Tobias Winright took me back to school.
When the theologian started talking about Sts. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo, I was transported to my moral problems class in 1986, on the campus of Loyola University in Chicago.
After a 17-year-stint at ºüÀêÊÓƵ University, Winright is now a professor at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University in Ireland. He was invited by the Archdiocese of ºüÀêÊÓƵ to speak last week about the history of Catholic teaching and how it applies to gun safety debates. His talk was particularly compelling, as I wrote about on Wednesday, in part because his daughter was a student at Central Visual and Performing Arts high school last fall during the mass shooting on the campus the school shares with Collegiate School of Medicine & Biosciences.
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As Winright spoke, I recalled what was perhaps my favorite class in college, at least until I realized I wasn’t going to be a Catholic priest and started studying journalism. The moral problems class was mostly a discussion class. The professor would bring up an issue that was in the news, and we would discuss how the great philosophers and theologians of times past might apply their thoughts to the debate.
The class, though, was at 8 a.m. on Mondays. I worked the Sunday night shift as a bartender, closing down the restaurant, usually between midnight and 2 a.m. That job was a moral problem in and of itself, as I fibbed a bit to get it. I was only 19; and I didn’t exactly have much of a history in restaurant service. Luckily, it was a shot-and-a-beer sort of joint, so my lack of bartending experience didn’t hurt me too much.
I had a tendency to fall asleep in the class, not because it was boring but because I didn’t get much sleep on Sunday nights. The professor took pity on me and, for fun, would stand next to me while he was lecturing — and I was snoring. He would finish a question by saying loudly: “Isn’t that right, Mr. Messenger?â€
I snapped to attention, the class laughed and we went on debating the problems of the day.
Winright had no such issue with his students in the Cardinal Rigali Center last Saturday. The audience of about 350 was rapt with attention, except for a few folks who weren’t actually there to listen. There was a small group of people who call themselves conservative Catholics. But from where I sat, they were just angry. One of the women sat at my table. She wore a shirt that said, “Pro Life, Pro God, Pro Gun, Pro America.â€
There’s not much less pro-life than America’s obsession with guns, so I’m not sure which conservative philosophy she was espousing. Surely not Aquinas or Augustine. Small as they were in a large crowd of Catholics, she and her cohorts represent a committed and loud segment of today’s political system. They combine an element of patriotism with religious fervor to create a flavor of Christian nationalism that former Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson called “a serious unfolding threat to liberal democracy.â€
Gerson, who died last year after a battle with cancer, appreciated a good debate over moral theology. He was an evangelical Christian who spent much of his youth in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. But in his final years, he became discouraged with members of his beloved Republican Party, and his faith, who followed Donald Trump off a philosophical ledge.
So it was for the small group of dissidents who came to the Rigali Center not to learn about gun violence but to make those who did feel uncomfortable. After they left the event, long before it was over, the people at my table noticed that a couple of the pro-gun folks had filled out some of the prayer request sheets left at each table.
One of them was for Ashli Babbitt, the Jan. 6 insurrectionist who was shot and killed by law enforcement after she stormed the U.S. Capitol. Another prayer request was for the Jan. 6 defendants, of whom have been found guilty in federal court of various offenses, including the decidedly un-American count of sedition.
To misguided Christian nationalists, the folks who attacked the U.S. Capitol and the officers protecting it are martyrs to be celebrated, as though insurrection is somehow an American ideal backed by a faith in God.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, for the third time in a year, this time on counts related to his role in spurring on the insurrection by claiming the election was stolen. On the morning of the indictment, The New York Times published a poll showing a virtual tie between Trump and President Joe Biden in a 2024 election matchup, in part because so many Trump supporters cannot be convinced, no matter the pile of evidence, that he has done anything wrong.
That, it seems to me, is the moral problem of our time.