Pelosi Orders Four Portraits of Former Democratic Speakers Removed From U.S. Capitol

On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from the Capitol Building of four portraits of former Democratic House speakers who had ties to the Confederacy. Robert Hunter of Virginia, James Orr of South Carolina, Howell Cobb and Charles Crisp of Georgia. The removal of the portraits is the latest meaningless gesture from the speaker and Democrats following the death of George Floyd. 

Pelosi sent a letter to House Clerk Cheryl Johnson ordering the removal of the four portraits in observance of Juneteenth, an unofficial holiday commemorating the Republican’s emancipation of the last slaves in the Confederacy.  

“There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy,” Pelosi proclaimed. 

Just hours after Pelosi’s letter to the House clerk, the portraits were taken down and carried away. 

Pelosi claims she didn’t know the former speakers had ties to the Confederacy until it was pointed out to her by a Capitol curator, ABC News reported. Wait until she learns the history of her own political party.

When exactly will the Democratic Party — which defended slavery, the Confederacy, and, most recently, segregation — be removing itself from the Capitol?  

The Capitol has a lot of other portraits and symbols in its halls that surely the left finds problematic. Former generations will never be as woke as today’s radicals. Historic symbols don’t tell us where our nation is headed. They tell us where it’s been.

Widespread outrage following the death of George Floyd has been politically weaponized into amorphous accusations of so-called systemic racism, white privilege, and white supremacy. We still don’t know what motivated former officer Derek Chauvin to treat George Floyd the way he did. Maybe there was personal animosity between the two from when they worked together at a nightclub. 

Tearing down statues and erasing our history accomplishes nothing other than making people like Nancy Pelosi even more ignorant about their nation’s history than they already were.

Why Economics Alone Will Not Make America Great Again

There is a major problem with books written solely from an economic prism.

Consider the fact that the American economy is booming by all major indicators. Unemployment is down to record lows. Inflation is minimal. Consumer confidence is up. We have not seen times like this for decades. Admittedly, wages are still low, and debt levels are off the charts. Other major economic problems lurk on the horizon, but, for now, everything seems to be running well.

Indeed, for some, never in recent memory have we been so prosperous. However, at no time in postwar history have we been so divided, unhappy, or lonely. If economics is so important, we should be happy … or happier than we are.

Economics as a Secondary Perspective
Of course, books written under an economic prism do provide insights into reality. However, it is a partial perspective—and a secondary one.

The Republican Workers Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy, and Why It Was Just What We Needed is a book that attempts to explain the last general election and present administration from this partial yet secondary perspective.

Author F. H. Buckley, a Foundation Professor at George Mason University, readily admits his economic outlook and even likes to define himself as a “right-wing Marxist.” He expresses the American Dream in economic terms as a “mobile and classless society” now gone awry. The author imagines a new class struggle between a rich liberal establishment now holding power and the more conservative yet forgotten working class representing the oppressed. He thinks we are living in revolutionary times, not unlike 1917, and he is on the side of the new proletariat.

\Provocative Positions
In all fairness to Prof. Buckley, he does agree that culture matters and that things like two-parent families and strong communities make economic sense. However, he does not see these moral issues as matters of public policy. He takes a seek-ye-first-real-jobs attitude and “after that, we can take care of ourselves.”

The Canadian now American citizen is provocative. He claims the American Dream is not dead but has migrated to the more upwardly-mobile-friendly Canada (under Justin Trudeau). He likewise proposes a single-tier one-size-fits-all university system, again like in his native Canada, instead of our multi-tiered ”elitist” system.

His Pikettyesque dislike for accumulated generational wealth, especially when parked in private foundations, sparks a call to repeat Henry VIII’s looting of the accumulated wealth of English sixteenth-century monasteries. Social conservatives will disagree with his conclusion that they have accepted same-sex “marriage” because it did not “pick anyone’s pocket.”

The Proper Role of Economics
Such provocative views are to be expected since a solely economic prism will always be unavoidably materialistic, religiously indifferent, and painfully egalitarian. Economics is a pragmatic practice and science that deals with the production, administration, and exchange of goods and services. It involves concrete realities that tend to exclude other human considerations. It can be brutal and without nuance.

Economics tends to be considered the most important human field. Such an attitude is risky; as sociologist Georg Simmel once wrote: “Money is not content with being just another final purpose of life alongside wisdom and art, personal significance and strength, beauty and love. But in so far as money does adopt this position, it gains the power to reduce the other purposes to the level of means.”

An Angle Often Ignored
Those holding a solely economic perspective often fail to realize that man has another side that is spiritual and superior. Conservatives have long acknowledged this. Barry Goldwater’s classic manifesto, The Conscience of a Conservative, ghostwritten by William F. Buckley’s brother-in-law, Catholic convert L. Brent Bozell, Jr., affirms that every man is a unique and “spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires.”

This superior side of man’s nature makes us unique and establishes our dignity. This side gives rise to political, social, cultural, and religious activities and sciences that tower above mere material economic production. These endeavors help satisfy our spiritual needs and ultimately lead to our eternal salvation.

A Focus that Fails to Consider the Spiritual
The Republican Workers Party suffers from its failure to consider this spiritual dimension seriously. The author focuses on workers and jobs, politics and power, and special interests and privileges. It is a prism that relegates the spiritual to poetic longings for a Christian past with little connection to modernity.

However, we must note that the material perspective offers nothing new, and is itself guilty of nostalgia. The author echoes a typical Enlightenment perspective that waxes lyrical about the brutal trilogy of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Prof. Buckley recognizes no specific metaphysical order and notes his disappointment that we have failed to move beyond the times “when people look to theologians rather than scientists to make sense of a confusing world.”

Thus, this dominant materialistic narrative weighs heavily upon the book since economics needs norms outside itself to judge its ethical value. Church teaching is that economics must be subject to and seek orientation from those higher normative sciences like ethics, logic, and moral philosophy which have as their focus all human activity. Economics is a science that is intertwined with all others and should belong to a worldview since it seeks to understand human action. It is no coincidence that Adam Smith taught moral philosophy and not statistical analysis or macro-economics.

Looking for the Whole Picture
This is not to say that Prof. Buckley does not have valuable insights into what has happened in American politics over the last few decades. He knows many of the characters of the 2016 election and his book is full of anecdotes about the great drama of that campaign which readers will certainly welcome.

However, we are left desirous of the whole picture. The author forgets that America is a religious nation that still clings to its moral values despite pockets of secularism in urban centers and elite circles. Concern for a moral Supreme Court justice figured higher than employment statistics for many of those who voted in 2016. It is all well and good to remember the forgotten worker who lost a job to outsourcing. However, we must also remember the ever-forgotten Christian whose values (including traditional marriage) tend to be treated as bargaining chips on the road to power and deemed inferior to consumer confidence and job creation. Even Prof. Buckley would agree that the fringe campaign agenda of Hillary Clinton (e.g., transgender bathrooms) alienated some of her own base and contributed to her defeat.

While it is true that the ruling class has been increasingly unresponsive to the needs of workers in traditional industries and, especially, religious voters, the author’s scathing generalizations against all elites are likely to unfairly target the competent ones. True self-sacrificing elites have always played a leadership role in American society—especially the Founders. America cannot be reduced to a Labor Party. The Christian soul desires the social harmony of all social classes, both true elites and workers. We are all equally American.

Federal power can only do so much to inspire spiritual renewal, as Prof. Buckley would no doubt insist. Yet that same power should not impede spiritual renewal (as the courts have actively tried to do) and could encourage and inspire state and local efforts to strengthen the social fabric. Indeed, the author’s attempt to explain the present administration in secular terms runs counter to the president’s own references to God and religious imagery. While few would claim the president is a deeply religious man, he is clearly aware of the abiding religious character of the nation. Despite our secular times, we still see ourselves as “a nation under God.” The phrase is found on our coinage and written on countless American hearts. We cannot help but think that so many of the problems that Prof. Buckley mentions in his book could be better resolved if we would get right with God.

Can Halloween be Christianized Again?

As Halloween approaches, the debate over whether people should join in the celebrations has reignited. Many claim it is a harmless holiday for children that Catholics may freely participate in. Others affirm that it has now descended into dark regions with the return of pagan and Satanic imagery; it should thus be off limits.

And then there are those who look for a third way to approach it somewhere in-between. They propose alternative celebrations, All Saints Day commemorations or fall festivals. In this way, Halloween, an originally Catholic feast, can be “re-Christianized” and re-purposed to promote the Faith. They hope to turn Halloween into a teaching moment for all good Christians.

Halloween Cannot be Ignored
Finding a Christian way to celebrate Halloween is a problem for many parents. Halloween cannot be ignored. Their children will necessarily be exposed to it.

It has become a festival that is only surpassed by Christmas in economic terms. Many households now have Halloween decorations inside and outside their homes. It is a huge party night for which Americans spend billions of dollars on costumes and events. It is a big night adventure for children who engage in their traditional quest for “trick or treat.

However, another point cannot be ignored. The darker celebrations of Halloween glorify the occult, the bizarre and the macabre. New developments in costumes make zombie-like outfits much more realistic and horrifying. The increasing popularity of Satanic movements like Wicca has helped popularize Halloween as sacred. The modern focus of Halloween is increasingly focused on a fascination with evil, horror, and gore.

Ironically, a liberal society that deplores the rise of violence and abuse in other fields makes few objections to this bloody and macabre holiday.

Halloween’s Pagan Roots
Thus, finding a third way can only succeed if a Christian purpose and meaning of Halloween can prevail over today’s setting of the tone by the macabre. Those looking for alternatives need to go back to the festival’s roots, both pagan and Christian, to see if something might be salvaged.

The remote origins of Halloween are problematic. There is no denying that Halloween is rooted in the Celtic fall festival of Samhain. It involved many superstitions and occult ceremonies directed toward the Druid lord of death. Some historians claim the Druids practiced human or animal sacrifice and even occult orgies to mark special festivals. In this case, dressing up as evil spirits and demons was part of the celebration.

The ghastly and even toxic aspects of the pagan feast certainly stood in need of being baptized. Indeed, the Church responded to such opportunities to overturn the idols and rid peoples of superstitions. Many times, missionaries would take advantage of the habit of celebrating special pagan feast days to institute Christian feasts or holy days in their stead.

Halloween, a Feast of Charity to the Poor
This is exactly what the Church did to Halloween. In the ninth century, this pagan festival was replaced by a double day celebration remembering all the dead who are saved: All Saints Day remembers those who are uncanonized in heaven so that they might have their feast, too. All Souls Day remembers the poor souls who are saved from the eternal fires of hell yet are suffering for a time in purgatory.

On the eve of these two feasts, the bells would ring, and town criers would remind all to pray for the poor souls. Thus, on All Hallows Eve, later Halloween, children from poor families would go door-to-door, receiving food and sweets in exchange for praying for the souls of the dead. This “souling” as it was called, gave rise to canvassing for “soul” cakes which became part of the tradition. Harmless pranks awaited the stingy givers.

The revelers would sing:

Soul! Soul! Soul-cake!
Please good Missis, a soul-cake!
Apple, pear, plum or cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul
Three for Him who made us all.

Halloween was thus a feast that benefited the poor on earth and those who were so much poorer in purgatory. It was a time of mirth but also great charity.

The Church as Mother
While there are times of penance and fasting in the liturgical year, there are also times of joy. The Church as a true mother provides the faithful with festive days of feasting and merrymaking. Thus, the Church has no problem with merrymaking with people dressed up in costumes to visit neighbors.

In medieval Europe, it was very popular for people “to go mummering,” the practice of visiting neighborhoods while dressed up in disguises. The revelers would sing, feast, and play tricks in return for refreshment, money or good wishes. Such mummering was very popular on major feast days, of which there were many, in the Middle Ages. They did not degenerate into rowdy or bawdy festivals like those which plague today’s de-Christianized Mardi Gras or other such feasts.

Protestant Prohibition and Eventual Acceptance
In Protestant Europe and America, Halloween was on the prohibited index of religious practices in colonial times, a list that some radical sects extended to Christmas. It was not observed until Irish Catholic immigrants in the nineteenth century brought the custom with them to their new homeland. In the twenties, a secularized version of Halloween was introduced with the practice of trick or treating. It gradually gained traction and acceptance by the fifties.

However, the more recent celebrations have stressed its pagan origins with its preternatural and ghoulish overtones. It has combined with slasher and horror films and zombie-themed parties and events to make it a festival of darkness embracing the evil side of the spiritual world.

Thus, Halloween has returned to its pagan origins and abandoned those of Christian charity. It no longer belongs to the poor but to those engaging in amusement and self-indulgence. Once the feast of innocent little children, it now includes reveling adults. Those who celebrate do not pray for the salvation of poor souls but harbor instead a diabolical glee over damned souls.

Can Halloween be Re-Christianized?
The question remains if Halloween can be re-Christianized in today’s world.

Resourceful clergy and parents have found alternatives that capture the imagination of children. Many of these include parties in which children dress up as saints or religious figures as a way of celebrating All Saints Day. These alternative events can be helpful in imparting some Catholic culture to children. But they can only go so far.

Such celebrations cannot compete with the super-charged media promotion of today’s neo-pagan Halloween. Children will be exposed to the ghoulish side of Halloween in stores, schools or the house decorations in their neighborhood. Like other aspects of modern culture, they cannot be ignored, or Benedict Optioned out.

Arranging a peaceful co-existence between Catholic and pagan celebrations of Halloween is bound to fail since it does not address the need to fight against evil. It prepares the child for defeat later in life, since all must eventually confront the reality of evil without the help of others.

Re-Christianizing Halloween
That is why the only real way to re-Christianize Halloween is to reject any peaceful co-existence in these cultural matters. This will happen when clergy and parents teach children to confront the world they cannot ignore or avoid. They must delve deeply into the Faith. Children must be fortified by sacramental life and prayer to engage in this battle in a manner appropriate to their age.

Thus, any Christianized celebration of Halloween needs to reinforce the idea that there is a cultural battle going on between the forces of good and evil. Hell exists, and its fires must be avoided. What better way to demonstrate these truths than to point out the macabre manifestations of evil that appear everywhere during Halloween.

It could also serve as an occasion to point out the victory of the saints over the evils of their day. The eve of the Church’s two holy days may once again become a time to make merry and eat sweet soul cakes while praying for the poor souls suffering in purgatory.

A Soul Cake recipe can be found here.