The day the Red Flag flies atop the Reichstag

On this day, April 30, 1945 soldiers of the Red Army climbed the Reichstag and raised the Soviet flag atop the building.

From that famous day, February 2, 1943, the day the German Army had surrendered at Stalingrad, the Red Army marched relentlessly towards Berlin.

They met up with the US Army at Torgau, an agreement was made that it would be the Soviet Army that would would take Berlin.

The German invasion of Russia and the Soviet counter-offensive resulted in over 23 million Soviet military and civilian deaths. Berlin was theirs by right of suffering and not just conquest.

On the day the Soviet flag flew in Berlin, some short distance away, Hitler with his wife Eva Braun took their lives by suicide.

The following day Josef Goebbels with his wife took their lives before Magda killed all their six children. She could not imagine life under any system other than National Socialism.

Goebbels was born near Düsseldorf, educated at a Gymnasium and sat his Abitur in 1917.

He was the top student of his class and was given the traditional honour to speak at the awards ceremony.

His parents initially hoped that he would become a Catholic priest, and Goebbels seriously considered it.

Goebbels studied literature and history at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg, Freiburg and Munich. He was financially supported by a scholarship he was awarded by the Albertus Magnus Society. That's a Dominican link between Hitler's propaganda minister and the Dominican Order.

Feast of Dominican Saint Catherine of Siena

Today is the feast of St Catherine of Siena. Catherine was born  in the Italian town on March 25, 1347 and died on April 29, 1380.

Catherine was a Dominican and one of four women to be a Doctor of the Church.

Pope Pius II canonised her on June 29, 1461. He too was from Siena.

Pope Paul VI named Catherine a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

Wise words from St Catherine: “Be who you were created to be, and you will set the world on fire.” 

The other women Doctors of the Church are Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux and Hildegard of Bingen

Trump's charisma is powerful and scary

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

When I heard of a cocooner who stays up until 3am and rises at midday, I quipped, maybe they are his regular hours.

For most of us, our daily routine has dramatically changed. In the time of Covid-19 I’m going to bed sometime after midnight and rising after 9am. Pre-Covid-19 I rose at 6.15am and was in bed for 10.15pm.

I find myself watching the White House press briefing, which is usually aired after 11pm Irish time.

I’m familiar with the main players, Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, then there are Jerome Adams, Robert Redfield, Alex Azar and Steven Mnuchin.

The central figure is the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump.

My adventure has moved from entertainment to horror. I have heard Donald Trump say extraordinary things. I’ve heard him behave in the sleaziest of fashions. I’ve heard him being rude. 

Experts have been talking about flattening the curve. They have been using mathematical modelling. On one evening when either Dr Fauci or Dr Birx was talking about mathematically modelling, some moments later Donald Trump said he knew nothing about those sort of models but he did know other models. Imagine the crassness, the sleaze of that, as he was speaking to a nation that had been laid low by this deadly virus. 

Remember, this is the President of the United States of America.

He has some refrains or responses that he seems to use most evenings.

One of his favourite ones is to tell the assembled journalists that when he became president the shelves were empty and that they had no ammunition. On one occasion he said that they now had so much ammunition ‘they did not know what to do with it’.

If a journalist asks the president a question he does not like, he will turn on the journalist, and jeeringly ask him, who his employer is.

He will then launch into a frenzy about fake news and that journalists are ‘a disgrace’. I have heard him tell a journalist that he did not have the sense to know what was going on. He told a CNN journalist that his network was fake news and that, he the journalist, did not have the brains he was born with.

He is particularly nasty and rude to women journalists. He patronisingly told a CBS journalist ‘to relax and keep your voice down’. When her colleague, Paula Reid asked him what he had done during February to stem the pandemic, he shouted back, that he had done loads and then resorted to insulting her and calling her fake.

He becomes energised when he is insulting people and calling them derogatory names. At one briefing he said: ‘If Sleepy Joe becomes president you would no longer own the country.’ He then went on to list off the countries, including Japan, Iran, North Korea, who would be in charge in Washington.

It’s likely he will be reelected in November. Last week, on a far-right radio station, a caller was unbelievably comparing Trump to Churchill.

However outlandish he is, he has an extraordinary ability to give credence to the daftest of ideas. He can tempt you to think that there might be something in what he is saying. He is able to sow questioning seeds inside one’s head.

Remember, he was the author of the birther movement that questioned the citizenship of President Obama.

A friend colleague of mine, who met him, assures me that he has something charismatic about him.

Obviously the man has something.

Boston Mayor's view of church

At a virtual commemoration of the Boston Marathon at which the Archbishop of Boston Cardinal John O'Malley was present, the Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh said: "Whenever I need the church, the church is there for me, and whenever the church needs me, we are not always there for it."

"Right now we need the church. When this is over we have to be there for the church."

Walsh is Catholic, so does he not see himself as part of the church?

German virologist on Angela Merkel's Covid-19 response

Christian Drosten, who directs the Institute of Virology at the Charité Hospital in Berlin, was one of those who identified the Sars virus in 2003. 

As the head of the German public health institute’s reference lab on coronaviruses, he has become the government’s go-to expert on the related virus causing the current pandemic.

One of the questions he was asked in a Guardian interview.

Q: Angela Merkel has been praised for her leadership during this crisis. What makes her a good leader? 

A: She’s extremely well-informed. It helps that she' a scientist and can handle numbers. But I think it mainly comes down to her character – her thoughtfulness and ability to reassure. Maybe one of the distinguishing features of a good leader is that they are not using this present situation as a political opportunity. They know how counterproductive that would be.

Awaiting in hope for walking papers

No doubt many cocooners are wishing to receive their walking papers.

May the day come ASAP.

Communion is about fellowship

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Over the last few weeks I have asked nurses and doctors if there was ever anything in their textbooks about a situation such as this pandemic. They all replied in the negative. This is unprecedented in our lifetime.

Talking to a friend, a fellow priest, in recent days, we spoke of the pros and cons of webcam Masses. He believes that virtual or webcam Mass does not make sense. It’s a valid point and my thoughts go along the same lines. 

There is a disembodiment about a televised Mass, whereas the Eucharist is all about embodiment. 

Surely you cannot come to the meal and not taste it? My friend kept stressing the importance of experiencing the holy. 

And can that happen at a televised Mass? He said that Mass is an experience of sharing in the word and the communion of the bread and wine. 

In the virtual world, it is only a solitary sharing of the word.

There are many aspects to the Mass. It has been a subject of theological discussion since the Eucharist was instituted at the Last Supper. It has been at the centre of many world-changing historical events. 

Tomorrow’s Gospel brings us back to a central theme of what the Eucharistic celebration is about. 

Yes, it is about sacrifice. But when we read tomorrow’s Gospel (Lk  24: 13 - 35) we see that the Eucharist is also about fellowship. 

It’s about how people  –  through their open and honest talking with one another, through their honest and open praying with one another come to a realisation of their union and closeness to Jesus Christ, whom we as Christians believe is the Son of God.

On that famous road to Emmaus, as the disciples were discussing about all that had happened: “Jesus himself came up and walked by their side; but something prevented them from recognising him.” (Lk 24: 15). It was when they broke bread together that they realised who he was. 

Later they go back to Jerusalem. They tell their friends what had happened on the road: “and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.” (Lk 24: 35)

The Eucharist is at the centre of our faith. It can never be an empty formulaic event. Unfortunately, isn’t that often what it is. 

I sometimes hear people say that they ‘get Mass’. I don’t think that in any way applies to the story of how the friends of Jesus experienced breaking bread with him at the Last Supper or on the road to Emmaus.

It is highly significant that his presence is always made real in the context of community. The disciples are discussing what had happened, talking openly and honestly about their personal experience with Jesus. There are times when they don’t even know who he is. 

But then at the breaking of bread they are made aware of his presence. The Eucharist is about communion, about our relationship with one and our relationship with God.

We have such a wonderful prayer, such a life-giving celebration in our hands, and then so easily we seem to be able to turn it into a non-event. It can become an empty ritual, indeed, so meaningless that people switch off and walk away. 

The disciples who were discussing about all that had happened were brought together with one another and Jesus at the breaking of bread.

Communion is about fellowship. It’s about solidarity. When we say the Eucharist is at the centre of the Christian message, we are saying that it is intrinsically linked to every aspect of our lives and our lifestyles. 

At Mass we are never spectators. The Mass brings us together, indeed, it helps bring about our unity. And in that sense, it’s upsetting to hear people talk about ‘getting Mass’.

Mass is a vibrant event in the Christian life and it’s up to all of us to play a real and active part in making the Eucharist a true celebration of our Christian faith and then live it in a dynamic manner, as the apostles and disciples of Jesus did. 

While these dark times persist, I believe we should explore other forms of webcam worship. The Eucharist is precious and  can never be a spectator event. It is always a lived reality.

German politician Norbert Blüm dies at 84

German CDU politician Norbert Blüm died today. 

He was 84 and since losing the power of his legs and arms due to blood poisoning in 2019, he had been confined to a wheelchair.

Blüm was the only cabinet minister, who served the full 16 years of Kelmut Kohl's chancellorship.

He was considered the social justice conscience of the governments in which he served and in the CDU.

He was born in Rüsselsheim in 1935 and served his time as a toolmaker. He later did his Abitur at night school and then went on to study philosophy, history and theology.

After retiring from politics he continued to be involved in social justice issues, especially in helping refugees. He wrote books, appeared in talkshows and appeared in cabaret shows.

David Sanders - a man fascinated by people

From the current issue of The Tablet

Timothy Radcliffe gave the following sermon at the Requiem Mass for his friend, David Sanders, at Blackfriars in Oxford on March 30.The raising of Lazarus is a story about a family, about friendship and about a brother. 

So it says something about what it means for us to remember and pray for David. His family is taking part online, and we think of them. 

We have received innumerable messages from his friends, and welcome them too. And we Dominicans are of course his brothers, and also his friends. 

Friendship is fundamental to our Dominican spirituality. Dominic was a man of many friendships, especially with women. An easy friendship between men and women was from the beginning part of our preaching. 

Blackfriars was refounded almost a hundred years ago by Bede Jarrett, and it was said that he had a natural capacity for friendship. Bede wrote: “Our lives are made and marred by our friendships. In the worlds of nature and grace, love is more powerful than reason, heart than head, friendship than law.” He said that fidelity in friendship is “the most beautiful thing on Earth”. 

Friendship matters because it is a sharing in the life of God, the eternal friendship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Every friendship teaches us something about the life of God. That is why we need many friends, many windows into God’s love.

David and I joined the order the same day, in 1965. I must confess that I didn’t at first like him much. He was always going on about “When I was in Africa”, which made me feel very inexperienced. 

The breakthrough came when we were using a terrifying machine to clean potatoes which threatened to cut off our fingers. We both burst into laughter and that was the beginning of our friendship. Friendship grows out of shared joy. 

Jesus enjoys the company of Lazarus and his family and weeps for his friend’s death, as some of us weep today. Above all David enjoyed people. 

He was endlessly fascinated by people and wanted to know all about them, and why they thought what they thought. When he came back from his chemotherapy sessions, we would meet and he would tell me about the nurses and doctors he had seen. He was interested in their particularity, their individuality.

This gives us a tiny glimpse of how God loves each of us. God does not love humanity in general. According to Aquinas, God knows the uniqueness of each of us in a way that we do not. 

When we glimpse that, we cannot but love others. Hatred is in a sense abstract. That is why Bede Jarrett taught us to delight in particular friendships. We should only beware of particular enmities. 

The raising of Lazarus shows God’s love incarnate. This is love made flesh and blood. It takes the form of Jesus going to visit a sick friend, even though it will cost him his life. The divine love is brought down to earth. 

David’s friendship was down-to-earth. He always brought one back to reality. If I was in a tizz about something, I would talk with David. He had the gift of cutting to the quick, putting everything in perspective. Often I could not quite follow his reasoning, but the conclusions rang true. Veritas, the motto of the order. 

He showed this realism supremely in how he faced his death. When he discovered he had cancer, his first reaction was to ask if I had a good book on death. He was curious as to what it would be like. 

He said to a friend, “I have been preaching on the Resurrection for all these years and I had better show that I believe in it.” And so, when death was near, he rang me on his mobile to say goodbye. The next day he asked the nurses to let him die in peace. Now his curiosity will be satisfied.

In the middle of the drama at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus turns to his Father. “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” He bears witness to what is at the core of his being, his relationship with his Father. 

David knew that he was a man of prayer. When we joined the order, the English Province was in a state of chaos. David taught me that one could only survive and flourish if one was rooted in prayer. Not just the Liturgy of the Hours, but daily, silent prayer. Being quiet in the presence of the Lord. Listening every day for the Lord’s voice.

So let us now pray for him. He was not perfect. We ask the Father to forgive him his sins. And we give thanks for this wonderful brother, friend, brother-in-law and uncle.

David Sanders died on 30 March, aged 81. He had incurable cancer and had contracted Covid-19. 

He grew up in a north London parish run by Olivetan Benedictine monks. After studying English at King’s College London he went to Tanganyika for three years, teaching in a school run by German Benedictine missionaries, and was there during the Zanzibar revolution in 1964, which led to the formation of the united Tanzania.

Later, he took part in Roger Scruton’s enterprise of smuggling Western intellectuals into meetings with Czech dissidents in pre-Velvet Revolution Prague. 

He joined the Dominican order in 1965, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Christopher Butler on 2 October 1971 at Blackfriars, Oxford. He held many different posts within the province including Prior of Blackfriars in Cambridge, senior tutor in the Hall and Studium, and Master of Students. He edited the journal Priests and People – which became The Pastoral Review – for 13 years.

Great wisdom and madness are close bedfellows

Great wits are sure to madness near allied
and thin partitions do their bounds divide;

from John Dryden's (1631 - 1700) Absalom and Achitophel

US due to withdraw from Paris climate deal on November 4

The Paris Agreement to help fight global warming was signed on April 22, 2016.

On June 1, 2017 US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation. He said it would undermine the economy of the US.

The US is due to withdraw formally from the agreement on November 3 in November, the day after the US presidential election.

At the White House press conference last evening he alluded to the illness of Kim Jong Un, wished him well and said that if he were not now president America would be at war with North Korea.

Though the press conference is meant to be on Covid-19, the president wanders off every evening. It's a perfect platform for him to campaign for the November election.

He spoke about the wall that he is having built

"I want our citizens to have jobs and I don't want them to have competition," he said when talking about his new ban on immigration.

He gets back to talking about spending $7 trillion dollars in the Middle East while they need to rebuild their own roads and bridges.

Again he repeats how China has ripped the US off for years and now he has stopped all that.

What does the future hold for a fragile world?

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Do you find yourself getting out of bed these mornings, asking yourself is this really happening? It’s certainly something I’m doing. 

At my age I’m thinking I nearly dodged a carefree existence from birth to death. It has often crossed my mind that people of my vintage have been extraordinarily fortunate to have gone through our lives without having to suffer a war or experience a famine. 

Most of us have been blessed in that respect. Yes, there have been wars across the world, there have been the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, poor people everywhere experience terrible privations, but my generation was the first in a long time that did not have to suffer the hell of war. 

What must it have been like during the 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945 wars for those on the front, for the millions suffering raping, bombings, shortages and rationing?  The unspeakable crimes at the death camps must never be forgotten.

The horrendous suffering that the people living in the developing world keep experiencing is beyond our comprehension. We occasionally see it on our televisions but then we simply press the button on the zapper to another station.

Precisely in these days, 75 years ago Hitler realised that the game was up as the Soviet Army was approaching Berlin. On April 22, 1945, he told his closest cronies from his bunker in Berlin that suicide was his only recourse. 

To think of the devastation and hell that he caused during his 12 years as German chancellor. Of course there were many and varied reasons why World War II happened. Is it not another reason for us to realise how fragile the world is?

Last year I read Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’. I’m back reading the book for a second time. In these days of Covid-19 it takes on a whole new meaning. It is a story of inexplicable pain and suffering and history too. 

Grossman worked as a journalist with the Red Army. After the war he fell out of favour with Stalin. The book was published in 1954 and the English translation appeared last year. It is a powerful read.

It tells the story of the epic battle at Stalingrad, now called Volgograd.

Stalingrad was the first serious defeat for the German Army. It was here that the might and power of Germany was torn asunder and it was torn asunder by the sheer doggedness and genius of the Russian people. 

Grossman takes the Shaposhnikov family living in Stalingrad and traces their lives in the lead up to the battle and then during the bloody months of the battle itself, which lasted from August 1942 to February 1943.

No one knows the exact number of casualties at Stalingrad but in or about two million people lost their lives, including 40,000 civilians.

Reading the story of Stalingrad it is almost impossible to comprehend the misery and pain that people suffered. The fortitude of the Russian people and how against all the odds they routed the invader has to be admired.

We have no idea what lies ahead of us. But we do know that my generation in Europe is one of the few generations in recent times that has avoided  the pain and suffering that is unfortunately far too common on this planet.

Will this end in war? Trump said at one of his recent White House press conferences that the US had so much ammunition they did not know what to do with it. I heard him say it.

Grossman's words about Pyotr Semyonovich Vavilov

Pyotr Semyonovich Vavilov is a fictional character in Vasily Grossman's 'Stalingrad'.

These words were penned about him by Grossman within hours of his receiving his call-up papers to report to his local military office. Vavilov, who was in his 40s with a wife and three children, was about to join the Red Army.

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the Red Army attacking the German High Command Headquarters at Zossen, south of Berlin.

On April 20, 1945, Hitler's birthday, Soviet artillery of the 79th Rifle Corps of the First Belorussian Front first shelled Berlin.

Vavilov did not make it to the German capital but his comrades did.
                          ______________

Vavilov saw the war as a catastrophe. He knew that war destroys life. A peasant leaving his village for the war does not dream of medals and glory. He knows he is probably on his way to die.

Vavilov looked around him once more. 

He had always wanted the life of mankind to be spacious and full of light like the sky today, and he had done what he could to build such a life. And he and millions like him had not worked in vain. 

The kolkhoz had achieved a great deal.

When he had finished, Vavilov got down from the roof and walked towards the gate. 

He remembered the last night of peace the night before Sunday, June 22: the whole of the vast young country, the whole of workers’ and peasants’ Russia had been singing and playing the accordion - in little city gardens, on dance floors, in village streets, in groves and copses, in meadows beside streams.

And then everything had gone quiet; the accordions had suddenly broken off.

For nearly a year now there had been only stern,  unsmiling silence.

Opposition to Covid-19 regulations

In the last days there have been demonstrations in the United States demanding that Covid-19 restrictions be lifted and that they are an infringement on their constitutional rights. 

In some US states church-going people have defied the advice of governors and mayors and attended church services.

There was also a demonstration in Berlin yesterday in opposition to the State's Covid-19 social-distancing regulations.

In Berlin a traditionalist Catholic community has resisted the order of the Berlin Senate to suspend the celebration of Mass. The group took their case to the city's administrative court, however they lost the case.

From The Tablet

The Berlin Administrative Court rejected an appeal by The Friends of St Philipp Neri, a traditionalist Catholic community based at St Afra’s church in Berlin, to be allowed to hold Mass for 50 members of the faithful. 

The court admitted that suspending religious services was an encroachment on the basic right of freedom of worship, but this was justified  due to conflicting fundamental rights and values of constitutional rank.

As examples, the court quoted protecting the lives and health of those attending religious services and of the public in general, as also keeping up a properly functioning public health system. In order to protect these values, suspension of services for a limited duration was proportionate and did not affect the quintessence of religious liberty.

The court also pointed out that churches, mosques and synagogues were still open for individual believers who wanted to pray in silence. 

The plaintiffs said in response that they would lodge a complaint with the Higher Administrative Court in Berlin.

“The Administrative Court’s decision not only constitutes an encroachment on religious liberty guaranteed by constitutional law but it also violates it sustainably”, Provost Gerald Goesche of St Afra declared. The right to practise one’s religion freely was granted unrestrictedly by constitutional law but the Administrative Court only allowed believers to visit churches individually for silent prayer which meant that the state de facto decided how one was to practice one’s religion, he pointed out. “And that is a right that the state is not entitled to”, he emphasised.

Religious services were more than silent prayers, he said, especially at Easter, the most important festival in the Christian calendar. “We, too, want to protect our congregation and ourselves from the Coronavirus and can guarantee that social distancing will be practised better in our churches than on public transport or in supermarkets,” Goesche emphasised. 

The Administrative Court in Hessen came to the same decision as the court in Berlin concerning complaints against Mass suspension. 

The German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has allowed open-air services if social distancing of two metres is observed and the local health authority agrees.

Most German bishops support the Mass suspensions, but the Bishop of Passau, Stefan Oster, is sceptical.

The relationship between religious freedom and state control needed to be discussed, he told the German daily Passauer Neue Presse. “At the moment one can visit a supermarket but not celebrate Mass in large churches – not even with a small number of the faithful. However important it is to obey all these restrictions, it is equally important to include the churches in the gradual relaxing of the restrictions that are planned,” he underlined

The judges agreed with the applicants’ argument that the suspensions severely restricted religious liberty as for Catholics celebrating Mass together and receiving the Eucharist were a central element of their faith, especially at Easter. They also agreed that Mass in Church could not be compensated by streamed Masses on the internet or by individual prayer.

At the moment, however, protecting people’s health took precedence. If the suspensions were to be lifted, a great number of people would be infected.

At the same time the judges demanded a “strict examination of proportionality” should the suspensions be prolonged. (Up to now they extend to 19 April). If this were the case, one would have to consider whether the suspensions could be relaxed to a certain degree and under certain conditions. The same must apply to other religious communities, the judges said.

Provost Gerald Goesche of the Berlin St Afra community said he very much deplored the Supreme Court’s decision but was glad to see that, unlike the Berlin Administrative Court, the Supreme Court had confirmed the importance of Mass, especially at Easter, for Catholics.

Trump's words about politics not about the pandemic

At the White House press conference today Dr Deborah Birx praised the cooperation that takes place sharing medical information internationally. She said: "There is never an excuse not to share information." She went on to thank explicitly the European Union for the help and advice it gave the United States on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Birx used the occasion to stress the importance of vaccines and the need for children to be vaccinated against TB, polio, meningitis, measles.

Many of the Trump cohort are opposed to such vaccination.

President Trump took the podium after Dr Birx and within minutes was insulting journalists and speaking derogatory words about politicians.

He spoke of how the Christian faith is treated so badly in the United States. He prefaced it by saying that he was a man of Christian faith.

He spoke about the governor of Michigan doing crazy things. 'If the people in Virginia are not careful their guns will be taken from them," he said.

He feels some of the governors have got carried away.

He said that had he not been elected  president the US would now be at war. "President Obama left us with no ammunition, the cupboard was bare", he repeated again today.

He went on to criticise the former Obama administration's deal with Iran.

"If 'Sleepy Joe' wins they will own our country," he said.

He offered to send ventilators to Iran. "Iran was a terror when I came into office, right now they don't want to mess around with us," he said.

"Nobody been tougher on Putin than me[sic]."

His press conference was a parade of self-pity and congratulation.

President Trump spoke many untruths at today's press conference.

Great radio from newly promoted Sergeant Paul Cullen

Recovering Covid-19 patient Garda Paul Cullen was interviewed on the News at One yesterday.

It was a moment of great radio. Garda Cullen spoke in such  clear and vivid terms about the horrific illness. And his honesty was infectious.

He had no problem speaking about his angst when in hospital and how he felt about being 'put to sleep'.

Garda Cullen is now back home and admits he has trouble 'running up' the stairs and then how his sleep is interrupted by heavy sweating. He laughed when explaining how he is experiencing cabin-fever.

While Garda Cullen was in hospital he discovered that he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant.

The now Sergeant Paul Cullen's radio exposure was an inspirational advertisement for An Garda Siochána.

Experts question US top doctor who talks of God's plan

This is an interesting piece in the current issue of the National Catholic Reporter. 

Science versus religion, maybe better said, science and religion.
                 __________________________

The nation's top doctor wants you to know "that God always has a plan." Experts say that's problematic.

In an April 2 appearance on the radio talk show "Focus on the Family Broadcast," U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams was asked to consider, as a man of faith, an age-old question: Why do bad things, like the coronavirus pandemic, happen?

Without hesitation, Adams, who has proudly referenced his Catholic upbringing a number of times in the past few weeks, had an answer on deck.

"I often think about the many places in the Bible where we're told God doesn't put you where you're going to be comfortable. God puts you where you need to be," Adams said.

Because people are scared and anxious, he added, "they need to know that there is a larger plan, a higher power at work."

This was not the first or last time the federal government's public health spokesperson would share this idea. On at least three different occasions since mid-March, Adams has publicly stated his belief in a divine plan. That plan, according to his statements, seems to include Adams' appointment as surgeon general and the pandemic coinciding with Holy Week.

"I really do think God always has a plan," Adams said on Focus on the Family, an evangelical organization that has taken conservative views on public policy issues.

Celia Deane-Drummond, senior research fellow in theology at University of Oxford's Campion Hall and director of the Laudato Si' Research Institute, said that divine providence has always been a part of Christian and Catholic faiths.

"However, to assume that a specific natural event is a deliberate 'plan' of God is far too simplistic," she said. "It is, in my opinion, an irresponsible opinion aired without taking due account of either the science or theology, quite apart from the intersection between them."

Adams came into the surgeon general position in 2017 with a solid reputation. An anesthesiologist by training, Adams was largely credited for convincing then-Governor Mike Pence to allow Indiana counties to create needle exchange programs during a 2015 HIV outbreak while serving as Indiana State Health Commissioner.

Of late, however, Adams has been the subject of much scrutiny. First, for downplaying the threatof coronavirus and defending the president in media appearances, then for scolding members of the media for "bickering" and "partisanship" and most recently for telling people of color they need to "step up" to protect themselves from the coronavirus.

The Office of the Surgeon General did not respond to NCR's requests for comment.

Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general under the Clinton administration, told the Associated Pressthat while Adams' heart is in the right place, he has undermined the credibility of the surgeon general's office by being too political.

In his attempts to reassure people of God's plan amid the pandemic, the surgeon general has crossed another serious line, Jesuit Fr. Mark Massa told NCR in an email interview.

"Jerome Adams has no 'official' religious post, and has not been delegated by any religious community to offer prophetic witness in an ecclesiastical sense to anyone, and certainly not to the nation as a whole," said Massa, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "I can't help but think this is a serious boundary violation in terms of a physician making theological pronouncement."

During a March 15 teleconference with the NAACP that included more than 21,000 listeners, Adams said, "I have personally had faith that I am put where I am most needed," according to the Richmond Free Press.

More recently, in an April 10 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Adams said, "I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening at this time," meaning Holy Week. "During this week we celebrate the ultimate sacrifice that was made for us. God sent his only son to die for us, and it was sad initially but then we saw salvation at the end."

"It is very sad this week when we are seeing record numbers of people dying all across the country," Adams went on to say. "People are sacrificing by staying at home, but the salvation at the end is that we are starting to flatten the curve."

Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law and theology at Boston College, told NCR that the problem with Adams' statements is not so much the affirmation that God has a plan, but how the statements seem to "tacitly draw upon an idea that God is in a special covenantal relationship with the U.S.," an idea she traced back to the Puritans. That line of thinking suggested that God rewarded the country for pious behavior but also "punished its wrongdoings with material harms – including plagues."

"But the trouble is we are a highly pluralistic nation that doesn't agree on what the 'sins' besetting our nation are," Kaveny said via email. "In this context, I think this approach can lead to scapegoating those who do not conform to the dominant view of God's plan, or Trump's view of the right response."

Adams is not the first surgeon general to hold outspoken religious convictions. When C. Everett Koop was nominated for the position by Ronald Reagan in 1981, Democrats staunchly opposed his appointment on the grounds that Koop, a well-known Presbyterian, would force a conservative religious agenda on the country. Koop, after all, had just published a book opposing abortion a few years earlier.

However, those same Democrats eventually came to praise Koop for his forthright handling of the AIDS crisis.

In 1986, nearly five years after the first AIDS cases were reported in 1981, the Reagan administration finally allowed Koop to write a report on the epidemic. Many people feared Koop's report might echo the intensely homophobic rhetoric pervasive at that time. Instead, Koop rejected those views outright in the report's forward, writing, "At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, many Americans had little sympathy for people with AIDS. The feeling was that somehow people from certain groups 'deserved' their illness. Let us put those feelings behind us. We are fighting a disease, not people."

Throughout his tenure as surgeon general, no public official did more than Koop to shift the public debate from moral politics of homosexuality and intravenous drug use to medical care, economic position and the civil rights of AIDS sufferers, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Dr. Paul Theerman, director of the Academy Library and Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health, told NCR that while Koop never shied away from his religious views, his personal views on sexual morality never got in the way of his professional calling to relieve suffering. "His vocation was as a figure of public health," Theerman said.

According to The Atlantic, Koop was known for saying to his conservative critics, "I'm the nation's doctor, not the nation's chaplain."

The current surgeon general has taken a different approach to the coronavirus pandemic, at times not only sharing his faith with the American people, but almost prescribing it.

In his April 2 appearance on Focus on the Family, Adams closed out the interview by responding to the idea that Christians don't believe in science.

"I think it's important for people to know those two things aren't mutually exclusive," Adams said. "I think at a time like this it is all the more important that we understand the importance of faith and understand that there is a higher power guiding our pathway. …

"I just want folks to understand that it's important to lean on your faith right now and we will get through this."

[Jesse Remedios is a staff writer with National Catholic Reporter's EarthBeat and former NCR Bertelsen intern. His email address is jremedios@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @JCRemedios]

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