newyorker--2020-02-02--“The Two Popes” Gives Way to Pope vs. Pope on the Issue of Celibacy in the Priesthood

Of the many fanciful scenes in the movie “ The Two Popes , ” the most striking is one set in 2012 , in which Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio , the future Pope , from Argentina , teaches Benedict XVI , the current Pope , from Germany , how to tango .
Bergoglio ( Jonathan Pryce ) has spent two days in private meetings with Benedict ( Anthony Hopkins ) .
No such encounter took place , but the screenwriter dreamed it up in order to present the very real differences that have emerged between the progressive Bergoglio and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Church .
When the time comes for Bergoglio to depart , the men exit the papal apartments , via a tourist-thronged Sistine Chapel , and go to where a black Mercedes-Benz is waiting to take Bergoglio to the airport .
Apropos of nothing , Benedict points out that even the radical Saint Francis of Assisi , Bergoglio ’ s future namesake , got some things wrong .
Bergoglio replies that the saint loved to dance and suggests that if he ’ d lived in modern times he would have done the tango @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show you , ” he says .
The camera moves in , and they dance : two men , both past threescore and ten , one in black , one in white , face-to-face , hand-in-hand , lurching across the paving stones .
Nobody ’ s tangoing at the Vatican at the moment .
“ I Due Papi , ” as the film is titled in Italy , is giving way to Pope vs. Pope .
Benedict ’ s resignation , in 2013 , the first by a Pope in nearly seven hundred @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Church ’ s having two living Popes .
After Bergoglio was elected to succeed him , Benedict promised to keep silent , and with a few exceptions—an interview here , a letter there—he has done so .
All the while , however , he has received traditionalist clerics at his residence , a small monastery behind St. Peter ’ s Basilica , and some of them leave with his apparent blessing to oppose Francis on the latter ’ s various progressive initiatives—on divorce , immigration , inequality , or inter-religious dialogue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has hardened around the two Popes ; it tipped toward an open dispute in recent weeks , with the publication of a book that presents one Pope indirectly rebuking the other on an issue that has long divided the Church and is now up for consideration in Rome : the question of priestly celibacy .
The current dispute began last October .
As an Argentinian , Francis has given particular attention to the Global South , and , at his prompting , the Vatican hosted a “ special synod ” of bishops from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as climate change and human-rights abuses , affecting the people , especially the indigenous population , of the Pan-Amazon region—and the future of Catholicism there .
The region encompasses parts of nine countries—an area that is home to 2.8 million people , who speak some two hundred and forty languages .
Priests are scarce in the region , so bishops close to Francis proposed setting aside the rule that priests must be celibate , in order to ordain married men “ of proven character , ” so that they can celebrate the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for priests alone .
Traditionalists saw the proposal as a backdoor move by which progressives would engineer an eventual end to mandatory celibacy worldwide .
One of them was Cardinal Robert Sarah .
Born the son of a farmer in Guinea , Sarah was ordained a bishop in 1979 , at the age of thirty-four ( becoming the youngest Catholic bishop in the world ) , and has held a series of top posts ; in 2014 , Francis appointed him the head of the Vatican ’ s Congregation for Divine Worship and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Cardinal—who is known for his practice of going to a remote place from time to time to fast for three days , in order to “ recharge and to return to battle ” —has since emerged as Francis ’ s most formidable adversary in the Vatican .
Then , on January 15th , Editions Fayard , in Paris , set out the Cardinal ’ s views on celibacy in a book credited to two authors : Sarah and , with top billing , Benedict XVI .
The book ’ s title , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( “ From the Depths of Our Hearts ” ) , suggests an intimate collaboration between the two men .
Progressives immediately charged that Benedict had broken his silence in order to undermine Francis—who will soon release an apostolic exhortation on the Amazon , in which he is expected to endorse the optional celibacy proposal—or that Sarah had contrived to involve Benedict , who is ninety-two and infirm , in his opposition .
In response , Sarah posted letters on Twitter in which Benedict discusses his contribution to the book .
The letters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but progressives have pointed out that there is no saying for sure that Benedict composed them .
Several days into the conflict , Archbishop Georg Gänswein intervened .
Gänswein serves two masters : his formal role is prefect of the papal household—a nominal chief of staff to Pope Francis—but he lives in Benedict ’ s residence , and serves as his personal secretary and gatekeeper .
He said that Benedict had only contributed an essay to the book , not collaborated on it , and that the Pope emeritus wants his name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all just been a “ misunderstanding.
” Progressives took that statement as evidence that Sarah had manipulated Benedict ; traditionalists took it as evidence that a “ furious ” Francis had forced Benedict to strike his name from the book .
Ignatius Press , the San Francisco-based publisher of a forthcoming English-language edition of the book—and of dozens of Benedict ’ s books through the decades—said , perhaps with an eye on sales , that it would keep Benedict ’ s name on the cover .
Either way , genuine or contrived , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sarah ’ s arguments .
From one page of the book to the next , though , it hardly matters how involved Benedict was in its drafting—Sarah is steeped in his thought and that of his traditionalist predecessor , the since canonized Pope John Paul II , and cites them both throughout .
For Sarah , and for Benedict and John Paul , and for traditionalists generally , to even consider ordaining married men is to “ relativize the greatness and importance of celibacy ” and that of the priesthood as a whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a priest is fundamentally a man apart ; he makes a gift of himself “ to God alone.
” He renounces sex , marriage , and family life for the sake of his bride , the Church .
To propose any other model of priesthood is to capitulate to the forces that Benedict , when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger , termed the “ dictatorship of relativism.
” Those who speak of ordaining married men , Sarah writes , are “ sorcerer ’ s apprentices , ” who want to give the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” as part of a “ neo-colonialist plan ” to deprive them of Catholicism in full .
Pope Francis , for his part , hasn ’ t addressed the question of celibacy directly .
The final document of the synod on the Amazon presents the prospect of ordaining married men as a response to an urgent need that “ calls for opening new pathways for the Church in the territory.
” It explains that the effort would tap only men who are already ordained as deacons , “ to sustain the life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas , by enabling them to celebrate the Eucharist at Mass .
But the move took shape in light of Francis ’ s conviction that the Church needs to adapt to circumstances .
“ A fire does not burn by itself ; it has to be fed or else it dies ; it turns into ashes , ” he said in a homily at the opening of the synod .
“ If everything continues as it was , if we spend our days content that ‘ this is the way things have always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vanishes , smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo .
”

Of the many fanciful scenes in the movie “The Two Popes,” the most striking is one set in 2012, in which Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future Pope, from Argentina, teaches Benedict XVI, the current Pope, from Germany, how to tango. Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) has spent two days in private meetings with Benedict (Anthony Hopkins). No such encounter took place, but the screenwriter dreamed it up in order to present the very real differences that have emerged between the progressive Bergoglio and the traditionalist Benedict over the future direction of the Church. When the time comes for Bergoglio to depart, the men exit the papal apartments, via a tourist-thronged Sistine Chapel, and go to where a black Mercedes-Benz is waiting to take Bergoglio to the airport. Apropos of nothing, Benedict points out that even the radical Saint Francis of Assisi, Bergoglio’s future namesake, got some things wrong. Bergoglio replies that the saint loved to dance and suggests that if he’d lived in modern times he would have done the tango. “Come, I’ll show you,” he says. The camera moves in, and they dance: two men, both past threescore and ten, one in black, one in white, face-to-face, hand-in-hand, lurching across the paving stones.
Nobody’s tangoing at the Vatican at the moment. “I Due Papi,” as the film is titled in Italy, is giving way to Pope vs. Pope. Benedict’s resignation, in 2013, the first by a Pope in nearly seven hundred years, brought about the unusual circumstance of the Church’s having two living Popes. After Bergoglio was elected to succeed him, Benedict promised to keep silent, and with a few exceptions—an interview here, a letter there—he has done so. All the while, however, he has received traditionalist clerics at his residence, a small monastery behind St. Peter’s Basilica, and some of them leave with his apparent blessing to oppose Francis on the latter’s various progressive initiatives—on divorce, immigration, inequality, or inter-religious dialogue. The conflict between progressives and traditionalists has hardened around the two Popes; it tipped toward an open dispute in recent weeks, with the publication of a book that presents one Pope indirectly rebuking the other on an issue that has long divided the Church and is now up for consideration in Rome: the question of priestly celibacy.
The current dispute began last October. As an Argentinian, Francis has given particular attention to the Global South, and, at his prompting, the Vatican hosted a “special synod” of bishops from around the world to discuss issues, such as climate change and human-rights abuses, affecting the people, especially the indigenous population, of the Pan-Amazon region—and the future of Catholicism there. The region encompasses parts of nine countries—an area that is home to 2.8 million people, who speak some two hundred and forty languages. Priests are scarce in the region, so bishops close to Francis proposed setting aside the rule that priests must be celibate, in order to ordain married men “of proven character,” so that they can celebrate the Eucharist at Mass, an act reserved for priests alone.
Traditionalists saw the proposal as a backdoor move by which progressives would engineer an eventual end to mandatory celibacy worldwide. One of them was Cardinal Robert Sarah. Born the son of a farmer in Guinea, Sarah was ordained a bishop in 1979, at the age of thirty-four (becoming the youngest Catholic bishop in the world), and has held a series of top posts; in 2014, Francis appointed him the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. But the Cardinal—who is known for his practice of going to a remote place from time to time to fast for three days, in order to “recharge and to return to battle”—has since emerged as Francis’s most formidable adversary in the Vatican.
Then, on January 15th, Editions Fayard, in Paris, set out the Cardinal’s views on celibacy in a book credited to two authors: Sarah and, with top billing, Benedict XVI. The book’s title, “Des Profondeurs de Nos Coeurs” (“From the Depths of Our Hearts”), suggests an intimate collaboration between the two men. Progressives immediately charged that Benedict had broken his silence in order to undermine Francis—who will soon release an apostolic exhortation on the Amazon, in which he is expected to endorse the optional celibacy proposal—or that Sarah had contrived to involve Benedict, who is ninety-two and infirm, in his opposition. In response, Sarah posted letters on Twitter in which Benedict discusses his contribution to the book. The letters are printed on Benedict’s letterhead, but progressives have pointed out that there is no saying for sure that Benedict composed them. Several days into the conflict, Archbishop Georg Gänswein intervened. Gänswein serves two masters: his formal role is prefect of the papal household—a nominal chief of staff to Pope Francis—but he lives in Benedict’s residence, and serves as his personal secretary and gatekeeper. He said that Benedict had only contributed an essay to the book, not collaborated on it, and that the Pope emeritus wants his name taken off future editions. It had all just been a “misunderstanding.” Progressives took that statement as evidence that Sarah had manipulated Benedict; traditionalists took it as evidence that a “furious” Francis had forced Benedict to strike his name from the book. Ignatius Press, the San Francisco-based publisher of a forthcoming English-language edition of the book—and of dozens of Benedict’s books through the decades—said, perhaps with an eye on sales, that it would keep Benedict’s name on the cover. Either way, genuine or contrived, the collaboration gambit drew worldwide attention to Sarah’s arguments.
From one page of the book to the next, though, it hardly matters how involved Benedict was in its drafting—Sarah is steeped in his thought and that of his traditionalist predecessor, the since canonized Pope John Paul II, and cites them both throughout. For Sarah, and for Benedict and John Paul, and for traditionalists generally, to even consider ordaining married men is to “relativize the greatness and importance of celibacy” and that of the priesthood as a whole. In Sarah’s account, a priest is fundamentally a man apart; he makes a gift of himself “to God alone.” He renounces sex, marriage, and family life for the sake of his bride, the Church. To propose any other model of priesthood is to capitulate to the forces that Benedict, when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, termed the “dictatorship of relativism.” Those who speak of ordaining married men, Sarah writes, are “sorcerer’s apprentices,” who want to give the people of the Amazon “second-class priests,” as part of a “neo-colonialist plan” to deprive them of Catholicism in full.
Pope Francis, for his part, hasn’t addressed the question of celibacy directly. The final document of the synod on the Amazon presents the prospect of ordaining married men as a response to an urgent need that “calls for opening new pathways for the Church in the territory.” It explains that the effort would tap only men who are already ordained as deacons, “to sustain the life of the Christian community” in remote areas, by enabling them to celebrate the Eucharist at Mass. But the move took shape in light of Francis’s conviction that the Church needs to adapt to circumstances. “A fire does not burn by itself; it has to be fed or else it dies; it turns into ashes,” he said in a homily at the opening of the synod. “If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that ‘this is the way things have always been done,’ then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo.”
It is this unprogrammatic openness to change that has agitated the traditionalists ever since Francis was elected. In a forthcoming book, “The Outsider,” Christopher Lamb, the Vatican correspondent for the progressive British Catholic journal The Tablet, sets out a “Timeline of Opposition” to Francis. It has about a hundred entries, among them the joint efforts of Steve Bannon and Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right former Deputy Prime Minister, to mark Francis as the “enemy” on immigration, and the theatrics of the runaway Vatican diplomat Carlo Maria Viganò, who, after Francis withdrew him as papal nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, published a seven-thousand-word letter in which he called for the Pope’s resignation. Thirteen entries involve Cardinal Sarah. As the traditionalists see it, Francis has given up on the notion that the Church can and should transform society. In fact, he is all for the transformation of society. On immigration, inequality, and the environment, he has called for fundamental change more forcefully than any other world leader. (His efforts to lead change within the Church are more moderate: he has sought a reform of the Vatican bureaucracy and closer scrutiny of its finances. After truculently dismissing claims of priestly sexual abuse in South America—and facing fierce criticism for doing so—he has since vowed to take a hard line against sexual abuse in the Church.) He urges Catholics to embrace the good wherever they find it, whether or not it has the sanction of Rome. He aims to be as open to new possibilities for the Church in the twenty-first century as Francis of Assisi was in the thirteenth.


newyorker--2020-02-02--Richard Rohr Reorders the Universe

Richard Rohr Reorders the Universe

Not long ago , on his way to the post office in Albuquerque , New Mexico , Richard Rohr , a seventy-six-year-old Franciscan friar , had a spiritual experience .
“ This light is interminably long , ” he told me one morning , in late August , as we stopped at a red light while retracing his route .
Rohr hates wasting time , and he had been sitting at the light fuming when a divine message arrived .
“ I heard as close as I know to the voice of God , ” he said .
The voice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was , rather than searching for it elsewhere .
“ For two and a half minutes , I ’ m not in control at this stoplight , ” he said .
Being made to sit still required a surrender to a force greater than his ego ; it was an opportunity to practice contemplation , a form of meditative prayer that has equivalents in almost every religion .
In Christianity , the practice dates back to the first several centuries after Christ , though it was revitalized in the twentieth century by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me , “ Merton pulled back the veil.
” Rohr is slight , with a white beard and the starry eyes of a person who spends long periods in silence .
Over the past four decades , he has gained a devoted following for his provocative vision of Christianity .
He runs the Center for Action and Contemplation , a meditation hub and religious school that its residents refer to as Little Vatican City .
The campus is made up of a cluster of adobe casitas strung out on a dusty road outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and St. Clare dot the land between the runnels of an ancient aquifer , which still courses with water from a nearby river , feeding the garden .
Rohr wakes around 5:45 A.M. each day and spends an hour praying wordlessly .
“ I ’ m trying to find my way to yes , ” he told me , adding that he often wakes up in a state of no .
“ As in , ‘ No , I do not want to be followed around by Eliza today , ’ ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he heads to the center and leads a morning session that includes a twenty-minute contemplation , a daily gospel reading , and the ringing of a Buddhist singing bowl .
The center ’ s classes also include Hindu and yogic methods of integrating the body into prayer , along with teachings drawn from indigenous spiritual traditions that focus on the sacredness of the earth .
More conservative Christians tend to orient their theology around Jesus—his death and resurrection , which made salvation possible for those who believe .
Rohr thinks that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ existed for thirteen billion years ; it couldn ’ t be , he argues , that God ’ s loving , salvific relationship with creation began only two thousand years ago , when the historical baby Jesus was placed in the musty hay of a manger , and that it only became widely knowable to humanity around six hundred years ago , when the printing press was invented and Bibles began being mass-produced .
Instead , in his most recent book , “ The Universal Christ , ” which came out last year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Christ is not the same as the person of Jesus .
Christ—essentially , God ’ s love for the world—has existed since the beginning of time , suffuses everything in creation , and has been present in all cultures and civilizations .
Jesus is an incarnation of that spirit , and following him is our “ best shortcut ” to accessing it .
But this spirit can also be found through the practices of other religions , like Buddhist meditation , or through communing with nature .
Rohr has arrived at this conclusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Franciscan reading of scripture .
“ This is not heresy , universalism , or a cheap version of Unitarianism , ” he writes .
“ This is the Cosmic Christ , who always was , who became incarnate in time , and who is still being revealed.
” “ All my big thoughts have coalesced into this , ” he told me .
“ It ’ s my end-of-life book.
” His message has been overwhelmingly well-received .
A podcast version of Rohr ’ s book has been downloaded more than a million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ high-profile followers .
Rohr named his Jack Russell terrier Opie , as a nod to Oprah Winfrey , whom he considers a personal friend ; he has appeared twice on her “ SuperSoul Sunday ” program and has been to dinner at her home in Montecito .
“ We really connect , ” he told me .
“ She knows I ’ m not seeking fame or money.
” He is also revered by Melinda Gates and is close to Bono .
“ He ’ ll just drop me a little love note @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a very loving person.
” Both Gates and Bono have attended private retreats with Rohr .
The friar , who has taken a vow of poverty and lives as a modern-day hermit , seems tickled by his occasional brushes with fame .
Many of Rohr ’ s followers are millennials , and he believes that his popularity signifies a deep spiritual hunger on the part of young people who no longer claim affiliation with traditional religion .
These people , whom sociologists call the “ nones , ” have grown in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twenty-three per cent of American adults , between 2007 and 2014 .
“ People aren ’ t simply skeptical anymore , or even openly hostile to the church , ” he told me .
“ They just don ’ t see a relevance.
” Rohr doesn ’ t believe that most nones are secular , as many assume ; he thinks that they are questioning traditional labels but hoping to find a spiritual message that speaks to them .
His reach is based , in part , on his willingness to be fearless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which he often talks about as a “ toxic religion.
” He attempts to strike a difficult balance : calling out the flaws in contemporary Christianity while affirming its core tenets .
“ People confuse Richard as a deconstructionist when they hear him talk about toxic religion , ” Michael Poffenberger , the executive director of the Center for Action and Contemplation , told me , “ It ’ s not an attack on religion ; it ’ s an introduction to the sacredness of everything.
” Rohr lives in Little Vatican City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ garden of succulents .
He asked me not to disclose the exact location .
“ You ’ d be amazed at the amount of people who just want to say they met with you , ” he told me one afternoon , while sitting in the large , open space that serves as his living room , kitchen , and study .
( During my time in New Mexico , one such devotee returned several times , having driven nearly a thousand miles to seek Rohr ’ s blessing , which the friar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most of his day in the hermitage , perched on a ladder-back barstool , where he does his writing .
“ It ’ s going to sound so woo-woo , but I just sit down and it comes , ” he told me .
His computer sits atop a bookshelf crammed with biographies of contemporary mystics , including Merton and Thomas Keating .
On a shelf by the fireplace , he keeps a fragment of bone belonging to Thérèse of Lisieux , a nineteenth-century saint .
He told me that , on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the infirmary room where Thérèse died , he saw a butterfly and knew , by divine inspiration , that it was a gift from her .
“ I felt like I was levitating , ” he said , adding , with a smile , “ I was not.
” The butterfly was trying to escape the room , and he managed to pry open the old window and free it .

Not long ago, on his way to the post office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Richard Rohr, a seventy-six-year-old Franciscan friar, had a spiritual experience. “This light is interminably long,” he told me one morning, in late August, as we stopped at a red light while retracing his route. Rohr hates wasting time, and he had been sitting at the light fuming when a divine message arrived. “I heard as close as I know to the voice of God,” he said. The voice suggested that he find happiness where he was, rather than searching for it elsewhere. “For two and a half minutes, I’m not in control at this stoplight,” he said. Being made to sit still required a surrender to a force greater than his ego; it was an opportunity to practice contemplation, a form of meditative prayer that has equivalents in almost every religion. In Christianity, the practice dates back to the first several centuries after Christ, though it was revitalized in the twentieth century by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. Rohr told me, “Merton pulled back the veil.”
Rohr is slight, with a white beard and the starry eyes of a person who spends long periods in silence. Over the past four decades, he has gained a devoted following for his provocative vision of Christianity. He runs the Center for Action and Contemplation, a meditation hub and religious school that its residents refer to as Little Vatican City. The campus is made up of a cluster of adobe casitas strung out on a dusty road outside Albuquerque; small shrines to St. Francis and St. Clare dot the land between the runnels of an ancient aquifer, which still courses with water from a nearby river, feeding the garden. Rohr wakes around 5:45 A.M. each day and spends an hour praying wordlessly. “I’m trying to find my way to yes,” he told me, adding that he often wakes up in a state of no. “As in, ‘No, I do not want to be followed around by Eliza today,’ ” he said, smiling impishly. After that, he heads to the center and leads a morning session that includes a twenty-minute contemplation, a daily gospel reading, and the ringing of a Buddhist singing bowl. The center’s classes also include Hindu and yogic methods of integrating the body into prayer, along with teachings drawn from indigenous spiritual traditions that focus on the sacredness of the earth.
More conservative Christians tend to orient their theology around Jesus—his death and resurrection, which made salvation possible for those who believe. Rohr thinks that this focus is misplaced. The universe has existed for thirteen billion years; it couldn’t be, he argues, that God’s loving, salvific relationship with creation began only two thousand years ago, when the historical baby Jesus was placed in the musty hay of a manger, and that it only became widely knowable to humanity around six hundred years ago, when the printing press was invented and Bibles began being mass-produced. Instead, in his most recent book, “The Universal Christ,” which came out last year, Rohr argues that the spirit of Christ is not the same as the person of Jesus. Christ—essentially, God’s love for the world—has existed since the beginning of time, suffuses everything in creation, and has been present in all cultures and civilizations. Jesus is an incarnation of that spirit, and following him is our “best shortcut” to accessing it. But this spirit can also be found through the practices of other religions, like Buddhist meditation, or through communing with nature. Rohr has arrived at this conclusion through what he sees as an orthodox Franciscan reading of scripture. “This is not heresy, universalism, or a cheap version of Unitarianism,” he writes. “This is the Cosmic Christ, who always was, who became incarnate in time, and who is still being revealed.”
“All my big thoughts have coalesced into this,” he told me. “It’s my end-of-life book.” His message has been overwhelmingly well-received. A podcast version of Rohr’s book has been downloaded more than a million times. He has also attracted some high-profile followers. Rohr named his Jack Russell terrier Opie, as a nod to Oprah Winfrey, whom he considers a personal friend; he has appeared twice on her “SuperSoul Sunday” program and has been to dinner at her home in Montecito. “We really connect,” he told me. “She knows I’m not seeking fame or money.” He is also revered by Melinda Gates and is close to Bono. “He’ll just drop me a little love note,” Rohr said. “He’s a very loving person.” Both Gates and Bono have attended private retreats with Rohr. The friar, who has taken a vow of poverty and lives as a modern-day hermit, seems tickled by his occasional brushes with fame.
Many of Rohr’s followers are millennials, and he believes that his popularity signifies a deep spiritual hunger on the part of young people who no longer claim affiliation with traditional religion. These people, whom sociologists call the “nones,” have grown in number, from sixteen per cent to twenty-three per cent of American adults, between 2007 and 2014. “People aren’t simply skeptical anymore, or even openly hostile to the church,” he told me. “They just don’t see a relevance.” Rohr doesn’t believe that most nones are secular, as many assume; he thinks that they are questioning traditional labels but hoping to find a spiritual message that speaks to them. His reach is based, in part, on his willingness to be fearless in his critique of conservative Christianity, which he often talks about as a “toxic religion.” He attempts to strike a difficult balance: calling out the flaws in contemporary Christianity while affirming its core tenets. “People confuse Richard as a deconstructionist when they hear him talk about toxic religion,” Michael Poffenberger, the executive director of the Center for Action and Contemplation, told me, “It’s not an attack on religion; it’s an introduction to the sacredness of everything.”
Rohr lives in Little Vatican City, in a one-room cottage behind a garden of succulents. He asked me not to disclose the exact location. “You’d be amazed at the amount of people who just want to say they met with you,” he told me one afternoon, while sitting in the large, open space that serves as his living room, kitchen, and study. (During my time in New Mexico, one such devotee returned several times, having driven nearly a thousand miles to seek Rohr’s blessing, which the friar gave each time). Rohr spends most of his day in the hermitage, perched on a ladder-back barstool, where he does his writing. “It’s going to sound so woo-woo, but I just sit down and it comes,” he told me. His computer sits atop a bookshelf crammed with biographies of contemporary mystics, including Merton and Thomas Keating. On a shelf by the fireplace, he keeps a fragment of bone belonging to Thérèse of Lisieux, a nineteenth-century saint. He told me that, on a recent trip to France, while standing in the infirmary room where Thérèse died, he saw a butterfly and knew, by divine inspiration, that it was a gift from her. “I felt like I was levitating,” he said, adding, with a smile, “I was not.” The butterfly was trying to escape the room, and he managed to pry open the old window and free it.
Rohr grew up amid a more conventional Catholicism. He was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1943. He comes from a long line of wheat farmers who were hit first by the Dust Bowl and then by the Great Depression. “Daddy had to leave the farm and work on the railroad, painting cars,” Rohr told me. The Rohrs were devout, and Richard attended Catholic school for a dollar a month. “I don’t have any nun horror stories,” he told me. “My experience of the nuns was of happy people. I think that’s one reason I became religious.” He didn’t witness any instances of sexual abuse in his church community. “We didn’t know the word ‘pedophilia,’ ” he said. “But I guess it must have been happening.” The only teaching he remembers receiving about sex was “don’t do it.” “That wasn’t helpful at all,” he said.
At fourteen, Rohr read “The Perfect Joy of St. Francis,” a novel about the life of the saint, and decided to become a friar. He came of age during the progressive era of the Second Vatican Council, when Catholics were challenging the narrow conceptions of church doctrine and calling for a greater engagement with the world. As a novice, he worked in an Acoma Pueblo community, in New Mexico, conducting surveys for the Church on religious belief in the area. Though the community was largely Christian, people also followed traditional religious practices: mothers walked outside with their children just before dawn to greet the sun, a meditation ritual that dates back at least eight hundred years. “We thought we knew something about contemplation,” he told me. “But we were not the only ones.”
Rohr was ordained in 1970, clad in hippie vestments. “In the seventies, Jesus was in,” he said. As a young priest, he led retreats for teen-agers; at one, a group of high-school jocks began speaking in tongues. People flocked to hear Rohr speak, and audio cassettes of his sermons travelled all over the country. His taped retreats were adapted into his first books, which made him a kind of Catholic celebrity. “I became a little demigod,” he told me, ruefully. He started a radical Christian community in Cincinnati, called New Jerusalem, but, by the mid-eighties, he began to feel that it wasn’t sufficiently focussed on global social action. He returned to New Mexico, where he started the Center for Action and Contemplation, in 1987, and the Living School, a two-year, low-residency religious-studies program, in 2014. In the center’s early days, the staff held weekly protests at a nuclear-weapons research facility and worked with a women’s coöperative in Mexico.
Rohr came to his thinking about the Universal Christ through early Franciscan teachings. In the thirteenth century, Francis rebelled against a Catholic Church that had become fixated on its own pomp and hierarchy; he renounced worldly goods, lived in a cave, and found God in nature, revealed to him in figures such as Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Fire, and Sister Water. “His was an entirely intuitive world view,” Rohr said. Later, Franciscan theologians gave heft to Francis’s holistic universe by tying it to scripture—for example, to a passage of Colossians that reads, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. . . . He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” This, they argued, was evidence that God is present in the natural world.
Rohr gave this presence a name. For him, the Cosmic Christ is the spirit that is embedded in—and makes up—everything in the universe, and Jesus is the embodied version of that spirit that we can fall in love with and relate to. (Their simultaneous distinctness and oneness can be difficult for an outsider to grasp; Rohr describes “The Universal Christ” as a sequel to “The Divine Dance,” his book about the mysteries of the Trinity.) He uses many of the same verses as the early Franciscans to support his claims. “Christ’s much larger, universe-spanning role was described quite clearly in—and always in the first chapters of—John’s Gospel, Colossians, Ephesians, Hebrews, and 1 John, and shortly thereafter in the writings of the early Eastern fathers,” he writes. He believes that, after the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches, in 1054 A.D., the Eastern Church held onto a more expansive vision of Christ, but the Western Church increasingly focussed on Jesus the man. “We gradually limited the Divine Presence to the single body of Jesus, when perhaps it is as ubiquitous as light itself—and uncircumscribable by human boundaries.” The notion of Jesus as a god-king—wearing a golden crown and seated on a throne—was pushed by political rulers, who used it to justify their own power, but it limited our understanding of divinity. “It was like trying to see the universe with a too-small telescope,” Rohr writes.


newyorker--2020-02-01--Exactly How Dangerous Is Football?

Exactly How Dangerous Is Football?

A few years ago , researchers at SUNY Buffalo undertook a study of twenty-one men who had played either professional football with the Buffalo Bills or professional hockey with the Buffalo Sabres .
The men ranged in age from mid-thirties to early seventies ; they were studied comprehensively , in all aspects of their health .
It turned out that , compared with twenty-one men who ’ d been involved in swimming , cycling , or running , they suffered from clinical anxiety at a higher rate .
In particular , they worried about their minds .
They were acutely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called chronic traumatic encephalopathy , or C.T.E.
, that was afflicting many players in the N.F.L .
and N.H.L .
The disease had been the subject of extensive media coverage .
It could be caused by repeated blows to the head—exactly the kinds of blows they had suffered while playing professional sports .
And yet the Buffalo investigators found that the ex-pro athletes , despite their fears , were no more prone to early onset dementia than the ones who played non-contact sports .
Though the study was small , it was presented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proof that worries over C.T.E .
were overblown .
( “ UB study of ex-Bills , Sabres finds CTE ‘ much more rare than we thought , ’ ” one headline read . )
On Twitter , observers began to square off immediately .
On one side were critics who saw the study as N.F.L .
propaganda ; they noted that SUNY Buffalo was home to the Buffalo Bills team physician , and that the research had been funded by Ralph Wilson , the team ’ s founder and owner .
Barry Willer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , played defense , tweeting that other small studies had arrived at similar results ; he labelled the allegation of Wilson ’ s influence “ # fakenews , ” pointing out that the owner had died a few years earlier .
A former Buffalo Bills free safety named Jeff Nixon—one of the players in the study—waded into the Twitter debate , describing speculations about industry bias as “ conspiracy theories.
” A Twitter user with the handle ConcernedMom9 objected : “ Conspiracy theories ?
Lots of literature on funding sources.
” She quoted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a bioethicist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus , which cited research showing that relationships with industry are “ extremely likely ” to bias physicians and scientists .
Football is both notorious and cherished for its unapologetic , brute-force violence .
For decades , getting one ’ s bell rung on the field was considered unremarkable—even a badge of honor .
Everyone knew that whacks to the head could have consequences , but concern was mainly reserved for moderate or severe traumatic brain injuries , or T.B.I.s , which could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coma , or worse .
Then , in the mid-nineties , the picture started to change .
Physicians and psychologists began to understand that a concussion , a mild form of T.B.I.
, was a serious medical condition in its own right : dizziness , depression , insomnia , memory loss , and other symptoms could linger for months , even years .
More worryingly , by the late two-thousands , new evidence suggested that repeated exposure to subconcussive impacts that didn ’ t register as problematic in the moment might result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In 1928 , a medical report described boxers with “ punch drunk syndrome.
” The symptoms of what would later be called dementia pugilistica ( unsteady gait , slurred speech , tremors , mental deterioration ) came to be widely understood as the result of repeated , relatively mild blows to the head .
In 1949 , a British neurologist published a paper titled “ Punch-drunk syndromes : The chronic traumatic encephalopathy of boxers ” —the first use of the term C.T.E .
Over the decades , it was sometimes suggested that dementia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ too .
But such concerns did not immediately transform the way people saw boxing and football .
The sports were already dangerous ; a little more danger didn ’ t matter .
Then , in 2002 , a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh named Bennet Omalu examined the brain of Mike Webster , an N.F.L .
Hall of Famer who died from a heart attack after a mysterious spiral into mental illness and homelessness .
Through a microscope , Omalu , who would later be played by Will Smith in the 2015 film “ Concussion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protein called tau ; they looked like the lesions that had been seen in punch-drunk boxers .
This was , he believed , evidence of C.T.E .
in Webster ’ s brain .
Similar clumps were soon detected in the brains of other former N.F.L .
athletes who had died in shocking suicides .
C.T.E .
lesions have since been found in the brains of hockey , soccer , and rugby players , as well .
In the preceding decades , interest in boxing had declined ; some viewers were put off by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by high pay-per-view fees .
Football was now the most popular , most dangerous American spectator sport .
In this new context , safety concerns registered more vividly .
The body of evidence linking head trauma to C.T.E .
is now damning .
“ It ’ s like smoking and cancer , ” Bruce Miller , a neurologist and Alzheimer ’ s expert at the University of California , San Francisco , told me .
“ It ’ s as clear as day.
” And yet the exact mechanisms through which repeated blows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in tau buildup and neurological symptoms , remain unknown .
Not everyone exposed to repeated head trauma will develop long-term neurological problems ; the danger within any one group of players seems to be distributed unevenly , in the same way that some lifelong smokers get lung cancer and others don ’ t .
( None of the players studied by the Buffalo researchers had developed obvious symptoms of C.T.E .
; on the other hand , many were still young and , because they were still alive , their brains couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
It ’ s also unclear how many athletes , over all , are at risk .
The prevalence of C.T.E .
in the pro-football population is unknown—estimates vary , with some approximating two per cent minimums , and others fifteen—as is its prevalence in the population as a whole ( people get hit in the head in other ways , too ) , although the general expectation is that it ’ s rare .
There is even less clarity about C.T.E .
risk among college , high-school , and young athletes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to recall the Rock ’ n Play Sleeper , a wildly popular collapsible crib in which babies lay at a slight incline .
The incline , it turned out , was dangerous ; if a baby ’ s head fell forward , or if she rolled to the side or onto her stomach , her airway could become blocked .
At least thirty-two infants had died in the Rock ’ n Play since 2011 .
The decision to recall the sleeper was consequential—nearly five million had been sold—but it was also uncomplicated .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ expect it to be absolutely safe .
There is no such thing as an acceptably risky crib .
High-impact sports occupy a different location in the landscape of risk .
Their hazards are part of their attraction .
We ’ ve come to realize that football is more dangerous than we thought—and yet we always thought it was dangerous .
Players , coaches , and parents must now ask themselves a series of difficult questions with amorphous answers .
How much risk is too much ?
How much scientific knowledge is enough , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ How much do you have to know before making up your mind ?
ConcernedMom9 is a stay-at-home parent in a small rural town in the Midwest .
Several years ago , she and her husband enrolled their son , a third grader , in youth tackle football .
( Tackle-football leagues exist for children as young as five . )
They knew football was a helmet-clashing , body-bruising sport .
But , since it was being offered through school , they assumed that it would be low risk and played in an age-appropriate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for the most part , unconcerned .

A few years ago, researchers at SUNY Buffalo undertook a study of twenty-one men who had played either professional football with the Buffalo Bills or professional hockey with the Buffalo Sabres. The men ranged in age from mid-thirties to early seventies; they were studied comprehensively, in all aspects of their health. It turned out that, compared with twenty-one men who’d been involved in swimming, cycling, or running, they suffered from clinical anxiety at a higher rate. In particular, they worried about their minds. They were acutely aware of a type of dementia, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., that was afflicting many players in the N.F.L. and N.H.L. The disease had been the subject of extensive media coverage. It could be caused by repeated blows to the head—exactly the kinds of blows they had suffered while playing professional sports.
And yet the Buffalo investigators found that the ex-pro athletes, despite their fears, were no more prone to early onset dementia than the ones who played non-contact sports. Though the study was small, it was presented to and by the media as reassuring proof that worries over C.T.E. were overblown. (“UB study of ex-Bills, Sabres finds CTE ‘much more rare than we thought,’ ” one headline read.) On Twitter, observers began to square off immediately. On one side were critics who saw the study as N.F.L. propaganda; they noted that SUNY Buffalo was home to the Buffalo Bills team physician, and that the research had been funded by Ralph Wilson, the team’s founder and owner. Barry Willer, the study’s lead investigator, played defense, tweeting that other small studies had arrived at similar results; he labelled the allegation of Wilson’s influence “#fakenews,” pointing out that the owner had died a few years earlier. A former Buffalo Bills free safety named Jeff Nixon—one of the players in the study—waded into the Twitter debate, describing speculations about industry bias as “conspiracy theories.” A Twitter user with the handle ConcernedMom9 objected: “Conspiracy theories? Lots of literature on funding sources.” She quoted from a blog post by Daniel Goldberg, a bioethicist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which cited research showing that relationships with industry are “extremely likely” to bias physicians and scientists.
Football is both notorious and cherished for its unapologetic, brute-force violence. For decades, getting one’s bell rung on the field was considered unremarkable—even a badge of honor. Everyone knew that whacks to the head could have consequences, but concern was mainly reserved for moderate or severe traumatic brain injuries, or T.B.I.s, which could leave a person permanently impaired, in a coma, or worse. Then, in the mid-nineties, the picture started to change. Physicians and psychologists began to understand that a concussion, a mild form of T.B.I., was a serious medical condition in its own right: dizziness, depression, insomnia, memory loss, and other symptoms could linger for months, even years. More worryingly, by the late two-thousands, new evidence suggested that repeated exposure to subconcussive impacts that didn’t register as problematic in the moment might result in C.T.E. later in life.
In 1928, a medical report described boxers with “punch drunk syndrome.” The symptoms of what would later be called dementia pugilistica (unsteady gait, slurred speech, tremors, mental deterioration) came to be widely understood as the result of repeated, relatively mild blows to the head. In 1949, a British neurologist published a paper titled “Punch-drunk syndromes: The chronic traumatic encephalopathy of boxers”—the first use of the term C.T.E. Over the decades, it was sometimes suggested that dementia pugilistica might befall professional football players, too. But such concerns did not immediately transform the way people saw boxing and football. The sports were already dangerous; a little more danger didn’t matter.
Then, in 2002, a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh named Bennet Omalu examined the brain of Mike Webster, an N.F.L. Hall of Famer who died from a heart attack after a mysterious spiral into mental illness and homelessness. Through a microscope, Omalu, who would later be played by Will Smith in the 2015 film “Concussion,” saw abnormal clumps of a protein called tau; they looked like the lesions that had been seen in punch-drunk boxers. This was, he believed, evidence of C.T.E. in Webster’s brain. Similar clumps were soon detected in the brains of other former N.F.L. athletes who had died in shocking suicides. C.T.E. lesions have since been found in the brains of hockey, soccer, and rugby players, as well. In the preceding decades, interest in boxing had declined; some viewers were put off by the sport’s brutality, others by high pay-per-view fees. Football was now the most popular, most dangerous American spectator sport. In this new context, safety concerns registered more vividly.
The body of evidence linking head trauma to C.T.E. is now damning. “It’s like smoking and cancer,” Bruce Miller, a neurologist and Alzheimer’s expert at the University of California, San Francisco, told me. “It’s as clear as day.” And yet the exact mechanisms through which repeated blows to the head result, decades later, in tau buildup and neurological symptoms, remain unknown. Not everyone exposed to repeated head trauma will develop long-term neurological problems; the danger within any one group of players seems to be distributed unevenly, in the same way that some lifelong smokers get lung cancer and others don’t. (None of the players studied by the Buffalo researchers had developed obvious symptoms of C.T.E.; on the other hand, many were still young and, because they were still alive, their brains couldn’t be examined for tau buildup.) It’s also unclear how many athletes, over all, are at risk. The prevalence of C.T.E. in the pro-football population is unknown—estimates vary, with some approximating two per cent minimums, and others fifteen—as is its prevalence in the population as a whole (people get hit in the head in other ways, too), although the general expectation is that it’s rare. There is even less clarity about C.T.E. risk among college, high-school, and young athletes.
Last year, Fisher-Price was forced to recall the Rock ’n Play Sleeper, a wildly popular collapsible crib in which babies lay at a slight incline. The incline, it turned out, was dangerous; if a baby’s head fell forward, or if she rolled to the side or onto her stomach, her airway could become blocked. At least thirty-two infants had died in the Rock ’n Play since 2011. The decision to recall the sleeper was consequential—nearly five million had been sold—but it was also uncomplicated. When parents buy a sleeper, they expect it to be absolutely safe. There is no such thing as an acceptably risky crib.
High-impact sports occupy a different location in the landscape of risk. Their hazards are part of their attraction. We’ve come to realize that football is more dangerous than we thought—and yet we always thought it was dangerous. Players, coaches, and parents must now ask themselves a series of difficult questions with amorphous answers. How much risk is too much? How much scientific knowledge is enough, when the details are still emerging? How much do you have to know before making up your mind?
ConcernedMom9 is a stay-at-home parent in a small rural town in the Midwest. Several years ago, she and her husband enrolled their son, a third grader, in youth tackle football. (Tackle-football leagues exist for children as young as five.) They knew football was a helmet-clashing, body-bruising sport. But, since it was being offered through school, they assumed that it would be low risk and played in an age-appropriate, minimally injurious way. They were, for the most part, unconcerned.
That changed quickly. At practices, ConcernedMom9 saw how the coaches exhorted the boys to barrel into one another as forcefully as possible. Late one afternoon, during a tackling drill, she heard an ear- splitting crack: her son had smashed face masks with a larger opponent, bouncing backward. The back of his helmet struck the ground. It was his second helmet-to-helmet impact of the practice. A coach hauled him to his feet, but the boy, wailing in pain, was unable to walk off the field. No one stopped the practice or offered medical assistance. She watched in shock from the sidelines, unsure what to do.
For weeks afterward, the boy suffered from headaches and fatigue. The ground swayed beneath him when he closed his eyes; bright lights and loud noises bothered him; he struggled with math and reading at school. It took more than a month for the symptoms to subside. Meanwhile, his mother read about concussions and C.T.E. in the N.F.L. She learned that two other kids in her son’s league had had concussions; the program’s lack of education and oversight on the issue appalled her. She complained to the school district and joined Twitter, where she soon connected with others who were tracking sports-related brain injuries.
Although her son moved on from football years ago, she has become part of a community focussed on the head-injury issue. Her social-media friends include two mothers who filed a suit against Pop Warner for the early deaths of their sons, who played youth football and were diagnosed with C.T.E. in the postmortem. (The case was dismissed by a judge last December.) Since June, 2012, ConcernedMom9 has tweeted a hundred and sixty-one thousand times. Over morning coffee, she still scours Google and her network of connections for relevant developments to post, sometimes querying PubMed, a research database, for pertinent studies. “If a new paper shows up, I’ll just tweet it out,” she told me. In a typical forty-eight-hour period, she might share links, quotes, and retweets of media stories that range from the disturbing (“Volunteer volleyball coach accused of stealing underwear from female players”) to the political (a state bill that would ban youth tackle football before eighth grade). She curates what can seem like an endless stream of injury reports, many involving cringe-inducing blows to the head (“Nazem Kadri Concussed After Taking Big Hits Against Blues”). Moments of scientific controversy, such as the debate around the SUNY Buffalo study, bob in the stream.


newyorker--2020-02-01--On the Eve of the Iowa Caucuses, Bernie Sanders Emerges as the Democratic Front-Runner

Bernie Sanders , at seventy-eight , three months clear of a heart attack , has outlived obscurity to become the co-front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States .
He is still thin and intent ; to my eye , the hunch in his back has deepened .
On a tour of Iowa last weekend , he wore a suit with an open-necked shirt , and his hair was on the tame side of its range .
There are not many jokes in Sanders ’ s speeches right now , or stories , or people .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and did not take a single question .
The better Sanders ’ s polls look , the more grave , even dour , he seems to grow .
“ Our infrastructure , our roads , our bridges , our border systems , wastewater plants are crumbling , ” he said , morosely , in Ames .
His ballooning prospects were enough to excite his crowds ; Sanders himself could deflate into a more familiar tone .
Americans have to endure the “ international embarrassment ” of failing to guarantee health care .
Did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
” Consider the pharmaceutical executives , “ a bunch of crooks.
” Dispassionately , he went on to climate change .
“ They have underestimated the kinds of forest fires and wildfires that we will be seeing .
All of you are aware that Australia , a beautiful country , is now burning.
” The average American worker “ is not making a nickel more ” than he or she did fifty years ago , he said , and “ you got three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ?
Three people , a hundred and sixty million people.
” Why , you wondered , would a person invest himself in such a sick place ?
The answer , carried by his young crowds and surrogates : for the kids .
It ’ s common to describe the present split within the Democratic Party as pitting its left against its center .
A different way to put it is that the Party is split between its likely future and its current reality .
An Emerson poll of Iowa this week found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifty support Sanders ; ten per cent favor Elizabeth Warren , and no other candidate reached double digits .
You ’ d think that a growing coalition of this size would be enticing to other Democrats , but Sanders has been endorsed by just one of his Senate colleagues , Patrick Leahy , of Vermont , and by seven members of the House .
On Friday , he had the support of only one Iowa state legislator , while Amy Klobuchar had been endorsed by eighteen .
“ Nobody likes him , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a new documentary just shown at Sundance , which seems true in a certain sense but beside the point .
His voters no longer look quite so much like outsiders to the Party .
They are beginning to seem like the future base .
The former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has been talking up an analysis that he and some associates conducted , which found that Sanders ’ s proposals would add sixty trillion dollars in new spending programs , about twenty per cent of G.D.P .
That is more than fifty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ten times that proposed by Joe Biden , and nearly twice that proposed by Warren .
According to Summers , Sanders ’ s program is nearly three times the size of the New Deal .
Sanders might quibble with the numbers , but the vast gap between the scale of his own programs and those of his rivals suggests something about why his supporters have been so hard for other Democrats to pull away .
“ In any other country , Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s most prominent surrogate , told New York magazine last month .
At stake in Sanders ’ s primary campaign is whether the transformation of the Democrats has already begun .
Last Saturday , at Ames City Auditorium , Sanders , travelling with Ocasio-Cortez and the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore , drew a crowd of more than a thousand people , which meant that two hundred of them had to watch the rally from a gym out back .
Moore went out to address them .
“ You ’ re like me , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moore said .
“ We don ’ t show up two hours early for anything !
” But , whatever the Sanders campaign is , it isn ’ t for slackers .
Sanders knew from the outset of the race that he was likely to raise more money than any of his rivals , and he has—more than ninety-six million dollars so far , according to the campaign .
His campaign manager , Faiz Shakir , is a former Harvard baseball player who trained in Harry Reid ’ s Senate office .
His @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the one that Rahm Emanuel once played in the young Barack Obama ’ s : the figure in an idealistic campaign who understands something about power .
Sanders ’ s campaign has a sharp slogan— “ Not Me .
Us.
” —and branding that keeps pivoting , deftly , to match the news .
In Iowa this past weekend , volunteers were wearing the latest buttons , which respond to questions about Sanders ’ s electability .
They read , “ Bernie Beats Trump.
” Sanders ’ s platform is no less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and his supporters ’ siege mentality is undiminished .
On Friday night , Rashida Tlaib , one of Sanders ’ s most outspoken surrogates , made headlines for booing a mention of Hillary Clinton at a campaign event .
( Tlaib later apologized . )
But Sanders ’ s movement , with all its bristling emotions , is also beginning to look like a winning one .
At every level , there is an interesting tension , between powerlessness and power .
Early last Sunday morning , about a hundred campaign volunteers were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a strip mall .
As people milled around , with their winter gear still on , I tried to get a sense of what was different from 2016 .
The campaign operation was much bigger and better—everyone agreed on that .
But mostly , they said , it was the same .
“ I honestly don ’ t think there ’ s a difference—I think it ’ s the same thing , ” a woman named Celia Ringstrom told me .
Sanders ’ s constancy , in the face of opportunism and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the point .
“ I mean , he ’ s been saying the same thing for forty years , ” a man named Mike McElree told me .
Sanders was on the good side of a contest between “ democracy and barbarism , ” an organizer told the group—with little , it seemed , between them .
Throughout the fall , a wise thing to say about the race was that Democrats in real life were not the same as they were on Twitter—that they were not as committed to socialism and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far to the left .
Out in the real world , the line went , the Party was populated by a more sedate group—older , less educated , and less spikily progressive .
They wanted a touch more public health insurance , a more balanced system of taxation , and a return to some remembered public decency—they were Biden people .
In the week before the Iowa caucuses , though , the distinction between the Party on Twitter and the real world seemed to be collapsing .
“ I just don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ named Sara Brizzi told me in Ankeny .
“ Maybe because of having grown up poor.
” Brizzi , who was there with her husband and their five-year-old daughter , explained that she worked for a health-insurance company , and that , if Sanders won , and his Medicare for All plan was realized , she would probably lose her job .
In 2016 , pundits sometimes described the Sanders and Trump campaigns as reflecting a “ symbolic ” politics , in which policy positions mattered less than resisting the status quo .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ : its adherents want Medicare for All , and a Green New Deal , and tuition-free public colleges , and they have imagined these programs clearly enough that they have considered whether their own jobs might be affected .
Brizzi had weighed the risks and benefits , and decided that she was with Sanders .

Bernie Sanders’s outsider’s campaign is beginning to look like a winning one. Photograph by Tom Brenner / NYT / Redux
Bernie Sanders, at seventy-eight, three months clear of a heart attack, has outlived obscurity to become the co-front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. He is still thin and intent; to my eye, the hunch in his back has deepened. On a tour of Iowa last weekend, he wore a suit with an open-necked shirt, and his hair was on the tame side of its range. There are not many jokes in Sanders’s speeches right now, or stories, or people. He addressed thousands of people in Iowa and did not take a single question.
The better Sanders’s polls look, the more grave, even dour, he seems to grow. “Our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our border systems, wastewater plants are crumbling,” he said, morosely, in Ames. His ballooning prospects were enough to excite his crowds; Sanders himself could deflate into a more familiar tone. Americans have to endure the “international embarrassment” of failing to guarantee health care. Did you want to “talk about vulgarity?” Consider the pharmaceutical executives, “a bunch of crooks.” Dispassionately, he went on to climate change. “They have underestimated the kinds of forest fires and wildfires that we will be seeing. All of you are aware that Australia, a beautiful country, is now burning.” The average American worker “is not making a nickel more” than he or she did fifty years ago, he said, and “you got three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You got that? Three people, a hundred and sixty million people.” Why, you wondered, would a person invest himself in such a sick place? The answer, carried by his young crowds and surrogates: for the kids.
It’s common to describe the present split within the Democratic Party as pitting its left against its center. A different way to put it is that the Party is split between its likely future and its current reality. An Emerson poll of Iowa this week found that forty-four per cent of Democrats under fifty support Sanders; ten per cent favor Elizabeth Warren, and no other candidate reached double digits. You’d think that a growing coalition of this size would be enticing to other Democrats, but Sanders has been endorsed by just one of his Senate colleagues, Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, and by seven members of the House. On Friday, he had the support of only one Iowa state legislator, while Amy Klobuchar had been endorsed by eighteen. “Nobody likes him,” Hillary Clinton says, of Sanders, in a new documentary just shown at Sundance, which seems true in a certain sense but beside the point. His voters no longer look quite so much like outsiders to the Party. They are beginning to seem like the future base. The former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has been talking up an analysis that he and some associates conducted, which found that Sanders’s proposals would add sixty trillion dollars in new spending programs, about twenty per cent of G.D.P. That is more than fifty times the new spending proposed by Klobuchar, ten times that proposed by Joe Biden, and nearly twice that proposed by Warren. According to Summers, Sanders’s program is nearly three times the size of the New Deal. Sanders might quibble with the numbers, but the vast gap between the scale of his own programs and those of his rivals suggests something about why his supporters have been so hard for other Democrats to pull away. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders’s most prominent surrogate, told New York magazine last month. At stake in Sanders’s primary campaign is whether the transformation of the Democrats has already begun.
Last Saturday, at Ames City Auditorium, Sanders, travelling with Ocasio-Cortez and the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, drew a crowd of more than a thousand people, which meant that two hundred of them had to watch the rally from a gym out back. Moore went out to address them. “You’re like me, this is the slacker crowd!” Moore said. “We don’t show up two hours early for anything!” But, whatever the Sanders campaign is, it isn’t for slackers. Sanders knew from the outset of the race that he was likely to raise more money than any of his rivals, and he has—more than ninety-six million dollars so far, according to the campaign. His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, is a former Harvard baseball player who trained in Harry Reid’s Senate office. His role in the Sanders operation is something like the one that Rahm Emanuel once played in the young Barack Obama’s: the figure in an idealistic campaign who understands something about power. Sanders’s campaign has a sharp slogan—“Not Me. Us.”—and branding that keeps pivoting, deftly, to match the news. In Iowa this past weekend, volunteers were wearing the latest buttons, which respond to questions about Sanders’s electability. They read, “Bernie Beats Trump.” Sanders’s platform is no less radical than it was in 2016, and his supporters’ siege mentality is undiminished. On Friday night, Rashida Tlaib, one of Sanders’s most outspoken surrogates, made headlines for booing a mention of Hillary Clinton at a campaign event. (Tlaib later apologized.) But Sanders’s movement, with all its bristling emotions, is also beginning to look like a winning one. At every level, there is an interesting tension, between powerlessness and power.
Early last Sunday morning, about a hundred campaign volunteers were waiting to meet Sanders at an office in a strip mall. As people milled around, with their winter gear still on, I tried to get a sense of what was different from 2016. The campaign operation was much bigger and better—everyone agreed on that. But mostly, they said, it was the same. “I honestly don’t think there’s a difference—I think it’s the same thing,” a woman named Celia Ringstrom told me. Sanders’s constancy, in the face of opportunism and hypocrisy from both Republicans and Democrats, was the point. “I mean, he’s been saying the same thing for forty years,” a man named Mike McElree told me. Sanders was on the good side of a contest between “democracy and barbarism,” an organizer told the group—with little, it seemed, between them.
Throughout the fall, a wise thing to say about the race was that Democrats in real life were not the same as they were on Twitter—that they were not as committed to socialism and social-justice claims, and not nearly so far to the left. Out in the real world, the line went, the Party was populated by a more sedate group—older, less educated, and less spikily progressive. They wanted a touch more public health insurance, a more balanced system of taxation, and a return to some remembered public decency—they were Biden people. In the week before the Iowa caucuses, though, the distinction between the Party on Twitter and the real world seemed to be collapsing. “I just don’t like rich people,” a woman named Sara Brizzi told me in Ankeny. “Maybe because of having grown up poor.” Brizzi, who was there with her husband and their five-year-old daughter, explained that she worked for a health-insurance company, and that, if Sanders won, and his Medicare for All plan was realized, she would probably lose her job. In 2016, pundits sometimes described the Sanders and Trump campaigns as reflecting a “symbolic” politics, in which policy positions mattered less than resisting the status quo. But the Sanders movement is profoundly material: its adherents want Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal, and tuition-free public colleges, and they have imagined these programs clearly enough that they have considered whether their own jobs might be affected. Brizzi had weighed the risks and benefits, and decided that she was with Sanders.
We are a long way from the start of this primary campaign, when a half-dozen candidates met with Obama, and went out to try to build a gentler bridge between the political needs of the present day—as the Party sees them—and the coalition of the future. The majority of those candidates—Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke, and Kamala Harris—are now out of the race, and two others, Pete Buttigieg and Warren, have seen their prospects weaken. In just a few weeks, Democrats may be left with a simple and stark choice between Biden and Sanders. In Iowa last week, the most powerful forces in the Democratic primary did not seem to be those massing behind Mike Bloomberg and Biden, but those affiliated with the Sanders bus speeding west across Iowa—the ninety-six million dollars and the multiracial coalition of the young behind it, who seemed to want what he was offering, and not, as he might have said, fifty cents on the dollar.
In icy, spare Perry, Iowa, last Sunday, Sanders’s audience was crammed into the town hall, and nearly ecstatic, but the more energetic that crowds are, the more focussed and concerned Sanders seems to become—an emotional contrarian. His mind seemed fixed on the short time until the caucuses, and the impeachment trial that would keep him in Washington, D.C. Sanders said, “I hope to come back—I don’t know if I will midweek. Maybe, maybe not.” A moment later, he seemed to decide—probably not—and slowed his cadence for a final message. Yes, this was about winning the nomination, he said, and yes, it was about beating Trump. “But we are asking even more of you. We are asking you to join us to transform this country.” The next event was in Fort Dodge. By the time I’d exited the building, the campaign bus was already gone. Sanders had said a few minutes earlier that he had enjoyed taking questions from Iowans through the campaign. “Today, we’re not going to have the time.”


newyorker--2020-02-01--Trump’s Inevitable Acquittal and the Threat to American Democracy

Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , was as good as his word .
“ I ’ m not an impartial juror , ” he said in December , weeks before the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump was under way .
“ This is a political process .
There ’ s not anything judicial about it.
” At about the same time , McConnell explained his preparations for the trial to Fox News : “ Everything I do during this I ’ m coördinating with the White House counsel , ” he said .
“ There will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ position and our position as to how to handle this , to the extent that we can.
” On Friday evening , after the Senate had ruled out calling witnesses by a vote of 51–49 , McConnell could rest assured that the “ political process ” had played out as he planned .
Despite the brouhaha over the Times ’ s scoop about John Bolton ’ s new book , only two Republicans—Susan Collins and Mitt Romney—had defected .
So McConnell called Trump to finalize his plan for bringing the trial to an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on acquittal .
“ They discussed the details and POTUS signed off , per source , ” Phil Mattingly , of CNN , reported .
Think about that for a moment .
The Republican Party is now so utterly cowed by Trump that it wasn ’ t enough for its representatives in the Senate—who swore an oath to administer “ impartial justice ” —to overlook the mountain of evidence against the President and to refuse to hear from witnesses who could offer firsthand testimony .
The Senate Majority Leader also felt obliged to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for extending the trial , the outcome of which is now absolutely certain , for a paltry few days .
The pusillanimity of elected Republicans is terrible to behold .
And with the trial now ending , it is important to be clear about where it leaves American democracy .
When Trump was elected , some observers compared him to Mussolini or even Hitler , but he doesn ’ t represent a putschist threat so much as the threat of creeping authoritarianism .
Discovering to his delight that federal ethics laws didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to divest his business holdings and invited his daughter and son-in-law , both of whom had extensive business interests of their own , to join him in the White House .
Furious about the negative press coverage he was receiving , Trump dubbed the media “ the enemy of the people.
” Determined to outflank Congress , where his Republican allies didn ’ t quite have sixty votes in the Senate , Trump issued an executive order that targeted Muslims , banning many from entering the country .
Since those early days , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ others .
As the courts , the media , and—most important of all—the American voters in 2018 stood up to him , some of his worst instincts were frustrated .
This time last year , after he agreed to end a government shutdown that he instigated in frustration over Congress ’ s refusal to fund his border wall , it looked like he might end his first term as a lame duck .
During the past twelve months , however , there have been a number of alarming developments .
Having fired or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voices he had around him , Trump now stands unchallenged within his own Administration .
His Vice-President , Secretary of State , Treasury Secretary , and acting chief of staff are all toadies .
His Attorney General seems to be an authoritarian fellow-traveller , who , in the words of Donald Ayer , a former deputy Attorney General , is “ using the office he holds to advance his extraordinary lifetime project of assigning unchecked power to the President.
” With the Justice Department acting as Trump ’ s protector , which is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is more important than ever that the external checks operate effectively .
First , the special counsel Robert Mueller and now the U.S. Senate have let the country down .
In both cases , the investigation was carried out professionally , but then things went badly astray .
Even though Mueller ’ s team accumulated evidence that clearly indicated that Trump tried to obstruct justice , the special counsel refused to say that the President had committed a crime .
Now Senate Republicans have given Trump a pass on another wanton abuse of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a President who has always pushed things as far as he can ?
On Thursday night , Adam Schiff , the leader of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment trial , reminded the assembled senators that Trump ’ s famous statement to the President of Ukraine , Volodymyr Zelensky— “ I would like you to do us a favor ” —came just twenty-four hours after Mueller appeared before Congress and refused to point an accusatory finger at the U.S. President .
“ He got on the phone with Zelensky asking for this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Schiff said .
“ What do you think he will be capable of doing the day after he is acquitted here , the day after he feels : I have dodged another bullet .
I really am beyond the reach of the law ?
” Trump is capable of almost anything , and many Republican senators are well aware of this .
In the past forty-eight hours , two of them—Lamar Alexander , of Tennessee , and Rob Portman , of Ohio—have described Trump ’ s actions toward Ukraine as “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marco Rubio , has suggested that they may have met the standards for impeachment .
But it is actions , not words , that count .
All three of these senators voted against witnesses , and they will all vote to acquit Trump .
A toy poodle may issue the odd spirited yelp .
It is still a toy poodle .
The House managers did all that could have been expected , and more , to make their case .
Sadly , it was never going to be enough .
The only thing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Oval Office , and perhaps alter the trajectory of the Republican Party , is a comprehensive defeat in November .
The Presidential campaign starts for real on Monday , in Iowa .
In the two hundred and thirty-two years since the Founders ratified the Constitution of a new republic , there has seldom , if ever , been a more consequential election .
The conduct of the impeachment trial has demonstrated what is at stake .

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, was as good as his word. “I’m not an impartial juror,” he said in December, weeks before the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump was under way. “This is a political process. There’s not anything judicial about it.” At about the same time, McConnell explained his preparations for the trial to Fox News: “Everything I do during this I’m coördinating with the White House counsel,” he said. “There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can.”
On Friday evening, after the Senate had ruled out calling witnesses by a vote of 51–49, McConnell could rest assured that the “political process” had played out as he planned. Despite the brouhaha over the Times’s scoop about John Bolton’s new book, only two Republicans—Susan Collins and Mitt Romney—had defected. So McConnell called Trump to finalize his plan for bringing the trial to an end on Wednesday, with a vote on acquittal. “They discussed the details and POTUS signed off, per source,” Phil Mattingly, of CNN, reported.
Think about that for a moment. The Republican Party is now so utterly cowed by Trump that it wasn’t enough for its representatives in the Senate—who swore an oath to administer “impartial justice”—to overlook the mountain of evidence against the President and to refuse to hear from witnesses who could offer firsthand testimony. The Senate Majority Leader also felt obliged to call the President and seek his approval for extending the trial, the outcome of which is now absolutely certain, for a paltry few days.
The pusillanimity of elected Republicans is terrible to behold. And with the trial now ending, it is important to be clear about where it leaves American democracy. When Trump was elected, some observers compared him to Mussolini or even Hitler, but he doesn’t represent a putschist threat so much as the threat of creeping authoritarianism. Discovering to his delight that federal ethics laws didn’t apply to him, Trump refused to divest his business holdings and invited his daughter and son-in-law, both of whom had extensive business interests of their own, to join him in the White House. Furious about the negative press coverage he was receiving, Trump dubbed the media “the enemy of the people.” Determined to outflank Congress, where his Republican allies didn’t quite have sixty votes in the Senate, Trump issued an executive order that targeted Muslims, banning many from entering the country.
Since those early days, Trump has won some battles and lost others. As the courts, the media, and—most important of all—the American voters in 2018 stood up to him, some of his worst instincts were frustrated. This time last year, after he agreed to end a government shutdown that he instigated in frustration over Congress’s refusal to fund his border wall, it looked like he might end his first term as a lame duck. During the past twelve months, however, there have been a number of alarming developments.
Having fired or prompted the resignations of the few independent voices he had around him, Trump now stands unchallenged within his own Administration. His Vice-President, Secretary of State, Treasury Secretary, and acting chief of staff are all toadies. His Attorney General seems to be an authoritarian fellow-traveller, who, in the words of Donald Ayer, a former deputy Attorney General, is “using the office he holds to advance his extraordinary lifetime project of assigning unchecked power to the President.”
With the Justice Department acting as Trump’s protector, which is what he wanted all along, it is more important than ever that the external checks operate effectively. First, the special counsel Robert Mueller and now the U.S. Senate have let the country down. In both cases, the investigation was carried out professionally, but then things went badly astray. Even though Mueller’s team accumulated evidence that clearly indicated that Trump tried to obstruct justice, the special counsel refused to say that the President had committed a crime. Now Senate Republicans have given Trump a pass on another wanton abuse of power. What message does this send to a President who has always pushed things as far as he can?
On Thursday night, Adam Schiff, the leader of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment trial, reminded the assembled senators that Trump’s famous statement to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky—“I would like you to do us a favor”—came just twenty-four hours after Mueller appeared before Congress and refused to point an accusatory finger at the U.S. President. “He got on the phone with Zelensky asking for this favor the day after Bob Mueller testifies,” Schiff said. “What do you think he will be capable of doing the day after he is acquitted here, the day after he feels: I have dodged another bullet. I really am beyond the reach of the law?”
Trump is capable of almost anything, and many Republican senators are well aware of this. In the past forty-eight hours, two of them—Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee, and Rob Portman, of Ohio—have described Trump’s actions toward Ukraine as “inappropriate,” and a third, Marco Rubio, has suggested that they may have met the standards for impeachment. But it is actions, not words, that count. All three of these senators voted against witnesses, and they will all vote to acquit Trump. A toy poodle may issue the odd spirited yelp. It is still a toy poodle.
The House managers did all that could have been expected, and more, to make their case. Sadly, it was never going to be enough. The only thing that will get Trump out of the Oval Office, and perhaps alter the trajectory of the Republican Party, is a comprehensive defeat in November. The Presidential campaign starts for real on Monday, in Iowa. In the two hundred and thirty-two years since the Founders ratified the Constitution of a new republic, there has seldom, if ever, been a more consequential election. The conduct of the impeachment trial has demonstrated what is at stake.