The Review Reviews: Mania Interview

The Fenwick Review is grateful to publish this interview. The views expressed therein are not necessarily the views of the Fenwick Review or its writers and staff. It should also not be assumed that the interviewee shares or agrees with the views or mission of the Fenwick Review.

In addition to reviewing Mania, I had the opportunity to interview the show’s creator, writer and student Blake Sheridan. This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Emma: Thank you so much for being here, Blake!

Blake: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for reaching out!

Emma: What was it like to create a musical and see it to production?

Blake: The story started in a very internal space. I was in my room right when Covid was happening, and it was a very personal thing I experienced within myself. Then it was a question of, “How do I communicate this idea so other people understand and experience it in the same way?” I’ve been writing Mania for four years, but that’s a misleading claim because it sounds as if I was writing nonstop for four years [laughs], which is not very true. There were months when I didn’t think about it at all. Every time I revisited it, I had to ask, “Does this impact me in the same way? Does it say what it did when I looked last? If not, how do I edit it to make more sense?”

Emma: Once ACT accepted the script, did it evolve much with their input?

Blake: The heart of the show has not changed since it was written, but the directing team and I did make some changes. Rachel Golden was a big help; she made the script a lot more concise and applicable to ACT. But so many people were involved: Maggie Baum, Wesley Smith, Vincent Sekafetz, Adele Feldberg… So yes, there was a process the script had to undergo. We learned a lot going forward about how to account for that process, because this was the first time we had done an original musical. It was a great learning experience.

Emma: Do you think ACT’s likely to do other original musicals now?

Blake: I think this experience will make ACT more prepared in the future, but I don’t think it will increase the possibility of doing an original musical again. This was a very unique endeavor where a lot of things had to align, and I don’t know if that’s likely to happen again. Although I do hope people feel inspired to write now. I hope they feel they can really explore, and put their work out, and submit it to ACT.

Emma: I read Mania as an exploration of the absence and presence of God. Does that surprise you? Can you give your own treatment of the themes you wanted to explore?

Blake: That brings such a big smile to my face. It’s weird, I wouldn’t say that was a theme I had gone in planning to talk about. But as I created these characters and lived in their world, it was something I found myself thinking a lot about, so I’m very glad those themes came through. In the show there’s no clear representation of God, and there’s not a clear representation of Satan, either, but there is an agent of Satan and there isn’t really an agent of God anywhere. That dynamic’s there; what it means, I don’t know. [Laughs.] But I think it relates to a way the world can be seen. There’s a lot of distractions around us, a lot of agents of chaos, and when we look to agents of God, maybe we don’t necessarily see them visually in front of us. But we have to look inwardly and see if we can become that ourselves. I don’t know how much you can gather that from the show, but that’s one way to look at it!

Emma: If it were only about the absence of God, I’d expect the agents of evil to not appear in explicitly religious terms. But the referee often cants his lines like he’s at a religious service.

Blake: One of the referee’s things is that he’s very outwardly charming. He has showmanship, and he tends to mock religious tropes. Some of his lines are pure puns on popular Christian phrases. This is not something that started with me; in Paradise Lost, there’s the idea of Satan mocking the good, or pointing fun at the good, or trying to shine brighter than the good. That’s definitely part of the referee’s character. He tries to make himself seem like he’s above it, or can make fun of it, or sees it as a joke. It’s one of the really annoying parts of his character because it’s funny, it’s charming, but there’s something malicious behind it.

Emma: Near the end, Lucy tells him, “You’re not going to get away with this.” I felt we were meant to take that somewhat seriously, not see the end solely as a triumph of evil, but it’s ultimately ambiguous. You spoke over email about not wanting to impose interpretations, but I’m dying to know what the ending means to you!

Blake: I’ll try not to give an interpretation, but an observation. Throughout the show, we see this split between parents and children. That’s a very simple reduction, but there’s a gang that gets swept up in the intensity of the plot, and there’s a gang that’s off in their own world. At first it’s very humorous. Then it takes a turn and starts to affect people’s lives. In Act II, there’s a group of Dinosaur and Meteor parents together, and they say, “And the kids, they’re better off posthumous.” It’s this moment of, “I don’t care, I’m only focused on what’s going on right now.” The observation I would make about the end is that we see Lucy over her son, and she’s kind of… giving all she has to him. And she’s, in a way, making a statement to the referee about what she values and what’s important to her now.

Emma: What’s your philosophy of art criticism? The “death of the author” seems somewhat in line with what you’ve communicated about authorial intent.

Blake: It’s very tricky. “Is there subjective or objective truth, which one’s the real truth, who has the power…” These questions have been asked for ages. I don’t know the exact number of people who saw Mania, but that’s how many truths there are of the experience of Mania. Then there’s my truth of Mania, which is how it came to be. I don’t really want to place value on which means more or is worth more objectively. There’s that saying, “Everything in the universe happens for a reason.” Whatever experience you had, that was what was meant to happen for you. I don’t know if some deity gave it to you, or just the spontaneity of random events, but now you have that, and you don’t necessarily need mine, if that makes sense. Unless you want it! You can also look for it and compare. That’s part of the game of humanity, we compare and we discuss and we share.

I have to add something, though. If I’m writing a line, I can be thinking of a play in which I saw that line done, and it means something specific to me, and I’m referencing it or turning it into something new. That reference is a big piece of art. Then let’s say there’s Bob. If Bob has watched none of the media I’ve watched, and Bob sees Mania, he might have one experience. But if Bob watches everything I’ve watched, it might make complete sense. It might be like, “Oh, this is exactly what he was trying to do!” Understanding someone’s history is just as important. If you want to understand what someone’s doing with art, you have to look at their history, and what they’ve learned, and what they’ve experienced.

Emma: What should readers look at to understand Mania?

Blake: Little League games, for one. [Laughs.] Then there’s two references I’ve always cited. Kicking and Screaming is a sitcom from the 2000s starring Will Ferrell. And Black Friday is a dark comedy musical by StarKid. It criticizes — not criticizes, but investigates — consumerism and capitalism. Those are the main references, but there’s plenty more out there.

Emma: Do you plan to get Mania performed again, or published?

Blake: When I started writing Mania, I didn’t know ACT was going to do it. I didn’t even have a conception I would bring it to Holy Cross. That’s important, because if I had written it for ACT, I don’t know if it would have been what it was. There’s something unique about doing it for the sake of doing it. When I first created Mania, I was creating it for the sake of creating it, in a way for God — you know, for what my understanding of God is. There’s something valuable in people creating things in that space and then offering it to the world, because, when expectation comes into play, it can really get in the way. So, in terms of next steps, taking it one step at a time, and just trying to keep finding that space where I can be in communication with my creativity.

The Review Reviews: More than a Milestone: Mania Offers Rich Food for Theological Thought

This spring, Alternate College Theatre performed its first-ever original musical: Mania, a dark comedy written by Blake Sheridan of the class of 2024. Sheridan also stars as Billy Higgins, a father who offers to coach a struggling boys’ soccer team mostly so he can antagonize a rival coach, his old enemy Bruce (Frank Amuso). At their first match, passive-aggressive conflict builds between the families of each team, culminating when the referee (Max Coté) reveals himself to be a damned soul involved in a type of spiritual pyramid scheme, releases hallucinogens over the playing field, and encourages the characters to murder each other.

If that sounds dark, it is. It’s also very funny. I’m quick to see a clichéd gag approaching and have sometimes felt vicarious embarrassment for less-than-original “comedies,” but Mania’s humor consistently surprised me and evoked genuine laughter throughout. Acting, directing, and production were all excellent. What most interested me about Mania, though, was its engagement with religion. As a dilettante art critic, I consume film and literature reviews regularly, and in this process I’ve sometimes heard Christian critics praise a work for exploring “the absence of God.” I never quite understood this sentiment. Granted that such an exploration doesn’t make art bad, why would it inherently be a point in the art’s favor? Perhaps the highest praise I can give for Mania is that I finally understand what those critics were getting at.

It would be easy to construe Mania as anti-religious, or at least nihilistic. The storyline is quite brutal at times, and there aren’t any clear rays of grace. Petty grudges spiral into violence. A dead character (Connor Morine) who, though past the age of reason, seems too young to have committed mortal sins is unambiguously shown in hell (or at least an afterlife that’s enthusiastically marketing itself as such). The antagonist runs gleefully through the show without seeming to receive any comeuppance, and nobody else has a happy ending. By the time one of the characters (Hillary Boadu) protests her Christianity and expresses the belief that God will rescue her, we’ve seen enough of the show’s world to be doubtful of this prediction, and in any case, her treatment of others to that point has been far from an example of Christian virtue.

Yet though I’m usually quite attuned to digs at religion in media, I never felt that Mania was goading me. Part of this was due to it demonstrating a clearer understanding of Christian theology than most supernatural fiction. Seeing an afterlife cashing in on pop-culture images of hell, one character remarks that it doesn’t look too bad — whereupon the referee explains, quite rightly, that the chief torment is not physical punishment but decay of the soul. While most supernatural fiction tends to portray demons as ordinary bogeymen with an end goal to frighten or kill people, Mania’s referee is far more orthodox, striving to corrupt characters and noting that he doesn’t benefit by directly killing them himself. (The referee isn’t a demon, but he serves one.) It helps that, though many stories which try to subvert Christianity portray the demonic as a positive and misunderstood force, Mania never paints its antagonist as anything but villainous; and while the pious characters come in for their share of satire, the script is ultimately even-handed in its distribution of both criticism and understanding to all characters.

I have suggested that Mania explores the absence of God. What particularly intrigues me is how this theme is handled. In a purely nihilistic production, the absence of an ultimate good would be taken for granted, and it’s unlikely the villains would be couched in religious terms because religion would simply be irrelevant. Yet Mania’s referee explicitly engages with Christian typology. He relates a conversation he purportedly had with Satan and frequently switches from speech to cant, evoking — especially given the musical’s debut at a Jesuit university — a priest celebrating Mass. Both of these behaviors challenge the reading that God is simply nonexistent in Mania’s world. Satan’s very identity implies opposition; if God doesn’t exist, whom did Satan rebel against? Why? If religion is irrelevant, why does the referee satirize liturgical language instead of, say, royal addresses or terms-and-conditions disclaimers? These things do not negate God’s absence in Mania, but the negative space becomes a paradoxical presence, suggesting the necessity of God by drawing our attention to what’s missing.

At rare moments, other characters indicate that the bleak world of Mania is not the status quo. Near the beginning of Act II, the referee explains to the deceased young character whom I previously mentioned that he avoids the torments of hell by tempting other souls to damnation. After the vicious conflicts and self-serving behavior of Act I, one might reasonably expect the dead player to want in on the scheme. Instead, he protests, “But that’s immoral!” Much closer to the show’s end, another character (Erin Ledwith) defiantly asserts that the referee won’t get away with his crimes. The villain laughs it off, but this sense of justice should give us pause. None of the preceding events encourage the idea that Mania’s world is just; indeed, the character speaks these words bitterly amidst a field of bodies. So from where does she derive her knowledge of how things are “supposed” to be?

The story’s status as a theatrical comedy is relevant here, I think. More than any other medium, theater draws attention to its artificiality. Sets are disassembled before the audience’s eyes; dead characters get up and walk offstage at scene changes; and, of course, all of the actors reappear together for bows at the end, dispelling the illusion of enmity between them. Mania particularly embraces its fictionality when, near the climax, the referee directly addresses the audience members to mock them for their silence and stillness. As we should expect from a dark comedy, which invites us to laugh at things that would be unpleasant in real life, Mania frequently reminds us that the story is a secondary world, not the primary one, and should be engaged with as such. Perhaps this is how the characters dimly know, despite lack of evidence in their own world, what morality and justice should look like. Their world cannot exist independently but requires our world’s rules for a foundation, even when those rules are internally defied. Or perhaps Mania is simply making a point about reality. Even in our world, we sometimes know what the ideal should look like despite lacking an experiential foundation for that understanding. From where do we derive this knowledge?

My ultimate conclusion is thus. Mania is, I think, doing something complex with its religious themes. It does not make assertions about God’s status in our world. Rather, it posits a hypothetical world in which God is conspicuously absent, then asks us to contemplate that world. What would existence there be like? What would happen to morality? Does that world even make sense? Mania provides no easy answers, but it suggests — by illustrating evil as dependent on a higher good to flout, by challenging whether reality can be unjust unless there exists some external standard of justice — that the questions are more complex than one might think.

As a Catholic, I also appreciate Mania’s exploration of the absence of God for another reason. Mania debuted on Thursday, March 21st — almost exactly one week before Good Friday, when Catholics are asked to reflect on the crucifixion and death of God. We should not gloss over the existential horror those ideas should provoke. Yet it can be hard to internalize in the modern day, when Easter is familiar and we are used to happier holidays. At the end of this Lent, I appreciated the chance to (lightly, humorously) stare into the void and ponder what the world would be like without an omnibenevolent foundation.

I would ordinarily finish this review by stating whether I’d recommend the show to others, offering qualifications for those who might find the material intense, and exhorting the rest of the target audience to see it. (Here’s a litmus test: if you can see the funny side of a character attempting to kill somebody with a modified t-shirt cannon, Mania is for you.) Unfortunately, Mania has had its full run at Holy Cross, and while I’d highly recommend it to all readers, there is no news yet of where one might catch it in the future. So I shall close with this recommendation: watch the careers of those involved in Mania. There was a lot of talent on display in this production, and I would not be surprised to see it bear more fruit in the years to come. With luck, the future will bring more unique offerings from students involved in every aspect of Mania’s production.

Overall grade: A

The Review Reviews: Film Review: “The Boys in the Boat” Floats Best on its Historical Cred

Living in Washington State and having once done rowing for a summer, it was practically a mandate that I catch The Boys in the Boat during its time in theaters over winter break. The film, based on a nonfiction book by the same name, tells the story of the University of Washington men’s rowing team that won gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. With sports, an underdog victory against staggering odds, and a rhetorical middle finger to the Nazis right before World War II all in the offering, it’s somewhat surprising this book wasn’t adapted into a big-screen crowd pleaser any sooner.

I’d read the book once before but had forgotten most of the details, and after seeing the film in theaters I was inspired to reread it. Reflecting on the film after the reread was an interesting experience. When comparing a film adaptation with its source material, one typically finds that the film has exaggerated story elements so as to better milk the drama, often to the point of losing realism. A viewer unfamiliar with the story might suspect that The Boys in the Boat has done this. Of course the hero, Joe Rantz, was essentially abandoned by his father and is living in extreme poverty before he’s selected for the men’s rowing team. Of course the team is talented beyond anyone’s predictions, and just in time for an Olympic year, too. Of course one of the rowers falls ill upon his arrival in Berlin and pushes on through the final race anyway. And of course, thanks to unethical behavior by officials, the US rowing team is wrongly given the worst lane in the final race, improperly cued to start rowing, and still manages to win anyway. It seems so contrived that the viewer is inclined to skepticism… but all of these things really happened. In fact, far from exaggerating the truth, the film at times actually downplays what’s described in the book. Though Joe mentions that his father left him to fend for himself, the film does not hint at how extreme his situation really was, foraging in the woods for food at the age of fifteen after his family literally packed their car and drove to another town without him; and his search for a job in the film is tame compared to the exhausting and dangerous work men had to take up to earn a wage during the Great Depression. 

Rereading the book, it’s disappointing that the film didn’t include these elements. They’re an interesting part of the story and they would have added more specificity to what risks being a generic sports film. (As an example, the relationship between Joe and his future wife — in the book, a tender and idiosyncratic relationship between two individuals united by their equally fraught childhoods — is sadly reduced to some stock romantic comedy interactions.) Fortunately, it’s a sports film that knows how to film sports well. All of the race scenes, which are really the movie’s raison d’être anyway, are thrillingly shot, helped by an excellent soundtrack. The director wisely cuts between the rowers and the onlookers/coaches, preventing the scenes from becoming exhausting or confusing while also thematically highlighting the importance of a team’s leadership. Audience members leaving the theater will likely be invigorated, high on adrenaline, and newly appreciative of the joys of physical fitness — provided they’re not busy nitpicking details the film left out.

Is The Boys in the Boat another adaptation that only draws criticism from book purists and is most enjoyable if one forgets the source material, then? No, I can’t say that. True, being familiar with the book will make the film’s omissions more bothersome. However, I think the film would suffer more if one isn’t familiar with the book at all. Those apparently contrived plot elements I described earlier would be positively groan-worthy if one didn’t know that they came from history. A lot of the film’s inspirational value stems from its historicity. Without the record to support it, it would be just another sports movie about people overcoming problems that have been cooked up for the purpose of being taken down. 

Perhaps The Boys in the Boat was simply taking on an impossible task. Even with tight editing, the film needs to be two hours long just to show all of the team’s pivotal races. Including the historical details it omitted would have meant cutting a race or two, and I don’t think that would have necessarily been the right choice. There are some who would argue that the problem lies in the medium, and The Boys in the Boat would have been better as a multi-episode miniseries. With languorously stretched adaptations becoming increasingly common on streaming services, though, and so many theatrical releases pushing well over two hours these days, I have a hard time faulting a film for keeping things short. And after everything, I still like The Boys in the Boat. As I mentioned, I left the theater inspired enough to want to reread the book. Perhaps it would have been nice to see its sights set a little higher, but that’s no mark against what the film does accomplish.

 Ultimately, The Boys in the Boat succeeds in what it sets out to do. It’s a fun, easy sports film with good racing eye-candy, granted some extra gravitas by its origin in reality. Fans of the book may not feel that film captures its source material’s atmosphere and will miss the complexity afforded by a book’s long form. Yet the film we have is inoffensive and could be a good accompaniment to the book if one already knows the story. Perhaps the fact that I find it an imperfect adaptation is only a sign of how good other book-to-film adaptations have been.

Overall grade: B+.

Book Review: The Organic Development of the Liturgy

For those who do not consider themselves liturgy geeks, I will start by defining some terms. The term ‘Liturgy’ refers to the official public services of the Church. This encompasses the Mass, the Breviary, and the seven sacraments. A ‘rite’ refers to an ecclesiastical tradition in which the Liturgy is celebrated, that is, the form and content of the Liturgy, specific to a geographic location or particular Church. In short, a rite refers to a Liturgical Tradition. There are many rites of the Church, one of which is the Latin rite, which houses the Roman Rite. The book in review, The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Dom Alcuin Reid O.S.B., examines the history of the Roman Rite from antiquity to the eve of the Second Vatican Council and its underlying developmental principles, the most important of which he calls “the principle of organic development.” Through this examination, Reid establishes the principle of organic development as a universally adhered-to principle and as both implicitly and explicitly authoritative by the Tradition it upholds. In this book review, I hope to explicate Reid’s scholarship to a larger audience.

The book’s preface was written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI). It is a remarkable reflection on Reid’s book, emphasizing both its importance in modern liturgical scholarship as well as highlighting how Reid’s scholarship acts as a twofold rejection of two prominent, and dangerous, liturgical positions: one which would seek constant reform that divorces itself from the liturgical Tradition and one which would reject any liturgical reform or renewal entirely. Both, as you will see when reading Reid’s book, are antithetical to the principles of Catholic liturgical development. Ratzinger also touches on the subject of authority, something Reid later expounds upon. Given how well-written it is, even if you don't read the rest of the book, I urge everyone to read Ratzinger’s preface. 

In regard to the book’s format, it consists of three chapters which are further divided into sub-topics which are usually ordered chronologically. The first chapter covers the history of the Roman Rite and the various reforms, some of which were short-lived and others of which became part of the immemorial rite, from antiquity until the late nineteenth century. In chapter two, Reid recounts the birth of the Liturgical Movement and the liturgical reforms until 1948, this chapter covers a period of approximately 50 years. Chapter three, the longest chapter, focuses on the liturgical reforms between 1948 and 1962 and the Liturgical Movement at this time. 

Chapter one elucidates how the Church has always understood herself as having an objective liturgical Tradition that is capable of development. It is clear, from Reid’s recounting of early liturgical history, in late antiquity and the early middle ages the bare bones of the Roman Rite were born, something capable of development, but a Tradition nonetheless, that is, something handed down. Importantly when covering the Tridentine reforms, Reid emphasizes how they were utterly Traditional and were initiated to ensure doctrinal orthodoxy and to correct liturgical abuse. Reid establishes that there is a clear continuity between the Gregorian Sacramentary and other early liturgical books and the Tridentine reforms. Chapter one, though the shortest of all the chapters, is significant because it establishes the understanding of the organic development principle present in the Church and demonstrates how due reverence was always shown towards liturgical Tradition during reforms. Reform was never arbitrary, and always utterly traditional. 

Chapters two and three profile a variety of people either in the Liturgical Movement or related to the Liturgical Movement including Pope St. Pius X, Lambert Beauduin, Pius Parsch, Romano Guardini, Josef Jungmann S.J., and others as well as covering numerous liturgical conferences, most of which occurred in the 1950s. Chiefly, Reid seeks to clarify the origins and purpose of the Liturgical Movement. He asserts, rightfully, that the Movement’s foundational goal was to increase liturgical piety among the laity, that is, to make praying the Liturgy a part of their lives. Through his examination of the Movement’s early members and their writings, Reid rebukes the notion that ritual reform, total vernacularization of the Mass, or changes to the rite itself were the aims of the Liturgical Movement. When covering the reforms of the 1950s, Reid judges the various reforms by the standard of the principle of organic development including the 1955 Holy Week reforms, 1955 rubric simplifications, and other reforms of the Pian Commission. Ultimately, Reid examines these reforms and the principles operative during this period. He strongly rebukes principles such as antiquarianism, which was also rejected as a principle for liturgical reform by Pius XII’s Mediator Dei. 

In the preface, Ratzinger writes “The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition…That is why, with respect to Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile” (pp.10-11). Reid notes that the breviary reforms of Pope St. Pius X mark the start of a new era; one marked by an excessive use of papal power with regards to the Church’s liturgy. While admitting that the pastorally motivated rearrangement of the breviary respected the Church’s liturgical Tradition and did not constitute an innovation or novelty, Reid posits this action as the beginning of the ultramontane view of authority over the Liturgy. Pius XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei would likewise double down on this view of papal authority of the Liturgy. In Reid's opinion, such liberal use of papal authority over Liturgy should be warned against, and such a view of papal authority over liturgical matters was not seen in the Church prior to the 20th century. 

Chiefy, Reid’s work demonstrates that liturgical archaeologism, or antiquarianism, and pastoral expediency are not sufficient principles of liturgical reform and fail to respect the organic development of the Liturgy. When Tradition is not given its due reverence and reforms are done hastily, violence is done to the objective liturgical Tradition that has developed in the Church for over a millennium. 

I think it was fitting for Reid to end his book just on the eve of Vatican Council II. He concludes by writing “The task of a thorough assessment of whether this law [the law of organic development] was respected in the reforms enacted following the Second Vatican Council and of whether it is respected by proponents of ‘the organic progression of the Liturgy’ remains. Such an assessment cannot but be based upon this law, reflecting the truth that ‘liturgies are not made, they grow in the devotion of the centuries’” (p.311). It has been nearly 60 years since the conclusion of the Council and it is up to us to examine the liturgical legacy of Vatican II. This book offers a solid foundation of knowledge to begin such tasks and Reid’s scholarship is sine qua non for research into Catholic liturgical studies. 

Bibliography 

Reid, Alcuin. The Organic Development of the Liturgy. Farnborough: St. Michael’s Abbey Press, 2004. 

Webpage image sourced from: https://fraternitypublications.com/product/the-organic-development-of-the-liturgy/

A Talk by the Sisters of Life

On March 29 in the Rehm Library, the Students for Life and the Society of Saints Peter and Paul co-hosted a talk from the Sisters of Life called "Loved and Made to Love." The Sisters of Life, like other Catholic sisters, take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; however, they also take an additional vow to "protect and enhance the sacredness of every human life." Though abortion, like much else in our world today, has become a hotbed for angry political debates, the speaker, Sister Maria Regina, spoke about it with such genuine love and gentleness that I could not imagine even her most stark ideological opponent being able to respond angrily to her. Not once did she make a judgmental remark about women who have had abortions, nor about anyone who disagrees with her. Her message was that each person is made to give and receive love. She was able to speak on a contentious issue with a grace that has become very rare.

Sister Maria Regina began her speech by focusing on what it means to be loved and to receive love. In keeping with the Sisters' belief that "every person's life has deep meaning, purpose and worth," she reminded her listeners that God created each one of them, knowing and loving each thing about them. She cited fun traits that God knows and loves like an individual's sense of humor or freckles.

She then told a story about her niece who likes to wear flowing dresses and spin around saying, "Just look at me!" This invitation, Sister Maria suggested, voices the desire of every human heart, a desire that is fulfilled by God. He looks at each person just as parents look at their new born babies: with delight. He must then find ways to communicate this love to us. She shared an anecdote about a friend of the Sisters' who is a priest who was trying to extend a consoling and loving hand to a woman who was feeling down about herself. However, there was a language barrier that made communication more difficult. He made the sign of the cross over her, and from her warm reaction he felt his message was effectively communicated. Sister Maria recalled how the cross is a sign to each person that he is chosen, good, and blessed, and how the priest's efforts mirror those of God as he tries to effectively and creatively communicate to us that we are loved and that we are good.

Following these positive messages, she acknowledged the "mess in the world and in ourselves." Sister Maria recalled that something went wrong in the world, laughing that this statement is perhaps a gross understatement of reality, and that we must now live with real sin and suffering. She continued by saying that God's response to this badness in the world was to take it all upon himself on the cross. Sr. Maria asserted that the cross guarantees two things: that we are loved infinitely, and that we have the capacity to love infinitely.

Sr. Maria then discussed what it means to give love. She began by citing Vatican II: "man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself." With this paradox in mind, she told a story from her pro-life ministry. Sr. Maria shared that a woman, "we will call her Jenna," was pregnant, and the father of the child as well as her family wanted her to get an abortion. Jenna had an abortion in the past and did not want to suffer through another one, and she came to the Sisters asking if there was another way out. She asked how she would know the Sisters would truly help, and she was put in touch with a woman they had helped before. This woman, who lived with the Sisters during her pregnancy, shared a message with her: "God chose you to be a mother to this child." This message stayed with Jenna, and she had her baby. She was so thankful to the Sisters and to the woman with whom she spoke that she asked to be the one who speaks to the next woman who comes in. Alicia, a 19 year-old whose family was encouraging an abortion, called and spoke to Jenna. Jenna said, "I've made both decisions, and there is not a day that goes by that I do not think about my first baby. You cannot make a decision based on what other people are telling you to do because they forget about it the next day, but you live with it for the rest of your life."

Sister Maria connected this story to the theme of "Loved and Made to Love" because it illustrates how a person can be touched by another's kindness and help, and then feel a desire to extend this same kindness to someone else. Sr. Maria shared a story from when she was in Poland speaking to a young man, and she asked him, “what was the most beautiful thing you have seen?” He responded that it was the mutual giving of the self that he witnessed between his parents when his father was diagnosed with cancer. His mom rearranged the house so it was easier and more comfortable for him to get around, she changed her cooking to fit his dietary needs, etc. He also noticed that his dad was fighting to stay alive more for her than for himself. Sr. Maria pointed out that what we learn from this story is that love does not shy away from the crosses of others: it means leaning in when things get hard. She then referenced Lord of the Rings (the cherry on top of a great talk), saying that Sam shows us this love by telling Frodo, "I can't carry [the ring] for you, but I can carry you." The general message is that we cannot carry the cross of another, but we can help them through it by being loving.

Although the flyers for this pro-life talk incited some skeptical remarks across campus, the talk itself communicated a message of love that was far from insidious or divisive. The message, of course, was directed to a largely Catholic audience; however the general message that one's life is endowed with intrinsic meaning, and that each person is loved and can love, can be applied to anyone's life. The message of the giving of oneself, especially as communicated by the story of the young Polish man’s parents, is another lesson that anyone can hear and be touched by. One last story that beautifully illustrates the giving of oneself is the story of Chiara Corbella Petrillo, frequently called "a saint for our times." She was a young Italian mother who suffered through the death of two of her babies, but still had a third. During her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with cancer. She refused treatment until her son was born because she did not want any harm to come to him. She delivered her son before succumbing to the cancer. She endured great suffering, but is reported as being joyful throughout the suffering because it was for the protection of her child. This story parallels that of the Polish boy because it shows people finding joy even amidst horrible suffering because of love and self sacrifice.  No matter how one feels about abortion, stories like these, and a speech like Sister Maria's, can hopefully be appreciated by anyone because they reveal moments of selfless love in our world.

To Honor Christmas and Keep It All the Year

Amidst the whirlwind of the holiday season, it may be a bit of a cliché to say that “we’ve lost the true spirit of Christmas.” This concept of “the true spirit of Christmas” requires some reflection. While Christmas has mostly become a secular holiday season from an outsider’s perspective, it is impossible to have Christmas without Christ. It is not worn-out to say that Jesus is the reason for the season, because all of the good that comes from Christmas time originates with the birth of Christ. It is crucial to define that the Son of God was brought into this world to save us from ourselves. This Spirit of Christmas is the theme of redemption in which humanity was saved from its ways through the sacrifice of Christ. With this in mind, the purpose of this piece is not to gush over the Nativity. It is to look at one staple of the Christmas season that reflects the redemption of Christ in the holiday season: A Christmas Carol.

These two stories (i.e. Christ’s birth and A Christmas Carol) have been associated with the Christmas season for good reason. They are appealing stories that pull at the heartstrings, and their pull comes from the arc of redemption that is at their core. The redeemed individual from A Christmas Carol is Ebenezer Scrooge. With Scrooge being a, “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” he isn’t exactly the most attractive character, and history has thus associated his name with a hatred for the season. I would argue that the title of being a Scrooge should be reclaimed, for he is an example of the spirit of Christmas, redemption through love, which is ultimately a result of Christ’s birth.

How is Ebenezer Scrooge a role model in any way? Wasn’t he the miser that tried to ruin Christmas for everyone? The importance in the role of Scrooge is to show the worst in humanity. Scrooge was not a murderer, a thief, or a monster. He was a man whose heart was hardened by greed, loneliness, and apathy. Scrooge was so miserable that no one, not a beggar nor a child, would reach out to him for any favors or kindness. There is a lesson to be seen in Stave One of A Christmas Carol: we are most alone when we close ourselves off from others. Scrooge demonstrates the sentiments of his inhumanity by seeing the poor as useless, a burden on the population, unless they are put to work. He seems like a lost cause, so what did he do to deserve the intervention of Marley and the Three Ghosts?

It is in this question that we find the Spirit of Christmas through the birth of Christ the Redeemer. We are sinful people. While not inherently monsters, we can become hardened to the suffering of the poor or become deaf to well-wishes of others. Scrooge wasn’t a monster, but he was certainly a difficult case. We must realize that Christ came to save even the hard of heart and the lost causes. Throughout the rest of A Christmas Carol we can see that Scrooge was never a lost cause; he just needed to be guided. This guidance comes with doubts, with a ‘humbug’ and all, as Scrooge doubts his senses by likening Marley to food poisoning and the wails of London’s lost souls to the product of sleep deprivation.

It is in the Ghost of Christmas Past that Scrooge begins to seek his redemption and the audience begins to see why Scrooge became such a jaded wretch. We begin to glimpse his humanity when we see, during a vision of his childhood, how, “Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.” We see Scrooge become saddened when recalling the death of his sister, the joy he experiences with his former employer Fezziwig, and his heartbreak when the love of his life leaves him after prioritizing his wealth out of fear of poverty. When we reflect on our lives and we look at our shortcomings and failures, it is easy to look at God and echo Scrooge in saying, “Why do you delight to torture me?” We beg these feelings to go away, but we will not be able to save ourselves from our misery unless we can process our hardships.

In the Ghost of Christmas Present, we can see a Scrooge that has accepted his lot and is much more willing to take part in his redemption. It is in the first few moments of meeting that Scrooge submits to this Spirit, saying, “conduct me where you will…to-night if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.” There is no more humbug; instead, a willingness to go along in his soul’s redemption is present. Scrooge ends up at Bob Cratchit’s house because the Ghost of Christmas Present is the spirit of sympathy and kindness to the poorest of society. When Scrooge is able to watch the Cratchit family, he is able to see that the poor faces and they have their own lives. Scrooge becomes an active participant in the lives of the poor by being concerned with the fate of Tiny Tim. I believe that the turning point of A Christmas Carol and Scrooge’s redemption comes when the Ghost of Christmas Present responds with Scrooge’s own dismissal of the poor, after which “Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.” We see the mercy and love of Christ in Bob Cratchit, who raises a toast to honor Scrooge as the one who founded the joy of their Christmas dinner. Cratchit does not care to see the evil in men, and rather delights in the good and the joy that exist in every human being. This spirit is still present when Scrooge and the Ghost visit Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, who will not speak ill of his uncle despite their disagreements. Fred believes that he can help to save Scrooge by showing him kindness, visiting every year around Christmas to wish him well and share in the joy of the season. Finally, Scrooge sees the children of Man – Ignorance and Want – with the former being the most dangerous, for ignorance will bring doom to humanity unless it is erased through recognition and care. After these events, we see a penitent Scrooge ready for the final ghost.

In the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, we see a Scrooge that reflects upon his mortality and his legacy. Scrooge witnesses a man very similar to him having his garments stolen and being, essentially, grave-robbed. These individuals aren’t mourners; rather, they take advantage of no one caring about his estate. The only ones who care about Scrooge’s death, shown by the Spirit, are people who are going through a debt crisis because of him. Scrooge needs to witness kindness through death, and sees the grief of the Cratchit family after the death of Tiny Tim. The reminder of death, the memento mori, is an important detail to this Stave because Scrooge is shown his own grave, prompting the realization that all of the malice shown towards the other man was really meant for him. It is in this part that we see the redemption of Christ in Scrooge’s vow to live out the ideals of Christmas for the rest of his life. With Christ as the foundation of the Christmas season, Scrooge is essentially vowing to become like Christ. We are called to honor Christmas and to live in the Past, Present, and the Future. Ultimately, this calling is to be a Scrooge.

In the End of It, we can see that Scrooge is good on his word. Scrooge awakens with a new approach of life in which he states, “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man.” Scrooge is certain that it was all real and is certain in the fact that his soul was saved that night. He buys the prize turkey for the Cratchit family, he donates significant amounts of money to the poor, he becomes a better uncle to Fred, he increases Bob’s salary while providing benefits, and he becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim. Perhaps the most important part of A Christmas Carol is the statement that “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more” which is reassuring to an audience that may question the effectiveness of this journey. The ending to A Christmas Carol is extremely powerful because we see Scrooge embodying the Christmas Spirit in the rest of his days, and this means that Scrooge is living an actively Christian lifestyle, emulating the work of Christ. As it is observed in the end, “he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed that knowledge” and, as such, to keep Christmas well would be to show the mercy, love, and charity of Christ.

What can be learned from A Christmas Carol? It is a story of redemption, which is a theme of Christmas, but we can actively see a man go from cruelty to compassion. To be a Scrooge is to be someone who recognizes his own faults and is able to be redeemed by emulating the Christmas season, which means emulating Christ. It is more than just a Christmas tale; it is a message of redemption that encapsulates the true meaning of Christmas without ever overtly stating it. The reader is left to interpret the redemption of Scrooge. We can wonder, “am I worth redeeming? Am I able to change? How can I live Christmas in my heart and keep it all the year?” While we may not have the love of these Christmas ghosts to reach out directly to us, we do have Christ and His Church doing that already and always welcoming us to join them. Will we call this life a “humbug” or will we let ourselves profit from Christ’s mercy? May we be like Scrooge every day of our life, and as is fitting for any commentary on A Christmas Carol, God bless Us, Every One.

John Paul and Jessica

Contains spoilers for Marvel’s Jessica Jones Netflix series.

In superhero movies and shows, hope is complicated. After watching three Marvel movies with ever-increasing stakes, one might yawn when New York City teeters on the edge of destruction—again. Maybe the heroes will save the day this time, but there isn’t much of a point in expecting things to be better by the time Avengers 5: Super-Mega-Armageddon comes out. A repeated cycle of villains, antiheroes, and excessive violence is the name of the franchise. Marvel’s Netflix shows don’t fit quite as tidily into this narrative. Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, The Punisher, Iron Fist, and The Defenders are on a slightly smaller scale, with fewer city-destroying machines and zero Norse gods. The first four shows in particular focus on an only slightly fictionalized New York City and its unsung heroes and small-time villains. Collectively, these shows function as a very odd love note to the city they’re based on. By interweaving stories and characters on a more intimate level, they give the dramatized New York a sense of community.

In the first season of Jessica Jones, readers are introduced to the troubled and superpowered titular character (played by Krysten Ritter), a private detective who struggles with the effects of having fallen under the power of the sinister, mind-controlling, villain Kilgrave. By the second season, she has (mostly) escaped his abusive influence, but the trauma she suffered lingers. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the mistakes she makes seem to reveal that healing and fulfillment are not found through the hedonism of casual sex and excessive drinking.  

The show slowly abandons the “cope with trauma through sex and whiskey” trope that dominated the first season. Instead, it asks “What does genuine recovery entail?” Clearly, part of the answer is family. Jessica’s childhood, especially her close relationships with her biological mother and her adoptive sister, figures prominently in the second season. The show demonstrates the importance of family and genuine relationships to its main character’s development, while managing to avoid treating the other people in the relationships as means to an end. As St. John Paul II writes in his masterwork on human relationship and sexuality Love and Responsibility “a person must not be merely the means to an end for another person… every person is by nature capable of determining his or her aims. Anyone who treats a person as the means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other.” At the same time, the show acknowledges the emptiness of a life without other people.

The “big twist” of season two is that the superpowered killer terrorizing New York is Jessica’s long-lost mother. In true comic book fashion (they had to put a bit of outlandish science fiction in there somewhere), Alyssa Jones was believed dead in a car accident, but actually fell into the hands of an unscrupulous scientist who unintentionally gave her super-strength and a lot of anger issues. Much of the dramatic tension centers arounds this fraught mother-daughter relationship. Jessica cannot bring herself to turn in her mother, no matter what horrible crimes the other woman commits.

Disturbingly, we see in a flashback that Alyssa even killed Jessica’s boyfriend, Stirling, years ago. In the present, Jessica still wears a leather jacket and boots that remind her of Stirling. She hasn’t had any other meaningful romantic relationships since he died. As the show repeatedly makes evident, she finds comfort in whiskey and hookups. Yet, she seems to desire something more. One of the most uneasy moments in the season is when she attempts to initiate sex with the building super, Oscar. Oscar’s own history and family life are far from perfect, but he cares deeply for his son, Vido, and has a close relationship with his own mother. He is almost shocked at Jessica’s advances. He prioritizes stability for his child, and therefore for himself. Casual sex and immediate pleasure are not a part of that stability, a reality that Jessica is forced to confront and come to terms with.

Few viewers would call Jessica Jones loving. She is uncomfortable with her unwanted superpowers and pushes away Vido and his fascination with her gifts. Her relationship with her own biological mother is painful, and her relationship with her adoptive mother is nonexistent. Her attempts to care for her adoptive sister end in disaster. Her neighbor-turned friend, Malcolm, is forced to end their friendship. I can sympathize with such personal difficulties, even though my mother isn’t a serial killer and I don’t have superpowers.  To even speak of love in these circumstances is difficult. To actually understand what it means in the midst of difficulty is seemingly impossible.

In the end, Jessica Jones is a story of responsibility.  In Love and Responsibility St. John Paul II says, “The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person the more true love there is.”  As Jessica spends more time with her biological mother, she feels accountable for her mother’s safety. No matter what horrible crimes Alyssa Jones commits, her daughter’s love tethers the two women together, even when their broken and flawed relationship inevitably ends in tragedy.

As the season ends, Jessica begins to take on a role of greater responsibility outside her immediate family, too. Instead of self-medicating, she starts to acknowledge her own longing for relationship. She even goes to have family dinner with Oscar and Vido in their apartment instead of drinking Jameson’s alone in her own. As she explains in a voiceover in the closing moments of the season, “I’ve gone through life untethered, unconnected. I wasn’t even aware that I’d chosen that. It took someone coming back from the dead to show me that I’ve been dead, too. The problem is, I never really figured out how to live.” As John Paul wrote,  “the complete and definitive creation of [mankind]…is expressed in giving life to that communio personarum that man and woman form.” However unintentionally, this Netflix series gives voice to this desire for completeness in true communion which we all possess.

Beyond the Abortion Wars

In "Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation", author Charles Camosy presents a sweeping vision of an America in which abortion is not an issue. I have never read a book which I wanted to like more. Professor Camosy eliminates much of the rhetoric on both sides of the abortion debate, and makes excellent points about how access to abortion hurts or helps women; why religion should or should not be a factor in one’s views; and the ever-present question of when a fetus becomes a person. Unfortunately, on several points, his book is at best misleading and at worst, dishonest. Camosy is a professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University (a Catholic institution) and a Catholic himself. As such, he has a responsibility to accurately represent Catholic social teaching. At several points, his book not only fails to do this; it fails to provide any kind of coherent argument for or against abortion. Taken to their logical conclusions, Professor Camosy’s arguments allow for greater disrespect for human life. 

Elsewhere, Professor Camosy identifies himself as a pro-life Democrat, though he avoids applying labels to himself as much as possible within this book. In the first chapter, Camosy argues on the basis of various studies that there is no dramatic divide in American views on abortion, only an artificial political split. He goes on in chapter two to systematically examine the moral status of the human unborn child. Examining and borrowing the arguments of myriad pro-life thinkers, he ultimately concludes that an unborn child is a person. He defines the term “person” as all those with the “natural potential” to know and to love. The term “natural potential” is not defined and its implications are not explored in depth—does this mean that dogs are persons? Chimpanzees?—Readers never find out, which is perhaps just as well for the scope of the book. 

It is in Chapter Three—slightly ominously titled “Aiming at Death or Ceasing to Aid?”—that Professor Camosy runs into some serious moral problems. He describes in detail the nature of one type of surgical abortion: 

In the first trimester…Suction Dilation and Curettage is most often used…the mother’s cervix is dilated and a hoselike instrument called a cannula is inserted into her body. The hose is attached to a powerful vacuum and maneuvered by the physician so it can suck out the fetus, placenta, and amniotic fluid. Sometimes, however, the hose does not get all the body parts of the prenatal child, and a curette is used to scrape the uterus to make sure every last limb and organ has been recovered. 

This type of abortion, Camosy clarifies, is “aiming at death,” and is therefore wrong. But is it always wrong? No. He argues that this procedure, as well as Suction Dilation and Evacuation (in which the child is pulled apart limb by limb using a combination of vacuum tools and metal clamps), and fetal craniotomy (in which the head of the child is crushed to fit through the birth canal) are entirely permissible in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. 

Professor Camosy justifies this “gruesome” (his word) taking of life in the name of self-defense. He acknowledges the words of Pope St. John Paul II in the 1995 papal encyclical "Evangelium Vitae": “The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor!” Camosy argues that if the mother’s life is in danger, the child is not an aggressor, but is nevertheless a material threat to her mother’s life. Therefore, he claims, the unborn child is behaving similarly to a brainwashed, innocent, child soldier who is threatening one’s life. Anyone who disagrees with Professor Camosy’s view on this is allegedly one of those “extremist ‘pro-lifers’” who “want to give prenatal children more legal protection than other human persons” (143). 

I confess, I’m one of those “extremists” who dares to disagree with him. I don’t see how his conclusion logically follows from his premise. His child soldier analogy is fundamentally flawed. For one, a child soldier brandishing a gun at me probably does intend to kill me. That doesn’t mean that the child knows that killing is wrong, or that she is morally culpable for killing me, but such an attack is far from random chance. Furthermore, if I do nothing, I will certainly die. In contrast, there is no possible way an unborn child can try to kill anyone. Any death caused by the child will be a tragic accident. And even when the mother’s health is in danger, death is not guaranteed, as the book insinuates. For instance, Camosy suggests that abortion would be permissible if the mother suffers from pulmonary hypertension, a dangerous and rare condition involving high blood pressure. Pregnancy in women with pulmonary hypertension can be deadly, though it is not a death sentence: a 2011 literature review on the topic reveals mortality rates ranging anywhere from 17% to 56%. The overall mortality rate from 1997-2007 was 25%. Furthermore, though Professor Camosy may not admit it, abortion in the case of pulmonary hypertension remains a dangerous procedure. He also claims that caesarian sections are “ruled out” — a claim so ridiculous that a cursory glance at scientific literature on PubMed proves it false. 

While the description of pulmonary hypertension in "Beyond the Abortion Wars" is oversimplified, Professor Camosy is correct that in some pregnancies the mother’s life will be in danger. I propose an alternate scenario to consider these cases: Imagine that you are a parent and have a toddler. Unfortunately, through no fault of your own, your small child has found a loaded gun with the safety off and is happily playing with it, pointing it at you and beginning to play with the trigger. You are at enough of a distance from your child that you cannot reach her in time to pull the gun from her hands, but coincidentally, there is another gun in front of you and you’re a trained sniper (I know, bear with me). Would it be morally permissible for you to point-blank shoot and kill your child? If you don’t, after all, there’s a good chance your innocent child will accidentally kill you. Perhaps some, especially those who are not parents or older siblings, will read this scenario and respond that it would still be morally permissible. It is undeniable, however, that parents have certain duties to care for their children. I do not think I am an extremist to take issue with parents dismembering their children. 

Professor Camosy’s stance when it comes to death of the mother is not the book’s only deficiency. He also suggests that it would be morally permissible for the parents of children with rare, usually fatal diseases such as Potter’s Syndrome to induce early labor when there is little to no chance of the fetus’s survival outside the womb. He claims that this is actually very Catholic, because otherwise the baby might have died in utero and been unbaptized. This is beyond ridiculous. Camosy displays a lack of trust in God’s mercy— implying that labor must be induced because otherwise the child’s heathen soul will be condemned—and sets up a false dichotomy between the health of the body and the health of the soul. Following his logic, Catholics ought to induce all pregnancies as early as possible to baptize the child, because otherwise they might die unbaptized. It is a line of argument that sounds like absurd anti-Catholic rhetoric, not from a book by a Catholic professor. 

Professor Camosy then proceeds to the next logical conclusion. He suggests that in the case of pregnancy resulting from rape, abortion would be permissible. Obviously, this is an incredibly difficult situation and one in which there are no easy answers. “While it is true that the prenatal child should not be punished for the horrific behavior of her biological father, it is not clear that a woman who has been raped has the same obligation to aid a fetus as someone who has consensual sex,” Camosy writes. He contends that Plan B and Ella (morning-after pills that can either prevent ovulation or keep an embryo from implanting in the uterine lining) and RU-486 (which ends an early-stage pregnancy by cutting the progesterone levels needed to keep the child alive) are not “direct” abortions, but are rather comparable to detaching someone who is using your kidneys to keep themselves alive without your consent (the well-known “violinist” analogy). 

Bodily autonomy arguments for abortion are nothing new. What is different and disturbing is Prof. Camosy’s claim that this is actually a Catholic line of thought, and his blatant distortion of actual Catholic teaching in order to make this claim. “Euthanasia is wrong because it aims at the death of an innocent person,” he says. 

But refusing or ceasing to aid such a patient, even when one knows that patient will die without such aid, is not necessarily wrong—as long as their death is not intended and there is a proportionately serious reason for choosing not to aid. For example, even at a Catholic hospital, a ‘do not resuscitate’ order can be accepted for a newborn child who is about to die…Catholic hospitals are, of course, permitted to honor requests to refuse or withdraw ventilators, dialysis machines, and chemotherapy – and for many different kinds of reasons. Such aid might be judged too painful, too burdensome, or even an unjust use of resources. In such cases, Catholic teaching allows for aid to be refused or withdrawn, even if the foreseen (but unintended) consequence is going to be death. (82) 

One can easily see where he is going with this. And he has a point: what is the difference between providing aid to a dying person or an unborn child? The answer is that there is no difference. Both should receive care for their basic needs, regardless of any other factor. 

In his 2004 address to the Congress on Life Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State, Pope St. John Paul II stated “I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory” (emphasis mine). He goes on to clarify that death caused by starving or dehydrating a person is a type of euthanasia. It is not comparable to taking a person off a ventilator or detaching them from your kidneys. Starvation and dehydration may seem an odd way to describe the effects of RU-486, but the “abortion pill” works by removing a human person from their only possible source of nutrition. It was disappointing to read Camosy’s glib overview implying, though not stating, that such a deprivation of nutrients is in line with Catholic teaching, when it has been so clearly condemned by the Church. 

"Beyond the Abortion Wars" has good points throughout, and Professor Camosy’s analysis of the actual views of the American public on abortion is particularly interesting. However, as a Catholic theologian working at a Catholic university, his deceptive statements about Catholic teachings and moral truths are unacceptable. He should clarify the instances in his book where he dissents from Church teaching—or better yet, he should cease teaching theology at a Catholic institution and stop representing himself as Catholic if he so clearly disagrees with the Church. As a Catholic teacher, he ought to recognize that he has a duty to his students’ (and readers’) souls as well as their minds. There is a tradition in Catholic religious communities that when a superior dies, he or she will have to answer at the throne of God for anyone led astray under their care. Professor Camosy would do well to reflect on this idea.