I will start praying for you and Ed and our new correspondent … when you say you are praying for us .. just curious … who is us you envision in your prayers?
JD, do you and your family have a second or third class relic of Dr. Barber? She sounds like she would be a great intercessor for your family! I encourage you to request one if you can get in touch with the postulator for her cause for canonization!
Also, I’m very happy to see my own Archbishop, Bernard Hebda, as a candidate for USCCB treasurer! He is both staunchly orthodox and he has a shepherd’s heart and I can personally attest that he has brought a lot of renewal to the Church here in the Twin Cities!
On Character reflection: solid points, but to the point made by Veritas Splendor, indeed we aren’t closet Calvinists, and so we should be wary of sin always lurking at the threshold, like a prowling lion.
After I read the story about the massive theft, I DO hope she goes to jail, both from the views of justice and mercy. Sometimes God let’s people hit rock bottom, so that they will be truly converted to Him. I want her, just like me, to be truly converted. I shouldn’t hope for a less comfortable or less free life, anymore than for them. Indeed St. Ignatius of Loyola’s prayer embodies that.
To borrow from literature, Victor Hugo chooses Jean Val Jean to suffer for 20 years for stealing a loaf of bread, and other offenses while in jail, but it’s clear that theft wasn’t out of his heart when he stole from the Bishop while on parole. It was when he was caught, and stared that incarcerated life in the face once more, that the Bishop could offer him something More. It was then that he could finally receive Christ.
This was true in real life for Chuck Colson. I’m sure there are other such redemption arcs. So perhaps Jail time is exactly what God has allowed in an attempt to finally reach deep into the recesses of her heart.
We live in a rich world where we have been preached the gospel of “good enough” or “moral enough” that we don’t really need a savior to help us survive in each and every situation to be so. We’ve missed out on the reality that Jesus tells us: it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter Heaven. Our cooperation is indeed necessary, but we need be praying unceasingly in praise, thanksgiving AND petition for unfailing help.
Our former parish in the Houston area went through that in the late 90’s. The pastor of the church embezzled money meant to built the new church. He was removed but the parish found out that he had done the same thing at another parish and the archbishop sent him to our parish. As far as I know he was never posted at another parish in the Houston area.
I interpret Jean ValJean's story a little differently. He stole a loaf of bread because his children were starving. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, that doesn't actually constitute a sin at all. It was the 20 years of slave labor for stealing that was unconscionably unjust. During which I assume his family died. When you wound someone that badly, you can expect them to become hardened, bitter, angry, and lashing out at innocent bystanders. It is that wound that the bishop healed. By showing Jean kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness when wronged, he taught him how to respond to his own wrong.
That doesn't mean punishment for doing evil is a bad thing that hardens people. Unjust punishment does, just punishment does not.
Also, I would add, whatever your personal opinion is of VP-Elect JD Vance, please pray for him, that he would be the husband, father, public servant, and great saint that God created him to be. People in positions of power like the office he currently holds and the office he was just elected to are subjected to a lot of temptation and spiritual attack by demons, especially in a city like DC that is a seat of power, and our prayers could make the difference between whether he uses his power justly or unjustly, and whether he governs according to the Church’s teaching or betrays it. I didn’t vote for the Trump/Vance ticket (I voted for Sonski/Onak), but I will be praying hard for JD Vance and I encourage all The Pillar readers to prayerfully consider doing the same.
As I commented on the article itself, Dr. Barber reminds me of Venerable Dr. Jérôme Lejeune. Two powerful witnesses to authentic love for those with special needs. I love the photo of Dr. Barber with the child with Downs; it reminds me of my favorite photo of Venerable Jerome with a young boy. Wikipedia has it in his article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Lejeune
As to the translations, I am looking forward to the newly revised breviary. I hope they put the 3 cursing Psalms back in as well as the few cursing verses. As a monk we pray our own Divine Office and we include the 3 Psalms and the extra verses. I can appreciate that this might be shocking to someone joining us for prayer, but I think it is dangerous to cut out passages of Sacred Scripture just because they are hard to digest. As if to say it is the Word of God only when it is convenient and easy to hear.
I would love to see the new breviary have these difficult passages with a one sentence footnote explaining why we pray them.
Agree, agree, agree on the hard passages. It's kind of a lie by omission, and it sets up the pewsitters for a rude awakening when they pick up a Bible for themselves. I know of more than one young person who got to Judges 19 and promptly decided they were not going to have anything to do with any religion that "promoted" such behavior in its holy book. Keeping at least some of the horrible stuff in the Lectionary gives priests and deacons a fruitful opportunity to disabuse the faithful of the idea that the Bible is primarily a moral instruction manual.
I've benefited from the cursing psalms a great deal. Taken metaphorically (which could be the literal meaning) they give us a very good idea of what our approach to sin (and the demonic) should be. Cutting them out tends to make us think life is a pleasant boat ride, rather than spiritual warfare - and then we act accordingly. So I agree, it's dangerous to cut those out.
I really hope the imprecatory psalms are added back into the psalter. The Holy Spirit put them in scripture for a reason, it seems like hubris to say we need to censor them. If we see them as problematic, the problem is with us, not the Word of God!
I loved your reflection on character, JD. A few days ago I commented that I wondered if Darrey had something going on mentally (I was thinking, like, early onset Alzheimer's) precisely because everyone around her seemed so stunned. But you are absolutely right that there's a strong possibility that this was simply a test of character and she failed it. If that's the case, she should absolutely do the time. I personally know people who have done prison time and come out, if not morally improved in the inside, at least determined not to do anything that results in going back there.
Tests of character suck, and the worst of it is, passing one of them does not determine the outcome of any future one.
I hope Bishop Hicks of Joliet does not win to lead the clergy, consecrated life, and vocations committee. I live in his diocese and I have had a few priests there call him the "hide and seek" bishop. Unlike the previous Bishop Conlon of Joliet, who gave out his phone number to all his priests and has and is (as retired bishop) always helpful to them, Bishop Hicks has restricted his phone and priests only see "private" when he calls them. He has also learned from his mentor, Cardinal Cupich, to call his priests mostly to threaten them. He has restricted or punished several priests simply because in their homilies they call homosexuality sinful or guided the faithful away from sinful acts such as contraception, divorce, or living together without marriage. Such priests have been demoted to administrators instead of pastors (meaning the bishop can remove them at any time) and even sent for retraining so they can be more "pastorally sensitive". Meanwhile, I and my 84 yo mother cannot attend Mass at the closest two parishes because it is ok for the pastors to restrict Communion to on the hand only. Also, several good, orthodox seminarians have left the seminary from the Joliet diocese recently. How could such a bishop direct USCCB policies on priests and vocations is beyond my understanding.
I think what is missing from the notion of “good people/bad people” is the understanding that evil is corruptive. It takes what was truly and objectively good and rots it into something that is truly and objectively bad. The splendor of Christ is that the state of corruption need not be permanent in the temporal or the eternal. So yes, maybe this act really is out of keeping with the character the lady displayed until the point at which she began to cooperate with evil. That is truly tragic. She can still be redeemed. Whether that should include a prison sentence isn’t up to me, though I tend to agree with JD that repeated demonstrations of little to no consequence for crimes in, through, and against the Church are not helpful. I’ll even add that I’m of the opinion that dynamic can be a millstone that influences people against wariness of cooperation with evil.
I think what is missing from the notion of “good people/bad people” is the understanding that evil is corruptive"
This connects with JPII's system of ethics, expressed most fully in his book "Person and Act". He understood that the acts of a person help they themselves become more of the likeness of Christ or not become more of the likeness of Christ. Since the goal is to put on the human nature of Christ, the cost is more than the consequences of getting caught. Instead, the cost of evil deeds is the decrease of our divinization. The good news of course is that our acts of love increase our divinization as we become more Christlike.
So much yes to this comment. This understanding of evil is the only view of it that can bring us to respond with justice to the misbehaviors of people who otherwise seem to be good and decent. It's also the only way to understand it that accords with the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Angels and demons are fixed as good or evil. Demons will never repent, angels will never sin. Human beings can and do flip between the two repeatedly through the course of their lives. Mixing up the two very different natures is irrational and will not work out well for us.
Regarding Heather Darry - in my opinion, anyone who steals from a church or a charity should receive a long jail sentence. The money in those institutions is raised from people who donate it for doing good works. Stealing it is egregiously wrong. I am also amazed at what must be a lackadaisical approach to accounting procedures and internal controls that allowed her to steal so much in such a short time.
If the new administration knocks down the separation of church and state, maybe dioceses and parishes become subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. From that perspective, the problem has been solved for 22years and church financial controls need to enter the 21st century.
In point of fact, JD is spot on when he discusses Pope John Paul II's signets on the "fundamental option" as written in The Splendor of Truth. The Pope teaches what we know is true: sin is not confined by human definition but by man's acts as they either offend or otherwise distance the person from God. It is a shame that in today's Catholic world,, people have lost their anility to discern and even mores, that oo many prelates have lost the will to teach truth.
Regarding 'the character is conduct' story, it would be the truest of tragedy 's if Mrs. Darrow could not be reformed to the benefit of her eternal soul. I would propose a penance as follows: Assign Mrs. Darrow to the task of securing funds for the Sisters of Charity in Haiti, since they are in dire need after their treatment facility in Port-Au-Prince was burned to the ground by drug gangs. Someone with Mrs. Darrow's skills could be very benificial to their cause. Perhaps Mrs. Darrow could even head over to Haiti herself. (perhaps in her recently purchased boat?) but if that isn't feasible she could work from Florida (the sisters have a contact in the Miami area who can make the transfers for her). And while it is true she may be placed in a dangerous situation, this would be a small price to pay to reform her wayward accounting practices in the eyes of God and the church. St. Matthew. Pray for Mrs. Darrow and us!
JD insightfully examines the difficult balance between mercy and accountability in the Church—a challenge that often appears to lean toward mercy, sometimes to the detriment of justice. This “optimistic anthropology” he describes, where past conduct is viewed as indicative of inherent goodness even in the face of serious misconduct, touches upon what I see as the Church’s Achilles heel: the tendency to prioritize forgiveness over accountability.
As he highlights, this “disordered mercy” can foster permissiveness, particularly in handling cases of clerical abuse, financial mismanagement, or other forms of misconduct. By pointing to John Paul II’s teachings on the “fundamental option,” he emphasize s how character is revealed through our actual moral choices, not simply an assumed inner goodness. Genuine reform requires a commitment to accountability, not mercy at the expense of accountability
I switched from being a patristic major with a minor in Renaissance/ Reformation to the reverse after my first lecture on the Renaissance in which Cola di Rienza, having attempted to recreate the Roman Republic while the papacy was in Avignon, was sent back by the Pope to govern Rome because he had learned his lesson and wouldn't do that again. Wrong. And we still haven't learned.
You're spot on with regard to Dr. Barber. A great woman who accomplished so much. One minor correction to your article, Erie is northeast of Cleveland about half way between Cleveland (the Browns) and Buffalo (the Bills).
JD
Ouch and yes on character reflection
I will start praying for you and Ed and our new correspondent … when you say you are praying for us .. just curious … who is us you envision in your prayers?
Sounds wonderful…
JD, do you and your family have a second or third class relic of Dr. Barber? She sounds like she would be a great intercessor for your family! I encourage you to request one if you can get in touch with the postulator for her cause for canonization!
Also, I’m very happy to see my own Archbishop, Bernard Hebda, as a candidate for USCCB treasurer! He is both staunchly orthodox and he has a shepherd’s heart and I can personally attest that he has brought a lot of renewal to the Church here in the Twin Cities!
Archbishop Hebda won!! 💪 🙏
All that money and Heather Darry didn't buy her family members some indulgences!!?
On Character reflection: solid points, but to the point made by Veritas Splendor, indeed we aren’t closet Calvinists, and so we should be wary of sin always lurking at the threshold, like a prowling lion.
After I read the story about the massive theft, I DO hope she goes to jail, both from the views of justice and mercy. Sometimes God let’s people hit rock bottom, so that they will be truly converted to Him. I want her, just like me, to be truly converted. I shouldn’t hope for a less comfortable or less free life, anymore than for them. Indeed St. Ignatius of Loyola’s prayer embodies that.
To borrow from literature, Victor Hugo chooses Jean Val Jean to suffer for 20 years for stealing a loaf of bread, and other offenses while in jail, but it’s clear that theft wasn’t out of his heart when he stole from the Bishop while on parole. It was when he was caught, and stared that incarcerated life in the face once more, that the Bishop could offer him something More. It was then that he could finally receive Christ.
This was true in real life for Chuck Colson. I’m sure there are other such redemption arcs. So perhaps Jail time is exactly what God has allowed in an attempt to finally reach deep into the recesses of her heart.
We live in a rich world where we have been preached the gospel of “good enough” or “moral enough” that we don’t really need a savior to help us survive in each and every situation to be so. We’ve missed out on the reality that Jesus tells us: it is easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter Heaven. Our cooperation is indeed necessary, but we need be praying unceasingly in praise, thanksgiving AND petition for unfailing help.
Our former parish in the Houston area went through that in the late 90’s. The pastor of the church embezzled money meant to built the new church. He was removed but the parish found out that he had done the same thing at another parish and the archbishop sent him to our parish. As far as I know he was never posted at another parish in the Houston area.
I interpret Jean ValJean's story a little differently. He stole a loaf of bread because his children were starving. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, that doesn't actually constitute a sin at all. It was the 20 years of slave labor for stealing that was unconscionably unjust. During which I assume his family died. When you wound someone that badly, you can expect them to become hardened, bitter, angry, and lashing out at innocent bystanders. It is that wound that the bishop healed. By showing Jean kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness when wronged, he taught him how to respond to his own wrong.
That doesn't mean punishment for doing evil is a bad thing that hardens people. Unjust punishment does, just punishment does not.
"Five years for what you did
The rest because you tried to run"
so is 5 years unjust for robbery? 15 for attempted escape?
more asked in jest. I love the musical, so had to make sure that quote was in here
Also, I would add, whatever your personal opinion is of VP-Elect JD Vance, please pray for him, that he would be the husband, father, public servant, and great saint that God created him to be. People in positions of power like the office he currently holds and the office he was just elected to are subjected to a lot of temptation and spiritual attack by demons, especially in a city like DC that is a seat of power, and our prayers could make the difference between whether he uses his power justly or unjustly, and whether he governs according to the Church’s teaching or betrays it. I didn’t vote for the Trump/Vance ticket (I voted for Sonski/Onak), but I will be praying hard for JD Vance and I encourage all The Pillar readers to prayerfully consider doing the same.
As I commented on the article itself, Dr. Barber reminds me of Venerable Dr. Jérôme Lejeune. Two powerful witnesses to authentic love for those with special needs. I love the photo of Dr. Barber with the child with Downs; it reminds me of my favorite photo of Venerable Jerome with a young boy. Wikipedia has it in his article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_Lejeune
As to the translations, I am looking forward to the newly revised breviary. I hope they put the 3 cursing Psalms back in as well as the few cursing verses. As a monk we pray our own Divine Office and we include the 3 Psalms and the extra verses. I can appreciate that this might be shocking to someone joining us for prayer, but I think it is dangerous to cut out passages of Sacred Scripture just because they are hard to digest. As if to say it is the Word of God only when it is convenient and easy to hear.
I would love to see the new breviary have these difficult passages with a one sentence footnote explaining why we pray them.
Agree, agree, agree on the hard passages. It's kind of a lie by omission, and it sets up the pewsitters for a rude awakening when they pick up a Bible for themselves. I know of more than one young person who got to Judges 19 and promptly decided they were not going to have anything to do with any religion that "promoted" such behavior in its holy book. Keeping at least some of the horrible stuff in the Lectionary gives priests and deacons a fruitful opportunity to disabuse the faithful of the idea that the Bible is primarily a moral instruction manual.
I've benefited from the cursing psalms a great deal. Taken metaphorically (which could be the literal meaning) they give us a very good idea of what our approach to sin (and the demonic) should be. Cutting them out tends to make us think life is a pleasant boat ride, rather than spiritual warfare - and then we act accordingly. So I agree, it's dangerous to cut those out.
I really hope the imprecatory psalms are added back into the psalter. The Holy Spirit put them in scripture for a reason, it seems like hubris to say we need to censor them. If we see them as problematic, the problem is with us, not the Word of God!
I loved your reflection on character, JD. A few days ago I commented that I wondered if Darrey had something going on mentally (I was thinking, like, early onset Alzheimer's) precisely because everyone around her seemed so stunned. But you are absolutely right that there's a strong possibility that this was simply a test of character and she failed it. If that's the case, she should absolutely do the time. I personally know people who have done prison time and come out, if not morally improved in the inside, at least determined not to do anything that results in going back there.
Tests of character suck, and the worst of it is, passing one of them does not determine the outcome of any future one.
Last I checked, Erie, PA is Northeast of Cleveland, OH. It’s half way to Buffalo, NY.
shoot. yikes.
I hope Bishop Hicks of Joliet does not win to lead the clergy, consecrated life, and vocations committee. I live in his diocese and I have had a few priests there call him the "hide and seek" bishop. Unlike the previous Bishop Conlon of Joliet, who gave out his phone number to all his priests and has and is (as retired bishop) always helpful to them, Bishop Hicks has restricted his phone and priests only see "private" when he calls them. He has also learned from his mentor, Cardinal Cupich, to call his priests mostly to threaten them. He has restricted or punished several priests simply because in their homilies they call homosexuality sinful or guided the faithful away from sinful acts such as contraception, divorce, or living together without marriage. Such priests have been demoted to administrators instead of pastors (meaning the bishop can remove them at any time) and even sent for retraining so they can be more "pastorally sensitive". Meanwhile, I and my 84 yo mother cannot attend Mass at the closest two parishes because it is ok for the pastors to restrict Communion to on the hand only. Also, several good, orthodox seminarians have left the seminary from the Joliet diocese recently. How could such a bishop direct USCCB policies on priests and vocations is beyond my understanding.
Hicks won: results posted 2 hours ago
Well, I guess his priests will have even less time seeing him, for better or for worse.
I think what is missing from the notion of “good people/bad people” is the understanding that evil is corruptive. It takes what was truly and objectively good and rots it into something that is truly and objectively bad. The splendor of Christ is that the state of corruption need not be permanent in the temporal or the eternal. So yes, maybe this act really is out of keeping with the character the lady displayed until the point at which she began to cooperate with evil. That is truly tragic. She can still be redeemed. Whether that should include a prison sentence isn’t up to me, though I tend to agree with JD that repeated demonstrations of little to no consequence for crimes in, through, and against the Church are not helpful. I’ll even add that I’m of the opinion that dynamic can be a millstone that influences people against wariness of cooperation with evil.
I think what is missing from the notion of “good people/bad people” is the understanding that evil is corruptive"
This connects with JPII's system of ethics, expressed most fully in his book "Person and Act". He understood that the acts of a person help they themselves become more of the likeness of Christ or not become more of the likeness of Christ. Since the goal is to put on the human nature of Christ, the cost is more than the consequences of getting caught. Instead, the cost of evil deeds is the decrease of our divinization. The good news of course is that our acts of love increase our divinization as we become more Christlike.
So much yes to this comment. This understanding of evil is the only view of it that can bring us to respond with justice to the misbehaviors of people who otherwise seem to be good and decent. It's also the only way to understand it that accords with the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Angels and demons are fixed as good or evil. Demons will never repent, angels will never sin. Human beings can and do flip between the two repeatedly through the course of their lives. Mixing up the two very different natures is irrational and will not work out well for us.
Regarding Heather Darry - in my opinion, anyone who steals from a church or a charity should receive a long jail sentence. The money in those institutions is raised from people who donate it for doing good works. Stealing it is egregiously wrong. I am also amazed at what must be a lackadaisical approach to accounting procedures and internal controls that allowed her to steal so much in such a short time.
If the new administration knocks down the separation of church and state, maybe dioceses and parishes become subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. From that perspective, the problem has been solved for 22years and church financial controls need to enter the 21st century.
SOX applies to public companies, so the Church would need to conduct an IPO first...
By the way, there is a Baltimore connection -- the late Senator Sarbanes is a Baltimore native who worshipped at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral there.
The financial controls mandated by SOx are organized common sense that could be applied to any high-revenue organization like dioceses and parishes.
In point of fact, JD is spot on when he discusses Pope John Paul II's signets on the "fundamental option" as written in The Splendor of Truth. The Pope teaches what we know is true: sin is not confined by human definition but by man's acts as they either offend or otherwise distance the person from God. It is a shame that in today's Catholic world,, people have lost their anility to discern and even mores, that oo many prelates have lost the will to teach truth.
Must have my weekly fix of the pillar.
Thanks for ALL the news!
Regarding 'the character is conduct' story, it would be the truest of tragedy 's if Mrs. Darrow could not be reformed to the benefit of her eternal soul. I would propose a penance as follows: Assign Mrs. Darrow to the task of securing funds for the Sisters of Charity in Haiti, since they are in dire need after their treatment facility in Port-Au-Prince was burned to the ground by drug gangs. Someone with Mrs. Darrow's skills could be very benificial to their cause. Perhaps Mrs. Darrow could even head over to Haiti herself. (perhaps in her recently purchased boat?) but if that isn't feasible she could work from Florida (the sisters have a contact in the Miami area who can make the transfers for her). And while it is true she may be placed in a dangerous situation, this would be a small price to pay to reform her wayward accounting practices in the eyes of God and the church. St. Matthew. Pray for Mrs. Darrow and us!
JD insightfully examines the difficult balance between mercy and accountability in the Church—a challenge that often appears to lean toward mercy, sometimes to the detriment of justice. This “optimistic anthropology” he describes, where past conduct is viewed as indicative of inherent goodness even in the face of serious misconduct, touches upon what I see as the Church’s Achilles heel: the tendency to prioritize forgiveness over accountability.
As he highlights, this “disordered mercy” can foster permissiveness, particularly in handling cases of clerical abuse, financial mismanagement, or other forms of misconduct. By pointing to John Paul II’s teachings on the “fundamental option,” he emphasize s how character is revealed through our actual moral choices, not simply an assumed inner goodness. Genuine reform requires a commitment to accountability, not mercy at the expense of accountability
I switched from being a patristic major with a minor in Renaissance/ Reformation to the reverse after my first lecture on the Renaissance in which Cola di Rienza, having attempted to recreate the Roman Republic while the papacy was in Avignon, was sent back by the Pope to govern Rome because he had learned his lesson and wouldn't do that again. Wrong. And we still haven't learned.
You're spot on with regard to Dr. Barber. A great woman who accomplished so much. One minor correction to your article, Erie is northeast of Cleveland about half way between Cleveland (the Browns) and Buffalo (the Bills).
i know, I'm mortified.
Does this mean that you have performed penance, or that you ought to?