The Brownson Record: Issue Three, November 2022

Virtutem Forma Decorat

Tears of Joy The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the work we still have left MARY GRACE GERMAIN An Education Apart Remembering a local legend of Emmitsburg DONALD BRIGGS Our Lady in Her Splendor Mary as the image and the model of the Church MSGR. CHARLES M. MANGAN

Issue Three | November 2022

Issue Three | November 2022 The Assumption of Mary

Our Mission As an independent journal for the Mount St. Mary’s University community, The Brownson Record seeks to promote the Catholic vision of the human person in the modern world. Through earnest reflection on the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, we constantly seek to understand the Mount’s institutional vocation as a university at once Catholic and American. Consistent with the Mount’s undergraduate mission, we aim to nourish a culture in which issues of political, social, and religious life are encountered with rigorous intellectual and moral standards.

Editor-in-Chief Gavin Hamrick Editorial Board Mary Lawler McKenna Snow Jack Daly Faculty and Alumni Advisors Joshua Brown, Ph.D. Alejandro Cañadas, Ph.D. Msgr. Michael Heintz, Ph.D. Joshua Hochschild, Ph.D. John Larrivee, Ph.D. Harry Scherer C’22

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Interested in writing for us?

Start the editorial process by sending a pitch to brownsonrecord@gmail.com. Please note that we will not accept articles that denigrate the Church, oppose the dignity of human life, or target other students.

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Table of Contents 4 Letter from the Editor

Gavin Hamrick Editor-in-Chief

5 Morality, Nationhood, and

the Question of the Political: Part 1

Tim Johnson C’23

8 Tears of Joy

Mary Grace Germain

C’22

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An Education Apart: Remembering Kathleen Richardson Williams 15

Donald Briggs MA’05 Theology

The Majesty of Labor

Joey Carlson C’24

19 Poetry

Stephen McGinley, John Singleton, & Claire Doll Lecturer of Philosophy, C’86, & C’24

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Our Lady in Her Splendor

Msgr. Charles M. Mangan Associate Professor at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary

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Letter from the Editor fitting that such reflections be reinvogorated here.

Following the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mary Grace Germain, née Coltharp, C’22 invites us to think further about the demands of a truly prolife platform. In his featured editorial, Donald Briggs celebrates the life of Kathleen Richardson Williams, a woman who was nothing short of an Emmitsburg legend. Joey Carlson helps us to reflect on the merits of our current workaday world through a theological approach to labor. Stephen McGinley, John Singleton, C’86, and Claire Doll provide us with poetry that is at once sobering and transcendent. Finally, Msgr. Charles M. Mangan commemorates the Assumption with an appreciation for Mary as the image and model of the Church.

Dear Reader, Thank you for picking up your third issue of The Brownson Record ! I have found it a tremendous joy to carry this fledging journal into a new academic year, amidst new contributors and new discussions, all the while working to uphold the same vision articulated at our founding. It is my hope you will find that same joy in these pages.

In this issue, Tim Johnson sheds light on some of the underlying assumptions that motivate our political discourse. This first piece in what is to be a long-running series on morality, nationhood, and the question of the political, introduces us to the inescapable connection between politics and an understanding of the Good. Given the Mount’s deep historical roots in both America’s beginnings and the beginnings of the Catholic Church in America, it is particularly

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Such appreciations for our Blessed Mother could not be more timely following her long-awaited return to the top of what we rightly call Mary’s Mountain. Once again we can experience the comforts of her guiding light. Whether it is her dawn-lit glimmer during our hurried, early morning rush to class, or her glow in the darkness after a long night at the library, she is the woman who eternally beckons the rest of humanity to look up toward higher things.

All of this is a reminder of what it truly means to be men and women of the Mount. Already well into the third century of our history, we acknowledge the great trials that have come before and the little we are deserving of praise for overcoming them. Being men and woman of the Mount is not, at the end of the day, about realizing our desires for the world through our own sheer will. Rather, it is about accepting the gift of participating in the providential journey that has already been set out for us.

As we continue on through yet another semester I look forward to sharing in this gift with you all.

Sincerely, Gavin Hamrick, Editor-in-Chief

Tim Johnson

Morality, Nationhood, and the Question of the Political: Part 1

In Leo Strauss’ critique of Carl Schmitt’s Concept of the Political, Strauss takes aim at what Schmitt sees as the fundamental truth underlying politics: the question of the political arises simply because human beings are hardwired for group conflict. And this is so because the mere existence of other people poses a potential threat to one’s own life. Therefore, according to Schmitt, all political discourse is polemical (that is, aimed at one’s friends or enemies) because the political as such is constituted by an amoral state of war between groups. Thus, the political is defined by the potential for war; if the potential for war does not exist, then the situation in question cannot be, strictly speaking, political. From this, Schmitt contends that the basic distinction in politics is friend versus enemy.

He derives this from what he believes is a dispassionate examination of human nature and history, and so it is a thesis which does not purport to rest on any normative or moral claims. Put simply, politics is the natural state of man in which he finds himself amongst friend and foe in a world where war is a genuine possibility.

The allure of such a perspective cannot be easily dismissed. That politics can be reduced to an amoral battleground is a notion that certainly has an intuitive ring of truth. It is not difficult to witness the media-driven political divisiveness today and wonder whether anyone really has a grasp on what they are fighting for, fanatical rhetoric notwithstanding. This feeling is palpable particularly to those who have had the sense that something has gone wrong since the political idealism of the 1960s. Indeed, the strange marriage between liberal moralizing and its obsession

with method over substance is a heady brew that is more than enough to give one pause over the motives of political action. One is hard pressed to resist the sneaking suspicion that if one looks closely enough, one can see lying behind the zealotry a faint image of a technocratic political regime playing the activist’s passions like a well-strung marionette doll.

But to a growing number of dissenters of various political backgrounds, the modern political paradigm seems to be faltering, perhaps under the weight of its own assumptions. Accordingly, the modern liberal state, which was founded upon the Enlightenment view of the political, seems to be struggling to maintain its hegemony amidst internal pressures and global challengers. Before heading back to Schmitt, it would be prudent to examine the logic of the liberal political paradigm in order to understand what he was reacting to, and how the liberal tradition can be suffocating for modern political thought. The reason for this can be seen as twofold: firstly, the liberal consensus underlying the modern state presumes that the hard work of deriving first principles is complete, that civilization has long since awoken from its Dark Age slumber and therefore the only challenge before us is the technical problem of how to extend the Enlightenment gospel across the globe. It is on this basis that American political scientist Francis Fukayama declared the “end of history” in 1992. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the foundations of the liberal state rest on a political concept that is fundamentally agnostic towards the things that are of first order; that is, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. While it is doubtful

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whether it is possible to construct a system of thought that does not implicitly presuppose these categories, since the time of Thomas Hobbes the political has taken on a pretense of neutrality with regards to the ultimate questions. Taken together, what we have is an all-encompassing political paradigm that sees the ultimate fulfillment of man consisting in the rejection of transcendent truths which have given meaning to human existence from time immemorial.

The modern view of politics and state was conceived in reaction to the religious wars of Europe in the 17th century. Overcome by the violence and destruction of the age, political theorists such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sought a vision of the political that reimagined the traditional view of the state. This traditional view saw the cultivation of virtue and the protection of spiritual wisdom as the chief ends of the state. The new conception of the state, the liberal state, envisioned the primary goal of government to be the enforcement of natural rights which would promote peaceful relations, stable commerce, and the pursuit of individual interest. From this perspective, strong convictions about God and the Good were inherently prone to violence, so it seemed more practical to focus on the material concerns that all men share. Thus, while Locke grounded his natural rights theory in God, the purpose of the liberal state from its inception was not to provide an answer to the ultimate questions, but to provide a safe space for individuals to peacefully pursue whatever they please.

Questions about what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful gave way to questions about how to best protect property rights, increase individual freedom and increase the material wealth of a nation. This new conception of the political saw the state as an impartial arbiter between competing individual interests and as morally and politically neutral between different ways of living.

But what of liberal moralizing? If the purpose of the state is understood to be a neutral protector of peace and prosperity, on what grounds is tolerance toward different modes of living delimited? The answer is that there is, of course, an ethic that underlies the liberal state, hiding behind its formal neutrality: that which Strauss called “humanitarian-pacifism.” In short, that which is peaceful and agreeable is considered good or at least permissible. From here we get the values of

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liberty, tolerance, and equality-necessary ingredients for a neutral state based upon the will of the individual.

Thus, any view of the world that entails the potential for conflict is bad, for violence by its very nature is incompatible with the right to self-preservation and liberty. What began as agnosticism towards traditional conceptions of the Good took on a life of its own as a guiding ethic for a new kind of civilization. In modern times, we can see this view springing up in contemporary political debates when one sees critics of secularism or globalism being attacked as “divisive,” or when questioning gender ideology is equated with committing violence against a person.

Now let’s get back to Schmitt. In The Concept of the Political, Schmitt wants to assert the reality of the political, understood as man’s natural inclination to identify and fight as a member of a group, over and against the pacifist ideal underlying the liberal state.

He sees Thomas Hobbes’ view of the state, conceived as a negation of man’s status naturalis-that is, the state of war-as a misguided negation of the political itself.

Strauss, with his unfailing gift for keen observation, notices that Schmitt’s critique of the depoliticization of man is actually rooted in what Schmitt sees as liberalism’s tendency to trivialize that which brings meaning and seriousness to human life. It is liberalism’s pretense of neutrality, the relegating of the moral to private opinion, combined with its penchant for moralizing that Schmitt finds so objectionable. Yet

Photo of Leo Strauss

despite this, Schmitt follows this same line of thinking when he describes his concept of politics purely in analytic terms. Schmitt is absolutely convinced that amoral power politics has primacy over morals in human nature because politics is rooted in the concrete reality of survival. This is why he contends that moral prescriptions in liberal societies are ultimately at the service of political considerations just as much as anywhere else. It is also behind his observation that liberal societies must give up their views on peace and tolerance when confronted by groups whom they deem to be dangerous and intolerant. But on the other hand, Schmitt clearly has a preference for what Strauss calls “warlike” morals, and it is this preference that is ultimately guiding his critique of the liberal state.

Therefore, if we accept Schmitt’s pretension to methodological neutrality, we are forced to conclude that he affirms the man of danger and seriousness irrespective of the moral content of what he is fighting for. It is at this point that Strauss has his mic-drop moment: Schmitt is a liberal in wolf ’s clothing. For “He who affirms the political as such respects all who want to fight; he is just as tolerant as the liberalsbut with the opposite intention: whereas the liberal respects and tolerates all ‘honest’ convictions so long as they merely acknowledge the legal order, peace, as sacrosanct, he who affirms the political as such respects and tolerates all ‘serious’ convictions, that is, all decisions oriented to the real possibility of war. Thus, the affirmation of the political as such proves to be a liberalism with the opposite polarity. And therewith Schmitt’s statement that ‘the astonishingly consistent . . .systematics of liberal thought’ has ‘still not been replaced in Europe today by any other system’ proves to be true.” In revealing Schmitt’s moral critique underlying his concept of the political, Strauss reveals Schmitt’s latent liberalism hidden in his attempted concealment. Schmitt’s feigned neutrality in service of his moral ideals makes him a liberal despite himself.

The implications of Leo Strauss’ critique of Schmitt are significant both for those who are interested in critiquing the foundations of liberalism and for those who wish to understand the nature of politics as such, regardless of political orientation. For Strauss teaches us that the affirmation of either agnostic peace or amoral conflict must both be transcended in order to understand the true nature of the political. Politics

begins because of disagreement over what is right; that is, over the disagreement about the nature of the Good.

In other words, the grouping of individuals into friends and enemies occurs because there is something valuable worth fighting for. It is not enough to want peace or freedom or to fight against a perceived political enemy, for the question in every case must be asked, for what purpose do we seek peace, agreement, freedom, or war?

This is the question of ends rather than means.

According to Leo Strauss, those like Schmitt who are skeptical of liberal agnosticism must make a positive case for the ontological reality of good and evil, rather than merely pointing out the system’s shortcomings and inconsistencies. This is because the liberal state is based on the Hobbesian notion of evil which sees evil as merely animal and therefore innocent and remediable. A politics based on moral realism would place upon the individual a set of moral obligations that would be primary, meaning that they would exist prior to the individual’s right to personal freedom. To have it the other way around, as the modern world does, is to conceive of moral obligation as a fundamental restriction on human flourishing as opposed to a necessary precondition that enables it. Of course, this view of politics would not reject individual freedom altogether, but it would see freedom as one good made possible only after other more fundamental goods have been established.

Looking at the view of moral realism as it relates to politics, questions naturally arise about the specific nature of the Good and how this relates to nationhood.

What vision of the Good should we as Americans seek and what does this mean for American identity? Is it possible to reconcile the American constitutional framework with a politics founded upon moral duties that transcend individual liberty? And which moral duties? These kinds of foundational questions are the questions that our chaotic times dictate we answer, as Americans and as those living in the West more broadly.

To begin answering them, I would put forward that we must look to our history and religious traditions. But if we want to truly rediscover who we are, we must also go back to where it all started rather than merely rediscovering our traditions that have been lost. We must return to those who began asking the questions of fundamental importance in the first place, that is, we must return to Plato.

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Mary Grace Germain

Tears of Joy 8

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Mary Grace Germain

“God overturned Roe v. Wade on your birthday,” a friend texted me on June 24th. She knew this was a big deal for me, having devoted my life to protecting the preborn and empowering women to feel they can choose life. Friends and family that joked that their birthday gifts could not compare to the Dobbs v.

Jackson decision were right. When I heard this news, there was a lull in the flow of incoming clients at work, so I had the chance to immediately double check that it was true. I called the friend who told me and we rejoiced together for the lives that would be saved. As the reality sank in, I shed tears of joy.

The Supreme Court decided in the Dobbs v.

Jackson case that there is no constitutional right to access an abortion, a decision opposite to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In other words, Dobbs allows for states to legally protect the most vulnerable, the preborn. The news of this monumental change brought others tears of sorrow, fear, and desperation, I came to realize. Before this realization though, I experienced fear as well. You see, my place of work that day and every day of the week is a pregnancy resource center, a nonprofit 3-clinic operation. Organizations like ours cover the country and a shocking number of them have dealt with threats, vandalism, and in some cases firebombs. So, with the Summer of Rage ramping up, I was concerned for my safety.

Thankfully myself and my colleagues have remained safe. The hatred towards such institutions stems from disinformation about our work and accusations that we mislead and coerce women into not obtaining abortions. In reality, our mission is to offer free medical services, present the truth, love women out of their crisis, and be an uninvolved listening ear for them. Women should talk to their friends, families, and the father of their baby, but all these people can put pressure on her to choose what helps them in the long run. Women can go to abortion clinics to get options counseling, but it is hard to believe she will get unbiased guidance from the people whose bottom line is affected by her choice. We offer accurate information and encouragement. Our medical staff explain abortion and give the documentation any pregnant woman would need for health insurance.

We provide referrals for a myriad of social services and provide some in-house. We meet them in their panic and make parenting or adoption feel more feasible.

We do not refer for or perform abortions, but we do not let anyone believe that we do, either. The staff talks continuously about presenting the facts without applying any pressure and all of our actions are done to care for women, not to coerce them.

The empathy that this job requires of me has blessed me with growth. It is a gift to be allowed into the lives of women who are facing an unplanned pregnancy. It has taught me that the narratives about women in this position are oversimplified and interwoven with assumptions and stereotypes. This group includes:

A woman who has not been pregnant for two decades, but whose husband refused to sign off on her sterilization surgery after their second child;

A single mom of two young children. She told me she felt selfish choosing abortion, but she felt just as selfish considering bringing another child into a family she barely has time for because she works so many hours;

The 30-something girlfriend of the preacher’s son, who is not sure if the baby is his or her ex’s;

The college freshman who always planned to give her future children a better childhood than she had;

A woman in a long-term, committed relationship that has been experiencing homelessness for a few years now;

And yes, the high-school girl, whose dad does not even know she is sexually active, though she will make him a granddad in a matter of months.

The stories of these women rip my heart open over and over, but my journey to understand the struggles of such women really began during my time at the Mount. In my Sociology and Human Services courses I was stretched to understand the lives and circumstances of others. For my final major research project I chose to investigate what accommodations are made for pregnant and parenting students in institutions of higher education. I wanted to know what factors made it easier or harder for a girl to stay in school when she finds out that she is pregnant, and what schools were doing about it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most schools were doing nothing or only the bare minimum, such as providing one lactation room on campus for students and staff. I then moved my focus to the Mount, where I happily found that some administrators were already

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working towards improving the experience of students with children. The Mount community has recently seen the introduction of a lactation/breastfeeding space being made available for anyone needing it, and this is a great improvement. Yet, when you consider the reasons pregnant college students drop out, this is a drop in the bucket. According to research done

by Generation Hope, affordable and flexible childcare is one of the top three barriers student-parents face.

When considering Mount St. Mary’s in particular, you can imagine finding family-friendly, affordable housing that is conveniently located is a challenge.

Residence Life does not offer family housing options or publicly guarantee housing for students who get pregnant. I have no doubt that the administration and faculty of the Mount cares about the success of pregnant and parenting students and has historically helped them to achieve their degrees. Yet, if all schools have a responsibility to do more, a Catholic institution surely has a duty to go above and beyond for students and their vulnerable children, born and preborn.

Of course, universities are not the beginning or end of where change needs to occur. Good work is already being done by those of us who cannot stand by while innocent lives are lost to abortions. A longstanding pregnancy resource center in Emmitsburg, Catoctin Pregnancy Center, has been walking alongside women of all backgrounds as they navigate unplanned pregnancies and difficult circumstances for about 30 years. Another local nonprofit, Mary’s House, is a maternity home for girls and women who have nowhere else to live as they nurture new life. Places such as these and the clinic I work at can be found through websites like Optionline.org and HERPlan. org.

Here I break from the stereotype of a prolifer, in that I believe sweeping social reform to create substantial safety nets for women, children, and families is worth serious consideration by all political parties. In a Post-Roe America more than ever, selfidentified pro-lifers, such as myself, have a duty to look beyond party politics and consider the state of American maternity and paternity leave, childcare access and cost, healthcare accessibility, sexual assault prevention, psychological support and resources, and maternal mortality and its racially disproportionate effects. Social safety nets and abortion restrictions do

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not have to be separate legislation. In Georgia, the LIFE Act restricted legal abortions to only before a heartbeat is detectable, while simultaneously granting legal personhood to fetuses. Now GA women can earn tax credits for their preborn children and request child support from the fetus’ biological father. In small but significant ways Georgia is respecting life and supporting its successful continuation.

If you will indulge me in one final story… One day a woman in her 30s came to our clinic with her fiance. She was pregnant and had already decided to make an adoption plan for the child. You see, this woman had been living in a tent in a Walmart parking lot for quite a while now. She deeply felt that she was not equipped to give her child a proper life and just wanted our help finding a safe place to sleep as she tried to carry this baby to term. For some it would be easy to tell this woman that she and the baby would be better off not continuing the pregnancy; that she has enough to do for her survival without attempting months of pregnancy. For others it may be easy to tell this woman she is doing the right thing, but if she would just go to a shelter and her fiance would get a job they could do the better thing and parent the child together. Instead, we met her where she was and started making calls.

We spent hours calling shelters and organizations that should have been able to help, but they were full or they had a policy against accepting pregnant women.

We dug in our metaphorical change purse and put them up in a hotel for the weekend, going beyond the scope of our usual capacity. In the end, though, there was not much we could do in the face of the systemic issues at play.

Those identifying with both major political parties feel they have the market cornered on empathy and on justice. In truth, we all need a better grasp on both justice and empathy. In a speech after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Weisel said, “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” We can protest the current state of things in small but powerful ways. An hour spent sorting through donated baby clothing, an open-minded discussion with someone of another political party, witholding judgement when a friend shares about a past abortion; these are the acts of protest and service, justice and empathy, that we are all called to.

Donald Briggs

An Education Apart: Remembering Kathleen Richardson Williams

“... cursed the ground because of you; in toil of it all days of your life; thorns and thistles it will bring forward to your life.”

Genesis 3:17-18

Two decades ago, while pursuing a master’s degree at the seminary, I conducted interviews in Emmitsburg’s black community. My thesis project, “Up the Hill: Education for Black Americans, St. Euphemia School Emmitsburg, MD 1886 – 1956,” drew on testimony from many of them. All their stories have come to influence me beyond the academic exercise.

This is one of those stories based on an interview with Elizabeth Kathleen Richardson Williams. Kathleen was 91 years old when I interviewed her and had lived her entire life in the Emmitsburg area.

She was born in 1914 on January 6, “Old Christmas Day,” in a two-story brick farmhouse on a rutted dirt road (Old Frederick Road). The house, rented for five dollars per month, was heated by a wood stove, had no indoor plumbing or electricity, and was lit by oil lamps. Many a winter night the stove was kindled with corn cobs drawn from twenty-five-pound feed sacks bought by her father from neighboring farmers for five cents. Kathleen was one of five children born to William and Marie Richardson. Three boys, Joseph, Francis, and Billy died during the 1918 flu pandemic. She and a younger sister Marie were the only children to survive.

Donald Briggs, MA’05 Theology, is currently serving his 4th term as Mayor of Emmitsburg. He and his wife Libby have three children, eight grandchildren, two labs, and a cattle dog.

Across the road were the farm fields of the college of Mount St. Mary’s that laid west in the distance at the edge of the mountain. The year Kathleen was born, the college was settling into the second century as an academic institution. Monsignor Bernard J. Bradley, a graduate of the school and its seminary, was serving his third year as president. The enrollment at school was 342 undergraduates, 58 seminarians, and 35 students in the college preparatory school. According to the 1910 federal census 3,226 people lived in the Emmitsburg Election District #5 of whom 1,054 lived in the town.

While most black families in the area lived in town on West Lincoln Avenue, the Butlers lived north of the town on Irishtown Road, and Mamie Van Brackle on the Gettysburg Road north of the square (North Seton Avenue). To the south of town among the green slopes and hollows of the mountain lived the Richardson, Craig, Williams, and Mitchell families.

Her father grew up on the mountain and worked nearly his entire life at the College as a gardener.

Her mother was a Butler, an eminent black family in the area with roots back to southern Maryland and the beginnings of the Maryland colony. Kathleen’s maternal grandparents, John and Ann Butler, had 14 children, two of whom died at birth. Ann Butler was a Mitchell.

The family “had what membership was available to black families” at Saint Anthony’s Church. The accepted practice on Sundays was for a family to sit in the balcony with the other black families. That all changed in 1923 when Father Edward F. Reilly became the pastor (serving until 1931). Father Reilly was a New Englander and embraced integration. He added pews to the rear of church to accommodate black families. This was a significant step forward in balancing the message of Christ’s presence. Demand for that seating was strong, “This seating usually met with competition for those pews from young white ‘cut ups.’” Occasionally after church the Williams girls accompanied their dad across the road to Roddy’s Store, where he bought tobacco, and they bought candy.

In 1921, when Kathleen turned seven, educational opportunities for black children in the area were limited. These were the days where in much of the country the alleged legal and cultural standard was, “Separate but equal.” The St. Anthony parish

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elementary school, and the public schools in the area, were segregated. The only choice for black students in northern Frederick County was in the town of Emmitsburg at Saint Euphemia School grade school (grades 1-8) taught by the Daughters of Charity.

In 1922, 101 boys and 98 girls were enrolled in St. Euphemia and taught by five Sisters. One of these five, Sister Corrigan, O.B, taught the “colored” students, eleven boys and ten girls that year. Black students of all ages were taught together, in the sisters’ residence across the hall from the chapel, apart from the white students in the three-story school building next door.

Upon arriving at Saint Euphemia in the morning, the black students climbed a creaking set of wood stairs outside the sister’s residence by the kitchen, to a second-floor landing. The classes were small, drawn from the Chases, Abbeys, Butlers, and Van Brackle families. Black students were forbidden to use the water fountains used by white students or play at recess with them. Ironically, black male children often played formally on town sports teams and informally with the white male children after school without incident. The black girls, however, never played with their white counterparts after school. Students who lived in town went home for lunch while the others brought their lunch. Kathleen recalled that many a winter day the students wore their coats in class and often the sisters wore their capes. There was electricity for lighting and marginal heat provided by a coal-fired furnace. When indoor plumbing became available and installed in the late spring of 1944, black students still used an outdoor facility. The children put their own lock on the facility “to prevent transients from dirtying it up.”

Sister Cecelia Bradley was Kathleen’s first teacher and taught at the school from 1915 until 1923. Sister Beata Bartling succeeded Sister Cecelia Bradley, teaching there 1923 to 1932. She was a caring but demanding teacher who, according to Kathleen, often exhorted her black pupils by saying, “They must study as hard and become as good a student as the white students in school.” English, Church History, Mathematics, and Religion were all emphasized. When Kathleen was in grade school, the high schools in Emmitsburg and Thurmont were still segregated. Black children, if they chose to continue their educations,

typically moved in with relatives in either northern states or south to the District of Columbia.

She was a student in 1929 the beginning of the Great Depression. Survival during those years was not much different from her whole childhood “Her family never went hungry as they always had their garden and chickens or turkeys to eat.”

Most days Kathleen (and when she was old enough, Marie) walked to and from Saint Euphemia, about 2 and half miles. On severe weather days, if they had the necessary fifteen cents, they took the bus to school from the reservoir on the Mount campus. On snowy days they did not go to school. If it rained in the morning, they waited until the storm cleared and got to school late. Tardiness and absences for weather were understood and accepted by the Sisters.

As the family grew William and Marie moved from the Frederick Road to a larger home on Annandale Road rented from William’s brother, Charlie Richardson, for five dollars a month.

Kathleen went on to marry Martin R. Williams from the mountain. Starting off, the couple lived with her parents and did so for some time. Both worked at the College, he doing various odd jobs, and she was a launderess. During World War II, Martin enlisted in the army; a proud distinction for him. He was ready to ship overseas when the war ended. They went on to have seven children, four girls and three boys.

Her parents, William and Marie, lived to be eighty and eighty-one respectively. In November 1960, Martin died suddenly of a heart attack. He was fifty years old. He was to be the first black person not buried along the stone fence at the lower end of the St. Anthony’s cemetery. He was buried “up the hill.”

Today we find that many Richardsons and other black family members of the mountain and the valley are buried “up the hill.”

In late August 1963 Kathleen purchased a home on West Lincoln Avenue from Bernard M. and Mary E. Boyle. Her Aunt Rose, Kathleen’s mother’s sister, and Uncle Ward Brown had owned the house but lost it for nonpayment of taxes, and the Boyles purchased the property at the tax sale. Prior to selling to Kathleen, the Boyles made renovations to the property, including installing indoor plumbing. Over the years Kathleen worked various jobs in town as a cook, including for the priests at St. Joseph’s parish rectory, across from the

(by then closed) St. Euphemia School.

Kathleen wished that she had asked more questions about her heritage when she was young, but, out of politeness or shame, that was something that just was not done. She remembered some names, and knew some who had been enslaved, but could recall few details.

Part of Kathleen’s legacy is that her oldest daughter, Lois Ann, became the first black student to be admitted to the nursing program at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore. Her other children Mary, Joan, Pat, Richard Martin, and Marie a nurse too; all went on to lead successful lives. Two of Kathleen’s nieces, Shirley, and Thelma, along with Kenny and Robert Van Brackle, were among the remaining black students at St. Euphemia when it integrated in 1944 (a decade before the Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, ruling that formally put an end to school segregation throughout the county).

Kathleen was a woman of abundant poise, dignity, and determination. She presented a composed calm, frank demeanor. She had lived her entire life in the shadows of American inequities, ever so slowly to be peeled back. She was to be reminded every day of limitations, where to go and where not go, what to do and what not to do. But whatever the test of discrimination, it only honed her love of being black.

She was ever so grateful for the education she received at St. Euphemia, but also to what the black children of the mountain and valley brought to Catholic education.

Left to imagine are Kathleen’s thoughts on going to her first day of school at St. Euphemia. The way was familiar, the fields of hay and planted crops, the dust off the Frederick Road. The commonly late summer early morning too, the light nearing fullness, the air in its weight.

Ahead lay the Toll House to meet the sound of her step, the dust it stirred, companions now to her prayers and worries. To make sense, maybe, the quieting murmur of Toms Creek, her heavier step, the sobering dark of the covered wooden bridge she crossed. Readied now to go up the hill, just a bit further, her determination now secure.

With the shared stories, her gaze roamed between my eyes and the distance. She spoke, it seemed, more with her eyes then her voice to take me along back in

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time. Her soul was my guide through filters now worn too. Never for a moment a sad portrayal. To a soft graced gust, discrimination, deaths, pains accumulated with others, all burdens resolved, and recalled now with a gentle smile.

In 2014, at her 100th birthday celebration party, well over hundred people gathered with the majority being descendants, the families of mountain and the valley, now scattered across the country.

Elizabeth Kathleen Williams, died peacefully on June 6, 2016, at St. Joseph’s Ministries in Emmitsburg.

She was 102.

Born January 14, 1914, “...and important day or the gold finches that have gathered in the field of thistles...”

Mary Oliver, “Invitation”

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Photo of Old Emmitsburg Road looking toward Emmitsburg with Mount St. Mary’s College in the distance ~1889, from the Emmitsburg Area Historical Society

Joey Carlson

The Majesty of Labor

Labor is a fact of life that few think about beyond the particulars of the work in front of them.

Yet, considering that it is much of what we spend our time doing, it is worth understanding why we do it and what the Church’s teaching is on it. Since work is so intrinsically tied to human nature, how we view humanity and ourselves will be impacted by how we view labor. As in all circumstances, Christ is our model, who accomplished the work of our salvation on the Cross.

I tend to identify three deficient views of labor.

The first is that it ought to be avoided at all costs. The second is that while it is a regrettable part of life, it is necessary to work in order to get anything desirable.

The third is only a difference of degree from the second, that man ought to work exorbitantly hard in order to attain comfort.

The first view, that labor should be avoided in all circumstances, falls short for practical reasons, simply because a life of only comfort is not attainable for almost anyone. Virtually all human beings across history have lived in poverty, and labor consumed their days. The second view flows inevitably from the first because upon realizing that one cannot survive without working, the holder of this view decides to work only so far as his labor leads him to more pleasure. This view has led civilizations to increasing specialization and a drive to increase efficiency in the production of goods. At times, this effort by humanity has produced incredible technological innovations designed to alleviate human suffering. At other times, human beings have been used for the production of

goods for their own sake. Christ speaks of this desire in the human heart to work hard but also its distortion in the parable of the rich fool: [the fool says] “‘I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’” (Luke 12:18-21) And again, when he says that: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

This latter reference satisfies the third condition, the tendency to make for ourselves an idol of our own labor. We are all too familiar with the kind of characters who are too devoted to their work and miss out on what is most important, his family, God, etc. What we often forget is the similarity between this vice, an inordinate disposition to work, and the other extreme previously mentioned, the disordered hatred of work.

The life of the college student is an example of this teeter-tottering back and forth between two extremes of the same vice. Many students stay up very late, working a ridiculous amount of time, and when finally we have the chance to rest, we vedge far too much.

In both cases, one is not serving God, but rather is complacent to exist in the rapid waters of his id. The id, as I am defining it, is the animalistic inclinations in

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Fresco in the Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, Italy by Modesto Faustini, Sailko CC BY 3.0

human beings. Considering that it is the nature of an animal to give into its id, we must also recognize that, in a way similar to the reality that not all animals are disposed to do the same thing, not all human beings are disposed to the same vice. While it may be difficult to urge a lion to carry a load, perhaps a donkey is more disposed to it. In much the same way, some human beings are happy to work from sundown to sun up simply for the stimulation of it.

The general system of thought among Americans would be something analogous to, “let the donkey carry his load, and the lion hunt prey-they are happiest when they fulfill their natural inclinations.”

While obviously true for animals, this is not true for human beings. To appropriate the animals and humans requires a practical materialism, which all of us always subscribe to when we satisfy our animalistic urges at the expense of our spiritual needs. We treat ourselves as if we are only matter, and therefore degrade our nature.

Though we are animals, and our natural inclinations are good, they are disordered by sin. It is only through our cooperation with grace that we can order our inclinations.

Besides practical materialism, relativism impedes our response to God’s grace, because in it, everyone is the author of his own vocation. Without operating in God’s framework, we have no signposts to decide our vocation, and we inevitably submit our will to our id in trying to decide our own purpose. Ignorance, willful or unintentional, of our vocation is therefore the fastest route to having a deformed understanding of labor.

One must be able to accurately answer in every labor, the question, “to what end?” The only true answer is our vocation to love, which is my precipitating subject.

There are few societies across history that have allowed for such a free choice between personal treatments of labor. Previously, one’s choices were determined by his socioeconomic class, such that for the majority, if one did not work, he did not eat. It is now possible in America to not work and also to eat, for essentially every person. Many function without knowledge of this, but living with one’s largest priority being liberty from labor, it is possible to survive off of the good will of the government and her handouts. It should also be stated that, unlike many societies, ours rewards effort directly with capital, a radical development easy to take for granted. (This is not true among the socialists, for

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example, where individual merit is not rewarded, or all too often even reprimanded. While, in most other systems, there is no economic mobility. For example, a serf can only work as hard as his land will let him; he cannot acquire a larger plot by tilling with more effort.) These two coexisting principles are a result of our mixed economy, which, in many ways, really does have the right idea. It is wrong to let people starve, and it is right to reward people for their labor. The difficulty inevitably comes in with individual choice and disordered priorities. And in a nation which subscribes to radical individualism, many are happy to fall into whatever category they please, without thought to social or moral obligations. This will inevitably produce a bell curve distribution, with the majority of people having some kind of moderate view of work, and with large outliers on the extremes, as some people will never work, and some only work. The moderate view, however, is not necessarily a virtuous one, though it is closer (as discussed previously).

Having spoken of the vice, we will speak of the

respective virtue. Scripture is clear that one thing man is made for is labor, along with authentic love and leisure (Genesis 2). Therefore, the underlying principle in all three above discussed views, that labor is a regrettable part of the human experience, is false. It is true that, in the beginning, before the fall of Adam, suffering was not an intrinsic part of the human experience. Still, the devil was in the world, and Adam was called to defend the Garden from him (the same word used for “till” also means “protect” and “work”). Thus, Adam’s work would be a test of his choosing suffering and confronting Satan. The sin Adam committed was one of complacency; thus, the remedy God offered him was to never allow him to be complacent. No matter how hard human beings try, they cannot avoid discomfort. God let suffering become an unavoidable part of the human experience so that we would learn that everything good, our very life, comes at a cost.

Love comes at a cost.

Labor is a form of love. We ought to work, not to gain comfort, but to love human beings. Love is

an act of self gift, just like work. When one chooses to perform labor, they essentially take the place of a machine. In choosing to be treated like a machine, one gives himself away for something good. Of course, people are not machines and have far more dignity than simple pieces of matter. There lies the great majesty in work, for the humility of laying yourself down for another is more akin to Christ the King than anything.

Christ the King, who in the beginning, “worked for six days, and on the seventh day rested.” Christ the King, who once more accomplished his salvific work on the sixth day, Good Friday, and on the seventh day rested. Christ the King, taking up His father’s work, laboring, sweating, and I imagine hitting his thumb while hammering nails once or twice. Christ the King, performing His Father’s work upon the wood of the Cross. Work and the Cross are tied together. Work is always dignified when tied to the Cross of Christ.

The majesty of labor places work in a prominent position in the life of the Church. Benedictines do nothing but work and pray. The laity, while not called

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to that sort of cross, are called to never cease working for the salvation of souls. In the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13), only those with oil in their lamps are able to meet the Bridegroom and enjoy the wedding feast. The wedding feast is Heaven, Christ is the Bridegroom, the lamps are the souls of the faithful, the flame is the presence of divine grace in the hearts of the faithful, and the oil in the lamps are both the charity (love) of the faithful and their good works. Therefore, be vigilant, for you know neither the day nor the hour that you will have to give account of your works.

Do not forget, however, that all good work we accomplish can only be accomplished in Christ Jesus.

Grace is offered first, and our accepting divine grace is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Furthermore, we must understand that everything is grace; therefore, there is no work set before us which is not a grace from God, nor is there a trial set before us that we are not capable of accomplishing in Jesus Christ.

So, let our works proclaim, with all of their majesty: “All glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”

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Poetry Through the Gate, to the Heart Stephen McGinley Mastering technicity avails me not; Enfeebling sterility, with thumbs all hot Pursuing new novelties of wanton wot.

Rather, deep in enveloping grasses, I tread Rejoicing barefoot in the sod As I consider communing dead.

The dead, below, beyond, above; The dead, more certain than the dove who sings lamentations in the grove: Certain, they are, of the good that called them; Certain, they are, of the love that begat them; Certain, they are, of the truth that upheld them.

Certain, am I, that as soon as my days’ spent; Certain, am I, that I go wither they went: Through the Gate, to the Heart, piercèd, rent.

Resting in the red earth, the dead, oh, the dead, Remind each of their own birth, the dead, oh, the dead; Teach all the cause of mirth, the dead, oh, the dead.

As the rain falls, long I’ve tarried Reflecting on those dead and buried Who call out that I be carried To the chamber and be married.

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Emmitsburg Apocalypse John Singleton

Autmn Leaf Claire Doll

College girl of flax and flash

All of life is an act of letting go,

A sun splashed friend to make

the way an autumn leaf is suspended

Smiled my way first day of class

between the soft-edged skies of October

While stomping on a snake

and the dying forest floor of the earth.

It falls, slowly, and in that moment,

Stopping traffic on the lane

there is music in its descent: a tremolo

She swiveled heads en masse

of light, a crescendo of wind. The world

Beauty futile to explain

stops, a blur of scarlet and gold passing

Of pure extravagance

by, and we don’t remember a time when the leaf wasn’t falling.

Her local charms, her mountain ways

We only remember the bend of the air

My fancy friends did sneer

as it shapes the leaf, the hint of a sunrise

The serpent she would hold at bay

on its everchanging surface, the beauty

Past ectothermic fear

held in the last breath it takes. .

A pregnant teen she fought for me That townie from the glade A dragon smashed so valiantly

By Grotto garden maid Ferocious female shibboleth Of golden robed array Wielding life and dealing death In a most maternal way

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Msgr. Charles M. Mangan

Our Lady in Her Splendor

Perhaps many historians one day will look upon 2022 as a significant moment in our era. We may reasonably claim that this year has been nothing short of a “barn burner.” I think of the following:

- Russia unjustly invaded Ukraine on February 24th;

- Pope Francis, along with the Bishops in union with him, consecrated Russia, Ukraine and all of humanity to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on March 25th—the Solemnity of the Annunciation;

- This correspondent’s beloved mother died on May 27th;

- On the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, June 24th, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that legalized abortion, by issuing Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which surely must be one of the fruits of the aforesaid Collegial Consecration requested

by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13, 1917.

With such fast-moving, consequential events, stability is required more than ever. The Church, by way of her teaching, presents the perennial truths that root us, providing a steadfast anchor that both comforts and challenges us. The Solemnity of the Assumption, which is commemorated by the Church every August 15th, offers such a truth for our reflection.

The actual dogma of Blessed Mary’s Assumption body and soul into Heaven was solemnly defined a relatively short time ago (November 1, 1950); nevertheless, the belief in this fascinating mystery has

been cherished and upheld by the clergy, consecrated persons and lay faithful for centuries

When Pope Venerable Pius XII in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (The Most Bountiful God), “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory,” he readily acknowledged that “various testimonies, indications, and signs of this common belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of the centuries.”

In particular, the Pontiff pointed to, among other notable theologians, a priest and subsequent Doctor of the Church who contributed significantly to the Church’s understanding of Our Lady’s reunion with her divine Son. Saint John Damascene (c. 690749), venerated as “the last of the Greek Fathers,” was hailed by Pope Pius as “an outstanding herald of this traditional truth.”

What was so spectacular about this doctrine’s analysis bequeathed to millions of believers by Saint John of Damascus?

In two of his extant homilies, he compared Mary’s bodily Assumption to “her other prerogatives and privileges,” thereby demonstrating in eloquent fashion why this teaching in no way contradicted right reason and the tenets of Divine Revelation.

Composed more than 1,200 years ago, the panegyric authored by Saint John still moves hearts today and provides admirable instruction pertaining to the Madonna’s entrance into everlasting bliss. Listen to the wisdom of this Saint from the East:

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The Assumption of the Virgin by Tiziano Vecellio

“It was fitting that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the Creator as a Child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.

It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father had taken to Himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her Heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to Him, should look upon Him as He sits with the Father.

It was fitting that God’s Mother should possess what belongs to the Son, and that she should be honored by every creature as the Mother and as the Handmaid of God.”

Why would the Blessed Trinity bestow upon a mere mortal the indescribable honor of possessing both body and soul now in paradise—not waiting, like the rest of redeemed humanity, until the Redeemer’s Second Coming? With unabashed simplicity and honesty, Saint John Damascene accepts the challenge represented by this enigma and deftly responds: “It was fitting.” As Mary enjoyed unfailing proximity to the Messiah during this life, it is right and proper for her to experience intimacy with Him even now in the next.

The reason that the Assumption inspires hope in the disciples of the Savior is that we have assurance that human beings have the opportunity to know, with the Holy Angels and Saints, the unutterable joys of unending life in Heaven. If we strive for the fidelity that marked the earthly days of the Virgin, then we also will one day partake both soul and body in the Beatific Vision that she now possesses. Where Jesus and Mary are now, we hope to follow.

Like any divinely-revealed mystery, the meaning and relevance of the magnificent truth of the Catholic Faith known as the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother body and soul into Heaven cannot be exhausted.

Our Blessed Lady is now in Paradise, where she prays for us to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, and awaits our triumphant entry into the unceasing Kingdom— the “New Jerusalem”—for which each of us rightly

pines.

The Assumption reminds us how close Mary was—and remains—to Jesus. She completely submitted her will to the Divine Plan. The Lord God raised this obedient woman on high, granting her a fitting place next to Christ. It was appropriate that as Our Lady continually cooperated with Jesus on earth, she should now be close to Him in Heaven, thereby inheriting the prize promised by her Son: Everlasting Life in the presence of the Most Blessed Trinity. As Christ was victorious over Satan, so was His Holy Mother.

Let us never forget that the Assumption discloses how our Creator looks upon our human bodies. These are not mere “holding tanks” for our souls but are crucial in themselves. My body is a distinctive feature of who I am as a human person and as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ.

Furthermore, the Assumption impresses upon us that Mary, now glorified in Heaven, is the image of how the Church will one day appear. Our Lady in her splendor is the image and the model of the Church.

Some other truths that are related to the dogma of the Assumption: +Mary’s Motherhood is universal in scope; +Our Lady’s intercession is powerful and certain; +Mary is the Queen of the Angels and the Queen of the Saints in Paradise; +The Madonna is the Mother of the Church; +The Ever-Virgin is particularly close to the Poor Souls in Purgatory; +We possess a sacred responsibility to venerate, love, invoke and imitate Our Blessed Lady.

The Assumption was not only God’s gift to Mary; it was also His gift to us. Let us give thanks for this remarkable treasure and seek to comprehend better what it means for Our Blessed Mother and for us.

O Mary, Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us!

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“The reason that the Assumption inspires hope in the disciples of the Savior is that we have assurance that human beings have the opportunity to know, with the Holy Angels and Saints, the unutterable joys of unending life in Heaven.” ~ Msgr. Charles M. Mangan, Our Lady in Her Splendor

Front cover: Photo of the statue of our Blessed Mother at the Grotto by Emma Edwards, C’22 Back Cover: Photo of the dome of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception entitled Emitte Spiritum Tuum by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.