Civic Capacity Matters

The ability to get things gone, the rise of traditional Catholicism, the problem with egg freezing and more in this week's roundup.

In a followup to my essay on Emmanuel Todd’s book The Defeat of the West, I wanted to highlight three other English languages pieces about it, by Christopher Caldwell in the NYT, Scott McConnell in the American Conservative, and Rob Lownie in UnHerd. These folks take a broader look at the book than I did.

Civic Capacity Matters

My latest column in Governing magazine is on civic capacity, the ability communities to actually get thing done. This is something that’s in all too short a supply in America. I highlight three factors that go into this, though others could certainly list more.

I prefer the broader term “civic capacity” to show that it’s not just government, but the entire community that is at play. Several things go into civic capacity, among them mustering the political and civic will to create change; acquiring the necessary skills and competency; and cultivating the resources, especially financial and managerial, necessary to implement the change that’s necessary.

Looking at these, it immediately becomes obvious why, for example, many struggling small towns are unable to change their trajectory. Consider housing. Many small towns face housing challenges, especially where there has been an influx of immigrants. But it’s proven very hard for them to build new housing. Why?

First, even when leaders are forward-looking, these communities have very powerful constituencies, sometimes even majorities, opposed to change, which makes it extremely difficult to approve new developments. Second, these communities, having built little housing in many years, don’t have the expertise or developer base to pull off a large or complex real estate project. And third, they don’t have a lot of money for things like infrastructure and utilities. Many municipalities in America are effectively broke.

Click over to read the whole thing.

I got some great feedback on this one, including a nice note from the former mayor of one of America’s big cities.

The Specter of Trad Catholicism

The Associated Press ran a long article about how the Catholic Church is becoming more conservative. It’s been pretty well reported already that there’s a strong trend toward a conservative priesthood at younger ages. And this, along with trends in the laity, is producing a shift back towards more traditionalism. The more liberal and older crowd does not like this. Some quotes.

Across the U.S., the Catholic Church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.

The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world.

…

The progressive priests who dominated the U.S. church in the years after Vatican II are now in their 70s and 80s. Many are retired. Some are dead. Younger priests, surveys show, are far more conservative.

“They say they’re trying to restore what us old guys ruined,” said the Rev. John Forliti, 87, a retired Twin Cities priest who fought for civil rights and reforms in Catholic school sex education.

Doug Koesel, an outspoken 72-year-old priest at Blessed Trinity Parish in Cleveland, was blunter: “They’re just waiting for us to die.”

…

They often stand out in the pews, with the men in ties and the women sometimes with the lace head coverings that all but disappeared from American churches more than 50 years ago. Often, at least a couple families will arrive with four, five or even more children, signaling their adherence to the church’s ban on contraception, which most American Catholics have long casually ignored.

They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions – more Latin, more incense more Gregorian chants.

…

Today, conservative Catholic America has its own constellation of online celebrities aimed at young people. There’s Sister Miriam James, an ever-smiling nun in full habit who talks openly about her hard-partying college days. There’s Jackie Francois Angel, who speaks in shockingly frank detail about sex, marriage and Catholicism. There’s Mike Schmitz, a movie-star handsome Minnesota priest who exudes kindness while insisting on doctrine.

Even today, surveys show most American Catholics are far from orthodox. Most support abortion rights. The vast majority use birth control. But increasingly, those Catholics are not in church.

…

And the pope clearly worries about America. The U.S. church has “a very strong reactionary attitude,” he told a group of Jesuits last year. “Being backward-looking is useless.”

Click over to read the whole thing.

There’s a saying that the future belongs to those who show up. No matter what Pope Francis or anyone else thinks, American Catholicism is likely to become much more conservative and traditional because young liberals are not going into the priesthood.

Best of the Web

Mere Orthodoxy: Five Masculine Roles

Institute for Family Studies: These Boots Were Made for Walking: Socioeconomic Status, Gender, and Divorce

Richard Reeves: Look to Norway - thoughts on Norway’s “Men’s Equality Commission.”

Vox: The failed promise of egg freezing

In one groundbreaking 2022 study conducted at NYU Langone Fertility Center and looking at 543 patients over 15 years, the chance of a live birth from frozen eggs was 39 percent. “There isn’t a guarantee of having a baby from egg freezing,” says Sarah Druckenmiller Cascante, a reproductive endocrinologist at NYU Langone Fertility Center and one of the study’s authors. The study made a splash because it provided numbers where little comprehensive national data exists, though experts at other clinics tell Vox that its results are in line with what they’ve found.

And far from ushering in a new era of gender equality, some experts say, the procedure serves as another way for companies to make money from stoking women’s anxieties.

Interesting observation from Melissa Kearney, author of The Two-Parent Privilege on Twitter:

I gave another talk about the Two Parent Privilege to college students today.

And again, during the Q&A, a college student asked me why I don’t talk about porn/TikTok/OnlyFans, and how addiction to those sites is affecting young people’s ability to form healthy relationships.

I answered honestly that it wasn’t part of the lens I brought to the topic of family structure when I wrote the book. But it keeps coming up, over and over, in all the conversations I am having outside my usual policy/academic circles about marriage & family formation.

I have been quite struck by how often young people have brought this issue up to me over the past 7 months, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.

New Content and Media Mentions

I was mentioned this week in the American Mind, American Reformer, the Center for Baptist Leadership, and Doug Wilson.

Again, I wrote an essay on Emmanuel Todd’s The Defeat of the West, and its claim that the final collapse of Protestantism has unleashed an internal crisis in America and the West.

I also finally put together a list of 17 recommended books that I found educational or which influenced my thinking.

And my podcast was with Paul Carrese, the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State.

You can subscribe to my podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.

Cover image credit: Wikimedia Commons/Andrewgardner1, CC BY 4.0