Casting Deep the Net

by Jim Bemis

I've met Catholicity's resident priest Father John McCloskey only once. In fact, "met" significantly overstates the case. He was the homilist at last year's baccalaureate Mass at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California, where my daughter attends.

Father's sermon was entitled "Go Out Into the Deep," in which he encouraged graduates to "go out into the deep, lower the nets for the catch, and count on the Immaculate Heart of Mary along the way." His call to spread the gospel comes from one who knows well the power of the Church's beckoning. Father McCloskey, it seems, is one of the foremost Catholic apologists of our day.

Every generation seems to have one: the charismatic priest gifted enough to lead high profile converts into the Church. In the early nineteenth century, it was Father Dominc the Passionist who brought into the Church, among others, John Henry Newman. Later, many of England's World War I-era literary converts, including Evelyn Waugh, Edith Sitwell, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Muriel Spark, received spiritual direction from Jesuit Father Martin D'Arcy.

These days, it's Father McCloskey. An Opus Dei priest, he's director of the Catholic Information Center of Washington, D. C. Over the years, McCloskey has done extensive work in radio and television. His articles and book reviews have been published in major Catholic and secular newspapers and magazines.

My first exposure to Fr. McCloskey came while watching his EWTN series, "Catholic Authors." He immediately fit my image of the ideal priest: intelligent, well read, charming and, most of all, fiercely loyal to the Magisterium. The Church could use a hundred – make that a thousand – more clerics just like him.

McCloskey brought Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, journalist Robert Novak, economist-commentator Lawrence Kudlow and former abortionist Bernard Nathanson – celebrities all – into the Catholic Church. That's quite a track record, especially for a guy who started his career as a banker at Citibank and Merrill Lynch. The reason for his commitment: Charity for his fellow man. "It is about a hunger to save their souls," he says, "It takes a tremendous amount of grace and courage to recognize the truth and then commit to it." In these words, you hear the echo of the saints.

Such evangelical success was bound to bring attention to McCloskey, not all of it appreciative. Anyone defending the Church's traditional teachings eventually will become a target. Sure enough, the liberal e-zine SLATE recently took aim at McCloskey.

In "The Catholic Church's K Street Lobbyist," writer Chris Suellentrop accuses Opus Dei and McCloskey of "doctrinal rigidity," saying "McCloskey is the anti-Garry Wills, telling American Catholics who dissent from some church teachings why you aren't a Catholic." Suellentrop claims McCloskey's is "an anti-intellectual approach," expecting Catholics to take a leap of faith "with their eyes closed and their hands over their eyes." McCloskey is discredited as a hypocrite for his "private judgment" in answer to a trick question about the Church hypothetically reversing its teaching on birth control.

Attacks like this aren't unexpected. Evangelizing, a difficult task under the best conditions, is now politically incorrect because it presumes that truth exists, a proposition modern man can't abide. What's worse, Catholic bishops – whose powers descend from the apostles, the first evangelists – are now often too timid and craven to proclaim the Gospel. Witness "Reflections on Covenant and Mission", the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs' treacherous, cowardly declaration against proselytizing Jews.

Interestingly, Novak, Kudlow and Nathanson are all Jewish. Is the Conference of Catholic Bishops saying that Father McCloskey erred trying to convert them? Do the bishops really mean that these men have no need of baptism, reconciliation, and Holy Communion? Apparently so, since – as political philosopher James Burnham noted – he who says A must say B.

In the face of modern man's apostasy and the bishops' betrayal, it takes enormous courage to undertake Our Lord's Great Commission to go and teach all nations. This is why my admiration for Father McCloskey is so towering. Today, he and others undertaking the hard mission of building up Christ's Kingdom can count on only two things: meeting adversaries outside the Church and traitors within.

You used to be able to judge a man by his friends. Nowadays, you can judge him by his enemies as well.

James Bemis is an editorial board member, weekly columnist and film critic for California Political Review. He is also a columnist for the Internet website Catholic Exchange and served for years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. He is a frequent contributor to The Wanderer, the oldest weekly national Catholic newspaper. Mr. Bemis' work has appeared in National Catholic Register, Catholic Faith & Family, Catholic Digest, Thomas Aquinas College Newsletter, The Wanderer Forum Focus, the Los Angeles Times, the Ventura County Star, and the Simi Valley Enterprise. His five-part series, "Through the Eyes of the Church," on the Vatican's list of the 45 Most Important Films in the Century of Cinema, was published in The Wanderer. Mr. Bemis is currently writing a book on Catholic art, literature and film.