Reflections on A.D. 2023

by Justin Soutar

Looking back on the Year of Our Lord 2023, I find many things to be thankful for and some things to pray for, personally and professionally as well as nationally, internationally and ecclesiastically. Here are just a few highlights.

Photo by Justin Soutar

Personally, I was blessed to make four brief road trips this year. The first was with a friend of mine to Richmond on February 1 for the Virginia March for Life. We joined with Bishop Barry Knestout, Bishop Michael Burbidge, Governor Glenn Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares, and thousands of fellow Catholics and Christians from across the Commonwealth to peacefully demonstrate and advocate for the legal protection of the unborn in our state and to support and encourage single mothers to choose life for their babies. The second trip, in mid-April, was to the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and the nearby National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes (on the campus of Mount Saint Mary's University) in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The awe-inspiring Byzantine architecture and unique history of the Shrine as the birthplace of the Catholic school system, and the peaceful, prayerful atmosphere of the Grotto with its outdoor Stations of the Cross, many statues of saints, tiny Blessed Sacrament chapel, and towering gold statue of Mary nearby, renewed and uplifted my spirit as I continued to recover from COVID. 

Photo by Justin Soutar

 

My third trip was to the northern West Virginia panhandle in early July to visit a good priest friend and former boss of mine. We enjoyed an afternoon and evening together, with the beautiful scenery of the Mountain State and the Ohio River a pleasant bonus. The fourth and most memorable trip was to the historic Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. on October 21 to participate with more than 1,000 fellow Catholics in the Diocese of Richmond's pilgrimage led by Bishop Knestout. It was a partly cloudy and windy autumn day, and every time the sun came back out it would pour through the many stained-glass windows onto different areas of the walls and columns and mosaics of the massive basilica. I took advantage of this opportunity to tour and photograph the many Marian chapels and mosaics adorning the magnificent Great Upper Church, and to go to confession as well as pray the Rosary and attend Mass and Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction with fellow pilgrims. The bishop's homily on the great treasure of our faith did not disappoint, and the world-class music provided by the Shrine choir and organist for the Mass and Eucharistic procession through the basilica was so glorious, majestic, and overpowering at times that I could scarcely hold back tears. I will continue to treasure this day-long visit to Mary's Shrine for years to come.

Photo by Justin Soutar

 

Professionally, from January through June, as music minister and liturgical assistant, I was blessed to continue leading Saint Patrick Catholic Church in Lexington, Virginia, through the sesquicentennial celebration of its establishment in 1873. To commemorate this historic event, the adult choir performed renowned sacred masterworks, several for the first time, including Palestrina's "Sicut cervus", Faure's "Cantique de Jean Racine", Bruno Vlahek's "Ave Maria", Mozart's "Ave verum", and Handel's "Hallelujah!" Chorus from Messiah. I was further blessed to begin leading the parish through the National Eucharistic Revival this year, highlighted by a Eucharistic healing service in April led by Father John A. Boughton, C.F.R., and a remarkably successful Forty Hours devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in October--the first such event at this parish in decades.

Photo by Justin Soutar

 

Also professionally, a few months ago I learned that the publisher of my first book, America’s Back-Door Enemy (see right sidebar photo), went out of business in 2017 under a cloud of corruption and scandal. Back in 2008 when they accepted my manuscript and offered me a contract, Tate Publishing was a small but idealistic and high-quality Christian publisher located in Mustang, Oklahoma. By 2014 they had grown dramatically to become the third-largest Christian publishing house in the United States, but I was unaware that this position had been attained through the dishonest practices of senior management. I pray for the conversion of those who grew wealthy by violating the Seventh Commandment on such a massive scale. If you haven’t read this important book about American foreign policy in the Middle East but would like to, please write to me and I’ll obtain a used copy for you.

Nationally, it was a tumultuous year in government and politics, reflecting our ever-deepening philosophical and moral divide and the increasing totalitarianism of the Democratic Party leadership. Having secured a narrow majority in the House of Representatives in the 2022 election, Congressional Republicans under the capable and effective leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy proceeded to act in the best interests of the country while holding the illegitimate Biden administration accountable for its flagrant abuses of power; opening a corruption investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings with Communist China, Russia, and Ukraine; and launching overdue impeachment proceedings against "Crooked Joe." Congressional Democrats and eight Republicans In Name Only joined forces to brazenly retaliate by firing McCarthy as House Speaker in September. 

 

Meanwhile, "former" President Donald Trump, the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, spent the entire year preparing for his 2024 presidential campaign by traveling the country, speaking to and raising money from millions of ordinary Americans who are grateful for what he did for the nation during his first term as president and who are appalled by what has transpired under Biden's misrule. Remarkably, Trump has successfully weathered multiple violent storms of personal attacks, baseless indictments and lawsuits involving his finances and eligibility to run for president, arrest and imprisonment, and FBI surveillance from Crooked Joe and his Democratic cronies, all coupled with pervasive anti-Trump bias from major media outlets--steadily increasing his support base to the point where he is now clearly leading not only Biden, but all of the other Republican presidential candidates combined, in the polls in all of the key battleground states. May God grant this fearless champion of the American people victory over his enemies and return him to the White House in 2025.

At the same time, independent thinker and plain-spoken maverick candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. successfully connected with millions of voters disenchanted with both major parties, adding another element of interest to the early presidential contest. He promised to break the unholy alliance between Big Government and Big Business and to do an even better job than Trump of draining the D.C. swamp. Mainly an old-fashioned liberal with a handful of conservative issue positions, he will likely draw many more votes away from Biden than from Trump in November 2024. Some of his derided "conspiracy theories," such as the link between childhood vaccines and autism and the CIA's role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, are actually true (check out the books Autism--Prevention Care and Management by Marvin Anderson, M.D. and Plausible Denial by Mark Lane).

Photo by Justin Soutar

We pro-lifers were disappointed that voters passed pro-abortion laws in Ohio and Kentucky and elected pro-abortion majorities to the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, but we shouldn't have been surprised. The Planned Parenthood abortion cartel and its loyal Democratic allies poured millions of dollars into false advertising in these states to frighten and deceive voters regarding the nature of the proposed laws and to convince them to vote for Democrats. Just like the fight against slavery, the fight against abortion will not be won quickly or easily. It takes time to change hearts and minds and to defeat rich and powerful enemies.

Internationally, the tragic and devastating war in Ukraine continued unabated with the tide gradually turning in Russia’s favor, and the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict re-erupted with a brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and an invasion of Palestinian Gaza by the Israeli army. Both conflicts have been viewed too simplistically by many prominent observers and ordinary people who are unaware of the complexities involved. Russia and Ukraine share a close ethnic, cultural, religious, and geographical relationship going back many centuries, and eastern Ukraine is more Russian than the rest of the country. Russian naval access to a Black Sea port is a key issue at the heart of the conflict that Ukraine has failed to address. In recent years, many Western leaders ignored the lessons of twentieth-century history, failing to realize that by siding with Ukraine and expanding NATO on Russia’s western flank, they would provoke a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. While some of Russia’s grievances and territorial claims may be legitimate, they do not justify the murderous and destructive military invasion and occupation of Ukraine. And while Ukraine has the right to defend herself against Russian aggression, there is a great deal of corruption in the Ukrainian government.

Neither is the Israel-Hamas confrontation as black and white as conservative American commentators paint it. It is not a “war,” properly speaking, between the armies of two nations, but rather a violent conflict between the Israeli army and Hamas terrorists. Nor is Hamas an entirely evil entity; it is primarily a humanitarian, social, and educational Palestinian institution with a radical terrorist fringe. The peaceful organization operates quietly, enjoying broad support among the Palestinian people for its good works, while its violent wing grabs the media headlines. Although nothing justified the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on innocent Israeli civilians, this atrocity did not justify Israel’s unilateral military invasion of Gaza with its unacceptable collateral damage to Palestinian homes, churches, hospitals, and innocent civilians either. Hamas terrorism is fueled by the situation of political and economic injustice to which the state of Israel has unfortunately subjected the Palestinian people for more than seventy years. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be resolved until a Palestinian state is officially established alongside Israel; both sides agree to respect the borderlines drawn by the UN in 1948; and Jerusalem is placed in an international zone. (For a more thorough examination of this topic, please request a copy of my book mentioned above.)

 

Ecclesiastically, Pope Francis--at age 86 the oldest pontiff in recent memory--marked the tenth anniversary of his election and continued his holy and generally wise leadership of the Church, unruffled by constant criticism from certain faithful and well-meaning Catholic bishops and media outlets, delivering insightful homilies and addresses and visiting several foreign countries despite his declining health. Some of the most powerful and memorable words he spoke this year were uttered to government leaders in Budapest, Hungary, in April:

"In the world in which we presently live, however, that passionate quest of a politics of community and the strengthening of multilateral relations seems a wistful memory from a distant past. We seem to be witnessing the sorry sunset of that choral dream of peace, as the soloists of war now take over....

"Peace will never come as the result of the pursuit of individual strategic interests, but only from policies capable of looking to the bigger picture, to the development of everyone: policies that are attentive to individuals, to the poor and to the future, and not merely to power, profit and present prospects.

"At this historical juncture, Europe is crucial, for thanks to its history, it represents the memory of humanity; in this sense, it is called to take up its proper role, which is to unite those far apart, to welcome other peoples and to refuse to consider anyone an eternal enemy. It is vital, then, to recover the European spirit: the excitement and vision of its founders, who were statesmen able to look beyond their own times, beyond national boundaries and immediate needs, and to generate forms of diplomacy capable of pursuing unity, not aggravating divisions."

In October, Catholic bishops, priests and lay leaders from around the world converged on Vatican City for the Synod on Communion, Participation, and Mission (sadly misnamed the "Synod on Synodality"), in a serious and mostly sincere attempt to first listen to the concerns of Catholics worldwide and then to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church today. As with so many other high-profile events in Francis' pontificate, this worthy undertaking has been unnecessarily controversial. For example, some prominent faithful Catholics harshly criticized Pope Francis for allowing certain dissident and unfaithful Catholics to participate in the Synod, forgetting that the Synod is merely an advisory body to the pope and that Jesus himself regularly associated with notorious public sinners.

Likewise, in December, the Holy See's issuance of new guidelines for blessings for homosexual couples ignited unnecessary controversy among many faithful Catholics. The secular media didn't help by quickly spreading the lie that the Church now officially recognizes homosexual unions on a par with traditional marriage. Bishop Robert Barron's analysis of both the Synod and the official blessings document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is correct: the pope is not trying to change Church doctrine (as if he had the power to do that in any case), but rather trying to draw people who are not fully living the doctrine closer to the fullness of life in Christ.

Indeed, many things to be thankful for and some things to pray for. Let us continue to pray the Rosary for the conversion of sinners and for peace in the world as Our Lady of Fatima requested.

Happy New Year!

 

Copyright © 2023 Justin D. Soutar.

Tribute to an American Catholic Hero

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, the most famous photograph in U.S. military history and one of the greatest photographs of all time. As is generally known, it was taken by Joseph Rosenthal, an Associated Press photographer, on February 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima, a key turning point in World War II. The photo, which immediately drew widespread admiration and acclaim and won Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize, depicts six Marine soldiers erecting a large American flag atop Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in the western Pacific. I have been familiar with this stirring image since childhood, but only recently have I come to grasp its full significance thanks to James Bradley's epic masterpiece Flags of Our Fathers.

Based on extensive interviews with dozens of war veterans and surviving relatives of the flag-raisers, this accurate and brilliantly written chronicle published by Bantam in 2000 (which was also made into a movie of the same name) places the famous photo in its proper context by telling the true stories of the young men who raised the flag and providing the essential background details that led up to that dramatic moment. And James Bradley is an amazingly gifted storyteller. Reading this engrossing book--which almost didn't get written, because the author's heroic father himself narrowly escaped death in battle and refused to discuss his wartime experiences with his family--has given me a whole new understanding of, and appreciation for, this unique photograph, which almost didn't get taken because someone else had already photographed the first flag-raising on the Suribachi summit two hours earlier and the press photographers, including Rosenthal, didn't know there was going to be a second flag-raising and had to scramble to document it.

I might never have read Flags of Our Fathers had I not stumbled across it on a bookshelf during a casual browse at my local Goodwill thrift store last summer. When I discovered it and saw what it was—a classic hardcover in good shape, with the instantly recognizable photo of the Stars and Stripes being raised gracing the elegant white, blue and gold dust jacket—I felt lucky. I had found a lost jewel, a discarded treasure. Fourteen years ago when it first came out, Flags of Our Fathers was a New York Times bestseller, and now here it was on a Goodwill bookshelf, unwanted and rejected, available for just two dollars. I wondered why someone had decided to get rid of it. Perhaps, for some reason or other, the previous owner no longer recognized its value. Maybe he (or she) no longer appreciated the heroic sacrifices of our men in uniform several generations ago on a distant island in the Western Pacific. Maybe the previous owner had lost interest in U.S. military history. Or perhaps he or she had died and left the book behind for someone else to treasure and enjoy. In any case, once I opened Flags of Our Fathers and began reading, it was hard to put down and stop thinking about. As a result of this serendipitous discovery and what I have learned from reading this remarkable book, I find myself in total agreement with G. K. Chesterton that "Everything has been saved from a wreck." (PLEASE NOTE: As can be expected with any frank discussion of U.S. military history, Flags of Our Fathers does contain graphic descriptions of war violence along with some language and anecdotes that are less than edifying. However, the latter amount to minor detractions from an otherwise magnificent work that I heartily recommend to adult readers.)

With its candidly detailed biographies of the six flag-raisers, its nostalgically vivid portrait of early to mid-twentieth-century America, and its gripping minute-by-minute account of the nearly impossible invasion and conquest of the most heavily fortified island in military history, Flags of Our Fathers is certainly a fitting tribute to the self-sacrificing heroism of our nation's Marines in World War II and to the religious and moral values that made America great. But in addition to that, it offers a compelling and beautiful witness to the power of our Catholic faith and its essential role in American life. The book reveals that the author's beloved father, John Henry Bradley (1923-1994)--the one flag-raiser whose profile is clearly visible in the center of the photograph and the only one who lived to see his grandchildren--was a lifelong, devout practicing Catholic whose entire military and civilian life was dedicated to the humble service of others. I was particularly edified to read of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which included praying the Rosary daily and calling on her assistance in times of need. 

As a husband, father of eight children, and funeral home director in his postwar years, John Bradley enjoyed an excellent reputation as a quiet and respectable family man both in and beyond his small Catholic hometown of Antigo, Wisconsin. He had never intended to join the Marines or end up in combat on a distant overseas island. As a young man during World War II, he initially trained and served as a Navy medic here in the States but was then unexpectedly transferred into Easy Company, the ironically named Marine contingent that sailed across the Pacific to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima under heavy Japanese fire in February 1945. American forces suffered more casualties in the one-month invasion and conquest of that tiny island than in any other battle of the entire War. During that fierce and grueling struggle, Navy corpsman John Bradley risked his life over and over again to tend wounded Marines. He was awarded a Navy Cross for his valor. In his humility--and also because of the tragic horrors he witnessed during the battle--he kept that prestigious award hidden in a box in his closet for the remainder of his life, turned down all interview requests from journalists, and never discussed his famous role in the flag-raising on Iwo Jima with his family members or anyone else in town. He adamantly refused to allow his subsequent civilian life to be defined by what he sincerely considered his undeserved status as a military celebrity.

Regardless of the accolades showered upon him by the U.S. government, media, and public throughout the forty-nine years of his life as a war veteran, John Bradley never thought of himself as a hero for helping five Marines to raise a large American flag on a makeshift pole on an island mountaintop in the Western Pacific. He had simply done it because it was his duty to pitch in and give his buddies a hand, unaware that this simple action would be immortalized in a chance photograph and that he would be at the center of that photograph. He felt that he did not deserve such fame because so many of his Marine buddies, who had served just as valiantly and faithfully as he on Iwo Jima, had made the ultimate sacrifice without ever receiving comparable recognition since their deaths on the island went largely unreported by the media in the weeks following the flag-raising. When his family pressed him to discuss the matter of the flag-raising, the most he ever said about it was that the real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn’t come back.

Yet it is precisely his profound humility and his constant deflection of attention away from himself that clearly identifies John Henry Bradley as a genuine American hero. Even if we agree with him in admitting that his celebrity status as a flag-raiser may have been somewhat exaggerated during his lifetime, his true heroism lay in his quiet, untiring, selfless, everyday dedication to the service of his country and his fellow men and women. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that, as a faithful Catholic throughout his life, John Bradley was--and is--a true hero of the Catholic Church and a role model for lay Catholics around the world. But despite his impeccable credentials as a candidate for sainthood, his life of heroic virtue has yet to receive any official acknowledgement from the Church. It is my sincere hope that this beautiful example of everyday holiness will not remain hidden under a bushel basket, or simply be ignored and forgotten like that magnificent book on a Goodwill shelf. With a number of John Bradley’s relatives and friends still alive today, I strongly believe that his cause for canonization should be introduced without further delay. And I hope and pray that his talented son James Bradley, who has been away from the Church for many years, will one day rediscover the priceless gift of the Catholic faith given to him by his saintly father.

Quote of the Day

“The spirit of war has taken a hold of us...

“There are acts to commemorate the centenary of some Great War, millions dead...And everyone is scandalized! But today it is the same! Instead of a great war, there are little wars everywhere, divided people...And to preserve one’s interest they kill, they kill each other...

“So many die for a piece of land, for an ambition, for hate, for racial jealousy. Passion brings us to war, to the spirit of the world...

“Usually in front of a conflict, we find ourselves in a curious situation: to solve it, arguing, with the language of war. The language of peace doesn’t come first! And the consequences? Think of the starving children in the refugee camps...Think only of this: this is the fruit of the war! And if you want, think of the big banquet halls, of the feasts that are done by the owners of the arms industries, who manufacture weapons, the weapons end there. The child that is sick, starving, in a refugee camp and the great feasts, the good life of those who manufacture weapons...

“How many families are destroyed because the father, the mother are not capable of finding a path of peace and prefer war, to sue...War destroys!

“May the Lord help us understand this and save us from getting used to news of war."

--Pope Francis