Honor without Compromise

This past Saturday, October 28, at New Hampshire’s historic Bedford Village Inn, two significant public figures were honored by Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts: Raymond Flynn, who was mayor of Boston from 1984 to 1993, and Mary Ann Glendon, who is Learned Hand Professor of Law Emerita at Harvard Law School.

Both are also former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See. Each is one of the many quiet heroes of the Catholic Church in our bombastic era.

Mr. Flynn was a mayor of excellent repute, with successes in making housing more affordable and improving race relations. He is also remembered for his patronage of the homeless, the disabled, and immigrants. As the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 1993 to 1997, Mr. Flynn circled the globe, representing the United States in areas imperiled by social and economic injustices. He was always pro-life, always pro-family, always pro-poor.

Mrs. Glendon has enjoyed a distinguished career in government, including chairing the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights and serving as Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She was also President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences during the pontificates of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI and sat on the Board of Supervisors of the Vatican Bank during the pontificate of Pope Francis.

During the evening of recognition for their staunch service, Mr. Flynn and Mrs. Glendon were awarded the Thomas More Medal, for to be faithful Catholics in the realm of politics can be treacherous, as St. Thomas More showed in his life and death. The divorce between Church and State has been complete for over a century, relegating the Church to a position of unimportance while elevating the State beyond its importance.

These days, it is impossible to imagine the heads that would roll if (say) the U.S.C.C.B. exhibited the same attitude towards (say) the I.R.S. as Sir Thomas More exhibited toward the Church of England. What bishop nowadays would ever proclaim, “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world… but for tax-exempt status?” Political pandering—and even outright apathy—are mainstays for those who should hold a higher, heavenly standard.

Today, our government is making a whole host of wrongs not just right but legal rights, and it is the Church’s duty—and our bishops’ and priests’ and lay officials’ particular duty—to teach the truth and resist the machinations of a wayward world. They must be the good servants of the king, as Thomas More was; but God’s first, as he was.

Thomas More resigned from his chancellorship when his Faith was compromised. Mr. Flynn and Mrs. Glendon were similarly uncompromising, and so should we all be.

In the entanglement of agendas that defines and constrains so much action, especially from deep-pocketed colleges, it takes an institution like Thomas More College—because it is small and conservative and sturdy—to prevent great and wonderful deeds from losing, what Herodotus called, their due meed of glory. In honoring Mr. Flynn and Mrs. Glendon, President William Fahey of Thomas More College did what fewer institutions can do without apology or contradiction, especially in the Catholic sphere. For as may be increasingly seen, you can’t have it all and be Catholic.

The University of Notre Dame is a good example of this fact. It is right in so many ways (reserving the Blessed Sacrament in every building) but wrong in so many others (upholding the civil expectations for spousal benefits to same-sex couples in their employ), that the latter has a cancelation effect on the former, like a self-condemning compromise. Notre Dame is simply too big and caught up in the mess of mass-appeal marketing and mass-appeal education to be authentically Catholic—which, though it is a universal faith, it is for all on God’s terms, not the world’s.

Mrs. Glendon, in fact, bravely turned down Notre Dame’s invitation to honor her with the prestigious Laetare Medal back in 2009 when she learned that Barack Obama would be honored at the same event. President Obama is a man whose positions were at odds with her beliefs about justice and morality—especially regarding the right to life. This is precisely what comes from wealthy institutions like Notre Dame, which want to have their Catholicism and cardsharp it, too.

It is encouraging in a time of confusion and collapse, both within and without the Church, to see a Catholic institution honor a strong Catholic man and woman who have served their country and Faith well. And, again, it takes a college like Thomas More to host such an event with such clarity and pride. The widespread attempt to capture a Catholic identity while courting the princes of the world is the dilemma of the young, rich man, whose difficult remedy was made clear by Christ Himself—and it was the remedy of conversion.

We are at a point in the United States where our culture will not be repaired or redeemed by new social models, aggressive diversity politics, inclusive governmental systems, or progressive humanitarian philosophies. We are at a point where the culture must simply convert to Christ. Conversion is the only path left to a people so blind to the way, the truth, and the life; and, forgotten as it is becoming, conversion is an act that every person must perform almost constantly. Life is nothing more than a series of conversions, and that must happen on the institutional level as well.

Thomas More College is playing its part to realize that national conversion, that restoration, and it can do so because it is small enough to be Catholic, untethered to and unafraid of the demands and dictates of the wider, atheistic audience, many of whom are the outright enemies of the Church and the Western civilization that was built upon her.

In honoring Mr. Flynn and Mrs. Glendon without concern or complication due to political and cultural posturing, Thomas More College sets a clear and excellent example to all Americans who hold to traditional values of faith, society, and government. It doesn’t take a Notre Dame to honor heroes, and the duty to give accolades lies with all—and perhaps especially the small institutions who can be truer in celebrating truth, as Thomas More College has done for these two American leaders whose zeal for God and country is truly exemplary.