EDITORIAL | The Anchor

Correcting the damage, 50 years later • 3.5.10

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:40:14 -0500

Fifty years ago this September, while campaigning for the presidency, John F. Kennedy went to Houston to try to convince the Protestant ministers of the Great Houston Ministerial Association, and through them the Protestant majority in the United States, that they had nothing to fear from electing a Catholic to the highest political office in the land. There the future 35th president of the United States said, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act, … where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source.… I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him¹ as a condition to holding that office. … I do not speak for my Church on public matters; and the Church does not speak for me.”

On Monday, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver was invited by Houston Baptist University to come to assess the legacy of that historically noteworthy address. In a speech entitled, “The Vocation of Christians in American Public Life,” the shepherd of the Rockies declared that Kennedy’s speech has certainly had an enduring impact, but one that is fundamentally negative.

“Fifty years ago this fall, in September 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for president, spoke to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association,” Archbishop Chaput said. “He had one purpose. He needed to convince 300 uneasy Protestant ministers, and the country at large, that a Catholic like himself could serve loyally as our nation’s chief executive. Kennedy convinced the country, if not the ministers, and went on to be elected. And his speech left a lasting mark on American politics. It was sincere, compelling, articulate — and wrong. Not wrong about the patriotism of Catholics, but wrong about American history and very wrong about the role of religious faith in our nation’s life. And he wasn’t merely ‘wrong.’ His Houston remarks profoundly undermined the place not just of Catholics, but of all religious believers, in America’s public life and political conversation. Today, half a century later, we’re paying for the damage.”

Archbishop Chaput openly admitted that his were “strong words,” but went on to back them up by showing, first, how Kennedy misunderstood or misrepresented the meaning and consequences of the First Amendment and, second, how Kennedy’s principles led him and so many after him to moral and political incoherence.

Analyzing Kennedy’s position in favor of an “absolute” separation of church and state, Archbishop Chaput said that the then-Massachusetts Senator seriously misread the Constitution. “The founders and framers didn’t believe [in an absolute separation of church and state]. And the history of the United States contradicts that [claim]. Unlike revolutionary leaders in Europe, the American founders looked quite favorably on religion. Many were believers themselves. In fact, one of the main reasons for writing the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause — the clause that bars any federally-endorsed church — was that several of the Constitution’s framers wanted to protect the publicly-funded Protestant churches they already had in their own states.”

He went on to describe how the Founding Fathers not only opposed an absolute separation between church and state but actually believed and promoted that government should strongly encourage the practice of religion. “Their reasons were practical,” Archbishop Chaput asserted. “In their view, a republic like the United States needs a virtuous people to survive” and it was clear to them that “religious faith, rightly lived, forms virtuous people.” He clarified that the drastic misunderstanding of the separation of church and state was basically unknown in American civic consciousness until Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, in 1947, “excavated it from a private letter President Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802.” The following year the U.S. bishops demonstrated in a pastoral letter how Black’s 1947 opinion was “an utter distortion of American history and law” and a “shibboleth of doctrinaire secularism.” Archbishop Chaput noted that, even though Kennedy mentioned the bishops’ pastoral letter in his 1960 speech, “he neglected to mention that the same bishops, in the same letter, repudiated the new and radical kind of separation doctrine he was preaching.”

Not only did Kennedy’s speech popularize an erroneous notion of the First Amendment that has had negative consequences for churches and American public life ever since, Archbishop Chaput insisted, but it also did enormous damage to the conscience formation of citizens and those engaged in public life.

He gave Kennedy credit for stating both that he would resign his office if his presidential duties should “ever require me to violate my conscience or violate the national interest” and that he would not “disavow my views or my Church in order to win this election.” However, the prelate added, “In its effect, the Houston speech did exactly that. It began the project of walling religion away from the process of governance in a new and aggressive way. It also divided a person’s private beliefs from his or her public duties. And it set ‘the national interest’ over and against ‘outside religious pressures or dictates.’” The end result was that he “secularized the American presidency” and “privatize[d] presidential religious belief — including and especially his own — in order to win that office.” That had enormous “atheistic implications for public life and discourse,” which have gone a “considerable way toward ‘secularizing’ the American public square by privatizing personal belief.’”

“Fifty years after Kennedy’s Houston speech,” Archbishop Chaput continued, “we have more Catholics in national public office than ever before. But I wonder if we’ve ever had fewer of them who can coherently explain how their faith informs their work, or who even feel obligated to try. Too many Catholics confuse their personal opinions with a real Christian conscience. Too many live their faith as if it were a private idiosyncrasy — the kind that they’ll never allow to become a public nuisance. And too many just don’t really believe.” He said that Kennedy “didn’t create these trends in American life” but “his Houston speech clearly fed them.”

The Archbishop went on to describe, in contrast to Kennedy’s principles and basing himself heavily on the thought St. Augustine, the authentic vocation of a faithful Christian in public life. He said that a believer’s relationship with Christ must have public consequences if Christianity is not to become merely a “word game and a legend.” There is a need to “live and prove our love [for God and others] by our actions … in the public square.” Since human law forms the character of citizens and since politics is the exercise of power, both have “moral implications that the Christian cannot ignore” if he is to remain “faithful to his vocation as a light of the world.”

Rather than a separation between faith and life, he sketched out the proper harmony that is supposed to exist in American Catholics with regard to faith and public life at the beginning of his speech, when he said, “I’m here as a Catholic Christian and an American citizen — in that order. Both of these identities are important. They don’t need to conflict. They are not, however, the same thing. And they do not have the same weight. I love my country. I revere the genius of its founding documents and its public institutions. But no nation, not even the one I love, has a right to my allegiance, or my silence, in matters that belong to God or that undermine the dignity of the human persons he created.”

It was an outstanding statement that deserves to be read in full. Let’s hope that, in 50 years, Americans will be able to look back and say that this Houston speech has had as much an impact for good as, looking back now over the past half-century, John F. Kennedy’s speech has had for public and private ill.

The true meaning of Lent • 2.26.10

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:40:14 -0500

The richness, depth and clarity of the homilies and catecheses Pope Benedict has given during his first five years as the successor of St. Peter have provoked several experts in Church history to start comparing them to the works of the greatest Fathers of the early Church. There’s a growing chorus that is predicting that in future centuries, his words will be studied and read right alongside those of Saints John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Leo the Great. More and more Catholics are beginning to become aware of this great spiritual treasure available to them and to subscribe to free email services like zenit.org to receive the Pope’s words each day and take them to their prayer.

On Ash Wednesday, Pope Benedict gave a catechesis on the real meaning of Lent that bore all the traits for which his discourses have quickly become renown. As we mark the tenth day of this holy season, it would be worthwhile to ponder what he said. We can break down his insights into four parts.

The first is that Lent is not meant to be primarily an individual journey of self-discipline, sacrifice, and personal prayer. It is an ecclesial pilgrimage. “We are not alone in this spiritual itinerary,” Pope Benedict clarified, “because the Church accompanies and sustains us from the start with the Word of God, which encloses a program of spiritual life and penitential commitment, and with the grace of the sacraments.” Lent is not a solitary hike from a dark valley up a high spiritual mountain, but a journey together with the whole Church in which God’s word and very life in the sacraments guide, strengthen and sustain us all. The Pope is calling us all to rediscover this communal dimension of Lent — in families, parishes, dioceses and beyond.

Second, the conversion asked of us in Lent is not something small, but radical and total. Commenting on Jesus’ words, “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” which constitute one of the two formulae used for the imposition of ashes, the Holy Father said that they call us to “conversion, a word that must be taken in its extraordinary seriousness.” In many places, he said, conversion is not treated with sufficient gravity, being viewed as something minor rather than major. “The call to conversion, in fact, uncovers and denounces the easy superficiality that very often characterizes our way of living.” In a passage that deserves to be read slowly and contemplated prayerfully, he specified what conversion really entails:

“To be converted means to change direction along the way of life — not for a slight adjustment, but a true and total change of direction. Conversion is to go against the current, where the ‘current’ is a superficial lifestyle, inconsistent and illusory, which often draws us, controls us and makes us slaves of evil, or in any case prisoners of moral mediocrity. With conversion, instead, one aims to the lofty measure of Christian life; we are entrusted to the living and personal Gospel, which is Christ Jesus. His person is the final goal and the profound meaning of conversion; he is the way which we are called to follow in life, allowing ourselves to be illumined by his light and sustained by his strength that moves our steps. In this way conversion manifests its most splendid and fascinating face: It is not a simple moral decision to rectify our conduct of life, but it is a decision of faith, which involves us wholly in profound communion with the living and concrete person of Jesus. … Conversion is the total ‘yes’ of the one who gives his own existence to the Gospel, responding freely to Christ, who first offered himself to man as Way, Truth and Life, as the one who frees and saves him.”

So the Lenten conversion asked of us, the Pope stressed, is an exodus from the slavery of moral mediocrity to the high Christian standard of sanctity, defined as a faith-filled decision to seek to live wholly in communion with Jesus in all aspects of our life.

Benedict’s words call to mind his predecessor’s Pastoral Plan for the New Millennium, where Pope John Paul II wrote, “Since Baptism is a true entry into the holiness of God through incorporation into Christ and the indwelling of his Spirit, it would be a contradiction to settle for a life of mediocrity, marked by a minimalist ethic and a shallow religiosity. To ask catechumens: ‘Do you wish to receive Baptism?’ means at the same time to ask them: ‘Do you wish to become holy?’ It means to set before them the radical nature of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). … The time has come to re-propose wholeheartedly to everyone this high standard of ordinary Christian living: the whole life of the Christian community and of Christian families must lead in this direction. It is also clear, however, that the paths to holiness are personal and call for a genuine ‘training in holiness,’ adapted to people’s needs.”

Lent is precisely a time in which this “high standard of ordinary Christian living” is re-proposed and the “genuine training in holiness” is meant to take place. This is what Pope Benedict on Ash Wednesday was calling the whole Church to recommence.

The Holy Father’s third insight was that this process of conversion from mediocrity to transforming communion with Christ is not a one-time event, but a continual process and way of life. Repenting and believing in Christ the Gospel incarnate does not happen “only at the beginning of the Christian life,” he stated, “but accompanies all its steps…. Every day is a favorable moment of grace, because each day invites us to give ourselves to Jesus, to have confidence in him, to remain in him, to share his style of life, to learn from him true love, to follow him in daily fulfilling of the will of the Father, the only great law of life -- every day, even when difficulties and toil, exhaustion and falls are not lacking, even when we are tempted to abandon the following of Christ and to shut ourselves in ourselves, in our egoism, without realizing the need we have to open to the love of God in Christ, to live the same logic of justice and love.” Every day is part of our training in holiness, our turning away from sin and embracing Christ.

Finally, the Pope said that this process of continual conversion is meant to lead to nothing less than our death and rebirth within the death and resurrection of Christ himself. The second formula for the imposition of ashes, “Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return,” the Pope declared, “reminds us of our frailty, including our death, which is the extreme expression of our frailty. In face of the innate fear of the end, … the Lenten liturgy on one hand reminds us of death, inviting us to realism and to wisdom, but on the other hand, it drives us above all to accept and live the unexpected novelty that the Christian faith liberates us from the reality of death itself.” The way that liberation occurs is in the passage from the “old Adam,” who returned to the dust from which he came, to the “new Adam,” Christ Jesus. Lent, therefore, is the time for a “more conscious and more intense immersion in the Paschal Mystery of Christ, in his death and resurrection, through participation in the Eucharist and in the life of charity, which stems from the Eucharist and in which it finds its fulfillment. With the imposition of ashes we renew our commitment to follow Jesus, to allow ourselves to be transformed by his Paschal Mystery, to overcome evil and do good, to have the ‘old man’ in us die, the one linked to sin, and to have the ‘new man’ be born, transformed by the grace of God.”

This is the deepest way of all in which the season of Lent is meant to lead us to experience the full joy of Easter.

Responding to the crisis of faith and truth on Catholic campuses • 2.19.10

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:40:14 -0500

The Catholic Church as a whole has its work cut out to respond adequately to the secularizing push of American culture. In Catholic homes, parishes, schools, Religious Education programs, hospitals, and dioceses, there are plenty of challenges to go around to pass on the fullness of the Catholic faith to the next generation. Since Christianity is not a body of teachings but a way of life, the Church at every level exists to help make disciples, those who not only know what God has revealed through Christ and the Church he founded, but who live in communion with that teaching.

One of the most pressing areas for the Church to rise up to meet this challenge of forming disciples is at Catholic colleges and universities. These ecclesial institutions have the responsibility of forming the young at the time when they are beginning to make life-changing decisions about their future, when they are evaluating beliefs and values and deciding to own or discard them, and when they are determining what type of person they want to be and become.

A survey published earlier this month by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate showed that Catholic institutions of higher learning as a whole are not yet getting the results the Church hopes for and legitimately expects with regard to helping Catholic students grow in faith during their university years.

The CARA study looked at data from students at seven unidentified Catholic colleges and universities who were extensively interviewed as freshmen in 2004 and then again as juniors. On a range of issues regarding the living of the Catholic faith, the researchers examined whether Catholic colleges were helping students become more or less faithful. “Regardless of where students began their college journey,” the researchers stated, “Catholic colleges should be helping students move closer to Christ, and certainly doing a better job of moving students toward the Catholic faith than secular colleges do.” They sought to determine not merely what the percentages were on metrics of Catholic practice, but more precisely, what changes were taking place in student beliefs and practices during those years. In order to put the results of Catholic institutions into context, the researchers compared them to data taken from Catholic students at public universities, at non-Catholic religious institutions and at private secular ones.

The results showed that Catholic universities were doing slightly better than their non-Catholic counterparts in preventing the erosion of the Catholic faith, but that far more students on Catholic campuses were changing for the worse rather than for the better.

With respect to Mass attendance overall, only 42 percent of Catholics juniors on Catholic campuses reported that they attend Mass regularly, but the study also showed that for the students who changed their practice, 32 percent said that they attended Mass less frequently over their first two years of college, in contrast to only seven percent who said that they were attending more frequently.

These results show that, while there are obviously many issues involved, Catholic colleges and universities as a whole are not doing an adequate job in engaging students and helping students learn how to make Jesus in the Eucharist the source and the summit of their life. The steep challenge they face in doing so was illustrated by the control groups: 42 percent of Catholics in public colleges, 51 percent in non-Catholic religious colleges and 49 percent in nonsectarian institutions stopped going to Mass as frequently during the same two-year period. The erosion in Mass attendance, therefore, while less at Catholic colleges, is still disturbing: one-third of students begin to give up the regular practice of the faith in Catholic institutions. The results also show that Catholic institutions are not really doing an effective job of helping students who are not attending Mass frequently as freshmen to increase their practice: researchers found there was basically no difference between Catholic and non-Catholic institutions in attracting non-practicing Catholic students to Mass.

The survey revealed similar results on the issues of the defense of human life and the Catholic understanding of the institution of marriage. Fifty-six percent of Catholic juniors at these seven Catholic colleges and universities say they disagree either strongly or somewhat that “abortion should be legal,” but among those who changed their opinion during their first two years in school, 31 percent moved away from the Church’s position and only 16 percent became more Pro-Life due to the influence of their Catholic school. This was not statistically different from what occurs in Catholics at non-Catholic institutions, where there were net losses of 17 and 19 percent from the Church’s position.

On Catholic students’ attitudes toward the redefinition of marriage, the results were more stark. “On no other issue do Catholics move further from the Church — regardless of the type of college they attend — than on same-sex marriage,” the researchers wrote. Only 32 percent of Catholic juniors at Catholic colleges and universities disagreed somewhat or strongly with the statement that same-sex couples should have the right to marry. During their first two years of schooling, 39 percent of Catholic students at Catholic institutions had abandoned the Church’s teaching and 16 percent had grown to adopt it, a loss of 23 percent of students overall (which mirror the changes that occur for Catholic students at non-Catholic institutions). Therefore with regard to helping to prevent the secularization of Catholic students’ understandings of marriage, Catholic colleges show no success at all in comparison with non-Catholic institutions.

Jesus’ parable of the Sower and the Seed illustrates that no matter how good the seed and how effective the sower, sometimes the seed doesn’t take root because the soil on which it falls is hardened, superficial, or thorny (Mk 4:3 ff). That is clearly relevant here. Even on campuses with the most effective campus ministry programs, faithful and energetic faculties, and vibrant Catholic cultures, many students will resist the Gospel. At the same time, however, we would expect, as the researchers did, that time on a Catholic campus should in general help Catholic students grow closer to Christ than drift further away from him — especially in comparison to non-Catholic institutions — and that the changes that occur in the hearts of students would be changes for the better. That’s not happening in the seven representative Catholic schools that have been surveyed. It raises the question of whether the proclamation of the Gospel on these campuses has been sufficiently “salty” (Mt 5:13) to counteract the secularizing forces of culture and to help students see why what the Church teaches is the path to true freedom and genuine human fulfillment.

Pope Benedict, when he spoke to leading representatives of American Catholic universities and colleges in Washington, D.C. in April 2008, called attention to the “crisis of faith” that often underlies the “crisis of truth” on Catholic campuses, which this survey seems to confirm. He encouraged Catholic institutions of higher learning to make as their top priority helping young people grow in faith in Jesus Christ, which will then lead to a deeper trust in what he taught and what he did in founding the Church as the bulwark of truth to continue his saving work.

“A university or school’s Catholic identity,” he said, “is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students. It is a question of conviction — do we really believe that only in the mystery of the Word made flesh does the mystery of man truly become clear? Are we ready to commit our entire self — intellect and will, mind and heart — to God? Do we accept the truth Christ reveals? Is the faith tangible in our universities and schools? Is it given fervent expression liturgically, sacramentally, through prayer, acts of charity, a concern for justice, and respect for God’s creation? Only in this way do we really bear witness to the meaning of who we are and what we uphold.”

That’s a challenge that needs to be taken up anew, with greater fervor, after the results of the recent CARA study.

The vindication of abstinence-only education • 2.12.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Ever since the Bush Administration and a cooperative Congress increased funding for abstinence-only education programs, there has been a concerted effort to try to say that such instruction does not work to prevent teen-age sexual activity, pregnancies, and the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). When the Alan Guttmacher Institute published data last month showing that after a decade of decreases, teen-age sexual activity, pregnancy and STD rates began to increase in 2008, many who favor a condom-based education for teens seized on the news as “proof” that abstinence-only education does not work.

But the data actually demonstrated the exact opposite conclusion.

It was in 2007 that many states, like Massachusetts — misreading and exaggerating a study of abstinence-based education programs by Mathematica Policy Research of Princeton, N.J., that implied abstinence education showed no noticeable impact on future sexual activity — began voluntarily to refuse federal funding for abstinence instruction. So, if teen-age pregnancy sexual activity and pregnancy rates rose in the first year after many states for political reasons voluntarily gave up funds for abstinence-only programs that had existed throughout the Bush Administration years, honest reviewers should recognize it implies that it is precisely the absence of abstinence-only education, rather than its presence, that has led to an increase in sexual activity among teens in 2008.

After the Obama Administration last year eliminated more than $170 million in annual federal support for abstinence programs, we would anticipate sexual activity rates among teens to increase again in 2009.

Further vindication for the importance of abstinence-only education came last week in a landmark federally-funded study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Called by all sides in the sexual education debate a “game-changer,” it made the strong scientific case that not only does abstinence education work, but it may be the only element in sexual education curricula that works at all.

The study, which took place between 2001 and 2004, involved 662 African-American students in four public middle schools in an unnamed city in the northeastern United States. In order to participate in the program, the 12-year-old students could not already have been sexually active. They were randomly assigned to participate in one of five different curricula with randomly assigned teachers: an eight-hour program on abstinence; an eight-hour program focused on “safe-sex”; an eight or 12-hour program that focused on both abstinence and “safe-sex” education; and finally an eight-hour control program that did not talk about sex explicitly at all, but rather was dedicated to ways to remain healthy like exercise and eating well.

Over the next two years, 47 percent of those in the control group who had received the general health curriculum had begun engaging in sexual activity. Fifty-two percent of those who were taught “safe-sex” techniques had begun sexual relations, which indicates what common sense readily understands: that such education actually increases, rather than decreases, sexual activity. Of those students who received both “safe-sex” and abstinence education, the rate of sexual activity dropped to 42 percent, which is a clear sign that an abstinence message, even within the context of mixed messages promoting condom use, works to help decrease sexual activity. The greatest confirmation of the importance of abstinence education, however, came in the results of the group that had received only abstinence training: only 33 percent of the students had become sexually active in the next two years.

The study showed, in others words, that “safe-sex” training increased sexual activity by 11 percent, “comprehensive sex education” — including both abstinence and “safe-sex” messages — decreased sexual activity by the same amount, and abstinence-only instruction decreased sexual activity by 34 percent. When you look at the onset of sexual activity, the contrast between the curricula is even starker. Compared to the control group, those who received “safe-sex” education were nearly twice as likely to begin sexual activity in the first three months after the training; those who had received abstinence-only and a 12-hour comprehensive training were half as likely. Talking about “safe-sex” without an abstinence message, the study demonstrated, clearly encourages the young not only to think about sex but to engage in it, as 12-year-olds.

The question critics of abstinence-only education immediately asked upon hearing of the study was whether the lack of “safe-sex” education in the abstinence-only education put those students at greater risk of teen-age pregnancy and STDs by a failure to educate them about the use of condoms. The study indicated, however, that there was no difference in condom use among those in the abstinence-only group in comparison with those in all three other groups. “A randomized controlled trial and a literature review found no effects of abstinence interventions on condom use,” the authors wrote. “Similarly, in this trial the abstinence-only intervention participants did not differ in self-reported consistent condom use compared with the control group.” Seventy-eight percent of students in the control group reported using condoms if they engaged in sexual activity, compared to 76 percent for abstinence only, 76 percent in the comprehensive and 74 percent in the safe-sex groups, differences that are not statistically significant.

The study shows, therefore, that sixth- and seventh-graders do not need a condom-based sexual education to learn about using condoms should they decide to engage in sexual relations; a “safe-sex” education doesn’t work to make them any “safer,” but only to encourage them to sexual behavior more and earlier. The study indicates that those who receive a “safe-sex” education are no more likely than those who received no sexual education curriculum at all to use condoms — which raises the question about whether “safe-sex” education brings about any benefit at all. Moreover, the typical argument against abstinence-only education — that the young will be at higher risk of not using condoms if they engage in sexual activity, with the consequent higher rates of teen-age pregnancies and STDs — seems to collapse with the data of this study.

There are some other lessons to learn from the study.

First, no sexual education curriculum is foolproof. Even though the abstinence-only education was shown to be by far the most effective in discouraging teen-age sexual activity and the pregnancies and STDs that may result from it, it still “failed” a third of the time because students chose to ignore the message. It failed, however, far less than other curricula. This is important to remember, for example, whenever people try to point to someone like Bristol Palin and her teen-age pregnancy as “proof” that abstinence-only education doesn’t work. They almost never point to the much higher rate of failure among other approaches. Abstinence-only education clearly doesn’t work all of the time, but it does work — and works better than other programs.

Second, even four hours of a solid abstinence message — as was used in the comprehensive curriculum, alongside four hours of “safe-sex” education in the eight-hour program, and complemented by another four hours of basic human sexuality education in the 12-hour program — has a marked effect in decreasing sexual activity among teens. The abstinence-only message for eight hours was most effective of all.

Lastly, no sexual education curriculum seems to be able to work without a serious abstinence component. The “safe-sex” curriculum not only failed to retard sexual activity but increased it.

The motto of the Obama Administration’s sexual education funding, that they would give federal funding only to those programs that have been shown “scientifically” to work — which was a means, based on the erroneous interpretations of the Mathematica study to eliminate abstinence-only funding — now needs to be applied to the results just published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Abstinence-only funding, which has been scientifically shown to be the most effective sexual education program of all, should be restored. And governors like Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who have refused federal money in the past for abstinence-only education, should once again, for scientific reasons, accept the funding and promote abstinence-only curricula, so that sexual activity rates among teens may begin to fall in 2010, 2011 and beyond.

Sexual education without an abstinence message simply doesn’t work.

Priests’ pastoral ministry in a digital world • 2.5.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Last year, for his annual message for World Communications Day, Pope Benedict made a powerful appeal to young Catholics to become the apostles of the new communications frontier produced by the digital age. Since the young have a “spontaneous affinity” for the world of computers, the Internet, digital recording devices and ever smarter phones, Pope Benedict said they are the most capable of helping the whole Church harness the potential of the “gift” of the new media to preach the Gospel. It was an unprecedented papal summons for the evangelization of those in cyberspace, which obviously is one of the major missions in the Church’s overall efforts to re-evangelize the world.

Pope Benedict built on last year’s foundation in his message for World Communications Day this year. Because the Church is in the midst of the Year For Priests, the Holy Father zeroed in on the duty priests have not merely to give pastoral care to the Church’s digital missionaries, but also to establish a genuinely priestly presence in the new media.

Released January 24 and entitled, “The Priest and Pastoral Ministry in a Digital World:

New Media at the Service of the Word,” Pope Benedict’s message called on priests to seize the opportunities the digital world provides for “carrying out their ministry to and for the Word of God.” Since the primary duty of a priest is “the proclamation of Jesus Christ … and the communication of his saving grace in the sacraments,” Pope Benedict reminded his brothers that they have a particular responsibility to respond to today’s “cultural shifts” and employ the new communications technologies. Invoking the pastoral zeal of St. Paul who said, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9:16), Benedict encouraged all priests to imitate the Teacher of the Nations by similarly experiencing heartache unless they take advantage of these opportunities to proclaim the Word.

The Holy Father is calling priests to more than merely establishing websites for their parishes and apostolates, although he is certainly doing this. He is asking them to establish a unique personal presence in the new digital world so that they may use these means to carry out their pastoral mission to the sizable portion of their flock that spends increasing portions of their day online.

Many priests, young and old, have already established pastoral presences in this new mission field. They have email addresses and Facebook accounts. They have established blogs and websites, where they upload print, audio or video versions of their homilies, RCIA or Adult Education sessions, and much more. They have designed iPhone applications to help people to pray more easily in the midst of their day. Several have even quipped their parishes with live webcams so that people who are incapable of coming to Mass or who may be curious can watch Mass, holy hours, devotions, and other events from their own parish church. The pope’s message can be understood as a firm papal confirmation of this type of outreach.

It can also be interpreted as a polite but firm call to conversion to those few priests, young and old, who have taken basically an existentially contrarian position to these new forms of communication, rejecting almost as a matter of principle any personal use of cell phones, email, and computers. The pope is saying that not only is there nothing intrinsically wrong with these new means of communication, but there is something profoundly good. Priests, he implies, are called to an apostolic versatility that impels them to adapt to new situations by becoming “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22). The alternative is to remain living anachronisms, whose pastoral ministry will be stunted by self-imposed limitations, and misleading icons, who seem to advertise that the Church’s message and life are somehow incompatible with the new age. To take advantage of cyberspace, the pope says, is a clearly Catholic enterprise, insofar as pastoral outreach here easily embodies the universality of the Church’s mission.

Pope Benedict gives several principles to guide the priests of the world to fulfill their responsibilities as they initiate, continue or expand their presence in the digital age.

The first is that priests must become “more focused, efficient and compelling” in their use of the Internet to advance the Gospel. It’s not enough, the pope says, “simply to be present on the web or to see it only as a space to be filled.” Just as with giving a homily, when priests are called not merely to say something but to have something to say, so in cyberspace priests are summoned to be “focused, efficient and compelling” in their message. Cyberspace is a new pulpit, from which the priest proclaims the Gospel to a much broader parish, but the same principles and message that would make him a good communicator at the ambo apply.

The second principle is that in cyberspace, priests should be more than just preachers but witnesses. The modern world, Pope Paul VI used to say, is convinced more by those who evangelize with their lives rather than merely by their words. Therefore, his successor says, priests should be present above all as “faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities that increasingly express themselves with the different ‘voices’ provided by the digital marketplace.” His digital presence is more than a place for personal musings or disembodied theological expostulations. It’s a forum in which he is challenged to give personal testimony to his faith in Christ and how he has tried to incarnate the Gospel in his discipleship and apostolate. In an age of celebrity, a priest, to be effective, must be humble enough to tell his own story, which is the chronicle of how much the Lord in his goodness has done for him.

Third, to be effective in this new world, he needs to learn the language and be trained in the tools. The Holy Father explicitly calls for seminarians to “learn, from the time of their formation, how to use these technologies in a competent and appropriate way, shaped by sound theological insights and reflecting a strong priestly spirituality grounded in constant dialogue with the Lord.” For those who have already been ordained, some will have the natural gifts and talents to figure most things out on their own. But most will need training. Up until now, not much formal training on the new technologies has been offered to priests in continuing education programs. Hopefully, the pope’s message will change that. But lay experts in parishes can do great good for their priests by offering to tutor and assist them in learning how to use these new means of communication, from setting up blogs or websites, to using smartphones and Facebook accounts, to assisting to put their preaching and teaching of the faith online. This would be a great gift to offer priests during this Year For Priests.

Finally, the pope reminds his brother priests that they should be notable mainly for their “priestly heart, their closeness to Christ,” rather than their “media savvy.” Priests are not being asked to become webmasters, graphic designers, or gadget geniuses but to become “competent” enough to do what it takes to establish a presence, whereby their priestly heart can establish heart-to-heart contact with those who are searching and show that Christ is near. He reminds priests that “the ultimate fruitfulness of their ministry” comes not through technique, but “from Christ himself, encountered and listened to in prayer; proclaimed in preaching and lived witness; and known, loved and celebrated in the sacraments, especially the holy Eucharist and reconciliation.” Through email, websites, blogs and more, priests are enabled to bring that Christ they’ve encountered into the homes and workplaces of people all over the world, allowing Christ to knock on the doors of their hearts and call them to the fullness of life.

Pope Benedict finishes his letter by calling priests to make “astute use” of the possibilities provided by modern communications so that they may be “enthusiastic heralds … in the new ‘agora’ that the current media are opening up.” This would be a great prayer for the whole Church to lift up for priests during this priestly year.

Taking back the people’s seats from monopoly rule • 1.29.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley in the special election for U.S. Senate has not only massive national ramifications but perhaps even more pronounced statewide implications. January 19 was a bold declaration of independence by Massachusetts voters against a one-party system, both in Boston and in Washington, that has acted as if it prefers to ignore rather than heed their opinions and to presume rather than earn their electoral support.

The Boston Globe, in a refreshingly balanced and blunt January 24 editorial, said that Brown’s victory “told a broader story about Massachusetts politics and of voters’ hunger for options in a state that has often offered only one meaningful choice.” It welcomed the fact that his triumph “created the potential for improvement in the state’s political culture.” It “will almost surely be more competition for seats in the U.S. House as well as the Massachusetts House and Senate” and enable “forces of reform” within the Democratic party to gain traction.”

A couple of days after Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston wrote on his blog, “It is refreshing that the people of Massachusetts have voted independent of their party affiliation … [and looked] at issues rather than just vote party-line,” The Globe basically concurred, giving strong reasons for why voting the party-line for so long has harmed the Commonwealth. “Single-party dominance leads to stagnation,” the editorial continued, in words that can be applied not just to Beacon Hill but to Capitol Hill, where the Democratic majority has cut Republicans totally out of the health-care discussion and has awarded not just pork but whole pigsties to buy votes in Louisiana and Nebraska. “Supermajorities in state legislatures often breed political bosses and corruption. In Congress, representatives who are too confident of their re-election can become politically tone-deaf and complacent, even if they otherwise work hard on legislation. When times get tough, and voters look skeptically at all incumbents, those signs of arrogance loom large.”

Among the “signs of arrogance” the editorial writers specified was the “high-handed and foolish move” that Democratic leaders on Beacon Hill took to “upend the traditional system of filling a vacancy in the U.S. Senate.” Beacon Hill bosses changed the rules in 2004 away from a principle fair to all to a system that would give the best chance of retaining Democratic influence on Capitol Hill. Then they changed the rules again in 2009 for the very same reasons. It was a classic political example of “might makes right,” and they could only get away with such corruption because they had such a supermajority that no one could stop them. Another sign of the “arrogance of single-party rule” that the editorial describes is that the U.S. Attorney has indicted three straight Speakers of the House. “In a more competitive political environment,” they write, “such a run of corruption would be devastating to Democrats. But the vast, overfed majority on Beacon Hill paid no visible price. … The party chose DiMasi’s handpicked replacement and kept on moving as if nothing had happened.”

People do not like oligarchic rule, and especially resent corrupt oligarchic rule. That is basically the way, the editorial implies, Democratic leadership in the state has been behaving. These were among the factors, it concludes, in “last week’s disaster for the Democratic party.”

The Globe also suggested that Martha Coakley was a symbol and product of the arrogance of one-party rule. “Her career … was marked by single-party dominance. She followed a greased path from Middlesex County district attorney to state [Attorney General], with little competition along the way.” The lack of competition clearly hurt her in the election, the editorial continues. “Without electoral competition, even the best political skills begin to atrophy.” It leads to politicians’ spending “far more time crafting policies in back rooms than explaining them to constituents; even if the policies are sound, members can only benefit from having to confront their critics.”

That point leads to what was perhaps the biggest contrast in the Senatorial campaign. It wasn’t the stark policy differences over the present health care bill, the economy and jobs, Afghanistan and whether we should defeat or defend terrorists like the Christmas Day bomber. All of these policy divergences were important and clearly played some role in Brown’s victory. The biggest gap of all between the candidates, however, seemed to be how they approached the ordinary hard-working men and women of the Commonwealth.

Scott Brown seemed to be on a series of job interviews across the state, treating people as his future bosses and asking them for their vote. He seemed to enjoy meeting them and comported himself as if he aspired to be their servant and their voice in Washington. His driving his GMC truck, in great condition after more than 200,000 miles, became a powerful symbol that seemed to reinforce that he was anything but elitist and had no aspiration to be chauffeured in a town-car or Cadillac Escalade.

In contrast, Martha Coakley, after an aggressive campaign in the Democratic primary in which she and the other candidates jockeyed to satisfy the demands of those on the far-left fringe, gave the impression of retreating from direct contact with all but her supporters. When asked by a reporter in a generally sympathetic piece about why she was choosing to hold most of her campaign events with officially sympathetic union members, she responded by asking, sarcastically and condescendingly, whether she should rather be shaking hands with Bruins’ fans in the cold outside Fenway Park at the January 1 Winter Classic. That is hardly the way someone seeking to serve such people is expected to behave. Such a comment appeared to portray that she thought that she was above such fans, above shaking their hands, above the cold, and above appealing for and earning votes one at a time. This is what The Globe means by arrogant and out-of-touch.

It got worse. Many snickered, of course, when Martha Coakley demonstrated that she didn’t even know that Curt Schilling was a Red Sox hero, not a Yankees fan. Perhaps the greatest demonstration, however, of how out of touch she was with people at large was demonstrated by the way she made radical support for abortion a centerpiece of her campaign. She attacked Scott Brown not because he was Pro-Life — unfortunately he isn’t, although he does support a few restrictions — but because, while supporting the distribution of the morning after pill to rape victims in emergency rooms, he authored an amendment at the State House exempting medical personnel and institutions who opposed abortion from being forced to administer these potentially abortifacient pills. Coakley attacked Brown for even wanting to protect the jobs of those who in conscience could not administer such pills.

After she raised the subject on Ken Pittman’s WBSM radio program in New Bedford, Pittman asked her whether Catholics and others who might oppose abortion still have religious freedom in emergency rooms. The Attorney General replied that they do, but then declared that they “probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room.” She said this in a state where nearly half the residents are baptized Catholics, many of the hospitals were founded by the Catholic Church, and a high percentage of the medical personnel is Catholic. Coakley somehow was convinced that trampling on the consciences of health care workers would be a winning issue in this state — perhaps because she seemed to consult and value the opinions of her radical pro-abortion donors on Emily’s list more than those typical nurses and pharmacists who populate our state who would be voting on January 19.

Brown made a lot out of his debate one-liner that he was campaigning for “the people’s seat.” Last Tuesday, the people of the Commonwealth demonstrated that they consider such a seat theirs to give and put other politicians, locally and nationally, on notice, that unless they regard the people’s seats they presently occupy with humility rather than as an entitlement, that unless they begin to listen to the voice of the people and serve their legitimate interests, the people will rise up to fire them and offer the seat to someone else who will.

Seeing their faces and responding • 1.22.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

We have all been watching with tear-filled eyes and pierced hearts the scenes of devastation coming from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We’re staggered by the estimated death toll of 200,000. Our stomachs have turned as we’ve seen tens of thousands of lifeless bodies lying on the sides of the road. We’ve reacted with sorrow and horror at the deaths of thousands more who could have survived the aftermath of the earthquake if basic first aid care, antibiotics, food and water had gotten to them in time. We’ve mourned with the survivors who have lost their whole families. We’ve prayed and agonized with those who have been waiting for word from loved ones. We’ve rejoiced when in the midst of such darkness, a teen-age girl or a little baby in diapers is extricated alive from the rubble and brought into the light.

Even if most of us did not think about Haiti much or at all prior to last Tuesday afternoon, few of us now can stop thinking about the island and its suffering people. Those seven seconds of destruction, and the days since, have changed all that. The images of our fellow human beings in the worst of circumstances have profoundly moved us, indelibly marked us, and begun to bring out the best in us. Americans have been responding with typical, overwhelming private generosity to the cries for help and assistance.

In this is a valuable lesson. Just as we witnessed with 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the tsunami in Malaysia, most of us cannot pass by the other side of the road — as the first two figures did in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan — when we see the catastrophic suffering of our brothers and sisters. No matter how poor they may be, no matter their geographical distance from us, no matter their race, religion or language, we immediately recognize our common humanity when disaster strikes. The sight of suffering in others, Pope John Paul II wrote in his beautiful 1984 apostolic letter “Salvifici Doloris,” unleashes love in the human heart. While it may be easy under ordinary circumstances to focus with tunnel vision on our own business, when calamities strike, in a sense they strike us all. We then recognize that others have it worse than we do and we are moved to respond with genuine compassion. It’s on these tragic occasions that the world becomes more human and that we begin to sense the profound truth that we’re all members of the same human family.

This lesson is important for us to remember as we mark today the 37th anniversary of U.S. Supreme Court’s disgraceful decision Roe v. Wade, which invented a constitutional right for mothers to end the lives of their babies in the womb. Since that decision, according to statistics coming from the abortion industry, nearly 50 million of our fellow human beings in our country alone have had their lives taken at the same vulnerable stages of growth and development in which we once were. In an age of trillion dollar budgets, it may be hard for us to comprehend the significance of such a number. With the images of the horror of 200,000 dead in Port-au-Prince very much in our minds, however, we can begin to express such a number’s true magnitude. Fifty million dead is roughly the equivalent of the death toll of 250 such earthquakes. It would take one such earthquake every day for eight months to equal the amount of those killed through abortion. Over the 37 years of the American abortion age, it would mean one such catastrophe every seven to eight weeks.

The reality is that most Americans, including most Catholics, look at abortion more or less the same way we regarded poverty in Haiti prior to 4:53 p.m. last Tuesday: We look at it as an issue. We may consider it an important issue, perhaps even the most important issue of all. To view it as an issue, however, is essentially to dehumanize it, changing abortion from the intentional death of tiny boy or girl to a topic for discussion, debate and activism. Before January 12, many of us knew that Haiti was a very poor country, but for most of us, Haitian poverty remained just one issue among a long list of many on the periphery of our attention. All of that changed last week when we began to see the images with our own eyes. At that point, Haitian hardship ceased to be an issue. The Haitian people developed faces we could not forget or ignore. And we began to respond the way compassionate human beings respond to those in great trouble.

The same transition still needs to occur for most of us with respect to abortion. We need to see the tiny human faces, the “embryos” sucking their thumbs, the “fetuses” playing indoor soccer on the mother’s uterine walls. We all rightfully weep when a doctor tells a pregnant woman we know that she has miscarried the son or daughter she had been awaiting with eager longing and whose name she had probably already chosen. For anyone who has had a miscarriage or known someone dear who has suffered one, miscarriage will never be able to be just an issue: it is the tragic death of a real human being at a stage of life in which we once were. In abortion, the life of a child just as important, just as human, is not just lost but taken. We need to respond to his death just as human beings do to all such tragedies. But in order to do that, we cannot forget the little boy’s or girl’s human face, human hands and human heart. Please take a look at the photo on this page and do not forget that abortion means giving someone the choice and authority to put him or her to death.

Since Roe v. Wade, the Pro-Life movement has made much progress. At the time of the decision, even Supreme Court justices claimed not to know when human life begins. Such a claim would be laughed out of a high school biology class today. Thanks to ultrasounds, higher resolution digital photos and videos of obviously human children in the womb, the incredible ability of doctors to save the lives of children born months premature, and the persistence of members of the Pro-Life movement to cut through the spin of supporters of abortion, attempts to pretend that abortion is anything other than the brutal taking of the life of a human baby in the womb have all been exposed as sophistry. Having lost the science, all that remains is a chilling rights argument: that a mother’s rights trump her child’s in the womb, and therefore a mother should have the right to choose to have her baby put to death.

This is a losing argument — we would never give mothers the “choice” to end the lives of their newborns or terminate their troublesome teen-agers — and it’s no surprise that recently there have been major shifts to the Pro-Life cause. A Gallup Poll last May indicated that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves Pro-Life, compared to 42 percent who self-describe as pro-choice. This is an incredible seven percent shift in just the last year and the first time in the history of such polling that a majority of Americans have called themselves Pro-Life. A Pew Research Center poll in October confirmed that shift and demonstrated that support for abortion has been plummeting among almost all demographic groups. This is good and hopeful news.

We are unfortunately incapable of preventing earthquakes because we are powerless to stop the shifting of tectonic plates that cause them. We can, however, stop the carnage flowing from the man-made destruction of abortion. To do so, we need to remember faces of the children whose lives are threatened and then begin to work as hard to save their lives as so many are working so hard to save our fellow human beings in Haiti.

Two important occasions in the Year For Priests • 1.15.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

When civil governments declare a special year — like last year’s celebrations of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln — it generally remains on the periphery of most people’s lives. When the Church, however, declares an ecclesiastical holy year — like the Years of the Rosary, the Eucharist, St. Paul and the present Year For Priests — it is meant to have a central influence on how individual Catholics and the Church as a whole live and worship throughout the year.

The Catholic Church in the United States is now in the midst of the 25th annual National Vocation Awareness Week, which concludes tomorrow. On Monday the Church throughout the world will begin the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. This year both of these periods of prayer can and should be enhanced by the larger ecclesiastical Year For Priests we’re celebrating.

2010 marks the 35th National Vocation Awareness Week, which begins on the feast of the baptism of the Lord and continues throughout the first week of Ordinary Time. The timing is to meant to indicate that by our baptism every Catholic has been called to holiness, and that for most of us that holiness is to be sought and lived in our ordinary day-to-day lives. The U.S. bishops ask us during these days to reflect upon the vocational meaning of our existence and to pray for others that they may awaken to the revelation of the Lord’s plans for them. In particular, they ask us to make an extra effort to pray for vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life; for those God is calling to the single life as celibates in the world; and for those with the vocation to marriage, that they might seek the sanctification of their spouses and children.

During this Year For Priests, this week of prayer and education is a time to recognize just how crucial the vocation to the priesthood is to the life of the Church: without the priesthood and the sacraments the priest makes possible, it would be much more difficult — almost impossible — for any of the baptized to live out their vocation to sanctity. It is, therefore, also an occasion to pray to the Harvest Master with gratitude and supplication for those who are already priests, those in formation for the priesthood, those discerning a priestly vocation and those yet totally unaware that God is calling them to this path of holiness and the sanctification of others.

In late 2007, the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy — in recognition of the truths that the priesthood is essential to the universal call to holiness and that in some places priestly vocations are in short supply — began a worldwide effort asking the people of God to pray for priestly vocations. In a beautiful and highly-recommended booklet entitled “Adoration, Reparation and Spiritual Motherhood for Priests,” it lifted up as a model of the type of prayer it was proposing to the tiny village of Lu Monferrato in northern Italy. In 1881, a time of increasing secularism and virulent anti-clericalism, the mothers of this tiny village of a few thousand inhabitants, conscious of the need for priestly vocations, began to gather each Tuesday afternoon for eucharistic adoration to ask the Harvest Master to send priestly laborers. They would make together the following prayer: “O God, grant that one of my sons may become a priest! I myself want to live as a good Christian and want to guide my children always to do what is right, so that I may receive the grace, O God, to be allowed to give you a holy priest! Amen!” That prayer, and their fervent desire for vocations, bore more fruit than any of them could have ever imagined. In the span of a few decades, this one village parish — much smaller than many of the parishes in the Diocese of Fall River — produced 152 priestly vocations and 171 religious women to 41 different congregations.

The same Lord who abundantly answered their prayers still listens attentively and lovingly to ours. This National Vocation Awareness Week, within the Year For Priests, is a propitious time for all of us in the Church to pray for priestly vocations with even greater trust and perseverance that the people of Lu Monferrato, because the need for priests today is even greater.

The Year For Priests is also supposed to have an influence on how we experience the Octave for Christian Unity, which begins on Monday and culminates, as it always does, on the January 25 feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the priest-apostle who worked so hard not only to build the Church but to keep it united as “one body and one spirit” with “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all” (Eph 4:4-6).

During this Year For Priests, the principle focus, as in everything the Church does, is meant to be on Jesus Christ, the eternal high priest. When we examine his “great priestly prayer,” made to the Father on the night before he was executed, we see that he prayed principally for two things: for the holiness of the Apostles and all those to whom they would hear the Gospel through them; and for unity among all believers, “that they may be all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you” (Jn 17:20-21). As priest, during the first Mass, Jesus prayed that our unity with each other be as complete as the perfect unity that exists between the persons of the Blessed Trinity.

We might be tempted to dismiss Jesus’ prayer as something that, however beautiful, is clearly unachievable. Jesus, however, would never have prayed for something intrinsically impossible because prayer for him was not an exercise in “wishful thinking.” Moreover, it is inconceivable that God the Father would refuse the prayer of his Son. Before he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus gave witness to this truth, saying, “I thank you, Father, for having heard me. I know that you always hear me” (Jn 11:42). Therefore, if Jesus were praying that we be one, that we be as united among ourselves as the Persons in the Blessed Trinity are united, then that must mean it is not impossible and that the Father heard that prayer.

While it is true that full communion will be finalized in heaven in the communion of saints, it is also clear that Jesus was praying for it in this world. During the same discourse he said, “I am not asking you to take them [us] out of the world.” He wanted us to be “in” the world without being “of” it, and gave us the reason why: our unity in this world was to be the greatest sign of all of who God is and how God loves us. “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,” he implored, “may they also be in us, so that … the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (Jn 17:15-23). Christian unity, in other words, will be the greatest testimony of God’s love and of the truth of Christ’s words and deeds. Division among Christians, on the contrary, will obscure that truth and love — and obviously has over the course of history.

If this communion with God and with each other meant so much to the Lord that he poured out his heart praying for it in his great priestly prayer to the Father, then each of us who loves the Lord Jesus must make it our life’s mission to pray and work to bring about that communion of love. Priests and faithful alike, especially during this Year For Priests, need to support our High Priest in this, his ardent priestly desire.

Growing in the knowledge of the faith in the new year • 1.8.10

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

On December 9, in the days of preparation for Christmas, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published the results of a survey that suggested that theological confusion may pose a larger threat to the Christian character of Christmas and influence in society than anything that comes from the opposition of the American Civil Liberties Union or other militant secularists.

The survey revealed that, although Americans overwhelmingly declare themselves to be Christian, large numbers nevertheless accept various things wholly incompatible with the Christian faith. It found that 23 percent believe in astrology, affirming that the position of stars and planets directly affects their lives; 22 percent believe in reincarnation, that people will be reborn in this world again and again, and therefore reject the Christian teaching on the resurrection of the body; 23 percent accept pantheistic premises that spiritual energy resides in inanimate objects like mountains, trees and crystals; 17 percent believe that people can cast an “evil eye” or other types of curses on them and harm them; and 14 percent consult psychics, fortune tellers, and necromantics.

Notably, the survey showed that among American Catholics, there was not much difference in the responses between those who practice the faith each Sunday and those who seldom come.

This was yet another confirmation that many American Catholics are unaware about the contents of the faith, are theologically confused, or are not receiving the “salt” of the Christian faith sufficiently as to forsake superstitions or the beliefs and practices of the New Age or Eastern religions. Parishes, parochial and diocesan schools, Religious Education programs, Catholic colleges and universities, and even organs of Catholic adult information and formation like this newspaper have not been doing a sufficient job in combating the influence of the religious syncretism of the surrounding culture.

It’s also true, however, that the teaching of the Church has in recent years been made amply available to Catholics through the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” through various apologetic websites, and so many other accessible resources. Sadly few Catholics take advantage of them. While Catholics now rank among the most educated of Americans — with almost everyone graduating from high school and large numbers going on to college and even to graduate degrees — many know their trades or academic disciplines far better than they know their faith. It’s not uncommon that even Catholic doctors, lawyers and university professors have remained at the level of the knowledge of faith they had at the time of their confirmation; their knowledge of the faith has not kept pace with their knowledge of other disciplines, even though many would readily admit that God and their response to him and faith in God are more important than these other disciplines.

Perhaps nowhere is this lack of growth in the knowledge of the faith more evident than in the relationship Catholic adults have to the Word of God. During the 2008 Vatican Synod on the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church, an international survey was conducted that showed that even though 93 percent of Catholic adults own a Bible at home — the average household has three copies — only one in 30 read the Bible each day and only one in 14 read it at all during a given week. Forty-four percent of Catholics say they rarely or never read the Bible. Eighty percent confess that the only time they come into contact with the Word of God is when they hear in proclaimed at Mass. So while the average American spends six to eight hours a day watching television, 29 in 30 do not take even one minute to read the Word of God.

It goes almost without saying that religious vitality will suffer when so few Catholics ever take advantage of the incredible treasure God has placed in their hands. It is also obvious that if Catholic adults do not know their faith very well, it will be difficult for them to pass on the faith effectively to newer generations. Ignorance of Scripture, St. Jerome taught in the fourth century, is ignorance of Christ. And that ignorance of Scripture, which is getting worse by the generation, has been amply demonstrated in several other recent surveys of biblical illiteracy among Americans.

Recent studies have shown that 60 percent of American Christians believe that Jesus was born in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. Only 40 percent of Christian Americans can name any five of the Ten Commandments. Half of high school seniors think that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. Less than half can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible. Only a third of Americans know who gave the Sermon on the Mount, and more people believe that the Rev. Billy Graham delivered it than Jesus. Twelve percent think that Noah’s wife is Joan of Arc. The examples abound.

The Church in America needs a culture shift as it comes to the study of the Bible and the faith. Catholic pastors and educators need to encourage, inspire, guide and assist Catholics to become zealous life-long learners. Catholics adults must also take up their own responsibility to use the gift of the mind God has given them to come to know him, his word, and the faith he has revealed, as it has been lived and transmitted faithfully from generation to generation from the time of the Apostles.

It would make an excellent New Year’s resolution for every Anchor reader to make a commitment to spending at least 10 minutes a day prayerfully reading the Word of God and the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

The solution, not the problem • 12.24.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Each year the joy of Christmas is contextualized by the remembrance of those whom Christian tradition has called the Holy Innocents, the male infants two years old and younger who were slaughtered by Herod’s henchmen as collateral damage in his pursuit to execute the one whom the Magi was calling the “new born king of the Jews.” Herod wanted to cling on to his power so much that he ignored elemental right and wrong. He sought to eliminate what he thought was his competition but who in reality was his savior.

These same Herodian tendencies have been on display recently with regard to two issues that have been capturing the public’s attention: health care reform in Washington and climate change in Copenhagen.

In Washington, we continue to see the sad spectacle of a majority of legislators’ insisting that health care reform requires that our tax dollars be used to pay for others to kill their children in the womb. On December 8, the Senate voted 54-45 to reject the Nelson-Hatch-Casey Amendment, which would have banned government-appropriated funds from paying for abortion. Sixteen Catholic senators, 15 of them Democrats, voted against the amendment, including Massachusetts Senators John Kerry and Paul Kirk. This was a vote in which there was no opportunity to dissimulate about “not imposing one’s morality on others,” “disobeying the Constitution,” “preserving the status quo” on abortion, or even “trying to preserve the hope of universal health care.” This was a vote as to whether our tax dollars and other federal funds should pay for — and therefore promote and cooperate in — abortion. These 16, with 38 others, rejected that amendment so that federal money would now go to underwrite elective abortions.

The fact that the defeat occurred on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception put their betrayal of Catholic principles into greater relief. We celebrate on this feast how from the first moment of her life, Mary was preserved free from all stain of original sin, which points to the reality that from the first moment of her life, she not only had a human soul (preserved free from all blemish of sin) but was in an intimate relationship with God, who already had in mind for her a great role in the salvation of the world. Every human being is made in God’s image and likeness and exists in relation to him. To destroy the image is in a sense to seek to destroy the exemplar. Why would Catholic senators, many of whom have received a superb Catholic education, freely choose to subsidize the extermination of both image and exemplar? It appears that their consciences are more attuned to Emily’s List and the infernal influences of the pro-abortion lobby than to the voice of God. It appears that, like Herod, they account the slaughter of holy innocents a small price to pay in their pursuit of other ends.

We have also seen some Herodian paradigms leading up to and flowing out of the Copenhagen summit on climate change. There is obviously a need for the world to come together to protect our environment. Should global warming be scientifically verified — based on hard data rather than dubious computer models and the spin of certain scientists whose ethical violations have recently been exposed — we also need to act, individually and corporately, to seek to remedy and repair the damage. We must make sure, however, that in our hysteria to counteract the threat of global warming, we not repeat Herod’s fatal mistake, by seeking to eliminate the main solution to the problem of global warming, by falsely classifying him as the threat.

There are many neo-Malthusian environmentalists who are asserting that the principal menace to the environment is the human being. By this, they do not mean human beings who dump toxic waste into rivers, streams and ground-water supplies. They are not referring to factory owners in China who release pollutants through unfiltered smoke stacks. They are not describing those who carelessly unleash crude oil on the sea or do not prevent nuclear waste from escaping into the environs. They mean human beings who breathe. If you want to see a big polluter, they say, look in the mirror; or to see the worst environmental threats of all, visit a maternity ward.

That is what is behind a push at the Environmental Protection Agency to redefine carbon dioxide as a pollutant and then regulate it by the powers Congress has given the agency through the Clean Air Act. Once carbon dioxide, which human beings exhale, is classified as a pollutant, human beings become categorized as polluters just as much as coal-burning factories; then, just like such factories, human life can be regulated and even criminalized.

This thought probably seems outlandish to most readers, but they need to know that it does not seem outlandish to many environmentalists.

Prior to the Copenhagen Summit, a British think tank, Optimum Population Trust, launched a carbon dioxide offset scheme that encouraged summit participants to counterbalance the amount of carbon dioxide of their flight by giving $7 to a “family planning” initiative to prevent the birth of one child in an African country. The way to offset a large carbon footprint by a leader in the developed world, in other words, is to make sure there is not another set of feet in a child in the developing world. While the summit was going on, Diane Francis, a columnist for the Canada’s largest newspaper, “The National Post,” argued that in order to protect the environment, all nations must impose China’s one-child policy. China’s official government agency released a statement praising, among its other environmental “accomplishments,” its draconian one-child policy as being environmentally-friendly and urging other nations to learn from its false wisdom. A United Nations Agency in its November State of the World Population 2009 Report emphasized the connection between protecting the environment and preventing the birth of human polluters so much that the Associated Press entitled its review of the Report, “UN: Fight Climate Change with Free Condoms.”

Note that none of these environmentalists are claiming that the remedy to global warming would be to eliminate other carbon dioxide emitters. No one is proposing that we should slaughter the wild horses in the Midwest, cull elephants in Africa, destroy cattle herds in Brazil, or butcher kangaroos in Australia. It would violate the tenets of environmentalism to say that protecting the environment means anything other than treasuring and protecting animals, whether endangered species or not. The only species that someone gets neglected seems to be homo sapiens.

Pope Benedict has stressed that any true environmentalism cannot be built on premises that do not respect the human person. He wrote in his Message for the World Day of Peace 2010, released on December 8 during the Copenhagen Summit, that there is a connection between “human ecology” and “environmental ecology.” “Our duties towards the environment,” he states, “flow from our duties towards the person, considered both individually and in relation to others.”

This is a development of the theme he articulated in his July encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” which has become even more relevant as some try to define human beings as polluters by nature: “If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves…. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society” (51).

This is a strong response to those environmentalists who are charging, falsely, that the cause of environmental destruction is overpopulation. Human beings, through the creative capacities God has given us, will be what saves the environment, not destroys it. Others are not our “competition,” or the problem, but the solution.

A noble Nobel address • 12.18.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Even though President Barack Obama admitted that his accomplishments up until now have been “slight” and that he couldn’t argue with those who would have found others “far more deserving” of the Nobel Peace Prize than he was, his acceptance speech in Oslo on December 9 was certainly deserving of accolades.

With the world watching and listening, he sketched out that the path of peace is not something that can be achieved solely by aspiration and dialogue, international debating bodies and appeals to a common humanity. Because of the presence of evil in the world — a point that President Obama stressed repeatedly and particularized with references to Hitler and the Third Reich, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Mao and the Cultural Revolution, and the former communists in Poland and the Soviet Union — more is required of leaders to defend their people and, occasionally, to prevent the trampling of others.

If the same speech had been given by Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy or Harry Truman — and, in many respects, it could have been — it probably would not have been so noteworthy. That, however, it was coming from President Obama in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize given to him fundamentally because of hope and hype for a much more pacifistic form of American engagement in the world than had existed prior to his inauguration, made his words stand out all the more.

There are five reasons Catholic Americans should appreciate his discourse.

First, it confronted squarely the “hard truth” of the problem of evil in the world. “Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism: it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” This led to a conclusion based on realism: “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” President Obama said we have to “face the world as it is.” Evil must exist in our lexicon.

Second, because of evil in the world, he said that peacemaking cannot be equated with non-violence. “There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” He then made his own the traditional teaching of the “just war,” which traces its roots to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and greatly advanced in the Catholic theological schools from the Renaissance to the present today. This involves both conditions morally to enter into war as well as conditions governing the moral exercise within a war. While he notes with many contemporary specialists in just war theory that we need to “think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace” in order to handle asymmetrical challenges from non-governmental malefactors like terrorists, just war principles are just as relevant today as ever.

Third, echoing Pope John Paul II’s emphasis during the Balkans conflict, the President declared that just war theory must embrace humanitarian interventions. “More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region. I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That’s why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”

Fourth, in contrast to his rhetoric in Cairo, France and other foreign trips that understated, undervalued and undermined the moral achievements of America, and seemed to agree with rather than challenge anti-Americanism, he was very clear in Oslo that the world would be far worse off today were it not for the “fortitude and foresight” of past American generations. “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.” He presented the commitment of those generations as a model for the world today: meeting today’s challenges, he said, “will require the same vision, hard work and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago.” American soldiers, he said, are not “makers of war” but “wagers of peace.”

Fifth, he expanded in three ways the scope of the “architecture of peace” — “the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, mechanisms governing waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, and restrict the most dangerous weapons” — that we need to establish in order to avoid the contexts that can lead to war. These proposals are a challenge to world leaders today. He said that first we need sanctions “that exact a real price,” but that are never isolated from outreach and discussion. Next he insisted that there cannot be peace without recognition of the “inherent rights and dignity of every individual,” including the “right to speak freely or worship as they please, choose their own leaders or assemble without fear.” Lastly, he said that there is a crucial economic component to peace. “True peace is not just freedom from fear but freedom from want.” There is a need for international help for just economic development of poorer countries to prevent the envy that can lead to war.

Not everything in his speech was good. He continued to show signs of an unmistakable messianic complex. “I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war,” he said. That he thought he needed to clarify that he was not going to be able to solve a problem that has plagued the human race since the beginning is a window into his own exaggerated set of expectations.

He also demonstrated yet again a simplistic, and mistaken, view of religious motivation. In the context of comments on jihadism, he said, “no holy war can ever be a just war. … For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint — no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic or the Red Cross.” While he was right to criticize the jihadists’ “warped view of religion,” his extrapolation to all wars with religious motivation was itself warped. Every just war should be a holy war, because the pursuit of justice is the pursuit of holiness. When it truly is a holy war, then there will be an abundance of moral restraints, as we see in the just war tradition and in the integrity of multitudes of soldiers.

This also points out to his disturbing failure to appreciate the motivation of American involvement in past world conflicts. He cynically reduced it to “enlightened self-interest” in solicitation of a “better future for our children and grandchildren.” That was clearly part of the motivation for some, but the main motivation for the majority, especially when we look toward the great conflicts like World War II, was not “self-interest” but the heroic willingness to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of those who cannot defend themselves against evil.

Finally, despite the realism of most of his speech, he ended with a simplistic idealism, saying that the “North Star” of the “continued expansion of our moral imagination,” our “moral compass,” the “best about humanity” is our “fundamental faith in human progress.” As Pope Benedict has often said, truly human progress cannot be equated with scientific and technological advances, but rather with moral progress; for that reason, we should not have “faith” in human progress, because such moral progress is not a given — as we can easily see with terrorist attacks against the innocent or medical attacks against the unborn and the elderly. It’s precisely because we don’t have faith in human progress as a given that we need to commit ourselves to work hard to ensure progress through authentically moral training. It’s also why we still need just wars.

Understanding the full context and causes of the scandals • 12.11.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

On the day American Catholics celebrated Thanksgiving, Catholics in Ireland marked what should be called Ash Thursday, the first day of what portends to be a long ecclesial Lent.

On November 26, a commission headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy published its exhaustive report on the Archdiocese of Dublin’s response to allegations of the sexual abuse of minors between 1975-2004. It investigated how the archdiocese handled 320 claims of abuse against 46 priests and gave this appalling conclusion: “The Dublin Archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state.” When one reads the 720-page report, it is impossible to argue with those conclusions.

Although restricted to the three decades of abuse complaints in the Archdiocese of Dublin, the report details many of the same failures of ecclesiastical leadership that have been exposed elsewhere, especially in the United States, and its conclusions are just as applicable here as in Ireland. The report also raises important questions that have not yet been adequately addressed on either side of the Atlantic.

Here, the bishops in 2002 published a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” which, with its accompanying norms, has established firm protocols to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and, should it occur, to respond to it effectively, by providing direct help to those who have suffered the abuse and by facilitating the removal from the priesthood of those who would use their office to desecrate rather than sanctify those entrusted to their care. The Charter and Norms are not perfect, but they have dramatically changed the operative culture of the Church to ensure that the protection of children is prioritized above consideration of the individual rights of priests and the reputation of the institutional Church.

The bishops have also dedicated a lot of resources and time to investigating what went wrong. The bishops hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to do a detailed scientific report of the number of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests, the nature of the allegations of abuse, the responses of Church leaders to the allegations, the amount of money paid to victims or alleged victims and other items from 1950-2002. This took courage and leadership to see just how bad the problem was. The 2004 report gave data from the dioceses throughout the United States.

It was accompanied by an analysis of the data and a formulation of recommendations by a lay board chaired by Attorney Robert Bennett called the “Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States.” It sought to answer why individuals with a disposition to prey sexually upon minors gained admission to the priesthood and remained in the priesthood even after allegations and evidence of such abuse became known to their bishops and other Church leaders. It gave compelling, provisional answers to those questions. It recommended further study and analysis of the context and causes of the abuse, enhanced screening, formation and oversight of seminarians and priests, increased sensitivity and effectiveness in responding to allegations of abuse, greater accountability of bishops and other Church leaders, improved interaction with civil authorities, and meaningful participation by the Christian faithful in dealing with the protection of children and in Church life overall. In November of this year, the John Jay Study gave a presentation to the bishops on the far deeper scientific study of the causes and context of why priests abused. There is now much greater screening of candidates for the priesthood and deeper formation in chastity. There is greater cooperation with civil authorities and increased participation by laity not only on diocesan and national Sexual Abuse Allegation Review Boards but also in providing administrative assistance and training to priests and to dioceses. While it’s clear that there is still a lot of room for improvement in each of these areas, it’s also obvious that progress is being made.

There’s one area, however, in which more focus needs to be given for the Church to regain the trust necessary to carry out her mission. It’s the issue of accountability of bishops and Church leaders. This is why the Murphy Commission report is so important. It studied and brought to light just how inadequate was the response of Church leaders — specifically within the Archdiocese of Dublin, but its analysis also applies elsewhere — to the allegations of abuse brought to their attention. Knowing how bad the problem was, and what specifically the failures were, is a crucial first step in fixing what’s broken. The second step, however, is to figure out why those failures happened. Just as the U.S. bishops recognized it wasn’t enough merely to study the incidence of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy without investigating the context and the causes of that abuse, so also it’s not enough to describe the failures of Church leaders to respond adequately without examining the context and the causes of that misfeasance.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, in his exemplary public statement in response to the publication of the Murphy Report, asked, “How did those with responsibility dramatically misread the risk that a priest who had hurt one of those whom Jesus calls ‘the little ones’ might go on to abuse another child if decisive action was not taken? … Efforts made to ‘protect the Church’ and to ‘avoid scandal’ have had the ironic result of bringing this horrendous scandal on the Church today.”

How is it that so many of those in responsibility equated “protecting the Church” more with guarding the reputation and assets of the institution than defending Christ’s innocent lambs? Why did they respond like lawyers instead of fathers to families whose sole motivation was to prevent abusive priests from hurting other children? With all their direct contact with recidivism in the confessional, how could they be so naïve in accepting psychological evaluations that claimed a minimal risk for abusers’ abusing again? How could Church leaders seem so blind and insensitive to the reality of what it would mean for a child to be molested by a figure representing God? How could representatives of the one who promised millstones to those who harm the young (Lk 17:2) not have made preventing that horror the foremost consideration in their decision-making? Why is it that they didn’t apply the canonical processes set forth by the Church to punish and remove the abusers?

These are questions that not only need to be asked, but answered.

Archbishop Martin has been crusading to try to help the Church in Ireland behave as the Church should. He opened his archdiocesan archives to the Murphy Commission soon after he became archbishop and fought off a civil lawsuit by his predecessor trying to prevent the release of those files. He has spoken repeatedly with candor, shame, sorrow and holy indignation about the “revolting story of the sexual assault and rape of so many young children and teen-agers.” He has publicly called on those leaders who failed to stand before the Catholics of the archdiocese to try to defend their actions, and he has openly suggested that they examine their conscience and resign their episcopal duties.

He’s responding, in short, like a true leader of the Church should.

In order for the Church to recover from the tremendous destruction of the scandals — both the abuse and the failure to stop it — it is crucial for the Church to understand why Archbishop Martin’s example has been so uncommon. It’s also urgent that we get more leaders like him.

The call of Christian conscience • 12.4.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Later in this edition, we print in full a remarkable declaration of American Christians — clergy and lay, Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical — that is a brilliant analysis of the ongoing series of attacks on the foundational principles of justice and the common good in our country as well as a courageous, inspiring public pledge to come together in conscience vigorously to oppose them.

Called the “Manhattan Declaration” because it was originally conceived in a meeting in New York City, it is a concise and compelling presentation of the authentically Christian positions on the dignity of human life, marriage and religious freedom and a direct response to recent political developments with respect to health care reform, referenda on marriage and multiple incursions against freedom of conscience.

It is a document that every conscientious Christian citizen ought to read, co-sign, and help implement.

We would like to underline seven important points made in the declaration.

First, while the history of Christian institutions clearly includes “imperfections and shortcomings,” Christians have a two-millennium track-record of being the salt, light and leaven in their societies. From rescuing abandoned babies in the Roman empire, to caring for the sick and suffering during plagues, to leading the fight to eliminate slavery and racism, and to battling against human trafficking and sexual slavery, Christians have not shirked from helping their societies to recognize human dignity and protect and promote it. Today’s Christians are called to do the same.

Second, Christians have a right — and, in fact, an obligation — to speak and act in defense of the dignity of human beings created in the divine image. Like Martin Luther King, William Wilberforce, so many martyrs, and countless Christian heroes before us, we can and must act. The signers of the declaration state that “no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.” They pledge to proclaim the Gospel “in season and out of season,” and explicitly call on God’s help so that we do not fail in our duty.

Third, the same ignominious notions of “life unworthy of life” that inspired the eugenics movement in the early 20th century and flourished in Nazi Germany have “returned from the grave” in the modern instantiations of the culture of death. Even though the “doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of ‘liberty,’ ‘autonomy,’ and ‘choice,’” no euphemism can gloss over the damage caused by the cancer of abortion and its metastasized daughter cells: embryonic destructive research, “therapeutic” cloning, and “voluntary” euthanasia. This new form of culturally acceptable eugenics “cheapens life in all its stages and conditions” and promotes the belief that “lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable.” American Christians today should do what we wish German Christians would have done in the 1930s and 40s, and stand up in defense of those whom others want to treat as disposable.

Fourth, the “first responsibility of government” is to “protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination.” This is precisely the point that Pope Benedict made during his address to the United Nations in April last year. This means that it is a total dereliction of duty — not just Christian duty but civic — for Christians in public office not to do everything in their means to decrease and eliminate the destruction of innocent human life. It is likewise a total dereliction of religious and civic duty for Christian citizens of a republic like ours — who share in the responsibility of government — not to do everything possible to protect innocent human life.

Fifth, since marriage is the “first institution of human society” and the “institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation,” it follows that “marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits — the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves.” There are many influences that have led to the erosion of a marital culture — out-of-wedlock births, non-marital sexual cohabitation, unilateral divorce, glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity, and the scandalous failure of many Christians and Christian institutions to uphold marriage and “model for the world its true meaning” — but the most urgent threat today is the attempt to redefine marriage as something other than the union of one man and one woman. If political attempts to redefine marriage succeed, the declaration says, it would be nearly impossible to restore a sound understanding of marriage and rebuild a healthy marriage culture, because it “would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life.”

Sixth, the greatest attacks on the rights of religious freedom and of conscience come from those who are always clamoring for us to affirm their rights. “It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices — and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law — are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.” This is an “ominous” development “not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded.” The signers of the declaration do not hold back from describing what such lack of respect for freedom of religion and conscience portends: “Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.”

Finally, Christians must be willing to pay the cost for doing what is right, “even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions.” When laws are passed that are “gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral,” when laws “undermine the common good rather than serve it,” Christians have a right and duty to civil disobedience, as we have seen in the example of the early Christians all the way to Dr. Martin Luther King. “Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience.”

This leads to the courageous and powerful concluding paragraph, which is a forewarning of widespread Christian disobedience if unjust laws are forced upon us. “Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

Anchor readers wishing to join prominent American cardinals, bishops, priests and lay leaders, Orthodox and Evangelical torchbearers and, as of press time 221,611 other Christian citizens in signing the declaration, may do so by visiting www. manhattandeclaration.org.

‘Completely unacceptable’ and ‘An enormous disappointment’ • 11.27.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

In a November 20 letter to U.S. Senators about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s 2,074-page health care reform bill, Cardinal Daniel Dinardo, Bishop William Murphy and Bishop John Wester, writing on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, minced no words in calling Reid’s proposal “completely unacceptable” and “an enormous disappointment.” They said that it fails to meet the moral criteria with regard to human life and conscience protection as well as fails to achieve universal access to care and ensure for adequate affordability and coverage standards.

Reid’s proposal, they stated, “violates the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions — a policy upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program — and now in the House-passed ‘Affordable Health Care for America Act.’ We believe legislation that violates this moral principle is not true health care reform and must be amended to reflect it. If that fails, the current legislation should be opposed.” Simply put: abortion is not health care and taxpayers should not be compelled to subsidize it.

“In the aftermath of the overwhelming and bipartisan House vote for the [Stupak] Amendment,” they continued, “there has been much misunderstanding of what it does and does not do.” This misunderstanding has come from an organized campaign of mendacity coming from the Obama White House, various pro-abortion figures on Capitol Hill, as well as segments of the secular media that are claiming that the Stupak Amendment “changes the status quo” on abortion funding. The bishops respond forthrightly: “This amendment does not change the current situation in our country: Abortion is legal and available, but no federal dollars can be used to pay for elective abortions or plans that include elective abortions. This provision simply keeps in place existing policy and allows Congress to honor the president’s commitment that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.’ The amendment does not restrict abortion, or prevent people from buying insurance covering abortion with their own funds. It simply ensures that where federal funds are involved, people are not required to pay for other people’s abortions.”

The bishops then get specific about how Senator Reid’s bill changes the status quo. “Thus far, the pending Senate bill does not live up to President Obama’s commitment of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion and maintaining current conscience laws. The bill provides federal funding for plans that cover abortion, and creates an unprecedented mandatory ‘abortion surcharge’ in such plans that will require Pro-Life purchasers to pay directly and explicitly for other people’s abortions. Its version of a public health plan (the “community health insurance plan”) allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to mandate coverage of unlimited abortions nationwide, and also allows each state to mandate such abortion coverage for all state residents taking part in this federal program even if the secretary does not do so. The bill seriously weakens the current nondiscrimination policy protecting providers who decline involvement in abortion, providing stronger protection for facilities that perform and promote abortion than for those which do not. The legislation requires each region of the insurance exchange to include at least one health plan with unlimited abortion, contrary to the policy of all other federal health programs. Finally, critically important conscience protections on issues beyond abortion have yet to be included in the bill. To take just one example, the bill fails to ensure that even religious institutions would retain the freedom to offer their own employees health insurance coverage that conforms to the institution’s teaching. On these various issues the new Senate bill is an enormous disappointment, creating new and completely unacceptable federal policy that endangers human life and rights of conscience.”

Following upon the massive mobilization of Catholics to help the House pass the Stupak Amendment, the bishops are asking all Catholics to contact their Senators to ensure that the pro-abortion provisions of the present bill are stricken and language similar to the Stupak amendment is added. Massachusetts residents are requested to call, email or fax the offices of Senators John Kerry and Paul Kirk with a message similar to the following: “Please adopt the House-approved Stupak Amendment that upholds longstanding policies against abortion funding, and please protect conscience rights in health care.” Senator Kerry’s phone number is 508-677-0522 and his web-accessible email portal, kerry.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm. Senator Kirk’s phone is 877-472-9014 and email portal, kirk.senate.gov/contact.

The prelates included with their letter a detailed fact sheet on the Stupak Amendment that responds specifically to the “number of misunderstandings and false claims” about the amendment being claimed by pro-abortion spin machine. Against the charge that the Stupak Amendment is “broader” than the Hyde Amendment and changes the status quo of abortion funding, the fact sheet replies, “Critics of the Stupak Amendment have said that the Hyde Amendment prevents the use of federal funds only for the abortion procedure itself, not for entire benefits packages that include abortion. But this is simply not true. For many years the annual Hyde Amendment has said that no funds appropriated in the Labor/HHS appropriations bill may support ‘health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion.’ This and other current federal health programs already bar use of federal funds to subsidize health plans that include elective abortions. The Stupak Amendment follows this same policy.”

The fact sheet adds that the Stupak Amendment does not forbid abortion coverage in health plans that use only private funds. In fact, it says, the amendment “explicitly says that people not using federal subsidies to purchase a health plan may purchase a plan with elective abortion coverage. Even people who use federal subsidies to buy their overall health coverage may use their own private funds to purchase a supplemental policy covering abortion if they wish to do so.” It goes on, “Anyone who has employer-based or other private insurance coverage now can keep it as before, because anyone who can afford such coverage without a federal subsidy will not be covered by the Hyde policy. Individuals who do not get insurance from their employer, but do not qualify for a subsidy, are free to buy a plan on the exchange that includes abortions. Someone who does qualify for a subsidy can use it to purchase a plan without elective abortions, then purchase a supplemental abortion policy using only private funds if they wish to do so.” The bishops are obviously not encouraging people to purchase plans that pay for abortions, but merely saying that the Stupak Amendment does not prevent private insurance plans from covering abortion, which is the status quo.

The fact sheet details that “most Americans oppose public funding of abortion. A September 2009 survey conducted by International Communications Research is of special interest: Strong majorities opposed ‘measures that would require people to pay for abortion coverage with their federal taxes’ (67 percent against to 19 percent in favor), as well as measures requiring them to pay for such coverage with their ‘health insurance premiums’ (56 percent against, 32 percent in favor). Respondents were also asked: ‘If the choice were up to you, would you want your own insurance policy to include abortion?’ Sixty-eight percent said no, with 24 percent saying yes. Opposition to abortion coverage was somewhat higher among women (69 percent), and people in lower income and education brackets; those who lack insurance now, the people most affected by this legislation, opposed abortion coverage 82 percent to 15 percent.”

The fact sheet concludes: “In short, the Stupak Amendment is a modest and reasonable measure. It reflects the Hyde Amendment and all other existing federal abortion funding policies in the context of health care reform. Under this policy, anyone who actually wants abortion coverage can buy it with their own money; the government does not use taxpayer funds for abortions; and no one who opposes abortion is forced through their health premiums to pay for other people’s abortions. Congress should retain this amendment in any final health care reform legislation.”

Catholic citizens are urged to act to ensure that Congress does retain it.

Catholic in practice and not just in name • 11.20.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

After the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, we argued that among the lessons needing to be learned from the history of the Church’s interaction with “pro-choice” Catholic politicians on Capitol Hill is that an education-alone approach has proven a total failure. The eloquent and clear teaching documents from the popes, the bishops’ conference and many individual bishops about the dignity of human life, the evil of abortion, and the duties of Catholic politicians with respect to human life have seemed to have had no impact on “pro-choice” Catholic politicians. Not only has there not been one “success story” over the past three decades of a “pro-choice” Catholic politician’s becoming Pro-Life, but rather, many of them have just grown bolder, with several Catholics in Congress having become the most radical proponents of abortion on Capitol Hill.

We argued in September that since history tells us that “pro-choice” Catholic politicians cannot be depended on to apply papal and episcopal teaching statements to themselves in conscience, a new strategy is needed. We proposed that the Church consider anew the type of one-on-one instruction that Jesus describes in the Gospel (Mt 18:15-18), traditionally called fraternal correction, in which individual “pro-choice” Catholic politicians would be helped to see that the teaching of the Church on the dignity of human life, the evil of abortion, and the duties of Catholic politicians affords no exceptions in their case. Such correction would be aimed at helping them to recognize that if they truly wish to be and call themselves a faithful Catholic, then they can no longer support the destruction of innocent human life in the womb.

An example of what this fraternal correction looks like is presently ongoing in the state of Rhode Island. It is notable — considering that Senator Kennedy, through his enormous influence and stature, was in many ways the progenitor of scores of other “pro-choice” Catholic politicians — that the recipient of this correction is Senator Kennedy’s son, Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). Congressman Kennedy’s position on abortion can be viewed as the confused fruit of the scandalous incoherence of his father’s generation with regard to the faith and the sanctity of human life. Since that scandal was inadequately addressed and corrected, the confusion in the second generation is much greater than in the first. That’s why the efforts of Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin to remedy that confusion are relevant not merely to Congressman Kennedy, but to the whole Church.

The Congressman’s problems began at the end of October when, during an interview on health care reform, he charged, “The Catholic Church is doing nothing but fanning the flames of dissent and discord by taking the position that it will oppose the health-care reform bill under consideration in Congress unless it is amended to explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.” In case that were not sufficiently hyperbolic — accusing the Church of “causing dissent” from the health care pseudo-gospel rather than noting his own dissent from the teaching of the Gospel of Life — he continued by echoing his father’s claim that changing the health care structure rather than stopping the killing of innocent human beings is the most important social injustice issue facing us. “I can’t understand for the life of me,” he said, “how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person.’” He accuses the Church, not himself, of being hypocrites: “You mean to tell me the Catholic Church is going to be denying those people life saving health care? I thought they were Pro-Life.”

Bishop Tobin was quick to respond, in the straight-talking style for which he is becoming well-known. He called Kennedy’s statement about the Church’s position “irresponsible and ignorant of the facts,” pronounced him a “disappointment to the Catholic Church and to the citizens of the State of Rhode Island” and prayed that he “will find a way to provide more effective and morally responsible leadership.” Tobin later wrote the Congressman to schedule a meeting to discuss Kennedy’s position on abortion. After a meeting was set up for last week, it was cancelled, reportedly because Bishop Tobin refused to accept Congressman Kennedy’s demand that the meeting be kept private. Such a request on the Congressman’s part was unreasonable because the purpose of the meeting was not for the Congressman to go to confession or receive confidential spiritual direction, but to remedy his erroneous public statements and scandalous public track record on abortion, both of which require a public response.

After the meeting was canceled, Kennedy wrote a public letter to the bishop that asserted, among other things, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” That claim solicited a response from Bishop Tobin, in which he focused on what it really means to be a Catholic, not just in name but in practice. Because he hoped that his words “might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership,” he released the letter publicly.

The bishop of Providence began by responding to Kennedy’s statement that his disagreement with some aspects of the Catholic faith does not make him less Catholic. “That sentence certainly caught my attention,” Bishop Tobin said, “and deserves a public response, lest it go unchallenged and lead others to believe that it’s true.”

Disagreement with the hierarchy on some issues does make someone less of a Catholic, Bishop Tobin clarified, because “when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church.” After quoting Canon Law, the “Catechism,” and a Vatican document on Catholics in political life to emphasize that Catholics are called to live in accord with, and not prescind from, the social and moral teaching of the Church,” he continued, “There’s lots of canonical and theological verbiage there, Congressman, but what it means is that if you don’t accept the teachings of the Church your communion with the Church is flawed, or in your own words, makes you ‘less of a Catholic.’”

Since “being a Catholic has to mean something,” Bishop Tobin said that it minimally signifies “that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.” After calling on Congressman Kennedy to affirm that he lives by these “basic requirements,” he adds that if he doesn’t follow them, “What is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?,” with the implication being that there clearly is a difference between a Catholic who lives according to his baptismal promises and one who doesn’t. The latter is, to use the Congressman’s expression, “less of a Catholic.”

Bishop Tobin noted that Congressman Kennedy’s “rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion” is not a light matter, but a “deliberate and obstinate act of the will, a conscious decision you’ve reaffirmed on many occasions” that is “unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.” Support for abortion, in other words, does make one less of a Catholic.

He concluded his letter by inviting Congressman Kennedy, “as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance,” offering his help to that end and reminding him that “it’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic ‘profile in courage,’ especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children.”

Let us pray that Congressman Kennedy, and many other pro-choice Catholic politicians, respond to this instruction and invitation by valuing their Catholic faith more than they do the abortion lobby.

Naming and shaming anti-Catholicism • 11.13.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Two weeks ago New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan captured the attention of Catholics across the country by writing a compelling critique of recent examples of anti-Catholicism in the New York Times. The national daily ironically augmented the publicity of the article by refusing to print it. Archbishop Dolan responded by publishing a slightly expanded version on his new blog, “The Gospel in the Digital Age,” and then it took on a life of its own in cyberspace.

It would be big news whenever the most famous newspaper in the country is directly criticized by the occupant of the most famous Catholic see, but the archbishop’s article is noteworthy for several other reasons, too.

First, Archbishop Dolan has a reputation for being what he calls an “engager,” rather than a “confronter,” of those who disagree with the Church. That he took on a more combative tone in a scathing op-ed is a sign, minimally, of how serious he takes the Times’ infractions. He seemed to respond with the fervor of a husband whose wife is being falsely maligned.

Second, as a priest with a doctorate in U.S. Church history and therefore very much aware of the history of American anti-Catholicism, he intimates that what the Times is doing is more than just innocuously calling the Church bad names. It is an ugly prejudice that, whether by design or unintentional effect, is harmful to the Church’s reputation and ability to fulfill her mission. He fought back, therefore, like a good shepherd must always respond to wolves endangering the flock.

The main reason why his op-ed was remarkable, however, is because it was the boldest response yet to a new wave of ugly anti-Catholicism that has arisen since the clergy sexual abuse scandals in 2002. While it is obviously fair to criticize many in the Church for their sinful conduct with respect to protecting the young from those who were trying to harm them, some have used the revelations of the scandals as a broad license to justify almost every attack on the Church, however outlandish. Many Catholic clergy and faithful have been so beaten down by the constant waves of vitriol — not to mention natural shame at the sins of their spiritual family members — that they’ve almost started to behave like battered spouses who grow to believe, falsely, that they somehow deserve whatever abuse that comes. Archbishop Dolan’s article is important and timely because it demonstrates not only that Catholics no longer need to remain reticent in the face of such prejudice but how they should respond to it.

“It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime,” Archbishop Dolan begins his October 29 article. “Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as ‘the deepest bias in the history of the American people,’ while John Higham described it as ‘the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.’ ‘The anti-semitism of the left’ is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins subtitles his book on the topic ‘the last acceptable prejudice.’”

Archbishop Dolan then illustrates this bias, paranoiac agitation and leftist anti-Semitism by mentioning four articles from the Times.

The first “exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community.” Last year alone, the article stated, there were 40 cases in this tiny community. “Yet the Times did not demand,” Archbishop Dolan charged, “what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize ‘religious sensitivities,’ and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases ‘internally.’ Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so, but I can criticize this kind of ‘selective outrage.’” There is, in short, a double-standard at work, which focuses so much energy on the sexual abuse in the Church while ignoring it or downplaying it in other contexts, like Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn or the huge problem in the nation’s public schools. “Papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs,” Archbishop Dolan concluded.

The second example was an October 16 front-page story on a Franciscan priest who fathered a child 25 years ago in Wisconsin. “Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son,” he noted, “this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation-genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.” It’s not unfair to cover such a story, the archbishop is saying, but to put a 25-year-old story on the front page above the fold evinces a biased editorial choice to feature Catholic transgressions far beyond the sins of those in any other religious group.

The third article concerned the decision of the Vatican to welcome into the Church Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. The article was framed as if the “Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans,” the archbishop commented. “Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, ‘We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.’ Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.” The Church’s actions, in other words, are routinely treated as suspect, which is contrary to journalistic objectivity and once again demonstrates the Times’ bias.

The fourth and last example seemed to be the one that really stoked Archbishop Dolan’s Irish ire. It was a “combustible,” “intemperate and scurrilous” opinion piece by disgruntled Catholic columnist Maureen Dowd. Archbishop Dolan says that her “diatribe” would have “never passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue.” Whereas Archbishop Dolan notes that there’s sensitivity to all those other groups, editors selectively allow such attacks only on the Church. He notes that Dowd “digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription — along with every other German teen-age boy — into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.” He adds that “the matter that triggered her spasm — the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives — is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning,” but stated that “her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850s, The Menace, has no place in a major publication today.” That Archbishop Dolan compared the New York Times’ standards to those of the The Menace is a telling criticism at how low he believes the Times’ standards have fallen.

The archbishop concludes, “The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody.”

It’s important for all Catholics to echo that demand.

Prayerfully confronting and overcoming the difficulties • 11.6.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

We discussed last week the very positive development of Pope Benedict’s decision to establish personal ordinariates for Anglican faithful and clergy seeking full communion with the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict’s magnanimous gesture was understandably welcomed with joy and hope by those Anglicans who had approached Rome asking for a structure by which they could be received.

Resolving messy situations is never easy, however, and it comes as no surprise that various issues, concerns and potential obstacles have been raised by Anglicans and Catholics alike that — after the initial euphoria has worn off — need to be confronted. Several are of sufficient seriousness that they might tempt away from full communion even some of those who had originally petitioned Pope Benedict for a bridge and whose initial reaction to the upcoming Apostolic Constitution was exultation that it had exceed their highest expectations.

Perhaps the biggest issue, especially for Anglican clergymen seeking full communion, concerns the validity of Anglican orders. As Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced on October 20, Anglican bishops and priests desiring to enter the Church and to serve as Catholic priests will need to be ordained as Catholic priests. This signifies the consistent practice and position of the Catholic Church since the Anglican split in the 1500s that, as Pope Leo III wrote in his 1896 Bull “Apostolicae Curae,” Anglican orders are “absolutely null and void.”

Without getting into too much detail and history, there are three reasons for this conclusion of the Church, based on three of the things that are necessary for a valid ordination: the ordination ceremony must be celebrated by a validly ordained bishop with a valid intention according to a valid rite. When Thomas Cranmer rewrote the Catholic liturgical books in 1552 to form the Edwardine Ordinal, he changed the words of presbyteral and episcopal ordination rites in such a way that there was no longer the necessary specificity of what the imposition of hands was intended to do, rendering those ordinations invalid. Even though in 1642 the words of the rite were improved upon to add this specificity, every Anglican bishop alive in 1642 had been ordained invalidly according to the Edwardine rite and hence was not capable of validly ordaining other bishops or priests; therefore, all of the ordinations that occurred subsequently were invalid. Finally, in Cranmer’s revisions, it was explicitly stated that the intention of the rite was not to do what Catholics believe ordination to do — to change the male ordinand ontologically — but merely commission him to a particular type of service. For all three of these reasons, Anglican orders have always been considered invalid by the Church. This is why Anglican clergy seeking to enter the Church and be ordained as Catholic priests have needed to receive valid ordination from a Catholic bishop.

Some Anglican clergy are objecting to this condition in Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution because their participation would demonstrate or at least imply that their ordination as Anglican priests was invalid and, therefore, since they were not valid priests, their celebration of the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance, and anointing of the sick would also have been invalid. To accept ordination as a Catholic priest would be to admit, they say, that, despite their good intentions and their subjective conviction, bread and wine never changed into Christ’s Body and Blood in their hands, the Lord was never worshiped in eucharistic adoration, and sins were never forgiven at their words of absolution, because they had no sacramental power to do any of these things. It’s obvious why this would be such a difficulty for them, because presumably they would never have been doing what they’ve been doing since they became Anglican clergy unless they believed that what they were doing was valid. A few high-ranking Anglican clergy who are very grateful overall for the pope’s creating a bridge for them have stated that they desire to enter the Church “provided that” what they have done up until now be recognized as valid. Ultimately the crucial issue for all involved is one of the objective validity of priestly ordination, not the subjective sincerity of individuals in having believed themselves ordained and having acted in good faith. The objective validity is crucially important to the Church not just to make an historical point, but to ensure that the sacraments celebrated by priests be indisputably valid, since the salvation of others may be at stake.

The second issue involves what to do with many of the married Anglican priests and bishops who have been among those petitioning the pope for a means to enter the Church. Last Saturday, Cardinal Levada released the draft text of a section of the Apostolic Constitution, which said that “those who ministered as Anglican deacons, priests, or bishops, and who fulfill the requisites established by canon law and are not impeded by irregularities or other impediments may be accepted by the Ordinary as candidates for holy orders in the Catholic Church.” He added that, consistent with the practice of the Catholic Church since the 1980s, the admission of married men to the order of priest will still be an exception to the general rule of priestly celibacy and will be considered “on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.” The difficulty will be found in the details of many of the cases.

For example, one of the principal Anglican bishops who has been petitioning the Holy See was originally a Catholic priest who left the Church to get married, got divorced and remarried, and now has several children from the second wife. In his case, his ordination as a priest is valid because he was ordained a Catholic priest, but both of his marriages are likely invalid on account of his previous priestly ordination; even if he had received a dispensation to marry, his “second” marriage to his present wife may likely be invalid anyway on account of his previous bond. Should he wish to serve as a Catholic priest again, the issues involved in these marriages will need to be addressed. Moreover, several other Anglican clergymen have likewise been in multiple marriages and, therefore, prior to any serious discussion of their being ordained priests, there will need to be investigations of which (if any) of their marriages would be valid. If their “first” marriage were valid, for example, their “second” marriage would be invalid and hence they would not be granted an exception to be ordained as a Catholic priest as long as they were in an invalid marriage. This raises a question, of course, not just about their readiness to receive the sacrament of holy orders but their readiness to receive the other sacraments for which someone cannot be in an invalid marriage.

Finally, there are a slew of practical issues that will confront those seeking full communion. For Anglican parishes and dioceses, there will be many legal wranglings with regard to the title of the property in which they now worship, whether it belongs to the parishioners or to the Anglican dioceses. For Anglican clergymen seeking ordination as Catholic priests, especially those who are married and have children, there will doubtless be some financial uncertainty on account of the status of the endowments of their parishes, how many of their parishioners come with them, and whether their pay scale will remain the same in the new ordinariate. It would be inconceivable that a formerly Anglican Catholic priest who is married with children would be able to support that family on the compensation that Catholic priests normally receive in the United States.

For all of these reasons, those crossing the Tiber will be carrying some various crosses. All Catholics need to pray insistently for those whom the Lord is drawing across that bridge, so that they carry those crosses with faith and hope, knowing that, by doing the Lord’s will, the Lord will draw enormous good even out of the heaviest crosses.

Bridge over the Tiber • 10.30.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:53 -0500

Pope Benedict’s decision to create a relatively easy and straightforward canonical pathway for Anglicans who share the Catholic faith to enter the Catholic Church is one of the most significant developments in favor of Church unity since the Protestant Reformation.

As American Cardinal William Levada, Pope Benedict’s successor as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, pointed out in a declaration last Tuesday, this decision is a “reasonable and necessary response” to the “many requests” coming from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful throughout the world who “have declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the ‘Catechism of the Catholic Church’ and accept the Petrine ministry as something Christ willed for the Church.” These petitioners wanted, he said, to “express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion.” They also hoped to do it preserving “those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith.” Through a forthcoming Apostolic Constitution, Pope Benedict is magnanimously and generously responding to these holy aspirations.

The immediate reaction on the part of those Anglican leaders who had approached the Vatican requesting that such a pathway be developed was unrestrained joy. As Archbishop John Hepworth, primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, wrote on the day of the announcement.

“We are profoundly moved by the generosity of … this act of great goodness on the part of the Holy Father. He has dedicated his pontificate to the cause of unity. It more than matches the dreams we dared to include in our petition of two years ago. It more than matches our prayers.”

The petition on the part of certain Anglican groups, and the response on the part of the Church, is significant for several reasons. First, it is a sign on the part of the Anglican petitioners, and a recognition by Rome, that their hope to bring the entire Anglican communion back into union with Rome is not going to happen because of recent developments in worldwide Anglicanism. As a background statement provided by CDF succinctly pointed out, in the last two decades, “some Anglicans have abandoned the tradition of conferring holy orders only on men by calling women to the priesthood and the episcopacy” and “more recently, some segments of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical teaching on human sexuality … by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of homosexual partnerships.” Such a radical departure from common Christian tradition and Scripture by some segments of the Anglican communion brought other Anglicans who still believe in the authority of Scripture and tradition to a painful realization.

As Anglican Bishop John Broadhurst of Fulham, England, the chairman of Forward in Faith, an Anglo-Catholic network that represents about 1,000 Anglican priests, said, “Anglicanism has become a joke because it has singularly failed to deal with any of its contentious issues.” It is “powerless to cope with the crises over gays and women bishops” and it “has been revealed to have no doctrine of its own. I personally think it has gone past the point of no return. The Anglican experiment is over.” Father Ed Tomlinson, an Anglican priest in Tunbridge Wells, England, expressed his conclusion in even starker terms. “The ship of Anglicanism seems to be going down” and he’s “grateful that a lifeboat has been sent.” He sees the Barque of Peter as that lifeboat — as do many others of his fellow Anglicans.

Catholics trying to understand just how many Anglicans may become Catholics as a result of these developments should first realize that the Anglican communion has long been divided or at least in tension in two different ways. The first division is between “high” and “low” church Anglicans, a distinction that goes back to the 17th century. Those in the high church generally stress their continuity with their Catholic roots; they emphasize a common liturgical and spiritual patrimony, tracing itself back to the early Church. Low church Anglicans, on the other hand, stress the Reformation origins of the Church of England, focusing on points of divergence with the Church prior to the 1530s; they often strip away Catholic elements of rites, ceremonies and devotions in favor of a more simplified, Protestant form of worship.

The second division has often been referred to as one between “conservatives” and “liberals,” but has developed more into a distinction between those who seek to remain faithful to the constant teaching and practice of the Church for the past 20 centuries and those who are seeking to transform Anglicanism into the Politically Correct Church of England. This division generally is seen on hot-button cultural issues like whether homosexual activity should be regarded as a sin or a sacrament or whether to ordain women or active gays as priests or bishops. Those who have approached the Vatican are primarily high church and are doctrinally conservative and it is anticipated that most of those who will take advantage of the Church’s offer will come from these categories.

The new apostolic constitution is also significant because it is a real fruit of the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans since the Second Vatican Council. As Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams stated last week in a joint declaration, the upcoming Apostolic Constitution is a recognition of the “substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past 40 years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.”

This is a point that has escaped many in the secular media who have looked at the upcoming Apostolic Constitution as a testimony to a defeat, rather than a triumph, of ecumenism — as a declaration on the part of the Church of Rome that it’s no longer interested in dialogue but only in “poaching” members of the Church of England. Such a charge not only misses the point of the Vatican’s action, which was responding to an unsolicited request presented by leaders of Anglican groups, but also misses the point of ecumenism. The goal of ecumenical dialogue has never been merely to dialogue, but to journey together toward the truth God has revealed, to discover how much of the truth we share in common, and to seek with God’s help the unity for which not Christ prayed but urged us to pray. This dialogue has enabled Catholics and Anglicans who accept the deposit of faith to grow closer together, making such a request on the part of Anglicans and a response on the part of the Church possible.

Lastly the upcoming Apostolic Constitution is significant because it sets forth a clear paradigm of how the Church may structure reconciliation with other Christian bodies that are not yet in full visible communion, such as the Society of St. Pius X and Eastern Orthodox Churches. As Cardinal Levada said in last Tuesday’s press conference, by setting up personal ordinariates with leaders chosen from former Anglican clergy, the Catholic Church is demonstrating that she is not asking those who seek the restoration of full visible communion to abandon their authentic liturgical and spiritual patrimony. “It is the hope of the Holy Father Benedict XVI,” Cardinal Levada stated, “that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows.” Other groups in dialogue with the Church should “find in this canonical structure” reasons for hope that their “precious” traditions will, too, be considered a “gift to be shared in the wider Church.”

Next week we will tackle some of the questions and concerns that have been expressed in anticipation of the upcoming Apostolic Constitution.

Holding the president and the reformers accountable • 10.23.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:09:40 -0500

Last week we mentioned the increasingly firm statements of the leaders of the U.S. bishops that unless President Barack Obama actually makes good on his September 9 promise to the American people that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions and federal conscience laws will remain in place,” the bishops would have “no choice” but to “oppose the health care bill vigorously.”

Members of the media took these statements to White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs, asking whether the Administration planned to weigh in on a federal abortion funding ban, especially after various congressional committees have rejected Pro-Life amendments to do exactly this. Gibbs responded by twice taking issue with the bishops’ assertions that none of the five health care reforms bills presently being advanced in Congress have met President Obama’s promise to bar the use of federal dollars for abortion.

On October 14, he said at his daily press conference, “There’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion. That isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.” Two days later, asked whether the president will call on Congress explicitly to prohibit abortion funding, he replied, “There may be a legal interpretation that has been lost here, but there’s a fairly clear federal law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion. I think it is — again, it’s exceedingly clear in the law.”

It’s Gibbs who himself is lost in his legal interpretation. In his comments, he was referring to the Hyde Amendment, claiming that its existence ensures that no abortions will be funded by any of the health care reforms. But this is just political subterfuge, as was pointed out in an October 16 press release entitled “Federal Abortion Funding: What Some People Want To ‘Hyde’ From You,” by Susan Gibbs (no relation to the presidential spokesman), who is the assistant director for education and outreach of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-life Activities.

“Contrary to Mr. Gibbs’ assertion,” she stated, “it is ‘exceedingly clear’ that the Hyde Amendment does not apply to any of the health care reform bills.” Then she presented, in very intelligible language, a brief history of the Hyde Amendment and why it’s irrelevant to the present health care reform debate. “Between 1973 and 1976, courts interpreted broadly-worded language on health benefits in the Medicaid statute to include abortion. Taxpayers were forced to pay for the abortion deaths of about 300,000 children annually. In 1976 the Hyde Amendment was passed, as a rider to the annual Health and Human Services (HHS) appropriations bill. Hyde prevents federal funding of elective abortions and of health benefits packages that include such abortions. But it is not permanent law, and it applies only to funds appropriated under the annual HHS bill, not to funds appropriated under other statutes. So specific prohibitions on abortion funding have been written into laws governing other federal programs, such as federal employee health benefits, foreign aid, and military hospitals. An explicit prohibition must also be included in the final health care reform bill to avert a huge expansion of federal abortion funding. Without it, and notwithstanding their strong support for health care reform, the bishops will have no choice but to oppose the final bill vigorously.”

She stated that we are “approaching the 11th hour” and urged Catholics to contact their Senators and Representatives immediately to state their opposition to expanded federal abortion funding. Catholics can do so easily online by visiting to www.nchla.org and, with two simple clicks, send a clear message to those who are supposed to be representing them in Washington. Around the same time, Dr. Louis Breschi, the president of the Catholic Medical Association, released a more wide-ranging critique of the proposed legislation on Capitol Hill. He charged that, as presently written, the proposed pieces of legislation not only threaten the dignity of human life but the dignity of human freedom through an obvious violation of the principle of subsidiarity.

Speaking on behalf of the Catholics doctors, nurses and other medical personnel in the CMA, he said, “We believe we are facing a crisis, not only in health care financing and delivery, but in the health care reform process itself. As is often noted, the word “crisis” can mean either danger or opportunity. The United States has the opportunity (and obligation) to craft effective, ethical responses to the crisis in health care financing and delivery. But there also exists a real danger that misguided legislation could make our current problems even worse. This is a critical time for Catholics to work together to formulate solutions based upon authentic moral, social, and economic principles.”

He described in length what he saw as the crisis in the health care reform process. “Bills passed out of committees in the House and Senate this summer rely heavily on the federal government to dictate solutions. They empower a small group of unelected government bureaucrats and committees to determine the composition and cost of health insurance policies, the reimbursement of providers, the approval of treatments, etc. We think this government-controlled approach is flawed in principle and ineffective, if not dangerous, in practice. This approach clearly violates the principle of subsidiarity.”

He specifically and respectfully called on “all Catholics and Catholic organizations to place a greater emphasis on respecting the principle of subsidiarity across the spectrum of issues in health care financing and delivery” during the ongoing legislative debates. His call can be taken as a reminder to some Church leaders that even if President Obama is faithful to his yet-unfulfilled promise to ensure that consciences of health care workers are protected and no federal monies be used for abortion, even if spiraling costs are controlled and truly universal coverage is achieved, the end result will still be contrary to Catholic principles and an overall loss if the mechanism for achieving these goals is one that violates the principle of subsidiarity.

As we mentioned in our October 2 editorial, quoting the bishops of the two Kansas Cities, subsidiarity is “the principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives.” To violate subsidiarity is to violate human dignity and freedom. Just as most people would never seek to reform the educational system by taking away the ability of parents to make choices about whether to home-school their children or send them to private schools, or by reducing the authority of principals, superintendents, school boards, and state departments of education in order to give control over pencil acquisitions and homework assignments to someone in the District of Columbia, so it would be a similar violation of the principle of subsidiarity to shift so much health care decision-making to the nation’s capital — unless, of course, all other means at levels closer to us had been shown to be inadequate to, but incapable of, the task. That has yet to be proven, because other reforms of what’s broken have not yet been tried.

“Experience indicates,” Breschi continues, “that medical decisions are best made within the personal context of the individual patient-physician relationship rather than within some remote, impersonal, and bureaucratic agency, whether governmental or corporate. We are convinced that if this important principle of Catholic social teaching is not correctly upheld, then short-term measures to defend the right to life and respect for conscience will ultimately fail and the patient-physician relationship will be irreparably compromised.”

He advised patience and real study to make sure that all such reforms are actually changes for the better. “We must ensure that well-intentioned efforts to bring about ‘change’ are not exploited to create a federally controlled system that promises health care for all, but creates an oppressive bureaucracy hostile to human life and to the integrity of the patient-physician relationship. It would be better to forgo long-needed changes in health care financing and delivery in the short-term if these would lead to a longterm, systemic policy regime that is inimical to respect for life, religious freedom, and the goods served by the principle of subsidiarity. Rather than accept such an outcome, we should take the time required to implement reform measures that are sound in both principled and practical terms.”

A public line in the sand • 10.16.09

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:03:40 -0500

Eight days ago, the U.S. bishops drew a line in the sand on health care reform. Three of the bishops who have been most actively involved in the health care debate — Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y., and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City — wrote a joint letter on behalf of all U.S. bishops to the members of Congress warning that unless some major changes are made to present legislation being debated on Capitol Hill, they will have “no choice” but to “oppose the health care bill vigorously.”

This is quite a statement from the leaders of the Church in our country, which has long been one of the strongest supporters of health care reform, but it points to the seriousness of the problems they find in the proposed legislation.

They expressed their clear “disappointment” that progress has not been made on the “three priority criteria for health care reform” they have repeatedly conveyed to Congress as grounds for the Church’s support. The first of these criteria is to “exclude mandated coverage for abortion, and incorporate longstanding policies against abortion funding and in favor of conscience rights.” Despite President Obama’s September 9 promise on national television before members of Congress that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,” attempts to put flesh on those commitments, they note, have been defeated in the Senate.

Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ secretariat of Pro-Life activities, indicated that the Senate Finance Committee has recently rejected two Pro-Life amendments authored by Senator Orrin Hatch to put legislative teeth to the president’s words. One amendment, he said, was an attempt to repeat the abortion funding prohibition that has long governed all federal health programs: “no federal subsidies for benefits packages that cover abortion, with rare exceptions; insurers could offer supplemental abortion policies if they were funded solely by the private premiums of those choosing to purchase them.” The second one “would forbid federal agencies, and state and local governments receiving federal funds under this bill, to discriminate against health care providers that decline to perform, refer for, or pay for abortions.” Both amendments, Doerflinger lamented, were defeated.

The bishops’ letter noted that the conscience rights amendment rejected by the Senate Finance Committee had previously by passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They said that they “remain apprehensive when amendments protecting freedom of conscience and ensuring no taxpayer money for abortion are defeated in committee votes.” Such legislative maneuvers obviously raise serious questions about whether Democratic leaders in the legislative and executive branches are being honest when they assure that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”

The bishops reiterate the principles that “no one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion,” that it is “essential that the legislation clearly apply to this new program longstanding and widely supported federal restrictions on abortion funding and mandates,” and that there be clear “protections for rights of conscience.” After reviewing current bills, they don’t mince words in their evaluation: “No current bill meets this test.” In uncharacteristically stark language, they stress that “if acceptable language in these areas cannot be found” and “if final legislation does not meet our principles,” they would have “no choice” but to “vigorously” oppose the bill as a whole. What they’re saying is that, even though health care reform is desperately needed, no amount of good in other parts of the bill could outweigh the amount of harm that could come if these two principles are not met.

The bishops mentioned the other two “priority criteria,” making “quality health care affordable and accessible to everyone, particularly those who are vulnerable and those who live at or near the poverty level” and ensuring “effective measures to safeguard the health of immigrants, their children, and all of society.” Insofar as they didn’t mention specific ways in which these objectives were not being met, however, we can infer that they are in general satisfied in these two areas. Nevertheless, their stark language with regard to the first priority indicates that they’re not going to be satisfied with obtaining merely two of three. It’s a clear sign of the seriousness of the evil that would be done by the violation of the first criterion.

The bishops of the state of Kansas — who have been among the most active local conferences of bishops in staying on top of health care reform proposals — have expanded upon the concerns articulated by the leaders of the national conference in a recent letter written to all of their representatives and senators in Washington.

“Any health care reform legislation,” they declared, must “truly be in the service of protecting human life. It is absolutely imperative that the final health care reform bill not contain any language permitting public financing of abortion. Indeed, we feel that it is necessary that the final bill contain explicit protections ensuring that public funds will not be used to finance abortion.” After noting the “most disappointing development” that amendments explicitly codifying such protections were defeated by the Senate Finance Committee, they described why unequivocal protections are so important: “Existing protections are not adequate to meet the new circumstances that would exist under some of the proposals currently before Congress.

If the federal government is going to expand its regulatory power over insurance providers, or actually provide coverage itself, then existing protections against taxpayer financing of abortion must be adapted to apply fully to these changed conditions. Mandated coverage of abortion by any plan, public or private, would poison the prospects for genuine reform and render the legislation unacceptable.”

With respect to the failure up until now to ensure adequate conscience protections, they implied that we need to pay attention not merely to the president’s rhetoric but to his deeds. “The debate over health care reform legislation has brought renewed focus to President Obama’s regrettable decision earlier this year to begin the process of rolling back the conscience protection regulation put in place by the previous administration. It is critically important that doctors, nurses, and other health care personnel be able to practice medicine without being forced to be complicit in procedures they find profoundly immoral, like abortion.” Without trying to be alarmist, they also brought into focus that the consequences of the failure adequately to protect consciences will be social and not just personal: “Failure to protect conscience rights could potentially put Catholic hospitals in an untenable position, which would have grave consequences for the one out of every six patients who rely upon them for health care.”

They reiterate that they were “grateful for President Obama’s assurance in his September 9 address before Congress that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place,’” but note that for this promise to be realized,” significant changes to the health care reform bills before Congress will be necessary.”

They conclude with a healthy reminder: “Reform legislation for its own sake is not enough. Health care reform must improve health care, not merely change it.” The Catholic Church, led by her bishops, are committed to ensuring that all such changes actually do improve it, and have gone on record that they will vigorously oppose any such “reforms” that promote abortion or the trampling on the consciences of health care workers.

Change for the better, Part II • 10.9.09

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:58:24 -0500

Last week, in our continuing survey of Catholic analysis of the present health care reform proposals, we began an examination of the “Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care Reform,” a pastoral letter published jointly by Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., and Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo. They present four principles, the first two of which we covered last Friday: subsidiarity, “the principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives”; and the life and dignity of the human person as the “driving force for care and the constitutive ground of human justice.” We then mentioned how the Kansas City prelates applied both of those principles to the present proposals that have been introduced up until now in Washington.

Today we turn to the other two principles they describe. The third is the obligation to the common good, which, according to the definition found in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” is “the sum total of social conditions that allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily.” Part of those social conditions facilitating a person’s achieving life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is obviously that people who are ill or injured are able to be cared for and assisted to toward recovery. Hence they declare that, respectful of the common good, “it is very clear that … we must find some way to provide a safety net for people in need.” They stress, however, that, consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, such a safety net must avoid two things: it must not “diminish personal responsibility” or create an “inordinately bureaucratic structure that will be vulnerable to financial abuse, be crippling to our national economy and remove the sense of human from the work of healing and helping the sick.”

In examination of those conditions, we could say that part of the common good is to increase personal responsibility, particularly with regard to one’s health; it would not be an advance of the common good if either personal decision-making were seriously reduced or if the responsibility that each of us has to keep ourselves as fit and healthy as possible were minimized by making everyone else, rather than ourselves, responsible for paying for the consequences. They add that “these safety nets are not intended to create a permanent dependency for individuals or their families upon the state, but rather to provide them with the opportunity to regain control of their own lives and their own destiny.” The safety nets, in other words, are not supposed to become permanent webs that entangle people in them and limit their legitimate freedom.

Moreover, the conditions for human excellence in our country would not be promoted, they assert, if health care reforms led to the formation of another large, inefficient, costly and corruptionprone federal bureaucracy. It is already bad enough that many need to deal with the red tape of some large health insurance companies; adding multiple levels to the administrative chain through a federal bureaucratization wouldn’t be a step in the right direction. The bishops imply that they believe that present proposals to centralize control of our health care system at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington would do greater damage than good to the common good. Some people may not have as pessimistic evaluations of the efficiency and vulnerabilities of mammoth federal agencies as they and their fellow Midwesterners do, but these bishops are clearly consistent with Catholic teaching when they say that, if health care reforms were to violate the principle of subsidiarity, they would likewise be violating the principle of the common good.

The fourth and final principle they describe is solidarity, which they call “a particular application — on the level of society — of Christ’s command to love your neighbor as yourself” and of the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do to you.” When we see people suffering, we cannot as individuals and a society walk by on the other side of the road, as the two of the characters did in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. As with the character of the Good Samaritan, who cared for a wounded Jew even though the Jews and Samaritans at the time meticulously avoided each other, we also cannot get so caught up in peripheral issues like race, ethnicity or immigration status, that we forget about the essential humanity of the people who might be suffering in our midst. For this reason, Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn state that “legislation that excludes legal immigrants from receiving health care benefits violates the principle of solidarity” and is “unjust” and “not prudent.”

Even though they do not explicitly mention it, the principle of solidarity would likewise say that failing to provide a safety net for illegal immigrants would be “unjust” and “imprudent.” It’s interesting that throughout the country, public health officials are trying to make sure that even illegal immigrants be inoculated against the H1N1 flu virus, because they recognize, at a level of public health, that there is already a connectedness among us. Failure to care for illegal immigrants with regard to the swine flu would place many others at risk. Likewise, failure to care for illegal immigrants in general would place our humanity at risk. The prelates give a simple application of the principle of solidarity when they say, “in evaluating health care reform proposals, perhaps we ought to ask ourselves whether the poor would have access to the kind and quality of health care that you and I would deem necessary for our families.” If the roles were reversed, and our family members were those who would get no medical care when they had been involved in a catastrophic accident, or were in great pain, each of us would want them to have access to health care. Each of us would hope that someone would prove to be a Good Samaritan to us, and that our society would model itself after the Good Samaritan rather than the other two figures in the parable.

None of this discussion necessarily means that the bishops believe that solidarity requires a federalization of health care. It minimally requires that society determine structures so that there is a safety net for those who have no other protection. They ask, without giving an answer (probably because they do not yet have a model to propose), “Is there a way by which the poor, too, can assume more responsibility for their own health care decisions in such manner as reflects their innate human dignity and is protective of their physical and spiritual well being?”

The bishops say that the principles of solidarity and the promotion of the common good mean that “we cannot be passive concerning health care policy in our country.” Each of us has an obligation to the common good and to others not to delegate totally our personal responsibility to elected officials in Washington. They say that “there is important work to be done,” especially in order to ensure that the result of these reforms are not merely “change for change’s sake,” or worse, “change that expands the reach of government beyond its competence,” “change that loses sight of man’s transcendent dignity or the irreplaceable value of human life,” or “change that could diminish the role of those in need as agents of their own care.” Such change would “do more harm than good,” they say, and not be “truly human progress at all.”

They call on the Catholic faithful and all people of good will to “hold our elected official accountable” to these principles of Catholic Social Teaching with regard to health care reform. This is the only way to ensure that all such reform be built on the solid foundation that “all people in every stage of human life count for something.” Otherwise, if health care reform leads us to have to “violate our core beliefs,” they warn that we would not be “aiding people in need, but instead devaluing their human integrity and that of us all.”

Principles for an authentic health care reform • 10.2.09

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:51:17 -0500

In our continuing survey of Catholic analysis of the present health care reform proposals, we turn this week to the most comprehensive analysis to be issued by any of the U.S. bishops, a joint pastoral statement issued by Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Bishop Robert Finn, the ordinaries of the “two Kansas Cities,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri.

Their statement is entitled “Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care Reform” and describes the relevant foundations of the Church’s social doctrine, applying them, in very clear language, to the present debate about the reform of health care. Their goal is not to just add two other opinions to the discussion, but to try to ensure that any changes in our health care system lead to “an authentic reform taking full consideration of the dignity of the human person.”

They begin their pastoral statement by praising President Obama for making health care reform a priority of his administration and by stressing that the Church’s interest in reform is far more than philosophical: one out of every four hospitals in the United States is run by a Catholic agency. They analyze the symptoms of the present inadequacy of our health care policy — the millions without medical insurance, the cost of health care, the pending insolvency of the Medicare Trust Fund, the shift in business practices to hire part-time or unmarried employees in order to minimize the cost burdens for health care, and the difficulties those with pre-existing conditions have in acquiring health care coverage — and note that almost everyone agrees that something must be done to fix it.

They remind us, however, that we have a duty to make sure that change is change for the better.

“Change itself does not guarantee improvement,” they declare, before adding that “many of the proposals which have been promoted” would in fact be changes for the worse, since they “would diminish the protection of human life and dignity and shift our health care costs and delivery to a centralized government bureaucracy.” Effective health care reforms, on the other hand, “must be built on a foundation of proper moral principles.” They affirm that the “rich tradition of Catholic social and moral teaching” is an excellent guide to guide the evaluation of the various health care reform proposals and remind the faithful that “no Catholic in good conscience can disregard these fundamental moral principles.”

They present four such principles, the first two of which we will consider today.

The first is subsidiarity, “the principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives.” This is one of the bedrock foundations of Catholic social teaching in general, but one which has not yet gotten sufficient application to the present health care debate, including in some Catholic circles.

With respect to health care, subsidiarity requires that “health care ought to be determined at the lowest level rather than at the higher strata of society.” Recourse should be had to higher levels of government, it teaches, only when lower levels are incapable of meeting the needs. Therefore, a health care plan administered by the federal government should be used only as a last resort, when it has been shown that medical needs cannot be met by other means.

The bishops describe the dangers of the failure to observe the principle of subsidiarity by turning to the authoritative and ardent teachings of the recent popes. They first invoke Pope John Paul II, who described from personal experience the anthropological and economic dangers of the welfare state in general in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. “By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility,” the pope wrote, “the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.” They next turn to Pope Benedict who elaborated on the dangers of the neglect of the principle of subsidiarity to health care in particular in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est: “The State that would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person — every person — needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State that regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.”

Violation of the principle of subsidiarity, therefore, leads in practice to continual violations of human dignity by making services far less personal and dependent on personal freedom and responsibility. That’s why Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn declare that “it is vital to preserve, on the part of individuals and their families, the right to make well-informed decisions concerning their care. This is why some system of vouchers — at least on a theoretical level — is worthy of consideration. … Valuing the right of individuals to have a direct say in their care favors a reform which, reflecting subsidiarity, places responsibility at the lowest level” — rather than, one can infer, at the level of the Department of Health and Human Services in the nation’s capital.

The second principle they articulate is that “the life and dignity of the human person” must be the “driving force for care and the constitutive ground of human justice.” Here the bishops reiterate, first, that it is “imperative” that any health care reform package “keep intact our current public polices protecting taxpayers from being coerced to fund abortions.” They say that it is “inadequate” to propose legislation “that is silent on this morally crucial matter,” precisely because of “the penchant of our courts over the past 35 years to claim unarticulated rights.” They call for “explicit exclusion” of any vehicle to cover abortion services. An amendment to do just that has been under discussion this week in the U.S. Senate. Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn also state that in accordance with the dignity of health care workers and institutions, there must be clear protections for the “rights of conscience for individuals and institutions” so that they do not have to participate in procedures that violate their conscience.

Finally, they reaffirm that, flowing from human dignity, there is a “right to acquisition of health care,” especially for those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to work. They make, however, two important clarifications: first, that “the right of every individual to access health care does not necessarily suppose an obligation on the part of the government to provide it;” and second, that “in our American culture, Catholic teaching about the ‘right’ to healthcare is sometimes confused with the structures of ‘entitlement.’” After making these clarifications, they forcefully state: “The teaching of the Universal Church has never been to suggest a government socialization of medical services. Rather, the Church has asserted the rights of every individual to have access to those things most necessary for sustaining and caring for human life, while at the same time insisting on the personal responsibility of each individual to care properly for his or her own health.”

They add that this erroneous sense of “entitlement” has clearly contributed to the present health care crisis. “Part of the crisis in today’s system stems from various misappropriations within health care insurance systems of exorbitant elective treatments, or the tendencies to regard health care services paid for by insurance as ‘free,’ and to take advantage of services that happen to be available under the insurance plan. Such practices may arguably cripple the ability of small companies to provide necessary opportunities to their employees and significantly increase the cost of health care for everyone.” They imply that health care reform needs to happen not just in congressional corridors but in every home.

We will take up the third and fourth principles they describe — solidarity and the obligation to the common good — next week.

Genuine health care reform • 8.7.09

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:30:53 -0500

Everyone knows that our health care system is in need of reform. Rising costs are crippling the budgets of families, small businesses and even large corporations. Insurance plans are charging more to cover less. Roughly 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance at all. Doctors, saddled with astronomical medical school loans and even higher annual malpractice insurance rates, often are forced to adopt working hours and styles contrary to their own good and their patients’ care. There is a critical shortage of nurses. At the same time, parts of the system remain the envy of the world. In terms of medical training, advanced equipment, research and diagnostic capabilities, surgical and trauma care, America is without equal.

Few Americans, if they or a loved one had a life-threatening medical emergency, would prefer to be in Toronto or London, rather than in Boston or any other major American city. Any legitimate reform needs to seek to fix what’s broken, rather than break the parts that are in no need of repair. It’s not the whole system that is ailing, but only parts of the system; prudent reform will seek not to replace the entire system with foreign models that have never produced excellence, but to fix the evident problems while maintaining the conditions that help foster the excellence. Otherwise, we might not achieve genuine reform, but a deformation and worsening of our health care system — essentially killing the patient as a whole rather than treating what’s diseased.

Because our health care system is complex, real reform is obviously complicated work. That’s why it is alarming and absurd that the presidential administration and certain legislators on Capitol Hill were in a frantic rush to ram through what they were calling “reform” by an artificial deadline, before the president himself and many of the legislators had even had a chance to read what was in the proposed bills under discussion. To ensure that change doesn’t end up for the worse, it’s important that all aspects of the proposed legislation have a chance to be reviewed, not merely by the legislators but by concerned citizens, institutions and experts. This is the way that we can seek to ensure that we get real reform, rather than are forced for no reason other than Congressional impatience to accept the bad with the good.

Leaders of the U.S. Bishops Conference, which has long advocated comprehensive health care reform, have had a chance to review the bills in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and have called attention to two of the most problematic aspects. The first involves abortion coverage. Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Pro-Life Activities Committee of the U.S. Bishops, wrote in a July 29 letter to Congress that “much-needed reform must not become a vehicle for promoting an ‘abortion rights’ agenda or reversing longstanding current policies against federal abortion mandates and funding.” He specified three ways that the proposed legislation in the House of Representatives can be used to promote abortion.

First, “the legislation delegates to the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to make abortion a basic or essential benefit in all health plans, or in the ‘public plan’ created by the legislation.” Second, “because some federal funds are authorized and appropriated by this legislation without passing through the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, they are not covered by the Hyde amendment and other provisions that have prevented direct federal funding of abortion for over three decades.” He says that the legislation needs to add a provision to prevent funding abortion. Third, “provisions such as those requiring timely access to all benefits covered by qualified health plans could be used by courts to override and invalidate state laws regulating abortion, such as laws to ensure women’s safety and informed consent and to promote parental involvement when minors consider abortion.” He said that the legislation must be reworked to make clear that such laws will not be preempted.

Dr. Louis Breschi, president of the Catholic Medical Association, spoke out directly about the ethical concern Catholic doctors have about the proposed legislation. “Most analysts think that, without explicit exclusion, abortion will be mandated by the Secretary of HHS and/or by the courts. … Few people realize that, as things stand, abortion could be a required benefit in all health insurance plans, and it would be subsidized not only in health-care premiums, but also through taxation. This unjust mandate must be excluded.” The second major threat Cardinal Rigali specified was to the conscience rights of health care providers not to have to participate in practices — like abortion, euthanasia and sterilization — that violate the well-informed conscience of any Catholic. The executive director of the Catholic Medical Association, Dr. John Behany, noted, “The House Tri-Committee bill does not even mention the topic of conscience rights of health-care providers, and Democrats on the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee voted against an amendment that would have prohibited forcing health-care providers to perform or participate in abortion.

This issue is very timely, since the department of Health and Human Services canceled a Conscience Protection Rule earlier this year and has not announced what will replace it.” Since the Department of Health and Human Services, which is slated to be the lead agency in the implementation of health care reform, has just this March already weakened conscience protections, the bishops and Catholic doctors want to make sure protections are in place ahead of time. Doctors at the Catholic Medical Association listed additional problems. “Apart from ethical concerns, the CMA finds significant shortcomings in the economic and clinical aspects of current legislation. First, as the Congressional Budget Office points out, the legislation does nothing to reduce long-term costs.

Rather, current legislation increases costs by hundreds of billions of dollars even after tax increases and creative accounting measures. Second, the bills’ attempts to control costs and increase access rely on heavy-handed government control that is antithetical to the rights of patients and physicians, and to good clinical care.” It is contrary to the principle of subsidiarity — one of the central principles of Catholic social justice that teaches that authority should always be vested at the lowest feasible organizational level — to locate so much authority for medical care and decision-making at the federal level with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and with the “Health Choices Commissioner.” Although there are obvious inefficiencies in the current health care system, which need to be fixed, few would consider the inefficiency of a massive government bureaucracy a genuine solution.

The CMA also points out, “This heavy-handed federal control is made worse by two additional provisions. First, House bill regulations make it almost impossible for any current health insurance plan to survive in a new government-controlled regime. … Second, House and Senate bills plan to extend health insurance coverage to millions of people by moving them onto the Medicaid rolls. However, the flaws of Medicaid are well-known — its costs have run out of control in most states, and 40 percent of physicians are compelled to refuse Medicaid patients because Medicaid’s low reimbursement rates do not even cover the overhead cost of office visits. Adding millions of people to this flawed system will not constitute meaningful health insurance coverage.”

These problems would be exacerbated by a ‘public option’ plan which would ‘compete’ with private health insurance, as called for in the House Tri-Committee bill. But there is no way that private companies can fairly compete with the federal government. … The result is that everyone, sooner than later, will be forced to become participants in the ‘public option’ plan and fully subject to the costs and regulations of government health care. When this happens, the American people will have lost the freedom to make important decisions about their life and health.”

The CMA summarizes its review of the bills by stating, “Sound reform must be based on sound ethics and economics; but so far, the House and Senate bills meet neither standard.” Genuine health care reform deserves both.

Catholic environmentalism • 8.14.09

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:40:52 -0500

In his recent encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate,” Pope Benedict dedicates five paragraphs to how a proper understanding of and care for the environment is essential for the integral development of the human person and human society. Since being elected, Pope Benedict has spoken out so often and so forcefully about environmental concerns that many secular journalists have dubbed him “the green pope.” Nowhere has he given as authoritative, extensive and compelling a treatment of authentic Catholic environmentalism than in this encyclical.

In it he presents a far deeper foundation for the protection of the environment than one will find on the websites of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club or in the musings of Al Gore. He also exposes the anthropological causes of the environmental destruction of modern times and describes how they can be remedied. Finally, he inspires Catholics to assume their responsibility to guide the environmental movement to promote both the protection and promotion of nature and the safeguarding and advancement of the human person. His discussion is an important primer for every Catholic. We can break the teaching down into 10 points.

First, “the environment is God’s gift.” The pope says that “in nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God’s creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God’s creation.” When we lose the connection between creation and its Creator, we risking ending up either with a pantheism or a wasteful consumerism, both of which are contrary to the truth and dignity of nature.

Second, environmental responsibility flows from remembering the bond between God and nature. Benedict notes that the modern atheism that has tried to turn the theory of evolution into an argument against God’s existence has actually led to the environmental abuses. “When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism,” he argues, “our sense of responsibility wanes.” If nature is just matter, then it does not matter in the final analysis what you do with it. Only if nature has a built-in purpose is it possible to speak about violating that purpose. “Nature is at our disposal,” he stresses, “not as ‘a heap of scattered refuse,’ but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order ‘to till it and keep it’” (Gen 2:15). The desire for “total technical domination over nature,” viewing it merely as “raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure,” flows from modern atheism, which sees in nature “merely a collection of contingent data.”

Third, “the environment is God’s gift to everyone.” The environment is not something that can morally be selfishly exploited by individuals or nations to the detriment of others in the present or future. “In our use of it,” the pope says, “we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole.” He therefore calls for “solidarity and inter-generational justice” in the proper use of nature. “The fate of those countries deficient in natural resources cannot be left in the hands of whoever is first to claim the spoils, or whoever is able to prevail over the rest. Here we are dealing with major issues; if they are to be faced adequately, then everyone must responsibly recognize the impact they will have on future generations.”

Fourth, because the environment is God’s gift to every man and woman, “it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person.” This is a healthy corrective to those who have given the green movement a bad name by caring more about the proliferation of spotted owls and humpback whales than the flourishing of human beings.

Fifth, nature has a built-in “grammar” that “sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use.” This is a new way of articulating the ancient truth that nature reveals a natural law that needs to be respected.

Sixth, all persons and nations are called to exercise a “responsible stewardship over nature.” The term “stewardship” is used in contrast to “ownership,” and implies the vocation to be “good stewards” in developing and passing on the gift with which we have been entrusted. The pope specifically refers to our duties toward subsequent generations: “We must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it.”

Seventh, Benedict states, in the deepest theological point of his treatment of the environment, that the relationship between man and the environment is one of a “covenant,” which, he says, “should mirror the creative love of God.” The word “covenant” is often used in contrast to a “contract,” the latter of which can be mutually exploitative. Covenant implies that there is a sacred bond linking the two. In predicating that the bond should reflect God’s creative love, the pope seems to be saying, first, that creation should be loved as the handiwork of God himself and second, insofar as nature is God’s gift to man, it should become a treasured pathway to reciprocate the love of God, going from gift to the giver.

Eighth, “human ecology” and “environmental ecology” are intrinsically related. ‘The way humanity treats the environment,” Pope Benedict says, “influences the way it treats itself and vice versa.” If our personal or national moral approach to others is based on “the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth,” then those values will affect our environmental policy. If our individual or political behavior, however, is grounded on hedonism and consumerism, then we will be exploitative of the environment and of others through the environment. “Every violation of solidarity and civic friendship harms the environment,” the pope says, “just as environmental deterioration in turn upsets relations in society.” He illustrates the point by giving the example of war. Often wars are caused by selfish hoarding of natural resources, like water and lucrative minerals, and wars in turn give rise to vast destruction of natural resources. That is why his upcoming 2010 Message for Peace will be dedicated to the theme, “If you want peace, take care of creation.”

Ninth, the decisive element in the protection of nature is not economic incentives or deterrents, educational campaigns, windmills or solar panels, but the “overall moral tenor of society.” The great litmus test for that moral tenor is how we treat the most vulnerable: “If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology. It is contradictory to insist that future generations respect the natural environment when our educational systems and laws do not help them to respect themselves. Herein lies a grave contradiction in our mentality and practice today: one which demeans the person, disrupts the environment and damages society.” This is a strong response to those environmentalists who say, erroneously, that the cause of environmental destruction is overpopulation.

Finally, the Church has a responsibility toward creation and “she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere.” Pope Benedict says that the Church “must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone, she must above all protect mankind from selfdestruction.” This is a task, obviously, that to be fulfilled requires far more than the pope’s efforts. It requires the dedicated work of every Catholic, to create that “overall moral tenor of society” which respects the covenant not only with nature, but with other human beings and especially with the God who has made us stewards of the gift of the environment.

Charity in truth • 7.17.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

“To the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful and all people of good will.” That’s how Pope Benedict addresses his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, dedicated to the integral development of the human person and human society. The Holy Father wrote this document for every Catholic who can read as well as for non-Catholics who desire to take a deeper look, from the perspective of the Christian faith, at many of the central issues that affect the present and future global economy. The encyclical contains a very powerful message, but for it to have the impact Benedict wishes, it must first be read, then understood, assimilated, and put into practice. To help inspire people to the first step, we have printed the official Vatican summary of the encyclical on page 15, but this is only to whet the appetite, for no 1,350-word taste test can adequately do justice to a full 28,000-word meal. All readers are encouraged to download the encyclical for free from the Vatican’s website (www.vatican.va) and, since it is about the same length as a typical edition of this newspaper, read it over the course of the next couple of weeks when The Anchor will be on its annual summer hiatus.

The second step is to understand it, which goes beyond noting the particular things Benedict says about a wide variety of contemporary issues — about globalization, the environment, labor unions, food security, population control, religious liberty, redistribution of income, the economy consequences of contraception, abortion, and marital breakdown and much more — but seeing how they fit into an organic whole. This is a notable challenge. Many of the first reviewers of the encyclical in the media focused on some of the hot-button issues Benedict addresses, but most missed the forest for the trees. The essential point of the document is not to give a list of particular policy prescriptions, but to focus on the essentials for the integral growth of human beings and human society.

In order to grasp the whole of the document, we’d propose three concrete helps. The first is the title of the encyclical. Pope Benedict says that “charity in truth” is the “principal driving force behind the authentic development of every person and all humanity” and the “heart of the Church’s social doctrine.” Truth-filled charity is the general principal that Benedict applies to every issue in the document. Charity, sacrificing oneself for others’ good, is the opposite of the selfishness that disintegrates human societies and leads to personal and social misery. Charity, however, is not enough, Benedict states. To achieve its goal, it must be linked to the truth, accessible by reason and faith, about what is genuinely good for others, the truth about the human person, the truth of justice and giving each one his due. “Without truth,” the Holy Father writes, “charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. … It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and options, the word ‘love’ is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social context.” Examining each of the many issues Benedict tackles in the encyclical through the prism of truth-filled charity will help readers more easily grasp the whole of his message.

The second concrete help comes from an address the future Pope Benedict gave in Rome in 1985, entitled, “Market Economy and Ethics” (available at www.acton.org/issues/caritas_in_veritate.php), which is full of useful resources on the encyclical. In this address, Cardinal Ratzinger prophetically described in a crisp and concise way many of the warning signs he saw in an excessively materialistic view of a globalized economy and sketched many of the central economic and social insights he would later develop at far greater length in the current encyclical. His central point was that economic analysis and excellence is not enough; there must also be ethical analysis and excellence.

“In order to find solutions that will truly lead us forward,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in 1985, “new economic ideas will be necessary. But such measures do not seem conceivable or, above all, practical without new moral impulses.” He forewarned that the free market does not automatically work for the good, independent of the morality of those in the market; rather the economy “is governed not only by economic laws, but is also determined by men.” It is not enough to rest the economy on the “beneficial effects of egoism and its automatic limitation through competing egoisms,” because often this can lead to a “system of exploitations.” It must be grounded on charity in truth that focuses not merely on the “maximum profit” but on a “maximum of ethical discipline” seen in “self-restraint and common service.” He observed, “It is becoming an increasingly obvious fact of economic history that the development of economic systems that concentrate on the common good depends on a determinate ethical system, which in turn can be born and sustained only by strong religious convictions. Conversely, it has also become obvious that the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse.” In short, the way out of the ethical mess involves the “truth” of solid scientific economic analysis and the “charity” of equally solid ethical principles. True progress, he concluded, “can only be realized if new ethical powers are completely set free. A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality. [On the other hand,] a scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific. Today we need a maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialized economic understanding may enter the service of the right goals. Only in this way will its knowledge be both politically practicable and socially tolerable.” These are the general principles on which Pope Benedict elaborates in the body of the encyclical.

The third help to grasp the “big picture” of Caritas in Veritate came during Pope Benedict’s July 8 general audience, which took place the day after the encyclical’s publication. The Holy Father stressed the context of the document and then reiterated many of the points he had made as a cardinal 24 years earlier: “The world situation, as the chronicle of recent months amply demonstrates, continues presenting not a few problems and the ‘scandal’ of outrageous inequalities. … Peoples from all over are calling for reform that will overcome the discrepancy of development among peoples, and this cannot wait. The phenomenon of globalization can, in this sense, be a real opportunity, but for this, it is important to undertake a profound moral and cultural renewal and responsible discernment of the decisions that must be made for the common good. A better future for everyone is possible, if it is founded on the discovery of fundamental ethical values. Upright people are needed as much in politics as in the economy, people who are sincerely attentive to the common good. … The economy needs ethics for its correct functioning; it needs to recover the important contribution of the principle of gratuitousness [charity] and the ‘logic of gift’ in the economy of the market, in which the norm cannot be personal gain. But this is only possible thanks to a commitment from everyone, economists and politicians, producers and consumers, and presupposes formation of the conscience that gives strength to moral criteria in the elaboration of political and economic projects.”

Benedict is counting, in a particular way, on the “commitment” of Catholics, so that the Church can be an instrument to help the world out of this economic crisis. That commitment begins with the “formation of conscience” that will flow from real study of the encyclical.

Becoming spiritual grown-ups • 7.10.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

On June 28, when Pope Benedict concluded the Year of St. Paul at the Basilica outside the walls in Rome, most of the headlines generated centered on his announcement that tests on the bones found within the tomb underneath the high altar are consistent with those of the man the Lord encountered on the Road to Damascus. It’s since been revealed by Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the former Archpriest of St. Paul’s Basilica, that Pope Benedict waited almost a year to release those findings. He delayed in the hope that the news about the tests on the Apostle’s remains would maintain the Church’s and the world’s interest in St. Paul long after the conclusion of the 2,000th anniversary of his birth. The pope had evidently spent a great deal of time thinking about how he wanted the Pauline Year to end, so that the end of the year might lead to a new beginning for believers and the Church as a whole.

The same care seems to have been exercised by the pope with respect to the homily he chose to preach at the June 28 Vespers. The pope didn’t focus, as he normally would, on the readings taken from the Church’s “Liturgy of the Hours for Evening Prayer I” on the solemnity of SS. Peter & Paul. Instead, after emphasizing that St. Paul “remains the ‘teacher of the Gentiles’” for all of us today, he turned to what he said the Apostle reveals to us as the “essential nucleus of Christian existence,” the concise synthesis of how St. Paul says each of us is called to respond in faith to the mystery of Christ. This seems to be the “last word” Pope Benedict wanted to give us during the Year of St. Paul, indicating the chief take-away he hopes each of us learns from the teacher of the nations.

This “essential nucleus” of the Christian life is summarized, Pope Benedict said, in two verses St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom 12:1-2).

The first and most fundamental thing we learn from these words of St. Paul, Pope Benedict says, is how we are supposed to worship God. Christ began a “new way of venerating God,” a “new form of worship,” that consists in the person’s not giving adoration or making sacrifices, but becoming adoration and becoming the sacrifice. “It is no longer things that are offered to God,” the pope says. “It is our very existence that must become praise of God.”

The Holy Father says that the second verse of the passage shows how each of us becomes true spiritual worship. “The two decisive words of this verse are ‘transformed’ and ‘renewal.’ We must become new people, transformed into a new mode of existence. … Paul tells us: the world cannot be renewed without new people. Only if there are new people will there also be a new world, a renewed and better world. … Only if we ourselves become new does the world become new.” The way this renewal occurs, as St. Paul himself experienced in his own life, is through a living encounter with Christ so deep that it leads to a conversion in which we die to ourselves and learn to live for Christ. St. Paul “became new, another,” the pope illustrated, “because he no longer lived for himself and by virtue of himself, but for Christ and in him.” Likewise, “we become new if we let ourselves be grasped and shaped by the new Man, Jesus Christ, if we deliver ourselves into his hands and let ourselves be molded by him.”

That remolding by Christ begins, St. Paul says, with the transformation that comes “by the renewal of [our] mind.” Our way of thinking, our reason, must become new. It’s not enough that our behavior change, but the renewal “must go to the very core,” the pope commented. “Our way of looking at the world, of understanding reality all our thought must change from its foundations.”

The pope described what this transformation looks like. The way most of us think is “usually directed to possession, well-being, influence, success, fame and so forth. … In the final analysis, one’s ‘self’ remains the center of the world. We must learn to think more profoundly, to learn to understand God’s will, so that it may shape our own will. This is in order that we ourselves may desire what God desires, because we recognize that what God wants is the beautiful and the good. It is therefore a question of a turning point in our fundamental spiritual orientation. God must enter into the horizon of our thought: what he wants and the way in which he conceived of the world and of me. We must learn to share in the thinking and the will of Jesus Christ. It is then that we will be new people in whom a new world emerges.” He says that St. Paul, in short, is calling us to a new “way of being human.”

This renewal will lead us to what St. Paul calls in his Letter to the Ephesians, “mature manhood,” to being spiritual grown-ups. St. Paul contrasts this “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” with those who are spiritual “infants, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles” (Eph 4:13-14). Pope Benedict emphasized that St. Paul “wants Christians to have a ‘responsible’ and ‘adult faith’” and then described what such spiritual maturity is and isn’t.

“The words ‘adult faith’ in recent decades have formed a widespread slogan,” the pope stated in a remarkably candid passage that strikes at the heart of the pretentions both theological dissent and cafeteria Catholicism. The slogan “is often meant in the sense of the attitude of those who no longer listen to the Church and her pastors but autonomously choose what they want to believe and not to believe; hence a do-it-yourself faith. And it is presented as a ‘courageous’ form of self-expression against the Magisterium of the Church. In fact, however, no courage is needed for this because one may always be certain of public applause. Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if this contradicts the ‘logic’ of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an ‘adult faith.’ It is the faith that he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the time as infantile.”

The pope then got very specific about the contrast between adult and infantile faith with respect to the issues of sacredness of human life and the institution of marriage: “Being committed to the inviolability of human life from its first instant — thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely in the defense of the most defenseless human creatures — is part of an adult faith. It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for the whole of life as the Creator’s ordering, newly re-established by Christ. Adult faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes the winds of fashion. It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit; it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ.”

The point of the Year of St. Paul, the “essential nucleus of the Christian life,” was to help lead us to the type of adult faith that St. Paul had and sought to help the early Christians achieve. It was meant to assist us in becoming true adoration of God by the transforming renewal of our minds so that we might think as Christ thinks and think with the Church. This is a work not merely of a 365-day period, but of a lifetime. Pope Benedict hopes, however, that the greater study and imitation of the life and thoughts of St. Paul during the last year would lead all of us in the Church closer to that spiritual maturity.

The foundations of our freedom • 7.3.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Most Americans can cite or at least paraphrase by memory the celebrated phrase of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” It goes on to say that governments are instituted precisely in order to protect these rights and that they lose their legitimacy when they become destructive of them.

A little over a month ago in the nation’s capital, Princeton Professor Robert George explored what the consequences of this self-evident equality need to be with respect to human life and to the legitimacy of public policy positions. He did so within the context of a debate with Pepperdine Professor Douglas Kmiec — President Obama’s most prominent Catholic Pro-Life supporter — on the president’s actions and statements with regard to abortion. We do not have the space in this editorial, no matter how small we shrink the font, to include all the points of the debate, which can be found in both text and video format in multiple locations on the web. What we’d like to do, however, is to focus on what Professor George said in his opening remarks with respect to how much President Obama’s thoughts on human rights and dignity diverge not only from the Catholic understanding but from what our founding fathers affirmed in the Declaration. George’s words are a poignant reminder for us, as we prepare to celebrate the 233rd anniversary of the signing of that Declaration tomorrow, of the necessary foundations for our freedoms. They also provide much to consider for all Catholics and all Pro-Lifers who in general share the president’s ideas.

“As someone dedicated to the principle that every member of the human family possesses profound, inherent, and equal dignity,” George begins, “[I] find myself at odds — deeply at odds — with President Obama and his administration. Professor Kmiec and I share common ground in the belief that every member of the human family — irrespective of race, class, and ethnicity, but also irrespective of age, size, location, stage of development or condition of dependency — is entitled to our care and respect and to the equal protection of our laws. This is what it means to be Pro-Life.

“I appreciated the president’s candor at Notre Dame when he said: ‘I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.’ The president is right. His view regarding the status, dignity, and rights of the child in the womb, and the view shared by Professor Kmiec and myself, are irreconcilable. A chasm separates those of us who believe that every living human being possesses profound, inherent, and equal dignity, and those who, for whatever reasons, deny it. The issue really cannot be fudged, as people sometimes try to do by imagining that there is a dispute about whether it is really a human being who is dismembered in a dilation and curettage abortion, or whose skin is burned off in a saline abortion, or the base of whose skull is pierced and whose brains are sucked out in a dilation and extraction (or ‘partial birth’) abortion. That issue has long been settled — and it was settled not by religion or philosophy, but by the sciences of human embryology and developmental biology.

“What divides us as a nation, and what divides Barack Obama, on one side, from Robert George and Douglas Kmiec, on the other, is not whether the being whose life is taken in abortion and in embryo-destructive research is a living individual of the human species — a human being; it is whether all human beings, or only some, possess fundamental dignity and a right to life. Professor Kmiec and I affirm, and the president denies, that every human being, even the youngest, the smallest, the weakest and most vulnerable at the very dawn of their lives, has a life which should be respected and protected by law. The president holds, and we deny, that those in the embryonic and fetal stages of human development may rightly and freely be killed because they are unwanted or potentially burdensome to others, or because materials obtained by dissecting them may be useful in biomedical research.

“The president speaks of human rights, and I do not question his sincerity. But he does not understand the concept of human rights, as Professor Kmiec and I do, to refer to rights — above all the right to life — that all human beings possess simply by virtue of our humanity. For the president, being human is not enough to qualify someone as the bearer of a right to life. Professor Kmiec and I, by contrast, believe that every member of the human family, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is truly created equal. We reject the idea that is at the foundation of President Obama’s position on abortion and human embryo-destructive research, namely, that those of us who are equal in worth and dignity are equal by virtue of some attribute other than our common humanity — some attribute that unborn children have not yet acquired, justifying others in treating them, despite their humanity, as non-persons, as objects or property, even as disposable material for use in biomedical research.

“President Obama knows that an unborn baby is human. He knows that the blood shed by the abortionist’s knife is human blood, that the bones broken are human bones. What he … continues to deny, is the fundamental equality of that child — equality with those of us who are safely born and accepted into the human community. … Professor Kmiec and I believe in the equal fundamental rights of all, including the equality of mother and child. We recognize that women with undesired pregnancies can undergo serious hardships, and we believe that a just and caring society will concern itself with the well-being of mothers as well as their children. … President Obama holds a different view. He has made clear his own conviction that the equality of women depends on denying the equality and rights of the children they carry. He has made what is, from the Pro-Life point of view, the tragic error of supposing that the equality of one class of human beings can and must be purchased by denial of the equality of another.… The president does not believe in the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family; … he does not believe that babies acquire human rights until after birth; … [and] he does not see abortion as tragic because it takes the life of an innocent human being.”

Over the course of our nation’s history, we realized that human dignity and rights, if they’re unalienable, cannot be dependent on a human being’s sex or skin color. We still need to learn that neither can they be dependent on a human being’s age, size, genetic traits, the circumstances of their conception or who wants them.

As we prepare to celebrate tomorrow the Declaration of Independence and the freedoms and nation to which it helped give birth, let us commit ourselves anew to upholding, protecting and advancing the fundamental rights it describes, and to defending those who by their human nature and dignity are natural bearers of those unalienable rights.

Continuing the imitation • 6.26.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

We have come to the end of the Year of St. Paul, in which the whole Church, celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the great Apostle’s birth, has focused on learning to imitate him as he imitated Christ (1 Cor 11:1). As the year draws to a close, we would do well to emulate the goals and desires he had at the end of his time on earth, which provide a fitting summary of his entire apostolic life.

“I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come,” he wrote to his spiritual son St. Timothy. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:6-7).

St. Paul was a fighter with incredible grit, a spiritual Rocky Balboa come alive. Not even being scourged five times with 39 lashes, three times beaten with rods, seven times imprisoned, three times shipwrecked on the high seas, stoned and left for dead, hunted down by assassins in Damascus and Jerusalem, afflicted by painful malaria, and beaten in so many other ways, could keep him down. Like Christ on the Way of the Cross, he just kept getting up and moving forward. He wasn’t fighting for fighting’s sake, a pugilist looking for an opponent. Rather, he had spent his life fighting the “good fight,” fighting not so much against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness” (Eph 6:12). The fight, in short, was worth it. Like Christ, he triumphed in apparent defeat. Two-thousand years after his birth, this convicted criminal is one of the greatest and most famous heroes in the history of the world. His example reminds us, who live in an age marked by so much moral timidity, of the fact that Christ calls us vigorously to persevere in the fight Christ inaugurated and Paul valiantly continued.

The Apostle says, secondly, that he has finished the race. His life was not a gingerly stroll through a tranquil garden, but a marathon run over an obstacle course at almost breakneck speed. He would say to the Thessalonians in another context, “the time is short,” but that phrase aptly describes the urgency with which St. Paul indefatigably kept going. The only thing that could slow him down were the chains of prison cells, but even then he would continue to scurry with his pen. “The love of Christ urges us on,” he would confess. He knew, as Christ taught, that the fruit is already ripe on the vine and he had no time to waste. He journeyed rapidly up and down the scorching sands of Palestine, through the malaria-infested swamps of southern Turkey, and over the steep precipices leading to Galatia, south and north through Greece, and, when he couldn’t run on water, sailing to so many other places. C.S. Lewis once wrote that the most effective lie in the devil’s arsenal is that there’s always time — time to convert, time to reconcile with a family member, time to get to the important things later. St. Paul realized, rather, that there would soon be a time when there would be no time left — and he used all the time he had to do the most important things of all. His example is a forceful reminder to us to remember that when Christ said, “Come, follow me!,” he was not inviting us for a lazy promenade, or even a leisurely jog, but an enduring sprint. There’s no time to waste and the stakes are high; otherwise, as St. Paul recognized, people may not hear the Gospel and come to salvation. The same love that urged him on urges us on.

St. Paul finishes his short valedictory with a humble, joyful and triumphal admission of his greatest honor: “I have kept the faith.” The words themselves, not to mention their context, imply that his keeping the faith was not a foregone conclusion. He was tempted repeatedly and often succumbed, confessing to the Romans that the good he wanted to do he often failed to do and the evil he wished to avoid often he did (Rom 7:19). But he kept getting up, battling and striving to be faithful. At the end of his life, he was able to say with holy pride that he had not lost the greatest treasure of his life. He kept the faith not by sealing it in a Tupperware container or locking it up in a safe, but by living it and spreading it undiluted. He lived, he said to the Galatians, by faith in the Son of God who loved him and handed himself over for him (Gal 2:19-20). Because of that trust in Jesus, he believed in what Christ taught as the key to unlock the mystery of every human life and open the doors to heaven. That’s why he so lavishly sought to share that treasure with others. His example teaches us that as we, too, look ahead to the time when our dissolution will be at hand, we should seek to have our greatest hope be in being able to hear Christ say that we, too, in spite of our sufferings and failings, have kept the faith, that we’ve lived it faithfully without diluting it, that we’ve bequeathed it as our most precious inheritance to those who will come after us, not just those we know and love, but those who we will only know after we and they cross the eternal threshold.

It’s routinely said that so much of our character is defined by our goals. If we have low goals, we will have little impact even if we achieve them. If our goals are high and good, then we will be able to make a major difference if with God’s help we reach them. As we come to the end of the year-long world-wide celebration of the 2,000th birthday of a beheaded man from Tarsus, we should never forget that his goals — fighting the good fight, finishing the race and keeping the faith — motivated him to do with the help of the Lord what few have ever dreamed of. As we move on from the graces of the Pauline Year, a great resolution each of us can make is to imitate him in setting and seeking the same goals.

Year of the Priesthood • 6.19.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Today we begin the Year of the Priesthood on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI called for this year back on March 16 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the birth into eternal life of St. John Vianney, whom Pope Pius XI declared in 1929 the patron saint of parish priests and whom Pope Benedict will soon name the patron saint of all priests. St. John Vianney once famously said that the priesthood is “the love of the heart of Jesus,” and so, today, as we celebrate the love of Christ’s Sacred Heart, we are called to see in the ministerial priesthood one of its most powerful manifestations.

Although a little confusing, it’s altogether fitting that the Year of the Priesthood will overlap for 10 days with the Year of St. Paul, since St. Paul was one of the greatest priests in the history of the Church. St. Paul’s example of correspondence to grace, personal holiness and invincible apostolic zeal serve as a compelling spiritual prelude for priests and faithful as we initiate the Year of the Priesthood. The basic theme of the Pauline year has been, “Imitate me just as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1), and clerics in the year just commencing would do well to imitate the St. Paul the priest as he imitated Christ, the eternal high priest.

The Year of the Priesthood comes at an important time. While the whole Church has suffered as a result of the shame of the clergy sexual abuse scandals and the evil that caused them, good priests — after victims and their families — have probably suffered the most. For several years, these honorable men have frequently been suspected or accused of being wicked instead of holy, perverted instead of chaste, rapacious wolves rather than self-sacrificial shepherds. While this has been a time of obvious reparation for them for the sins of their brother priests and bishops and an opportunity for greater union and identification with Christ — who himself was falsely accused, mistreated, despised and even killed by those he was seeking to save — it’s not exaggeration to say that the image of the holiness of the priesthood has taken a massive hit, one that will likely take generations to repair.

The Year of the Priesthood is an opportunity for the whole Church to make strides along that path, by focusing together on the true identity of the priest, celebrating the gift and mystery of his vocation in the Church, committing to help them live up to their holy mission, and thanking them — and the Lord who called them — for all they do for God and for us. This year is by no means an attempt to divert ecclesial attention from the types of hard reforms that need to occur to prevent and remedy the sins that caused the scandals. It is, rather, an opportunity to address them at their deepest roots. Every true reform in the Church has begun with a reform of the clergy. The Year of the Priesthood is, to quote Cardinal Claudio Hummes of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, a “positive and propositive” means to achieve it, by facilitating what Pope Benedict describes as the year’s purpose: “to encourage priests in their striving for the spiritual perfection on which, above all, the effectiveness of their ministry depends.” The goal of the year is to help priests become genuinely holy, and holy priests, on fire with love for God and those entrusted to their care, will be the adequate response to the culture of spiritual imperfection that made the scandals possible.

To live this year well, there are a couple of things that all Catholics are called to do.

The first is, by prayer and study, to grow in love and appreciation for the gift and mystery of the priesthood. Many Catholics today view the priest the way most of our Protestant brothers and sisters view their ministers: as professional experts in sacred Scripture and theology who are sanctioned by the community to teach and preach the faith, preside over worship services, provide counseling and other assistance to members in need, and help in the governance of Church goods. The priest, however, is so much more than a glorified functionary. He is one whose very being has been changed by God, consecrated to him by vocation and ordination, and made capable of acting in the very person of Jesus Christ. This does not make the priest better than anyone else, but it does make him different. Some in the modern world are uncomfortable with this consecration and essential differentiation, believing that if God loves us all the same he should treat us all the same.

But it is clear from the actions of Jesus in the Gospel that while God calls all of us to be perfect as our Father is perfect, he chooses some to special forms of consecrated service, leaving father and mother, wives and family, property and lands for the sake of the total dedication to the kingdom. Once the essential difference of the priest is obscured, it becomes more difficult to understand all-male priesthood, which flows, among other things, from the original differentiation of man and woman and the reality that Jesus, the bridegroom, was a male. Once one loses a sense of priestly consecration, it becomes harder to appreciate the gift of priestly celibacy for the sake of the kingdom. The first way to live this Year of the Priesthood well is to grow in understanding and appreciation of the priesthood and priestly identity, especially through the study of solid Catholic theology.

But growing in esteem for the ideal of the “priesthood” is not enough. The second thing this priestly year is meant to effectuate is an increased love and gratitude for priests in particular. The point is not to return priests to an artificial pedestal or inaugurate a year-long series of pep rallies for priests, but, after years in which priests have suffered, to focus on loving them and saying thanks. It’s a happy occurrence that in the United States the beginning of the Year of the Priesthood coincides with Father’s Day weekend. Just as we use this day to pray for, thank, and express our love for our natural or adoptive fathers, it is also a good occasion to do the same for our supernatural fathers, those who have made us children of God through baptism, fed us with Jesus’ Body and Blood, wiped away our filth in confession, joined our hands in marriage, prepared us to meet the Lord at the end of our lives, nourished us with the Word of God, encouraged us when we’re down, and sustained us when family members have died.

The Year of the Priesthood is a good time to ensure that we’re all praying for the priests they know each day; a holy card is provided on pages one and two. It’s a time to encourage priests in their work by coming with enthusiasm to receive the fruits of their labor, such as frequenting daily Mass, going to the sacrament of confession, volunteering when the priest asks and even when he doesn’t, taking responsibility for some of his pastoral initiatives, attending at adult educational opportunities, and so on. It’s a time to drop him a note to say thanks for who he is and what he does, to invite him over to have dinner with your family, and maybe even to give him constructive feedback about how he can more effectively achieve his goals. It’s a time to pray for and encourage those with the vocation to continue his priestly work.

At The Anchor, we are beginning today on page seven a year-long series of vocational reflections from priests working throughout our diocese so that all the faithful might be able to appreciate the gift of mystery of the priesthood from the inside. We will also regularly be sharing news of various resources prepared for by the Vatican, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and other means.

May this year of grace we begin today renew our priests in holiness so that, through them, the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus may renew us all.

The ecclesial co-responsibility of the laity • 6.12.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

In the days leading up to the celebration of Pentecost, the traditional birthday of the Church, Pope Benedict gave his yearly address to the annual synod for the Diocese of Rome. The theme of this year’s synod was “Church Membership and Pastoral Co-responsibility,” and the Pope spoke May 26 on how all the members of the Church are “co-responsible” for the Church’s mission, not merely within the Diocese of Rome, but throughout the whole Roman Catholic Church.

Before he launched into the discussion of the topic at hand, the Holy Father wanted first to establish the premises for his conclusions by describing — based on the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which beautifully synthesized the traditional teaching of the Church — what the Church is. This was necessary, the pope said, because after the Council many misinterpreted its central ecclesiological concepts and, claiming to refer to a presumed “Spirit of the Council,” invented a new conception “in direct contrast with the word and spirit of the Council.”

Vatican II used above all three expressions to refer to the Church: “mystery [or sacrament] of communion,” “the People of God,” and the “Body of Christ.” The three terms must be understood, the pope stressed, as complementary: The Church is “a communion of people who, through the action of the Holy Spirit, form the People of God, which is at the same time the Body of Christ.”

What happened after the Council, Pope Benedict said, is that the expression “People of God” was interpreted in discontinuity from the tradition and in isolation from the communion with Christ and others. “The notion of ‘People of God’ … was interpreted by some, in accordance with a purely sociological vision, with an almost exclusively horizontal bias that excluded the vertical reference to God.”

These misinterpretations, the pope continued, have led to two problems that have frustrated the renewal of the Church.

First, despite the “reawakening of spiritual and pastoral energies” brought about by the Council, there has not been the “desired growth and development.” Wild grapes were produced rather than good fruit. “In certain ecclesial communities,” Benedict added, “the period of fervor and initiative has given way to a time of weakening commitment, a situation of weariness, at times almost a stalemate, and even resistance and contradiction between the conciliar doctrine and various concepts formulated in the name of the Council but in fact opposed to its spirit and guidelines.”

Second, the ecclesiological misunderstandings have led in many places to flawed pastoral procedures. “On the one hand,” he specified, “there is still a tendency to identify the Church unilaterally with the hierarchy, forgetting the common responsibility, the common mission of the People of God, which, in Christ we all share. On the other, the tendency still persists to identify the People of God unilaterally, as I have already said, in accordance with a merely sociological or political concept, forgetting the newness and specificity of that people, which becomes a people solely through communion with Christ.”

These issues have been at the root of why the Council, instead of being a supernova in the history of the Church, has produced many shadows in addition to light — “ruptures” instead of a “deep renewal.” Pope Benedict says that the time is now to return to the true teaching of the Council on the Church so that the Church may experience the authentic reinvigoration that the Council intended. That reinvigoration will occur when all the baptized, grounded on the true understanding of the Church, take up the pastoral co-responsibility in the Church’s mission described so forcefully in the Gospels, in St. Paul’s letters and in the Council documents.

While noting that since the Council, many have “become aware that the mandate to evangelize does not only concern a few but rather all of the baptized,” he added, “there is still a long way to go. Too many of the baptized do not feel part of the ecclesial community and live on its margins, only coming to parishes in certain circumstances to receive religious services. Compared to the number of inhabitants in each parish, the lay people who are ready to work in the various apostolic fields, although they profess to be Catholic, are still few and far between.” Many, he said, are resigned to “preserving what exists,” particularly in their parishes, rather than entrusting themselves to the Spirit to help the Church grow.

He specifies five things that need to be done for the Church to achieve the intended renewal, which are equally applicable to the Diocese of Fall River as to the Diocese of Rome.

First, there must be adequate formation of all people in the Church: “We must renew our efforts for a formation that is more attentive and focused on the vision of the Church… both on the part of priests as well as of religious and lay people to understand ever better what this Church is, this People of God in the Body of Christ.” There are already plenty of means to form consecrated men and women, although better advantage may need to be taken of these opportunities. For the formation of lay people, new initiatives and means will be needed in many places.

Second, mind-sets must be changed and pastoral structures adapted in accordance with this co-responsibility: “It is necessary to improve pastoral structures in such a way that the co-responsibility of all the members of the People of God in their entirety is gradually promoted, with respect for vocations and for the respective roles of the consecrated and of lay people. This demands a change in mind-set, particularly concerning lay people. They must no longer be viewed as ‘collaborators’ of the clergy but truly recognized as ‘co-responsible’ for the Church’s being and action.” Pope Benedict calls priests to prioritize nurturing the “spiritual and apostolic growth of those who are already committed to working hard in the parishes … [to] act as leaven for the others.” Priests can sometimes prioritize their care for those on the margins so much that those in the center end up not being equipped to be co-responsible in the Church’s mission.

Third, to bear fruit, parishes must be focused on encountering Christ in prayer and the sacraments: “To prevent them from losing their identity and vigor,” parishioners “must be taught to listen prayerfully to the word of God through the practice of lectio divina.” One reason many communities lack the knowledge that they are Church is because they fail to recognize through prayer that “Christ, the eternal Word of the Father, convokes them and makes them his People.” Moreover, “if it is the Word that gathers the community, it is the Eucharist that makes it one body.… The Church, therefore, is not the result of an aggregation of individuals but of unity among those who are nourished by the one Word of God and the one bread of life.”

Fourth, there must be renewed effort to maintain the bonds of communion and peace within parishes, dioceses and the Church universal: “We must learn ever anew to preserve and defend this unity from the rivalry, disputes, and jealousies that can be kindled in and among ecclesial communities.” This is accomplished, not by seeking a lowest common-denominator conflict-less consensus, but through all members’ rooting themselves in the communion with Christ within the Church universal.

Finally, the Church must become a community of Good Samaritans sharing Christ’s love. “Living charity is the primary form of missionary outreach.” It was the experience of the Church’s charity in the early Church that made Christianity so attractive to so many, because it showed the face of Christ the Good Samaritan as “man’s true friend.” It remains the truest face of the Church today.

The renewal of the Church according to the vision of the Council, the new birth the Church awaits in these days after Pentecost, flows through these five priorities. “The future of Christianity,” Pope Benedict concludes, “depends on the commitment and witness of each one of us” to each of them.

Triple reparation • 6.5.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Since abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered on Sunday during a worship service at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, the reaction of the vast majority of people on both sides of the abortion debate has been swift and total condemnation.

The U.S. bishops were among the first to denounce the evil of his assassination. Cardinal Justin Rigali, speaking on behalf of the U.S. bishops, declared, “Our bishops’ conference and all its members have repeatedly and publicly denounced all forms of violence in our society, including abortion as well as the misguided resort to violence by anyone opposed to abortion. Such killing is the opposite of everything we stand for, and everything we want our culture to stand for: respect for the life of each and every human being from its beginning to its natural end. We pray for Dr. Tiller and his family.”

The bishops of Kansas were likewise unambiguous in describing the evil of Tiller’s vigilante execution. “We unequivocally condemn the murder of Dr. George Tiller,” they wrote in a joint statement. “The Catholic Church believes that every human life is sacred. The murder of a human being is the gravest of crimes and is an intrinsic evil. Such an act of violence against human life is a contradiction of the most fundamental principle of the Pro-Life movement. The fact that this attack occurred in a church, a place of prayer and worship, only adds to the horror of this terrible crime. We prayerfully commend Dr. George Tiller to the mercy of God and we pray for comfort and consolation for his family and friends.”

The bishops’ thoughts were echoed by Pro-Life leaders across the country, where almost in unison they did the same three things: condemned the wickedness of the slaying in itself, described how it was a betrayal of the most fundamental Pro-Life principle, and offered prayers for Tiller and his family. A culture of life, they insisted, cannot be advanced by murder. The evil of his murder, they stressed, is not diminished in any way by the amount of blood Tiller had shed in almost four decades of work as an abortionist. The end never justifies the means.

In all of the comments given in the immediate aftermath of Tiller’s death, however, something important was missing. Part of the explanation for its absence might be the nature of press statements which, in order to be printed in full, must be brief. A more likely reason would seem to be that many people, including Christians, have lost a supernatural perspective when responding to evils like this. It’s not enough to condemn the action. It’s not enough to commit to praying for those involved. A Christian must also do reparation.

Before anything else, what happened on Sunday in Reformation Lutheran Church is an offense to God, whose Son, however wayward, was slain. The fact that it occurred in a place and at a time dedicated to the worship of God only adds to the sacrilege. Just as God had put a mark on Cain after he had murdered his brother Abel to prevent his being slain, so God had given George Tiller an indelible mark in baptism and, regardless of whether Tiller had lived in conformity with his baptismal graces, Tiller’s murder was an action not merely against a Kansas abortionist, his family and church community, but against his Father in heaven. For this, we must beg God for mercy not just toward Tiller and his assassin but toward all of us. We must do acts of penance and reparation to seek in some way to remedy the evil done also against God.

We likewise need to do reparation for the few who are taking quiet or public pleasure in Tiller’s death. In the blogosphere, there have been some who have been saying that “Tiller the Killer” had it coming: just as Jesus said that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword, so it was fitting that one who made quite a profitable living by killing other human beings himself was killed by another human being. There have even been some commentators who have suggested that Tiller had gotten off easy: under the law of an eye for an eye, a rather instantaneous death by bullet was merciful compared to what “should have happened to him,” namely undergoing what he himself had done to half-delivered babies in his Wichita clinic.

This is all evil talk. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus responded to this type of logic: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ [and] … ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:38-48).

Christians, in short, are called to a higher standard, higher than non-Christians, namely the standard of the love that God has. In accordance with these standards, there were many Pro-Life Christians who for decades had been praying that Dr. George Tiller would become another Dr. Bernard Nathanson, repent of his sins against life and become active in the Pro-Life movement. They never forgot that George Tiller’s life, too, was sacred and precious, that he, too, was loved by God, and that they were called to love him as passionately as they hated the sins against life he was perpetrating. These people are now justly mourning Dr. Tiller’s death alongside the deaths of the unborn.

Finally, there is also need for Christians to do reparation for Dr. Tiller’s and other abortionists’ many offenses against God through the grisly destruction of innocent human life. Even among the abortionists in our country, Tiller was notorious for his willingness to go beyond what all but two others in the country could stomach doing, and abort viable children in the third trimester. He not only did it, but was unabashed in his support for the practice. None of this, of course, provides the least justification for someone’s taking his life, but it provides plenty of justification for us to do copious reparation.

In this month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which we focus on Jesus’ sacred humanity and are called by him to do reparation for all sins of indifference to his love, let us ask him for the grace to persevere in prayer and penance for all sins of indifference and sacrilege against those whose human nature is made in his image and likeness and whose humanity he indeed made sacred through his Incarnation.

Doubt, dialogue and demonization • 5.22.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

In his commencement address at Notre Dame, President Obama, rather than vindicating the university’s decision against its countless critics, reinforced the validity of the critics’ argument and the wisdom of the U.S. bishops’ policy not to give honors and platforms to those who act in defiance of fundamental Catholic moral principles. For beneath his ever-genial tone, uplifting images and eloquent delivery, President Obama made several major points contrary to the Catholic faith. Packaged as they were, however, in mellifluous pseudo-Christian phrases enunciated in front of applauding Catholic priests by a man adorned with newly-bestowed doctoral garments, few seemed to realize what he was doing — which is why he should have never been given such a hallowed pulpit in the first place.

The most audacious part of the address was when the president tried to change the meaning of the Christian faith and draw erroneous conclusions from the false notion. “The ultimate irony of faith,” the president declared, “is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen.” He seemed to be quoting from Hebrews 11:1, one of the most famous definitions of faith found in sacred Scripture, but, whether intentional or not, he got its meaning completely wrong. The passage reads, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not a “belief” in things not seen — which would be tautological and nonsensical — but the “substance” or “evidence” of things not seen. Faith leads not to doubt, or even merely to subjective conviction, but to objective truth discoverable through revelation and grace.

In his challenging part of his 2007 encyclical on Christian hope, Pope Benedict described the real meaning of the passage the president was trying to cite. Faith, the pope said, is the “‘hypostasis, the ‘substance’ of things hoped for; the proof of things not seen.’ … The concept of ‘substance’ is therefore modified [by the words ‘proof of things not seen’] in the sense that through faith, in a tentative way, or as we might say ‘in embryo’… there are already present in us the things that are hoped for: the whole, true life. And precisely because the thing itself is already present, this presence of what is to come also creates certainty [and] constitutes for us a ‘proof’ of the things that are still unseen.”

So, according to Hebrews, Pope Benedict and the teaching of Christianity, faith does not “necessarily admit doubt,” as the president claims. In fact, true faith and doubt cannot coexist. At the same time, we cannot both believe in the resurrection and doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. We cannot simultaneously believe that God is a Trinitarian communion of love and doubt his existence. This does not mean that a generally faithful person does not have occasional doubts, but these doubts are temptations against faith rather than necessary consequences or companions of faith.

Once one grasps how the president is mistaken about connection between faith and doubt, it’s easier to see how he errs in the conclusions he draws from the false premise. He spoke to the graduates at length about the “great uncertainty” of our era with its “competing claims about what is right and what is true.” He warned them, “You will hear talking heads scream on cable, read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and watch politicians pretend to know what they’re talking about.” He told them that no one can really know any of the most important things for sure, since “it is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what he asks of us. … This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But … it should temper our passions and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate. …”

Whether by design or accident, this is nothing but relativism dressed up as religious reasoning. While because of human finitude it is impossible for us to know everything God has planned for us or asks of us, through faith and reason we can and do know much with certainty. Our faith and our rational nature should lead us, fundamentally, not just to continue a debate — which for the president would be a never-ending one about things we can never truly know — but to seek the truth, to understand the truth, and to live the truth. Rather than basing our lives on the rock of Jesus’ words (Mt 7:24), Obama actually proposes the quicksand of the latest intellectual fad: instead of calibrating our culture’s values to the truths discoverable by faith and reason, he says, astonishingly, we need to “align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age.”

This relativistic discussion about faith, doubt, and “moral and spiritual debate” contextualizes what the president said about “dialogue” in the principal part of his address. After mentioning the opposing sides of debates on the war, gay rights and embryonic stem-cell research, he asked, “How do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? … How do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?” He answered the questions with what sounded like a campaign slogan: “Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.” He elaborated, “When we do that, when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do, that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.”

Once the president’s premise is admitted that we cannot know with certainty either by faith or reason the truth about what is right and wrong, then all that seems to be left is dialogue to try to find some common ground on which we can agree. No one — especially faithful Catholics — would ever be opposed in principle to dialogue and a spirit of collaboration, but everyone should agree that in cases of some offenses dialogue is not only not enough but counterproductive. There’s a reason why Martin Luther King never sought to engage in dialogue with the Ku Klux Klan, Holocaust survivors don’t try to seek common ground with neo-Nazis and American law enforcement officers are not trying to engage Al-Qaeda in “moral and spiritual debate.” Such dialogue would seem but moral absolutes up for negotiation or compromise. There’s a reason why the president doesn’t call for dialogue on the merits of racism, anti-Semitism and terrorism, because he knows all are evil. He cites Martin Luther King, and not Rodney King, as a hero, because he knows that in the face of racism there’s something more important than all of us just getting along.

The fundamental reason why the president called for dialogue and common ground on abortion in South Bend — and set up an elaborate pseudo-religious argument to pretend that it’s all that can be achieved between the “irreconcilable” views on both side of the abortion issue — is because he seeks to draw Pro-Lifers, and Catholics in particular, from a position of moral absolutism about the evil of abortion to one aligned with the “demands of a new age,” which wants unfettered abortion access. His call for an end to “demonizing” opponents — while itself certainly consistent with Jesus’ summons to love the sinner and hate the sin — seems to be an attempt to get others from ceasing to think that abortion itself is diabolical.

None of this means that we cannot work with the president to reduce the number of abortions and provide more assistance to women in crisis pregnancies. It does mean, however, that we cannot stop there. Unlike the president, we know by reason that abortion kills an innocent human and by certain faith that whatever we do or fail to do to that child made in God’s image and likeness, we do, or fail to do, to God.

Lessons from the Father Alberto affair • 5.15.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Over the past week, a scandal has ripped through the heart of Spanish-speaking Catholicism and spilled over into the national network morning television programs.

At the center of it is Father Alberto Cutié, a 40-year-old priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, who, though largely unknown to most English-speaking Catholics, has for a decade been the country’s most well-known Spanish-speaking cleric. He has been dubbed “Padre Oprah” for his work as a host of television talk shows on Telemundo, weekly programs on EWTN Español, call-in shows on Radio Paz and Radio Peace, syndicated advice columns in Latin America newspapers, and best-selling Spanish self-help books. He was also the popular administrator of a parish in the heart of Miami’s libidinous South Beach. His stardom had to do not merely with his skills in effectively articulating the wisdom of the Catholic faith in Spanish and English, but also, in a celebrity-driven age, because of his movie-star appearance. He made the Catholic faith attractive on multiple levels to the media and the masses alike.

Last week, Father Alberto’s parish and priestly apostolates were thrown into chaos as 25 paparazzi photographs of him amorously interacting with a 35-year-old divorced woman on a Miami beach appeared in a Mexican entertainment magazine. He was immediately relieved of his parish assignment and archdiocesan duties by Miami Archbishop John Favalora and given time and space for him to pray about his future. In a public statement, Father Alberto acknowledged the scandal and apologized to all those whose faith had been hurt by his actions. He seemed to recognize the truth of the old Latin aphorism corruptio optimi pessima, “the corruption of the best is worst of all,” and that his fall from grace is more than just another tale of a priest unfaithful to the promise of chaste celibacy.

At the same time, however, multitudes in the media and among some Spanish-speaking Catholics have rushed to his “defense,” energetically trying to place the blame for his predicament not on his infidelity to the promises he made at his ordination, but on the Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy. The Church needs to change its practice, they have argued in demonstrations, articles, and internet commentaries, or else it will lose talented and inspiring priests like Father Alberto, who has reluctantly become the “anti-celibacy … poster boy” for those who have long had issues with the Church’s discipline.

Father Alberto is now trying to discern what to do next. In two television shows since the photographs appeared, he has demonstrated that he has deeply conflicting thoughts and emotions. To Univision last week, he apologized that people had taken scandal, but showed no compunction over the sins that caused the scandal. “It hurts that the actions of a human being can hurt so many people,” he said. At the same time, he excused his actions “because I believe that I am a man. I never stopped being a man when I put on my cassock. … Do I regret having hurt people? Yes, but I don’t regret loving a woman.”

In an interview on the CBS morning show on Monday, however, it seems that the voice of his conscience was slowly making itself heard. “I don’t support the breaking of the celibacy promise,” he said. “I understand fully that this is wrong.” Whereas on Univision he had said he was looking for a situation in which he could peacefully reconcile his “love for God” and “love for a woman” — like leaving the priesthood and possibly the practice of the Catholic faith — by Monday he was admitting that among his options was ending the relationship. This latter outcome is one for which all Catholics should pray.

There are many lessons that those in the Church need to learn from Father Alberto’s fall from grace and the enormous reaction it has engendered.

First, we need to recognize that there are many who celebrate, rather than mourn, the failure of priests to live faithfully chaste lives and who are willing to take advantage of every priestly disgrace to try to dismantle the discipline of celibacy. The fundamental reason is not to try to embarrass the Church or to advance a married clergy, although these are sometimes present. The deepest motivation seems to be to show that the Church’s teachings on chastity in general are unrealistic or impossible. If priests cannot be expected to live by the teachings of the Church on chastity, then how can the Church expect teen-agers to be abstinent, engaged couples to wait until marriage, married couples to be faithful until death, divorced individuals not to remarry, and those with same-sex attractions to be continent their whole life long? The happily faithful chaste priest is an icon that the Church’s teachings on human sexuality, although challenging, can be lived joyfully, and many iconoclastically want to tear down this symbol to excuse or enable sexual license.

There is a second, more general, point about why many rejoice over and try to “defend” priestly sins. If a priest cannot be faithful in his promises to God, then how can others be held to fidelity? When any member of the Church sins, the only adequate Christian response is to try to help the person — through prayer, fraternal correction, and concrete help toward rehabilitation — repent and seek forgiveness from God and others; it’s not to cheer the person on. Even though it obviously didn’t seem like it to him, Father Alberto objectively chose Barabbas-in-a-bikini over Jesus Christ, betraying him with kisses and worse over two years. Sins against priestly chastity are not so much violations of a “Church discipline” or a breach of loyalty against an “institution,” but a betrayal of Jesus Christ.

Third, the importance of priestly chastity as an eschatological sign has only grown in importance as our culture’s sexual morés have continued to unravel. The happily celibate priest shows the Church and the world that something is more important than the good of human sexuality, that someone is more worthy of love than even the most adorable human being. When a priest exchanges his covenant with God for earthly relations, when he turns his back on heavenly joys for earthly cathexis, those who seek to live for the moment rather than for eternity take solace — and their salvation is endangered.

Fourth, priestly love affairs are never victimless: a priest cooperates in sin with someone he is supposed to serve and help save. Rather than leading that person to God, he facilitates the person’s alienation from God for the sake of fulfilling his personal desires. By the nature of his supernatural fatherhood, every such affair is spiritually incestuous. By the nature of his chaste consecration, every such liaison is not just sinful but sacrilegious.

Lastly, it’s clear that priests in general need a far deeper chastity formation than they typically receive in seminaries. They need to be trained, specifically, in how to respond properly when they fall in love. Just like a husband who falls in love with a woman at the office needs to take appropriate measures to maintain his fidelity to his wife and to God, so a priest who falls in love needs to be trained how to respond in accordance with the sacred promises he’s made to Christ and his bride. Father Alberto said, “I don’t regret falling in love because I never looked for love. I didn’t plan this.” True, but while priests or spouses cannot help being attracted to others, they still have the freedom and the duty to be faithful to those to whom they’ve previously committed their lives — or else betray those people and those promises.

The Father Alberto affair is an opportunity for the whole Church prayerfully and materially to support both him and all priests — in the midst of a culture that often seeks to see them fall — to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus who called them and whose merciful love and grace will never abandon them.

More than dining room conversation • 5.8.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Four weeks ago we wrote on the symbolic messages the University of Notre Dame was giving Catholics and non-Catholics in the country by inviting President Barack Obama to give its May 17 commencement address and award him an honorary doctorate.

By choosing to ignore and violate the clear, settled and reasonable policy of the U.S. bishops not to “honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” — like President Obama has been doing repeatedly on the issue of the inviolable dignity of human life — by giving such figures “awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions,” Notre Dame is teaching its graduates and others that it’s more important to listen to what the president has to say than what the Church has to say.

It would be hard to believe that Notre Dame would ever give an honorary doctorate and a prestigious speaking platform to anyone, even a president, who supported indefensible things like slavery or anti-Semitism. By choosing, however, to honor someone who vigorously supports, both personally as well as publicly, the destruction of innocent human life, the university is teaching that it considers such destruction, in the end, a small matter that, unlike racism or something “really” evil, should not disqualify someone from public honors by Catholic institutions.

By doing something so provocative without even consulting local Bishop John D’Arcy, especially when it was easy to assume that such an action would put him in a position that he would have to absent himself from the commencement, the university was demonstrating that, given a choice between having a successor of George Washington or a successor the Apostles present for graduation, they consider it more important to have the former.

For all these reasons, it’s unsurprising that an unprecedented number of U.S. bishops have individually come out in public criticism of the university’s decision. It’s also understandable why former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and Harvard Law Professor Maryann Glendon, Barack Obama’s former law school teacher, decided that she would have to refuse the university’s prestigious Laetare Medal, lest her authentic Pro-Life credentials continue to be manipulated by the university to try to mollify the concerns of those outraged or scandalized by its actions.

But perhaps the most poignant description of the noxious symbolism of the university’s decision came from a recent Notre alumna, Lacy Dodd, in an article last week on the Website of First Things magazine. Her reflections are particularly fitting as we prepare for Mother’s Day on Sunday.

She wrote that during her commencement, her life was in turmoil because she was three months pregnant. “That March,” she remembered, “I had gone — alone — to a local woman’s clinic to take a test. The results were positive, and I was so numb I almost didn’t grasp what the nurse was getting at when she assured me I had ‘other options.’ What did ‘other options’ mean? And what kind of world is it that defines compassion as telling a young woman who has just learned she is carrying life inside her that she has the option to destroy it?

“When I returned to campus, I ran to the Grotto of Our Lady. I was confused and full of conflicting emotions. But I knew this: No amount of shame or embarrassment would ever lead me to get rid of my baby. Of all women, Our Lady could surely feel pity for an unplanned pregnancy. In my hour of need, on my knees, I asked Mary for courage and strength. And she did not disappoint.

“My boyfriend was a different story. He was also a Notre Dame senior. When I told him that he was to be a father, he tried to pressure me into having an abortion. Like so many women in similar circumstances, I found out the kind of man the father of my child was at precisely the moment I needed him most. ‘All that talk about abortion is just dining room talk,’ he said. ‘When it’s really you in the situation, it’s different. I will drive you to Chicago and pay for a good doctor.’

“I tried telling him this was not an option. He said he was pro-choice. I responded by informing him that my choice was life. And I learned, as so many pregnant women have before and since, that life is the one choice that pro-choicers won’t support.

“So, without my boyfriend’s support, I graduated from Notre Dame on schedule with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies. … I returned to my parents’ home in Florida, … sought and received advice and loving counsel from Kimberly Home, a pregnancy resource center in my hometown. And I prepared to give birth to the human being who has given me the greatest and most unexpected joy in my life.

“And then a miracle came: On All Saints Day 1999, I gave birth to baby Mary. Her name is no accident. This Mary was living inside me while I walked the campus of a university dedicated to a woman who is mother of us all, and it was Mary Our Mother who gave me courage when I was afraid of what would lie ahead. Mary teaches us always to be open to seeking the will of God in our lives, no matter what it is, and never to be afraid of God’s will.

“Notre Dame is a special place, but it is not immune to the realities of modern life. There are students who face unplanned pregnancies, and — most tragically — women who think their only option is abortion. Statistics show that one out of every five women who have an abortion is a college student; many of these women cite the fear that they will not be able to complete their education as a primary reason. On campuses all across this country, abortion is the status quo. We need to change that with an unambiguous stand for life, and Notre Dame needs to be in the lead.

“There have been many things written about the honors to be extended to President Obama. I’d like to ask this of Father John Jenkins, the Notre Dame president: Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama — the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining room talk?”

Lacy Dodd now serves on the board of a Charlotte-based non-profit organization working to build at Belmont Abbey a maternal care facility for college students who discover they’re pregnant. She has put a name and a face to why Notre Dame’s decision is particularly shameful. She has identified why so many Catholics, including her fellow Notre Dame alumni, are so justly upset by it. By choosing to honor and listen to a president who thinks that the choice to kill a baby like Mary is something that the government should make possible, defend and fund, this Catholic university, rather than challenging pro-abortion assumptions some of its students and so many in our country have, is buttressing them. And rather than supporting young women like Lacy Dodd in difficult circumstances, it is isolating them further, at a place in which they should be welcomed as Our Lady would and would want.

The Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is more than dining room talk. It’s the worst systematic offense against human beings and human dignity in our time. It’s about time for Notre Dame and various other Catholic educational institutions to stop giving it lip service and to take the lead in creating a culture in which every human being like Mary Dodd is valued, welcomed in life and protected in law.

Our vocational co-responsibility • 5.1.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

The Fourth Sunday of Easter, traditionally called Good Shepherd Sunday because each year at Mass the Gospel is about Jesus’ self-identification as the Good Shepherd, is the annual occasion of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. It is an opportunity for the whole Church to reflect on how Christ gave his life for us and constantly summons us to imitate him in giving our lives for others. It’s a chance to recall that the Good Shepherd knows and calls each of us by name and that each of us must respond to that gift by knowing him in return, heeding his voice and following him.

Since Pope Paul VI established this day of prayer for vocations in 1964 during the Second Vatican Council, the popes have issued a message each year to guide and deepen the Church’s understanding on the vocational reality of Christian existence as well as to lead the Church in prayer to the “Lord of the Harvest” to send out priestly, religious, and consecrated laborers to work his always-ripe fields.

In anticipation of this year’s celebration on Sunday, Pope Benedict wrote on the theme of “Faith in the Divine Initiative: The Human Response” and asked all of us in the Church to reflect on it.

He begins his message with a profound thanksgiving to God for the “special gift” of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life, both those he has called throughout the centuries as well as those he continues to call today.

The pope implies by his title and throughout the letter that the “vocations crisis” plaguing some dioceses and countries is not so much a “calling” crisis — because the Harvest Master has never ceased to call people to follow Christ “more closely” as “his privileged ministers and witnesses” — but more a problem of “hearing” or “response.” The shortage of priests and religious in some parts of the world flows not because God has abandoned calling men and women to collaborate intimately with him in the mission of salvation, but because so many have stopped listening to him in prayer, or have never been trained how to interpret the vocational signs he gives, or have never really cultivated the habit of generous, loving response to God so as to be ready to “place their entire existence freely at his service” if in fact he calls.

This is the reason why, in order to cultivate the soil to bear fruit if in fact God plants the seed of a priestly or consecrated vocation, the pope says the first step is to “appeal to the divine initiative with unceasing prayer.” Not only does the Lord of the Harvest respond to such petitions made with trusting faith in his providence, but such prayer also brings those whom the Lord may be calling to serve him in this way into prayerful dialogue so that they may hear his summons when he makes his plans for them clear.

Prayer is not the only thing that is needed, however. Pope Benedict says that three other steps are required for those who are called to be able to answer responsibility and with conviction.

The first is “careful listening and prudent discernment.” Young people in particular need to be trained in the art of listening to God and discerning his voice, not merely in prayer but also in the subtle signs God gives through personal talents, the events of life, and the intervention of others. God is speaking, but to those who have never learned how to listen and discern, he is often speaking a foreign language. The Church — by which the pope specifies families, parishes, movements, apostolic associations, religious communities and “all sectors of diocesan life” — has the duty to help people decipher and understand this often faint and mysterious idiom.

The second step is a “serious study” of the reality that is proper to the priestly and religious vocations. The integral formation of every Catholic should involve exposure to and adequate understanding of the various states of life in the Church. The practice of “vocations awareness days” in Catholic schools and CCD programs is obviously a good one, and helps to open up young people’s minds to the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the Church. At the same time, however, they are no substitute for what the Holy Father calls “serious study,” which implies a sincere and mature effort on the part of each of us, as well as a recommended “plan of study” provided by pastors, parents, and teachers. Every young Catholic should be encouraged and helped to give serious consideration to each of the vocations in the Church, not merely to discern whether God might be calling him or her to one of them in particular, but also to be aware of all of them in order to assist those whom the Lord is calling. It’s obviously hard to be God’s instrument to promote and assist vocations to the Order of Virgins, for example, if one has little or no idea of what a consecrated virgin is.

The third stage that the pope describes is “a generous and willing adherence to the divine plan.” When people seek the will of God in their daily life and strive to follow Christ faithfully on the path of love and holiness, when they are aware of the various range of possibilities to which God might be calling them, it is much easier to hear what God is asking and to give a free and wholehearted “yes” to his invitation. All those in the Church — but particularly families, catechists and parishes — must help young people to make the often difficult transition from saying “my will be done” to “thy will be done,” and from asking, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” to “What does God want me to do when I grow up?”

The Holy Father says that one great means to help us learn how to adhere generously and willingly to the divine plan is a deeper understanding of and participation in the mystery of the Eucharist. Jesus in the Eucharist, the pope says, gives us the “eminent model of a ‘vocational dialogue’ between the free initiative of the Father and the faithful response of Christ.” He shows us in the Eucharist how to seek the Father’s will, to enter into a similarly “fruitful dialogue,” and to respond with loving trust and total surrender. “The awareness of being saved by the love of Christ, which every Mass nourishes in the faithful,” the pope teaches, “cannot but arouse within them a trusting self-abandonment to Christ who gave his life for us. To believe in the Lord and to accept his gift, therefore, leads us to entrust ourselves to him with thankful hearts, adhering to his plan of salvation.” In other words, the “amen!” we say to Christ in holy Communion trains us to say “yes” to Christ freely and unreservedly when he asks us to follow him down a particular vocational path. The communion brought about by the faithful reception of the sacrament of the Eucharist, the pope concludes, “thus becomes ‘co-responsibility,’ responsibility in and with Christ, through the action of his Holy Spirit; it becomes communion with the One who makes it possible for us to bear much fruit.”

As we come together on Good Shepherd Sunday to celebrate the Eucharist and pray to the Harvest Master to call more laborers to his fields, we ask the Holy Spirit to give all of us a deep sense of the specific vocation each of us has to be “co-responsible” with God in his divine plan and to make us docile instruments as well to guide others to discern how God is calling them to sacred co-responsibilities.

Bringing about the renewal of women’s religious life • 4.24.09

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:35:45 -0400

Last September, Stonehill College and the Diocese of Fall River sponsored an important symposium entitled, “Apostolic Religious Life since Vatican II … Reclaiming the Treasure: Bishops, Theologians and Religious in Conversation.” The fruits of the day extended far beyond the 600 in attendance, as several of the addresses quickly made their way around the world on account of the candor with which several of the speakers addressed the challenges many religious communities are facing.

The most significant address was given by Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which exercises for the pope supervision of religious communities throughout the world. After having discussed the great history of religious communities in the United States — responsible, among other things, for the incredible growth of the Catholic school and hospital systems in our country, which were the greatest of any country in the history of the Church — the Slovenian cardinal forthrightly said:

“Despite this past greatness and present vitality, we know — and it is one of the major reasons we are gathered here today — that all is not well with religious life in America. … The sheer decline in the numbers of consecrated men and women, the abandoning of many corporate apostolates and ministries, the closing of communities, the invisibility of corporate witness to consecrated life, amalgamations of provinces, mergers of different institutes, the graying of religious, the death of entire congregations — these realities are all familiar to us.”

He said that religious life in the states falls into four different categories. The first two categories, he said, are healthy, and involve “many new communities … which are thriving” and “older communities that have taken action to preserve and reform genuine religious life in their own charism.” About these first two groups, Cardinal Rodé said, “The future looks promising if they continue to be what they are and as they are.”

A third group consisted of “those who accept the present situation of decline as … a sign of a new direction to be followed. Among this group there those who have simply acquiesced to the disappearance of religious life or at least of their community, and seek to do so in the most peaceful manner possible, thanking God for past benefits.” But he also added that some communities are in decline because of an obvious and ongoing crisis of faith. “There are those who have opted for ways that take them outside communion with Christ in the Catholic Church, although they themselves may have opted to ‘stay’ in the Church physically.” In other words, these are certain communities that think they have “moved beyond the Church” yet remain within it in invisible schism. “Surely, such an ambivalent existence cannot bring forth fruits of joy and peace, neither for themselves nor for the Church,” the cardinal added.

The fourth category involves “those who fervently believe in their own personal vocation and the charism of their community, and are seeking ways to reverse the trend [and] achieve authentic renewal.” Cardinal Rodé stressed that for these Sisters to effect real renewal of their communities, they must be helped to implement what has worked in the reform of the first two categories of communities and avoid the fatal mistakes of those in the third.

Why have so many religious communities in the states been experiencing such a decline? Cardinal Rodé said that one of the most fundamental reasons has to do with a false and fatal misinterpretation of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. The second two categories of communities looked at the Council as a rupture with what came before and often separated themselves, not merely from the faith of the Church but their foundational charisms.

A religious himself, Cardinal Rodé described with prophetic frankness why this “hermeneutic of rupture” was so destructive. “Religious life, being a gift from the Holy Spirit to the individual religious and the Church, depends especially on fidelity to its origins, fidelity to the founder, fidelity to the particular charism. Fidelity to that charism is essential, for God blesses fidelity while he ‘opposes the proud.’ The complete rupture of some with the past, then, goes against the nature of a religious congregation, and essentially it provokes God’s rejection. Obedience was an early casualty, for obedience without faith and trust cannot survive. Prayer, especially community prayer, and the sacramental liturgy were minimized or abandoned. Penance, asceticism and what was referred to as ‘negative spirituality’ became a thing of the past. Many religious were uncomfortable with wearing the habit. Social and political agitation became for them the acme of apostolic action. The New Theology shaped the understanding and the dilution of the faith. Everything became a problem for discussion. The results came swiftly in the form of an exodus of members. As a consequence, apostolates and ministries that were essential for the life of the Catholic community and its charitable outreach quickly disappeared — schools especially. Vocations quickly dried up. Even as the results began to speak for themselves, there were still those who said that things were bad because there hadn’t been enough change, because the project was not complete. And so the damage was further compounded.” About women’s religious communities in particular, Cardinal Rodé said that many were infected with a “certain strain of feminism by now outmoded but which still nevertheless continues to exert much influence in certain circles.”

Cardinal Rodé noted that there are groups of Sisters in the vast majority of the third and fourth categories of communities who do wish to seek genuine reform according to the mind of the Church, but, he implies, have not yet been able to achieve that desire because of the leadership within their communities. That may be one of the reasons why the Vatican has recently announced two interventions to try to help these Sisters bring about that genuine renewal.

The first intervention was announced at the end of January. It’s an unprecedented visitation of all 400 active religious institutes in the United States to be led by Mother Clare Millea of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Much like the recently-completed visitation of U.S. seminaries authorized by Pope John Paul II in response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis, this two-year study is being undertaken, according to the decree from Cardinal Rodé, to “look into the quality of the life” of the various institutes.

The second intervention is described on page 15 of this edition. Last week it was made public that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has appointed Toledo, Ohio Bishop Leonard Blair to conduct a doctrinal assessment of the activities and initiatives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Maryland-based association whose members include the vast majority of institutes to which U.S. Sisters belong. He is said to be charged with investigating the LCWR on fidelity to the Catholic faith on Christ’s role in salvation, on the sinfulness of same-sex sexual activity and on the inadmissibility of women to priestly ordination, three seminal issues on which some Sisters and female religious communities have separated themselves from the teaching of the Church.

While the visitation and assessment are technically independent, both seem to be coming from a common motivation to assist those religious who wish to reform their communities in accordance with the mind of the Church and in continuity with the fidelity of their foundresses’ charisms. Such reform cannot easily occur, however, if the present leadership of these communities, or the association representing the vast majority of them, are not with the Church’s program. Both the visitation and assessment are attempts to ensure that they are, so that our country may “reclaim the treasure” of women’s religious life, and, as is happening with the ongoing reform of seminaries, lead to a new flourishing of the Catholic faith in our country.