A Few Bold Bishops in Defense of Religious Liberty

There are hopeful signs that some Catholic bishops are speaking boldly about the erosion of religious rights even while facing criticism for it from other bishops.

The Catho1ic World Report is a venerable old publication of Ignatius Press that is now only available as an online magazine. The publication recently posted through its Twitter account that Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s nominee for the post of Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services, is (or was) “a biological man who [now] identifies as a transgender woman.”

That mere statement of verifiable fact by a Catholic publication resulted in a charge of “hateful conduct” by Twitter and the suspension of its account. After the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights posted this story, I was one of many thousands who emailed Twitter in protest. My protest message charged that Twitter’s response poses a significant threat not only to religious liberty but to freedom of speech and freedom of the press as well, three of the fundamental rights defined in the First Amendment.

I have no delusion that my message to Twitter made a difference, but Twitter rescinded its suspension of CWR ’s account the next day. It nonetheless struck me after this affair that the tyranny of such suppression of rights and civil liberties is the result of two forces working in tandem with each other:

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the noise of a few

and the silence of many.

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The suspension of the Catholic World Report ’s Twitter account was the result of a single complaint by an LGBTQ activist. The reconsideration came as a result of a multitude of protests on the side of right. I am proud to have been one of them.

We live in a time in which the measure of our self-worth is not determined by our system of values or our moral fiber in living up to them for the greater good. As a culture, we have been lulled into a quest for social media “likes” and approval from those whose mission it is to discard and replace the truths we have long lived by. Any media source that does not uphold the sensitivities of identity politics and the progressive social agenda will find itself parked far outside the public square.

The Catholic World Report simply did what the news media is supposed to do. The news media has traditionally been dubbed, “The Fourth Estate,” its public role being a much needed checks and balance on government. CWR reported no falsehood, nor did it cast any aspersion on President Biden’s appointee to Health and Human Services. The Catholic publication simply pointed out that the nominee has a lifestyle that by implication may lend itself to bias against traditional moral beliefs and practices.

Then Twitter was allowed to do what the Chinese Communist Party does on a daily basis. It eliminated from public view information, regardless of its truth, that the progressive agenda does not want us lesser folks to see or hear. I hope I am not the only one who resents this. As a Catholic, as a writer — even as a condemned prisoner — I resent it with every fiber of my being.

Les Miserables

One of the most visited posts at Beyond These Stone Walls has had an effect that I never intended. It is “Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean.” My post has been visited by countless high school students around the world who have used it as a source of “CliffNotes” when assigned a book report on the novel. I am glad to have been some service, but the novel itself is soaring. So is its musical rendition that has appeared on Broadway and in theaters across the globe. Bear with me. There is a point here and I am getting to it.

My post about Les Miserables above tells the story of Bishop Bienvenue (which means “Welcome” in the novel’s original French). Bishop Bienvenue is one of literature’s most noble characters. He seeks out the poor and downtrodden, sees himself primarily as a servant, and has no interest in amassing political clout or Earthly power in any other form. His encounter with ex-convict Jean Valjean sets the latter on a course toward his own noble future. The two are unforgettable literary characters.

Victor Hugo wrote and published Les Miserables in 1862. In the decades after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon, France entered a period of anti-clericalism. Bishops and priests were widely regarded with disdain. When Victor Hugo’s son read the manuscript for Les Miserables, he pleaded with his father to change the character of Bishop Bienvenue to someone the French might more easily see as noble. It is one of the ironies of French literature that Victor Hugo’s son wanted Bishop Bienvenue recast as a lawyer.

But Hugo defended his choice. He argued that Bishop Bienvenue may not represent a Catholic bishop that France has in real life, but rather he represents the bishop that France wants to have. I find a sort of parallel in this time of our own cultural revolution. Many Catholics struggle to maintain and nurture an identity as Catholics on a moral course against a more vocal majority speeding toward identity politics and a culture of open disregard for the value of human life.

The United States has now elected the second Catholic president in its history. He has described himself as a devout Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket everyplace he goes. He has also also openly promoted unlimited and unrestricted access to abortion at any point in a pregnancy and has pledged to repeal the Hyde Amendment which for decades has spared taxpayers from being forced to violate their consciences by providing taxpayer funded abortions.

If such a situation existed in 1862, Victor Hugo’s Bishop Bienvenue would have as the least of his concerns the erosion of his social standing or political clout if he presented an apostate nominally Catholic leader with merciful but truthful fraternal correction. I described the problem that the current President brings to Catholics of conscience in a previous post, “Joe Biden, Cardinal McCarrick and the Betrayal of Life."

The mainstream media has played down this conflict while playing up the President’s Catholic identity. So the media never revealed a statement published by Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez at the time of the President’s inauguration. With inherent charity and true moral leadership, Archbishop Gomez commended this President for his thoughtful concern for the plight of immigrants (a concern that I share after some experience with Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

Archbishop Gomez also spoke, and wrote, of this President’s unapologetic promotion of abortion, his threat against the Hyde Amendment — which he publicly supported until he ran for President — and his stated intent to codify into federal law the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade so that it cannot be readdressed by the current or any other future Court. These, according to Archbishop Gomez, are the preeminent Catholic issues of our time.

Accommodations in the Garden of Good and Evil

The Washington Post accused the Archbishop of “assailing” the President over abortion rights. Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter described the statement as “churlish.” I had to look up “churlish” since I hardly ever use the word. It means “surly” or “mean spirited,” the absolute opposite of the Archbishop’s demeanor or intent. NCR ’s Winters also wrote that Archbishop Gomez “threw cold water on the most Catholic Inauguration in history.”

Archbishop Gomez went on to add in his statement his “deep concern for the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.” This latter concern is heightened by some of the nominees our devout Catholic President has put forth. Foremost among these is Xavier Becerra, current Attorney General of California. He is passionate about expanded access to abortion and embyonic stem cell research. Beccera has been awarded One-Hundred percent ratings on reproductive rights by Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

In “Becerra Is a Threat to Life and Liberty” Bill Donohue wrote in the February 2021 issue of Catalyst that “Becerra is one of the cultural warriors” threatening to haul the Little Sisters of the Poor back into court again if they do not comply with a mandate to provide insurance coverage for contraception. In a previous issue of Catalyst, Bill Donohue wrote of the current President, “It is okay for Catholics to bludgeon the Little Sisters of the Poor so long as they carry a rosary.”

Of all the responses to the courageous statement of Archbishop Jose Gomez, however, the one from Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich is the most troubling. As the elected President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Gomez carefully framed his statement in accord with Catholic teaching, inc1uding Catholic social teaching. Using his Twitter account, Cardinal Blase Cupich publicly rebuked the Archbishop describing his statement as “ill considered.” He suggested that the statement should have been vetted before the entire body of bishops for discussion and a vote. I know of no other Catholic bishop who spoke against the statement. I applaud Archbishop Gomez for his fidelity.

And he is not alone. In an equally courageous statement, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone wrote forcefully against state and local government declarations that Catholic Mass is not an essential activity worthy of consideration.

Writing boldly for The Wall Street Journal, Archbishop Cordileone spoke truth to power in “California’s Unscientific Worship Ban.” The Governors of California and New York have been in lockstep with one another on this, a point I made recently in “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers.” Archbishop Cordileone described his long ordeal against civil authority at both the state and local level. He did not mince his words:

"Whether religious services are ‘essential’ isn’t a matter for government to decide ... In lifting California’s blanket ban on indoor worship (in a 6-3 decision), the high court rightly acknowledged the blatant unfairness of treating religious worship differently from secular activities such as shopping ... Such blatant disregard for the Constitution bodes ill for everyone. These next four years will be a time to coalesce around core ideals or continue to divide along ideological lines.”

Even as the pandemic lessened during the summer and many other activities opened up, the City of San Francisco doubled down on its bans for religious gatherings. All indoor worship was banned while even outdoor services were limited to no more than 12 participans. At the same time, the city government had nothing to say about street protests that were openly allowed to continue, and with some in the city’s government participating.

We who have faced this pandemic with a dismal sense of Les Miserables are empowered by the witness of Archbishops Gomez and Cordileone.

Bishop Bienvenue lives on.

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Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean

Joe Biden, Cardinal McCarrick and the Betrayal of Life

A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers

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Les Miserables: The Bishop and the Redemption of Jean Valjean

Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Miserables, set after the French Revolution, was really about a revolution in the human heart and a contagious outbreak of virtue.

Many readers know that I work in a prison law library. I wrote about it once in “Origen by Dan Brown, Like the Da Vinci Code, Is Bunk.” In 2012, the prison library broke all previous records. 25,861 books were checked out to prisoners during the course of the year. A part of my job is to maintain such statistics for a monthly report. In a typical month in this prison, over 1,000 prisoners visit the library.

I take a little ribbing just for having such a job. Every time the Stephen King story, The Shawshank Redemption replays on television, prisoners start calling me “Brooks,” the old codger of a prison librarian deftly played by the great James Whitmore. I even have Brooks’ job. When prisoners succumb to their worst behaviors, and end up spending months locked away in “the hole,” it’s my job to receive and fill their weekly requests for two books.

Locked alone in punitive segregation cells for 23 hours a day with no human contact — the 24th hour usually spent pacing alone in an outside cage — the two allowed weekly books become crucially important. On a typical Friday afternoon in prison, I pull, check out, wrap, and bag nearly 100 books requested by prisoners locked in solitary confinement, and print check-out cards for them to sign. I pack the books in two heavy plastic bags to haul them off to the Special Housing Unit (SHU).

It’s quite a workout as the book bags typically weigh 50 to 60 pounds each. Once I get the bags hoisted over my shoulders, I have to carry them down three flights of stairs, across the walled prison yard, up a long ramp, then into the Special Housing Unit for distribution to the intended recipients. The prison library tends to hire older inmates — who are often (but not always) a little more mature and a little less disruptive — for a few library clerk positions that pay up to $2.00 per day. One day the prison yard sergeant saw me hauling the two heavy bags and asked, “Why don’t they get one of the kids to carry those?” I replied, “Have you seen the library staff lately? I AM one of the kids! ”

Prisoners who have spent time in the hole are usually very grateful for the books they’ve read. “Oh man, you saved me!” is a comment I hear a lot from men who have had the experience of being isolated from others for months on end. When prisoners in the hole request books, they fill out a form listing two primary choices and several alternates. I try my very best to find and send them what they ask for whenever possible, but I admit that I also sometimes err on the side of appealing to their better nature. There always is one. So when they ask for books about “heinous true crimes,” I tend to look for something a bit more redemptive.

One week, one of the requests I received was from Tom, a younger prisoner who later became one of my friends and is now free. Tom’s written book request had an air of despair. “I’m going insane! Please just send me the longest book you can find,” he wrote. So I sent the library’s only copy of Les Miserables, the 1862 masterpiece by Victor Hugo.

It got Tom through a few desperate weeks in solitary confinement. Two years later, as Tom was getting ready to leave prison, I asked him to name the most influential book among the hundreds that he read while in prison. “That’s easy,” said Tom. “The most influential book I’ve ever read is the one you sent me in the hole — Les Miserables. It changed me in ways I can’t begin to understand.”

For a long time now, “Les Mis” has been on my list of books that I very much want to read. I’ve held off because the prison library’s only copy is an abridged version, though still well over 1,000 pages long in a worn and tattered paperback. I haven’t wanted to tie it up while men in SHU often wait for it. Though I haven’t yet read the huge novel, I know the story very well, however, and have written about it twice at Beyond These Stone Walls, the latest being in my post, “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”

Several times over the last two years, PBS has replayed the London 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserables with Alfie Boe in the role of Jean Valjean. If you’re not a fan of musical theatre, well, neither am I. However, this production of “Les Mis” made my spirits soar, and that doesn’t happen very often these days. If you haven’t seen the 25th Anniversary production of Les Miserables on PBS, you must.

The most recent resurgence of interest in Les Miserables has been in the film production with Hugh Jackman in the role of Jean Valjean. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture. It will be some time before I can see it, but from every review I’ve read, the film also soars. If you see the film, you might hear some mysterious applause during a brief scene involving Bishop Bienvenue Myrial. In the film, the brief role is played by Colm Wilkinson who fans of “Les Mis” will recognize as having played Jean Valjean in the original stage production in London, and then on Broadway, 25 years ago.

Why is the relatively small role of Bishop Bienvenue so significant? The answer can be found in a wonderful article in The Wall Street Journal by Doris Donnelly (“The Cleric Behind ‘Les Mis’ ” January 4, 2013). Fans of both the stage and screen productions of “Les Mis” may not know of the controversy behind Victor Hugo’s choice of a Catholic bishop as a pivotal figure in Jean Valjean’s redemption. It’s a great story unto itself.

In Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Jean Valjean spent 19 years in prison for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread to save his sister’s son from starvation. By the time Jean Valjean was released, all that he had and knew in life beyond prison was gone — just as it would be for me; just as it will be for our friend, Pornchai, and for any prisoner confined behind bars for so many years. I am approaching 19 years in prison, and Pornchai passed that mark two years ago.

Desperate and alone with no place to go, Jean Valjean, formerly prisoner number 24601, knocked on Bishop Bienvenue’s door. It’s a scene like one of my own that I recalled in a painful dream that I wrote of just last week in “What Dreams May Come.”

In Les Miserables, the convict Jean Valjean spent a night at the Bishop’s house from which, in his fear and desperation, he stole some silver place settings and fled. Apprehended by police, Jean Valjean was returned to the Bishop’s house to answer for his new crime.

However, Bishop Bienvenue sensed that this crime was paltry next to the real crime – the 19 years stolen from Jean Valjean’s life — and a few silver settings did not even begin to atone for that. So, to the dismay of police and the astonishment of Jean Valjean, the Bishop declared the silver to be a gift freely given, and then threw in two silver candlesticks that the Bishop claimed Jean Valjean had left behind in error.

It was an act of altruism and kindness that in the ensuing years set in motion Jean Valjean’s transformation into a man of heroic virtue who in turn would transform others. Down the road, as Victor Hugo’s novel, film and stage production reveal, many lives were fundamentally influenced and changed by what Bishop Bienvenue had set in motion.

In her Wall Street Journal  article, Doris Donnelly, professor of theology and director of the Cardinal Suenens Center at Cleveland’s John Carroll University, revealed how extraordinary it was for Victor Hugo to have envisioned such a character as Bishop Bienvenue. In 1862 when Les Miserables was written, Catholic France was beset by a popular and potent form of anticlericalism. The French of the Enlightenment — that fueled the French Revolution — were especially offended by Victor Hugo’s inclusion of a Catholic bishop as the catalyst for redemption. Even Victor Hugo’s son, Charles, pleaded with him to omit the Bishop Bienvenue character, or replace him with someone whose virtue would be more acceptable to the post-Enlightenment French — such as a lawyer, perhaps. I just love irony in literature, but sometimes it’s more than I can bear.

Though the Bishop’s role in the film and stage versions of “Les Mis” is potent, but brief, Victor Hugo spent the first 100 pages of his novel detailing Bishop Bienvenue’s exemplary life of humility and heroic virtue. He wasn’t the bishop France typically had in the peoples’ view of the 19th Century French Catholic Church, but he was the bishop Victor Hugo wanted France to have. As described by Professor Doris Donnelly, in Bishop Bienvenue,

“They had a Bishop whose center of gravity was a compassionate God attuned to the sound of suffering, never repelled by deformities of body and soul, who occupied himself by dispensing balm and dressing wounds wherever he found them . . . Bishop Bienvenue conferred dignity with abandon on those whose dignity was robbed by others.”

In the end, Hugo’s Bishop Bienvenue (in English, “Bishop Welcome”) removed Jean Valjean’s chains of “hatred, mistrust and anger,” and ransomed his soul from evil to reclaim him for God. This enabled Jean Valjean, as Doris Donnelly so aptly put it, “to emerge as one of the noblest characters in literature.”

Most of you will be able to see this fine film long before I will. I will likely have to wait for it to be released on DVD, and then wait for some kind soul to donate the DVD to this prison. (Contact me first, please, if you are so inclined to do that, lest we receive multiple copies). If you have seen the film version of Les Miserables, or plan to in the near future, perhaps you could comment here with your impressions of the film. It’s a glorious story, and I look forward to hearing all about it.

Meanwhile, I have seen some other noble characters set in motion some contagious virtue of their own. I have a new neighbor in this prison. John is 70 years old and has been in prison for most of his adult life. John suffers from acute Parkinson’s disease and advanced stomach cancer, and is clearly facing the winter of life. He was moved on the day after Christmas to a bunk just outside my cell door. Almost immediately after he was moved here, he also caught a flu virus that swept through here like a wildfire. He’s a little better as I write this, but has had a couple of very rough weeks.

Remember Ralph Carey, the young man I wrote about in “The Elections Are Over but There’s One More Speech to Hear“? Ralph is in the upper bunk just above John. I told Ralph that it falls to us to look out for this man God has put in our field of vision. Since then, I have never seen a finer example of heroic virtue. Ralph stepped up admirably to care for an old man society has left behind. In the act of sacrificing and caring on a daily basis, Ralph has seen some of his own chains of hatred, mistrust and anger fall away, and he is learning what it means to be free. I am very proud of Ralph who now sees virtue as its own reward, and it really is contagious — even more contagious than the flu. Though on a far smaller scale, this is the story of Les Miserables playing out right before my eyes.