The clip above—from the greatest series of movies of my lifetime—is among my favorites. At this point, things are looking grim. The remainder of the fighting men of Rohan, all their women and children, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli—have made for Helm’s Deep in the hope that it will protect them from the 10,000 strong army of Saruman, bred for the purpose of man’s destruction. Young Haleth reflects the general feeling of the people of Rohan, and he is not unduly pessimistic. Things look pretty bad for them.
But Aragorn assures him… “There is always hope”.
This is true, such as it is. There is always hope, until one stops hoping. When one ceases to hope, there is not some neutral place to rest. There is either hope, or there is despair.
I will have to admit to a sizable diminishment in my reserves of hope, and this is because I see America headed in a terrible direction, led by a man of no character, no sense of honesty, and no humanity. Worse, I see many of my fellow citizens reflecting and amplifying these pathologies, even as they have deluded themselves into considering them virtues. The American polity has become mean, obnoxious, inhumane, and paranoid.
America has had periods of renewal in the past, and the fact that our Constitution provides for methods of checking a tyrant is manifest. That those methods are themselves under siege—what with Congress ignoring its prominence in our system in order to act as a privy council, and the judiciary—the holdout branch in terms of providing a check to a runaway executive—threatened with impeachment to punish the insufficiently loyal, has been a feature of my waning hope.
I cannot say I’ve lost faith in our system, but I can say my confidence in it is badly shaken.
But I have not lost faith in…faith.
I truly believe that the path out of this mess will involve Americans rediscovering their faith. I get that we don’t agree on matters of faith, or even if religious faith is rational. I do think that if adherents of the three great monotheistic religions in this country decide that their lives would improve with a little more God in them, we would be better off. I think that the increased distance of the godly from God has been filled in no small measure by the worship of power and retribution.
I have been thinking about the importance of religion in shoring up our people a lot these days. Long-standing and attentive readers (h/t Jack Henneman) are aware of my veneration of our nation’s founding and its Founders, and on this matter, none was as succinct and effective in summing it up as John Adams, who in 1798 informed a group of Massachusetts militia:
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
It gets no clearer than that. “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people”. In the absence of morality and religion, we cannot bet on it. I do not think that we are an irreligious or immoral society, but we are increasingly becoming both. I have been praying for renewal.
And then…
…the Pope died. On the day after the holiest day of the year for the world’s Roman Catholics, the spiritual leader of that faith breathed his last. I was in Spain at the time, and I had the great opportunity to pray for his soul in a gorgeous cathedral in Salamanca alongside other believers similarly engaged.
I also prayed for our country. I prayed that its people would remember what Francis stood for, what JESUS stood for, and that they would turn their faces to God. I prayed for the Cardinals who I knew would descend upon the Vatican, that they would select a man of love, kindness, and intellect as Francis’ (and Peter’s) successor.
And then, I slipped in one more request. “God, if your favor be upon an American cardinal, please inspire the Curia to see your way.” In that cathedral, I—perhaps selfishly—prayed for an American cardinal to become the Pope because I wanted there to be an example of goodness and love and humanity from among us to remind us of who we were, who we are, and to shine a stark light on who we have become. I wanted for there to be a man of great standing in the world and in our country who could—in our own language—remind us of just how important faith, hope, and love are to us and to the success of our country. I wanted a Pope who could serve as a foil to our inhumane, toxic, and hateful President, someone who could—over time—help American Catholics (at first) and then Americans in general—remember what it is to “…love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” I'm not a very good Catholic, and heaven knows I am occasionally inhumane, but every bone in my every-Sunday-as-a-child-to-mass body tells me that there is something desperately wrong going on.
I walked out of the Spanish cathedral and sat down on the steps in front and tweeted this:
Leo XIV
A little over 24 hours ago, I finished a business call and checked the news, knowing of course that the cardinals were busy with their duty to elect a new Pope. I was stunned to see that “white smoke” had been seen, and the world sat awaiting the announcement of who the new Pope was.
I turned on my TV and began to watch the coverage, the very worst kind of coverage which is lots of chatter designed to fill the time until an event occurs.
As I sat there, Catherine came into my office presumably on other business, and she watched it with me. She is not a Catholic. I am. That she showed interest in the proceedings meant a lot to me, and truth be told, I told her two weeks ago of my desire and prayers for an American Pope.
And then the door opened and the crowd cheered. The moment was at hand.
I figured that the speed with which the Pope was selected was a sign that one of the “front runners” had been chosen, and my money was on the fellow from Manila. And then the words came, simultaneously three voices—one the cardinal announcing it, the second the interpreter interpreting the cardinal, and then the TV announcers—all telling me that Cardinal Robert Prevost — an American — had been elected.
My tears flowed freely.
The tears were tears of hope. Hope that this man—simply by being who he is—can provide Americans with the example of someone just like us, who is acting decidedly not like us. A man who can speak to us in our own language and with the authority of two thousand years. A man who can remind us that loving our neighbor and loving God are the highest commandments.
I understand that I am expecting a lot, and that I could wind up being disappointed. Hoping for an analog to Pope John Paul II slaying the godless commies is a longshot. But I think I'll keep the faith. If there were any way to get a “sense of the room”, I’d bet that the Cardinals thought like I did. That they see great danger in where America is headed, and as the world’s leading nation, that danger would spill over to others. I think they—or at least a sufficient number of them—realized that the most effective counter to the anger, hate, and evil afoot would be the voice of an American, a Chicago White Sox fan, a Villanova Wildcat. I've seen some of them in the press saying this wasn't a big factor in their deliberations, but it is hard to imagine it wasn't deep in many hearts.
He’s off to a good start. Here’s a quote from the sermon from his first Mass as Pope, and he has a good handle on the problem:
Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.
These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.
Once again, there is always hope.