California egg farmers, and it’s going to raise the food costs for consumers. And this is at a time when our economy is hurting.”

Supporters of the proposition, the first of its kind in the nation, reject those arguments, casting the ballot measure as an act of kindness for animals whose bodies and byproducts usually end up on dining room tables.

“If animals are going to be killed for food,” said Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, “the least we can do is treat them with decency and give them a semblance of life.”

No word yet on how much money the California Teachers Association has donated.

George Weigel has penned a sharp response to Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec’s response to his original Newsweek column.

The whole thing is worth reading, so it’s hard to select just a couple sample paragraphs. But here’s the opening:

I take it as an iron law of controversy that when three tenured law professors like Nick Cafardi, Cathy Kaveny, and Doug Kmiec fret in print about “intellectual siren calls” and “elegant theorizing,” something other than real argument—moral argument or policy argument—is afoot. A serious, bipartisan, national debate about the ways in which people of goodwill in both political parties can work together to build a culture of life in 21st-century America would be welcome. Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec are not making the contributions to that argument of which they were once capable. Indeed, as the Most Rev. Charles Chaput, archbishop of Denver recently put it (speaking, he emphasized, as a private citizen), “To suggest—as some Catholics do—that Senator [Barack] Obama is this year’s ‘real’ pro-life candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred ‘pro-life’ option is to subvert what the word ‘pro-life’ means.”

Why? Because the public record amply demonstrates that Senator Obama is not the abortion moderate of our professors’ imagination, but a genuine abortion radical. In the third presidential debate, Obama described Roev. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that obliterated the abortion law of all fifty states, as “rightly decided”—a judgment with which Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec have all disagreed in the past. Moreover, Senator Obama’s defense of Roe extends far beyond anyone’s “elegant theorizing.” Support for Roe was Obama’s stated reason for opposing Illinois bills aimed at providing legal protection for children who survived an abortion. Support for Roe buttressed Obama’s criticism of a Supreme Court decision upholding state partial-birth abortion laws. The full implementation of the most radical interpretation of Roe would seem to be the goal of Obama’s support for the federal Freedom of Choice Act [FOCA], which, by stripping Catholic doctors of “conscience clause” protections currently in state laws, would put thousands of Catholic physicians in jeopardy.

In short, there is very little, if anything, in Senator Obama’s public record to suggest that he agrees with Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec that abortion is a “tragic moral choice.” On the contrary, the 2008 Democratic platform removed language that described abortion as “regrettable” from the relevant plank. Do Professors Cafardi, Kaveny, and Kmiec imagine that they have a better grasp of Senator Obama’s views on the life issues than, say, the National Reproductive Rights Action League [NARAL], or other pro-choice Obama supporters?

The ending is even better. Read the entire thing.

Allow me one more post on Down syndrome. Michael Franc, the vice president of government relations for the Heritage Foundation, takes off his policy hat and reflects on his experience as the brother of a sibling with Down syndrome as he writes a letter to Track, Bristol, Willow, and Piper Palin.

That’s the disengenous argument of David Gibson.

For a wonderful point by point response, see this post by Ed Whelan.

Ramesh Ponnuru adds some further thoughts here.

The latest example of how Catholic schools succeed where others cannot, courtesy of George Will in today’s Washington Post.

It began in 1996 with 79 students meeting in the four corners of a roller-skating rink. Today the 540 students — most from two-parent families with an average of five members and an income of $38,000 — enjoy an old parish school, refurbished and expanded. About one-third of those admitted to the ninth grade do not graduate, half because they cannot cope academically, others because they chafe under CRJHS’s three hours of homework a night and its strict dress and discipline codes.

The school exists to nurture a culture of achievement for children with no other option for college preparation, including those who in public schools might be diverted onto a vocational track. It is not skimming off the cream of the crop of local students; it rejects any who can get accepted by, and afford, other Catholic schools. Some especially promising students are directed to Catholic schools that offer scholarships. Which makes CRJHS’s college placement rate especially remarkable: In the past seven years, 99 percent of graduates have been accepted by at least one college, 75 percent of them four-year institutions.

CRJHS can have its work program, its entirely college preparatory courses (“the old, dead white man’s curriculum,” says an English teacher cheerfully), its zero tolerance of disorder (from gang symbols down to chewing gum), its enforcement of decorum (couples dancing suggestively are told to “leave some space there for the Holy Spirit”) and its requirement that every family pay something, if only as little as $25 a month. It can have all this because it is not shackled by bureaucracy or unions, as public schools are.

The “Cristo Rey model” is as American as another Chicago-area startup, McDonald’s. And like McDonald’s, the first of which was in suburban Des Plaines, the model is being replicated. The Cristo Rey Network now has 22 schools around the country, with four more coming by 2010.

Read the entire column to find out what makes the Cristo Rey model so successful.

Thanks, Amanda, for posting those links to the pieces in First Things on 9/11. I remember reading them at the time, and revisiting them again was instructive.

Today I came across a homily that was preached seven years ago and subsequently published in the Wall Street Journal. I hadn’t seen it at the time, but I wish I would have. It’s beautifully composed and rich in wisdom. Many of the themes should help anyone in a situation of powerlessness, coping to understand evil, trying to figure out how best to respond to wrongdoing, and/or grieving the loss of a loved one.

The homily was preached at Barbara Olson’s funeral (which fell on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows) by Father Franklyn McAfee. Olson was aboard United Flight 77 when hijackers crashed it into the Pentagon. From the plane, she called her husband Ted, and Fr. McAfee picks up the story there:

His wife was about to die, and there was absolutely nothing he could do. He was absolutely powerless. He was solicitor general of the United States, and he could do nothing for the woman he loved.

Ted, there is someone who understood your feelings, who knows your pain and sadness.

The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows honors the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, who stood next to the cross on which hung her own flesh and blood, nailed there by violent men.

She saw her own son dying, and she was unable to help. Only a parent or spouse can understand and know that pain. Mary stood there unable to do anything. She wanted to reach up and bandage his wounds, soothe his pain, wipe his brow, kiss away the hurts.

She was his mother. She would reach up and take him off that cross. But she could not. She was powerless.

…

I cannot explain the madness that took place on Tuesday. For what we saw with our own eyes is the face of evil. And evil cannot logically be explained because, as those of you who are steeped in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas know, evil—malum—is nihil. It is nothing.

Since God is existence itself—God told Moses, “I am who am”—evil would be nonbeing. Nothingness. And to confront nothingness is to come face-to-face with unspeakable horror.

We can, however, understand how people would be compelled to murder with enthusiasm so many people.

A terrorist is not born. Terrorists are made, with every conscious decision they make in life to hate, to choose death rather than life.

…

A handful of terrorists commandeered four planes, crashing three of them, including Flight 77, into symbolic buildings, killing in the process thousands of real flesh-and-blood people with families. These terrorists gave their lives, and took so the lives of so many others, with no hesitation at all. Have Satan and death won?

What did Americans do when they heard the shocking news and saw the devastation? Did they take to the streets with signs and placards, marching with fists upraised, saying, “Death to terrorists!” No, they did not.

What did they do? They took to the streets—in search of places to give blood. In fact, in some places so many of them that there was a seven-hour wait to give blood. They took to the streets to bring food to those who were rescuing people. They took to the streets to go to church, to hold candlelight vigils, to pray.

…

Barbara Olson, full of life, cheerful, laughing, smiling, loving, was the opposite of the dark powers that brought her death. But their evil deed was in vain.

We are people of life. And no terrorist, no matter how powerful, can take that away. As Pope John Paul II has said, “When God gives life, he gives it forever.” We believe in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. We Catholics also believe that the soul is immortal; it cannot be destroyed. We believe that Barbara Olson is alive, not just in our hearts and in our memories, but actually alive, fully conscious and aware. Now.

We know this because Christ is risen from the dead. And if it isn’t true, if Barbara is really gone and gone forever, if you will never see her smile again, or hear her laughter, then this is all playacting. And I had better go and get another job.

Because there is an empty tomb in Jerusalem, our hearts, though mourning, are full today. We will see Barbara again.

Death cannot win against life.

Christians are those who, in the midst of December, believe in Spring.

I believe Paul saw all of this, and was so moved that he picked up his stylus and wrote those words which have become the Christian’s battle cry ever since; the words that should be on your hearts and lips as you leave this cathedral today:

“Oh death, where is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?”

Read the entire homily here.

We’ve heard a lot during this election season about the historic nature of the contest—and the contestants. At first it was either Hillary or Obama—the first female nominee or the first black nominee. Now it’s either Palin or Obama—the first female Vice President or the first black President.

The civil rights movements for women and blacks are well-known, and it is good that these barriers are being broken. Yet Michael Gerson suggests that “there was a third civil rights barrier broken at the political conventions this year”:

Trig Paxson Van Palin — pronounced by his mother “beautiful” and “perfect” and applauded at center stage of the Republican convention — smashed the chromosomal barrier. And it was all the more moving for the innocence and indifference of this 4-month-old civil rights leader.

Gerson has penned a wonderful column, and it is well worth your time to read it all. But here’s one more taste:

Trig’s moment in the spotlight is a milestone of that movement. But it comes at a paradoxical time. Unlike what is accorded African Americans and women, civil rights protections for people with Down syndrome have rapidly eroded over the past few decades. Of the cases of Down syndrome diagnosed by prenatal testing each year, about 90 percent are eliminated by abortion. Last year the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended universal, early testing for Down syndrome — not just for older pregnant women. Some expect this increased screening to reduce the number of Down syndrome births to something far lower than the 5,500 we see today, perhaps to fewer than 1,000.

The wrenching diagnosis of 47 chromosomes must seem to parents like the end of a dream instead of the beginning of a life. But children born with Down syndrome — who learn slowly but love deeply — are generally not experienced by their parents as a curse but as a complex blessing. And when allowed to survive, men and women with an extra chromosome experience themselves as people with abilities, limits and rights. Yet when Down syndrome is detected through testing, many parents report that genetic counselors and physicians emphasize the difficulties of raising a child with a disability and urge abortion.

This is properly called eugenic abortion — the ending of “imperfect” lives to remove the social, economic and emotional costs of their existence. And this practice cannot be separated from the broader social treatment of people who have disabilities. By eliminating less perfect humans, deformity and disability become more pronounced and less acceptable. Those who escape the net of screening are often viewed as mistakes or burdens. A tragic choice becomes a presumption — “Didn’t you get an amnio?” — and then a prejudice. And this feeds a social Darwinism in which the stronger are regarded as better, the dependent are viewed as less valuable, and the weak must occasionally be culled.

Gerson’s op-ed ran in today’s Washington Post. And on the front page of today’s Post is this heart-wrenching yet heart-warming story of a father’s love for his son.

If you ever ran into Nokesville dad Thomas S. Vander Woude, chances are you would also see his son Joseph. Whether Vander Woude was volunteering at church, coaching basketball or working on his farm, Joseph was often right there with him, pitching in with a smile, friends and neighbors said yesterday.

When Joseph, 20, who has Down syndrome, fell into a septic tank Monday in his back yard, Vander Woude jumped in after him. He saved him. And he died where he spent so much time living: at his son’s side.

“That’s how he lived,” Vander Woude’s daughter-in-law and neighbor, Maryan Vander Woude, said yesterday. “He lived sacrificing his life, everything, for his family.”

Vander Woude, 66, had gone to Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville on Monday, just as he did every day, and then worked in the yard with Joseph, the youngest of his seven sons, affectionately known as Josie. Joseph apparently fell through a piece of metal that covered a 2-by-2-foot opening in the septic tank, according to Prince William County police and family members.

Vander Woude rushed to the tank; a workman at the house saw what was happening and told Vander Woude’s wife, Mary Ellen, police said. They called 911 about 12 p.m. and tried to help the father and son in the meantime.

At some point, Vander Woude jumped in the tank, submerging himself in sewage so he could push his son up from below and keep his head above the muck, while Joseph’s mom and the workman pulled from above.

When rescue workers arrived, they pulled the two out, police said. Vander Woude, who had been in the tank for 15 to 20 minutes, was unconscious. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

…

“They always considered Joseph a wonderful blessing to the family,” said Francis Peffley, pastor at Holy Trinity, where Vander Woude served as a sacristan and also trained altar servers. “His whole life was spent serving people and sacrificing himself. . . . He gave the ultimate sacrifice. . . . Giving his life to save his son.”

I’m not a fan of obituaries, but this is one to read in full.

These stories reminded me of this column Rich Lowry wrote on Trig Palin and babies with Down Sydrome in general. A taste:

It used to be that children with Down syndrome were institutionalized at birth. Without the love, care and education that any child needs, they lived stunted lives. Now, a generation of people with Down syndrome has been raised by families that love them. Advances in medical care and education mean they live full lives. Their capabilities differ — as is the case with everyone — but they graduate from high school, hold jobs and live on their own.

When Palin received the news about Trig, she was devastated and scared. She kept it to herself, until her husband got back from a business trip and she confided in him. They didn’t tell anyone else, including their other children. “Not knowing in my own heart if I was going to be ready to embrace a child with special needs,” she told People magazine, “I couldn’t talk about it.” It wasn’t until he was born that she says her fears washed away.

No one should trivialize the challenges Trig and the Palins will face. About 40 percent of children with Down syndrome are born with a heart defect. There will be the cruelty — intentional or not — of other children and the frustrations of struggling with tasks that come so much easier to others. And yet there will be the joy, as unalloyed and precious as any of us experience.

And Lowry has posted some responses he received from parents here.

But none of this really captures Lowry’s emotion as well as his initial blog post on the matter a week or so ago, which I paste below:

When I was thinking of Trig, I was reminded of an encounter I had a couple of weeks ago on the Delta Shuttle from Washington to New York. It was a mostly empty plane, but I went all the back to the very emptiest part of the plane to spread out and enjoy he quiet. And there was a man sitting in the very back row who immediately piped up, “Hi. I’m Ian. Would you like to sit next to me?”

He was a guy with Down Syndrome, maybe in his twenties. I declined the offer, but we struck up a conversation. He was going to New York for a family celebration, including for his birthday. I told him I had a birthday coming up too and he lit up and came over to vigorously shake my hand in congratulations—more delighted by my birthday than his own.

When the plane began to fill up a woman and her daughter came all the way to the back with a huge bag. I began to wonder to myself if I should offer to help them with it, when Ian popped up, told them he’d get it, and lifted it up and shoved it in the overhead compartment. When two men came down the aisle with a box they weren’t sure would fit overhead, he intervened and told them it would—”trust me”—and put it up for them.

He chatted amiably with his neighbors during the flight, and when we landed was up out of his seat first thing to help that woman get her bag down.

From this brief encounter, I dare say Ian is friendlier, better adjusted and more considerate than about half of the people on the streets of Manhattan or San Francisco on any given day. Yet most of those people are perfectly unperturbed by the elimination of babies with Down syndrome in the womb. To hell with them. God bless Sarah Palin for bringing Trig into the world, and may he shower those around him with as much sunshine as the gentleman I met on that flight.

I find Will Saletan’s statistical analysis cum speculation on the probability that other political daughters have been pregnant out of wedlock a bit offputting. Some things should be private.

But he does make a good point along the way:

Is Sarah Palin the first nominee on a major-party presidential ticket whose daughter got pregnant out of wedlock? Or is she just the first whose daughter didn’t get an abortion?

The reason you’re reading about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is that she’s taking it to term. If she had aborted it, you’d never have known.

…

Remember that before you judge or poke fun at Sarah Palin. She’s not the candidate whose daughter messed up. She’s the candidate who didn’t get rid of the mess.

Two interesting articles in the Wall Street Journal today. One about Bobby Jindal’s path from Hinduism to Christianity to Catholic Christianity:

Mr. Jindal’s roommate at Brown University became his baptism sponsor. His parents did not attend the ceremony, which he says was “certainly disappointing.” But he persisted. Mr. Jindal participated in nearly every campus Bible study group. One morning, while Mr. Jindal prayed in Brown’s chapel, a priest who had observed the young man tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to teach a Catholic education program for youths, at a local parish. Not yet confirmed, Mr. Jindal said “I don’t think I can do that. I’m not Catholic.”

“Oh, look,” joked the priest, “since Vatican II, anything’s allowed.” So Mr. Jindal accepted.

The other about kidney donations:

Lots of well-intentioned individuals want to give something of themselves, but few take the project as far as my friend Anthony DeGiulio, a 36-year-old securities trader who yesterday donated a kidney. The really unusual thing is that he gave it to a perfect stranger.

Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage, sends along the following:

At 10:00am next Wednesday, July 30th, pastors and church leaders from across California will join together with their colleagues in Florida and Arizona, forming a “Pastors Rapid Response Team” to protect marriage in three states which will see marriage amendments on the ballot this November.

The Rapid Response Team will encourage, equip and inform pastors about ways in which they can promote the marriage amendments in their own congregations. If you live in California, Florida, or Arizona (or know people in these states), please spread the word to your pastor, priest, or church leader!

The first of what will be monthly conference calls is to be simulcast (in both English and Spanish) at locations across California, Florida and Arizona. Already, more than 150 churches have volunteered to host the simulcast in California, plus 20 sites in Florida and currently 2 in Arizona. With simulcast sites across each state, the monthly simulcast events will bring together church leaders in each community, forging relationships across denominational lines, as we all work together to protect marriage.

What: Pastors Rapid Response Team Simulcast
When: Wednesday, July 30 at 10:00am PDT
Who: Pastors, priests, and other church leaders
Where: Simulcast locations throughout California, Florida, and Arizona.

Visit www.ProtectMarriageSD.com for the latest list of simulcast host locations, event information, schedules, and other marriage resources for church leaders.

Attendees are requested to register online for the event to ensure that sufficient materials are available at each host location. If your church would be interested in hosting an event, there is still time for that also. For more information about hosting the simulcast (either with online broadcast or via telephone hookup with Powerpoint presentation), contact Chris Clark at 619-415-5453 or marriagequestion1@skylinechurch.org.

The Rapid Response Team is an important opportunity for church leaders to stand together, making sure that they are informed and equipped to effectively mobilize their congregations in support of marriage this fall. Please ask your pastor or priest to register today!

Jody noted some amusing mistranslations last week (here and here). Well, there are a lot more where they came from. John Derbyshire provides the best of “Engrish.” (Note that according to our managing editor some of the spelling errors may offend our clientele.)

So that’s what happened to Anthony . . .

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.