‘We as individuals’, the news and Barry the Great

Hello everyone,

Today is the feast of Saint Bernard and you read The Tuesday Pillar Post. You’re reading this a little late, and I apologize — I’m still trying to get things back on track after the health issues my family has been dealing with. Sorry.

The Saint Bernard whom the Church honors today was the founder of a Cistercian monastery in Clairvaux, France. He was also an influential preacher, known for his sermons, letters, and theological texts that reflect a profound spiritual wisdom focused on the depth of God’s love and the transforming power of grace.

He was a great man in the 1100s: his own monastery grew to 700 monks during his lifetime and he founded almost 70 others. He also advised popes, defended the church, made peace between monarchs and preached against the persecution of Jews in Europe.

Bernard is the patron saint of beekeepers. That’s not because he was known for his bees — the man was extremely busy, as I just told you — but because his sermons were said to be as sweet as honey. A little cloying, if you ask me, but that’s the way it is.

But Bernard is not the patron saint of Saint Bernards.

The large rescue dogs are actually connected to another Bernard: Bernard van Menthon.

In the 1050s, decades before Bernard of Clairvaux was born, Bernard of Menthon founded a small chapter of canons—clergy who lived in community—on a mountain pass in what is now Switzerland. The canons ran a boarding house, which Bernard opened because he realized that many people traveling through the pass were being robbed by bandits.

The guesthouse, originally named after Saint Nicholas, but later renamed when Bernard of Menthon was canonized, is still open today as the Great Saint Bernard Hospice.

In the 17th century, the canons there bred a dog strong enough to serve as a guard dog (remember, they created the animal to protect travelers from robbers). Eventually, someone named the dog after their saintly founder.

But soon after the St. Bernard was bred, the canons realized that his powerful body and strong temperament made him suitable for rescue work. And since the clergy themselves were not so keen on sifting through the snow in search of avalanche survivors, they put the dogs to work.

Saint Bernards have proven themselves to be excellent rescuers. But while they’re often depicted with a small barrel of brandy around their necks, that’s largely a myth—except, it seems, for a dog named Barry, who was famous among Swiss travelers in the early 1800s and saved more than 40 people lost in the snow.

Apparently Barry sometimes wore a small bottle of liquor around his neck, with a special collar made for him by a canon.

Barry’s stuffed body, with his special collar, in the Swiss National History Museum. Credit: PraktikantinNMBE/Wikimedia. CC BY SA 4.0

The news

Speaking of Switzerland, the Swiss diocese of St. Gallen is experiencing one of the most unusual episcopal election procedures in the Catholic world, involving canons from the cathedral and a lay parliament, as well as, of course, the Pope.

You see, in the diocese of St. Gallen, the canons of the cathedral have the right to vote on the new bishop of their diocese, from a pre-approved list that is checked by the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops. But a lay group also has a role in the process, as it has the right to veto some candidates before the election.

In short, the whole thing is very interesting, very rare and very Swiss. You can read more about it here , and if you like arcana, procedural law, or Catholic trivia, you’ll definitely enjoy it..

And if you’re wondering — I don’t know if there’s much mafia in the diocese of St. Gallen. But if there is, they don’t get the right to vote.

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Two Ohio priests made headlines last week when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that they have legal custody of a two-year-old boy who lives in their downtown parish.

The situation has raised questions, fueled debate and given rise to speculation about what exactly happened and what might happen next.

The priests themselves, as might be expected, declined to comment. But we at The pillar spoke to a number of people and provided an explanation, with the aim of providing as much clarity as possible.

What happens when two priests have custody of a baby? Read more here.

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The agreement between the Vatican and Beijing, which sets out the protocol for the appointment of bishops and is intended to regulate the situation of the Catholic Church in China, is expected to be extended in the coming months.

But while the terms of that agreement appear to have been repeatedly violated by Chinese officials, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the pope’s “special envoy for peace,” has sought outreach to China outside the usual diplomatic channels.

That could mean new opportunities for China and the Holy See to interact — or it could mean some chaos and more unpredictability for Catholics living in China. So which is it?

Ed Condon does a useful analysis. Read it here.

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In Venezuela, a new apostolic nuncio presented his diplomatic documents to President Nicolás Maduro last week. That doesn’t sound like much of a story, except that Maduro is claiming victory in a recent election that many observers believe he lost, sparking protests, 24 deaths and 2,400 arrests.

For this reason, some people in Venezuela have interpreted the meeting of the nuncio as an endorsement by the Holy See of Maduro, and believe that the meeting should have been postponed.

What happened? Did the Holy See fall into a trap set by Maduro? Or did someone simply not realize what a serious political problem the appointment could become?

The pillarEdgar Beltrán explains.

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We individuals

With the Planned Parenthood abortion and hot dog truck parked nearby, Cardinal Blase Cupich delivered the prayer intention last night during the opening session of the Democratic National Convention.

Since the cardinal’s prayer, there has been a lot of uproar online over the fact that he did not pray in the name of Jesus and that he did not mention Jesus Christ anywhere in the 356 words of his speech.

I understand that criticism, but I don’t necessarily share it.

Cardinal Cupich prayed to the “God of all creation” at an interfaith gathering. Since I assume he believes that the Holy Trinity is indeed the God of all creation, I can understand why he spoke in a way that allowed people of other monotheistic religions to join him in prayer.

I note that Archbishop Jerome Listecki did pray in the name of Jesus Christ when he offered a prayer at the Republican National Convention last month, but I do not consider Cupich’s omission to be necessarily offensive to Christians.

Some critics also noted that while Father James Martin explicitly prayed for the unborn when he offered a prayer at the 2020 DNC, Cardinal Cupich made no such request. That’s a fair criticism, and perhaps for the first time, some Catholics have rightly wondered why Cupich was unwilling to follow Father Martin’s laudatory example on that front.

After the cardinal prayed, a few friends texted me with another critical comment—one about dress, no less. These friends wondered why Cardinal Cupich chose to come to the podium in a somewhat ill-fitting clerical suit, rather than the cassock and biretta that might have given his presence, and thus his words, more weight among the crowd.

They pointed out that the cardinal was wearing a cassock and that this was the right time to wear it.

I agree with that criticism and I would even go one step further.

Why would a cardinal of the Catholic Church choose to show up for prayers in a business suit, looking like a polite Lutheran preacher from the Midwest, when instead he could observe the traditions of the Church and wear the awesome and appropriate formal robe, the ferriola?

The ferriola is great, because all capes are great, and few people have the opportunity to wear them with a straight face. Bishops do, it’s one of the few perks of a very hard job, and they shouldn’t just ignore that option.

By the way, didn’t the Cardinal consider what impression he might have made – and therefore how much resonance his prayer might have found in the hearts of those present – if he had been prepared to put on scarlet episcopal gloves and come on a Sunday morning?noble family?

The Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon in a procession, 1823. Public domain.

That, I promise you, would have blown the Planned Parenthood publicity stunt right out of the headlines. Fight spectacle with pomp and circumstance, Your Eminence, when you have the chance.

But apart from this criticism, I do have an important remark about the Cardinal’s invocation. There was a part of his prayer that rather surprised me.

“May we as individual Americans,” Cupich prayed, “become more and more instruments of God’s peace.”

That is, in a sense, a very American prayer. Not so much because of the emphasis on peace, but because of the emphasis on individuality. The cardinal was not praying that we would come together to do something great, or that we would better recognize that the bonds of interdependence actually make for peace.

Instead, he prayed that each of us individually could fulfill God’s plan.

That was a missed opportunity for a Catholic, that’s for sure. Because Catholic Americans know that while there are many wonderful things about our country, the cult of radical individualism can be a crippling mistake. The primacy of the individual, and his potential, and his inexhaustible freedom, runs through our national consciousness, and through our mythology, in a way that is antithetical to the Catholic sense of being incarnate, and of working for the common good.

Radical individualism separates us from the traditions of our fathers and the needs of our brothers, and places a foolish priority on our right to choose, without reference to the good things we should choose. Radical individualism limits the freedom to choose and the freedom to license. It suggests that the wisdom of the past pales in comparison to the ingenuity of the self. It promises a prosperity of self-fulfillment, self-actualization, and self-sufficiency, with little understanding that flourishing comes from connection, not from unbridled achievement.

I am not sure whether Cupich deliberately emphasized the possibility of an individual achieving God’s peace, rather than the peace that could be achieved by a united people.

But it struck me as a missed opportunity to make the most uniquely Catholic contribution to the American political landscape: the realization that we are most fully human when we are united and animated by the bonds of love — love for the wisdom of our fathers, the well-being of our brothers and sisters, and the dignity of our children.

Well, maybe it says something to avoid the ferriola.

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Thank you again for your prayers for my son Max. He is home from the hospital, recovering well and even had a half day of school yesterday.