Deal Hudson's "Minor Kerfuffel"
Cruxnews.com Note: Each week we will be bringing you a "New Oxford Note" straight from the venerable New Oxford Review. This week's originally appeared in the December 2003 issue.
On Friday, July 11, 2003, the Boston Globe printed a story called "Bishops Seek Out Opinions, in Private: Conference Focus Is Church Future." On the very same day, we got a Crisis magazine e-Letter from Deal Hudson, saying: "You’re about to get angry. Very angry…. Let me tell you the news that’ll send your blood boiling…. This morning, the Boston Globe dropped a bombshell of a story…. explaining that some top bishops ‘met secretly with a group of prominent Catholic business executives, academics, and journalists to discuss the future of the church.’" Hudson characterized those who met with the top bishops as showing "sympathy with dissenting points of view."
So, after reading the entire e-Letter as well as the Globe story, we thought to ourselves: Is there something unusual here? We’re not angry, and our blood isn’t boiling. What’s wrong with us?
After talking with a few people, we realized that our reaction was quite normal. And we were confirmed in our take on that "blood-boiling" meeting when Fr. Richard John Neuhaus called it "a minor kerfuffle," adding, "yes, I know, a kerfuffle is minor by definition, but some are more minor than others" (First Things, Oct. 2003).
So, what in the world made Hudson go ballistic? Musing about it, we came up with a theory.
Hudson’s e-Letter says that "the author [of the Globe story] refers over and over to the ‘prominent’ Catholics" who attended the meeting with the top bishops. And Hudson himself refers over and over to the issue of who is and who isn’t a "prominent" Catholic. Hudson adds, "There isn’t a single person on the list known for his or her stand in support of faithfulness to the Magisterium, the pope, and the teachings of the Church. If this was a meeting of ‘prominent Catholics,’ where are the prominent orthodox representatives? Where are George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Father Neuhaus?" — or for that matter Deal Hudson?
The Crossroads Publishing Co. has put out a book by Deal Hudson, and the ads for the book refer to him as "prominent" — ah, there’s that word again. Surely, Hudson has no doubts that he’s prominent.
O.K., yes, "prominent" can be a relative concept. The question could be: Prominent in whose eyes? Specifically, does Theodore Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C., consider Hudson prominent? Hudson’s e-Letter says that "Cardinal McCarrick hosted the event at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C." Maybe there’s the rub.
Curiously, McCarrick spoke at Crisis’s 20th Anniversary dinner in 2002, where he praised Crisis for being a conservative magazine that’s moderate at the same time, with McCarrick repeating the point several times. So Crisis got McCarrick’s public backing for its turn toward the middle of the road.
Now, Hudson and Crisis are located in D.C. Hudson could easily have attended the D.C. meeting. But McCarrick didn’t include Hudson in the meeting of "prominent" Catholics. Did McCarrick double-cross Hudson? If no one else’s blood was boiling over the meeting, you might understand why Hudson’s was.
Three credible sources have informed us that Hudson would like to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. And there’s nothing wrong with that. He’d be a good choice. And here’s where McCarrick might come in. White House officials would want to make sure that the next Ambassador to the Vatican is acceptable to the Holy See and the U.S. bishops generally. It goes without saying that an expeditious way of doing that would be to consult Cardinal McCarrick, already in D.C., letting him be the sounding board and vet the various candidates. So McCarrick could be very important to Hudson.
In a follow-up Crisis e-Letter (July 31), Hudson wrote: "Especially shocking to some of us was that Cardinal McCarrick not only attended, but was described in the Globe article as the host of the meeting." Shocking, mind you!
The e-Letter goes on to say that someone at Crisis phoned the Director of Information of the D.C. Archdiocese and found that, in Hudson’s words, "McCarrick was NOT the host of the meeting." Gosh, we thought that Hudson could have his secretary phone McCarrick directly so that Hudson and McCarrick could talk it out man-to-man. Maybe Hudson does suffer a prominence gap in the Cardinal’s office. Anyhow, not content with the assurance given by the Director of Information, Crisis contacted two other "sources" who confirmed what the Director of Information said.
Still not content with that, Hudson set about organizing his own meeting with McCarrick and other top bishops. And in another Crisis e-Letter (Aug. 18), Hudson announced: "I am personally very grateful to Bishop Gregory and Cardinal McCarrick for agreeing to meet with us."
Hudson got to invite 40 "Catholic leaders" plus himself. No doubt those chosen few (38 of the 40 being laymen) were honored to be invited. But what about those not invited? Were they not "prominent" enough? Did they seethe — but in silence? Did those who thought they were pals with Hudson find out they’re really not?
As you recall, in Hudson’s first e-Letter he asked this about the first meeting: "If this was a meeting of ‘prominent Catholics,’…where are George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Father Neuhaus?" Oddly, none of those three was on Hudson’s list of 40 guests. Weigel and Novak are in D.C., where Hudson’s meeting took place, and Neuhaus is a short ways away in New York City. They could easily have attended. Of course, maybe Weigel, Novak, and Neuhaus all had more important things to attend to that day. Or maybe they regarded Hudson’s meeting as just another "minor kerfuffle" and weren’t interested in attending (Fr. Raymond de Souza reported that "several prominent invited guests did not attend, expressing private misgivings about the whole approach [National Catholic Register, Sept. 14-20]). Or maybe Weigel, Novak, and Neuhaus weren’t invited. That’s hard to imagine.
So, what happened at Hudson’s meeting? Was it worthwhile? Hudson was first off the line with a report on the meeting in his Crisis e-Letter of September 9, the day after the meeting. You may consider it the official, authorized version. Said Hudson: "Most attendees thought the meeting went well." Only "most"? Hmmm. Well, attendee Peggy Noonan had a somewhat different take in her Wall Street Journal report (Sept. 15): "I don’t imagine any of the laymen left the meeting with a feeling that great progress had been made in any area. I did not come away angry, as some have, or depressed. I came away…somewhat sad and perplexed."
And Kathryn Jean Lopez, an Associate Editor of National Review, who also attended, had an even more dismal take on the meeting. Writing in catholic eye (Sept. 30), she said: "The meeting reminded me a bit of when the State Department caves and meets with the American parents of children abducted to Saudi Arabia. State officials usually just meet to appease. They know what their policy is (see no evil), and they are sticking with it. But if a meeting now and again means critics will gripe a little bit less, then a bureaucrat or diplomat or two will make a sacrifice." And this: "It pained me to spend a day with princes of the church and find myself still feeling genuinely frustrated…. There wasn’t much give and take. In truth, I’m not sure what the point of it all was, in the end."
Even Hudson himself felt compelled to address the derision that greeted his meeting. Going by his column in the October Crisis magazine, it sounds like his meeting was quite unpopular with many of his own Crisis subscribers, who emailed him to let him know what they thought. Hudson berates the emailers for manifesting "bad manners" and being "rude." He gives the gist of the emails: "‘What’s the use of talking to the bishops?’ they ask. ‘Why are you wasting your time?’ they wonder. Actually the messages get a lot more vitriolic than this (and a lot more personal)."
We don’t know how Hudson defines such terms as "rude" and "vitriolic," but we’re not at all surprised by all those emails. Hudson, however, lets himself off the hook by saying, "I fear that what’s really being expressed is simply a lack of hope." Think again, Mr. Hudson. No good Catholic lacks hope for Christ’s Church. There’s a big difference between hope and naïveté. We don’t doubt that most of those 40 guests innocently attended what they later found out to be a rather useless meeting. But we also don’t doubt that Hudson found the meeting to be quite useful indeed.
Hudson also noted in his e-Letter of September 9 that the meeting, held at the Cosmos Club in D.C., was not about "pointing fingers and spreading blame." Well, how nice for the bishops. Maybe that’s why one sharp observer noted that the meeting was a "petting zoo" for bishops and a "grand waste of time." Greg Erlandson, the Publisher of Our Sunday Visitor, who also attended, noted that one of the general messages to the bishops was: "You are our bishops, and we support you" (the Visitor, Sept. 28). Maybe that’s why some invitees chose not to attend. When two-thirds of our wonderful bishops covered up for pedophile priests and re-assigned them to other parishes, enabling them to continue their filthy predations (according to a three-month study by The Dallas Morning News), why should Catholics be so eager to avow their support for their bishops?
Erlandson also said that "The bishops certainly learned that ‘conservatives’ are capable of earnest, respectful dialogue. I’m not sure they learned much else."
You notice that Erlandson puts "conservative" in quotation marks, and he’s right to do so. Erlandson himself is a self-described "moderate Catholic," so understandably he wants to eschew the conservative tag. And there were many other moderates in attendance: Russell Shaw of both Our Sunday Visitor and Crisis, Tom Hoopes of the Register, Leon Suprenant of Catholics United for the Faith, Patrick Madrid of Envoy, and Barbara Henkels and Brian Saint-Paul of Crisis. Overall, the attendees veered toward the middle of the road.
So — we know you’re wondering — if Hudson’s meeting was also a "minor kerfuffle," why do we bother to write about it? Not just because everyone else is, but because there’s something everyone else seems to have missed: Deal Hudson is a White House counselor.
Hudson’s pal Pat Madrid did a major story on him in Envoy over a year ago, depicting Hudson as a knight in shining armor on the cover (vol. 6.3). The headline of the story, written by Tim Drake, Staff Writer for the Register, was "Deal Hudson: The Former Baptist Is Now a Catholic Mover and Shaker — Even in the White House." If you didn’t already know it, you learn that Hudson is the advisor on Catholic affairs for President Bush. Hudson struck up a friendship with Bush in early 1999, and "Hudson was asked to coordinate Bush’s Catholic outreach campaign" in the 2000 election ("Catholic outreach" means getting Catholic votes).
The Envoy article notes that "Hudson was instrumental in setting up President Bush’s dinner, four days after the inauguration, with Washington, D.C.’s Cardinal Theodore McCarrick." Ah, McCarrick again. The article quotes Hudson as saying, "I flew with President Bush on Air Force One on his way to deliver his commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame." Surely you get the picture.
When Hudson had his meeting with the top bishops, don’t think the White House wasn’t looking over his shoulder. The White House wouldn’t mind some help from the bishops in next year’s presidential election. Call it "Catholic outreach."
If the meeting was a waste of time for many of the invitees, it wasn’t for the bishops (they met with both sides, looked evenhanded, and can go on their merry way). And it wasn’t a waste of time for Hudson either. Another Crisis e-Letter (Oct. 2) appeared 24 days after Hudson’s meeting. In it, Hudson made an announcement: "I am honored to have been chosen to be part of the presidential delegation to the Vatican to celebrate the 25th anniversary of John Paul’s papacy from October 15-20."
Well, good for him! Upward and onward! It looks like Hudson is getting closer to his dream. As Pee-Wee Herman said to Simone, "This is your dream. You have to follow it…. You can’t just wish and hope for something to come true. You have to make it happen." We really do hope Mr. Hudson gets that Ambassadorship. Then there’s a chance Crisis will return to being the gutsy magazine it once was.
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