The Missing Defect
Thanks to Cathleen Kaveny and Robin Darling Young (“A Shrine and a School,” March) for contributing to the discussion about Notre Dame. First, the university was founded in 1842, not 1835. It celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2017.
Additionally, I had a hard time tracking what the second defect in Smith’s analysis was: “Two defects mar Smith’s analysis of the challenges facing Notre Dame. First, his is a Protestant, not a Catholic, sensibility. The mixing of the sacred and the profane is par for the course at shrines.” The rest of the article continues the discussion of the sacred-profane dichotomy about which Catholics and Protestants putatively differ (although Kenneth J. Stewart, a Protestant reviewer of Smith’s work, seems to differ on that point).
I recognize that the authors were writing about Catholic and Protestant sensibilities, something that Smith self-deprecatingly brought up in his First Things article. It might be worth noting, though, that Smith became Catholic in 2011 while at Notre Dame. He has since written multiple books about intellectual difficulties with contemporary Protestantism and especially the American Evangelicalism to which he belonged, with critiques of biblicism and individualism, the latter of which he sees as obstructing Evangelicals from adequately evaluating and responding to structural racism. In fact, a good deal of his scholarship over the past two decades rests in large part on his evaluation of Protestantism’s troubling legacy in contemporary society. To rest the better part of the article on an evaluation of Smith’s “Protestant sensibilities” without acknowledging that seems somewhat short-sighted, although there is certainly a rhetorical payoff there—and perhaps an argument that could have been made but wasn’t.
Christopher Enabnit
Maritain Center and History of Philosophy Forum, University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Ind.
What Now?
George Scialabba’s recent essay (“Spellbound,” February) on the persistence of the MAGA faithful—and the existential danger their delusions pose to the republic—is essential reading for any American concerned with the preservation of our constitutional order. He lays out, with characteristic clarity, how millions of our fellow citizens have become ensnared in a manufactured nightmare, an alternate reality engineered by a right‑wing media apparatus built and sustained by the Murdochs, the Sinclairs, and a host of lesser imitators. Through this machinery, many have been persuaded that a celebrity businessman from Queens is somehow the guardian of their interests.
If I have a criticism, it is that Scialabba leaves the reader suspended before the hardest question: What now? He diagnoses the malady but stops short of proposing how we might pierce the media “Iron Curtain” that keeps the MAGA faithful sealed within its illusion. I hope he will return to this subject—particularly to explore how a figure like Trump became the object of their fixation in the first place. How did a coarse, abrasive, and notoriously sharp‑dealing businessman, known for stiffing contractors and cutting corners, persuade working‑class Americans that he would lower the price of eggs?
John D. Fitzmorris Jr.
New Orleans, La.
Ash Wednesday
In Jacob Lupfer’s essay (“Ash Wednesday Asks Nothing,” February), he suggests that the stark Ash Wednesday reminder that we are dust asks nothing of us. “It is simply accurate,” and the “acknowledgment feels…like mercy.”
But can that be true? The roots of Ash Wednesday extend back to the early centuries of Christianity when penitential discipline could be severe. Think fasting, tears, sackcloth, and community exclusion. It was a radical humiliation with all eyes of the assembly trained on the particular sins committed by erring penitents.
It’s fair to ask whether ancient practices should inform our understanding of Ash Wednesday’s demands today, especially with the collapse of the sacrament of confession—a casualty of evolving contemporary psychological attitudes toward shame and guilt. One answer to the question of what the first day of Lent calls for is humility that deeply comprehends our precarious and transitory place in the world that T. S. Eliot in his poem Ash Wednesday famously describes as the “dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying.”
The early Church was profoundly influenced by Greco-Roman norms where honor and shame were tangible realities. These are alien realities to the modern mind. Nevertheless, it’s worth recollecting that one of the great innovations of Christianity was to offer an equal-opportunity absolution off-ramp for commoner and royal sinners alike involving a highly public display of humiliation. In the late fourth century, for example, Roman emperor Theodosius the Great submitted to public repentance in Milan, a penance enforced by Bishop Ambrose, following the massacre of about seven thousand citizens in Thessalonica. The emperor abandoned his imperial robes and wept in church.
Imagine feeling the ashes on your skin as Lupfer describes in his meditation on “dust thou art” and, instead of a simple accuracy that asks nothing of us, experiencing traces of a distant world where open contrition like Theodosius’s produced true restoration.
Thomas C. Franco
New York, N.Y.
A Fragile Thread
Thank you for the article “Ash Wednesday Asks Nothing.” After losing my son, Oscar (he was twenty-eight years old) to suicide, I have lost my sense of connection to God and the Catholic Church. You have touched me, and I am grateful. From one who has always felt out of sync, I appreciate a thread of reconnection, however fragile.
Julie Scheier
East Jordan, Mich.
AI in the Wrong Places
Thank you to Dr. Ronald W. Dworkin for his honest account of an encounter with a woman delivering a baby, her husband, and the anxiety-ridden process he went through to provide a successful outcome (“The Dangers of Doctor Bot,” January). Augustine guided Dworkin’s decision-making, and Dworkin articulated that misuse of AI will bully medical professionals into not trusting their own senses.
AI has already invaded just about every profession. To wit, my son—who is studying for his CPA exam—was informed at a recruiting event that CPAs of the future will be glorified salespeople, while AI will take over the technical work. Such an outcome would not be favorable for customers, companies, or employees. AI bots have their place, but they will never be caring physicians or servant leaders.
George T. Bowman
Scottsdale, Ariz.
Trump & Mottram
Thank you for publishing Paul Baumann’s essay “Waugh Warned Us” (February). I have been likening Trump to Rex Mottram since the 2016 election. I have tended to simply use Julia’s quote from Fr. Mowbray (about Rex not being a fully-formed human being), but Baumann has methodically articulated the analogy much more fully and satisfactorily. I hope lots of Catholics have read the piece by now, and that it has helped them put a finger on what it is about Trump that disturbs them.
Elyse Hayes
Huntington, N.Y.
