Letters to the Editor: December 2025

The Art of Dying

After reading Alexander Riley’s guest column “Teaching Men to Die to Teach Them to Live” (Oct.), I wish I were in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, so I could take his course on death.

Trying to maintain and benefit from the ancient practice of memento mori, a small group of us Catholic women — mostly older but with a young, lively one among us — have been meeting every month or so for several years now to discuss Ars moriendi, the art of dying. We do this to prepare ourselves better to meet our shared inevitable fate in a Christian manner and to enable us to assist others to do the same. We read an article, a book, or the chapter of a book and discuss the lessons therein. We refer to ourselves as the Ars Moriendi Group and less formally as the Death and Dying Group. All this is tolerated by, and amusing to, our friends and family, but so far no one has asked to join us!

We have studied a 15th-century instructional manual (with wonderful illustrations) on the art of dying; works by St. Thomas More, St. Robert Bellarmine, and St. Joseph Cafasso; as well as more recent works by Hieromonk Gregorios (with the wonderful title Be Ready) and Paul Chaloux (Dying Without Fear). Also instructive was Nicholas Diat’s A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life.

We each have a small (about one inch in size) plastic skull we carry in our pockets or place on our desks as a visual memento mori. To go with our skulls there is a beautiful prayer we found in an old Catholic manual that begins, “Remember, Christian soul, that thou hast this day and every day of thy life,” and ends with “hell to avoid, heaven to gain, eternity to prepare for, devils to combat, passions to subdue, death perhaps to suffer, and judgment to undergo.”

It is an enjoyable discipline to meditate on and prepare for death as part of the daily practice of the faith, and I recommend it to others. After all, we are promised an end to every misery and that a great time will be had by all.

Susan Thomas

Syracuse, New York

ALEXANDER RILEY REPLIES:

I would enthusiastically welcome Susan Thomas to my class, and I suspect she and the other members of her group would have much to teach me and my young charges. What a powerful lesson in the faith she and her friends in the Ars Moriendi Group provide. She inspires me to make inquiries at my own parish church to see if some of us might follow her group’s example.

How the Atonement Works

Robert H. Hassell explains the atonement in terms of Christ’s shedding His blood in sacrifice (“‘In Him We Have Redemption Through His Blood’: How Does that Work?” Oct.). But a further explanation of the meaning of the sacrificial shedding of blood is needed.

The blood Christ shed in the Passion was only the outward form of the sacrifice. The interior meaning, the obedient love of Jesus, is what matters for our redemption. His prayer “Not my will but your will be done” (Lk. 22:42) is the key. This is why the author of the Letter to the Hebrews quotes the messianic verse “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God” (Ps. 40:8) and then adds “and by that will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 5:10; emphasis added). His body was the offering in blood poured out in the scourging and by the crown of thorns, the nails, and the lance. But we see clearly here that it was His will that gave this offering the power of redemptive love.

At the Last Supper, before Jesus left with His disciples to go to the garden of His agony, He said to them, “I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father” (Jn. 14:31). In these circumstances especially we know that His love for the Father is the whole meaning of the Cross. He offers that love to the Father on our behalf.

In short, then, speaking of the sacrificial suffering of the Cross, we should not fail to emphasize what that suffering expresses: “For by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many were made righteous” (Rom. 5:10).

Rev. James E. Reidy

St. Paul, Minnesota

Upon learning from the editor of the NOR that I am the “orthodox and learned man speaking on Catholic radio” whom Robert H. Hassell mentions indirectly, I was delighted and flattered. I’m delighted that Mr. Hassell listens to my radio program, broadcast daily on Relevant Radio’s network of 225 stations, and flattered that he devoted nearly 4,000 words to something I said on the air. After reading the article, however, I must offer a brief rebuttal to his claims regarding my comments. Hassell asserts:

God could have admitted that creating man was a mistake and simply willed him out of existence. This is unthinkable, however, because even in sin man retains the image of God. As an orthodox and learned man speaking on Catholic radio reasoned recently, God could have wiped away man’s sin and simply started over. But, considering the nature of God, this was not possible. By his sin, man incurred a debt — a debt which in justice had to be paid. Simply to ignore man’s sin would have been a contradiction of God’s very nature, and such a thing is not possible…. Therefore, God offered Himself in human form as the sacrifice that would redeem man in the only way his redemption could have possibly taken place…. God the Father accepted that sacrifice in the name of that justice which original sin required. (italics added)

These claims are simply not true.

St. Thomas Aquinas refutes the idea that the Passion was the only possible means of redemption. In the Summa Theologiae (III, q. 46, a. 2), he addresses the question “Whether there was any other possible way of human deliverance besides the Passion of Christ?” He answers:

Augustine says (De Trinitate xiii): “There was no other more fitting way of healing our misery than by the suffering of Christ.” Therefore, although God could have delivered man otherwise, yet there was no more fitting way…. Yet that God could have delivered man otherwise than by the Passion of Christ is manifest. For nothing is impossible to God, except what implies a contradiction; but it would not have been a contradiction had He delivered man otherwise. Hence we must say that it was possible for God to deliver man otherwise than by the Passion of Christ…. A thing may be said to be possible or impossible in two ways: first of all, simply and absolutely; or secondly, from supposition. Therefore, speaking simply and absolutely, it was possible for God to deliver mankind otherwise than by the Passion of Christ, because “no word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Yet it was impossible if some supposition be made. For since it is impossible for God’s foreknowledge to be deceived and His will or ordinance to be frustrated, then, supposing God’s foreknowledge and ordinance regarding Christ’s Passion, it was not possible at the same time for Christ not to suffer, and for mankind to be delivered otherwise than by Christ’s Passion. (italics added)

Though all things are possible for God, His sovereignly willed plan cannot fail. Having ordained from eternity that redemption would come through the Passion, it became impossible for Christ not to suffer. However, Hassell confuses this conditional necessity with absolute necessity, as if God’s nature left Him no choice.

St. Thomas affirms that the Cross was not the only possible way, but the most fitting one. This reflects the broader Catholic tradition (e.g., St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo, which also teaches the fittingness, not the absolute necessity, of the Lord’s Passion). This harmonizes God’s justice and mercy, but not as an absolute necessity of God’s nature, as Hassell incorrectly asserts. My on-air discussion aimed to echo the far more learned Aquinas. And with that, I rest my case.

Patrick Madrid

Host, Patrick Madrid Show

Columbus, Ohio

ROBERT H. HASSELL REPLIES:

Fr. James E. Reidy is correct that Christ’s willingness to suffer is what made the redemptive sacrifice of His Passion efficacious. God allowed (but did not cause) the sufferings of His Son, and Jesus, through His human will, accepted His Passion as the path chosen for the redemption of fallen mankind. Without His consent, the offering of this blood sacrifice would have had no effect. In fact, it would not have been a sacrifice at all.

My sincere thanks to Patrick Madrid for offering quotes from St. Augustine through the Angelic Doctor in refutation of my claim that the suffering of Our Savior was the only path for the redemption of mankind. Mr. Madrid has shown once again the depth of his learning and his ready command of the roots of Catholic theology.

It is interesting that neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas postulates an alternative redemptive path; they only speculate on the existence of such an alternative. This speculation is based on the assertion that “no word shall be impossible with God.” We know that no action of God’s can contradict His nature, for there can be no contradiction in Him. Hence, in His nature, perfect justice and perfect mercy must coexist. Secondarily, Scripture makes plain that the shedding of blood is necessary for the remission of sins. In fact, the whole of Hebrews 9 is devoted to the absolute necessity of Christ’s blood sacrifice in God’s redemptive plan. Therefore, it seems plain to me that for perfect justice to be satisfied in paying the debt incurred by Original Sin, the shedding of blood by a perfect man (as Adam was at the moment of his creation) was both a necessary and sufficient condition for the payment of that debt. God provided that perfect man in the person of His Son, and the freewill offering (as Fr. Reidy points out) made by that perfect man through His suffering and death in payment of the debt incurred by Original Sin enabled both perfect mercy and perfect justice to coexist in God.

The Incomparable Kreeft

I’ve read several reviews of Peter Kreeft’s autobiography From Calvinist to Catholic, even one by a sympathetic yet critical Calvinist. Most have been excellent. Joseph Martin’s is by far the best (“On the Occasion of a Favorite Professor Turning the Pen on Himself,” Oct.). Martin is not only an unapologetic fan but a fellow convert — not the kind who, when embracing the Catholic Church, turns his back on all that was good in the Protestant faith in which he was raised, but who sees the Catholic faith with all its warts and imperfections as in some sense completing what was unfinished in his childhood faith.

Martin establishes the larger context of Kreeft’s prolific literary output, highlighting some of his favorite books. As one who belonged to the Book of the Month Club back in the 1970s and 1980s, I’m tempted to suggest that Kreeft, with well over one hundred books to his credit, could launch his own Book of the Month Club! Martin’s wide-ranging analysis captures the unique quality of Kreeft’s writing. At some point after he began teaching, Kreeft decided no longer to write as a detached academic. He believed his vocation was more than being a footnote in someone’s dissertation. So, he decided to write the kinds of books he himself would enjoy reading. In the process, he became, somewhat like Josef Pieper, a sort of Catholic C.S. Lewis, writing for a popular audience primarily of Catholics and evangelicals.

As Martin observes, Kreeft’s writing has two foci, one philosophical and one biblical. He writes about Scripture not in the dry, detached manner of a historical-critical scholar but as a disciple, often with self-deprecatory humor, as when he recently said in a commencement address at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, “My job is to be an intellectual prostitute, that is, a philosophy professor. I don’t sell my body for money. Nobody’d buy that. But I do sell my mind. Boston College is my pimp. Students pay my pimp; it’s called tuition. And my pimp pays me. It’s called salary.”

Martin’s well-crafted, delightfully ebullient, and salubrious overview of Kreeft’s body of work is most welcome.

Philip Blosser

Professor of Philosophy, Sacred Heart Major Seminary

Detroit, Michigan

I am grateful for Joseph Martin’s detail-rich look at Peter Kreeft’s autobiography. My first experience with Kreeft was when I was assigned to teach middle-school students in (ironically) a Protestant classical school that emphasized Reformed (TULIP) theology. The book was The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion, which I thought was brilliant and which my students also loved. Dr. Martin’s humor and comprehensive survey makes me want to read more Kreeft. Kudos!

Latayne C. Scott

Author in Residence, Trinity Southwest University

Albuquerque, New Mexico

I should probably recuse myself from commenting, as Joseph Martin was one of my favorite doctoral students. He once left a bottle of premium Scotch at the university entrance for me after he gloriously completed his dissertation on Frank Sheed. He remains a rascal who helps us see others as intoxicating gifts from God. His premature eulogy of Peter Kreeft captures what the best good words about the dead, those upon whom perpetual light shines, could be. He illuminates the sinner turned saint (a curious trope for a Calvinist turned Roman Catholic) who still thinks and laughs in the presence of God. How wonderful that Martin can give Kreeft the pleasure of Mark Twain’s alleged quip that the reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. Kreeft still lives and can read this happy testimony. Perhaps he is eavesdropping, like Huck Finn, on these warm words of remembrance of an old mentor.

At some funerals, the maudlin and lugubrious reign. Not so with Martin’s tribute. Stuck somewhere between Pericles’s Funeral Oration (turning mourning into moral inspiration for the living) and John Cleese’s encomium for Graham Chapman (with its heartfelt irreverence), Martin brings us into contact with one of the great Christian philosophers of our time.

As a crypto-Catholic Anglican (my Assemblies of God father’s Army chaplain’s assistant, Tom Howard, crossed the same Rubicon), I was continually drawn toward Rome by Kreeft’s Chestertonian qualities. Taking up the task of C.S. Lewis, he translates his philosophy into the vernacular. He makes anyone who reads him into a fellow lover of wisdom. As Kreeft still teaches us through his Handbook of Christian Apologetics, “We can’t avoid reasoning; we can only avoid doing it well.”

Young Mighty Joe Martin (I couldn’t help alluding to at least one old movie; I am a film professor, after all) shows us how the love, truth, and humor of God can dwell in one humble and amazing servant of God. He gives us reasons to look forward to the blessed community of saints gathered around the throne of God by remembering and honoring the man who put John F. Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis into a heavenly debate. Martin enables us to sit at the feet of a man who could write letters to children about what really matters, telling us, “Don’t be more serious than God. God invented dog farts.”

Perhaps what Martin does so wonderfully well in his playful but profound and premature panegyric to this St. Peter is to show us that the philosophical and pedagogical are best served when they are personal. When the mind puts on its flesh and shares its folly before the Lord, we remember GKC’s admonition that if a “man can’t make a fool of himself, then the effort would be superfluous.” Joseph Martin honors one holy fool, Peter Kreeft, who frees us to think and follow the One who endured the Cross and emptied the tomb. Of course, we, like Peter, must still endure the inevitable tomb. But perhaps Joe will wax more eloquently then, if he is still around.

Terry Lindvall

C.S. Lewis Chair of Communication and Christian Thought, Virginia Wesleyan University

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Moonie Mistakes

Jason M. Morgan’s column “The Moonies in Japan: Religious Cult or Political Inconvenience?” (Cultural Counterpoint, Oct.) is excellent, and I am grateful you published it despite the harsh public opinion here in Japan.

I would like to point out a few factual errors. Dr. Morgan describes me as “a former Sekai Nippo reporter and now head of the Former Unification Church in Japan.” I am currently president and executive editor of The Sekai Nippo, not head of the Former Unification Church. When I interviewed Morgan, I was just a reporter, but I have held these positions since April. Neither am I a “former” reporter; I continue to write articles for our newspaper.

Morgan also discusses the book Religious Freedom Under Threat: Japan in the Time of the Assassination of Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which he indicates was published by the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. In fact, this book was published by The Sekai Nippo, not the Family Federation. It was written by our newspaper’s special reporting team on religious freedom.

Those points aside, Morgan’s reporting is objective and balanced. Such pieces rarely appear in Japanese media. My hope is that its publication in an American magazine draws wider attention to the situation of the Unification Church in Japan.

Toshiyuki Hayakawa

President & Executive Editor, The Sekai Nippo

Tokyo, Japan

JASON M. MORGAN REPLIES:

I thank Hayakawa-san for reading my column and responding to it. I am sorry for the errors. I screwed up.

About saying Hayakawa-san is the head of the Unification Church in Japan, I was appalled to read that I had written that, when I know very well it isn’t true and Hayakawa-san is just as he says, the president and executive editor of The Sekai Nippo. I have wracked my brain trying to figure out how, when, and why I wrote the wrong thing — and not just slightly wrong, but miles-off wrong. I’m afraid I still don’t know. All I can say is I very much regret my mistake.

As for the publisher of the book, I was too loose with organizational boundaries. That is my fault, too. About Hayakawa-san’s being a former reporter, what I meant was that his title at the paper had changed, not that he wasn’t still writing for the paper. But the way I worded it was bound to cause confusion. This is also my mistake.

I am grateful to Hayakawa-san for his gracious corrections and for the opportunity to acknowledge these errors in print.

Demystification & Unconvincing Catechesis

R.V. Young has given us an insightful look into the failures of Catholic culture (“The Corruption of the Catholic Imagination,” Sept.). He singles out two key problems: compromise with secular ideas and abandonment of traditional Catholic practices. There is, of course, nothing wrong with engaging the secular world; not everything in that world is wrong, corrupt, or evil. But it is necessary to have a solid formation to be able to evaluate what that world offers and hence to discern what is good and can be incorporated into Catholic understanding. Obviously, the failures of Catholic education at all levels are partly responsible for our current situation, but as Prof. Young points out, so is the abandonment or downplaying of traditional practices. But this, in turn, is part of a larger problem: the demystifying of liturgy and churches.

Not so long ago, a church was a place of otherworldly beauty, reverence, and mystery. Much of this has been lost due to new liturgical practices, attitudes of parishioners and clergy, and, in many cases, a deterioration in architecture and adornment. One result has been an upsurge in interest in Orthodox churches and liturgies, especially among young men, where I can tell you from experience that the atmosphere of mystery is strong and the ethos very masculine.

Most likely, it will take generations to make significant progress on the issues Young has identified, and it will not be easy because it seems that many in the hierarchy are hostile to traditional practices and liturgies. But we must begin somewhere!

Thomas Fowler

Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America

Washington, D.C.

I thoroughly appreciated R.V. Young’s article. I would diverge on only one point, as he expresses his amazement at the change of heart by Lady Longford. How could that happen, except that the Church had lost her grip on her people in the wake of Vatican II? Let me share an experience to explain the change of heart.

I have never preached an entire homily on the immorality of artificial contraception, because I don’t think a Sunday Mass with a mixed congregation is the appropriate environment; that should be done in Catholic high-school and college classes and, of course, in marriage-preparation programs. However, I do raise the issue at times when discussing materialism or selfishness.

For a number of years, I was a weekend assistant at an almost exclusively senior-citizen parish. Mindful of Fulton Sheen’s advice on how to become a popular preacher (“Preach against the sins your people never commit!”), one Sunday I expatiated on having skewed priorities and gave as an example folks who prefer a winter vacation in the Caribbean to having another child. As I greeted people after Mass, I was surprised at how long the line was and supposed that my fan club was queuing up to praise my eloquence and insight. Wrong! I was assaulted by dozens of angry old ladies. “How dare you talk about that. I had all those kids only because I was afraid to go to Hell if I didn’t” was the common theme. “I am no longer afraid, and I’m glad my daughter isn’t, either.”

You see, our catechesis on sexual matters was not very good or convincing. So, yes, many obeyed but were resentful. When the fear of hellfire subsided, they joined the rest of the American population in contracepting.

On the other hand, I have seen younger Catholics being properly catechized and then adopting a completely Catholic mindset on these neuralgic issues.

Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas

Editor, The Catholic Response

Pine Beach, New Jersey

R.V. YOUNG REPLIES:

It is always good to know that one’s work is being read and read carefully. Nothing confirms this more than a letter “to the editor” that comments on specific elements. So, I am pleased to see the letters from Thomas Fowler and Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas concerning my article.

Dr. Fowler perceptively highlights two “key” problems: “compromise with secular ideas and abandonment of traditional Catholic practices.” He further observes that the damage done by the former is largely a result of the latter — that is, the ability of Catholics to handle confidently an encounter with secular ideas was diminished by the abandonment of traditional Catholic practices, which resulted, in Fowler’s phrase, in “the demystifying of liturgy and churches.” A desiccated imagination will not retain belief, because our faith is more than a set of propositions. It depends upon the richness and persistence of our prayer life, and when our liturgies and devotional practice become superficial and vapid, our commitment to the harder sayings of Our Lord is likely to wither. As Fowler suggests, the atmosphere of our churches and our worship is not a trivial matter.

For this reason, I am somewhat nonplussed by Fr. Stravinskas’s demurrer. He is, of course, correct to reprove faulty catechesis; I experienced it myself. I essentially read my way into the Church in 1974 (not, I think, a common occurrence), so I was put off by what I took to be heretical statements in Christ Among Us, the book used in my instruction. The priest in charge rather smugly replied that the book had an imprimatur (from Detroit’s John Cardinal Dearden). I felt vindicated when the Vatican, early in the pontificate of St. John Paul II, ordered the imprimatur removed. Lady Longford, however, was not instructed with such a book. As I note in the article, she had the benefit of a vigorous Catholic culture in England during the first half of the 20th century. Merely restating the doctrines of the Church more clearly and forcefully, important as that is, will not suffice. One has to live the faith as part of the air one breathes, and I suspect the young men and women Fr. Stravinskas has observed “adopting a completely Catholic mindset” have benefited not only from improved catechesis but equally from liturgical renewal and the restoration of rich Catholic devotional life. I think Fr. Stravinskas has himself played a role in this renewal.

How Might a Public Academic Present the Truth?

I would like to offer a few observations regarding Cicero Bruce’s guest column “What Today’s Academics Have Forgotten About Education” (Sept.). In full transparency, I should note that I serve as president of the college blessed to have Dr. Bruce on faculty — Dalton State College in beautiful northwest Georgia — and so have a certain built-in bias in favor of one of my most thoughtful, erudite, and beloved faculty members. I also will note that the opinions presented here are solely from my personal perspective and should not be read in any way as representing the official view of the college, our governing board, and so on. With that caveat, I will proceed.

Life is hard for those in public education insofar as the existence of objective truth is by no means a foregone conclusion — however, this is a requirement for any to accept the concept of the “true and the good,” as Bruce notes. What do I mean by this?

As a public institution in a society composed of those with multiple faiths and no faith at all, a public college has an obligation to respect all comers. Yet this obligation is easily confused with the idea that all views deserve equal respect. While comforting in theory, it is ridiculous in application. No one I have engaged with could argue with a straight face that all actions are morally equal — some claim this but quickly retreat when faced with individuals or opinions that threaten their own deeply held views. Put another way, most will admit that some views are superior to others insofar as those views align with their views. Ergo, everyone has a moral hierarchy — even those who in theory eschew the idea of a moral hierarchy.

At the same time, it would not be appropriate for a public institution, in the legal and traditional framework of American higher education, to rely primarily on its own views or revealed dogma or doctrine when presenting an understanding of truth. It also would not be appropriate to suggest that truth does not exist, as it clearly does. As a Byzantine Catholic, I would recommend the concept of the natural law as a particular framework or concept in which an academic might pursue a greater understanding of the truth without reference to divine revelation. For some, the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence provide a civic understanding of morality relevant in a public setting. Regrettably, others pursue an understanding of the world in which truth does not exist at all but only power and the wielding of it. Enter Foucault, Nietzsche, and Marx. There likely are others.

Where does this leave the public academic?

A beginning point might be understanding what our role is. Bruce references the role of education in producing ladies and gentlemen suited to public leadership. What are we looking for in such leaders? At Dalton State, our strategic plan outlines the idea that a Dalton State student, a Roadrunner, LIVES BOLDLY. Lives stands for:

Loves. A Roadrunner desires their own good and the good of others. (Thanks, St. Thomas Aquinas.)

Inspires. A Roadrunner works to motivate self and others in work and play.

Volunteers. A Roadrunner builds up their community through service.

Expects. A Roadrunner sets high expectations for themselves and others.

Seeks. A Roadrunner seeks knowledge and truth while respecting others.

This beginning point contains much, but I would highlight the idea in the last point that there is knowledge, there is truth, and there is an obligation to seek it while respecting others. This approach is faithful to both the belief in truth and the respect for conscience and independent thought contained in the First Amendment and inherent to the concept of academic freedom.

Others would suggest that the only legitimate pursuit of truth is tied to dogma and doctrine, and still others reject wholesale the idea of truth. The ability of the public institution to pursue, and to understand its obligation to pursue, the ground of truth — said truth discoverable through reason and dialogue absent dogmatic fiats — is essential to the production of the lady and the gentleman, as Bruce articulates. Even more to the point, it is essential to the future of higher education and the future of our country.

John M. Fuchko III

President, Dalton State College

Dalton, Georgia

Invigorating

Providentially, over 40 years ago I came across G.K. Chesterton’s masterpiece Orthodoxy. This led me to the excellent publication The Chesterton Review. In turn, I began subscribing to the NOR in February 2017. It has lived up to its professed promotion of Catholic orthodoxy. I must express my gratitude and congratulations for the inspiring articles. The October issue was particularly impressive, with the article on Vatican II by Eric Jackson (“The Second Vatican Council: What’s the Big Deal”?), an outstanding and courageous write-up on corruption in Japan by Jason M. Morgan (“The Moonies in Japan: Religious Cult or Political Inconvenience?” Cultural Counterpoint), and the incomparable writing of editor Pieter Vree (“Mirror of Society,” New Oxford Notebook). On reading a first-rate piece, I feel like applauding as one would do in a theater upon hearing first-rate music.

In this complex world, the NOR is an invigorating shot in the arm

Klaus Vella Bardon

Balzan

Malta

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