Jorge our brother, ‘don’t overthink it’, and ASMRWTF
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Happy Friday friends,
Pope Francis’ health continues to be a major concern for everyone in the Church.
It’s now been a week since his respiratory affliction took him into hospital. I am certainly encouraged that he seems to be responding well enough to treatment that the noises out of the Vatican have stopped getting more negative, though the reality is an 88-year old who spends much time in a hospital faces a hard road to full recovery.
Assuming Francis returns to work soon, as we should all pray he is able to, it seems likely we’ll be entering a new normal for the pope and his schedule.
The welfare — indeed the very life — of the Bishop of Rome is of immediate import to all Catholics. Of course it is. But I have been keenly struck by the frenetic “papal death watch” style of coverage we have seen. Even if the interest is understandable and at its core sincere, it has a grisly tone to it.
Rereading the relevant canon law for the illness and possible death of a pope, I was also struck by certain provisions meant to protect the dignity and privacy of a pope in his final days, whenever they arrive.
“No one is permitted to use any means whatsoever in order to photograph or film the Supreme Pontiff either on his sickbed or after death, or to record his words for subsequent reproduction,” according to the Apostolic constitution Universi Domenici Gregis.
“If after the pope’s death anyone should wish to take photographs of him for documentary purposes, he must ask permission from the Cardinal Camerlengo of Holy Roman Church, who will not however permit the taking of photographs of the Supreme Pontiff except attired in pontifical vestments.”
Such prohibitions are not, I would suggest, purely or even primarily about preserving the dignity of the pontifical office, though for obvious reasons that is a concern.
More important, I think, is the need to respect the privacy of Francis (and indeed any pope) in his final days and moments. It is for a reason that, as part of the traditional assessment of a papal death, the pope’s baptismal, not regnal, name is called.
Even the pope dies as a simple soul, a Christian going forth in faith to meet its maker and in hope of an encounter with the all conquering love of the risen Christ.
But that process, for even a saint, can be fraught with moments of pain and fear and even doubt — indeed it is my understanding that the more holy the soul the more acute are the attacks of the devil in their final days. Every Christian deserves, and is owed by the Church, the space to make their way to God in freedom, supported by our prayers and the sacraments, but shielded from the need to perform or offer to us some spectacle.
I hope and pray Pope Francis will recover and return to his ministry. But as he struggles now, we should also all pray most fervently for the soul of Jorge Mario, our brother in Christ.
That is the debt of fraternal love we owe him, as much as any obligations of filial devotion to the office he holds.
Here’s the news.
So, full disclosure, I took a day off yesterday to spend with some family who are in town. Which was delightful.
Imagine, though, my surprise to discover JD used my absence to declare a “fire sale” on Pillar subscriptions. He seems to think this is a kind of hilarious joke at my [admittedly neurotic] expense, which I would find funnier if my landlord also offered a year’s tenancy for nine months’ rent. But he doesn’t.
Anyway, in the interests of making the best of an unexpected situation, I’ve agreed to unlock today’s Starting Seven — Luke’s peerless morning news round up of everything worth reading in the life of the Church, at The Pillar and elsewhere.
Starting Seven is normally for paid subscribers only, who can get it in their inbox every day of the working week, well before most people make it into the office.
But, for today, all Pillar readers can see what they’re missing, and sneak a peak at the absolute best round up of the day’s Catholic news available anywhere.
Enjoy.
And if you’d like the chance to read it again Monday, it’s simple and for today only, thanks to JD, 25% off.
If you’re already a paying subscriber and wondering how and why you’ve been getting by without Starting Seven, we will walk you through how to adjust your preferences to make sure you get it right here.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday instructing the development of policies to expand access and funding for invitro fertilization.
I hope I need hardly say I am against this, since it is simple science that the procedure involves the willful creation and necessary destruction of embryonic human life on an industrial scale, and because the Church has always rightly condemned it as a grave violation of human dignity, that natural law, and the Divine cooperation in and institution of the marital act.
The president’s pro-IVF stance was announced and pitched during the campaign as a “pro-children, pro-family” policy. And, to be clear, the executive order does nothing substantial for the moment — it only paves the way for some potential policy options. So we may not see, as some fear, a Little Sisters of the Poor Mandate II: IVF Boogaloo.
Indeed, we may not see anything substantial at all, for all we know the administration may just use IVF as a kind of signalling topic of conversation without ever moving any concrete policy. Who knows?
But it’s the bundling together of being pro-IVF with pro-children and pro-family that I think needs to be challenged more directly — and which Trump’s most self-ascribedly “pro-life” supporters seem intent on looking away from.
Consider the advice of former-father Frank Pavone, the laicized leader of “Priests for Life:”
“Don’t overthink this” is, I’d say, the major argument for pretty much any anti-life cause you could name. And with IVF, not overthinking it is exactly the problem.
The science of IVF is clear on its treatment, by necessity, of human life as a kind of usable and disposable commodity.
And even more fundamentally, even if the process could be perfected to the point that no destruction of life was involved, there is no real distinction here, in fact or in the mind of the Church, between the objections to IVF and artificial contraception.
Both seek to hive off the unitive from procreative aspects of conception, denigrating both and parting us from the Divine intent that we be joyfully cooperators in— not the objective masters of — the creation of new life.
But all this is a reality lost on many people, which is why VP JD Vance could say last year, I believe sincerely, that he knows a lot of couples who have made recourse to IVF in pursuit of their understandable yearning to have children, and try to defend the practice as “pro-family” and “pro-children.”
Cards on the table, I get that. To a degree. I also know couples who have children that resulted from IVF. And their painful experience of longing for children is not alien to me — not at all.
My wife and I waited a decade and a half to become parents, with little or no prospect of that happening, while being offered virtually zero by the medical profession in the way of infertility diagnostics and treatment beyond “You can try IVF, and if you don’t want to, you clearly aren’t that desperate for kids.”
And even apart from the heartache we went through, watching our extended circle of family and friends blossom and grow — even watching “kids” we used to babysit become parents themselves — there was the real sense of suspicion and shame we felt in some corners of our own Catholic social circle.
The number of people who, on first acquaintance, would ask how many kids we had and how long we’d been married and then cock us an eyebrow was higher than you’d imagine — as were the number of times I was quietly pulled aside by a well meaning Catholic dad so he could patiently explain to me the joys of being open to life.
I say this all to make clear that there’s a lot we tend not to “overthink” when it comes to life and children, and there’s only ground to be lost by shaming and shrilling about why IVF is, most definitely, anti-life.
There needs to be a serious push to deep-think IVF among the pro-life movement and a real and a really sensitive approach to the conversation, one which loves and supports and persuades people who will be tempted — and as we can see positively exhorted — to not “overthink” the issue.
There are a lot of people who have been sold a mechanistic and utilitarian vision of what being “pro-child” means. They aren’t the bad guys here. They are often friends and neighbors and loved ones.
But there are other people who are pushing that vision, sometimes out of ignorance, and sometimes as part of a political calculus that reduces being pro-life to “moods and vibes.”
Life is more than that.
There’s a lot I don’t know. And, despite my professional experience with the limitations of “legacy media,” a lot I take on trust when it pops up in a newspaper I respect.
So, last night, as I was flipping through The Times, I saw an “article” about Hermes neckties which I thought I’d give a read — I don’t sleep much or well, and I often have to bore myself into oblivion to quiet the dozen things spinning in my head which threaten to drive me back to my desk in the middle of the night.
I don’t own any Hermes ties, to be clear. And I have no desire to. Haute couture doesn’t interest me at all. But I do take a casual pleasure in well made things, and I am one of those fogyish holdouts who feels naked without a necktie.
Blame my education; if you have to wear a tie every day from the age of nine, and if you’re punished for not wearing it right, it creates a habit and a reflexive comfort in the routine.
So when I saw the headline “Where luxury meets ASMR: Hermès tie,” I thought: “Neckties? Sure I’ll read that.”
Imagine my confusion, then, to discover the “article” was two paragraphs long, ending with this sentence, “Watch the calming motions of a tie being tied,” and a video of… a headless man tying a tie with the mic turned up to 11.
I was flummoxed. I reread the article. No help. I reread the headline and conceded I had no idea what ASMR meant, so I read the article again (all two paragraphs of it) and found no reference to this novel acronym.
What did it mean? What was this weird video about? I assumed it must be some industry term for high craftsmanship. But, thanks to a swift Google, I soon learned it is short for “autonomous sensory meridian response,” which describes, and I am not dumbing this down, it’s the actual meaning, “that tingling sensation you sometimes get when you hear a noise.”
Apparently there is a whole cottage industry of YouTubers and such who make a living filming, with extreme hi-def sound, someone whispering, paper being crumpled, and fabric swishing just to give people some goosebumps, because a lot of people find it relaxing and “therapeutic.”
Who knew?
Given the lofty, scientific sounding name for the thing, and the fact that it was popping up in The Times, the world paper of record, I assumed that there had to be some interesting neuroscience behind all of this, so I went hunting.
Imagine my surprise to discover that the term “autonomous sensory meridian response” isn’t medical or even clinical in origin. It was coined by a woman who started a Facebook group in 2010 dedicated to noises that give people the willies, in a nice way.
I’m frankly at a bit a loss about the whole thing. I mean, if hundreds of thousands of people want to tune in to watch someone click their nail extensions and whisper plosive consonants into a microphone, I suppose that’s in the realm of “really weird but mostly harmless,” question mark?
But really I think there’s something deeply sinister about a whole pseudo-therapeutic culture and vocabulary springing up around a thing, and that it can be so pervasive and popular it shows up in The Times without explanation or comment.
That can’t be right, or good, can it? I mean, for sure some of this stuff does give you the willies, so there must be some kind of sensory neurology at play here — and we shouldn’t just play around with that. Right?
Am I crazy here?
See you next week,
Ed. Condon
Editor
The Pillar
The News
Overthink it, please
ASMR, WFT?
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Commentary: Three things Pope Francis should do before he dies
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(Andrew Medichini | AP) Pope Francis, shown in May 2024, has been hospitalized.
Comment
Every time Pope Francis catches a cold, I get anxious. When he goes to the hospital, I panic.
I love Francis and hope he can continue as pope forever, but I know I’m not being realistic. We are all mortal, as those of us in our 80s need no reminding.
[Read more about Pope Francis’ hospitalization.]
Unlike former President Joe Biden, who gave the impression at times of a man mentally unfit for his job in his last appearances, Francis appears to be mentally up to the job but failing physically. Anyone in his condition, especially a pope, needs to prepare for the inevitable.
Here are three things the pope needs to do to prepare for his inevitable decline and death. Frankly, I wish he had done them already.
First, the pope needs public documents describing what should be done if he becomes incapacitated.
Like everyone else, he should sign a power of attorney for health care in case he becomes incapacitated and unable to make medical decisions for himself. Everyone should do this, not just the pope.
Nothing tears apart a family more than squabbling over how to take care of a dying parent. We do not want the church fighting over how a failing pope should be cared for. He needs to appoint someone he trusts and give them clear guidance in a living will on what care he would want while he is dying.
And, in the worst-case scenario, we need to know who has the authority to unplug the pope from medical technology if it is no longer of any benefit.
The church also needs procedures to deal with a pope with dementia or in a coma. The United States has the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to deal with a president who is unable to discharge his duties. The Catholic Church needs similar procedures.
There are rumors that the pope has a secret document to deal with such contingencies, but secrecy fuels speculation and rumors. Any document produced by a cardinal at the Vatican after the pope is sick or impaired will give conspiracy theorists a field day. Laws devised by just a few people that have never been officially promulgated as required by canon law will be challenged.
In addition, such important documents need to be reviewed by multiple theologians and canon lawyers so they can suggest improvements. The church also needs time to study and understand the documents. We do not want people debating the meaning of the texts in a crisis. The church needs public documents laying down laws and procedures for dealing with these situations.
Second, the pope needs to reform the meetings of cardinals that take place before the conclave in which they elect a pope.
These meetings, called “general congregations,” are an opportunity for the cardinals to discuss the issues facing the church. While only cardinals under 80 years of age may attend a conclave, all cardinals can participate in these general congregations.
Most of the time in these meetings has been taken up by every cardinal giving a speech. At the general congregation before the latest conclave, speeches were limited to seven minutes, but most cardinals went over the time limit. Today, with some 250 cardinals, including those over 80, that’s far too much time spent on speeches.
The recent Synod on Synodality showed a better way of conducting these meetings. At the synod, “conversations in the Spirit” were conducted at round tables of 10 participants. These conversations, which encouraged prayer, listening and discernment, were highly praised by the participants. A similar process would better prepare the cardinals for the conclave than a series of boring speeches. It would also give time for the cardinals, especially the newer ones, to get to know one another.
The General Secretariat of the Synod should be empowered to facilitate such discussions. The discussions might last a week and focus on three topics: the state of the world, the state of the church; and the qualities needed in the next pope.
Third, the pope needs to reinstate the traditional voting procedures at a conclave.
For centuries, before John Paul II, to elect a pope required a two-thirds vote of the cardinals in a conclave. The idea was to encourage consensus rather than majority rule, even if this meant that a compromise candidate had to be found.
Without explanation, John Paul decreed that after about 30 votes, the cardinals could elect a pope with only a majority vote. Some said he did this to avoid a long conclave, though we have not had a conclave lasting more than four days since 1831.
In reality, it set the stage for the election of Joseph Ratzinger. Once he received a majority vote, the cardinals knew he could be elected under the new procedures if they voted enough times. Under the old procedures, a third plus one of the cardinals could have stopped his election and forced a compromise. Under the new procedures, he did not need a two-thirds vote, only 30 rounds of voting. As a result, the minority who opposed him gave up and voted for him rather than prolong the inevitable.
Benedict changed the procedures again, so that instead of election by a majority vote, there would be a runoff between the top two candidates. He also required that the winning candidate receive a two-thirds vote, which sets the stage for a deadlocked conclave if neither candidate received the required two-thirds vote. This would be a disaster for the church.
The traditional way of electing a pope by a two-thirds vote is better than these novelties. It encourages the election of a consensus candidate rather than one only representing a majority faction. It allows the conclave to vote for different candidates until one gets a two-thirds vote.
I love Francis because he is a pastoral pope concerned about refugees, migrants, the poor and the environment. But he is not a canon lawyer, so the changes I urge are not his priorities. Perhaps his best course would be to assign these topics to a canonical expert, such as Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, who could draft proposals for public discussions in the church.
With luck we may not have to face these problems in the immediate future, but institutions should not depend on luck.
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Thomas Reese, shown in 2015, is a Religion News Service columnist.
(The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)
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Catholic leader needs to prepare for his inevitable decline and death.
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Despite health challenges, pope has ‘unique’ presence, cardinal says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Despite his illness, Pope Francis’ “great desire is to at least complete the Jubilee, the holy year dedicated to hope that he feels is his great moment,” a cardinal told an Italian newspaper.
Retired Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera Feb. 21 that notwithstanding all the difficulties the pope has been facing because of his age and physical ailments, “he has continued to have a unique presence on the planet,” in much the same way St. John Paul II had, with “his voice and actions recognized by believers and non-believers alike.”
“In this sense, the very long and challenging trip he made in September to Asia and Oceania, despite the wheelchair, despite everything, is exemplary. It was a great lesson, like that of Paralympic athletes. It showed that you can do everything even when frail,” said the cardinal, who led the now-defunct Pontifical Council for Culture for 15 years.
The cardinal had told the Italian radio station RTL Feb. 20 that he believed the pope might resign if he were completely unable to have direct contact with people and if his ability “to communicate in an immediate, incisive and decisive way was compromised.”
Cardinal Ravasi told Corriere, “Should he have any serious difficulties in performing his service, he will make his own choice.”
“Maybe he will ask for advice, but the last word will be evaluated by himself, in conscience,” even though his great desire is to “at least complete the Holy Year.”
Asked about the rumors and “fake news” involving the pope and his health, the cardinal said a kind of “ideological architecture has been built” to spark and fuel misinformation.
It is happening, he said, because there is “stark polarization” and “a strong current” against Pope Francis, “especially on the web and on American sites.”
“Even if it is never explicit, an expectation of change is evident and is also expressed through fake news,” he added.
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