SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The body of perhaps the greatest hitter in baseball history, Hall of Famer Ted Williams, is now suspended upside-down in a 9-foot vat of liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees, sharing his resting place with three other corpses and five heads.
Williams' death on July 5 at age 83 and the widely reported family feud that has ensued have unexpectedly elevated the profile of cryonics – the peculiar, fringe practice of freezing a dead body to preserve it for the future when, with new technologies and medical advances, it might be “resuscitated.” It has also raised the specter of a future in which the dead can be cloned.
The premiere outfit in human cryonics (though it does have competition) is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz. It offers clients the service of preserving their body in liquid nitrogen for $120,000. Or if they prefer, they can have just their head frozen at a reduced rate of $50,000. The nonprofit organization promises to hold these parts indefinitely (with backup energy systems in case of power outages) until such time when doctors can revive the persons and provide them with a brand-new laboratory-grown body or repair the old corpse through the use of still-undeveloped nanotechnology and molecular genetics “to enjoy youth and health indefinitely.”
Actually, “corpse” is a word Alcor officials shun. Alcor calls its customers “patients” and says on its Web site: “[P]ersons in cryonic suspension should be considered potentially ‘alive’ now and measures must be taken to keep them that way, so they can become the citizens of the future.”
Beloved Boston Red Sox slugger Williams became “citizen” No. 50 of Alcor at the request of his son John Henry Williams. But the thought of her father's icy grave has pained Barbara Joyce Williams-Ferrell, the daughter of his first marriage who claims her father wanted to be cremated and who is seeking a judge in Florida's Citrus County Court to order her father's remains retrieved from Alcor.
Williams-Ferrell told reporters her half-brother, John Henry Williams, has visions of medicine being able to resurrect her father to play a few more innings, perhaps a century from now. Or perhaps he might sell the “Splendid Splinter's” DNA to in-vitro fertilization customers who would like “little Ted Williamses” of their own, hitting .400 through technological wizardry-like cloning.
Alcor president Jerry Lemler could not be reached for comment, but he has publicly denied that his company will provide samples of its dead, frozen “patients” for cloning.
Alcor's scientific advisory board, however, is headed by Michael West, president and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, the renegade Massachusetts company trying to mass-produce cloned human embryos to cull for their stem cells and a leading spokesman for human cloning.
The Science
Cloning the dead is not purely hypothetical. Scientists have already cloned dead animals using living cells culled from their bodies shortly after death, rapidly cooled in liquid nitrogen to attempt to prevent damaging ice crystal formation (just the sort of technology employed on slugger Williams' body.)
And Italian researchers reported in the July issue of the journal Biology of Reproduction that they created cloned lambs from dead sheep cells. The researchers at the University of Teramo and other institutions first killed the lamb cells by exposing them to extremes of temperature, then cloned them.
As for cloning dead humans, “scientifically, it's possible,” said David Prentice, professor of medical and molecular genetics at Indiana State University School of Medicine. “What you need is all of the genetic material of the person you want to clone.”
But securing a usable DNA sample is only the first step, he added. Beyond that, the odds against any human clone begin to soar. Considering risks of malformation, miscarriage and death shortly after birth, Prentice said, “It's unsafe to be a clone. Your chances of survival are very slim.”
Poor odds have not deterred some who wish to clone the dead, however. It's difficult to estimate how many people would be interested in cloning their deceased relatives, but their numbers probably rank somewhere between those of infertile couples who want to use cloning technology and homosexuals who want to clone themselves.
One of the first to try to try it was Mark Hunt, a Charleston, W.Va., attorney and former state legislator who lost his 10-month-old baby boy, born in 1999. Andrew Hunt died following surgery to correct a random heart defect.
In his grief, Hunt turned to the Raelians – a bizarre Montreal-based international sex cult that preaches extraterrestrials cloned humans in a lab aboard their flying saucers – and asked them to clone his dead son from a tissue sample. Hunt financed the cult, reportedly to the tune of $5,000 a month in addition to money he spent outfitting a former high school science room as a high-tech cloning lab, including a $100,000 in-vitro fertilization microscope used to facilitate injecting DNA into a human egg.
Hunt did not return phone calls from the Register, but in a letter he sent to Congress in the spring of 2001 during hearings on cloning, he explained his quest to clone Andrew: “I couldn't accept that it was over for our child. And for the first time in history we couldn't accept death as the end. Not since our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke to Lazarus and told him to come forth from the grave has a human had a chance to bridge the great gulf of death. I hope and pray that my son will be the first.”
Others who want to clone dead relatives do not seem as motivated by grief. Jim, a 49-year-old Glendale, Calif., man who did not want his real name identified, is storing a tissue sample from his dead mother so he might clone her in the future.
“She was a very special woman,” he explained in an interview last fall. When his 68-year-old mother died of pancreatic cancer in February 2001, he and his siblings scoured the underground human cloning network for a doctor willing to take the tissue sample and then paid a cryopreservation company that advertises on the Internet to store it until the day he is certain will eventually arrive – when new technology can be used to create her identical twin.
His mother had musical and other talents that were not fully actualized, Jim said. “There were definitely some possibilities that she didn't consider because of her circumstances. We might send her clone to college.”
Jim spoke matter-of-factly about the possibility of “being a father to my mother, or perhaps her uncle if one of my sisters decides to raise her.”
Indiana State's Prentice said he thinks such cloning enthusiasts would be disappointed if the technology was realized. “Physically, a cloned person might resemble the donor,” he said, “but it would be a different person.”
There is a misplaced faith in the idea of “genetic determinism,” Prentice added, pointing to the first cloned cat born this spring, whose markings and color differ from those of the cat she was cloned from. Those differences would be much more pronounced among humans. “We're just much more than the sum total of our genes,” he said.
Moral Questions
There is also, of course, the moral question of cloning anyone, including the dead. Doug Hunt, spokesman for the International Center for Technical Assessment, thinks cloning would violate cloned humans' dignity and rights, exposing them to unrealistic expectations. “We have a right to an open future,” Hunt said.
The quest to clone, to “engineer children to specification,” Hunt views as “the ultimate idolatry – worshiping technology.”
“It harkins back to the desire to control the real nature of human life,” he said, but “we don't have control.”
And what about the morality of freezing people, like slugger Williams, in liquid nitrogen?
Father Joseph Browne, the pastor of St. Birgitta's parish in Portland, Ore., doesn't believe that moral theologians have formally addressed cryonics.
Under the title “respect for the dead,” however, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the resurrection.” It further states that “burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy” and that “the Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body.”
“I would suspect that the Church would frown on [cryonics], not because of the technology per se, but because of the underlying belief that the body might be reunited with the soul,” Father Browne said.
“The Church does indeed believe that at death there is the separation of the soul from the body,” he said. “And it holds that at the resurrection, the soul is reunited to the body.”
But faith in cryonics, Father Browne said, seems to deny both the death of the body and the true resurrection of the soul.
Celeste McGovern writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Celeste McGovern -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Campaign Targets Alleged Planned Parenthood Abuses DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Staten Island-based Priests for Life has teamed up with Life Dynamics Inc. in a campaign to alert school board members throughout the country to what it says are unlawful activities by Planned Parenthood clinics.
The two groups are warning school districts that cozy relationships with Planned Parenthood might be placing children and taxpayers at risk. They say schools should consider severing all ties with the organization. Life Dynamics says it has documented failure of Planned Parenthood clinics to report alleged incidents of statutory rape.
Abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood, are required by law in all 50 states to report knowledge of sex between adults and children younger than 14. Life Dynamics reported that its nationwide survey of abortion clinics last spring suggests that some 80% of abortion and family-planning clinics aid and abet men who commit statutory rape.
“It's in the culture of the abortion industry,” said Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics Inc. in Denton, Texas. “They are openly promoting the idea that very young children can have healthy, sexual relationships with adults. I believe that they honestly don't see anything wrong with it.”
Life Dynamics gathered its information by having a young woman, who pretended to be 13 years old, call 800 clinics. All calls were taped. In each call, the actress told a clinic worker she was 13 and had been impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend.
In most calls, the girl was promised secrecy by the abortion clinic, and in many she was instructed precisely how to avoid revealing further information about the rape.
“The uniform nature of the calls was the same in almost every instance, and in all of the states,” Crutcher said. “It's clear that throughout the industry they advocate covering things up for the abuser.”
Father Peter West, priest associate for Priests for Life, said school districts that have relationships with Planned Parenthood and other abortion/family-planning providers could be accomplices to any crimes the clinics commit.
“Planned Parenthood in particular relies on school districts for much of its customer base,” Father West said. “School districts have allowed these organizations into the schools to provide condoms, birth-control information and sex-education classes. In many states, it's not even illegal for a teacher to take a student to a clinic for an abortion. However, if the abortion or other services are performed illegally, the school may be liable because it's in loco parentis [acting legally as a parent].”
Volunteers Needed
At Priests for Life (www.priestsforlife.org), officials are seeking volunteers in every school district to ask questions and formally raise concerns to school boards about the potential liability.
“This is something school board members need to concern themselves with,” said Dr. G. Daniel Harden, professor of law at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. “Because of the way child-abuse statutes are written in almost every state, there is an obligation to provide information to authorities when child abuse is even remotely suspected.”
Added Harden: “Now we're told that Planned Parenthood is not only failing to report suspected child sexual assault, but it's telling known victims how to conceal the abuse. That should be a major red flag for school districts that work closely with Planned Parenthood. They may find themselves named as accomplices to violations involving failure to report, in some cases, and in others as accomplices in charges pertaining to concealment of child sexual assault.”
Harden, who also serves on a school board in Kansas, said he plans to determine whether schools or employees in his district have school-related relationships with Planned Parenthood.
He also may express his concerns about the Life Dynamics survey to school districts throughout the Topeka/Kansas City metropolitan area.
Bobbi Watson, senior vice president for Planned Parenthood of the Rockies, which oversees dozens of abortion clinics in the western United States, said it's not true that abortion providers try to aid and abet statutory rape. Rather, she said, abortion providers respect the privacy of girls who seek abortions so they never ask questions about the partner.
In most of Life Dynamics' taped survey calls, the actress offers the information about the age of her adult partner and insisted on knowing whether abortion clinic workers will tell anyone that the father of her child is a grown man. Then the girl arranges permission for the boyfriend to accompany her during the abortion.
Later in the conversations, the girl arranges with the clinics to have her boyfriend routinely pick up birth-control pills for her so they can continue having sex in the future without the worry of pregnancy. Typically, she's told it will be fine for the boyfriend to pick up the pills.
In Texas, state law requires that minors have parental consent before obtaining abortions. But one Texas clinic worker asked if the girl's boyfriend might pretend to be her dad and sign the permission papers.
When the clinic worker is told the boyfriend is 22 – too young to appear as the girl's father – she asks the girl about other grown men who might help out.
Together they decide the girl should bring along her boyfriend's 50-year-old uncle, who will pretend to be her father and sign for the abortion. The clinic worker then tells the girl that an in-house notary of the public will authorize the fraudulent signature.
The Tapes
As a random sampling of the survey, Life Dynamics provided the Register with tapes of calls to more than 30 clinics in Colorado, a state with no parental notification law but with standard regulations that require clinics to report statutory rape (see sidebar above).
Many record instances of clinic workers telling the girl they will not report the crime and coaching her how to avoid discussing the issue when she comes in for her abortion.
D.D. Mallard, chief trial deputy for the Boulder District Attorney's office, was unaware of the findings and expressed little interest in researching the survey. However, she said sexual abuse of minors is taken seriously by her agency.
“We take all sexual assault very seriously, and we consider so-called ‘statutory rape’ to be a sexual assault, or a rape, period. We don't even use the term ‘statutory,’ because to us it's a sexual assault just like any other,” Mallard said.
In other words, said Washburn University law professor Harden, the Boulder district attorney views sex between minors and adults as a violent, heinous crime of rape, yet her office seems unalarmed about documentation of abortion clinics covering up the crime.
“Here you have a DA's office that makes no distinction between the kind of rape in which a stranger jumps out from behind the bushes and grabs a woman and the kind that involves sex between a grown man and a little girl,” Harden said. “If that's the case, then the DA's office ought to drop everything to find out whether the clinics in that jurisdiction are working to cover up known instances of serial rape, allowing perpetrators to roam free. And school officials ought to be distancing themselves from this organization [Planned Parenthood] until they have some assurance that they aren't flagrantly violating the law in order to aid and abet the raping of children.”
Legal Action
Not all prosecutors have ignored the Life Dynamics survey. Connecticut Chief State's Attorney John Bailey met with representatives of Planned Parenthood in June after hearing the tapes of calls to clinics in his state. The purpose of the meeting, reported the Connecticut Post, was to review with Planned Parenthood workers the state's reporting laws.
In California, the Life Dynamics survey has prompted the United States Justice Foundation, a private legal organization, to plan a lawsuit against a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.
Watson of Planned Parenthood of the Rockies said she feels “set up” by Life Dynamics.
“It was a setup to get us to say, ‘Oh, sweetheart, come on in and we won't report.’ We've had a lot of experience with Life Dynamics, so we know their sleaze tactics,” Watson said.
Despite what the tapes reveal, Watson insisted the Planned Parenthood clinics under her direction do no wrong when young girls call after grown men impregnate them. Therefore, she argued, school districts have nothing to worry about.
“We play by the letter of the law,” Watson said. “And we were prepared for this survey, because we had been informed that Life Dynamics was up to this.”
Crutcher said it's essential that abortion providers begin complying with state reporting laws because adult/child sex is out of control.
He cited statistics, including those released by former Surgeon General M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D. – a “pro-choice” Clinton appointee – about the age differences between most pregnant teens and their partners.
More than half of teen-age pregnancies are caused by adult men, Elders reported in 1998, and 40% of pregnant 15-year-olds have partners older than 20. On average, Elders reported, mothers age 11 and 12 have partners who are 9.8 years older.
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Voice of the Faithful' Group Draws Critics DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:BOSTON – Pope John Paul II isn't the only one rallying faithful to his cause this summer. In far smaller numbers, so is a group that blames papal authority and the hierarchical structure of the Church for the clergy abuse scandals.
Calling themselves the Voice of the Faithful and moved by outrage over the Church's sexual-abuse crisis, a group of Boston-area Catholics have organized a national movement that has gained in numbers and credibility seemingly overnight.
But, critics note, the voices of those who dissent from key Church teachings have been far louder at Voice of the Faithful gatherings than the voices of those who are doctrinally faithful.
The group, which grew out of meetings at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Wellesley, Mass., claims a membership exceeding 23,000 in more than 40 U.S. states and 21 countries. It recently announced the opening of a home office in Newton Upper Falls, Mass., and the hiring of former investment banker Steve Krueger as interim executive director.
Since its formation in February and a lay congress attended by 4,200 people here July 20, the group has spawned 68 chapters and attracted $275,000 in contributions, surpassing an initial goal of $50,000. The money collected includes $100,000 from the family of New York businessman Terence Meehan, several anonymous donations exceeding $10,000 each and a number of $500 and $1,000 donations from religious orders. Krueger said none of the funds has come from other Church-reform groups.
One thing is clear: the group sees papal authority and the current hierarchical structure of the Church as a very bad thing. It wants to democratize the Church, give the power to the people and de-emphasize the contribution the Pope and the hierarchy make to Church governance.
But just whom the organization represents and what it will be able to accomplish is not clear.
Although Voice of the Faithful claims to be a centrist group with a goal of supporting “priests of integrity” and victims of clergy sexual abuse and shaping structural change within the Church, the organization has drawn criticism for being weighted too heavily toward the Church's liberal voices. Leaders say that impression was unintentional and is one they plan to correct.
Attorney Philip Moran, who attended the July 20 lay congress, said he was disturbed by the slate of speakers, which included Debra Haffner, a former official of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington; Boston College theology faculty members Thomas Groome – a former priest – Lisa Sowle Cahill and Stephen Pope; and Leonard Swidler, a Temple University religion professor who proposes rewriting the Church's constitution.
“All seem, from my understanding, to have no use for the hierarchy of the Church,” said Moran, who serves as general counsel for the Catholic Alliance, a group headed by Raymond Flynn, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. “They don't believe in Catholicism as I do.”
Moran wondered why voices like Flynn's and Harvard Law School Professor Mary Ann Glendon, both of whom live in the Boston area, were not asked to speak.
Krueger said, however, that several “conservatives” were invited to the Congress, and none agreed to attend. They included former education secretary William Bennett, columnist Rod Dreher, papal biographer George Weigel and theologian and author Michael Novak.
Voice of the Faithful's interim executive director said the group views itself as inclusive and not founded on a particular point of view on any issue.
“We're trying to establish a playing field where a legitimate dialogue can take place between Catholics and between the laity and the hierarchy to discuss the issues of the Church,” Krueger said. “I think that differentiates us from some groups that have been founded on a particular agenda for reform.”
Krueger said the group counts conservatives among its members and would like to attract more, along with minorities and young people.
Where Do They Stand?
However, some Catholics think the group needs to be more specific about its loyalties. The Catholic Alliance's Flynn, a former mayor of Boston with a long history of political involvement, said, “You don't go to a convention and endorse a candidate and not discuss the issues. I want to know their objectives, the goals and values of the organization.”
Flynn said he would like to hear Voice of the Faithful's position on the ordination of women, married priests, homosexuality in the priest-hood and abortion. “These are all issues that are very important,” he said. “Admittedly people have differences of opinion with the Catholic Church hierarchy on these issues. I understand that. But so far, all everybody thinks is they're getting a seat at the table to change the Church position. They think getting involved can change Church doctrine.”
He said he asked Krueger those questions on his radio program on WROL-AM and was told “we'll work that out in time.”
“What is there to discuss?” Flynn asked. “Church doctrine is uncompromising on a number of these issues. This is the teaching of Jesus Christ.”
Krueger said Voice of the Faithful believes any positions it takes need to be developed through a collaborative process. “For us to take a particular stance on an issue, not having reviewed it through an appropriate process of the membership, would be premature. I think that the organization views itself as kind of creating an organic, grassroots process by which the laity can discuss matters of their faith and Church in a way that gives them a sense of ownership.”
Tom Smith, a Voice of the Faithful co-founder, said he thinks the group's goal of working within the Church for changes that will allow for more lay involvement in decision-making is healthy.
Although he said he believes in following the Holy See and the magisterium, he does not think the Church's leaders have been good administrators. “Someone else should take part in the governance of the Church,” he said. “That lies outside the duty of the holy man who heads up his diocese ... I think that points to laity involvement.”
Austin Ruse, a spokesman for Catholics for Authentic Reform, a coalition of 16 Catholic leaders founded in June to respond to the sexual-abuse scandal, disagreed. He said the laity are not called to govern the Church but to evangelize the world.
“These people are too concerned with the inner workings of the Church,” Ruse said. “They want to serve on church committees. That is such a crabbed view of the layman's role. The layman's role is not facing toward the Church, but with the Church backing him up, facing the world to evangelize it. That's the message of Vatican II.”
Ruse said he thinks Voice of the Faithful has been able to gain members and public presence quickly because so many people joined via the Internet. “And they were able to claim a lot of media attention because supposedly they were a grassroots group that was not ideological and out to change the Church,” he added. “It was a very wise marketing strategy that has worked very well.”
According to C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, it is now clear Voice of the Faithful is dominated by promoters of dissent. Doyle noted that representatives from Call to Action, which dissents from Church teachings on an array of issues; from Corpus, which promotes married priests; and from the Women's Ordination Conference were all prominent at the Boston convention.
Doyle also cited the comments of Father William Kremmell, chaplain of Regis and Framingham State colleges, at the convention's closing Mass. Father Kremmell told worshipers that “hopefully” in 25 years, such a Mass could be celebrated by a married woman, The Boston Globe reported.
On its Web site, the Voice of the Faithful lists celibacy and the all-male priesthood as “possible proximate causes” of the scandal, and suggests that the root cause is the very structure of the Church and papal authority. It says that Second Vatican Council II, if fully implemented, would democratize the Church.
But this runs directly contrary to the teachings of Vatican II, which teaches, in the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: “[T]his Council is resolved to declare and proclaim before all men the doctrine concerning bishops, the successors of the apostles, who together with the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the visible Head of the whole Church, govern the house of the living God” (No. 18).
“It is grotesque hypocrisy for an organization which claims to be Catholic to promote the views of those who reject Catholic doctrine and repudiate Christian morality,” said Doyle in a press release. “As an organization marketing itself as Catholic, Voice of the Faithful is engaged in consumer fraud. “
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Simone de Beauvoir Feminism Without Freedom DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Acertain mythology surrounds Simone de Beauvoir. It presents her to the world as an independent thinker, a spokesperson for women and an advocate of freedom.
In truth, the French existentialist, who lived from 1908 to '86, is none of these. The core of her philosophy is derived from the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre; she does not, by any means, speak for all women. And the range of freedom she endorses does not include, among other things, the freedom to marry and raise one's own children.
Sartre's existential philosophy provides the axial skeleton of de Beauvoir's 1949 book The Second Sex. When she announces in her introduction that “our perspective is that of existentialist ethics,” she is referring to the philosophy Sartre expresses in 1943's Being and Nothingness. Whereas Sartre employs “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself” as his fundamental philosophical categories, de Beauvoir prefers to use “immanence” and “transcendence.” “Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation,” she writes, “there is a degradation of existence into the en-soi [being-in-itself] – the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of liberty into constraint and contingency.”
If her treatise on woman had continued in this abstract vein, it would have been a replica of Being and Nothingness. What gives The Second Sex its readability and popular appeal is that the author relates “transcendence” (with its freedom, activity and indefin-ability) to men and “immanence” (with its constraints, immobility and objectness) to women.
In full agreement with Sartre, de Beauvoir maintains that human beings are, at their core, nothing. But this “nothing” is synonymous with their freedom and is the basis for their obligation to transcend themselves. Human beings, however, are loathe to accept the responsibility (and anguish) that rises from their nothingness. Hence, they attach themselves to some thing or to some role and live inauthentic lives, fearful of being themselves. When they choose this inauthenticity, they are guilty of “bad faith.” When such inauthenticity is imposed upon them, they are “oppressed.” “An existent is nothing other than what he does,” states de Beauvoir. “The possible does not extend beyond the real, essence does not precede existence: In pure subjectivity, the human being is not anything. He is measured by his acts.”
Biology as Oppressor
De Beauvoir contends, with unremitting energy throughout a long and tedious book, that the man is associated with transcendence while the woman is locked into immanence (as housewife, mother, domestic, etc.): “This is the lot of the woman in the patriarchate.” Men are at least partly responsible for women's immanence because they view them specifically as the Other. There is a certain inevitability in men regarding women as the Other (and hence, as the “second sex”), for de Beauvoir. She claims that “no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the Other over against itself.”
Men enjoy transcendence. Woman are trapped in immanence. Therefore, man becomes the role model for the “modern” and “independent” woman. Thus, “the ‘modern’ woman accepts masculine values: She prides herself on thinking, taking action, working, creating – and on the same terms as men. Instead of seeking to disparage them, she declares herself their equal.” One might logically accuse de Beauvoir of providing a blueprint for “male sexism” rather than a guideline for the liberation of women.
ARCHITECTS OF THE CULTURE OF DEATH
Sixth in an occasional series
“The Second Sex,” William Barrett contends, “is in reality the protest against being feminine.” The protest is both unparalleled and unrelieved. “Maternity dooms woman to a sedentary existence,” she tells us, “and so it is natural that she remain at the hearth while man hunts, goes fishing and makes war.” Maternity is “one feminine function that is actually almost impossible to perform in complete liberty.” “Her whole body is a source of embarrassment.” “It seems to her to be sick; it is sick.” She is the victim of her “menstrual slavery.” Women who enjoy being mothers “are not so much mothers as fertile organisms, like fowls with high egg-production. And they seek eagerly to sacrifice their liberty of action to the functioning of their flesh.” The “pregnant woman feels the immanence of her body ... it turns upon itself in nausea and discomfort.” She is a degraded human being and a public laughingstock.
According to de Beauvoir, the pregnant woman is a degraded human being and a public laughingstock.
Political philosopher Jean BethkeElshtain has come to the conclusion that de Beauvoir suffered from the “pretense of one who believes she has found the worm in the apple when, in fact, she has lost the apple for the worm.” It was not that she threw the baby out with the bath water, but in confusing the two, decided to embrace the bath water.
De Beauvoir was not the “independent” thinker her misguided public assumed her to be. Nor did she speak for all women – certainly not those who valued their femininity. Much less was she an advocate of freedom, despite her posturing. She did speak of the importance of freedom in securing the “right” to abortion. She was the first president of Choisir (To Choose), a pro-choice, pro-abortion organization in France. She frequently allowed illegal abortions to be performed in her apartment when women had no other choice and was instrumental in bringing about the legalization of abortion in her country. Nonetheless, she was not pro-choice when it came to more life-connoting arrangements, such as women raising their own children in their own home. As she told Betty Friedan in a published interview: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”
There is more than a touch of authoritarianism behind this remark. The “champion” of freedom would gladly, if she had the power, remove freedom from the lives of the vast majority of women. “As long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed,” she went on to say, “women will still be oppressed.”
At War With the World
De Beauvoir's writing continuously reflects her radical dichotomies: sanctity and intelligence, immanence and transcendence, in-itself and for-itself, Self and Other, biology and culture, men and women. Along with a tendency to see things simplistically in black and white, she also had a proclivity to pit these categories against each other. With regard to the ultimate category of life and death, she shows a disturbing inclination to champion the latter over the former. This is evident in her preference for abortion over mothers staying at home to raise their own progeny. It appears time and again throughout her novels. In The Second Sex she speaks of the warrior who enjoys his superior function as a killer, in contrast with the woman who is deprived of such glory:
“The worst curse that was laid upon woman was that she should be excluded from those warlike forays. For it is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.”
In stating that male killing is superior to female caring, de Beauvoir is prescribing a culture of death. “Why give pride of place to killing?” asks one startled feminist. For de Beauvoir, killing represents action and transcendence, which are superior to the modes of passivity and immanence.
De Beauvoir, unfortunately, remains trapped in her atheistic existentialism, in her abstract categories that do not reflect either reality or life, but the twin voids of Godlessness and human-lessness. If God does not exist, and man is essentially nothing, is there any possibility whatsoever that the conscious use of freedom alone, operating in this double vacuum, could produce anything at all, let alone anything of significance? All that could eventuate from such a sterile and powerless origin is tantamount to a culture of death. Madame de Beauvoir's philosophy inevitably places the culture of death on a higher plane than the culture of life because she believes that love and life are both uncreative and inert. Fortunately, enough of us know that she is dead wrong.
Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus of philosophy at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Donald Demarco -------- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: In a Land of Violence and Grace DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Since February 2000 he has served as bishop of the Diocese of Multon, central Pakistan, and is the Vatican's point man on interreligious dialogue in that country.
He spoke with Register correspondent Andrew Walther in Los Angeles about his miraculous survival of two point-blank shootings and about the state of the Church in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
You were almost killed in 1998; what happened?
I was a priest based at St. Anthony Parish in Lahore, a parish noted for its prayer ministry. We had eucharistic adoration as well as regular devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Anthony and later Padre Pio.
Perhaps the fundamentalists did not like it. One day two non-Christian, Muslim men came to me and asked me to pray for them. As I stood up to pray for them, they stood close to me, one on either side, as I prepared to pray for them. I looked over and one of the men had a gun pointed at my head.
He fired, then the man on the other side also had a pistol, and he fired. Both bullets missed, and then I grabbed their hands and pushed their guns up into the air pleading with them not to kill, explaining that killing would do no good. They then hit me on the head with the pistol butts, and there was blood everywhere, and they left me for dead. Thank God they did not fire a third bullet.
I have no idea how they missed me from so close. I am a victim [of extremist violence], but I thank God, and Padre Pio, the Virgin Mary and St. Anthony for protecting me.
Are you personally in danger currently?
I doubt it, but we must carry on our work regardless. I am not afraid at all.
Tell me about the Church in your diocese and in Pakistan in general.
Pakistan is a country of 145 million people. The state religion is Islam and only about 1% of the population is Christian. There are six dioceses, and in mine there are 20 million people and 200,000 Catholics. I have 31 priests, 43 sisters, 48 catechists, nine brothers and one bishop – me.
What are the difficulties for Catholics currently living in Pakistan?
We live in a fundamentalist – I mean very fundamentalist – society. It has been even less tolerant since 9-11. The Taliban are infiltrating every part of society. There are many sharia [Muslim fundamentalist] laws that bring persecution to many. There are blasphemy laws, and conversion is forbidden by penalty of death. There is very little education and it is difficult for Christians going into higher education because at every level of society there is discrimination. There are many discriminatory laws, though the present government is doing its level best to put sense back into the legal system.
At one of the churches in my diocese several months ago, the Protestant congregation, which was using the church at the time because it did not have its own church, was attacked. Sixteen people died on the spot, and we dug more than 400 bullets out of the walls.
In the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, on March 27 terrorists walked in with hand grenades and attacked a congregation. That church was probably targeted because it was attended by people from the American Embassy. [Five people, including two Americans, died in the attack].
In our situation there is no tolerance, only prejudice. These Muslims are taught this from a very young age. They are put into madrassas (fundamentalist schools), and from an early age are taught hatred and prejudice and are made talibans. In my area there are many such fundamentalist schools, and the children and women suffer the most under this yoke of poverty and ignorance.
How can you have interreligious dialogue in such an environment?
I have a very good liaison with the government, and we enjoy each other's cooperation. The government is trying to work on community and national unity, and it appreciates the work that I do. I have met with President Musharraf, and I visit the mosques and madrassas to discuss religion. The Muslim clergy in Pakistan condemned the attacks of Sept. 11. Although the extremist elements commit these acts of terror for their own good [purposes], Christians and Muslims have much to learn from each other.
With all of these problems, have there been successes for the Church in Pakistan?
Yes! Currently in my diocese we are focusing on lay and youth leadership, pastoral care and interreligious dialogue. Vocations have been very good, both to the diocesan priesthood and to religious life. The problem we have is how to support them.
The seminarians are good students – I know because I teach in the seminary. We have also opened many boarding schools, but again we need food support. These schools are one way of alleviating poverty, and English is taught in these schools because we need it for higher education. We are forming a lot of youth, but we have no transportation.
You mentioned that Padre Pio protected you from the attack in 1998. Is there much devotion to him in Pakistan?
I grew up in a Capuchin diocese, and I always had an attraction to Padre Pio's spirituality. While I was a priest at St. Anthony's Church in Lahore, a teen-age girl asked me to translate the magazine the Voice of Padre Pio from English into Urdu for her. She then began a devotion to Padre Pio on Thursdays. More people came on Thursdays than on the normal days. The girls wanted to organize a beatification event for Padre Pio, and they did. At the Railway Stadium, a football stadium in Lahore, more than 10,000 people, as well as bishops and priests, came to the event, thanks to this little group of children. And for the canonization in June, we had a huge Mass in my cathedral.
Padre Pio helped me in my own priestly life and helped me to bring more spiritual fervor to the people through adoration, the rosary, and total obedience to the Holy Father and the Church. I go forward with the hope that more people will know Padre Pio and that Muslims will know Padre Pio – that God can work wonderful things through this saint.
What can Americans do to help Pakistani Catholics?
Pray for us because we are under the ire of the Muslim fundamental-ists. What I dream is that people in the United States will adopt some of our people, help them get an education in the United States and then send them back. Also, people involved in medicine and education could help me. I want to open a school in the diocese that goes from elementary school to college – a prestigious school for Christians and non-Christians, because I believe Our Lord died for all.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop Andrew Francis -------- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Proponents Fight for Marriage Amendment - Before It's Too Late DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON – While one group fights to strengthen the American family, others are trying to redefine it.
The Federal Marriage Amendment, which seeks to define marriage as between one man and one woman, was introduced in Congress in May with bipartisan backing and faced instant attacks from groups who billed it as anti-homosexual.
Now, as the amendment faces scrutiny in House judiciary hearings and as supporters fight for its introduction in the Senate, the battle of same-sex marriages is being fought in courts all over the United States in what one onlooker calls a “giant game of chess.”
Matt Daniels, executive director of Alliance for Marriage, the organization that proposed the amendment, said the homosexual movement is making headway faster than the pro-marriage side because the public isn't paying attention.
“Right now the gay movement is getting to move all the chess pieces around,” Daniels said. “By the time the American people sit down at the table, it'll be checkmate.”
‘A Man and a Woman’
The Federal Marriage Amendment aims to pre-empt this eventual checkmate by writing the definition of marriage into the Constitution.
The amendment reads: “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
The idea for of such an amendment arose as states began entertaining the possibility of same-sex marriage. In the 1990s, courts in Hawaii and Alaska briefly legalized such unions and said the states must provide marriage licenses to homosexuals. But in 1998 those and other states, responding to public outcry, passed laws defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The real push for the Federal Marriage Amendment came after Vermont created a “civil union” status in 2000 that gives homosexual partners the same rights as married couples. More than 4,000 couples have entered into these unions, but less than 20% are actually residents of Vermont.
As the other 80% return home, many “become plaintiffs in lawsuits to force the destruction of marriage upon their home states,” Daniels explained.
The most closely watched state cases are New Jersey and Massachusetts, where homosexuals have sued for being denied marriage licenses.
In New Jersey, the Lambda Legal Foundation has sued the state on behalf of seven same-sex couples that want their unions recognized as eligible for marriage. The same is happening in Massachusetts, where a case in which a trial court denied marriage licenses to seven same-sex couples is under appeal. Daniels expects a verdict in early 2003, and he predicts a dire outcome.
“We're going to lose,” he said.
Prompted by this forecast, citizens in Massachusetts organized a campaign to add their own amendment to the state constitution.
Known as the Protection of Marriage Amendment, it defined marriage in the same way as the Federal Marriage Amendment. According to Massachusetts law, supporters needed to gather 130,000 signatures through petitions to bring it to a procedural vote in the legislature. Assuming that 50 of the 200 representatives affirmed it, the amendment would then need to be voted on once more during the next two years to be added as an initiative to the 2004 ballot. But the legislature adjourned July 31 without addressing the amendment, nullifying the work of supporters.
“It's effectively been killed,” said Dan Avila, associate director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, which supported the amendment.
Avila said the definition of marriage is one that reflects both the majority viewpoint and the moral standard.
“It's survived since the beginning of time,” he said. “It shouldn't be changed now.”
But if the Massachusetts case legalizes same-sex marriage, the definition will indeed change, and Daniels said other states will follow suit.
“It will be a legal disaster for our side,” he said. “They will invoke the U.S. Constitution to force same-sex marriages in every state.”
However, there are rays of hope for marriage supporters. In January the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously agreed to uphold a ruling that a Vermont civil union is not the equivalent of marriage. The decision also upheld the Georgia Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as needing one man and one woman.
And in late July, the Connecticut Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that it could not dissolve a Vermont civil union because the relationship is not recognized by the state as a marriage.
Almost Too Late
Daniels compares the same-sex marriage issue to abortion, saying that much like the Roe v. Wade decision, the American public won't show outrage until it's almost too late.
“The main obstacle is one we've seen again and again,” he said. “The average Americans are not paying attention.”
But the amendment's opponents are. Immediately after its proposal in July 2001, pro-homosexual groups attacked it. The National Organization for Women said it would “move us further away from the ideal of basic respect for human rights and equality for all.” Wayne Beson of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual lobbying group, calls “hateful,” “mean-spirited” and “cruel.” The American Civil Liberties Union claimed it would “nullify civil rights protections based on marital status.”
The supporters of the Ammendment are diverse in religion, ethnicity and political persuasion – backers include Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia and the Rev. Walter Fauntroy of the National Black Leadership Round Table, as well as members of the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland, the Islamic Society of North America and Agape African Methodist Episcopal Church. Yet the most common complaint is that it violates civil rights. Therefore, opponents say, fighting against it is akin to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Supporters discount this comparison.
“Evil is ugly, so it has to wear a mask, and the mask they have appropriated is that of the civil rights movement,” Daniels said.
Bishop George McKinney of the mostly black Church of God in Christ had harsher criticism. “It's an attempt to hijack the civil rights movement. There's no relationship,” he said. “To fight for the dignity of a person as a human is quite different from the fight for going to bed with another man or another woman.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Men at World Youth Day Pondering Priesthood
According to The Herald: “Their response comes amid not just the steady trend of declining religious vocations nationwide, but also the unusual strain brought upon the Archdiocese of Boston by revelations about how sexually abusive priests were shuffled among parishes by superiors.”
“The drumbeat about bad news has actually increased my interest in parish life, knowing how important it is to get men in the priest-hood,” said 21-year-old Michael Sheehan. Other potential seminarians agreed, saying they had been undeterred or even spurred onward by the recent cleanup in the archdiocese.
Said Law as part of the invitation: “God's good and gracious will is the short path to happiness.”
Young Jews Less Pro-Life, Study Finds
LIFESITE NEWS, Aug. 2 – An important academic study has reiterated the significance of religion in people's attitudes toward life issues.
In a study sponsored by the Jewish campus group Hillel, Linda Sax at the University of California-Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute collected data from college freshmen at 424 U.S. schools in 1999.
She compared answers from 232,000 non-Jews and 8,000 Jewish students and found that the latter are much more likely to favor legal abortion and same-sex marriages.
She noted that 89% of Jewish students agreed with the statement “abortion should be legal,” compared with 52% of non-Jews. Some 82% of Jewish freshmen said “same sex couples should have the right to legal marital status,” compared with 54% percent of non-Jewish students.
According to Lifesite News, “While only a minority (38.3%) of non-Jewish respondents agreed that ‘If two people really like each other, it's all right for them to have sex even if they've known each other for only a very short time,’ 60.9% of Jewish students agreed with the statement.”
Only 13% of Jewish freshmen reported “frequent” attendance at religious services during the year prior to entering college, compared to almost 47% of non-Jews.
Orders Unlikely to Adopt ‘One-Strike’ Policy
Some 250 religious superiors gathered this week in that city for the annual meeting of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.
The Inquirer cited media comments by leaders of male religious orders, who said the bishops' policy of expulsion from ministry after one credible accusation of abuse was too inflexible for religious communities, to which members take lifelong vows and to whom they usually surrender all personal property and income.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Pro-Lifer Simon Closes the Gap in California Governor's Race DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Political newcomer Republican Bill Simon Jr. has been the summer's biggest political surprise in California. After a primary in which he defeated the favored candidate, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, many pundits gave him no chance against incumbent Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat.
But despite the naysayers, Simon recently inched ahead of Davis for the first time in the race to be the next governor of California.
Both candidates are Catholic, but on issues important to Catholic voters, they could not be further apart.
Davis has staunchly supported abortion and homosexual rights legislation during his four-year term. Simon is pro-life and supports the defense of marriage. Many of Davis' attacks on Simon have been centered on Simon's pro-life stand, and on the Davis campaign Web site, abortion tops the list of positions for which Davis attacks Simon.
Msgr. Edward Kavanagh of St. Rose's Church in Sacramento has stated publicly in the past that Davis ought to be excommunicated for his stand on abortion. Catholics “have to take a stand, the Church's stand on those things [abortion and domestic partnerships] despite what Gray Davis says,” Msgr. Kavanagh said. “Gray Davis is not thinking correctly.”
However, Msgr. Kavanagh said he likes what Simon stands for. “Simon is a good, moral man; I have no qualms about him whatsoever,” he said.
Msgr. Kavanagh also said he and several other Catholics are trying to organize a radio debate between Simon and Davis, which he hopes will give Catholics a better idea of the candidates and their positions.
The position the governor has taken – that he is personally in union with the Church's teachings but cannot impose his religious views on other people – is “baloney; a real cop-out,” Msgr. Kavanagh said.
Down But Not Out
Although Simon held a 47% to 45% lead over Davis in a July 30 poll by Survey USA, many pundits questioned the vitality of Simon's campaign after a judgment awarded $78 million on July 31 to a plaintiff who sued William E. Simon and Sons, an investment firm Simon founded.
The lawsuit was filed by Paul Hindelang. He had been replaced as president of Pacific Coin, a pay phone company, for lying on official documents about a previous conviction for drug smuggling. Simon and Sons and a partner acquired a 60% controlling interest in Pacific Coin in 1998. Hindelang alleged he was defrauded when the company later went bankrupt following a change in management policy instituted by Simon and Sons.
Although Simon himself was not named in the suit, editorials in newspapers around the state were quick to declare his campaign dead. Davis' camp also lost no time going on the offensive.
“In his relentless pursuit of money at all costs, he has engaged in fraud that will now cost his firm tens of millions of dollars,” said Davis senior political adviser Gary South in a statement.
The attacks on Simon's business dealings mark an important change in rhetoric from many of Davis' previous attacks, which focused on Simon's pro-life stand and lack of support for legislation favoring domestic partners.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for Simon's campaign, said these new attacks are untrue. According to Miner, William E. Simon and Sons is a large investment company that, like a mutual fund, invests in hundreds of companies.
“Bill Simon was not hands-on in this case,” he said. “This was simply one of hundreds of companies that his firm invested in.”
Miner also contested the fairness of the judgment and maintained, as Simon has, that it will be overturned on appeal.
“This was a flawed judgment,” he said, adding that the Simon campaign remains upbeat and expects Californians to vote for him in November.
Timothy Carney, an investigative reporter for the Evans and Novak Political Report, said he believes Simon still is very much in the race despite the negative fallout from the lawsuit.
“Simon made a big comeback and could do so again this fall,” he said. “Once a candidate has made a big comeback, you can't rule him out because he could make another one.”
Carney also pointed out that Davis' previous strategy of attacking Simon on values-based issues such as abortion has failed. “[People are more concerned with] corporate scandals, the stock market and the war,” he said.
The current governor's record has drawn criticism: He inherited an $8 billion surplus four years ago, but California now has a nearly $24 billion deficit, and he was widely criticized in the press for mishandling the state's energy crisis.
Now Davis, whose personal popularity in polls is less than 40%, has several ethical scandals on his hands.
“He has run a pay-to-play administration,” Miner said, citing the Oracle scandal in which millions of dollars of state money were spent last year buying software that an audit had revealed to be unnecessary. A few days after the deal, Davis received a campaign contribution of $25,000 from Oracle.
In late July, Davis again came under fire when it was revealed that a state board, whose members are appointed by Davis, had reversed itself in June 2000 and allowed Tosco, an oil company in northern California, to increase its dumping of toxic waste into San Francisco Bay shortly after the company contributed more than $70,000 to Davis' campaign.
The Davis campaign did not return requests for comment. In both cases, Davis has denied any wrongdoing.
Civil Union Debate
Karen Holgate, spokeswoman for the Capitol Resource Institute, a pro-family advocacy group based in Sacramento, said she worries that if Simon is not elected California will be the next state to adopt a Vermont-style “civil union law.”
“The same-sex marriage bill is coming back in January,” she said, and “whether it is signed or vetoed will depend on who is governor.”
She also agreed with political commentator Carney that the race is too close to call, and that despite the recent negative publicity Simon still has an even chance of pulling it out.
“One day I hear one thing, and the next day I hear something else; there is just so much negative information about Gray Davis' campaign contributions,” Holgate said. “The race is a toss-up.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: While Pope Is Away, Pilgrims Receive Special Tour of Vatican Grounds DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY – When Pope John Paul II is away, the Vatican's tight security and rules of decorum relax a bit.
So while Vatican gendarmes looked in the purses and backpacks of about 500 people who wandered through the Vatican gardens July 29, they did not bother using their metal-detector wands, nor did they examine the bags very closely.
Of course, members of the crowd gathered that night would not fit anyone's security-alert profile: Everyone was armed with a rosary, and more than half of the participants wore traditional religious habits.
The candlelight procession through the gardens was organized by Msgr. Raffaello Lavagna, a semire-tired Vatican Radio personality who began the annual event in 1995 on the feast of St. Martha to honor women religious who are “modern-day Marthas” - cleaning, cooking and running the households of priests.
After the hour-long walk up to the peak of the Vatican hill and back down again, the 84-year-old priest said the Vatican parish of St. Anne has agreed to take over the procession next year.
Normally members of the public are allowed into the gardens only as participants in the paid, limited-sized tours offered by the Vatican Museums each morning.
But, Msgr. Lavagna said, it was fairly easy to get permission for his annual procession: “The Holy Father is always away July 29, either in the mountains or at Castel Gandolfo,” the summer residence south of Rome.
The fact that Pope John Paul was on his trip to Canada, Guatemala and Mexico this year simply gave Msgr. Lavagna added material for his introductory remarks before each image of Mary where the mysteries of the rosary were recited.
Because a brief but intense downpour – complete with lightning and thunder – delayed the start of the rosary, the mosaic of Our Lady, Help of the Roman People in front of the Tower of St. John got short shrift.
In a relaxed and familiar tone not usually associated with Vatican prayer services, the monsignor urged the crowd to grab a candle from volunteer ushers and hurry up the hill to the helicopter pad.
He carried a microphone connected to four loudspeakers; the amplifier and a tape recorder for the evening's musical accompaniment were mounted on a pushcart, not unlike those used by modern Roman “organ-grinders” who stroll the city center in search of tourists' coins.
“Testing, testing,” he said as the rosary reciters gathered in front of the torch-lit statue of Our Lady of Czestochowa at the heliport.
Poland's Black Madonna, he explained, is an image dear to the heart of the traveling Pope and “she always says hello and goodbye to him” from the heliport.
Winding on paved and gravel paths through manicured lawns, under towering umbrella pines and past ancient, gnarled olive trees, the crowd moved on to an even more relevant work of art in the garden: a white marble statue of Juan Diego holding his cloak with a brightly colored image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Pope John Paul declared Juan Diego a saint just two days later in Mexico City.
The next mystery was recited in front of a modern bronze statue of Our Lady of Fatima, a statue Msgr. Lavagna later said he doesn't particularly care for; figures at the foot of the statue representing the three shepherd children who saw Mary at Fatima just look like unworked lumps of bronze to the priest.
With the far-off hum of Roman traffic in the background as the sun finished setting, the prayers and singing of the crowd were continually punctuated by another, more insidious modern noise: the ringing of cellular phones some participants had forgotten to turn off.
The bearers of the offending phones were scowled at, and not only by the nuns.
The next stop was the little square in front of the vine-covered Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, a replica of the Marian grotto in France.
Still behind schedule, the rushing Msgr. Lavagna was finished with the last decade of the rosary before most people got near the designated spot, so instead they filed into the gravel-covered space where a children's choir from Savona and a small orchestra were preparing the evening's finale.
Unfortunately, despite the rush, the crowd missed its scheduled connection via Vatican Radio with the Carmelite Sisters in the Vatican's Mater Ecclesiae cloister; but, fortunately, the monsignor had a tape of other nuns singing the Marian hymn, “Salve Regina,” and everyone joined in.
The finale was sung before the monsignor's favorite Marian image in the garden: a larger-than-life-sized ceramic bas relief of Our Lady of Mercy.
“Look at her beautiful smile,” he said. “There are too many Madonnas who are sad or weeping.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Cindy Wooden -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Holy See Funds Poor Farmers
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Aug. 1 – Last month, the Populorum Progressio Foundation met in the Bolivian cities of Sucre and La Paz. The foundation, created by Pope John Paul II in 1992, exists to promote the economic development of impoverished Indian, black and mixed-race laborers in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The foundation studied 270 projects, and of those agreed to fund 223, at a cost of $1,895,300. The nations of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia will receive the most aid this year.
Of the approved projects, 37% promote production in agriculture, the craft industry or small business; 28% improve infrastructure, including potable water, latrines, city halls and gardens; 16% focus on education; 13% will pay to build health care clinics, schools and houses; and 7% will go for health care training and personnel.
In the foundation's 10 years, including 2002, 1,820 projects have been approved with a budget of a little more than $15 million.
Laura Bush Visits Vatican Exhibit
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 3 – Before going on vacation with President Bush at their ranch in Crawford, Texas, First Lady Laura Bush visited an exhibit of venerable paintings from Vatican museums.
These 900-year-old frescoes have never before left Europe or been exhibited together. According to Associated Press, “the frescoes largely depict the lives of saints and martyrs. Fragments of larger frescoes depict early Christian symbols such as birds, winged dragons and dolphins.”
The pictures are on special display at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, where they will remain until Sept. 15, then returned to the Vatican, not to be displayed again until 2025.
“It's just really going to be a once-in-a lifetime experience for a lot of people to come to see these frescoes,” Laura Bush said.
Father Malcolm Neyland, who helped arrange the special exhibit in Lubbock, said of the First Lady: “Her visit to the exhibit is a reflection of her knowledge and her understanding of the arts and the importance they play.”
When the Vatican Called, He Answered
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the little-noted, eminent artist and his famous portrait subjects, noting that the Church-commissioned picture “will hang in a Vatican museum, along with works from such Renaissance painters as Michelangelo and Raphael.”
Shanks was so busy with John Paul's picture that when Bill Clinton's scheduler called to invite him to the former president's home in Chappaqua, N.Y., he had to beg off for the moment.
Shanks has painted monarchs from Sweden, Great Britain, the Netherlands, President Ronald Reagan and is working on one of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Concerning the papal picture, Shanks said: “Is it the opportunity of a lifetime? Yes. Is it the most important thing I'll ever paint? Yes, most definitely.”
The Holy Father was not physically comfortable sitting for the portrait, so Shanks is working from photographs of the Pope in healthier days.
“This painting needs to be perfection,” Shanks told The Inquirer. “Or as close as one can get.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Among Other Jobs, Archbishop Keeps St. Peter's Working DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY – While Archbishop Francesco Marchisano has the necessary background for his Vatican jobs, it still seems a bit odd that he has so many.
The 73-year-old archbishop is president of the pontifical commissions for the Cultural Goods of the Church and for Sacred Archeology and – since late April – archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, papal vicar for Vatican City State and president of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office in charge of the physical upkeep of the basilica.
“I think the Holy Father wanted to entrust St. Peter's to someone who knows about art and archeology, in this case, yours truly,” the archbishop said.
Even with his background of promoting the study and preservation of the Church's patrimony of sacred art and holy sites, being in charge of everything that goes on inside the world's largest Christian church is a learning experience.
For example, he said, periodically old beams in the ceilings of the basilica are replaced with new ones.
When the basilica was constructed almost 400 years ago, the wood was dried, but not treated with chemicals to deter pests.
“Insects and rodents have eaten them; it's really interesting,” he said. “They showed me one old one, which turned to dust when I touched it.
“Entering the basilica, no one thinks about what an enormous job the maintenance is,” the archbishop said.
The fabbrica employs about 100 maintenance workers, including janitors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, artists and experts in the upkeep of mosaics and marble.
Archbishop Marchisano said the Vatican keeps no count of how many people visit the basilica each year “because it is a church, not a museum. Obviously, millions visit each year.”
The basilica also employs an army of ushers to ensure people are dressed appropriately when they enter, that they don't use their mobile phones inside, that they keep their voices down and that they generally behave in a dignified manner.
“It does not create any problem that most visitors are not Catholic,” the archbishop said. “It is an opportunity for reflection, especially when they visit the excavations and see what [Emperor] Constantine did in order to build an altar and a fitting church over the tomb of St. Peter.”
The basilica, he said, is vivid proof of “what a monument can accomplish by itself, both from a religious and a historical point of view.”
However, Archbishop Marchisano said, nothing above ground – not even the works of Michelangelo and Bernini – make any sense apart from the first-century tomb under the basilica where it is believed St. Peter is buried.
“From a historical and spiritual point of view, everything under the basilica is more important than anything else. Everything you see above ground today – all the art, the sculptures, the expense – is there to honor the tomb of St. Peter,” he said.
The archbishop, who has worked in Vatican administrative posts for more than 40 years, also now has major pastoral and liturgical responsibilities.
As papal vicar for Vatican City State, he is bishop of those living inside its walls. Since April, he has visited all of the resident religious communities – women from 11 orders and men from 12 – as well as the pastors of both Vatican parishes: St. Peter's and St. Anne's.
The archbishop said he has no plans to take over the liturgical life of the basilica, preferring to join the normal rotation of the 32 priests who serve as canons of St. Peter's.
Another thing he is not planning – to the shock of an Italian journalist who asked the archbishop's input for his annual survey – is a summer vacation this year.
There just isn't time.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Cindy Wooden -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: 'Blessed Are Those Who Are Persecuted ...' DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).
In the Gospel beatitudes, we find this final exhortation not to be discouraged at the persecutions, which the Church has faced from the very beginning. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises true happiness to those who are poor in spirit, who mourn or who are meek; and also to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who act with mercy or are pure of heart.
Faced with the human suffering that accompanies the journey of faith, St. Peter urges: “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:13). With this conviction, Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles faced martyrdom, remaining faithful to their devotion to the true, living God and rejecting idols.
As they were being tortured, they were invited to renounce their Catholic faith and save themselves. But they answered bravely: “Once we have professed baptism, we shall always follow the true religion“: a beautiful example of how nothing, not even our life, should be put before our baptismal commitment. This is the same example given by the early Christians who, born to new life through baptism, abandoned all forms of idolatry (cf. Tertullian, De baptismo, 12, 15).
I greet with affection the cardinals and bishops who have gathered in this basilica, and in particular Archbishop Héctor González Martínez of Oaxaca, and the priests, religious and lay faithful, especially those who have come from Oaxaca, the birthplace of the new “blesseds,” where their memory is still very much alive.
The following is the homily of Pope John Paul II at the beatification ceremony of Mexican martyrs Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles in Mexico City on Aug. 1.
Your land is a rich mixture of cultures. The Gospel arrived there in 1529 with the Dominican fathers who used the native languages and the manners and customs of the local communities. Thus your land came to know God in the local languages. These two great martyrs stand out among the fruit of this Christian seed.
In the second reading, St. Peter has reminded us that if someone “suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God” (1 Peter 4:16). Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles, who shed their blood for Christ, are true martyrs of the faith. Like the Apostle Paul, they could have asked themselves: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:35).
These two indigenous Christians, whose personal and family life was irreproachable, suffered martyrdom for their fidelity to the Catholic faith, happy to have been baptized. They are an example to the lay faithful, who are called to sanctify themselves in the ordinary circumstances of everyday life.
With this beatification, the Church emphasizes the mission to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples. The new “blesseds,” fruit of the holiness of the first evangelization among the Zapotec Indians, encourage indigenous people today to appreciate their cultures and languages, and above all their dignity as children of God. This dignity must be respected by others in the context of the Mexican nation, made up of peoples of many different origins but willing to build a common family in solidarity and justice.
The two “blesseds” are an example of how, without regarding one's ancestral customs as myths, one can reach God without renouncing one's own culture but letting oneself be enlightened by the light of Christ, which renews the religious spirit of the best popular traditions.
“The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad” (Psalm 125:3). With the Psalmist's words, our hearts are filled with joy, for God has blessed the Church of Oaxaca and the Mexican people with two of their children who today are raised to the glory of the altar. Exemplary in carrying out their public duties, they are a model for everyone, in the little villages or in the large social structures, whose duty it is to promote the common good with great care and selflessness.
Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles, husbands and fathers of families, and men whose conduct – as their fellow citizens recognized at the time – was blameless, remind Mexican families today of the greatness of their vocation, the value of fidelity and love and the generous acceptance of life.
May the Church therefore rejoice, for with these new “blesseds” she has received clear proof of God's love for us (cf. Preface II of the Saints). May the Christian community of Oaxaca and the whole of Mexico also rejoice, for the Almighty has looked upon two of their sons.
Before the sweet face of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who has been a constant support of the faith of her Mexican children, let us renew the commitment to evangelization, which also distinguished Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Ángeles. Let us enable all the Christian communities to share in this task so that they may proclaim their faith with enthusiasm and pass it on in its entirety to future generations. Evangelize by strengthening the bonds of fraternal communion and by witnessing to your faith by an exemplary life, in the family, at work and in social relations! Seek the Kingdom of God and his justice here on earth through effective, brotherly solidarity with the neediest and the marginalized (cf. Matthew 25:34-35)! Be the builders of hope for all society!
Let us express to our Mother in heaven the joy we feel at seeing two children of hers raised to the altar, asking her at the same time to bless, console and help the beloved Mexican people and all America, as she always has from this Shrine of Tepeyac.
(Vatican translation)
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Birth of Mixed-Race Twins Puts IVF Controversy in the Spotlight DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:LONDON – It sounds like a dark comedy dreamt up in Hollywood or a dilemma that would push even Solomon's wisdom to its limit – a white mom gives birth to black twins after an in-vitro fertilization blunder.
However, it's a true story that is currently playing out in England's High Court.
Genetic tests revealed July 31 that the white woman is the babies' biological mom, but that her husband was not the father. Apparently, doctors implanted the correct egg into her womb but other doctors used the wrong sperm to fertilize her egg.
Many of the details of the case remain unclear because of a court order against revealing such information. As well, many officials involved with the affair and other groups and individuals who could be affected by it have been unwilling to make public comments because of the sensitivity of the issue.
However, the British press has reported that the children are at least 2 years old. The case was brought to the High Court in order to secure a ruling on who has a right to their custody should the genetic father and his wife ever try to gain custody.
Both white and black couples undergo in-vitro fertilization procedures at the same clinic. None of the parties involved in the case can be identified, according to British law.
The London Daily Mail reported Aug. 1 that it is not known whether both couples will contest custody, but both are expected to sue the clinic where the blunder occurred.
“The circumstances of this case raise difficult issues relating to the privacy of both families and medical confidentiality,” said High Court Family Division President Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the judge in the case.
Indeed, it raises several issues: Is the woman who supplied the egg or the one who supplied the womb the real mother? (The law says the real mother is the woman who supplied the womb.) What about the man who supplied the sperm? How much does it count that the white couple has been raising the children since their birth? Would it be right to separate the children from people they know as their parents to “correct” the original error?
The government in the United Kingdom has already launched an investigation to find out the reason for the mix-up, which occurred at a fertility clinic at a state-funded hospital.
An unnamed source at the state-funded hospital in Britain told the London Sun: “Great steps have been taken to ensure that this sort of thing never happens. It must be a one-in-a-million chance. The big problem now is, who are the real parents of the twins?”
Moral Questions
In-vitro fertilization is the creation of human embryos by mixing sperm and ova in a laboratory. Conceived embryos are then transferred to the womb of the woman who is to carry the child.
More embryos are routinely created than needed, and those not transferred to the womb may be sold, frozen or destroyed. In Britain it is legal to experiment on these embryos for up to two weeks after fertilization – work scrutinized by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA).
Catholic teaching on IVF or the use of surrogate parents is stated unequivocally in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. ... They betray the spouses' ‘right to become a father and a mother only through each other.’ [Donum Vitae, 1, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987]” (No. 2376).
The Catechism continues: “Techniques involving only the married couple ... are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act that brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that ‘entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person.’ [Donum Vitae, 5]” (No. 2377).
Dr. Helen Watt, director of the Linacre Center, the bioethics institute owned by the British and Irish bishops, said because IVF is not the normal way of conceiving a child it is inevitable that complex ethical problems such as the current mix-up would arise.
Such teaching cuts no ice with supporters of IVF, according to a spokeswoman for CHILD, an organization supporting infertile parents.
“For some couples the only option to pursue their dream of having a child is IVF treatment,” she said.
“Who are we to turn to these parents and tell them IVF is wrong?” asked the spokeswoman, who declined to give her name.
U.S. Case
The case mirrors a similar bungle at the Central Park Medical Services fertility clinic in Manhattan, which saw Donna Fasano give birth in 1998 to a black couple's embryo as well as her own, ensuring she gave birth to one black twin and a white twin.
After legal action by the other couple, Robert Rogers and Deborah Perry-Rogers, a court awarded one twin to each couple.
According to Watt, however, the very fact that a court is now treating the children as disputed property shows the shift in thinking procedures such as IVF have created.
“The Church teaches that it is morally wrong for a child to be conceived as if it were a product,” she said. “If a child is conceived like a product it will be treated like a product. ‘If we don't like the embryo we produced we can change it,’ [people think]. This creates ‘quality control,’ which leads to the discarding of human embryos.”
Paul Burnell writes from Manchester, England.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Paul Burnell -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Wrecking Marriages the High-Tech Way
The London Daily Telegraph reported that the largest counseling organization in the U.K. said 10% of the couples it served had encountered trouble because of the Internet.
Said a marriage therapist: “It's all too easy. You are at home, you pretend to be working, you find someone on the Internet who used to be an old flame. ... I know of a case where a woman tracked down a former boyfriend, is about to have an affair and her marriage is now rocking around all over the place.”
One counselor, Paul Maitland, told the Telegraph the services are a threat to relationships “where one partner perceives the marriage to be less exciting than it first was. ... The ease with which people can track down others from their past via Web sites is a real cause for concern.”
Brazilian Bishops Report More Rural Violence
FIDES NEWS, July 27 – A recent survey published by the Land Pastoral Commission of the Brazilian Bishops Conference pointed out that violence and oppressive work conditions are engulfing rural communities all over that vast country.
The survey, published with the approval of the Brazilian Institute of Technological Information and Science, said that compared to 2000, the number of murders increased in 2001 by 40%. Even more alarming, according to the bishops, was a 519% increase in the number of slave-workers in 2001 – to 2,416 people, more than half of them in plantations in the south Para region.
The Land Pastoral Commission was formed in 1975 to offer support and assistance to peasants and rural workers, and denounce situations of violence and injustice.
Embryos Cannot Be Destroyed for ‘Spare Parts'
LIFESITE NEWS, Aug. 2 – An English couple, Jayson and Michelle Whitaker, are faced with a medical tragedy they tried to remedy by creating a “designer baby.”
Their 3-year-old son, Charlie, has a rare blood disorder that can be treated if bone marrow is derived from the umbilical cord of a sibling with a perfect genetic match.
Their second child, a daughter, did not provide such a match. Chances of future children offering a match are one in four, so the couple planned to employ in-vitro fertilization to “design” a child whose umbilical cord could be mined for such marrow – creating and discarding as many other embryos as necessary.
However, Great Britain's Fertilization and Embryology Authority denied them permission, according to Lifesite News (www.lsn.ca). The authority “ruled that embryos can be screened only if there is a risk that they carry a serious genetic disease” and not to determine their suitability as organ or tissue donors for other children. The couple said they were “devastated” by the decision.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'We Don't Have to Tell Anybody' DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Life Dynamics Inc. of Denton, Texas, taped a young actress who said she was 13 and had been impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend calling 800 abortion clinics across the United States (such tapes are legal under Texas law). Here are excerpts from some of those calls to clinics in Colorado.
In a call to the Boulder Valley Women's Health Center, the actress told her story and was referred to Holly, the clinic manager. Holly told the girl she could get around state law by calling back and concealing the rape story she had already told.
“So what you need to do is you need to call completely anonymously and talk to someone on our appointment line,” the clinic manager said. “And don't tell us anything about who your partner is. Okay?”
Later in the conversation, the actress tells Holly the grown man who impregnated her wants to pay for the abortion. Would it be okay, she asks, if he came to the clinic with her?
“He can come with you,” Holly says. “He can't be more than four years older than you on paper.”
A similar response occurred at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Colorado Springs. The actress was told her boyfriend had committed “statutory rape,” but that she could have the abortion and nobody would have to know about the rape. The clinic worker then coached the girl so she could avoid the possibility someone at the clinic might obey the mandatory reporting law.
Warned the woman, “But like I said, if you express it to someone in the clinic and we document that, then legally we have to report it.”
In a call to Boulder Abortion Clinic, the actress begged to know whether her parents or anyone else would have to know that she was sexually active with an adult. The clinic worker told the caller the abortion would cost $1,200. Then she told the caller to wait a moment while she asked about granting full confidentiality in spite of the law.
When the clinic worker returned to the phone, she told the caller it would be fine to schedule the abortion and that nobody would have to find out. She then proceeded to get the caller's full name and the name of the small community she claimed to live in.
Clinic worker: “And just tell your boyfriend that it's $1,200. We take cash and credit cards, Master Card, Visa, Discover.”
A Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Durango, Colo., told the caller she could come in, pay $410 with cash, credit card or money order, and nobody would ever have to know.
Caller: “My boyfriend's 22. Is he old enough to take care of it and you wouldn't have to tell anybody?”
Clinic worker: “Well, you're old enough. You're old enough to take care of it. We don't have to tell anybody.”
— Wayne Laugesen
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Decade of Dishonesty DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:First came Enron, and that was bad enough. Then came Arthur Andersen. Then came WorldComm, with an astonishing $3.8 billion accounting fraud that this August turned out to be even worse: $7.2 billion in total.
Not only have giants like Xerox and Tyco been implicated in creative accounting scandals – Martha Stewart, the one-woman home-economics phenomenon, and Adelphia, the cable-television provider that the Register had praised in the past for its refusal to allow pornographic channels on its systems. Its president was arrested and taken from his home in handcuffs over money matters.
Things seem to have gotten so bad that the 1990s are being dubbed the real decade of greed – making the 1980s savings-and-loan scandals look like petty theft.
There's something to that, of course. Greed is at the heart of the matter. But another problem seems to have fueled the latest scandals: Dishonesty is suddenly socially acceptable.
In fact, in his 1990 World Peace Day message, Pope John Paul II predicted that the world might be entering a decade of dishonesty. Noting the explosion of consumerism in a world of new threats of violence, he said, “The sense of precariousness and insecurity that such a situation engenders is a seedbed for collective selfishness, disregard for others and dishonesty.”
The most common source of corporate scandal showed just that. Accounting techniques designed to make company results look better have been rampant. Companies report quarterly results, and there are dire consequences if those results do not meet earlier estimates by analysts. The company could watch its stock's price fall by 10% or more in a day.
So companies decided to hide shortfalls by changing the way they do their reporting. Beginning with the profits investors are expecting, they would then work with sales and expenses to make the report show the desired result. These scandals would not have been possible without calculated, carefully crafted public dishonesty on a large scale.
But it's very easy to point fingers at corporations that lie. The truth is, lying is having a bit of a heyday right now. According to one recent study, two-thirds of Americans believe that there is nothing wrong with telling a lie. Only 31% of us have significant scruples about honesty. In fact, people are likely to feel like suckers for being honest.
Lies are everywhere. Children lie to parents to escape trouble, parents lie to children because, as one researcher put it, strict accuracy is simply not high on the list of priorities when speaking to children. Recent studies show an increase in cheating on tests – and, worse, of teachers becoming complicit in the cheating. Taxpayers lie to the government and think it's okay. Employees lie to employers about the use of their time, their sick days and their use of company equipment like the telephone and the Internet. Politicians lie to their constituencies. Citizens lie to bureaucrats. Patients lie to their doctors about their symptoms in order to get the medicine they want, doctors lie to their patients to cover for themselves, and both conspire together to lie to insurance companies.
But broken families have learned the hard way what Wall Street is finding out: Lies have consequences. Honesty isn't just necessary to give people “good character” in a personal, moral way. It is necessary for happy human flourishing.
A certain phraseology of the Holy Father's could serve as a good antidote to all this lying. Speaking to families, he has often said, “Family, become what you are.” When speaking to lay people, he has said, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire.”
Becoming what you are, being what you should be. Only a culture of authenticity, in which people are true to themselves and truthful to others, can prevent the kinds of corporate scandals we've seen recently – and their destructive economic aftermath.
And only individual honest people – a lot of us, together – can build a culture of authenticity.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Dear Bill O'Reilly DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:The Aug. 4-10 Register arrived today and I could not put it down. The articles on the Holy Father were absolutely great.
Please consider sending a complimentary copy to Bill O'Reilly at Fox News. He is supposed to be a Catholic, but is not a fan of our dear Holy Father. On his program he criticized Pope John Paul for his “silence” on the priest scandal while in Toronto. Please send this man a copy. I would send mine, but I want to share it with others in my family and circle of friends.
PATRICIA MCTAGGART
Coralville, Iowa
Bush's Broken Promise?
A report in your July 21-27 edition quoted Doug Johnson of National Right to Life to the effect that President Bush had no alternative last May other than to approve a National Institutes of Health grant request for research on the tissues of aborted fetuses (“Broken Promise? ProLifers Disagree on Bush Fetal Research Funds”). Mr. Johnson parroted the White House position that the president was constrained by a 1993 law and had to approve the grant request despite his publicly stated opposition to such research, which your reporter, Celeste McGovern, quoted verbatim.
Family Research Council respectfully disagrees with both Mr. Johnson and the White House. President Bush could have, and should have, denied the grant. In our view, there are serious issues as to whether the law violates the separation of power provisions of the Constitution. Furthermore, the law, designed to circumvent a presidential ban on transplanting tissues from aborted fetuses, arguably does not cover research on stem cells, which the NIH grant proposed. The existence of such cells was unknown to science in 1993 when the law was passed. There is serious doubt, therefore, as to whether the research at issue is even covered by the statute.
Mr. Bush had ample grounds to deny the NIH research grant had he chosen to do so. Such a denial would have been consistent with the position he advanced in his campaign when he told the Catholic bishops that he was opposed to fetal-tissue research. The grant applicant then would have been compelled to bring a lawsuit to test the 1993 law. The administration should have welcomed the opportunity to challenge the law in court and to mount a sustained effort to persuade the public of the horrors of this gruesome research. If the president prevailed, all the better. If he failed, the predicate would have been laid to urge Congress to change the law.
This was a missed opportunity. The president's rhetoric on this issue is welcome, but presidential actions speak louder than a candidate's empty words.
KENNETH L. CONNOR
Washington D.C.
The writer is president of Family Research Council.
Planned Parenthood's Racist Roots
The Register's July 28 -Aug. 3 article “Planned Parenthood Initiatives Take Root Across the Country” brought to mind the deepest Planned Parenthood root that has occasioned the most damage – that done to black families.
Planned Parenthood began pushing condoms on black families in the 1920s as a genocide measure. Their attack on black families went into full swing in 1939 with Planned Parenthood's “Negro Project,” which seduced many black leaders into promoting condoms to blacks as a way of improving their lot.
Black families were socially and economically discriminated against. Unemployment for blacks was very high. It is understandable that, with the discrimination, poverty and leaders telling them contraception was good for them, black families began to accept it.
Now some seven decades later, we see the tragic results of Planned Parenthood's black initiative: Black families are fractured. More than 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. Many families without fathers are factories for more social ills: more poverty, more abused children, inadequate education, more school dropouts, more convicted criminals, more capital criminals on death row, more teen-age pregnancy, more abortions, more out-of-wedlock births, more abused women and more sexually transmitted diseases. These problems are increasing with each generation.
Planned Parenthood is still making huge profits from the “Negro Project.” Seventy-eight percent of Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are located in black neighborhoods and black women undergo 35% of the U.S. abortions while only comprising 12% of the population.
For the good of all people, the effects of the “Negro Project,” Planned Parenthood and the contraceptive approach to life must be reversed. As you mentioned in the June 30 issue, recently, the National Black Catholic Apostolate for Life and the National Right to Life's Black Americans for Life have teamed to inform the black community about the horrors of abortion and the disproportionate number of abortions being inflicted on black women.
A major development that has contraceptive/abortion promoters squealing is President Bush's emphasis on abstinence education. They say it is an “unproven” approach, but there are many examples of very successful abstinence programs. Since the government started emphasizing abstinence, the number of teens remaining virgins has increased by 19%.
The foregoing activities will make a big dent in Planned Parenthood's profits and activities. However, we need to continue to ask God to make these initiatives successful. If people will add the spiritual adoption prayer to their daily prayers, it will help a great deal: “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of the unborn baby I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion.”
JOHN NAUGHTON
Silver Spring, Maryland
Getting Raphael Right
Greetings! Regarding “(Photo) Credit Where It's Due” (Letters, July 28-Aug. 3):
Staying in the “correction” mode, I don't think the central mural depicts the Ascension (as the writer says), but the Transfiguration by Raphael. The original is in the Vatican Museums, a (mosaic) copy – very famous – in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Keep up the good work. Blessings on you!
FATHER LOU KRAUTH
Great Falls, Montana
The writer is pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish.
And Again
In response to “(Photo) Credit Where It's Due” (July 28-Aug 3): Having been a free-lance photojournalist, I can understand the surprise of Mr. Craven when Father Klores and parishioners recognized his photo of their beloved St. Patrick's in New Orleans without reference to its name or location (or the photographer).
But, in the Christian spirit of forgiveness, let us also recognize that the central mural is not a depiction of the Ascension, as stated by Mr. Craven, but of the Transfiguration by Raphael. Onward and upward.
JOHN PATRICK PIÉ
Laurium, Michigan
Execution Exceptions
I really appreciate your publishing the exact quotation of our Holy Father's statement from The Gospel of Life (“Dissenting From Scalia – Again,” Letters, July 14-20). In its absence we often hear opinions and interpretations reflecting people's opinions and interpretations. If we Catholics are ever to form correct consciences on this issue it is essential that teachers of the faith stop contradicting each other. There can be no doubt that the Pope teaches that reverence for life applies to each and every person at all stages of life.
However, I believe honesty demands acknowledgement that the Pope did not reject traditional teaching that, given the proper criteria, governments have the authority to execute certain individuals. The Pope says that, given modern conditions, the need for executions is rare, if not practically nonexistent. If his position allowed no exceptions, what would happen to the Church's tradition allowing taking life in self defense or just war?
But the fact is he did not state a position allowing no exceptions. If he did, he would have to say something like: “Given that today's governments can absolutely guarantee that further crimes will be prevented, execution is never justified.” He did not say that. In practical terms (at least under U.S. law), he leaves it to a jury to determine whether, in a particular case, execution is absolutely necessary to prevent further crimes, however rare that possibility might be.
Cardinal John O'Connor personally wrote an editorial defending people who thought that execution could be justified in an individual case. He said people who accused them of not being pro-life were misinterpreting the Church's teaching and were being uncharitable.
If I were on a jury and was convinced by the facts that a properly convicted murderer would be a very serious threat to the lives of prison guards, I would have no difficulty voting for the death penalty. On the other hand, I thought that the execution of Timothy McVeigh was unjustified according to the Pope's guidelines.
JOSEPH GALLAGHER
Bakerfield, California
Wingless Flight of Fancy
Regarding “Under God's Wings” (Letters, Aug. 4-10): The letter-writer refers to the story of the dead mother bird sheltering her chicks from the Yellowstone fires. The letter, however, is lifted from an old Internet rumor. The link below demonstrates both that the letter is derived from the Internet rumor, almost word-for-word, and that the rumor is false.
While the image of God's protective wings is indeed beautiful, it is, in this case, based not on fact but on urban legend. Go to www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/motherbird.htm.
JOE SCHWENINGER
Dublin, Ohio
Atomic Echoes
Thank you for your interview with Sister Lucia Akie Aratani (“A Bright Light in Hiroshima,” Inperson, Aug. 11-17).
Aug. 9 is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Ground zero in Nagasaki was the persecuted, but still largest, Christian community in the Orient – wiped out in a few seconds. Also, with macabre irony, the United States wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki and set a dangerous precedent for “total war” and the survival of humanity. Though no other country or group has used nuclear weapons yet, civilian casualties were 5% in World War I, 50% in World War II, and have been 90% of 45 million casualties in wars since 1945. Also, as U.S. military leaders of World War II and Steve Benson have pointed out, a clearer and earlier proposition of American willingness to retain the emperor would have produced an earlier and less tragic end to the war.
My friend and spiritual mentor, Lutheran minister John Peterson, was wounded in the Pacific during World War II. He thought the mass bombing of civilians undercut the moral basis for his sacrifice.
ROLAND JAMES Phoenix
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Voice of the Unfaithful? New Group's True Colors DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Beware a new group called Voice of the Faithful. It isn't what it claims to be.
More than 4,000 Catholics from 35 states and seven countries met in Boston on July 20 for the first national conference of the lay reform organization formed in response to the clergy-abuse scandals.
What did they achieve?
Perhaps their most conspicuous accomplishment was declaring that, contrary to Pope John Paul II's assessment, the root cause of the crisis is the hierarchical structure of the Church. (When he met with the American cardinals in Rome last April, the Holy Father cited dissent from the moral teaching of the Church as the main source of the scandals.)
As Voice of the Faithful sees it, to overcome the current crisis, what is needed is a church that is governed in line with lay consensus.
To make the Church a more democratic organization, Voice of the Faithful wants the laity to have a decisive say in the appointments of priests and bishops. The laity, says the group, ought to have the right to review appointment decisions made by bishops; Church governance must be overseen by egalitarian “building” processes that give everyone a chance to weigh in.
As an immediate, practical measure, Voice of the Faithful will begin grading bishops on a number of issues and post their report cards on the Internet.
Most Catholics believe that reform is needed if the Church is to regain her credibility. I agree. But will a lay-governed Church bring true reform? Is Voice of the Faithful promoting an effective solution?
No. The notion of a lay-governed Church completely sidesteps both the ABCs of Catholic ecclesiology and a genuinely Catholic understanding of the Church. If authentic and lasting reform is to happen within the Catholic Church, certain basic truths regarding its very nature need to remain intact.
For instance, the truth that Jesus Christ founded the Church and instituted a hierarchical structure by calling 12 apostles to continue his work of salvation – along with their successors, the bishops – needs to be upheld. Why? Because our Lord set up the Church this way. Many reform lay groups like Voice of the Faithful would argue that a hierarchical church contradicts the teaching and spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Vatican II clearly states the exact opposite:
“[T]his Council is resolved to declare and proclaim before all men the doctrine concerning bishops, the successors of the apostles, who together with the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the visible Head of the whole Church, govern the house of the living God” (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, No. 18).
God does not call us to success. He calls us to fidelity.
Many critics contend that the current dilemma rocking the Church proves that a hierarchical Church is far from perfect. If it doesn't work well, they maintain, why keep it? This line of reasoning raises another fundamental truth about the Church: Our Lord founded a church that is both divine and human.
She is divine because her founder sustains her and guides her through his Holy Spirit. She is holy in her formal elements, such as the sacraments she imparts, the Word of God she proclaims and the sacred doctrine she teaches. Yet she is also human because her members are humans. The fact that our Lord instituted a hierarchical Church will not shield our bishops and priests from falling into sin or making errors of judgment in church governance.
Of course, the same may be said of the laity. But his doesn't mean that Christians should resign themselves to spiritual mediocrity. On the contrary, Christ calls everyone in his Church to a life of holiness. The immense number of saints in the Church confirms that holiness is within our reach. The Catechism expresses well the reality of the divine and human nature of the Church:
“The Church is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities, zealous in action and dedicated to contemplation, present in the world, but as a pilgrim, so constituted that in her the human is directed toward and subordinated to the divine, the visible to the invisible, action to contemplation, and the present world to that city yet to come, the object of our quest” (Catechism, No. 771).
What can we do to reform the Church of Christ that we love? All of us, clergy and laity alike, must make a daily commitment to live with faith and love what Jesus Christ teaches us, through his Church, on faith and morals.
Fidelity to the truths of our Catholic faith is the most perfect expression of our love for Jesus Christ. Mother Teresa of Calcutta seemed to understand the power behind this principle quite well when she said: “God did not put me on earth to be successful. He put me here to be faithful.”
If we live the truth of our faith, our very lives will engender continuous, authentic reform: God's reform, not ours.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Studies in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Mcnair Lc -------- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: Toronto's Top Untold Story: Confessions Bonanza DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:You would have to be made of stone not to have been moved by the reactions of so many young people to the transparent holiness of Pope John Paul II.
Like many Catholics, my wife Mary and I watched much of the coverage of World Youth Day 2002 from Toronto on EWTN. I can only compare the experience – witnessing such an overwhelming outpouring of respect and affection by the young for the old – to an opportunity I had in 1987 to cover Mother Teresa while she visited three Massachusetts prisons. At the women's prison in Framingham, the inmates stood on chairs, whistled and cheered wildly. The noise was deafening. It was exhilarating.
They see the reflection of God in Mother Teresa, I thought to myself at the time. It was a powerful moment. I knew I had been blessed just to be there.
At World Youth Day, the youth of the world, and we who watched on TV, saw that same reflection of God in the Holy Father. God the Holy Spirit, and he alone, could have caused such a reaction – just as he had years earlier when Mother Teresa visited inmates in prison.
But the youthful enthusiasm for the Pope was only a small part of the story. One of the most affecting bits of information to come out of Toronto was the news that more than 1,000 priests were hearing confessions. That announcement caused me to reflect.
What has happened to confession, the great sacrament of reconciliation? Communion lines stretch to the back of the church each Sunday – but, come Saturday afternoon at most parishes, there's hardly a penitent in sight.
Many Catholics who rarely or never miss Sunday Mass don't even bother to fulfill their Easter duty with the sacrament of reconciliation. Why is this so?
The reasons are many and too complex to mention here. However, at the top of the list is the lost sense of sin. Our consciences have become dull.
When I was growing up, on Saturday afternoon you stopped what you were doing and went to confession. And I mean most every Saturday.
By the time you sat down to the evening meal of hot dogs, baked beans and fresh white bread – French or Italian: soft on the inside, crusty on the outside – you expected to be asked: “Did you go to confession this afternoon?”
If you answered no, you were scolded and you made sure you went to confession the following Saturday.
The late Jesuit Father John Walsh, a marvelous priest, once asked, “What has happened to the wonder and mystery of the sacrament? Some of that has been lost.”
Even when I was a boy, I knew I was not confessing my sins to a priest, that I confessed them to Christ himself, who mercifully forgave me.
In those days, long lines gave you plenty of time to examine your conscience. When it was your turn to enter the box, you pulled back the curtain and entered a dark confessional. As you knelt, shifting your weight from one knee to the other, the world became not just quiet, but silent. You pressed your nose against the confessional screen and organized your sins in your mind. The anticipation made you nervous, sweaty, even breathless.
After receiving the sacrament and saying your penance, you felt as clean as a whistle. Your sins had been washed away.
Nothing, then or now, equals that feeling. When I was a boy, I remember feeling so joyful that I skipped down the front steps of the church.
As I grew older, particularly after the loss of innocence, going to confession became more difficult. Some sin had become serious matter. It took more courage to go to confession and it demanded more faith. Yet that feeling of being washed sparkling clean – of being made new – is just as real today as it was the day I made my first confession, a few days before my first holy Communion.
As I matured, I learned more about the sacrament, particularly its power of healing. We all need the forgiveness of the sacrament and we all need to be healed; we all need to break patterns and to avoid occasions of sin. I once heard a wise nun say that “conversions happen in a moment but last a lifetime.”
The sacrament of penance or reconciliation, which many of us learned to call simply “confession,” is a priceless gift. A jewel. Why would anyone deny himself such a treasure?
I don't know, but a huge number of young people didn't deny themselves the treasure in Toronto. Thanks largely to their enthusiastic embrace of confession, World Youth Day 2002 was a transcendently joyful event. It lifted up the entire universal Church.
At the beginning of a new millennium, with a new springtime of Christianity coming into bloom (despite the tunnelvision some have for focusing only on the weeds), it may well be the young who show all of us the way back to the confessional.
Wally Carew, author of Men of Spirit, Men of Sports (Ambassador, 1999), writes from Medford, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:The first time I heard the Chaplet of Divine Mercy recited, I thought it was the poor man's rosary. The devotion uses rosary beads, yet takes only a third of the time to recite, I thought. Taking more of a worldly than a spiritual perspective, I feared that the chaplet would wean people away from the rosary because it seemed so much easier to say.
That was more than 10 years ago. Today, I rejoice in the recent announcement that Pope John Paul II has attached a plenary indulgence to the Divine Mercy devotion on the Sunday after Easter, which he designated a few years ago as Divine Mercy Sunday. In so doing, the Pope simply formalized what the devotion declares – Jesus offers each one of us an ocean of mercy to wash away our sins and any temporal punishment due to our sins. He is all mercy.
What changed my mind about this popular devotion? God's mercy.
When I first heard the chaplet, the person leading the recitation said the words in rapid-fire fashion with apparently little thought to the profound meaning of the f e w simple words. It took me a while before I could understand what was being said. “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
A short time later, I heard the chaplet recited in song and was captivated. The words were melodic and meditative. “Eternal Father, we offer thee the body and blood, soul and divinity, of thy dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world.” I realized that just as the rosary can be done poorly, so can this devotion. But God calls us to do it prayerfully and thoughtfully. I learned later that even when simply recited, the chaplet is beautiful and true.
The Spiritual Life
After the sung chaplet, the leader gave me a booklet on the writings of St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun who received private revelations from Jesus and instructions for the Divine Mercy image of Our Lord with rays of mercy beaming from his heart. As I read the booklet, I encountered another crisis. “Mercy, mercy, mercy,” I thought. “Isn't this watering down Jesus as judge at the end of time?” I had a lesson to learn.
Some time later I attended a conference on Divine Mercy. Although I had been reciting the chaplet on occasion, I still had nagging doubts about “mercy, mercy, mercy.” While praying the chaplet at the conference, I became acutely aware of my need for mercy. I broke down before God and said, “I have nothing to give you but my ‘yes.’” Then I thought: That is all Mary had at the Annunciation. Suddenly, the message of the rosary and the message of the chaplet merged in my mind. Mary's “fiat” contains the whole message of the chaplet. “Let it be done to me according to Thy Word” ... “I offer Thee the body and blood, soul and divinity of Thy dearly beloved Son, my Lord Jesus Christ.” In atonement for the sins of the whole world.
The rosary and the chaplet come from the same Word of God, who is mercy. I will humbly take part in the Divine Mercy devotions on the Sunday after Easter, seeking God's indulgence.
Brian Caulfield writes from West Haven, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield -------- KEYWORDS: Sprit & Life -------- TITLE: The Queen of New Jersey DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Decades before the beautiful parish church of the Immaculate Conception was named the cathedral of the new Diocese of Camden in 1937, it was already being hailed as one of the finest small pieces of Gothic architecture in the United States.
That didn't surprise me after I tooled over the Ben Franklin Bridge and arrived at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in the city's busy downtown, a 15-minute hop from midtown Philadelphia. The description became especially clear once I found out that the architect for this church, dedicated at the first Mass on July 26, 1866, was Jeremiah O'Rourke – celebrated designer of the original Castle of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
What struck me dozens of times more, however, was that the architect later played a role in planning the magnificent Sacred Heart Cathedral, one of the largest in the United States, in Newark. I discovered another important link relating to these cities at the very start. In 1855, even before anyone thought of building this church, the first pastor for the brand-new parish of Camden was appointed by the very first bishop of Newark – James Roosevelt Bayley, a relative to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Despite the anti-Catholicism rampant in Camden at the time, one of the early pastors was able to buy the choice land the church stands on before any government official realized what had happened.
Sometimes we have to be reminded of simple, almost obvious details. One of them is how the church came to be named in honor of Mary as the Immaculate Conception. First, that Marian dogma was fresh from its official proclamation. Next, the parishioners, most all of whom came from Ireland, were devoted to the Blessed Mother. Even if we didn't learn that from talking to someone or reading a book on the cathedral, we surely could figure it out from the dedication inscriptions on some of the stained-glass windows and from some of the choices of saints – Kiernan, Malachy, Lawrence O'Toole – to honor along with Charles Borromeo, John Chrysostom and Mary Magdalene in clerestory windows.
And did I mention that an important Marian feast day is upon us this week? Aug. 22 is the day we celebrate the Blessed Mother's queenship.
Blessed Brownstone
As was the case with many parish churches back then, the parishioners volunteered to dig the foundations after they had already labored hard all day at their regular jobs. In all, it took two years to finish the basic structure for the dedication.
The cathedral's formal 19th-century Trenton brownstone exterior and its location on a busy downtown street corner really help it stand out in the surrounding neighborhood. The brownstone is a pleasing, lighter earth-toned shade of stone than what most of us normally expect when we hear the basic description of the material.
With its red doors framed in Gothic arches and its offset tall stone belltower (added in 1885), the cathedral stands out like a venerable patriarch from the plain concrete and steel of the office buildings in its urban neighborhood.
There's even more character inside the cathedral. The Gothic details and bright paintwork give the interior a delicate look. The Gothic arches, supported by simple columns with ringed capitals, gracefully punctuate the length of the nave, separating the main body from the side aisles. The arches' shades of white with single bright gold trimwork blends beautifully with the golden yellow walls.
‘With its red doors framed in Gothic arches and its offset tall stone belltower, the cathedral stands out like a venerable patriarch.’
The 12 crosses along the walls, along with the candles below them, comprise a sign telling us this is a consecrated church. Actually, as a parish church it was formally and appropriately consecrated in the month of Our Blessed Mother on May 27, 1893. Then, 45 years later – on another May 27, 1938 – Camden was named a diocese and the Immaculate Conception Church was officially dedicated as its cathedral.
Since the cathedral started out as a parish church, the excellent proportions of the Gothic design don't add up to an enormous size. The 60-foot width of the cathedral leaves visitors with good “closeups” of the stories in the stained-glass windows.
Those “in the know” think the quintet of tall, narrow lancet windows behind the altar were put in at the very start as the church was being built. Why? Because they're excellent quality domestic glass, not the imported stained-glass windows brought in later. The center window of these five honors Mary as the Immaculate Conception.
All the other brilliant stained-glass windows filling the nave were later imported from the Meyer Studio in Munich, Germany, during a golden era of stained-glass production there. I always find it a great joy to study the scenes, the colors, the minute detailing in these windows from the great studios of Germany. The delicate depiction of the halos, for example, and the ways the angels are portrayed become a few of the hallmarks for this museum-quality artistry in glass.
But even more of a joy – and something I never fail to wish I had more time to do on my visits – is to meditate on the parables or miracles or virtues they put before us. They're truly catechisms in art.
Along one side of the nave, the windows concentrate on Mary. On the other side, they focus on Jesus and his miracles. Some have both mother and son, like the beautifully depicted in the Wedding at Cana miracle that appeared to me like a master painting. Or like the stunning visit of the Magi that's highlighted by bright gold tones and enclosed by white Gothic window frames.
The Munich treatment of the angels is clear in a window capturing the scene of St. Dominic receiving the rosary from the Baby Jesus, who rests on Mary's lap.
Speaking of different windows, in the back there are two – St. Patrick, recalling the roots of the church's founding parishioners, and the landing of Columbus in America that's spectacular in the variety of colored glass in it. Both are a bit harder to spot because the choir loft has been extended over the years.
The organ in the loft, by the way, presents a pretty picture of golden pipes, like unusual jewelry within the white casing. I didn't hear it play, but it surely must sound magnificent because it's a 1926 Casavant Freres, recently rebuilt, and the cathedral is said to have nearly perfect acoustics.
The rose window above it has a small rose in the center, and the lovely blue glass contains a rosary. I was able to talk to a 50-year parishioner named Orville Beckord, who told me the time to see the window was at 4 p.m. on a sunny day.
The major renovation in 1957 brought in new flooring, statues, pews, woodwork and altar. In the mid-1980s, the 17th-century painting of “The Entombment of Christ” by Bolognese artist Guido Reni was donated to the diocese. It now appears over the sanctuary arch.
A decade before, in the mid'70s, the cathedral opened a soup kitchen to take care of Camden's poor. Whether it's the city's poor or the one-time visitor, the historic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception nourishes both bodies and souls.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Camden, N.J. ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In Search of the Midas Re-Touch DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Franchise films now dominate cinemas – and toy stores
The stock market tanks. Personal bankruptcies are on the rise.
Yet Hollywood is doing better than ever – this summer's release schedule will probably be the most profitable in history.
It's not an unfamiliar pattern. Ever since the Great Depression, people have flocked to the movies when times are tough to forget their troubles. But this summer's blockbuster hits also underline certain trends that have come to dominate contemporary popular culture.
First of all, marketing rules. An entertaining story with popular stars is often no longer enough. Nowadays a mass-entertainment product needs a hook to cut through the clutter. And brand-name recognition has become the name of the game.
Most of the major releases this summer are spin-offs of existing franchises – either sequels (The Sum of All Fears, Star Wars: Episode II, Men in Black II, Spy Kids 2, Stuart Little 2 and so on) and remakes (Mr. Deeds) or feature-film versions of TV shows (Scooby-Doo, The Power Puff Girls and Hey Arnold) and comic strips (Spider-Man). The number of “franchise films” released this summer is extraordinary even by Hollywood's standards.
A typical example is the current hit Austin Powers in Goldmember, which is on track to rake in more bucks than its two predecessors. The lead character, played by Saturday Night Live alumnus Mike Myers (Wayne's World), is a humorous cross between the two British superspies James Bond and Harry Palmer (The Ipcress File), and its complicated plot is a clever send-up of the kinds of predicaments these 1960s movie heroes used to find themselves in. Most of the laughs depend on similar pop-culture references. It's pure, shallow escapism.
The film's best sequence is the celebrity-filled opening that makes fun of the Austin Powers franchise itself. From there on, it's downhill. Director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) and co-writers Myers and Michael McCullers recycle the colorful characters from the previous Powers movies with little imagination.
Austin's main nemesis is still the pinkie-waving Dr. Evil (Myers), who's assisted by his rebellious son Scott (Seth Green) and the midget-sized clone Mini-Me (Verne J. Troyers).
The suave Basil Exposition (Michael York) also returns as Austin's spy agency boss, and Myers does his shtick as the Japanese wrestler with the Scottish accent until it's no longer funny.
The new characters, who propel what passes for a story, are somewhat more inventive. Austin must save the life of his swinger father Nigel (Michael Caine, star of The Ipcress File) who always neglected him. This legendary 1960s spy is menaced by the freckled, Dutch, criminal mastermind, Goldmember (Myers), a roller-skating caricature of the most famous James Bond villain, Goldfinger. Austin's ally in this mission is the tough, two-fisted Foxxy Cleopatra (Beyonce Knowles), who looks like she stepped out of a 1970s blaxploitation film (Coffy, Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones).
The movie unfolds like a series of thinly strung together Saturday Night Live sketches. Whenever the film-makers run out of comic ideas, they try to plug in the gaps with bathroom humor characterized by gross-out gags and dialogue too raucous even for late-night TV. It's hard to believe the movie's rating is PG-13. Even five years ago it would have gotten an R. However, many parents don't seem too mind, judging from the large number of kids under 12 at the screening I attended.
Goldmember is the kind of easy-to-market product that 21st-century audiences seem to crave. Understandably, many film buffs are unhappy with this trend. For a brief period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, it's perceived that Hollywood allowed a generation of filmmakers to flourish who used mass entertainment to make personal statements (Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and others). This era is considered to have been killed by the franchise “event” films of George Lucas (Star Wars) Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones) and James Cameron (Terminator). For that mindset, the summer of 2002 is the final nail in the coffin.
But issues other than box office versus artistic freedom are in play. The saturation of the movie market by these franchise/event films marks a further evolution in the relationship of movies to the larger culture.
These brand-name films are also designed to spin off other products. (For example, Warner Bros. only gave the go-ahead to Scooby-Doo when it learned that it could net more than $30 million in profits from stuffed animals and coloring books alone.) Merchandising tie-ins have become one of the primary engines driving Hollywood production.
Lucas often speaks of recreating the archetypes of ancient mythology in his movies. But now these archetypes must be able to connect with contemporary audiences on a wider range of platforms than just movies.
A whole generation of filmgoers is growing up expecting to find tokens of favorite films reproduced in other outlets. When kids walk into a toy store, they assume they will be able to by Star Wars “light sabers” or Spider-Man backpacks. In video arcades they want to play games modeled on Jurassic Park. A movie that doesn't generate these spin-offs may be unsatisfying to them.
It's easy to condemn this trend as consumerism carried to excess, but not all the news is bad: Not every franchise film is like Goldmember. Hollywood is also producing more family-friendly films than a decade ago. It's just a different marketing niche.
In any case, the success of this summer's brand-name films indicates that we're entering a “brave, new world” of some sort. For better or for worse, the only thing certain is that some of the old cultural rules no longer apply.
John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Frontline: In Search of bin Laden (2001)
Is he alive or dead? Frontline: In Search of bin Laden doesn't take a position. But producer-host Bill Moyers does offer background and an insightful analysis of the al Qaeda leader's life and motives. A timely update of a 1999 PBS special, this feature-length documentary chronicles how the son of a wealthy Saudi businessman worked with the Afghan jihad against the Soviets and then returned to his homeland to organize the overthrow of his government because of its ties to his former ally, the United States. This leads to the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa and fatwahs calling for the murder of Americans.
Moyers adds new material about bin Laden's role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole as well as interviews with reporter Judith Miller and former State Department counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson. The film is an excellent primer on the events and cultural influences that led up to Sept. 11.
Legend(1985)
Certain movies find a different audience than the one its producers intend. Legend, a cross between The Lord of the Rings and a Grimm's fairy tale, was originally marketed to sophisticated adults but has now become a cult film for young girls. In a time before recorded history, the Lord of Darkness (Tim Curry) wishes to rule the world and sends his ugliest goblin (Cort Hub-bert) into the forest to destroy the two remaining unicorns because they contain within them a positive force.
One of the creatures is killed and its horn taken to the underworld. The world then becomes a dark, frozen place where evil reigns. To save it, Jack (Tom Cruise), a forest dweller, must descend into the underworld, destroy the Lord of Darkness and rescue Lily (Mia Sara), a royal princess. More important than the plot is the imaginative vision created by director Ridley Scott. Although the film's cosmology isn't Christian, there's nothing to offend the faithful.
Woman of the Year (1942)
When people say “Hollywood doesn't make them like that anymore,” one of the genres they're referring to is the sophisticated romantic comedy that explores the difficulties of marriage and winds up celebrating the institution. Woman of the Year, directed by George Stevens (Giant) and written by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin, examines a couple's ups and downs in the months before America's entrance into World War II. Political columnist Tess Harding (Katherine Hepburn) is so involved in her antifascist causes that she publicly ridicules anyone who has time for frivolous pastimes like baseball. When her paper's sports columnist, Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy), defends the game in print, the two journalists lock horns in a publicized media squabble. Eventually, they meet, fall in love and marry.
The same issues surface as they try to settle down into domestic bliss. Sam believes that family should come first, but Tess refuses to drop any of her political commitments, and they have to work it out. The dialogue is witty, polished and surprisingly contemporary.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Ukrainian University: A Sign the Catacombs Are Left Behind DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:LVIV, Ukraine – A year after John Paul II's historic visit to this country, the Ukrainian Catholic University was inaugurated on June 29.
The rector of the university is Father Borys Gudziak. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1960, he studied theology in Rome in the circle of then Patriarch Josyf Slipyj, who was head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church until 1984.
Father Gudziak earned a doctorate in Slavic and Byzantine cultural history from Harvard University in 1992 and then took up permanent residence in Ukraine and founded the Institute of Church History in Lviv, which was created to document the unwritten history of the Soviet persecution of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
The following is a Zenit interview with Father Gudziak.
What will the new university mean for Ukrainian Catholics and Eastern Catholics in general?
First of all, the new university means that Ukrainian Catholics will not need to leave their country to study theology and similar disciplines. They can study in their homeland, in their own language and in an institution of their own ecclesiastical tradition, not of the Roman rite or with Protestants or other affiliations.
The university is part of the educational reform movement in Ukraine, an effort to leave behind the abuses of the communist past, bribery and corruption. We are introducing the best international models of education, combining research and teaching, and emphasizing academic honesty.
The university is proof of the maturity of the Church in Ukraine, its readiness to give competent answers to the challenges posed by contemporary postmodern society and scholarly life. In a country where half of the population is, in fact, unchurched, the UCU will do its part in the Church's mission of evangelization in the heart of society and in the halls of culture.
It will enrich academic discourse with the perspective of the Gospel, proclaiming the ethic of service to humanity in the scholarly and educational sphere.
The UCU has the fasting-growing university library in Ukraine, with the country's largest collection of theology texts. The library and the new university's publishing house are important resources for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and we hope they will be examples for the other Eastern Catholic churches.
The Ukrainian Catholic University is a clear sign that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has come out of the catacombs and, thanks to the efforts of those who suffered decades of persecution, it has the freedom finally to focus on the education and upbringing of its youth.
Have the Orthodox been supportive of the new university? Will the school help ecumenical relations and, if so, how?
The UCU is open to Catholics and to members of the other Christian denominations of Ukraine who are interested in studying and experiencing the intellectual and spiritual riches of Kievan Christianity. We have students and staff of various Christian traditions – Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant. We have a Jewish instructor who teaches classical Hebrew.
Our Catechetical-Pedagogical Institute trains Orthodox and Catholics alike so they can teach catechism in parishes or civic and ethics courses in Ukraine's public schools.
Wide intellectual circles, including many noted scholars of the Orthodox faith, support the university.
The focus of academic activity will be Eastern Christianity, and this means common sources, methods of theologizing, a common spirituality. That is to say, a common context unites us with the Orthodox churches.
In the greeting that he sent for the UCU's inauguration, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople blessed our endeavor, which he called a “noble action for the promotion of knowledge, peace and spiritual communion.” We are very grateful for the confidence placed in us by the highest Orthodox authority and we pray that the Ukrainian Catholic University will be worthy of it.
Will the university give Eastern spirituality and thought more weight in the West? How so?
Because of political circumstances that have handicapped Eastern Christianity, from the fall of Constantinople to the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Eastern Churches have fewer schools of higher education than the Churches of the Western tradition. The liberation of Eastern Europe has brought with it a new renaissance. Our goal is that, in 10 years, the UCU will be a preeminent institution of Eastern Christian thought.
One reason that Eastern spirituality lacks “weight” is because it is not the subject of research and study. We intend to change that situation. For example: Eight of our students are now doing graduate work in Greek patristics and Byzantine studies. When they return to teach here, we hope the UCU will become a prominent center of Byzantine studies of international importance.
Professor Ihor Sevcenko of Harvard University has pledged his 15,000-volume Byzantine collection, which could make the UCU library the biggest repository of literature on Byzantium in Eastern Europe.
A spiritual identity is a response to certain spiritual experiences, one's own and that of others. The spirituality of the West in its best examples was formed not in opposition to Eastern spirituality but in dialogue with it, and vice versa.
By studying, helping to develop and revealing before a greater world the priceless treasures of Eastern Christianity, the UCU hopes to make its contribution to the international ecumenical and cultural dialogue between the Christian East and West. For the fullness of life, East and West need each other. They need vital and open communication, preserving the awareness of otherness while at the same time maintaining the awareness of the need for the other. The UCU is striving to become a place for this kind of communication.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Youth, Faith and the Counterrevolution Chronicles DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:THE NEW FAITHFUL: WHY YOUNG ADULTS ARE
EMBRACING CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY
by Colleen CarrollLoyola Press, 2002 303 pages, $19.95
The pendulum certainly has swung since the late 1960s, when course requirements and curfews were being abolished on American campuses. Today statistics show that young adults are likely to be more serious about traditional religious beliefs than their parents.
Colleen Carroll, a 28-year-old journalist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has started to chronicle the counterrevolution. Thanks to a fellowship from the Phillips Foundation in Maryland, she was able to spend a sabbatical year interviewing dozens of religious leaders, sociologists, youth ministers and college professors about the current movement of the young toward orthodox Christianity. On her travels to major U.S. cities, she also spoke to hundreds of her peers – members of “Generation X.”
In the book that resulted, verbal snapshots of earnest young believers, at worship or in the workplace, living in Christian communities or in coed dorms, alternate with passages describing social trends and seeking to determine motivating factors.
The author writes that her purpose was to write “a coherent explanation of this draw towards organized religion and traditional morality that gives credence to sociological explanations but refuses to stop there ... [and] an extensive account of this phenomenon that allows young adults themselves to explain what experiences led them to a place many never intended to go, and to envision where they want to go from here.”
Carroll reports the story with commendable objectivity and optimism. She does not conceal her own Catholic faith – in fact, the book begins with a description of eucharistic adoration at Catholic University of America. Yet she has defined her topic broadly enough to investigate the stirrings of renewal in evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations as well.
It is often said that the children of the baby boomers are “searching for structure” in their lives. Carroll's book is skillfully designed to challenge even skeptical readers to explore deeper reasons for that search, reasons rooted in human nature itself. From snippets of personal testimony offered by attractive and talented young people in unlikely places (a Dominican novitiate, a full-time volunteer program in the inner city), a “big picture” begins to emerge. In later chapters, specific issues such as “fellowship,” “sexuality and family” and “politics” come into sharp focus.
Despite the many obstacles they face, young believers today are trying to bring their faith to bear upon their life in the classroom, at home and on the job. One undergraduate woman explained why she left the evangelical enclave where she was brought up in order to attend a secular college: “We'll never be salt and light if we are all huddling together. We're supposed to be influencing the world.”
The new trend toward orthodoxy also holds bright promise for ecumenism. One former Presbyterian considers himself “a ‘mere Christian’ open to Catholicism. The areas where we agree are so vast compared to the areas of disagreement. Our differences seem small compared to the assault of the [secular-] humanist worldview.”
The conflicts that occur within the Catholic Church between young truth-seekers and aging “revolutionaries” are portrayed gently and with humor. Several of the Catholics interviewed by Carroll mention the Catechism of the Catholic Church and World Youth Days as their inspirations.
The trend of young people moving toward traditional religious beliefs and practices is not just an “equal and opposite reaction,” as though generations of human beings in society obeyed Newtonian laws. In her book-length investigation, Carroll helps the reader to discern how the Holy Spirit is moving in American society.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ------- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller -------- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Catholic Choice
He argued that suburban schools were not interested in Cleveland's students because “vouchers would not nearly cover the expense” incurred, and nonreligious private schools were not interested in a stipend that failed to cover their tuition.
Staples, who is black, favors vouchers “in failing schools” as a lifeboat with limited seats that at least allows “some students to bail out of schools that are killing their futures.”
Editor Departs
COLLEGIATE NETWORK, Aug. 2 – Robert Swope, the controversial editor of Georgetown Academy, an alternative Georgetown University newspaper that championed the Jesuit school's Catholic identity, graduated this spring, according to a report on the Web site that monitors college journalism.
Swope and his newspaper led the movement to remove university funding from GU Choice, a campus pro-abortion club, and brought to a national spotlight the changes in the English curriculum after the department removed Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton from being required reading for English majors.
In perhaps its most noteworthy effort, the newspaper initiated the successful effort to put crucifixes back in the university's classrooms.
Tightest Generation
CHRONICLE.COM, July 30 – Trustees of theological institutions tend to be older than most other college board members and they don't contribute large amounts of money to their institutions, according to a recent survey conducted by the Auburn Theological Seminary.
According to a story on the report on the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education, just 18% of theological trustees say their institution is their highest priority in giving. In the last five years, trustee donations never surpassed, on average, more than 10% of their institution's revenue.
Fifty-two percent of the trustees are over 60 and a plurality of theological trustees – 42% – are religious professionals. The report is available from Auburn by calling (212) 662-4315.
Abortion Survivor
HALES FRANCISCAN HIGH SCHOOL, Aug. 5 – The Web site of the Chicago inner-city school reprinted a Chicago Tribune feature story on the phenomenon of six black Hales students who are supporting Republican and pro-life candidates in this fall's gubernatorial election.
One of them, Haamid Johnson, 17, “who is adopted, said his biological mother considered aborting him until his ‘ultra-Catholic’ grandmother talked her out of it,” reported the Tribune. “He feels strongly about being a Catholic and against abortion.”
Johnson told the newspaper: “Being pro-life means more to me than party affiliation.”
Largest Gift
ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY, Aug. 5 – The Franciscans' upstate New York university plans to build a new, $5 million campus recreation center that is expected to open by autumn 2004. The center has been made possible by a $3 million gift specifically for this purpose from alumnus William Richter. It is the largest single gift in the university's history.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Best of (Mass) Intentions DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Amy Dixon of Peoria, Ill., was 31 years old when sorrow introduced her to a longstanding, though sometimes misunderstood, practice in the Catholic Church.
Seven years ago, on Dixon's birthday, her youngest brother died at age 28 in a work-related accident. Her mother died the following year.
The family's grief was profound, but when Dixon received cards saying that people were having Masses said for her mom and brother, she experienced a deep consolation.
“I was overwhelmed,” Dixon says. “It wasn't even like immediate family and friends. Some friendships were not even that close and people were having Masses said. They were people I didn't necessarily know that well, but my mom knew them, or Joey did.”
Dixon, a lifelong Catholic, began having Masses offered for her mom and brother and, over time, has made the gift of a Mass for the living as well as the dead a regular and meaningful part of her own life.
“It's filling a need to do something special for them, directly to the Lord,” Dixon says.
For some Catholics – and even some non-Catholics – the popular practice remains a mystery. What does it really mean to have a Mass said for someone, and how is it done? When did it begin? And if a monetary offering is given in exchange for the Mass, isn't that simony?
To begin with, there is no better way to pray for someone than in the Mass, according to Dominican Father Vincent Serpa, chaplain for Catholic Answers in San Diego.
“The Mass is the same sacrifice as the sacrifice on Calvary,” Father Serpa explains. “It is brought down through history into our very lives, so that whatever we are praying for is united with the prayer of Christ to the Father. It is the most perfect prayer.”
When a person requests a Mass, he or she gives an offering to pay for the bread and wine used and, as a result, the priest remembers their particular intention, according to Father Serpa.
“This does not rule out any other intention being made at the Mass by those that come to the Mass,” Father Serpa adds. “[But] this assures the person that the priest's primary intention for celebrating the Mass is for the benefit of whatever they've asked. Certainly the Mass is limitless in terms of the effect of the Lord's passion and death.”
The Gift of Grace
The practice of Mass offerings has been continuous since the first centuries of Christianity. In the early Church, the people brought the bread and wine for the Eucharist along with other gifts. What was not needed for the celebration was given to the poor and to support the priest. Over time, monetary offerings replaced the gifts of bread and wine.
To guard against simony, the illicit exchange of temporal goods for spiritual ones, the Church has laws regarding Mass offerings, specifically Canons 945 through 958. They require, for example, that no more than one offering be accepted for any one Mass, that a requested Mass must be said for even a small offering and that, when no offering can be made, priests should offer Mass for the intentions of the faithful, especially those in need.
The revised 1983 Code of Canon Law even prefers the word “offering” to the more common “stipend,” which could imply the Mass is being purchased for a price.
There are two common ways to request a Mass: Ask at a local parish, or ask missionary priests, who depend upon and often solicit financial support to continue their ministry. Also, some Catholic nonprofit organizations invite their supporters to request Masses and, with a priest's agreement, any offerings are given as a donation to the cause.
A parishioner wanting to have a Mass said at his or her parish goes to the parish office to request a date on the Mass calendar and makes a customary offering of $10, $5 or less. Pastors and parish secretaries are careful to explain that a person is not “paying” for a Mass.
“There are times when the people can't afford (the requested) amount of money. The Mass can be offered anyway,” Father Serpa says. “I remember a child who came in with 50 cents. We celebrated the Mass for his mother. That was all he had to give.”
For many parishes, the Mass calendar for the current year is filled before the year is half over, and requests are scheduled for the following year. A smaller parish may have only one daily Mass available; larger parishes may have more Masses but also more requests.
Some parishes and dioceses regularly donate extra Mass stipends to the missions, which may have few other sources of income. Missionaries readily offer Masses, and some provide cards to donors to send to loved ones to let them know that a Mass will be said.
That way of supporting the Church appeals to Olga O'Reilly, a longtime Catholic in Point Pleasant, N.J.
“If [the offering] will help someone else that's not as fortunate perhaps as we are, it's well worth it,” O'Reilly says. “The cards are so beautiful. Somebody has spent a lot of time and energy making these up. I think they should be rewarded for helping me to send a message I was not able to do on my own.”
The Lord's Sacrifice
Dixon of St. Mark parish in Peoria is treasurer of her parish women's club, which has a Mass said for every person in the parish who dies. She also likes to have Masses said as a thank-you gift to friends who have done something special for her.
“People have been [wonderful] to my husband and me,” Dixon says. “We have four children, we both work, but we don't make a lot of money. Saying ‘thank you’ is kind and gracious, but the words don't always seem like enough. Having a Mass said means so much more.”
Intentions and offerings are to be carefully recorded in the church books, and the priest is bound to make the intention when he celebrates the Mass.
Beyond that, the names of those being prayed for may be published in the church bulletin, announced at the beginning of the Mass or announced during the general inter-cessions.
Father Serpa says it does not matter that the priest often does not know the person for whom he is intending the Mass.
“I realize the Lord loves that person more than anybody. I realize the sacrifice I'm offering isn't mine – it's the Lord's sacrifice,” Father Serpa says. “I'm grateful that it doesn't all depend on me.”
For the person making the request, attending the Mass is optional, but it can be special for those who are having the Mass said for a deceased loved one.
O'Reilly attends the Masses she requests on the anniversary of her husband's death. “I feel that I kind of keep in contact with him through this Mass,” O'Reilly says.
Indeed, when we participate in the Mass we are united with the mystical body in a very special way, Father Serpa says.
“Bishop [Fulton] Sheen used to speak of the Church as a wheel with spokes, and Christ is the center,” he adds. “The closer we come to Christ, the closer we come to one another.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Can Fun Be Budgeted?
Q. My wife and I are trying to get on a budget and it seems like the entertainment and recreation category seems ripe for reduction. How tight should we go with our belts?
A. When I sit down with a couple to go over their initial budget, entertainment and recreation is a category that almost always receives a good deal of attention. We have become a society that demands convenience and leisure. When couples start budgeting, they are frequently surprised at just how much they spend on things like meals out, movies, cable television and vacations.
Let's take meals out as an example. When I ask how much they spend in a month at restaurants, the couple may say $20. Knowing better (based on our counseling experience), I'll ask a few more questions, such as how frequently they eat out (once a week), where they go (pizza), who goes (mom, dad and all the kids), and what the average bill is ($25). Rather than spending $240 in a year, the couple is actually spending more than $1,000 – and that doesn't include dad's periodic lunches at work or the special nights out that mom and dad take away from the children.
Don't get me wrong. It's important to set aside time to relax together as a family, and an appropriate amount of money should be allocated for these activities. But spending needs to be kept in line with available resources or you'll find credit-card debt increasing. We are warned in Proverbs 21:17: “He who loves pleasure will be a poor man; he who loves wine and oil will not be rich.” We can find it hard to cut back on entertainment because society is constantly telling us that we deserve these things even if we can't afford them. Just walk into any bank and you'll see slick advertising encouraging you to take out a loan so you can finally go on that vacation you've been waiting for or buy that boat you've wanted for so long.
Financial Life
One of the things I enjoy when I give a seminar is the interaction between the participants. As we work together to save the Stewart family from financial oblivion, it's fascinating to hear the responses of people from varying backgrounds. Some look at how much the Stewarts are paying for their vacation and suggest they either eliminate this year's plans or greatly simplify them. Others will then cry out, but we need to go to Hawaii for our vacation! We all get a laugh out of the discussion, but the point gets made that it's more important for the Stewarts to get their financial house in order than to have a luxury vacation.
Remember that some of our most enjoyable times as a family occur because we're spending time together, not because we're spending money. Being creative by attending free concerts, park or beach outings, gardening and playing board games – all add to family closeness without breaking the bank. While no guideline works for every family, I would suggest that you start by allocating 3% of your gross income to entertainment and recreation. See how this fits in and adjust accordingly for your own circumstances. God love you!
Phil Lenahan is executive director of Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:Pregnant Students Stay
THE (HARARE) DAILY NEWS, July 31 – The Zimbabwe Supreme Court has ruled that female students and the men who impregnate them cannot be expelled from college for getting pregnant.
The court ruled on the case of a married student at a Christian teachers' training college at which students had been asked to sign a contract stating that, if they became pregnant, they would be expelled. Male students had been asked to sign a contract agreeing to expulsion for getting a woman pregnant. The policy was intended to discourage promiscuity among students, but did not make exceptions for married students.
The new ruling applies to unmarried as well as married couples who become pregnant.
Adult Stem-Cell Success
ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 29 – Stem cells taken from bone marrow can grow new blood vessels in the eyes of mice, a development researchers say raises the chance of treating some diseases that often lead to blindness in humans.
In tests in mice, injected stem cells became incorporated into the eye's structure and formed new blood vessels.
If the process turns out to work in humans, the scientists hope to use it to treat eye diseases affecting the blood vessels in the retina. They include diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.
Right-to-Know Progress
The House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill during this winter's regular session of the Legislature that would have required abortion practitioners to give women certain information 24 hours before an abortion.
A pro-life spokesperson said the issue needs to be dealt with now, not in the regular session beginning in January because, “You have women and girls right now – today – being denied basic medical information that could affect decisions that could affect the rest of their lives.”
Teen Sues Clinic
A pro-life group that lobbied for the law says the abortion facility is flagrantly abusing it.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dr. Dominic Pedulla's Natural Family Heart-Healing DATE: 8/18/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 18-24, 2002 ----- BODY:The clues were everywhere.
From studies showing that oral contraceptives can increase the risk of heart problems to Dr. Dominic Pedulla's own cardiology practice, where many of his female patients complained of tightness in the chest or rapid fluttering of the heart.
Even Pope John Paul II contributed some hints. In several of his encyclicals - The Gospel of Life and The Splendor of Truth among them – the Holy Father wrote about the value of the gift of self and how the use of contraception contradicts the full truth of the sexual act in married love.
Inspired by these clues, Dr. Pedulla began to formulate a theory. What if contraceptive behavior plunged a dagger in the heart of love between a man and a woman so deeply that the woman suffered trauma to her personality, her soul and, ultimately, her heart? During his research, he came across a term called “hostility and cynical distrust,” which the mainstream medical community identified as risk factors in heart disease, especially in females.
In other words, what if contraception caused a woman to become more distrustful, hostile and resentful by the wounding she either subconsciously or consciously felt was caused by her contraceptive behavior?
Prolife Profile “In those days, I realized contraception was wreaking a great deal of havoc in my patients' lives, but I didn't have a medical way of addressing it,” says Pedulla, 41.
The medical way is natural family planning (NFP), which used to be described as the “rhythm method.” Nowadays, NFP is an umbrella term for scientifically proven, modern, reliable and healthy methods of birth regulation. Certified instructors teach couples how to watch a woman's fertile signs – body temperature, cervical mucus and cervical changes – which indicate the times she can and cannot become pregnant.
The dysfunction Pedulla was witnessing led him to fully integrate NFP within his Oklahoma City cardiology practice by opening, at the end of 2001, the Woman's Choice Institute, a clinic that offers couples NFP classes to learn various methods and gives them support to discontinue contraception in their lives. The clinic had been operating within his practice since 2000, but not in a fully organized way.
As a result, more than 30 couples, from all religious denominations, have stopped using contraception and are now using NFP, he said.
Trained teachers include his wife, Bernadette, a nurse who works in his practice, and another nurse. The institute – which has made available several NFP methods: Billings Ovulation, Creighton Model Fertility Care System and Sympto-Thermal – also offers pastoral support, including a prominent local rabbi, an Anglican priest and Father Daniel McCaffrey, a local diocesan priest with a ministry called NFP Outreach.
One woman who stopped taking oral contraceptives because of Pedulla's influence was Jana Davison, 32.
She was his patient starting in 1997, when she was diagnosed with tachycardia, an extremely rapid heart rate.
He treated her successfully, but then two medical problems surfaced when she started taking the birth-control pill after the birth of her baby, Devon. The tachycardia reappeared and her blood pressure skyrocketed.
He suggested she learn about NFP. Even though she had taken college courses in human sexuality, she had never heard about the system before. However, once she stopped taking the pill and learned the Creighton method, her tachycardia condition stopped – and her blood pressure came down to a more normal level.
“You hear all the different things on television, like ‘it'll clear up your acne,’” says Davison, referring to commercials about oral contraceptives. “‘It will give you so much freedom.’ I feel so much more empowered using this method because I have absolute control. I can change my mind at any given moment if we want to decide to have another child. I know exactly how to do that.”
Trade Trauma for Trust
Pedulla also felt the need to do more intensive research, so he created a nonprofit organization in 2001 – the Edith Stein Foundation, dedicated to researching woman's health issues, particularly those involving NFP and the transmission of life.
The foundation is sponsoring a study to investigate whether couples who use contraception have measurable levels of anger, hostility and cynical distrust, which leads to a woman having a diseased heart. He also wants to discover whether, after months of using NFP, couples are able to replace that negative trauma with trust, increased communication and healing of hearts, which he believes will be the case.
In order to complete the study, the foundation needs about $125,000, which it is trying to raise, to do the 18-month study, he said.
Pedulla first began his detective work during the mid-1990s, but it wasn't until he met Father McCaffrey that he began to focus on how he could help women who were contracepting.
When they met in 1998, Father McCaffrey was looking for office space for his NFP ministry. Pedulla had a spare office in his practice that he donated to him. Because of Father McCaffrey's friendship and encouragement, Pedulla began to learn as much about the medical aspects, and the different methods, of NFP as possible. So he went to places that have researched NFP: the Pope Paul VI Institute, in Omaha, Neb., and the Billings Ovulation Method Association, in St. Cloud, Minn. He also plans to go to Couple-to-Couple League in Cincinnati.
Pedulla and his wife have always followed the Church's teaching on the Gospel of Life. Married since 1987, they chose not to delay pregnancy during the beginning of their matrimony, practicing lactational amenorrhea, a natural way to space births through breastfeeding. Over the years, Bernadette has given birth to three boys and three girls. Because of recent health problems, they decided two years ago to chart using the Creighton method, which they also teach.
Taxing Terminology
Using the Creighton method to plan a pregnancy for the first time made the Pedullas realize the difficulties and burdens couples face when they want to avoid a pregnancy. It also made him realize that, because of their medical training, he and his wife were being called to help others combat “the very pervasive and strong and powerful” contraceptive environment that leads couples to place their confidence in contraception, he said.
This environment sometimes makes it difficult for a person to talk about his partner's fertility. One young couple, for instance, came to Pedulla's clinic hoping to achieve a pregnancy by using NFP.
The husband spent most of the first class looking out the window, says Jeanne Blasi, a nurse who teaches the Sympto-Thermal method at the institute.
“He was uncomfortable with terms that we were using,” Blasi says. “Mucus, menstruation and ovulation and things like that. There's a shyness or uncomfortableness in that aspect of your body, the reproductive system.”
He soon overcame his shyness and participated.
“Once you understand it, it's beautiful how the body is put together,” Blasi says. “It takes most couples by surprise that everything works together in such a timely manner.”
Carlos Briceno writes from Woodside, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Bush Names Mother Teresa Aide to Faith Post DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — President Bush has tapped a prominent Catholic for a top post.
Bush named Jim Towey, who was legal counsel to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity for 12 years, as the new director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Feb. 1. He replaced John DiIulio, a professor from University of Pennsylvania, who resigned last year to return to teaching.
“He understands there are things more important than political parties, and one of those things more important than political parties is helping to heal the nation's soul,” said Bush, in announcing the appointment. “There is nothing more important than helping the hopeless see hope, helping the addicted see a better life.’”
Towey responded: “I'm deeply grateful to God and to you, sir, for entrusting me with this honor to serve my country, particularly those Americans who are hurting and in need. Mother Teresa introduced me to this joy that comes from befriending those in need, and discovering their tremendous dignity. … I am delighted, I am grateful and I am looking forward to the work.”
Bush also announced the creation of a new Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, chaired by USA Freedom Corps Director John Bridgeland.
Towey, a Democrat who was once featured as a Register Prolife Profile, served as Florida's director of health and rehabilitative services under then Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. He also worked with Mother Teresa's ministry for more than ten years.
In 1996, Towey founded an advocacy group called Aging With Dignity, which focuses on providing end-of-life care for senior citizens.
Not everybody is hailing Towey's nomination, however.
“The faith-based initiative is stalled on the tracks,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “It will take more than a new conductor to get it rolling again.”
Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, would not speculate on the legislative future of the faith-based initiative, but was very pleased with the selection of Towey, whom Connor has considered a friend since 1994.
“He is a compassionate, humble, devout, self-effacing, Christian man,” Connor said. “He is at home with the poorest and the humblest and he's comfortable in the corridors of power. He's bathed AIDS patients in Calcutta and he's hobnobbed with senators and governors.”
Serving the Dying
Towey's life changed dramatically when he visited with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.
“In 1985, I was working as legislative director for Sen. Mark Hatfield,” Towey told the Register in a 1999 interview. “He knew Mother, so on my way back from a business trip [to refugee camps in Cambodia], I spent one day in Calcutta. After Mass, Mother asked me if I'd seen her House for the Dying.
“I went that afternoon, and the sister who greeted me handed me some cotton and a bottle of solution and told me to go clean a man who had scabies. I was trapped. If I had known I'd have to work that day, I don't think I'd have gone. But what I found was the Lord waiting for me in that bed.”
That experience led Towey to work with the dying in Calcutta; Tijuana, Mexico; and Washington, D.C. A lawyer, he has also been the U.S. legal counsel for the Missionaries of Charity for 12 years.
Towey is an expert on social services for the elderly for another reason. From 1993 through 1995, he was secretary of Florida's 40,000-employee Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
“I was acutely aware of how the disabled and elderly were not valued, and how we push them to the margins of society,” said Towey. “I've volunteered in First World hospitals, and seen end-of-life care there. It struck me that the way Mother Teresa cared for the dying in Calcutta was a lot more humane and dignified than what you see in the First World. People are dying alone. They're hurting, they're miserable, and it doesn't have to be that way.”
Towey's dedication to service earned him the respect and admiration of many, including Mother Teresa herself.
“Jim Towey has been a friend to me and the Missionaries of Charity for 11 years,” Mother Teresa once said, “helping us in legal matters, doing everything in a spirit of humble service. My prayer is that God may bless Jim and his beautiful work.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Why Enron Should Have Listened To the Pope DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — Is there anything more to say about the collapse of Enron?
For Catholics (and anyone else interested in the common good) the answer is definitely Yes. With the scandal spreading wider every day, the Church's social doctrine — its teaching about society and the economy — offers by far the most profound explanation, and the only authentic solution, to the crisis.
What the Church has to say about Enron has nothing to do with partisan politics. The Democrats’ campaign to tie the Enron collapse to the Bush administration is just political opportunism — officials from both parties have been entangled with Enron for years.
The Church's diagnosis goes much deeper, beyond sound bites and finger-pointing, to expose the root cause of Enron's downfall — the end-of-the-millennium obsession with quick and easy profits through stock market speculation.
Looking back, the Internet stock “bubble” — and its collapse — seems almost inexplicable. But the warnings were there all along, prophetically, in Catholic teaching.
It's what can happen when “economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up alienating and oppressing him,” foretold John Paul II in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum), his landmark document on the Church's social teaching.
The Rise and Fall
Look up “speculation” in the dictionary and you read: “engagement in risky business transactions on the chance of quick or considerable profits.” That definition might as well be illustrated with an Enron logo or mention the recent Internet-stock craze.
Remember that Enron, while an energy company, was as much a “dot-com” as Yahoo or Amazon. It publicly threatened to render Mobil, Exxon and other “old economy” businesses obsolete through its innovative online, Web-based trading exchange.
Sometime in the late 1990s, Enron and hundreds of other high-technology companies were anointed forerunners of the “new economy,” the vanguard of a new virtual world based on the Internet, which had acquired a quasi-religious status. Thought to have unlimited potential, not bound by normal measures of profit-and-loss, the allure of these companies caused the stock markets to explode. Big and small investors alike abandoned sound investing principles. They poured money into companies with only a few million dollars in revenue, but with stock valuations ascending into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Is it any wonder that public company executives, and entrepreneurs primed to take their companies public — their compensation heavily based on stock options — fell to temptation and distorted the truth about their companies’ financial and business prospects? Wall Street venture capitalists and investment banking firms — otherwise known as “The Street” — cheered them on, funding absurd business ideas and encouraging the worst business practices. It was only a matter of time before this “irrational exuberance,” a term used by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, collapsed in March 2000.
This is an old story — history is filled with examples of such speculative “manias” — and the Catholic Church is the guardian of the lessons they teach us.
In Centesimus Annus, the Pope warns about the ill-effects of speculation. In No. 43, he says that business ownership “becomes illegitimate” when it results from “speculation,” as opposed to the “overall expansion of work and the wealth of society.” In No. 48, he cites “improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities” as threats to the economic order.
Enron, at one-time the nation's seventh-largest company by revenue, is bankrupt today because of speculation. Not criminal speculation. Just speculation. Enron executives used entirely legal but unsound accounting tricks and financing schemes to push up its stock price and cash in on the biggest bull market in history. Illegal methods came relatively late in the process, failed attempts to sustain the company's phony revenue growth. A recent New York Times article summed it up: Enron “was not much of a company, but its executives made sure it was one hell of a stock.”
Beyond Profit
From a Catholic perspective (insert “fully human” for Catholic here if you prefer), speculating — making money without producing real value — is immoral. No one has a right to “speculate” with a business, especially one the size of Enron. Not when the lives of 21,000 employees, thousands of shareholders and numerous communities are affected.
The Holy Father makes clear in Centesimus Annus, consistent with what the Church has always taught about justice in the economic sector, that business enterprises have obligations that go beyond “maximizing shareholder value,” the guiding principle of free market absolutists. (In the case of the “dot-com's,”only those shareholders privileged — or lucky — enough to sell out before the collapse saw their values “maximized.”)
How is this for prophecy? “The Church acknowledges the legitimate role of profit as an indication that a business is functioning well,” says Centesimus Annus (No. 35). “But profitability is not the only indicator of a firm's condition. It is possible for the financial accounts to be in order, and yet for the people —- who make up the firm's most valuable asset — to be humiliated and their dignity offended. Besides being morally inadmissible, this will eventually have negative repercussions on the firm's economic efficiency. In fact, the purpose of a business firm is not simply to make a profit, but is to be found in its very existence as a community of persons.”
Economic “libertarians” in the press, while agreeing that lawbreakers should be prosecuted, have minimized the Enron fiasco, claiming that the system “worked.” Enron investors were punished by the stock market for their poor judgment. The energy markets adjusted to Enron's collapse with few problems. As for the stock market crash, well, booms and busts are a natural part of a healthy capitalist economy.
But the Pope refuses to take such a narrow view of business behavior. In Centesimus Annus, he insists that “the decision to invest in one place rather than another, in one productive sector rather than another, is always a moral and cultural choice.”
Is the Church too idealistic? Not at all. The Church's emphasis on the productive and moral aspect of a business, as opposed to a one-dimensional focus on financial performance, is echoed by most real-world business management thinkers.
The Real World
In an interview with the religious Web site Beliefnet, Peter Drucker, the most influential management consultant and theorist of modern times, had this to say about the recent stock mania:
“No financial man will ever understand business because financial people think a company makes money. A company makes shoes, and no financial man understands that. They think money is real. Shoes are real. Money is an end result.”
Another leading management consultant, the late W. Edwards Deming, the father of the “quality” movement in American business, and a major influence on Japan's economic rebirth after World War II, was highly critical of companies who cut corners to achieve short-term financial results, putting long-term business performance at risk.
In his 1982 book, Out of the Crisis, Deming said, “Dividends and paper profits, the yardstick by which managers of money and heads of companies are judged, make no contribution to material living for people anywhere, nor do they improve the competitive position of a company or of American industry.”
Deming was ahead of his time on people management, too. He proposed that workers be allowed to monitor their own quality levels, to “work for themselves” (to use a phrase used by the Pope) even though they work within large organizations.
A company bent on boosting its stock price at all costs isn't likely to treat its employees with dignity. Enron didn't. Destroying the value of employee retirement plans was its most serious offense against employees. But according to Bethany McLean, the Fortune magazine reporter who rang alarm bells about Enron back in April, the company also promoted a “cutthroat” culture that left little room for people to do what was right.
The negative effects of the Enron fiasco are spreading because the energy giant was not alone. Lots of companies “speculated” during the Internet-stock mania, putting “paper” profit ahead of real wealth creation. The fear now is that Enron's example may lead to a painful but necessary correction of inflated balance sheets across corporate America, stalling the long-awaited stock market rebound and economic recovery.
Yoking the Bull
Back in 1991, at the start of the bull market, the Pope, in Centesimus Annus, asked himself whether, with the collapse of communism, capitalism was now the model for the world. He based his answer on two different versions of capitalism.
The first capitalism is well illustrated by Enron and the Internet stock craze. It is the economic dimension of “the culture of death,” where freedom is not in the service of truth. A good name for it might be “economic hedonism.” The Pope is against it.
The second version of capitalism is one where economic activity is “in the service of human freedom in its totality, and sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious.” In short, freedom in service to truth. To this version, the Pope says Yes.
The first steps in addressing the Enron fiasco will require only a return to traditional business values on the part of corporate (publicly traded) America.
But to fulfill the Catholic vision of a just economy will require a lot more.
It will mean bringing the message of the Gospel not just into the streets — but into The Street.
Angelo Matera is chief executive officer of Circle Media, parent company of the Register.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Angelo Matera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'The Street' Doesn't Care About Your Customers DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:The financial community — The Street — deserves the largest share of the blame for promoting a “culture of speculation.”
Tom Cunningham, a Catholic entrepreneur, is the founder of two Internet service companies that suddenly became hot prospects to be “taken public” in 1999. He experienced the distorting effects of the stock boom on his businesses firsthand. As the mania peaked, investment capital firms, with lucrative underwriting fees in mind, began courting him aggressively.
“Investment bankers are not shy to tell you they're looking for a story The Street will buy,” remembers Cunningham. “What customers ‘buy’ is not their interest. They might not profit at all when a customer buys your product, but they profit handsomely when The Street ‘buys’ your company via an IPO [initial public offering] or acquisition.”
Cunningham's businesses were profitable, but investment firms urged changes to impress potential investors, such as shifting the relative size of departments, opening up foreign offices and establishing high-profile strategic partnerships. These measures rarely had anything to do with delivering value to customers.
“These changes can pervert the focus of a company from what the customer will buy to what The Street will buy,” adds Cunningham. “They can ripple down through the whole company and even kill it with time.”
When the Internet bubble burst, Cunningham's companies were hit hard, but they survived by returning to business fundamentals.
Enron wasn't so fortunate.
— Angelo Matera
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Angelo Matera ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Federal Agency Proposes Aid For the Unborn DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON— An unborn child is a human being.
It sounds commonplace to Catholics but when the federal government acknowledged it on Jan. 31, it sent tremors through the pro-life and pro-abortion movements.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services made the recognition as it announced plans to recognize “fetuses” as unborn children so that low-income mothers can seek prenatal care for their babies.
The federally-funded state Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides funds for the health care of low-income children whose parents meet specific economic criteria. However, the wording of the program's bylaws does not ensure care for unborn children, as it defines children as those younger than 19.
But agency secretary Tommy Thompson's proposed new wording, published in The Federal Register for further consideration and public comment, would define eligible recipients of aid as those “from conception to age 19.”
That means even the youngest of unborn infants are eligible for assistance — and are implicitly recognized as human beings.
Abortionist Warren Hern's reaction might indicate how much of a breakthrough the agency's action really was.
Speaking by telephone from his bulletproof Colorado fortress, the Boulder Abortion Clinic (which advertises “specializing in late abortions”), Hern compared Thompson and the entire Bush administration to the Taliban.
“The American public needs to wake up and see what kind of right-wing fundamentalist regime they have put into office,” Hern told the Boulder Weekly, claiming that restricting a woman's right to have an abortion goes hand-in-hand with totalitarian behaviors. “It illustrates the fact that the Bush regime has a lot in common with the Taliban when it comes to women's rights.”
Two weeks earlier, Hern also compared Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, a pro-life Catholic, to the Taliban for his efforts to restrict state funding of Planned Parenthood's abortion facilities.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said he isn't surprised Hern is so upset.
“Dr. Warren Hern is one of the architects of this concept that an unborn child is something other than a human being,” said Johnson. “His book Abortion Practice uses triangles and other shapes to depict arms and legs and other body parts. It's the manual for how to dehumanize unborn children in the public mindset, all the way through the third trimester. So of course Dr. Hern would be upset that the Bush administration wants to recognize and insure unborn children as human beings.”
In unintentionally encouraging words for pro-lifers, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, described the Health and Human Services proposal regarding CHIP as “the latest ploy in [the Bush administration's] ongoing stealth campaign to have government make abortions illegal.”
Only One Step
While pro-life leaders applaud the proposed definition change, most are quick to concede that it does not mean victory in their battle to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion-on-demand legal in all 50 states. But it could help in changing hearts and minds about the reality of abortion, National Right to Life's Johnson said.
“Those who are pro-abortion don't like this because they don't like the way it makes people think,” said Johnson. “The abortion industry is based upon and propagated upon a lie that that says unborn child are something other than human beings. So they don't want the government to recognize the rights of the unborn in any case.”
Ellen Brilliant, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, disagreed with Johnson's assertion that the Health and Human Services proposal is not a direct blow to Roe v. Wade.
Brilliant said Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, plans to file formal opposition with the HHS regarding the proposed definition change. “This is not about word choices,” Brilliant says. “It's about whether you provide prenatal care for a woman or whether you provide prenatal care for a fetus. It's about defining a fetus as a person, which can seriously undermine Roe v. Wade.”
Cathy Cleaver, spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops’ pro-life secretariat, said the opposition of abortion advocates to Thompson's proposal is “seriously misguided.”
“Denying low-income women access to state-insured prenatal care in the name of abortion is senseless,” Cleaver said.
Planned Parenthood may recognize that fighting against assistance for low-income women is a difficult battle. Brilliant said Planned Parenthood is not opposed to the concept of low-income women receiving prenatal care for children they don't intend to abort.
Other Precedents
Despite its symbolic value, the Health and Human Services proposal is not precedent-setting in terms of recognizing the unborn as humans with rights. Most courts and other major government entities in the United States have in recent years acknowledged the rights and “personhood” of unborn children, Johnson said.
In 2000, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 417-0 in favor of a bill written to condemn the execution of any convicted murderer, in any state, who is pregnant.
“With that unanimous vote, members of Congress were saying that it's not just a ‘condition’ that a woman has when she is pregnant,” Johnson says. “If it were really just a condition, and it didn't involve a second human being with rights, why would they care? They were saying the execution of a pregnant woman would kill another human being who is innocent — one who has not been convicted of murder.”
Other examples of the government accepting unborn children as humans with rights abound, in criminal and civil law. In most states, unborn children can inherit estates. They can be the subjects of custody disputes. And in 24 states, a person suspected of murdering a pregnant woman can be charged with double homicide for the deaths of two separate victims.
“In government and law, it's really abortion that's the anomaly,” Johnson insisted. “Unborn children have so many of the same rights and protections as the rest of society, yet the Supreme Court has decided that a mother's reproductive rights are so important that they supercede all of that.”
Pro-lifers will carefully watch the Bush administration on the CHIPs issue. How vigorously the administration defends the status of the unborn will say a lot about what can be expected from the president.
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pharmacists Struggling To Defend Their Right to Say No DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:ALTOONA, Pa. — They're a crucial link in the healing of the sick, but in many places, pharmacists are finding it harder to escape being agents of the culture of death.
So-called emergency contraception, taken by women soon after sex when it is thought contraception has failed, may cause the abortion of a newly formed embryonic life more often than thought, three physicians assert in the March issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. The article, by Drs. Chris Kahlenborn, Joseph Stanford and Walter Larimore, was published at www.theannals.com.
Kahlenborn, the lead author of the article, works in the internal medicine department at Bon Secours Hospital in Altoona, Pa.
“Catholic hospitals that … allow hormonal EC (emergency contraception, for rape victims) prior to ovulation may wish to reassess their policies given the findings that EC use does not consistently stop ovulation and has the potential of causing a post-fertilization effect (abortion) even when used prior to ovulation,” the authors wrote.
But attempts are increasing throughout the country to make emergency contraception more easily available and to force even Catholic hospitals to dispense it in emergency rooms. California began the year by allowing women to purchase emergency contraception without a prescription. Washington state already has such a law, and Virginia is considering similar legislation.
Pope John Paul II, in his message for World Day of the Sick on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Feb. 11, wrote: “The Church insists on the principle that not all that is technologically feasible is morally admissible. The tremendous progress in medical science and skills in recent times places a supreme responsibility on us all with regard to God's gift of life — which always remains a gift in all its stages and conditions. We must be vigilant against every possible violation and suppression of life.”
The Pope said that on the annual celebration, which includes prayers for the sick, his thoughts would also go out to “the countless men and women who are active in the field of health care,” including pharmacists.
A growing number of pharmacists are facing disciplinary action for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception as well as for birth control pills.
“Pharmacists who still have a conscience are being harassed and getting fired,” said Bo Kuhar, executive director of Pharmacists for Life International. The organization wants state laws to allow objecting pharmacists to refrain from dispensing the medications without facing punishment.
Most states have some form of legislation providing for a conscientious opt-out for abortions. But, on the reasoning that a pregnancy begins when an early life is implanted in a woman's womb rather than at the moment of fertilization, abortifacient contraception would not be covered by many of those laws. (It should be noted that this reasoning is scientifically unwarranted. The new life, at this stage, is already a boy or girl.)
An exception is South Dakota, where no pharmacist may be required to provide medication if there is reason to believe that it would be used to cause an abortion, destroy an unborn child (defined as an organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until birth) or cause anyone's death by means of assisted suicide or euthanasia.
In Illinois all health care providers, including pharmacists, can refuse on the basis of conscience to provide any kind of service.
Michigan and Kentucky are considering conscience protection bills. The Kansas Pharmacists Association opposes that state's proposed bill because it lacks assurances that patients can still get legally prescribed drugs.
“We recognize the right to conscientious objection,” said Robert Williams, the Kansas Pharmacists Association's executive director, but “patients’ rights outweigh providers’ rights.” Every pharmacy should have a procedure in place for accommodating a patient when a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription, he said, suggesting that the pharmacist in charge might have another pharmacist fill it or require the objecting pharmacist to offer a referral to a nearby pharmacy.
But referral would be material cooperation in the immoral act, Kuhar said. “That's like telling someone, ‘I'm not going to sell you this gun so you can go shoot your cousin Betty, but I'll tell you where you can buy one.’”
Added Kuhar, “Our approach is total protection of the [unborn] child.”
“He's entitled to his opinion,” Williams responded. “But the patient is not asking for an illegal product.”
Soul Searching
Pharmacists are objecting not only to so-called emergency contraceptives but also to birth control pills, which also can act as abortifacients. Manuel Rodriquez, a pharmacist for almost 35 years, ended up resigning from Albertson's Pharmacy in Albuquerque, N.M., part of a large supermarket chain, after some soulsearching following the events of Sept. 11.
Rodriguez was praying a novena to Our Lady of Lourdes and thinking about the 3,000 or so lives that were lost in the terrorist attacks two weeks earlier. “And I thought, ‘Well, I'm really no better because I've been dispensing birth control pills all these years.’ But I'm not going to do it any more.”
He informed his boss of his decision and proceeded to turn down patients who come with prescriptions for birth control pills and told them why. But he did not get too far. The first woman he turned down went to his supervisor, who suggested he speak to the pharmacy supervisor.
The pharmacy supervisor expressed support for Rodriguez, but questioned whether birth control pills were as bad as the morning after pill. He said he would speak to Rodriguez again, but in the meantime the pharmacist submitted his resignation.
Rodriguez is working part time at a pharmacy he says is more understanding of his position, and is spending more time helping families understand the Church's teaching that contraception is immoral. He has organized a retreat in his parish in Belen, N.M., with family issues such as this on the agenda.
Birth control pills use one of 72 combinations of artificial hormones, and “every one of them is hostile to the uterus,” Rodriguez said.
He has tried to provide medical information to women who were having prescriptions of the pill filled, but he found that in most cases the explanation of the hazards involved “was going over their heads.”
Lamented Rodriguez, “It's so ingrained [in society] that they don't see any other possibility.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Brooklyn to Jerusalem DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Its name became confused with a White House-condemned terrorist front.
Franciscan Father Peter Vasko is president of the Holy Land Foundation in Jerusalem, which sponsors housing, employment and educational projects to stem the emigration of Christians from the historic land of their birth. He spoke recently with Register staff writer John Burger.
You grew up in Brooklyn. How did you end up as a priest — and a Franciscan in the Holy Land no less?
I went to Catholic University and was attending Sunday Mass at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington, D.C., so I got to know several friars who worked in the Holy Land.
But I worked for nine years at a Holiday Inn in North Carolina in public relations and marketing and then as vice president of a large corporate travel firm in Atlanta. I was very successful, but I was living an Augustinian lifestyle of riotous living. I got to the top of the corporate ladder, but it didn't pan out to what I had expected. One day I was sitting in my home with all my cars outside and I felt an emptiness. It was the beginning of a conversion. I felt very sad that I was not as faithful to God all these years. I realized how empty materialism is. From that point I started seeking the Lord.
I was going to prayer groups and reading Scripture more, and one day I picked up the Bible and opened at random to Matthew 13, which says that when a merchant finds a pearl of great price he sells all he has. Here I was, a wealthy businessman, but when I came to the order I was penniless. That was the beginning of peace in my life.
Did you enter the seminary right away?
I started going on retreats at the Trappist monastery in Conyers, Ga. My friends thought I was losing my mind. But those weekends were the most peaceful times in my life. And all of a sudden, as I opened the Jerusalem Bible, I saw the fivefold Crusader cross, which I knew from the Friars of the Holy Land Monastery. Above it I had written “Come follow me” about a year before. It had a different meaning to me now. It was like a lightning bolt that hit me from head to toe. I said, “This is where you want me, Lord — in the Holy Land.”
So I started visiting the Franciscan monastery and was finally accepted. I had a house to sell and was leaving within 10 days. My real estate agent, whose name was Frances, said, “There's no way this house is going to sell in 10 days.” I said I just got an acceptance letter to be a candidate for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land [which oversees the Christian Holy Places in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes and Lebanon.] I was in total peace that this house would sell. And in five days, it sold — for exactly the price I'd asked. When God wants something, he kicks the picket fence down and gets it.
How has the Holy Land affected you personally?
To be called to the Holy Land and begin, as the first disciples did, to minister to people in need is a privilege. To be at these holy sites really identifies what one is as a Christian. They are the stage props in the drama of our redemption.
The first time I went there, in 1984, I was serving Mass with a pilgrim group at the tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it was an overwhelming feeling of “Who am I to be in the very place where Jesus rose from the dead?” I just started crying profusely when I realized that. The second time, we were crossing the Sea of Galilee to the north shore, the same shore where he called the apostles. In a way he was calling me to follow him too. I knew this is where I should be working.
For my first seven years in Jerusalem, I was assigned to headquarters at St. Savior's Monastery as a simple Franciscan guide. After seven years.
I became the official guide for the White House through the U.S. Embassy — for Cabinet members and military dignitaries — and for world leaders, through the municipality of Jerusalem.
How does the Holy Land affect visitors?
About three years ago, I took Tipper Gore and her son, Albert, around for two and a half days. One thing I noticed was that at every place we stopped, she wanted to meditate and pray for 10-15 minutes. It was the first time I saw (one of the people I was guiding) pray and reflect on what she was seeing. I also took (former South African) president F.W. de Klerk and his wife around. In the tomb of Christ, both prayed very fervently. You could even see some tears from the side of Mrs. de Klerk's face. There's a lot of respect at these sites, whether you're a president or a student. Coming and kneeling at these places has a tremendous effect on people.
They usually just listen, with not too many questions. Gen. John Shalikashvili (former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and other top military people have asked geographical questions. But at the holy places, you see they're sort of trans-figured. They're powerful people, but they're very humbled. You can see it reflected in their faces.
NEXT WEEK:
Solving the Holy Land Conundrum
----- EXCERPT: His organization suddenly became well known in a way he wouldn't have chosen. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter Vasko ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: California Teen Wins Fight with High School Over Pro-Life T-shirt DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:LITTLEROCK, Calif. — When “A” student and teen-age model Samantha Gallardo wore her pro-life T-shirt to school in September, the last thing she expected was to be taken to the principal's office by security guards.
However, with the assistance of the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomas More Law
Center, Gallardo, a 17-year-old senior at Littlerock High School, subsequently won her fight to express her pro-life views.
“I've always been against abortion,” Gallardo said, “but I didn't talk about it. In class, when people discussed the issue, I realized how many people were pro-choice. That's why I wanted to get a T-shirt made.”
In early September Gallardo, who is Catholic, had a bright green T-shirt made at her local mall that read “Abortion S---s.”
“When I wore it to school, two security guards — one male and one female — weren't sure what they should do. One of them asked, ‘Should we let her wear this?’”
Gallardo was brought to Vice Principal Raul Caranza. “He told me that I had violated the dress code because I had expressed a political opinion and he told me that I needed to change my shirt,” Gallardo recounted. Her mother, Jane, brought a new shirt to school for her daughter to wear.
“People wear whatever they want all the time no matter what is in the dress code,” said Samantha. “Other students wear Marilyn Manson T-shirts, shirts with the Playboy bunny logo and revealing tank tops without any school interference.”
Added Samantha, “On the political expression issue, I have a teacher with a sign that says ‘Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican’ in the classroom.”
When Samantha wore the shirt a second time, she was again brought to the vice principal. “Mr. Caranza was mad. He told me that I could not wear anything that was not approved by the principal,” said Samantha. She and her mother scheduled a meeting with the principal, Michael Dutton, the next morning.
According to both Jane and Samantha, Dutton said he could not allow Samantha to wear clothing with abortion-related messages. “He said he didn't want any conflicts in school,” said Samantha.
“I said I could understand if he had a problem with the word ‘s---s,’” said Jane. “He said, ‘No, that's not it.’”
Samantha asked if she could wear shirts with other messages, such as “Abortion is Homicide,” “I'm Pro-Life,” or “Abortion is Wrong,” for example.
Samantha and her mother say Dutton said No.
In the end, Samantha and her mother agreed that she would not wear her “Abortion S---s” shirt, and reached a compromise in which the principal agreed to let her wear a shirt that read “Choose Life” because it was ambiguous.
Said Samantha, “I felt like they were treating me as if I was a bad kid. I get good grades.”
Shortly thereafter, Samantha, who had read about a similar story in a daily Pro-life Infonet e-mail message, contacted the Thomas More Law Center. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based law center handles at no charge cases involving religious freedom, traditional values, and sanctity of human life issues.
Thomas More Law Center attorneys Edward L. White III and Kimberly A. Daniels sent a letter Nov. 15 to the Littlerock school superintendent and school board members, explaining Samantha's constitutional right to advance her pro-life views and requesting immediate written assurance that she would be permitted to wear her pro-life clothing.
“It is a fundamental constitutional principle that students do not lose their right to free speech just because they are in school,” said Richard Thompson, the law center's chief counsel.
After investigating the allegations, Bridget Cook, general counsel for the Antelope Valley Union High School District, wrote to the law center. In her letter, dated Dec. 15, Cook denied that Littlerock High School had prohibited Samantha from wearing clothing advancing her views on abortion.
Said the letter, “During a meeting with your client [Samantha], Littlerock High School Principal, Mr. Dutton, challenged Samantha to find a more appropriate way of expressing her views … Samantha was merely asked to find a way of expressing herself without using a word that, as displayed on her shirt, lends itself to vulgar and sexual interpretations.”
It concluded, “this letter is written assurance that Samantha may continue to wear her pro-life clothing at Littlerock High School provided it does not cause actual disruption to school operations or include libelous, slanderous, obscene or vulgar speech.”
Thomas More Law Center attorney White said the letter is a victory for the pro-life teen. “We are confident that the school will now support and protect Samantha's constitutional right to express her pro-life views, rather than deny her that right as was previously done,” he said.
While Jane Gallardo is pleased with the outcome and is “very proud” of her daughter's willingness to stand up for her beliefs, she added, “I'm very disappointed that the principal and the district would call us liars.”
Neither Superintendent Robert Girolamo nor attorney Bridget Cook returned telephone calls from the Register.
The case marks the fourth T-shirt victory for Thomas More. In November, the law center successfully represented 16-year-old Chelsea Barney from Malone, N.Y., and in 1999, it represented two female students at Traverse City West Senior High School in Michigan.
In all three cases, the girls had purchased “Abortion is Homicide” T-shirts from the American Life League organization Rock for Life.
Rock for Life director Bryan Kemper said the organization sold more than 15,000 such shirts during concerts last summer alone. Many of the shirts are accompanied with a letter from Thomas More Law Center explaining the right to wear the shirts and to distribute Rock for Life literature in public schools. Kemper said that Rock for Life plans to attach similar tags to the shirts themselves.
“We didn't come up with the sheet until schools started harassing students about the shirts,” said Kemper.
As for Samantha, her experience has only strengthened her pro-life resolve.
She has started making her own pro-life shirts by ironing on the letters at home, and several of her peers are now wearing them.
In addition, Samantha's senior project will focus on the issue of pro-life activism and involve the creation of a brochure for pregnant teens. She also hopes to perform “Burden of Choice,” a pro-life song that she and her sister Susan wrote, at Littlerock High School's talent show.
Tim Drake is executive editor of Catholic.net.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Catholic League Sued by California Artist
Jon Howard, a Santa Rosa, Calif., artist who is part Cherokee, said that comments made by League president William Donohue as part of his criticism of the exhibit made American Indians seem “stupid.”
The exhibit was by another artist, Antoni Miralda, at the American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts. The museum's director had told the League that the defecations are symbolic of the cycle of eating and fertilization of the earth that keeps life going.
Donohue then asked, in a statement criticizing the artwork's display, whether depicting the Lone Ranger and Tonto would have been “a more earthy statement.”
Howard complained in his lawsuit that Donohue's comment exposes him to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy because it impugns that American Indians are “Tonto” (the Spanish word for “stupid”) and that California artists are “bad.”
A League spokesman said the $100 million defamation lawsuit is “absurd on its face.”
Florida Town Declares Satan Not Welcome
Risher's declaration, printed on town stationery and ritually placed inside wooden posts at four corners of town, led to the threat of legal action from the American Civil Liberties Union.
But the ACLU seemed appeased by a Town Commission vote that the proclamation was the work of an individual, not a town official, the St. Petersburg daily reported. Said Gary Edinger, an attorney with the ACLU chapter in Gainesville, “This takes care of it nicely.”
Priest Gave General Absolution After Towers Fell
Father Delendick, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, was one of 500 fire department personnel interviewed in an oral history project concerning the events in New York City on Sept. 11, said the New York daily.
The priest said that as he and uniformed personnel ran from the collapse of the second tower, a policeman asked him to hear his confession.
“I looked and said, ‘This is an act of war, isn't it?’” Father Delendick recounted. “He said, ‘Yeah, I believe so.’ I said, ‘Then I'm giving general absolution.’ I gave everyone general absolution and I kept running.”
Old Catholic Church Sues Hispanic TV Station
A suit brought by Father John Kroll and St. Alban's Church said a Spanish broadcast described Father Kroll as one “who poses like a Catholic priest” in a chapel rented from a flower shop in northwest Houston. The story failed to state that he is an ordained priest of the Old Catholic Church, which split from the Catholic Church after the First Vatican Council.
An attorney for Father Kroll said the story focused on the misunderstanding of many “new immigrants” that they were participating in a Roman Catholic liturgy when they were getting married and baptizing their children at St. Alban's.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Children's Adoration: 'The Kingdom of Heaven Belongs to Such as These' DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:PEORIA, Ill. — It is something of a small miracle that Father Antoine Thomas is able to still the fidgeting bodies and wayward attention spans of children who live in a culture of extreme stimulation.
To the amazement of parents and teachers, he does it by bringing them before the Blessed Sacrament, through a eucharistic adoration program he has developed for children of all ages.
Although eucharistic adoration is sometimes dismissed as inappropriate for young children, especially those who have not yet made their first Communion, Father Thomas, a member of the Community of St. John, believes it is not only suitable but desirable in the spiritual formation of kids as young as 4 or 5.
“Jesus himself asks us to care about the children and we fulfill Jesus’ intention by leading the children to him,” said the French-born priest. Conversely, he added, “If we teach children to pray, if we lead them into contemplative prayer, they will help us to pray. They will lead us to Jesus.”
Indeed, in Matthew 19:14, Jesus chides his disciples for trying to prevent children from coming to greet him: “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Known as Children of Hope, Father Thomas's program was begun in France about nine years ago at the request of a mother who had asked the priest for a way to bring her children to Christ in the Eucharist beyond the Mass.
Short and Simple
Father Thomas developed a service using short, simple songs that would dispose children toward quiet adoration. During the service, he suggests that the children sit back on their heels on the floor of the church, and prostrate themselves the way the monks in his community pray.
“I teach them that we don't pray only with our mind, but also with our body. If we are not comfortable with our body, it's hard to pray, concentrate and be quiet.”
Father Thomas recommends scheduling the services before or after weekend Masses to revitalize the Sabbath as the day of the Lord in keeping with Pope John Paul II's 1998 apostolic letter Dies Domini.
He finds that adoration services also can give families an experience of Christ in the Eucharist apart from their Sunday Mass obligation. “I knew if we could get the children into a certain joyful experience of the presence of Jesus the whole family would come. When you begin to care about the children, you bring the family back together.”
In Peoria, where he is chaplain to Catholic students at Bradley University and Illinois Central College, Father Thomas holds the services before Mass in the Newman Center at Bradley.
He said children benefit because when they discover the silent, loving, real presence of Christ through eucharistic adoration, they often experience an intensified desire to please Christ in every detail of their lives.
Children of Hope services open with the sign of the cross, an invocation to Mary and a decade of the rosary, an Our Father and a short song, followed by exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The children then make a series of three prostrations for silent adoration, interspersed with light commentaries by the priest and meditative songs.
At the end of the adoration, Father Thomas said the children offer their own intercessory prayers “so as to stimulate their missionary spirit.” The service, which lasts about an hour, concludes with the Divine Praises and reposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
Archbishop's Approval
Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, who learned of Father Thomas's work while he was bishop of Peoria, said he considers the program to be age-appropriate and added that it has been very well-received by both children and their parents.
“People ask, ‘How can you keep them quiet for more than 20 minutes?’” Father Thomas said. “I say, ‘Come and see.’”
Sandy Rongish, a mother of five in Wichita, Kan., where Father Thomas presented his adoration services for more than 700 children at St. Francis of Assisi parish, said she has seen a long-term positive effect on the participants.
“There were kids who went through it just one day and their moms told me they never had it formally again,” Rongish said. “Those kids started asking in the weeks following if they could go to school early to go to adoration … Once they get it, they know that they can go there and [Jesus is] listening to them and he's their friend.”
Rongish, the eucharistic adoration coordinator at St. Francis, said she thinks that the experience of adoration helps improve children's behavior during Mass because it gives them a better sense of church as a holy place where Christ is present. She said her own children, who have been going to adoration with her for about six years, rarely ask to leave the pew to get a drink or go to the bathroom during Mass. “They know the focus is on the altar.” And, she said, “They don't think Mass is boring when they understand it.”
She added that her children, who are now between the ages of 2 and 20, also have a strong belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, something that she didn't fully grasp until she was an adult.
To Young?
As for parents who think their children might be too young, Father Thomas said he would ask them, “Do you wait until your children can understand what quality food is before giving them the proper food when they are babies? My point is, let's show them the Eucharist, even if they don't fully understand it.” Even parents, he added, cannot completely comprehend the Eucharist.
“Allowing children from 4 or 5 years old to kneel or prostrate before the Eucharist with other children or adults present gives them a practical experience of praying, even if the full intelligibility of the mystery of Eucharist is way beyond their minds or head. Little by little, it prepares them for their first Communion and it also gives them a different attitude toward the Mass.”
Father James Weldon, a chaplain and religion teacher at Kapun Mount Carmel Catholic High School in Wichita who formerly served at St. Francis of Assisi Parish, said he, too, has found that introducing eucharistic adoration to both children and teens enhances their understanding of Mass.
Said Father Weldon, “They're much more aware that this is God coming to us in the Eucharist, and it makes their reception of Communion much more profound.”
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Pope Pleased as Dove of Peace Finds Its Way
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 27 — Pope John Paul II seemed delighted as a dove that was intended to fly off over St. Peter's Square flew into his studio instead — and then out again. Young Italian members of Catholic Action had joined the Pope at his top-floor window overlooking the square to release two doves as part of their peace day celebrations Jan. 27. One bird went back inside.
The dove's second release led the crowd to applaud and Pope John Paul to smile. He called the doves an important and symbolic gesture “dedicated to so many children who, unfortunately, are still victims of wars and grave injustices.”
Jewish and Catholic Leaders Take Joint Stand
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Jan. 29 — Jewish and Catholic leaders ended a religious conference in Paris with a joint vow to combat anti-Semitism, the French news agency reported. As the two-day conference wrapped up, Pope John Paul said the two faith groups, working together, can make important contributions to ensuring that religious values have only positive effects on the continent.
“We must transmit to new generations our riches and common values,” the Pope said in a letter to participants.
Issues covered at the conference included co-existence, the challenge of secularism and promoting the memory of the Holocaust. In a closing statement, Catholic representatives stressed their “wholehearted brotherhood with Jewish communities based not on political considerations but in our deepest spiritual convictions.”
Jewish delegates praised the Pope for his role in building bridges between the two faiths. Conference host Henri Hajdenberg, former president of the European Jewish Congress, said the Pope was the first Catholic leader to grasp the significance of the defining events of 20th century Jewish history, the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel.
Head of Magicians Group Asks for Patron Saint
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Jan. 30 — Father Silvio Mantelli wore a magician's top hat along with his black suit and Roman collar when he appeared for an audience with Pope John Paul at the Vatican. But he wanted to make a special request. Accompanied by a group of Catholic magicians, he asked that the Vatican declare St. John Bosco patron saint of magicians.
St. John Bosco, founder of the Salesian order, was known for his work with disadvantaged youth and for drawing the attention of young people through tricks and amusements.
Father Mantelli, an Italian priest and amateur magician, heads the organization Magicians Without Borders, which finances children's projects around the world with proceeds from magic shows.
He also presented the Pope with a magic wand from India, expressing his hope that the Holy Father continue to “weave his great magic around the world — peace and serenity.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Italian Embassy Hosts First Mass in Afghanistan
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, Jan. 27 — Italian, British and French soldiers gathered at the Italian embassy in Kabul Jan. 27 for the first Mass in Afghanistan since 1993, the news service reported.
The Mass was offered in the embassy courtyard because the chapel, the only one in Afghanistan, was too small to accommodate the 60 soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force. Father Ivan Lai, who celebrated the liturgy, planted a wooden cross in a garden where the altar was set up.
The chapel will hold services every Sunday for all Christians in Kabul, Agence France Presse reported. During the Taliban era, three Little Sisters of Jesus who remained in the Afghan capital went to the chapel each Friday to pray. They also took refuge in the building during the U.S. bombardments in the campaign to hunt down terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
American Surrogate Mother Gives Birth to Italians' Twins
AP WORLDSTREAM, Jan. 26 — The Italian minister of health has ordered a study that may lead to an ordinance against exporting embryos for implantation in surrogate mothers, the news service reported.
Girolamo Sirchia ordered the study after an American woman gave birth to twins conceived by a couple in Rome.
The genetic mother of the twins born in the United States had her uterus removed in 1993 because of a tumor, according to Italian media. Her eggs were fertilized with her husband's sperm, and the embryos were then frozen. Five embryos were flown two years ago to a surrogate mother center at an unidentified location in the United States.
Sirchia said the Italian Parliament would start debate in March on a law to regulate artificial procreation.
Cathedral Dedicated in Formerly Communist Albania
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 26 — Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, has dedicated a new cathedral in Tirana, Albania's capital. The new church seats 700 and is the country's second cathedral.
“It was very important to build this cathedral in Tirana,” said Cardinal Sodano, who celebrated a Mass Jan. 26 with Archbishop Rrok Mirdita of Tirana. “This is a historic day for Albanian Catholic believers.”
Practically all Albanian cathedrals were destroyed under the former communist regime, and Albanian authorities shot and imprisoned hundreds of priests. Only the Cathedral in Shkodra, 52 miles north of Tirana, was left standing, though used as a sports stadium.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Live Lent for the Poor DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Ash Wednesday is Feb. 13. Following is an excerpt from Pope John Paul II's 2002 Lenten Message.
“What do you have,” St. Paul asks, “that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). The demand which follows this recognition is that of loving our brothers and sisters, and of dedicating ourselves to them.
The more needy they are, the more urgent the believer's duty to serve them.
Does not God permit human need so that by responding to the needs of others we may learn to free ourselves from our egoism and to practice authentic Gospel love? The command of Jesus is clear: “If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46).
The world prizes human relationships based on self-interest and personal gain, and this fosters an egocentric vision of life, in which too often there is no room for the poor and weak. Every person, even the least gifted, must be welcomed and loved for themselves, regardless of their qualities and defects.
Indeed, the greater their hardship, the more they must be the object of our practical love. This is the love to which the Church, through her countless institutions, bears witness in accepting responsibility for the sick, the marginalized, the poor and the exploited. In this way, Christians become apostles of hope and builders of the civilization of love.
It is highly significant that Jesus spoke the words “You received without paying, give without pay” as he sent the Apostles out to spread the Gospel of salvation, which is his first and foremost gift to humanity. Christ wants his Kingdom, which is already close at hand (cf. Matthew 10:5ff), to be spread through gestures of gratuitous love accomplished by his disciples.
This is what the Apostles did in the early days of Christianity, and those who met them saw them as bearers of a message greater than themselves.
In our own day too the good done by believers becomes a sign, and often an invitation to believe. When, like the Good Samaritan, Christians respond to the needs of their neighbor, theirs is never merely material assistance. It is always a proclamation of the kingdom as well, and speaks of the full meaning of life, hope and love.
Dear brothers and sisters! Let this be how we prepare to live this Lent: in practical generosity toward the poorest of our brothers and sisters! By opening our hearts to them, we realize ever more deeply that what we give to others is our response to the many gifts which the Lord continues to give to us. We have received without paying, let us give without pay!
What better time is there than Lent for offering this testimony of gratuitousness which the world so badly needs? In the very love which God has for us, there lies the call to give ourselves freely to others in turn. I thank all those throughout the world — lay people, religious and priests — who offer this witness of charity. May it be true of all Christians, whatever the circumstances in which they live.
May the Virgin Mary, mother of fair love and hope, be our guide and strength on this Lenten journey. Assuring you all of an affectionate remembrance in my prayers, I gladly impart my apostolic blessing to each of you, especially to those engaged day after day on the many frontiers of charity.
John Paul II
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Paul II ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:The Best of Honest Abe
Back in November, we printed what we believed to be President Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863. Since then, a number of readers have written us to challenge the authenticity of the transcript.
Well, we've done a little research on the matter — and found out that our readers are one sharp bunch.
It turns out that what we printed as the “Thanksgiving Proclamation” is actually two Lincoln works edited into one by someone other than Lincoln. The individual sentences are all verbatim from the 16th president — it's just that some are from the 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation and others are from Lincoln's 1863 National Fast Day Proclamation (delivered the previous spring).
Our thanks to the several readers who spotted the inaccuracy and helped us crack the case.
Here, for the record, is the correct text of Lincoln's 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watching providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict, while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
President of the United States of America October 3, 1863
Let's Put Abortion Under the Lights
The anniversary of the Roe v. Wade court case (“Youth Contingent Evident Everywhere at 2002 March for Life,” Feb. 3-9) provided fodder for editorialists and radio talk show hosts. However, it seems that every discussion came to the same conclusion — neither side of the debate will compromise and there is no solution. One can watch copulation on cable TV. One can watch a heart surgery or see real police officers being shot to death. One can even watch jetliners crash into skyscrapers. Yet the most controversial issue in our nation's history is not shown on television.
How are citizens supposed to make informed choices about abortion without being able to see exactly what is being aborted and how abortions are performed? Abortions could be shown at each stage of pregnancy without commentary to bias the viewers. From the disposal of fertilized eggs to a late-term procedure, every viewer would have the unprecedented opportunity to make a truly informed decision.
The program would generate discussion and careful thought about an issue that divides our nation. Those who are confident they are on the correct side of the issue should be thrilled that others will be able to finally see the truth of the matter. But, in the words of a popular country song, “that would be too demanding.”
Why bother? Who needs to think when we have politicians who will do it for us?
SHELLEY MOSLEY STANZEL Dallas
Choice Words for “Free-Choice” Catholics
Your editorial “Don't they Care?” (Jan. 13-19) outlines valid reasons why promoting condoms does grave injustice to all women, and especially our vulnerable youth, by promoting sexual activity at very early ages — and the fact that condoms do not protect against STDs, with one of the chief supporters of condoms being so-called “Catholics for a Free Choice.”
Since our bishops have repudiated Catholics for a Free Choice, it would seem logical and prudent that the Church could and should sue this group for using the name “Catholic,” which they are certainly not.
I, for one, would gladly support a “second collection” for just this purpose.
MRS. R.E. KERN Tulsa, Oklahoma
Purity, Priests and Parents
The latest round of scandals surrounding priests (“The Abuse Crisis,” editorial, Jan. 20-26) is a wake-up call from God to American Catholics that should ring as loudly and clearly as 9/11 did.
Yes, these priests are responsible before God for terrible things, but laymen should not forget their own responsibility.
Our bishops who have turned a blind eye can be likened to parents who put up with immodest behavior from their children instead of correcting it. Although, of course, there is a huge difference in responsibility, should we not acknowledge a similar fault when we allow our children to view R-rated movies? When we allow teenage girls to dress immodestly? When posters of half-naked women are on our boys’ walls? When we don't supervise properly to guard them against premarital sex?
God is offended by each individual immodest glance. We are as responsible before God for our children's purity as our bishops are for their priests’ and flocks’. Some priests have done terrible things to children's purity by commission, but have we not neglected our own children's purity by omission?
We all know that the majority of Catholics are practicing artificial contraception against the continuous teaching of the Church, which speaks the Word of God. While we should expect our priests to obey their vows of celibacy, we also have the obligation to keep our own vows of marital chastity.
American Catholics need to do their own examination of conscience. This in no way diminishes the responsibility of those priests and bishops. But each one of us should do what he can in his own state of life to live up to his call to holiness. Through the communion of saints, each individual action either raises up or brings down the entire Church. When our priests fail, our prayers and sacrifices can help them be more holy.
LISA GUTRO North Reading, Massachusetts
Correction
Steve Weidenkopf, Director, Office of Marriage & Family Life in the Archdiocese of Denver, points out that the “New Marriage Preparation Norms Get Old-Style Results” by Wayne Laugesen (Jan 27-Feb.2 2002) makes two significant factual errors.
The recent survey by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project indicated the percentage of marriages that end in divorce for society as a whole is 45 - 50% — the study was not broken down by religious affiliation, as the article says.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops minimum norms for marriage preparation do not include a required six months of preparation, as the article implies.
For a corrected copy of the story, visit: www.ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: From Sept. 11's 'Ash Tuesday' To Ash Wednesday DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:One of the most renowned architects ever, he created one of America's greatest engineering wonders, a structure that became a symbol of the country's economic vitality. It would soar 110 stories above the ground, reaching 1,353 feet into the sky. From its observation decks, it was possible to see 45 miles in every direction. It housed close to 10 million square feet of working space, enough to comfortably accommodate 50,000 people.
Yamasaki's creation was inaugurated in New York City on April 4, 1973. From this point on, it was internationally known as the World Trade Center. Yamasaki insisted that the World Trade Center “should, because of its importance, become a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the cooperation of men and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.”
Some things were made to last forever. For many, the World Trade Center fell into this category — until Sept. 11, 2001.
The world saw the massive Twin Towers crumble into a heap of ash and soot that covered everything in lower Manhattan. Time magazine was the first to call Sept. 11 “Ash Tuesday.” The term fits the description of what happened. Everything around where the World Trade Center once stood seemed to be reduced to dust.
It is interesting that the creative editors at the national newsweekly played off Ash Wednesday, the day that marks the beginning of Lent in preparation for Easter. On this day, the priest traces on our foreheads the sign of the cross with ashes and says: “Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” Why does the Church smear ashes on our foreheads to begin Lent?
It's God's reminder of what we are. He makes this point rather emphatically in Scripture. “For out of the earth you were taken; you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). In the Psalter we read: “For [God] knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). The book of Ecclesiastes says nearly the same: “All are from the dust and all turn to dust again” (3:20). How can we boast about who we are or what we may have if we are only dust?
Dust is an image of the commonplace. There is always too much of it. One speck of it is as good as the next. There's nothing special about it. Our humble origin keeps us in check. We are dust. How could we ever brag about anything?
There's another reason for having our foreheads marked with ash, and many of us don't like this one: It's God's way of reminding us that we are sinners. Ash symbolizes our moral weakness. Dust or ash is easily stirred up, blown about, and stepped on. Our sins blow us, like dust or ash, in all directions except the right one — toward God. At the same time, our ashes mean repentance.
It's way of saying to God and neighbor, “I'm sorry.” Ash Wednesday sets a clear agenda on how to live the 40 days of Lent as penitents.
A good penitent nourishes his prayer with fasting. The idea of fasting scares many people — especially Americans. It shouldn't. St. Augustine, who had such a turbulent youth, saw fasting as a bitter, yet sweet, medicine: “No one can doubt … that fasting is profitable; for when a man imposes on himself the burden of fasting, he shows that he really wants what he is asking for,” he wrote. “That is why it is that ‘prayer is good when accompanied by fasting.’” However, some would argue that fasting is beyond the possibility of many because of the physical intensity of their work or lifestyle.
Is there any way to gain the spiritual benefits of fasting without eating less? St. John Chrysostom says Yes. How? “By enjoying food while having no taste for sin. This is a far better kind of fasting, and easier as well.” We can all do this type of fasting.
A good penitent always joins his prayer and fasting to almsgiving. Almsgiving is more than writing a check for the needy.
It requires us to practice fraternal charity by forgiving others and rooting out any form of hatred in our hearts. Almsgiving proves our charity is real by works of mercy.
Ash Wednesday sets a tough agenda for Lent — no doubt about that. But the benefits outweigh the sacrifices when we think of our future reward: The Resurrection.
A good penitent prays. Prayer is the most important activity of Lent. If our prayer life has been slipping lately because of our job, our responsibilities at home, or any other activities, Lent is the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to spending time with God. Look for a place to be alone with God.
Meditate often on the eternal truths: death and judgment, heaven and hell. Ask for help discerning whether or not your life is headed in the right direction. If you're on the right road, stay on it. If you have taken a bad turn, change directions today. Don't wait. Now is the time of salvation.
This is the message of Ash Tuesday. It's also the message of Lent.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Studies in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: Minoru Yamasaki thinks big. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair ----- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: Let's Save the Sabbath's Soul DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:In years past, one reason Catholics did so well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test might have been due to ecclesiastical (that's a 14-letter word) vocabulary: Catholics knew how to spell i-m-m-a-c-u-l-a-t-e and most knew the word “servile.”
Catholics avoided “servile” work on Sundays. While the scrupulous may have exaggerated its incidence, the prohibition against servile work on the Sabbath served a useful purpose. It compelled Catholics to weigh whether a given instance of work was justified. Sunday came first.
That burden of proof is disappearing.
Last September, the Polish Parliament passed a law banning most larger stores from opening on Sundays. President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former communist, has already promised to veto it. Even if he didn't, however, the new parliamentary majority of former communists elected in September would most likely repeal it.
The interesting thing in the Polish debate was that explicit religious arguments were rarely made for the law. Even its proponents saw themselves as defenders of small shopkeepers against “predatory” foreign supermarkets and malls. (In Poland, “mom-and-pop” type stores open Sunday mornings to let churchgoers buy fresh bread, meat and milk.) Writing in the news weekly Polityka, Joanna Solska argued that a country with a 15% unemployment rate should not be closing stores the day they do 20% of their business. In a new twist on social justice, she argued that real “concern” for workers means not taking away their Sunday jobs.
Just Another Manic Sunday?
In America, “blue” laws have vanished in most jurisdictions, the victims of combined pressure from merchants eager to make a Sunday buck and secularists claiming that the laws violate “separation of church and state.” As a kid growing up in 1960s, New Jersey, I remember two stores being open Sundays: Mike's, where you could buy a Sunday paper (till 1 p.m.) and Mizerak's, where you could get milk and cold cuts (till 2).
Today, the sole remaining vestige of that era is the disclaimer in metro New York advertisements hawking the latest sales: “except in Paramus and Wayne.” (Bergen County, N.J., still has Sunday closing laws, to the lament of mall owners in Paramus and Wayne).
In an economy driven by consumption, where profit is often the “bottom line” governing social policy, what else can one call Sunday work but “servile?” When the working poor have to labor on Sundays, be it because they need the money or because their employer demands it, social injustice is in play. When the 40-hour workweek treats Sunday as just another day in seven, social injustice is in play. Occasionally one still hears laments about the commercialization of Christmas; the commercialization of Sunday is treated as a fait accompli.
Sunday ought to have its own special flavor and texture. You catch a hint of that even in our great cities: Sunday mornings are quiet. Even the traffic moves slower. In Poland not so long ago, Saturdays were still sometimes workdays. Even then, however, things started winding down Saturday afternoon. Big stores closed by 3 or 4 o'clock — 5 at the latest. The approach of Sunday was palpable.
In America, Sunday as a day of religion and rest is being fast replaced by a secularized, ersatz “rest”: the weekend. But weekends are hardly restful. They often become time to attend to the necessities of life (like family shopping) for which a harried workweek leaves no time. In the absence of real rest on week-days (Americans now sleep fewer hours than ever), Sunday is not so much a day of rest — understood as a time of religion and reflection on life's priorities — as a last-gasp recharging of exhausted biological batteries.
That renewal can take the form of Sunday mornings in bed, but it also increasingly takes the form of time for ever-diminishing chances of recreation: Just a few years ago, the bishops of one state had to appeal to public-school districts to stop scheduling soccer games on Sunday mornings, the only time the kids apparently seemed to have left to participate in the basic human good of play.
It is not accidental that Josef Pieper, the great Thomist philosopher, titled one of his books Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Without time to relax, people cannot pursue the kind of reflection culture demands. Consider how many people “relax” on Sunday by visiting a museum, participating in a community activity or even just going off as a family somewhere. Compare that to how many deem a Sunday at the mall the ultimate in relaxation.
Show me a culture whose members look to conspicuous consumption for a sense of community, and I will show you one shallow culture.
Without downplaying law as a shaper of social thinking and values, American Catholics can mount their own personal protests against Sabbath servility (and worker exploitation). Let's apply the test we once applied to others to ourselves. Let's ask: Is this instance of economic activity really necessary? Before making a Sunday purchase, ask: Can't this transaction occur some other day? Do I really need to do the household shopping on Sunday, especially when so many stores are open 24 hours per day?
Next Sunday, as you're paging through the flashy store fliers, ask yourself: Do I really need this stuff? If so, do I really need to have it today?
Even if the only honest answer is Yes, could I not make the sacrifice of some time on a late weeknight to preserve the dignity of Sunday?
And, while we're at it, let's apply the old principle of subsidiarity. If I have to buy staples on a Sunday, why not do it at a small, local merchant open only Sunday mornings rather than in a national chain open all day just to maximize profits?
The Dignity of Downtime
Let's not forget that every time we buy out of convenience on Sunday, somebody has to work. Some of that work may be necessary, but most, honestly, isn't.
In fostering unnecessary economic activity on Sunday, we compel our neighbor to work. The secularist may say, “that's his choice,” but it's hard to believe that most people would not rather have Sundays off.
Even if they choose to work, however, do we want to be complicit in dulling other people's sensitivities to Sunday? And do we really want to live in a culture where Sunday is just another day?
Perhaps we need some of our own Sunday rituals.
In Jewish tradition, the woman of the house lights candles on Friday evening to mark the arrival of the Sabbath. Some family-based rituals are needed by Catholics to recapture our consciousness of Sunday's approach.
Every Catholic can likewise take some small part in recovering — at least in his own heart and home — the special dignity of Sunday.
Man does not live on bread alone; neither does he live on the wage alone. Social justice demands that we recover Sunday as a day of rest for our neighbors and ourselves.
John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian, writes from Warsaw.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: Economies of Scale, or 'All for the Glory of God' DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:I recently had the opportunity to revisit one of my favorite former parishes, Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara, Calif.
During that visit, I had to ask myself: What is it that makes this parish work?
Any answer to that question has to begin with the very special person of its pastor, Msgr. John Sweeney. But there are lots of holy and learned priests whose parishes don't work nearly so well. What in particular makes Father Sweeney's parish so dynamic? (Forgive me, Monsignor, but you'll always be “Father” to me — even when you're St. John Sweeney.)
The answer, I think, boils down to one thing. Everything at the parish is directed toward devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Even Father Sweeney's legendary devotion to Our Lady leads people to the Blessed Sacrament. I believe this works for two reasons — one natural, the other supernatural.
The natural reason is that when everything and everyone is directed toward the same end, there is much less competition of the destructive sort. Let me illustrate by way of contrast.
I'll bet you have seen parishes like this: The parish has a beautiful choir, lovely art and architecture, and a charming pastor. But if they are all calling attention to themselves, they are competing with each other for the congregation's attention. The choir director thinks the church is a concert hall, while the pastor uses the homily for public-policy analysis. The liturgy committee treats the church like a theater, and views its role as providing entertainment. Meanwhile, the congregation thinks the sanctuary is a social meeting place.
These may all be gifted and competent people, but they are not really working together. In fact, the more clever and gifted are particularly prone to this confusion. We can't help but know when we are good at what we do. But then we forget that Jesus is the star of the show. We get focused on ourselves and forget to look toward Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. The choir and the liturgy committee surely know that their parish church is not the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But an impure intention has a way of seeping through the facade of piety. The worst case is the priest who gives a 20-minute homily, and does a hurried consecration. The whole of the parish becomes far less than the sum of its parts.
By contrast, when every detail of the liturgy and the church building is focused on devotion to Our Lord, people are building each other up, and working together for a common goal. At Our Lady of Peace, this devotion shows up in everything from the appearance of the church, to the choice of music, to the way the priests handle the hosts in the ciborium.
No one, as far as I can tell, is trying to call attention to himself; no one is looking for recognition of her contributions. And, as far as I can tell, people are satisfied when the congregation is prayerful and recollected. I cannot recall a single instance in which the congregation applauded the choir. But I can recall many occasions on which everyone, including the priest, were practically in rapture from the beauty of the music. The music is there to lead us toward a greater union with God. That is quite a different definition of success than the kind that is measured with applause.
So, the natural reason this method works is a kind of “economies of scale.” Everything, and everyone, is going in the same direction. Folks are not competing with one another, and thereby inadvertently tearing each other down. There is far less scope for “turf” battles, because everyone is “on the same page.”
The supernatural reason this “system” works is that we are focused on something far bigger than ourselves — namely, Our Lord. Our heightened awareness of his presence magnifies even our small contributions and makes them more valuable than they would be standing alone.
For instance, at Our Lady of Peace, there is a little old gentleman who leads the singing of “O Lord I am not Worthy” at one of the Masses every week. I don't know this gentleman's name; he appears to be either Filipino or Vietnamese. It doesn't matter. His singing is one of the most touching, tender moments of that very special place. It is not because of his great talent. Let us just say he would not be mistaken for a trained singer. But because of his obvious devotion, his contribution is very powerful. His devotion to Our Lord spills over onto his singing and magnifies its value far beyond any natural value it could have.
In this way, the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts. When everything is directed to the greater glory of God, some of his glory inevitably floods over onto us. This happens precisely because people are not looking for their own aggrandizement. The lady who takes care of the flowers isn't really expecting people to come up and pat her on the back. But she knows that the beauty of the sanctuary contributes to the atmosphere of holiness that everyone enjoys.
And so it goes at Our Lady of Peace. From the choir to the altar servers, to the old gentleman singing, to every person who comes in and genuflects devoutly, to the lady who vacuums the church, to Father Sweeney himself, everyone works toward the same end: God. I've come to see that the secret of this parish's success is that simple — and that profound.
Jennifer Roback Morse, A research fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote Love & Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jennifer Roback Morse ----- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: A Heroine From a Time of Terror DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:We had come to York for a day of sightseeing, unaware that our excursion was to become a pilgrimage.
We decided to pay a brief visit to St. Wilfrid's Catholic Church, next door to the well-known York Minster. Inside St. Wilfrid's was a statue of the “Pearl of York,” St. Margaret Clitherow, who was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty English Martyrs. A small sign near the statue mentioned her shrine, which, we learned, is located nearby in the Clitherow home and former butcher shop.
We easily found our way to the street called The Shambles. The Shambles is a picturesque medieval street with overhanging windows leaning in toward the center of the narrow cobblestone street. We could almost imagine life in medieval York, with busy shoppers and gawking visitors peering into shop windows.
The Shambles has changed little in 400 years, except the butcher shops that once lined the street now offer trendy gifts, upscale clothing, souvenirs and cappuccino.
Engulfed in so much activity, we walked right past the nondescript building, No. 35, which houses St. Margaret's shrine. Doubling back, we noticed the signboard proclaiming the site a Catholic shrine and asking visitors to please keep quiet when stepping inside. Once inside, we felt compelled to whisper. Other travelers sat on the wooden benches that line the walls of the plain room. An altar was at the far end of the room and a small statue of St. Margaret was behind it.
The simple furnishings and humble interior belied the incredible feat of the courageous woman who lived there. She probably would have preferred it that way.
Reformation Risks
Margaret was born during the brief reign of Mary Tudor, whose attempts to return England to the Catholic faith were quickly suppressed. In 1558, when Margaret was about 2 years old, Elizabeth I ascended the throne and began to systematically obliterate the Catholic Church in England. Margaret's family, like many other loyal subjects of the queen, went with the times and followed the changing religion.
At the age of 15, Margaret married a prosperous butcher, John Clitherow. John was raised in a Catholic family but held to the state religion. Margaret, raised a Protestant, converted to the Catholic faith shortly after they were married. She may have been influenced by John's brother, who eventually became a Catholic priest. The couple soon had three young children and, by all accounts, were doing well. Margaret was a devoted wife and mother and a keen businesswoman who worked hard in her husband's butcher shop. Nonetheless, her greatest devotion was to her Lord — and she endeavored to serve him above all else.
Under Elizabeth I, everyone was required to attend Anglican services. There were severe penalties for nonattendance and no Catholic priests were allowed to minister to the faithful. Catholics caught meeting in secret for Mass and the sacraments faced terrible punishments, including death. Margaret Clitherow was among the stalwart souls of the north who were willing to risk their lives rather than submit to the new religion.
Margaret sheltered priests, had Masses said in her home and kept priestly vestments in a hiding hole. Her husband tolerated her religious practices and paid her fines. He could not keep her out of prison, however, and she was arrested and imprisoned several times over a period of seven years.
The Clitherows sent their older son to Douai, France, to continue his Catholic education with hopes of entering the seminary there. At that time it was a treasonable offense to go abroad to receive holy orders with the intention of returning to England as a priest. It was also a felony, punishable by death, to shelter priests. Against this backdrop, it is all the more remarkable that Margaret would display such heroic zeal in her example of Christian witness. Meanwhile, John Clitherow grew more anxious for his young wife's safety.
Pressed into Heaven
Margaret was arrested for the last time in 1586. She was charged with harboring priests and hearing Mass. She did not want to plead and thus bring herself to trial, which would require that her husband, children and servants testify against her. Her refusal to plea infuriated her captors and they gave her the harshest penalty: peine forte et dure, (strong and difficult pain). She was to be laid naked on the ground with sharp stones under her back and a large wooden door laden with heavy stones placed on top of her. She was then to be given nothing for three days but a little barley bread and some “puddle water.” At the end of the three days, she was to be pressed to death, with her hands and feet bound to large posts.
Margaret's response to her death sentence was: “God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this.” Her husband wept bitterly and declared, “She is the best wife in England, and the best Catholic also.”
Margaret had great concern for her modesty and stitched a white linen garment for herself in prison, which she was permitted to wear for the execution. She sent the remainder of her clothes to her family. To her 12-year-old daughter, Anne, she sent her shoes and her stockings, admonishing her to serve God and follow in her steps. To her husband she sent her bonnet, a sign of her loving duty to him as her head.
On the day of Margaret's execution, March 25, 1586, she was taken to the tollbooth on the Ouse Bridge in York. There she was made to lie down beneath the heavy door, her arms outstretched and her wrists bound to large stakes. Four beggars were hired as executioners. They could not bear to hear her suffering as she cried out, “Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! Have mercy on me!” The weights were piled on quickly and within 15 minutes she was dead. It was Good Friday.
Her corpse was taken to a dung heap for burial, but six weeks later her still incorrupt body was recovered by some Catholics and secretly reburied. Her new burial place was so closely guarded a secret that it's now unknown. Her followers detached her hand from her body to keep as a relic before reburying her. This relic, now shriveled and yellow with age, is one of the most precious possessions of the nuns at the Bar Convent in York.
The Pearl of York embraced the cross and understood what it meant to let her heart and mind be guarded by a peace that surpasses all understanding. She put herself totally in God's hands and trusted him to care for her children in her absence.
The children who once laughed and played in No. 35 held fast to the faith of their mother. Her two sons became priests and served among the English Catholics. Her daughter became a nun after escaping to Belgium. Her husband remarried and nothing more is known of him.
We have since been back to St. Margaret's shrine several more times. Each time we visit, we come away with a greater appreciation for the humble wife and mother who faced persecution and martyrdom with uncommon joy.
We shall never know how many souls were saved the day Margaret Clitherow laid down her life.
As a wife and mother, I can't begin to comprehend willingly leaving my husband and children to face a martyr's death. Perhaps Margaret understood that God will not be out-done in generosity. More than 400 years later, we still find her home a safe haven.
Debbie Nowak lives in North Yorkshire, England.
----- EXCERPT: St. Margaret Clitherow's humble shrine in york, England ----- EXTENDED BODY: Debbie Nowak ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Irresistible Impaired DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Mental disabilities have periodically been the subject of successful Hollywood films.
Generally speaking, they divide themselves into two almost opposite categories.
The first transforms the afflicted into a noble innocent whose inherent sweetness is often misunderstood (Charly and Rain Man). These movies tend to be sentimental and, often, to glorify victimhood. Their success is measured by how often the audience cries.
The second type emphasizes the out-of-control, even violent aspects of the condition (Primal Fear, Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve). The behavior depicted is exotic and outrageous. The intention is to scare viewers, almost as if they were watching a horror film. Sometimes a movie like the 1999 hit Girl, Interrupted attempts to combine both types.
Two recent releases — I Am Sam and A Beautiful Mind — self-consciously try to pump new life into these genres. Sam uses flashy visuals and a hip soundtrack to mask its conformity to most of the clichés of the noble-innocent category. Mind intelligently reverses our understanding of the out-of-control madman stereotype, but not before including some well-calculated tugs at our heartstrings of its own.
I Am Sam is an old-fashioned weepie disguised as an issue film about child custody. The lead character of the title, played by Sean Penn, is a decent, hard-working laborer with the mental and emotional age of a 7-year-old. He's trying to raise his daughter, Lucy (Dakota Fanning), on his own. As she approaches 8, she begins to grow beyond Sam in reading and social skills.
After Sam gets in trouble with the law, the state tries to take his daughter away from him. This sets up an emotional scene that director Jessie Nelson and co-screenwriter Kristin Johnson repeat in different forms throughout: A sobbing daughter is wrenched away from her loving dad. They milk it shamelessly.
In order to get Lucy back, Sam retains a high-powered attorney, Rita (Michelle Pfeiffer), who's guilt-tripped into taking the case pro bono. She has her own child whom she neglects and a resentful husband whom we never see.
There are real issues to be explored in Rita's situation, but the filmmakers make all the predictable dramatic choices. It's obvious after her very first scene with Sam what her arc will be. Involvement with this case is going to humanize her so that she will pay more attention to her kid and less to her career ambitions.
The key question, however, is whether Sam has the capabilities to raise a child whose mental powers are more advanced than his. The filmmakers fudge the answers whenever they can, preferring to underline how much Sam, Lucy and Rita are suffering personally.
The movie's message seems to be an uncritical repetition of the Beatles’ song “All You Need is Love,” which is covered on the soundtrack along with a half-dozen other LennonMcCartney classics. The music seems to have inspired an MTV style of visual tricks, with zooms and quick pans to distract the audience from thinking too deeply. But those who like to shed tears in a movie theater will get their money's worth.
A Beautiful Mind is smarter about its material. Like the 1996 hit Shine, it chronicles the descent of a great talent into madness. But Mind, freely adapted from Sylvia Nasar's prizewinning biography of mathematician John Nash, takes a more sophisticated view of mental illness. Director Ron Howard (Apollo 13) and screenwriter Akiva Goldman get the audience inside Nash's head and make us see the world as Nash does, imaginatively finding visual equivalents for his interior, mental state.
Both films make a plea on behalf of the mentally challenged.
The action begins in 1947 when the young Nash (Russell Crowe) enters Princeton as a graduate student. The filmmakers capture the sense of intellectual ferment pulsing through that elite academic community and make us believe Nash really is a genius. A social misfit, he produces a groundbreaking doctoral dissertation on game-theory economics that will win the Nobel Prize 47 years later.
Nash lands a plum job at an MIT defense-research lab. While doing this paranoia-inducing, highly classified work, he develops a form of schizophrenia that gradually takes over his mind until he can longer separate his hallucinations from reality. After a complete breakdown, he's institutionalized and subjected to insulin shock treatments.
Upon his release, he is prescribed drugs that numb his senses. Nash attempts to “solve” his illness like a math equation, through logic and discipline, without the use of medications. The result is a series of setbacks.
The filmmakers never present Nash as a victim. His courage in fighting his way back to some kind of sanity is awe-inspiring. Unlike previous Hollywood treatments of the subject, schizophrenia is depicted as an illness that can be managed.
In a slight improvement on the facts, Nash's wife, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) is shown standing by her man through thick and thin. Some have criticized this and other liberties that filmmakers have taken, particularly in regard to the darker side of his personal life. But the movie pointedly presents itself as “based on” Nash's life rather a literal recitation of events. The changes made seem justified by the larger dramatic truth that the movie wants to communicate about the nature of schizophrenia.
Both I Am Sam and A Beautiful Mind have admirable intentions. Each makes a sincere plea for greater tolerance of those with mental problems. Sam doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. Mind expands the boundaries of popular knowledge on the subject.
John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Can mental patients still move audiences? A Beautiful Mind and I Am Sam hope so ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:My Darling Clementine (1946)
Director John Ford (Stagecoach) is Hollywood's poet of the American West.
His movies explore the period's myths and cultural archetypes with passion and a unique intelligence.
My Darling Clementine is his expressionistic re-creation of the events leading up to the real-life gunfight at the OK Corral, where Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) face off against Ike Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his murderous clan.
The legendary confrontation has been the subject of countless films (Tombstone, Hour of the Gun, Wyatt Earp, etc.).
This is the best. Ford sets the fascinating friendship between lawman Earp with the cardsharp Holliday at that moment when the West is being transformed from frontier anarchy into civilized communities.
Ford's narrative hook is the search of prim Boston school-teacher Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs) for her fallen ex-boyfriend Holliday during the days before the shoot-out.
The action is thrilling and the rugged landscapes have a primal beauty.
But it's the complexity of the moral decisions Ford's characters must confront that makes the movie great.
12 Angry Men (1957)
The American justice system depends on the jury system and the assumption of a defendant's innocence until he is proven guilty. 12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet (Serpico) and adapted by Reginald Rose from his television play, dramatizes how one juror can make a difference.
A teen-age Puerto Rican is accused of knifing his father to death. The prosecution asks for the death penalty. It looks like an open-and-shut case. On the first ballot the jurors vote 11 to one for conviction.
The lone hold-out (Henry Fonda) insists they examine the evidence more closely.
Some jurors (Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, Ed Begley, E.G. Marshall and Martin Balsam) resist for reasons of prejudice, anger or fatigue. But they slowly realize that a man's life is in their hands, and they become personally involved.
All the action is set in the jury room. The filmmakers skillfully build up the tension as the audience comes to understand the mind and motivations of each juror. The result is both educational and inspiring.
In a day when movies resort too often to special effects thrills in place of character, drama and story, 12 Angry Men is a special treat. It has the feel of a play with the reality-factor of the cinema.
Boycott (2001)
The 1955-56 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott was the beginning of the civil rights movement as most of us understand it. Nonviolent civil disobedience was used by blacks and their white allies to protest the morally unjust laws that enforced segregation in the South.
Boycott, a cable-TV movie directed by Clark Johnson and adapted by Daniel Farrell III and Timothy Sexton from Stewart Burns’ book, emphasizes the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Jeffrey Wright) in organizing the demonstrations and his emergence as a national spokesman for the movement.
Rosa Parks, a local black, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. When she refuses to pay the $10 fine, the one-day protest turns into a protracted boycott that leads to the U.S. Supreme Court finding Alabama's bus-segregation laws unconstitutional.
King and his young wife are presented as vulnerable human beings rather than political icons. The film-makers cleverly mix the dramatic material with documentary footage, black-and-white re-creations and eyewitness testimonial interviews.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, FEB. 10
NBA All-Star Game
NBC, 5 p.m. live
The world's top basketball players show off their skills in this exciting annual duel.
SUNDAY, FEB. 10
Revealing Rome
Travel, 9 p.m.
This show tours majestic Vatican City and surrounding Rome.
MONDAY, FEB. 11
Welcoming the Sick: Lourdes
EWTN, 6:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
The prayerfulness and patience of the sick pilgrims who visit Lourdes, and the loving care that international volunteers and the townspeople give them, are vivid living illustrations of the role of suffering in Catholic theology.
TUESDAY, FEB. 12
Past the Boundary: The Journey of Augustine Tolton
EWTN, 5:30 p.m.
This show tells the story of Father Augustine Tolton (1854-1897), an ex-slave who became a priest. He completed his seminary studies in Rome, was ordained there in 1886, and was assigned back home to Illinois. Parishioners white and black loved “Father Gus” for his holiness and kindness. His mother, Martha, had fled Missouri with her three young children to gain freedom in Illinois.
TUESDAYS
Real Renos
Home & Garden, 7:30 p.m.
Watch contractor Jim Caruk and his foreman try to meet home-renovation deadlines and deal with homeowners, tradesmen, architects and interior designers. Along the way, you'll find out what to ask contractors about your “reno” and what to reasonably expect.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13
Rome's Hidden Churches - Lenten Pilgrimage
EWTN, 7:15 a.m., 3:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m.
On Ash Wednesday, make a resolution to stop by some of Rome's most beautiful churches — the “station” churches, which Lenten pilgrims visit today just as they have from time immemorial. This series will continue on EWTN through Holy Week.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13
The Secrets of the Colosseum
Discovery Channel, 9 p.m.
This exploration of the huge Roman arena reveals some of its amazing design secrets.
FRIDAY, FEB. 15
Mysteries of Easter Island
Learning Channel, 9 p.m.
Documentary-makers love to speculate about the origin of the colossal statues on this remote Pacific island. This program suggests links to ancient Peruvians and mentions the amusing theory suggesting that space creatures may have been behind the strange sculptures.
SATURDAY, FEB. 16
Moose: The Moody Monarch
Animal Planet, 9 p.m.
The moose, strongest member of the deer family, usually leaves other animals alone, and people too. But occasionally, moose on the loose make for messes and mayhem.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: A Tour of the Church's Finest Hours DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:In my pastoral experience working with converts, I have seen people touched by the Holy Spirit in many ways as they draw closer to the Church.
Some are attracted by the coherence of the Church's teaching, others by the beauty of the art, music and literature that its culture has produced, and others are simply magnetized by the sacraments — the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and holy Communion, and Christ's overwhelming mercy in the sacrament of penance.
Many are won over by the example of the saints and loving friendship of Catholic friends. Oftentimes, the clincher is the answer to the simple questions: Did Jesus Christ found a Church during his lifetime, or did he just leave some disciples behind to transmit his message with no authority to guarantee its authenticity? And, if he founded a Church, which one is it? As Cardinal John Henry Newman put it: “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”
Up to now, I have not been able to recommend a one-volume history of the Church that did not have some notable defect. Some, like the works of Msgr. Philip Hughes, the great Church historian of the 20th century, are by now incomplete or outdated. (Hughes wrote a masterful popular history that condensed his scholarly three-volume history that is still in print.)
Others are heterodox or cynical in their approach to the history of the Church, seeing it as a human political institution with a long life span at best, a longer version of the Roman Empire or Ming Dynasty — or as a corrupt, avaricious, power-hungry institution whose chief mission has seemed to foster conflict between nations and fight progress with all its might.
H.W Crocker III answers the simple question about the nature of the Church with verve and energy in his new one-volume history, Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church: A 2000-Year History.
Invigorating Expedition
Crocker is a convert, a novelist, and an editor at a prominent publishing house in Washington, D.C. His book is masterfully written with a distinct “attitude.” His unambiguous presumption is that the Catholic Church is a divine institution founded by Christ and destined to last in its earthly state until the Second Coming.
With this as his starting point, he is able to acknowledge the many failings — institutional as well as personal — that come with any organization of human persons.
Pope John Paul II has done the same, with the many apologies he has offered during his pontificate — acts of sorrow expressed first to God and then to the nations, races, and other religions that, perhaps objectively, have felt wronged in the course of 2,000 years.
However, what makes this book so invigorating for readers fatigued by the endless, bigoted carping from authors such as James Carroll (Constantine's Sword) and Garry Wills (Papal Sin), is that Crocker feels free to celebrate the Church's victories, above all, the impact of saints not only in the Church but also on history.
The existence of the saints, in all their particularity of personality and time, and diversity of place, is perhaps the best proof of the divinity of the Church, of the Holy Spirit's dwelling within it.
Any institution should be judged, ultimately, by those who strive and succeed in living up to its ideals, not by those who only pay it lip service. After all, where would the Christian West be without Augustine, Patrick, Benedict, Francis and Dominic, Ignatius of Loyola — or, for that matter, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II?
Or what if the Christian West, virtually created by the faithful of the Catholic Church, had not nobly struggled against the militant forces of Islam for almost 800 years?
The West might exist, but it would be unrecognizable to our eyes and we all might be speaking a different language.
From Rome to All Reaches
Crocker has been recognized as an up-and-coming novelist by the Barnes and Nobles Discover Great Writer's Program. And he writes like one, with the happy addition of well-researched footnotes (although of secondary resources) and an ample bibliography for his strong statements.
“Thus the Protestant revolt took power in what had been provinces beyond the gates of Rome,” he writes, “in countries with fewer centuries of high civilization and Christianity: the Nordic Countries, northern Germany, parts of old Helvetia (Switzerland), parts of what became the Netherlands. All the barbaric peoples who had gaped and mocked at the legions of Rome and later plundered Rome's empire now rose again in a new barbarian assault against Roman authority. Their objective was overturning the Roman power, not reconciling with it. If Charles V was the new Stilicho, a Roman of barbarian blood trying desperately to plug every hole in Rome's defense, the new Alaric was an ill-tempered, unbalanced, and unhappy monk, Martin Luther, who himself said his monastery was just one mile from the barbarians.”
Crocker does not claim to be a credentialed academic historian and not a few of his more provocative conclusions would be open to challenge and disagreement, even by amateurs. Nevertheless, he provides us with the perfect one-volume companion to the more scholarly magisterial four volumes (a work in progress) of the historian Warren Carroll, founder of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.
Crocker's Triumph makes the history of the Church come alive, and in the spirit of Hilaire Belloc.
Right now I can't think of a better way to get acquainted with the glorious 2,000-year history of the Church as each one of us, with our free will and God's grace, cooperates in creating the history of the Church for the next 2,000.
Father C.J. McCloskey III is director of the Catholic Information Center of the Archdiocese of Washington. www.catholicity.com
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father C.J. Mcclosky III ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:More from AmeriCorps
The president proposed recruiting 200,000 new volunteers to work “to rebuild our communities.” Some of those new volunteers would come from the AmeriCorps national-service program, Bush said. Although he was not more specific in his address, the president wants AmeriCorps to provide 25,000 of the 200,000 new volunteers, Leslie Lenkowsky, chief executive officer of the Corporation for National Service, the federal agency that oversees Ameri-Corps, said in an interview after Bush's speech.
Home Schoolers on Campus
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 23 — The Pennsylvania Legislature is considering a law that would require public schools to let home schoolers participate in sports and other extracurricular activities. Fourteen states already have such laws, according to the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association.
About 6% of the nation's 850,000 home-schooled children participate in extracurricular activities, said the wire-service report.
Ground Zero's Church
“Rebuilding the church represents a victory over the attackers,” said William Perez, a student. “This church is a symbol. It will become a landmark.”
GI Bill For Kids?
Voucher opponents claim the statistic is important because the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Cleveland program in 2000, ruling that it seems to promote religion. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in an appeal later this month.
Catholic Buddies
“The purpose is to help with integration into the community,” said Jennifer Fadal of Best Buddies. “Our goal is to eventually have these friendships occur naturally.”
Georgetown Pro-lifers
Lisa Credo, a freshman from St. Mary's College, said she hoped to send a message to policymakers on Capitol Hill: “The only way to change what's wrong with the government is to show support for this issue.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Finances and Fasting DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Q I find I spend money I don't have because of a long-time habit of impulse buying. As a result, I'm always living my financial life on the edge. Do you have any suggestions?
A Many people are faced with the same challenge of impulse buying you mention. I remember one couple who had taken their daughter on a cruise — and put the bill on a credit card! When the idea for a cruise came up, it seemed too good to pass by. No matter that they didn't have the money. Their inability to discipline their spending left them with credit card debts of over $50,000.
The consumerism of our society promotes instant self-gratification without regard to cost. This is quite the opposite from the Gospel message of developing an attitude of detachment from worldly goods. Lent offers us a perfect time to rein in our bad habits and learn how to achieve financial freedom by becoming better stewards.
One of the great disciplines the Church offers is fasting. Section 2043 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The fifth precept of the Church (‘You shall observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence.’), ensures the times of ascesis and penance which prepare us for the liturgical feasts; they help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart.”
Learning to acquire self-mastery over our instincts is just we need! While fasting is a requirement on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, there is no reason we can't use this powerful tool more frequently.
Assuming you're in good health and your family doctor wouldn't be opposed, I encourage you to fast on a more regular basis. This may be once a month, once every two weeks, or even weekly.
It's a struggle for all of us to overcome our desires and impulses and the Church knows this. That's why she reminds us, “It remains for the holy people to struggle, with the grace from on high, to obtain the good things God promises. In order to possess and contemplate God, Christ's faithful mortify their cravings and, with the grace of God, prevail over the seductions of pleasure and power” (Catechism, No. 2549).
With fasting, you'll find your character and will are strengthened and you're better able to avoid buying things at a whim.
Another effective tool for dealing with the habit of impulse buying is to track where your money goes.
It's amazing how the light goes on for many couples once they see how much of their hard earned income is being spent on things that really aren't high priorities for them.
Before they had a budget in place, the financial waters were muddy and they couldn't see the ramifications of their poor spending decisions.
By combining the benefits of a financial plan with the increased self discipline acquired through fasting, you'll find the financial peace you've been looking for.
God love you!
Phil Lenahan is executive director of Catholic Answers.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Religion and Life DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:RELIGION is the greatest support for life in America. People who are the most religious are the ones who are the most opposed to abortion on demand. One way to measure the difference is through church attendance:
Who wants more restrictions on abortion?
Those who attend church weekly
65%
Those who attend church almost weekly 23%
46%
Those who attend church less often
Source: Gallup poll, Jan. 22.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: A Farewell to Candy: Kids and Lent DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Spencer Lefebvre, a 10-year-old altar boy at St. Thomas Parish in Huntington, Mass., is eager to explain what he has in mind for Lent: “I'm going to say a rosary every Sunday night. And I'm going to give up all my desserts.”
His 8-year old sister Emily has similar plans, “I'm going to give up something that I really like, maybe desserts or candy, and pray a lot, and try to be kinder and more truthful.”
Their enthusiasm for the season of Lent is contagious. Laura Lefebvre, their mother, a Methodist who converted to the Catholic faith when she married her Catholic husband Gary 18 years ago, enjoys teaching her children not only the exterior practices, but also the deeper meaning of Lent.
“I want my children to know that Lent is a time to refocus on the whole message of what Christ's coming is all about. It's a time when we look in our hearts and prepare ourselves for the Easter season, so we can be closer to Jesus,” LeFebvre said.
Both her children expressed a fundamental understanding of why they pray and make sacrifices during Lent. Explained Spencer, “I think one reason is because Jesus didn't have anything when he was in the desert. I'm trying to be like Jesus. That's how I can show other people that I care.”
Young Spencer is right on the mark.
In fact, we observe the 40 days of Lent to imitate Jesus’ 40 days of prayer and fasting in the desert. Each year, on Ash Wednesday, the Pope reminds all of us, even children, of the importance of this season.
The Holy Father frequently quotes St. Luke when teaching about Lent, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
In his General Audience on Ash Wednesday in 1997 the Pope said, “The Holy Spirit, who led and sustained Christ in the ‘desert’, leads us into this season of Lent. … Attentive listening to Gods’ word, constant prayer, interior and exterior fasting, works of charity that concretely express our solidarity with our brothers and sisters: These matters cannot be avoided by those who, reborn to new life in baptism, no longer intend to live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Both Lefebvre parents plan to increase family prayers during Lent, and even though the children are not bound to abstain from meat, because of their age, the parents are planning on meatless Fridays.
Spencer claimed, “It's not hard to go without meat. We go out to eat pizza sometimes, pizza without meat.”
Their pastor, Father Donald Noiseux, a diocesan priest for 18 years, is not surprised by the enthusiasm for Lenten practices he perceives in the children of his parish.
“In the years following the Vatican [Council], for a while there seemed to be an emphasis on teaching children to do something extra for Lent, which is good, but in doing that we eliminated the notion of renouncing something.
“Somehow, we think children won't understand the importance of making sacrifices. We think it's beyond them, too negative. But I'm of the opinion that children are very predisposed to understand supernatural realities. For example, they are inclined to accept, without question, the invisible order, the holy angels. They have a predisposition toward God by virtue of their baptism. They understand what it means to make sacrifices for others. And we should give them that opportunity.”
Father Noiseux remembers what it was like when he was young. “When we were children we took these things very seriously giving up chocolate or television, something pleasurable. And that was good for us. It's a preparation for adult spiritual life. How can we expect people in marriage to make renunciations for the sake of the spouse if they are not trained to renounce their self will for the sake of a higher good. That training starts in childhood.”
Catherine Peternel, a mother of three girls, from St. Cecilia's Church in Wolfeboro, Mass., couldn't agree more. She's seen how childhood Lenten practices affected her adult years.
As a youngster, Peternel gave up things like potato chips and offered her Lenten sacrifices for the good of others. The concept of sacrifice stuck with her. She recalls that later, as an adult, when she learned one of her aunts required bed rest for a troubled pregnancy and another aunt needed a job, her Lenten training kicked in. She started making little sacrifices, offering them to God for her aunts.
Peternal is still planning what she and her family will do for Lent this year. One thing is certain, though. Her plans will include taking all three of her girls, 5-year old Annie, 3-year old Rebecca and 7-month old Mary, to daily mass.
She believes her eldest daughter, Annie, is old enough to start learning about making sacrifices. “I think I'll start by telling her that it's doing things you don't necessarily want to do, to help someone else, or for God.”
She doesn't think it will be a difficult concept for Annie to understand. “It's amazing what they understand when you explain it to them. I am thoroughly amazed at what my daughter picks up at church.”
In fact, many children eagerly look forward to an opportunity to pray and make sacrifices for others.
Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the Fatima seers recently beatified by the Holy Father, passionately sought out, and even created, situations for making sacrifices and offering them up for sinners. Jacinta gave up her lunches and ate bitter olives. Francisco would retreat to church to pray the rosary. They offered their prayers and sacrifices up for the good of others, and seemed to understand the concept quite well.
“I think we have a whole reservoir that we can tap into with children, and we shouldn't hesitate in training them in the practices of Lent,” Father Noiseux concludes. “I find children are often very generous. It consoles them to think that God can use their sacrifices, no matter how small, God can use the act of their will and assist someone else by their sacrifice, by the intention behind it, the love behind it!”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Confession for Children DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Here's an examination of conscience for children.
Did I pay attention at Mass?
Have I fooled around in Church?
Did I say my prayers every day?
Did I say mean things to my mom or dad?
Did I always say “Thank You” to people?
Am I hard to get along with (during school, at Grandma's, at home?)?
Did I do what my mom and dad told me to do? My teacher?
Was I lazy around the house?
Did I do my chores?
Did I hurt others people's feelings by calling them bad names?
Have I started fights with my brothers and sisters at home?
Have I blamed other people for things I do?
Did I get other people into trouble?
Do I hit people when I get mad?
Have I forgiven people? Or am I holding a grudge?
Have I cheated or been unfair in games?
Did I refuse to play with someone for no good reason?
Was I was lazy about my school-work?
Did I fail to do my homework?
Did I cheat in school?
How many times did I lie to my parents? My teachers? My friends?
Did I take anything that didn't belong to me?
Did I avoid medicine? Did I refuse to eat food I didn't like?
Act of Contrition:
My God, I am sorry for my sins with all of my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy. Amen.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Lenten Obligations DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Days of Fast and Abstinence. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Days of Abstinence: All Fridays in Lent.
Fast: Catholics, 18 through 59 years old, eat only one full meal during the day. Two smaller meals may be eaten; but, together, these two meals should not equal a full meal. Sick persons and those requiring special diets are exempt.
Abstinence: Catholics 14 years and older abstain from eating meat. Sick persons and those requiring special diets are exempt.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Transforming Catholic Doctors, One by One DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:The strongest witness to the effective work of Dr. Robert Saxer and the organization he heads, the Catholic Medical Association, is the recent change of heart of a fellow physician. Dr. David Harris, a Florida obstetrician/gynecologist, will no l o n g e r prescribe contraceptives to his patients even if they ask, and will provide information on Church-approved Natural Family Planning.
The change in direction for Dr. Harris came after years of gentle but persistent guidance from Dr. Saxer, a Florida pediatrician, and other members of the Catholic Medical Association. A key factor was an audiotape Dr. Saxer gave him by Janet Smith, who lectures and has written a number of books on the Church's teaching on artificial contraception.
“They're very good people,” Dr. Harris, who practices in Fort Walton Beach, said of Catholic Medical Association. “They did it very kindly and gently, but they put a burr in my saddle. Eventually, if you look at the evidence about artificial contraception, you have that nagging voice in the back of your head saying that something is not quite right.”
He knows he may lose patients when he sends out a letter this month explaining his decision. “It's a big financial risk, I realize that,” he told the Register. “You assume you'll lose a fair number of patients when you tell them you won't be prescribing contraceptives. But you hope there will be enough people out there who will be happy with your decision.”
Dr. Saxer takes little credit for the change in his colleague whom he now considers a friend. “It's the strength and attractiveness of the truth,” he stated. “We can only seek to make it known. Catholic ethics in medicine is nothing other than the natural law, which we all are drawn to. We want to promote this among our Catholic physicians.”
Dr. Robert Saxer attributes his success to ‘the strength and attractiveness of the truth.’
Dr. Saxer, 69, was elected to a two-year term as president at the Catholic Medical Association convention last November. The convention produced some controversy by its endorsement of a statement that claims homosexuality is not a genetically determined condition and that persons with same-sex attractions can change their orientation through therapy and proper reception of the sacraments. The extensively researched statement, “Homo-sexuality and Hope,” cites many recent studies to conclude that some persons may be predisposed or “at-risk” for developing homosexual attractions because of environmental and familial situations, but no one is “predestined” to homosexuality.
Recommending a counseling method based on Catholic principles, the statement says, “For a Catholic with same-sex attraction, the goal of therapy should be freedom to live chastely according to one's state in life.” In this respect, the Church asks no more of those with same-sex attraction than it does of all Catholics who wish to live in the state of grace, the report adds. It goes on to highly recommend the work of Courage, an international organization that supports homosexual Catholics in living chastely.
The statement also cites the case of Dr. Robert Spitzer, the psychiatric researcher who was involved in the decision to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.
In a recent interview, the statement says, Dr. Spitzer claimed that he is now convinced that a number of persons with homosexual attractions have made great progress toward a heterosexual orientation.
“The main point of the statement is that there is hope for homosexuals who suffer from what we prefer to call same-sex attraction disorder,” Dr. Saxer said. “It is not a predetermined condition, and we should not be telling people that it is.”
Most of Dr. Saxer's work these days is in the pro-life field. He was co-founder six years ago of the Florida Catholic Medical Association, a chapter of the national organization, which has representatives working with bishops and respect-life offices in all of the state's seven dioceses. He has worked with the Florida Catholic Conference on life issues from abortion to euthanasia to stem-cell research, and testified on behalf of the conference in the state legislature on abortion bills dealing with parental notification and a woman's right to know.
D. Michael McCarron, executive director of the Florida Catholic Conference, called Dr. Saxer's contributions indispensable in the work of the state's bishops. “He is very willing to be involved in public policy issues and to make a statement from his medical expertise,” McCarron said. “
We readily call on him and I would say without a doubt that he is very effective.”
McCarron said that Dr. Saxer sat down a few years ago with then-Sen. Connie Mack of Florida to explain the importance of a federal bill promoting pain relief for patients who may be tempted toward physician-assisted suicide. After the meeting, Mack became a cosponsor of the bill in the Senate, but it did not pass, McCarron stated.
“He appreciates the importance of working with a person and getting a message across in an engaging way,” McCarron added.
“His biggest contribution has been the formation of the Florida Catholic Medical Association,” he continued. “He has opened up avenues of communication that didn't exist before. Now the doctors are talking to the respect life directors in every diocese about the science of medicine, and the respect life directors are able to reach doctors with explanations of Church teaching. I think he should bring this model to every state.”
The gentle approach also describes the methods of the Catholic Medical Association as an organization. Although the association's mission involves an un-swerving support of the Church's teaching on the whole range of controverted medical issues, Dr. Saxer explains, all Catholic health professionals are eligible to join, regardless of their views. The assumption is that physicians who dissent on issues such as contraception, abortion or stem-cell research will be easier to reach if they receive Catholic Medical Association mailings and attend the conferences.
“We're not giving out a litmus test when someone joins.” Dr. Saxer said. “The topics we cover are varied enough so that all our members will be interested in something. As long as we have them listening, there's a chance that the message will get through.”
Dr. Harris is an example that the approach works. “They have a kind and non-threatening way. I think if they had come on strong, I would have gotten defensive and turned them off,” he admitted.
Dr. Harris said that he was brought up in the Methodist religion and converted to Catholicism before his marriage some 30 years ago.
He learned in medical school about the contraceptive pill as a part of routine care and “never gave it a second thought. I didn't give much thought to Church teaching.”
That is, until Dr. Saxer got his ear.
Brian Caulfield writes from New Haven, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Life Notes DATE: 02/10/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 10-16, 2002 ----- BODY:Abortion: Switching Sides
She said she was getting ready to leave the obstetrician's office, “stifling sobs and avoiding eye contact, when a young woman planted herself beside me and demanded to know whether insurance would cover her abortion.
“I didn't know whether insurance would cover an abortion, but I did know that the feminists had lied through their teeth. I hadn't lost a tissue blob or a blood clot or a product of conception, I had lost a teeny, tiny baby with an itty bitty body, arms and legs, a head and a heart, and even toenails. Pierced by the utter absurdity of human life possessing less self-protection than a possum scuttling across a four-lane highway, I switched sides.”
Bishop Faults N.Y. Probe
Attorneys from Spitzer's office have subpoenaed two dozen counseling centers that offer alternatives to abortion across the state, seeking documents, volunteer lists and other information.
Bishop Mansell suggested the probe may be part of a national campaign by pro-abortion forces. The bishop made his comments about Spitzer in a homily at a Mass preceding the 29th annual March for Life in Washington. “We want to be sure that similar examination is being made of the abortion clinics,” he said.
Planned Parenthood Malpractice?
AGAPE PRESS, Jan. 22 — A major class action lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court in St. Louis against the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of St. Louis.
The suit alleges medical malpractice, wrongful death, civil rights violations, mass fraud, and genocide by specifically targeting minority women for abortions.
The suit contends that Planned Parenthood has systematically committed fraud by failing to inform women or outright lying to them about the risks, both physical and emotional, associated with having an abortion.
N.C. Abortion Rates Drop
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 20 — The number of abortions performed in North Carolina has dropped 23% in a decade, according to the State Center for Health Statistics.
The number of abortions in 1990 was 34,565 compared to 26,612 in 2000, the last year for which statistics are available. Part of the drop can be attributed to a law that decreased funding for the State Abortion Fund from $1.2 million to $50,000 in 1995.
Lawmakers have also limited access to state-funded abortions, including those for pregnancies resulting from a rape or incest.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Mandatory Contraceptive Coverage - Is Abortion Next? DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:BOSTON — Every state in the nation may one day mandate insurance coverage for contraceptives for women, with little or no possibility for religious groups or individuals to opt out on moral grounds.
And pro-lifers worry that's only step one in a campaign, with the next push coming for mandatory insurance coverage of all abortions.
In Massachusetts, acting Governor Jane Swift has expressed her willingness to sign a mandatory contraceptive coverage bill that cleared the Massachusetts House Jan. 30. And in New York, the Senate, whose Republican leadership had fought for a conscience clause that the Assembly version lacked, passed the Women's Health and Wellness Bill Feb. 5.
Both bills, which also mandate the coverage of screenings for breast cancer, cervical cancer and osteoporosis, contain conscience clauses that would allow dioceses and parishes to opt out — but not Catholic hospitals, social service agencies, universities and non-diocesan schools.
The bills are part of a trend that troubles pro-life advocates. Of the 17 states that already mandate coverage for contraception, five lack any conscience protection and six have only narrow exemptions. Without a vote by the legislature, Washington state put an insurance rule into effect Jan. 1 requiring insurance plans to cover contraceptives.
In December 2000, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that exclusion of prescription contraceptives by health plans constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex and pregnancy.
Other states where the issue is moving to the front burner include Utah, Arizona and Oregon.
“There seems to be a nationwide push by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood,” said Cathleen Cleaver, director of planning and information for the U.S. Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities. “We believe their true goal is to set the stage for mandated coverage of all so-called reproductive services, including abortion.”
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, agreed. He predicted that if Gov. George Pataki does not veto the New York bill, it will “set the stage for forced coverage of abortions — the goal of [the National Abortion Rights Action League], this bill's prime backer.”
Abortifacients
While some of the contraceptive drugs and devices can and do act as abortifacients, Cleaver said, advocates are pushing them as “basic health care.”
During a debate prior to the Massachusetts House vote, for example, Gale Candaras of East Longmeadow said that allowing any religious institution an exemption would harm workers’ rights, including thousands of employees who work for Church-run human services organizations with a state contract.
With the nationwide trend heating up and a push for a federal law mandating coverage, there is a need for conscience protection written into federal law, Cleaver said.
Contraceptive mandates have been fought largely on religious freedom grounds, not as opposition to contraception itself. And, mandate opponents say, religious-freedom must apply to health plans of workers at religiously run organizations, like hospitals and schools, not just to people directly employed by churches.
“If legislators look at religion in a more narrowly defined sense, as acting only within the sanctuary, that would be a slippery slope of failing to recognize the ministries of the Church,” said Richard Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference.
The California law upon which the New York Senate's bill is based is being challenged in that state's supreme court, and Barnes said it is likely the New York Catholic Conference would challenge the New York bill, should it become law.
Cardinal Edwad Egan calls the bill a ‘violation of religious liberty.’ N.Y. Senate GOP leader Joseph Bruno offers an exemption, with a catch.
The New York Senate Republicans, whose leader, Joseph Bruno, introduced the bill, explained in a statement that religious organizations would get a waiver if the employer's main mission is religious and it primarily employs and serves people of that religion. Employees must, however, be provided access to contraceptive coverage through lower-cost group rates.
The bishops of New York state, led by Cardinal Edward Egan, denounced the bill as a “clear and unprecedented violation of religious liberty.”
“By providing a religious exemption for parishes while forcing Catholic education, health and human service ministries to violate the teaching of our faith, the Senate is legislating what is and is not Catholic,” the bishops said in a statement Feb. 5.
Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre on Long Island said the narrow exemption would lead to a “confrontation of conscience.”
“How can we be true to our calling and our convictions when the Senate tries to impose on us their definition of ‘religion?’” he asked in a statement Feb. 5.
The Senate and Assembly are working to iron out differences in their versions of the bill. The Catholic Conference will continue trying to “change their course,” said executive director Barnes, and will be lobbying Gov. Pataki.
But, Barnes said, “We think it's doubtful the governor has an inclination to veto the legislation.”
The New York bishops expressed their support for other provisions of the bill, dealing with screenings for diseases, but said those issues are “being used as a pawn by abortion and contraception advocates to limit the influence of religious organizations in public policy and to drive the Church out of the business of education, health and human services.”
Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, Dan Avila, associate director of that state's Catholic Conference, said that if the bill hammered out by the House becomes law, it might force Catholic institutions to “consider dropping employee benefits altogether, unless they are able to devise their own insurance plans.”
The bill would shield only chancery offices, parishes and diocesan-run schools. An amendment offered by Rep. Elizabeth Poirier to broaden that exemption was defeated. The amendment also would have allowed individual employees to purchase special riders if they did not want their premiums to support the contraceptive coverage included in the plans offered by their secular employers.
The Massachusetts legislation also prohibits insurance companies from selling employee health plans without the contraceptive coverage to conscientiously opposed secular businesses.
More than 70% of the members of the Massachusetts House identify themselves as Catholic.
“Politics are directly affected by the moral fabric of the nation,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “And what is more moral than the Church's teaching?”
But the moral issues involved in the legislation have become a “matter of opinion” among Catholics, Brown said, adding that the situation might never have reached this point if they had been taught their faith better.
Said Brown, “That's at the bottom of our struggle to stop these bills.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Chávez Targets the Church and Loses the People DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:CARACAS, Venezuela — The capacity of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías to generate antagonism was on display Feb. 4. That day, despite warnings from political moderates and pleas from the Catholic Church, he “celebrated” the 10th anniversary of the failed military coup he led as an Army colonel.
Chávez's move further divided an already polarized country. One part joined in the official celebrations that were broadcast by the national radio and TV networks, while the other protested in the streets and marked a national “day of mourning and rejection” of Chávez’ s leftist policies.
In the middle is a Catholic Church trying to prevent an even deeper division of Venezuelan society.
Polls show that support for Chávez has plummeted from 80% to around 35%, BBC reported Feb. 9, since he was elected president in a 1998 landslide, promising political and economic reforms.
The depth of opposition was highlighted in December by a nationwide strike. The protest was supported not only by the Venezuelan Workers Confederation, but also by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and the nation's major newspapers.
The unusual labor-management alliance was formed in protest against new laws that critics contend will choke off foreign investment, threaten private property rights and stifle job creation, The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 6. Chávez “is attempting to introduce Marxist, socialist concepts at a time when these points of view and manners of doing things are in the past,” said Antonio Herrera-Vaillant, vice president of the Venezuelan-American Chamber of Commerce.
Catholic leaders don't lack their own reasons for opposing Chávez. Despite being the only institution to request that his political opponents give Chávez a chance to implement his political agenda, the Church quickly became a favorite target of the former paratrooper.
Church-State Showdown
Early in January, Chávez brought matters to a head by attacking the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop André Dupuy.
On Jan. 9, Archbishop Dupuy celebrated Mass in Caracas for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. At the end of the Mass, the nuncio asked the assembly to “take a look of faith at the current historic events imposed upon us.”
“In the midst of the current crisis, we are invited to bear witness of Christian hope, no matter what is the political or ideological regime imposed on us by the leaders of the nation,” he said. “We have to act knowing that their action will not escape the judgment of God. They may fool humans, but will not fool God. I hope that those who have received a political responsibility from the Venezuelan people may never forget that.”
The next day, Chávez exploded, accusing the nuncio of “irresponsible interference in Venezuela's sovereign affairs.”
The Venezuelan bishops’ conference immediately sided with Archbishop Dupuy. In response, Chávez on Jan. 26 compared the Church to a “tumor,” saying it opposed his reforms “without helping the country's poor.” He also accused the archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal José Ignacio Velasco, of siding with his political opponents.
That weekend, the Catholic Church suffered a spree of attacks in several Caracas parishes that included vandalism, graffiti and the placement of posters accusing priests of being “Pharisees and hypocrites.”
Then, after having left the bishops on hold for a meeting for almost three years, on Jan. 28 Chávez suddenly invited the Venezuelan bishops’ conference to meet him at the presidential residence.
Speaking on behalf of the bishops, Cardinal Velasco declined. The current climate made dialogue practically impossible, he explained. “Every day we have been turning another cheek. I have no cheeks left because every day there is a new insult.”
After the bishops rejected the meeting with Chávez, other church es suffered acts of vandalism, and three pastors received anonymous death threats.
“The Church in Venezuela does not evade the dialogue with the president, but a true dialogue requires more than just a formal invitation to meet,” Archbishop Baltazar Porras, president of the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, told the Register. “The lack of a previous, common agenda, plus the recent insults without apologies of the president make it impossible to expect reasonable results from the eventual conversation.”
Feb. 4
On Feb. 4, Chávez started his celebrations for his failed 1992 coup by bringing flowers to the National Pantheon and calling on the military to be “proud and happy of being here, celebrating the unity between the army and the Venezuelan people.”
The president then attacked a “group of Venezuelans” who were allegedly “lying to the country and trying to oust me, who nonetheless will not succeed.”
Later that day, Chávez suspended a press conference because he said journalists were asking “confrontational questions.”
Meanwhile, several groups of protesters kept vigil in different squares in Caracas until the evening, when they lit candles and performed a cacerolazo protest featuring the clanging of pots and pans.
Responding to a request from a group of retired military personnel not allied with Chávez, the vicar general of Caracas, Msgr. Francisco Monterrey, celebrated a Mass at the cathedral to pray for those who died in the coup.
“This is a moment of faith and recollection free of confrontations and resentment, in which we pray for peace, unity and reconciliation in our country,” said Msgr. Monterrey during his homily.
At the conclusion of Mass, the vicar general requested that the assembly leave the cathedral by the side doors, thus avoiding a potential confrontation with Chávez’ s followers in the Simón Bolívar square.
“When peaceful Mass-goers have to leave a cathedral by the side doors, you ask yourself if you are living in a country where true democracy reigns,” said the former governor of Zulia, Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, who attended the Mass.
Added Alvarez Paz, “The climate of confrontation he has created with his permanent verbal harassment has created a climate that has no electoral way out.”
Francisco Arias Cárdenas, a pop ular former military leader who supported Chávez in his coup attempt 10 years ago, said that the president “has never attacked the Catholic Church as an institution, because he himself is a Catholic.” Said Arias Cárdenas, “He has only pointed out the un-Christian attitudes of some Catholic leaders who are eroding the revolution for selfish reasons.”
Arias Cárdenas, who once ran as a candidate against Chávez but now has become a key supporter, also said that accusing Chávez of attack ing the Church is “a disproportionate statement, motivated by ignorance, if not ill intention.”
Adolfo Salgueiro, a political analyst for El Universal, countered that Chávez “has no hesitation in attack ing anybody, absolutely anybody, if he perceives it as not completely loyal to his political project.”
“And that includes the Church, because Chávez is more a ‘Chavista’ than a Catholic,” Salgueiro said. By attacking the Venezuelan bishops, “Chávez has shown his lack of polit ical intelligence and self-restraint, which has been a major source of tensions and problems with almost every other existing institution, including political parties, unions, entrepreneurs and media.”
On Feb. 1, Acción Democrática, Venezuela's largest opposition party, demanded the Supreme Court dismiss Chávez as “mentally unfit.”
Waving a banner reading “Out With The Madman,” a large group of demonstrators, including clowns and a Chávez impersonator wearing a straitjacket, presented the demand based on reports from two teams of psychiatrists who have allegedly confirmed the former colonel is a “lying, authoritarian megalomaniac.”
The Church continues to shun that sort of rhetoric.
“We don't go as far as to call the president crazy,” said Archbishop Porras. “But definitely he has a tendency to an aggressive behavior that he must change if he really wants to pull Venezuela out of its crisis and enter into history.”
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.
(Zenit contributed to this story.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: `Axis of Evil' Fight Is No Crusades, Say Historians DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — The Crusades are in the news, 1,000 years after they started.
Western leaders have tried mightily to distance the war on terrorism from the Christian attempts to retake lands that had been captured by Muslim invaders.
But those skirmishes from the 11th and 13th centuries (and lasting into the 15th) are very much on the minds of the West's Islamic foes in the war on terrorism.
President Bush's State of the Union reference to an “axis of evil” helped revive crusades talk. He placed Iran and Iraq on the axis along with North Korea, which isn't a Muslim country. The strong words led Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb 7 to criticize less-fervent Islamic countries. “Because of their lethargy and the fact that they are not united,” he said, they are threatened with a “crusade.”
But what were the Crusades? Were they acts of aggression, as the ayatollah suggests?
Some historians, like Boston University's Richard Landes, think so. “[W]hen the defense reaches into other people's lands,” he said, “then it looks a lot like aggression to me.”
But many scholars of the Crusades say the evidence exonerates the West.
Thomas Madden, chairman of the history department at St. Louis University and author of several books and articles on the Crusades, says they have been misunderstood.
“The Crusades don't really fit the mold [of Christian aggression] at all,” he said. In fact, they were a defensive war, not designed to force Christianity on people, but rather to “liberate Christians under Muslim rule.”
He pointed out that after the Crusaders won a territory, they allowed Muslims to worship freely.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, professor of ecclesiastical history at Cambridge University in England, is the scholar Madden called the “dean” of Crusades scholars. Riley-Smith too, said the Crusades were defensive battles.
“Christian ideas of warfare are quite different from Islamic ideas,” said Riley-Smith. “All Christian ideas of force require that the force is reactive. Christians can't fight a war to spread the faith, only to defend the faith, only to recover” what was theirs. In contrast, “jihad was originally about spreading Islam by force,” he said.
Landes disagrees. “[T]o argue that somehow the Christians were nicer and more moral on crusade than Muslims on jihad is slicing the baloney so thin,” he said, “that it seems like moral regression, not only in terms of modern values of civil society, but in terms of what historical understanding can offer our dynamic and unstable experiment with global cultural interaction.”
But Riley-Smith pointed out that the lands being contested in the Crusades “had been part of the Christian Empire.” The Crusaders “were not trying to extend [into areas] where Christianity had never been.”
Madden added that, at the time of the Crusades, “two-thirds” of Christian territory had been lost to the Muslims. Islamic strongholds like Morocco, Egypt and all of Asia Minor were Christian before they were Muslim.
Riley-Smith disagrees with Western leaders who have called bin Laden's behavior uncharacteristic of Islam.
While there is “an element within Islam that is uneasy with the use of force,” he said, bin Laden “comes in a long tradition of Islam — often a majority position.”
Both Madden and Riley-Smith noted that in Pope John Paul II's frank and thorough Jubilee year mea culpa prayer seeking forgiveness for historical wrongdoing by Catholics, the Pope didn't mention the Crusades.
Said Riley-Smith, “no less than six general Councils” including “the Fourth Lateran Council and Second Council of Leon” supported Crusades, as did “numerous papal letters from the 12th century onwards.”
He also pointed out that a great many saints were active supporters of the Crusades, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi, Bridget of Sweden and Dominic.
Riley-Smith said no apology is needed because the Crusades existed in “a different moral climate,” and because, “when someone is threatening you with a Kalashnikov [AK-47 rifle], it does little good to apologize for the fact that your ancestors attacked his ancestors with bows and arrows.”
Apologetics
The Crusades has another group of dedicated researchers: apologists who want to explain this chapter in Catholic history in order to answer the objections of potential converts.
Author and lecturer Patrick Madrid dedicated a chapter of his book Pope Fiction to dispelling some of the popular myths of the Crusades.
Said Madrid, “Muslim expansion was always at the point of a sword,” while Christian converts were generally gained through “peaceful” means.
Professor Landes answered Madrid's claim with a list of atrocities. “Surely the rampaging Crusaders of Emicho of Leiningen in 1096, the slaughtering Jews, men, women, and children, or the followers of the Master of Hungary in 1251, the slaughtering Jews, clerics, and rich people, were religious extremists by any definition,” he said.
Madrid added the sack of Constantinople to the list, and admitted that such atrocities did occur, but said they were rare. They also happened alongside Muslim atrocities like the slaughter of knights at the Horns of Hattin.
In fact, the Crusades were preached “because the Pope was alarmed” both by the Muslim violence against Christians, and by the fact that Muslim conquerors would “sell into slavery those who were able-bodied.”
Muslim regimes have long practiced slavery, said Madrid, and “still do in the Sudan.” Because Christians were being massacred, Madrid called the Crusades “offensive for defensive purposes.”
Professor Madden said it is instructive to imagine what the world would be like if the Crusades had never occurred. Though he warned that such thinking was “speculative,” Madden said he believes that “had there been no attempt to slow the spread of Islam, it seems logical that the world we live in would be radically different.”
Thanks to all the Crusaders’ efforts, Madden notes that “Europe very narrowly escaped invasion in the 16th century.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Pope's Call to Arms for Lawyers: Combat 'Divorce Mentality' DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Pope John Paul II's recent challenge to civil lawyers not to accept divorce cases was an invitation to help combat a “divorce mentality” in the culture and not a new teaching, said the canon lawyer who is president of The Catholic University of America.
Father David O'Connell said that, despite the brouhaha generated by the Pope's comments in some circles, especially the media, a careful reading of his annual talk to the Roman Rota, a Church marriage tribunal, reveals “some nuances” but otherwise no new instruction.
Much of the Holy Father's Jan. 28 talk centered on his concern with the “divorce mentality,” a mentality Father O'Connell said it is difficult not to be affected by in a nation where virtually one out of every two marriages ends in divorce.
“Statistics indicate that the rate is not significantly different for Catholic couples. That is the reality to which the Pope refers in his address, a mentality that takes exception to the indissolubility of marriage with steadily increasing ease.”
In his talk to the Rota, John Paul refers to the indissolubility of marriage as a truth “addressed to the men and women of every time and place” and as “a necessary condition for the existence of the family.”
“Its absence, therefore, has devastating consequences that spread through the social body like a plague … and that have a negative influence on the new generations who view as tarnished the beauty of true marriage,” he said.
In addressing professionals in the field of civil law near the end of the talk, Father O'Connell said, the Pope did reach beyond his audience of Church personnel, calling them to consider the indissolubility of marriage as an inherent natural human good as well as a sacrament for those who are Catholic. But, Father O'Connell said, “This is not a new idea or exhortation, although it is certainly a boldly worded challenge.”
The Holy Father's statement that lawyers “should always decline the use of their profession for an end that is contrary to justice” should be self-evident to anyone in the legal profession, Father O'Connell said. “That he includes ‘divorce’ as an example, no doubt, is unsettling not only to Catholic lawyers but also to all who have suffered its trauma in their lives. Our first responsibility, however, should always be to resolve a marital crisis, not to give in to it by immediately abandoning a marriage.”
Lawyers’ Experiences
Tom Weisenburger, a Catholic lawyer who has practiced for 40 years in Toledo, Ohio, said although he no longer handles divorce cases, he began accepting them some years ago in good conscience in the interest of providing a Catholic point of view to clients seeking divorces. He was concerned, he said, that other lawyers might be less likely to encourage couples to seek counseling and remind them of their obligations, especially to children.
Nonetheless, he eventually gave up divorce work because he found it less and less satisfying. “I like closure and divorce work is never finished,” he said.
But Charles Testa, a Catholic lawyer from Oregon, Ohio, who has been in practice 60 years, said he simply stopped taking divorce cases years ago because he became convinced it was the right thing to do. “It's a choice you have to make between the conscience and the practice,” he said, adding that his practice did not suffer substantially because of his decision.
“It could have been increased, but who cares about an increase, really? It has been a practice to keep me comfortable,” he added.
Despite his policy against taking divorce cases, Testa tells clients he is still willing to talk with them about their marital problems. “People come to me for advice and I have no hesitancy about giving it to them. And I never send them a bill,” he said.
He knows of at least four marriages he has saved, but suspects there may have been more that he hasn't heard about.
Weisenburger said he had some difficulty with the Pope's comments because of the provision that a Catholic in the United States cannot even seek a Church annulment without first obtaining a civil divorce.
“So how can the Church say you can't have a civil divorce if it is requiring people to have a civil divorce?”
Father Marvin Borger, a canon lawyer and judge on the marriage tribunal of the Toledo Catholic Diocese, said such rules are in place because a tribunal has to protect itself from civil litigation alleging it is breaking up a marriage.
Pope John Paul did not say that a Catholic lawyer could never accept a divorce case, noted Jane Adolphe, a professor of law at Ave Maria Law School in Ann Arbor, Mich. What he did say was that lawyers must look at the intent of the client.
If the intent is simply to dissolve the marriage, they should not take the case. But the Pope allows for divorce if it is sought for a “civil effect,” such as protecting children.
Said Adolphe, “It seems to me that you've got to go on a case-by-case basis and see if you are promoting the divorce mentality or not.”
The Pope's comments should not be construed as discouraging Catholic lawyers from practicing family law, Adolphe added. But lawyers who have built an entire practice around divorce, making their living from it, will have to look at what the Pope is saying: “They're in a difficult situation,” she said.
Father O'Connell said lack of understanding about the Church's marriage annulment process has contributed to the problems many people have had with the Pope's comments.
“There are so many myths and misconceptions about what it is and is not, as well as its effects, that people find the ideal at odds with the reality,” he said. “Another contributing factor is the great number of Catholics who avail themselves of this process, often in a very public way. It has become, in the minds of many, ‘Catholic divorce.’”
Summed up Father O'Connell, “The Pope's address to the Rota each year is designed as a caution to the Church's legal practitioners not to let it become that [Catholic divorce]. Indissolubility is not simply a legal burden; it is the human truth and divinely intended reality for spouses. And in the sacramental context, marriage brings with it the support of divine grace.”
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: From Altar Boy to Capital Cardinal DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:As archbishop of the nation's capital he has entertained the president in his home, helped comfort the nation after terrorists attacked America and tended to the spiritual needs of the families of those killed.
On Feb. 21, he will have been a cardinal for one year. But he has been on the American — and international — Church scene for decades. Cardinal McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C., spoke with Register staff writer John Burger from his office.
How did you decide to become a priest?
I was a member of the generation where every altar boy thought he had vocation. All of us at Incarnation Church in Manhattan thought that. On a Sunday morning, the priest sometimes asked, “How many of you boys are going to become priests?” and everybody raised his hand. That was our Catholic culture.
I was known by my classmates as a “late” vocation. I was already 21 when I went into the seminary, after two years of college.
I had some studies in Switzerland between high school and college. My best friend at Fordham Prep [in the Bronx] was from a Swiss family, and when he went back, they invited me to go with him to study there and live with them. They paid for my transportation overseas.
When I was turning 20, I made a retreat at a Carthusian monastery in Switzerland and had chance to think and hear the Lord say to me, “You ought to go study to be a priest.” It was at the Chartreuse of ValSainte. The quiet and the sense of totality were always appealing. These guys held back nothing for themselves. They gave everything for the Lord. They were hermits and lived just for the Lord. It was so challenging.
I see that as a real entrance into holiness. I found it extraordinarily powerful and magnetic.
Did you want to be a monk?
I was very tempted. But the retreat director said, “You don't make a decision on just one retreat. Go back and get a good spiritual director.” And I did, and my spiritual director in New York said I'd be more suited serving people in an active ministry.
But I haven't accomplished the things I dreamed of doing — being a holy man or a man for others.
What has most influenced your work?
Every time you meet a holy person, every time you hear a confession, it has an influence on you. Every time you hear a great homily or are challenged to preach one, the Lord is present in your life. Every time you read the breviary and find more wonderful expressions of God's beauty.
I don't think there's a day I've lived that hasn't challenged me to be a good person. I haven't always done it. More than anything it's the experience of great priests who have formed my life. I think of the Servant of God Terence Cardinal Cooke, who was my friend in the seminary. Later I was his secretary. I was so impressed that he never got mad. He was so close to the Lord that nothing really troubled him. He was able to handle problems of the job and maintain an extraordinary equilibrium. I never heard him say a mean word about anyone. He couldn't say the same thing about me.
What has it been like being a cardinal?
You still do the same things you did as before. The basic job description is archbishop: You try to take care of your people and work with your priests. I still try to visit the parishes almost every day. I still spend too much time at my desk and get cranky with my secretary. I have the same faults as before.
To a certain extent you have greater influence. People believe you have more authority, and they listen. The media have been very good to me; they've invited me to come talk on so many occasions. Speaking through the media means I can reach so many more people than if I'm speaking in the Basilica of the National Shrine.
Have you had any interesting meetings with the Pope?
I had one great visit with the Pope last December when I was in Rome for some meetings. He was nice enough to invite me for supper. I figured there'd be a good crowd there, but when I arrived I found out I was the only one, aside from his secretaries.
I was distracted and let the sister who was serving the food fill my plate. Everyone else had only a salad.
The Pope asked me, “How is Washington?” I talked, and they ate, and soon everybody finished. I said, “Holy Father, I'm sorry I've done all the talking,” and he said, “No, eat, eat.” They very patiently waited until I finished.
He's always been extraordinarily kind to me. He sat there and waited, smiling, while I ate until I couldn't eat anymore and had to say to the sister, “Rescue me.”
I told them that it's a great gift being able serve here in Washington. It's a beautiful Church with great people.
As bishop of the nation's capital in what ways have you been able to promote Catholic values in the public square?
By speaking out, constantly trying to proclaim the Gospel, talking about things that are important with people in government, from the president on down, making sure they know the position of the Church. As a bishop here I'm always conscious of the fact that my voice should be another voice raised in communion with the bishops of the United States. But I try to use my personal contacts to get the word out.
The president came to dinner here in our house soon after he was inaugurated. We talked about the poor, the problems of life, human dignity. I'm always talking about what the Church is talking about.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson ------- TITLE: Scalia Defends Death Penalty DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia, a Catholic and one of the Supreme Court's most conservative members, said Feb. 4 that Catholic judges who oppose the death penalty should resign.
Speaking at Georgetown University, Scalia said he strongly disagrees with recent Church teachings against the death penalty and argued that the Church historically has supported capital punishment.
“No authority that I know of denies the 2,000-year-old tradition of the Church approving capital punishment,” he said. “I don't see why there's been a change.”
Scalia, a father of nine, including a priest, attended Georgetown as an undergraduate and later taught there as a visiting professor.
Asked to reconcile his Catholic faith with his support of the death penalty, Scalia said a Catholic judge with concerns about the death penalty should resign because he or she would not be upholding the laws judges must swear to protect.
“You couldn't function as a judge,” he said.
At a forum in Chicago on Jan. 25, Scalia said judges who refuse to enforce capital punishment are “ignoring duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty.”
In recent years Pope John Paul II has spoken repeatedly against capital punishment, and the Church's magisterium has insisted that recourse to the death penalty should be only as a last resort when there are no other ways for society to defend itself.
In fact, the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” doesn't totally rule out recourse to the death penalty.
No. 2267 says: “Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”
The catechism continues: “Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm — without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself — the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent.’”
(From combined news services)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Miramax Uses Lent to Make Sex Film ‘Cute’
THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE, Feb. 5 — The Catholic League is asking Disney chairman Michael Eisner and Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein to reschedule the opening of “40 Days and 40 Nights” until after Easter.
The Miramax film, which is scheduled to open March 1, the middle of Lent, is about a Catholic whose pledge to give up sex for Lent is tested by his ex-girlfriend.
“To show a film which parodies Lent in a most vulgar way is bad enough,” League president William Donohue wrote to Eisner and Weinstein. “But to show it during Lent is outrageous.”
The Miramax film is rated R for “strong sexual content, nudity and language” and is noted for its “vulgar sex gags,” according to a news release from the Catholic League. Disney is the parent company of Miramax.
Donohue said the film's publicist told the League that Lent is used in the film as a vehicle for the character to give up sex, to “make the story cute.”
Asked Donohue, “But wouldn't it have been just as cute to portray the character as a Muslim who gives up sex from sundown to sunset during Ramadan and is tempted during the day?”
Bush Team Makes Porn Purveyors Nervous
The $10-billion-a-year business grew significantly with the former administration's relaxed attitude, say pornographers Larry Flynt and Danni Ashe. And some former Justice Department officials say that corporate America felt it was safe to enter the trade. AT&T, Westin and Marriott profit from the business, PBS reported.
But that may change. Internet service provider Yahoo, for example, backed out of having a virtual sex shop after an anti-porn campaign waged by the American Family Association.
Baltimore Vocation Ad Runs During Playoffs
But there has been a lot of talk about the ads, and a lot of instances where it led people to talk up the priestly vocation with single young men.
The archdiocese, which ordained six priests last year and has 36 seminarians, figured the best place to reach young men in large numbers were the NFL playoffs when the hometown Ravens were still competing. The Catholic Communications Fund paid $17,500 for the 30-second ad.
Wisconsin Student Buried With Baby
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 4 — The pastor of a church where a young mother was buried with her newborn urged mourners to learn from the past, the news service reported. Father Al Jakubowski said at the funeral of Karen Marie Hubbard and her infant daughter, Julianna Marie, that prayer, support and compassion, not blame, are needed at such a time.
Hubbard, a 19-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin, died after giving birth in her dormitory in Eau Claire, Wisc. She and the baby were found in a bathroom stall. The baby died later from complications of being deprived of oxygen around the time of her birth.
No one knew Hubbard was pregnant.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Fetal Surgeries Provide Evidence of the Humanity of the Unborn DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — A raised fist is often used as a symbol of anger or defiance. But in Samuel Armas’ case, his raised fist proclaimed to all the world that children in the womb are people too.
Two and a half years ago, a startling photograph of little Samuel's fist, poking out of his mother's womb on an operating table, made headlines around the world. At only 14 weeks gestation, a routine medical exam showed Samuel had a severe form of spina bifida, a condition in which the spine is exposed, possibly leading to brain damage and profound physical handicaps.
His parents, Julie and Alex, from Douglasville, Ga., agreed to have Samuel undergo an experimental operation — at an unprecedented 21 weeks, while he was still in the womb — to help correct the problem.
Today Samuel is a healthy young boy, with only minimal physical handicaps due to spina bifida. But Samuel's condition isn't the only positive outcome of the landmark surgery. His world-famous fist was seen by many as undeniable proof of the humanity of the unborn children.
And medicine continues to provide more evidence.
In fact, medical treatment for children in the womb is not new. The first “open fetal surgery” (such as Samuel's operation, in which the uterus is temporarily removed from the mother while the child is operated on) was performed at the University of California at San Francisco as far back as 1981.
Today, the main centers for fetal surgery in the United States are Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, and the University of California at San Francisco. But Dr. Lillian Blackmon, chairman of the Committee on the Fetus and Newborn of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that “to a fair degree” fetal surgery of any kind is still considered experimental.
Blackmon explained that there are five major categories of open fetal surgery currently being practiced. These procedures treat cystadenomatoid malformations of the lung, urinary tract obstructions, congenital diaphragmatic hernias, spina bifida, and sacrococcygeal teratomas (tumors on the tailbone). The last three procedures are among those still considered experimental.
Risks
Because fetal surgery often carries a high risk to both mother and child, some pro-lifers have questioned certain operations, in spite of the value of fetal surgery in the public debate over abortion. The operation to correct spina bifida, for example, is life-threatening, while spina bifida itself is not.
Julie and Alex Armas, who are pro-life, never considered aborting Samuel when told of his condition. They agreed to allow the operation to be photographed and to speak to the media in part because they felt Samuel's story would serve the pro-life cause.
But Julie told Focus on the Family Magazine, “We've been asked several times, ‘How can you say you wanted your child to live no matter what, then risk his life for this surgery?’”
Julie's response was simple: “How could it be an ethical dilemma for us to make his life better?”
This reflects a very delicate situation parents like the Armases find themselves in. Although there is no clear requirement for it, there appears to be no ethical principal that would forbid such high-risk surgery. It can even be considered praiseworthy, apart from the possible benefit to the child, inasmuch as it may advance medical science and help others in the future.
Dr. Edward Furton, director of public affairs of the Boston-based National Catholic Bioethics Center, said that while an operation like Samuel's “goes beyond what is morally obligatory,” there is no definitive Catholic position against high-risk procedures in such cases.
“Those who make use of [experimental procedures] are advancing the science of medicine on several fronts … not only the cure of spina bifida but also the whole area of intra-uterine surgery. I don't think Catholics should take any different moral stance on this than the rest of the community. We should be as much a part of looking for cures … as anyone else.”
While the wisdom of an individual operation may sometimes be subject to legitimate debate, there is little dispute about the impact fetal surgery has in countering pro-abortion arguments. Mo Woltering, assistant director of public policy of the American Life League, said that advances in fetal surgery make it harder to deny the truth about abortion.
Said Woltering, “Everything in science points to the human embryo, fetus, neonate — right from the beginning of conception, everything points to its being a human person…. [Fetal surgery] certainly helps reinforce the fact that we have a human subject living in the womb and that subject deserves every kind of protection as well as medical benefit available.”
Powerful Images
The moving photograph of Samuel's fist was used powerfully in the congressional debate over partial-birth abortion — a gruesome late-term procedure often carried out on children at about the age Samuel was at when he underwent surgery in utero.
Commenting on the picture, Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, told The New York Times last year that such dramatic evidence “does make our job harder, because the images are very powerful.”
David Curtin writes from Toronto.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Moscow Visit Said to Be Remote Preparation for Pope
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Feb. 1 — Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, will meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II Feb. 21-22 to try to heal the rift between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The French news agency reported Vatican sources saying that Cardinal Kasper could try to convince the patriarch to consent to the first papal visit to Russia.
According to Orthodox sources, Pope John Paul II met with a delegation sent by Alexei to the interfaith world day of prayer for peace in Assisi. The Pope reportedly declared his intention of bringing the icon of Our Lady of Kazan to Moscow. The Vatican declared a decade ago that it holds the icon, believed to date from the 16th century, which disappeared from Russia during the confusion of civil war and two world wars.
Pontifical University to Hold Slavery Forum
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 2 — The Pontifical Gregorian University will hold a conference on prostitution, child labor and other kinds of “21st century human slavery,” said James Nicholson, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. The conference, a U.S. initiative, will be open to the participation of other nations that have diplomatic relations to the Holy See.
The forum will tackle the issues of women pressed into prostitution and of children into slave labor conditions. Many of those people are immigrants who fall into traps, Nicholson told the wire service.
Philippines Prepares to Hold Family Meeting
The Philippine Catholic Bishops Conference is charged with conducting an intensive formation campaign for the event, which will focus on the role of Christian families in evangelization. It has designated special festivals on March 19 for fathers, the second Sunday of May for mothers, Oct. 2 for children and all of December for families.
“Maybe it was because of our faith and the value that we give to our families that the Holy Father chose the Philippines to host” the meeting, said Msgr. Ding Coronel, secretary-general of the bishops conference.
Cardinal Martini Submits Retirement Letter
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Feb. 6 — Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan offered his resignation to the Pope as he prepared to turn 75, the normal age for retirement of bishops and priests.
The French news agency described Cardinal Martini wishfully as a “liberal long seen as the most likely successor to Pope John Paul II.”
It is up to the Pope whether to accept the resignation or ask that the cardinal continue to serve.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican ------- TITLE: Vanier Speaks on the `Handicapped' Pope for Lent DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — “He's never been more beautiful,” said Jean Vanier, founder of the international network of L'Arche (The Ark) communities in which volunteers live full-time with the mentally handicapped.
He was speaking of Pope John Paul II, 81 years old and stooped with age, shuffling along with his cane, unable to stand for long periods, and who on occasion now drools uncontrollably and slurs his speech.
“It is a blessing to have someone so fragile — he is an incredible sign for the world,” added Vanier. “He is teaching an incredible lesson in assuming his disability, his fragility and trusting in St. Paul's words: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
Vanier was in Rome to address a press conference releasing the papal message for Lent 2002, but his spontaneous remarks on his experience of living 37 years with the mentally handicapped eclipsed the event itself. There were no complaints though, as his witness was the most eloquent summary of the message possible.
“After such a beautiful testimony it is difficult to speak,” said Father Ciro Benedettini, vice-director of the Holy See Press Office, as an unusual silence settled over the normally talkative reporters.
The annual message for Lent took as its theme this year, “You have received without paying, give without pay.” It was presented by Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” which coordinates the charitable initiatives of the Holy See.
The message focused on the obligation of Christians to give of themselves to others in the usual forms of charity, but stressed the need to appreciate life itself as a gift, and to welcome it always as a gift, even when weak or handicapped.
“It is also worth repeating here that not everything that is technically possible is morally acceptable,” said the document, taking up a pro-life theme. “Scientific work aimed at securing a quality of life more in keeping with human dignity is admirable, but it must never be forgotten that human life is a gift, and that it remains precious even when marked by suffering and limitations. It is a gift to be accepted and to be loved at all times, received without pay and to be placed without pay at the service of others.”
“There is a great mystery around people with disabilities,” said Vanier. “It is a scandal, and we cannot underestimate the pain. The most oppressed people in the world are those with disabilities — in France, 96% of women who find out that they are carrying a child with disabilities will opt for an abortion. The disabled are often made to feel guilty for existing.”
“It is scandalous, but it is the same scandal as the Cross,” continued Vanier. “Many handicapped children cry out: “My God, my God, why have I been abandoned?” It is the same cry from the Cross. This is the mystery — those who appear to be less human teach us to be human and those who are most rejected are those who heal us.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican ------- TITLE: Longing for God's Holy Temple DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II said believers who are overwhelmed by evil and suffering in the world could look forward with joyful hope to God's ultimate victory.
Even when God seems distant, he never forgets those who trust in him in the midst of their trials, the Pope said Feb. 6 at his weekly general audience.
The believer “still finds himself in contact with evil and suffering, but he knows with certainty that the destination of life's pilgrimage is not the void of death, but rather a saving encounter with God,” he said.
The Pope focused on Psalm 43, a poetic prayer for deliverance and perseverance in the midst of suffering. He was continuing a series of reflections on the psalms used in the Liturgy of the Hours.
In a general audience a while ago, we spoke about the psalm that precedes the one we just heard and said that it was closely related to the psalm that followed it. Psalms 42 and 43 actually form a single song, divided in three parts by the same refrain: “Why are you downcast, my soul? Why do you groan within me? Wait for God, whom I shall praise again, my savior and my God” (Psalm 42:6,12; Psalm 43:5).
These words are like a soliloquy and express the psalmist's deepest feelings. He finds himself far from Zion — the reference point for his existence since it is that special place where God dwells and where the faithful worship him. He feels, therefore, a loneliness that stems from a lack of understanding and even aggressiveness coming from the faithless people around him, which is aggravated by his isolation and God's silence. However, the psalmist reacts against his sadness with an invitation to trust that he directs to himself and with a marvelous affirmation of hope: he is counting on being able again to praise God, “his savior.”
Instead of talking only to himself as in the preceding psalm, the psalmist turns to God in Psalm 43 and begs God to defend him against his adversaries. Repeating almost word for word a cry that is foreshadowed in the previous psalm (Psalm 42:10), the psalmist actually directs his cry of distress to God this time: “Why then do you spurn me? Why must I go about mourning, with the enemy oppressing me?” (Psalm 43:2).
Light in the Darkness
Nevertheless, he feels by now that the gloomy interval of his distant separation is about to end, and he expresses his certainty that he will return to Zion and find God's dwelling place once again. The Holy City is no longer his lost homeland as it was in his lament in the preceding psalm (see Psalm 42:3-4). Instead, it is the joyous goal toward which he is journeying. God's “fidelity” and “light” (see Psalm 43:3) will be the guide for his return to Zion. The Lord himself will be the ultimate goal of his journey. He calls upon God as his judge and defender (see verses 1-2). He uses three verbs as he begs God to intervene: “grant me justice,” “defend me” and “rescue me” (verse 1). They are like three stars of hope that light up in the dark sky of the time of trial, signaling the imminent dawn of salvation.
I do not want you to be amazed at the prophet saying his soul was shaken, given that the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘Now my soul is troubled.’
St. Ambrose's reading of the psalmist's experience is significant because he applies it to Jesus praying in Gethsemane: “I do not want you to be amazed at the prophet saying his soul was shaken, given that the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘Now my soul is troubled.’ For he who took upon himself our weaknesses, took our sensitivity too, and that is why he was sad to the point of death, but not because of death. A voluntary death, on which the happiness of all men depended, could not have caused sadness. So, he was sad to the point of death, as long as that grace had not been carried to its fulfillment. His own testimony proves it, when he says about his death: ‘There is a baptism with which I must be baptized: how anxious I am until it is accomplished!’” (Le rimostranze di Giobbe e di Davide, VII, 28, Rome 1980, p. 233).
The Lord's Guidance
Going back to Psalm 43, the solution the psalmist so ardently longs for is about to open before his eyes: his return to the source of life and of communion with God. “Fidelity” (the Lord's loving truth) and “light” (the revelation of his goodness) are portrayed as messengers that God himself will send down from heaven to take the faithful one by the hand and lead him toward the goal he desires (see Psalm 43:3).
The sequence of stages in the journey to Zion and its spiritual center is very meaningful. First to appear is “the holy mountain” (the hill where the Temple and the citadel of David stand). Then “the place of your dwelling” enters the picture (the sanctuary of Zion with all its different buildings and spaces). Then comes “the altar of God” (where the entire people's sacrifices and official worship take place). The ultimate and decisive goal is the God of joy and his embrace — a renewed intimacy with him who, at first, was distant and silent.
Joyous Festivity
At this point, everything becomes song, gladness and celebration (see verse 4). The original Hebrew text speaks of the “God who is the joy of my jubilation.” This is a Semitic form of speech used to express the superlative degree: the psalmist wishes to emphasize that the Lord is the source of all happiness, supreme joy and the fullness of peace.
The Greek Septuagint translation apparently adopted an equivalent Aramaic term that means youth and translated it as “the God who gives joy to my youth,” thus introducing the idea of the freshness and the intensity of the joy that the Lord gives. The Latin Vulgate translation of the Book of Psalms, which is a translation made from the Greek, says therefore, “ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.” The psalm used to be recited in this form at the foot of the altar, in the eucharistic liturgy formerly in use, as an invocation leading into the encounter with the Lord.
Persevering Hope
The initial lament of the refrain of Psalms 42 and 43 resounds for one last time at the end of the psalm (see Psalm 43:5). The psalmist has not yet reached God's Temple, and he is still undergoing the darkness of his trial. But by now the light of his future encounter is already shining in his eyes and his lips are already intoning the strains of a joyful song. At this point, his cry is mainly marked by hope. So commenting on this psalm, St. Augustine observes: “One whose soul troubles him will tell his soul to ‘hope in God.’ … Meanwhile live in hope. Hope that is seen is not hope; but if we hope for what we cannot see, it is through patience that we wait for it (see Romans 8:24-25)” (Esposizione sui Salmi I, Rome 1982, p. 1019).
Thus, the psalm becomes the prayer of someone who is a pilgrim on earth. He still finds himself in contact with evil and suffering, but he knows with certainty that the destination of life's pilgrimage is not the void of death, but rather a saving encounter with God. This certainty is even stronger for Christians, to whom the letter to the Hebrews proclaims: “You have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
(Translation by Zenit and Register)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican ------- TITLE: Appointments & Meetings DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Appointed
Saturday, Feb. 2
E Don Francisco Moreno Barron as auxiliary bishop of Morelia, Mexico. E Fathers Roberto Colombo, associate professor of biochemistry at the Sacred Heart Catholic University of Milan, Italy, and Mieczyslaw Grzegocki, professor of medical physiology at the university of medicine of Leopolis, Ukraine, as ordinary members of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Monday, Feb. 4
E Father Sebastian Adayanthrath as auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India.
Tuesday, Feb. 5
E Msgr. Gerard Hanna as bishop of Wagga Wagga, Australia, following the resignation of Bishop William Brennan.
E Archbishop Marco Brogi as apostolic nuncio in Egypt.
E Archbishop Giuseppe Pinto as apostolic nuncio in Mali and Cape Verde.
E Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana as apostolic nuncio in the Solomon Islands.
Thursday, Feb. 7
E Father Joseph Mitsuaki Takami as auxiliary bishop of Nagasaki, Japan.
Met With
Saturday, Feb. 2
E Nine members of the bishops’ conference of Argentina on their ad limina visits.
E Archbishop Giacinto Berloco, apostolic nuncio in El Salvador and Belize.
E Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, apostolic nuncio in Poland.
Monday, Feb. 4
E Cardinal Ricardo Carles Gordo and Auxiliary Bishop Josep Sainz Meneses of Barcelona, Spain.
E Three members of the bishops’ conference of Argentina on their ad limina visits.
Tuesday, Feb. 5
E Archbishop Stephen Zurbriggen, apostolic nuncio in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, and apostolic administrator of Estonia.
E Four members of the bishops’ conference of Argentina on their ad limina visits.
Wednesday, Feb. 6
E Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar general for the diocese of Rome and president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, with the rector and assistants of Rome's Major Pontifical Seminary.
Thursday, Feb. 7
E Four members of the bishops’ conference of Argentina on their ad limina visits.
Friday, Feb. 8
E Four members of the bishops’ conference of Argentina on their ad limina visits.
E Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
E Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican ------- TITLE: Holy Land's Father Vasko: 'A Crisis in the Cradle of Christianity' DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — Father Peter Vasko is president of the Holy Land Foundation, which assists Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories with housing, education and jobs. He spoke to Register staff writer John Burger while touring the United States Jan. 14 to Feb. 6. He also reported to bishops on the situation in the Holy Land.
Part 2 of 2
How have recent world events impacted Christians in the Holy Land?
Father Vasko: Christians are a minority within a minority in the Holy Land. There are 3.9 million Muslims in Israel, including the occupied territories; there are 4.7 million Jews. And there are 165,000 Christians. There's been a steady decrease in the number of Christians in the Holy Land. A lot has to do with the birthrate. For Christians it's 2.2%; for Muslims, 4.8%, and for Jews 3%. The majority of young Christians are leaving, so it's likely the growth rate will become smaller. By 2020, the growth rate of Christians will be 0% if it continues like this. These figures are from a 1999 study, “Why the Christians are Leaving,” by Bernard Sabella, a leading sociologist at Bethlehem University
Why
In Israel, not including the occupied lands, they're leaving first of all because of the Islamization influence. Fringe groups, radical Muslims, are coming in. Secondly, there's an economic factor.
To encourage them to stay, we have a scholarship grant, and if someone wins one, he promises to stay in the Holy Land for four years. We then try to secure them employment.
But because of the second intifada, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been closed off to many principal Israeli cities to keep terrorists from entering — although we've seen over the years that there are all sorts of ways to get in.
But what price do you extract to punish a nation because of a dozen or so criminals? They're stereotyping the average Palestinian who has to have a job to feed his kids and pay for their education. They've made things impossible.
We just finished a 13-unit housing facility in Beit Hanina. Couples will be paying a symbolic rent, living with other Christian couples — and not emigrating. We're very proud of that. Because we're such a minority, they feel safe with other Christians around them.
For the last four or five years, Christians have been asking, if there is a Palestinian state, will there be discrimination against them in jobs and housing because they're Christians?
Why is it important to stem the flow of Christians from the Holy Land?
If we don't have a sense of who we are as Christians, of our religious roots and heritage, how can we call ourselves followers of Christ? This is where Christianity began. Its founder was born here. Abraham was born in Iraq; Mohammed in Mecca. The Church is not an external facade but a living community. If we don't do something about this there will not be a living community, but a collection of empty monuments.
What is the Muslim attitude toward Christians in the Holy Land?
At this point, there is basically a good rapport. But for the last four or five years there's been an under-current of fundamentalism coming from Algeria, Sudan and Egypt, making the road bumpier. In Nazareth, there were no problems between Muslims and Christians. But at the end of 1997 members of the Islamic Movement came in and took over a plaza outside the Basilica of the Annunciation, which the municipality had designated as a public square for the many Jubilee Year pilgrims. There was to be an information center there and a dropping off point. The Muslims squatted, put up a huge tent and said, “We're not leaving.” The local police did nothing, and the Israeli government looked the other way.
Without impunity, the Muslims have been attacking the Christians going into the Basilica. In 1998, they burned Christian-owned shops, and the police simply looked on. Now they're building an illegal mosque in spite of a court injunction. Once again, law enforcement has looked the other way.
On Jan. 9, we, along with the International Coalition for Nazareth, protested, and construction came to a temporary halt. But it's not permanently stopped. If the mosque is built, it will be a permanent source of extreme tension between Christians and Muslims, Jews and Christians and, in the end Muslim and Jewish relations. This radical group doesn't represent moderate Muslims in Nazareth. Israel is very well aware of them, that their publications are anti-West and anti-Israeli. It will have a very detrimental effect on Christians’ trust in Israel, which promised to protect them and their places of worship.
The basilica is now under siege. Stones are thrown at worshipers as they go in. There will be further Christian emigration from even Israel proper if this mosque is allowed to be built there. The Islamic Movement leaders have said, “If the mosque is not built, the Christian leaders and Israel's leaders will pay the consequences.” A week later they indicated that there would be a bloodbath.
This is why this thing has to stop. If not, they will have created a vacuum of power that is considered very dangerous, with volatility against citizens and violence in a city that never before experienced violence.
We're not opposed to Islam, but we are opposed to violence and intimidation, to squatting on public property. Under [former Prime Minister Ehud] Barak they received government approval but had to wait for a building permit. We're asking [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon to take away that approval and go back to the original plan.
There are 11 mosques in Nazareth. Why do they need to build one under the Basilica of the Annunciation?
Saudi Arabia, King Faisal and Yasser Arafat are against it. president Bush and the Pope asked them not to build there. Faisal offered $10 million for them to build it anywhere else in Nazareth, and they said no. It's more than, “I want to build it here.” It's a statement that they are here to stay and people will be under the control of their understanding of what government is instead of a democracy.
How would you characterize Israel's response to the plight of Palestinian Christians?
There's a general indifference on the part of officials and a majority of the population. They don't identify you as a Christian or a Muslim but as a Palestinian. And as a Palestinian you are the enemy. There's an advantage for the Israeli government to keep Christians here — it's the connecting link they have with the rest of Christianity, and Christianity exists mainly in the Western world. Israel is the cradle of Christianity. The Jews are our elder brothers; they have to take care of their younger brothers — but there's no great interest to do so.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:British Clergy Getting Self-Defense Lessons
THE PRESS ASSOCIATION, Jan. 22 — Responding to an increased threat of violence against members of the clergy, an advocacy group has begun offering self-defense classes to priests, vicars and rabbis, the national news agency of Great Britain reported.
Tae kwon do lessons were being organized by the Amicus union for skilled and professional people.
The union reported last year that Church workers were more vulnerable to physical attacks than doctors or probation officers. The research showed that one in eight had been assaulted in the previous two years.
Australian Archbishop Laments Abortion of Handicapped
Archbishop Hart complained that the law in Victoria, which prohibits abortion unless a doctor believes it is necessary to protect a woman from serious danger to her life or mental health, seemed to permit ever-widening boundaries for abortion, the Melbourne daily said.
A spokesman for coroner Jacinta Heffey said the aborted baby, at 32 weeks gestation, was stillborn and that the coroner's court only has jurisdiction over reportable deaths. Since there was no birth, there was no death, the spokesman said. Archbishop Hart called that a “serious misjudgment.”
Said the archbishop, “If it is true that our laws do not protect children in such cases — indeed do not even allow a full coronial inquest — there is something seriously wrong with our laws.”
Messianic Groups Reaching Out to Russian Israelis
The Bible had been given to a student by Jewish Christians who believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
The Post reported that there are an estimated 1,500 adult, Russian-speaking immigrants who belong to messianic congregations. The number of messianic groups in the country has more than tripled in the decade since mass Soviet Jewish immigration began, it said.
A Conservative rabbi who leads a Russian-speaking congregation said that one of the key factors attracting Russian immigrants to messianic groups is the social distance between them and native Israelis.
The U.S. State Department reports that evangelical Christian and other religious groups have complained that police in Israel are slow to investigate incidents of alleged harassment, threats and vandalism committed by an anti-missionary organization.
Ban Abortion, Cardinal Tells South African Government
SOUTH AFRICA PRESS ASSOCIATION, Feb. 5 — Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, South Africa, said the government should suspend abortions as a gesture of its seriousness in calling for a moral renewal in society, according to the South African news agency.
Cardinal Napier made the appeal in the Church newspaper Southern Cross. Commenting on President Thabo Mbeki's request to religious leaders to help address the nation's “moral decline,” especially in terms of violence, crime and corruption, the cardinal said suspending abortions would demonstrate the government's seriousness about the value of life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Justice Antonin Scalia deserves admiration for his pro-life convictions and much of his Supreme Court work. He should stick to being a jurist. As a theologian, he isn't as successful. Scalia spoke twice recently about his support for the death penalty — once at the University of Chicago Divinity School and once at Georgetown University.
Unfortunately, his remarks will do more harm than good. He said that, since the Pope's teaching on capital punishment in Evangelium Vitae did not come ex cathedra, i.e., with formal infallibility, he is not obligated as a Catholic to accept it, only to give it “serious consideration.”
He has a point. There is legitimate space for scholarly dissent on some matters of doctrine. And one can hardly fault Scalia for voicing his dissent in Chicago, in an academic forum that was set up specifically for scholars to debate such things.
But Justice Scalia must realize that the kind of public dissent he voiced at Georgetown — in answer to a student's question after Scalia's personal testimony for Jesuit Heritage Week — wasn't an example of appropriate dissent.
It was an example of a powerful man persuading a crowd of people that the Church is wrong — and obscuring the obligations of Catholics in the process.
Scalia's comments had several things in common with the words of the Massachusetts lab scientist who recently created the first clone. The scientist also claimed a deep Catholic faith; he was also dealing with a teaching that wasn't defined ex cathedra (there is, of course, much more to the magisterium than the two dogmas that have been given that special treatment) and he also selectively quoted St. Paul.
And, like the clone-maker, Scalia was wrong.
“I have given [Evangelium Vitae] careful and thoughtful consideration and rejected it,” Scalia said. “I do not find the death penalty immoral.”
Neither does the Church. The 1995 encyclical — The Gospel of Life — spells out in great detail what makes the death penalty just. If instead of supporting the death penalty Scalia had wanted to ban it altogether, he would have had just as much trouble assenting to Evangelium Vitae as he does now.
But, in the encyclical, the Pope isn't interested in the death penalty as a merely abstract concept. He's concerned with what Catholics should do to help reverse today's culture of death, and how best we should love our neighbors as ourselves. And so he teaches that the cases where the death penalty must be used are extremely rare, practically nonexistent.
That's why scholars like Thomist Steve Long (who set out to write a critique of the Pope's position but ended up adopting it), theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles (who points out that the Church's teaching hasn't been reversed, but merely applied to new circumstances) and Law Professor Charles Rice (who calls the teaching on capital punishment “conservatives’ Humanae Vitae“ because it is difficult for them to accept) are supportive of the Holy Father's teaching. It's a teaching, after all, that has been incorporated into the catechism and so deserves more than “serious consideration.”
Scalia rightly points out that Church teaching has consistently held that the state has the right to execute criminals. That teaching has been voiced by popes, saints and doctors of the Church around the world. But how does that teaching apply in a situation like the one we face in today's West?
Today's judicial community (as Scalia has noted) acts as though it has jurisdiction over the right to life — as though the state can simply give people “permission” to abort children or to commit various types of euthanasia.
This is completely contrary to the view of legal authority and just penalty that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church had.
If a state denies a transcendent moral order and denies that its authority over life is delegated from God, how can it justly apply the penalty? Would St. Thomas Aquinas look at the Supreme Court Scalia sits on and blithely hand it more power over life? Not likely.
Aquinas said, “It is permissible to kill a criminal if this is necessary for the welfare of the whole community.” He would probably agree with the catechism's teaching that when non-lethal means better serve the common good, then that's what judges should use.
----- EXCERPT: Scalia's Dissenting Opinion ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion ------- TITLE: Letter DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Simply Mad at the Mouse
Regarding “Disney at 100: Not Quite So Wonderful” (Jan. 27-Feb. 2):
Sometimes, when the Mickey Mouse Movie Company tries to do the right thing, they still mess it up.
WI teach Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo to my freshman English class and was eagerly awaiting the movie. I was thoroughly disappointed to hear the tale as told by Disney from many of my students who saw it on the opening weekend.
I admit to having a purist streak when it comes to making movies of novels, but, in this case, Disney took out the most meaningful, and the most Christian, aspect of the novel. In the book, the count becomes distraught when his quest for vengeance unexpectedly results in the death of the child Edouard. He realizes that he has gone too far and, in response, he allows his third (for in the book there are many villains) enemy to live.
In news reports about this movie, Disney spokespersons said they had eliminated much of the violence contained in the book. The lead actor, Catholic James Caviezel, said his primary problem with the movie was that the remaining violence still seemed rather gratuitous. If Disney had stayed more true to the story, it would have been able to depict a clear example of repentance.
It is Dantes’ quest for revenge that often appeals to ninth-grade readers, but it is his recognition of the evil he has done and his repentance that lead me to teach it each year. Disney chose to skip that part.
CHRIS MOSMEYER Temple, Texas
The writer teaches at Holy Trinity Catholic High School.
Wicca Watch
Regarding “Catholic College Hires Pagan Witch,” Inbrief, Feb. 3-9:
That witch hired to lecture at the Jesuits’ Heythrop College of the University of London isn't just any old pagan witch. Vivianne Crowley is a long-time leader of British Wicca. She is reported to be a woman of considerable charm, and a highly gifted speaker and writer.
Among the things she'll probably tell her audiences is her theory that Wicca, like many other religions, is a “homeward journey” to reunite with the ultimate source of spirit. Her lectures are almost certain to leave a more positive and creditable view of paganism with her hearers.
So what did the Jesuits think they were doing when they invited her to speak?
But, after all, she did once perform a pagan ritual in public at Canterbury Cathedral.
SANDRA MIESEL Indianapolis
A Tolkien Purist Speaks
Thank you for printing John Prizer's review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (“Frodo Lives!,” Jan. 6-12).
I enjoyed the review and agree with a lot of it, but I would change the article's subhead to say the movie “does Tolkien almost right.” The Middle-Earth of the movie is a more pessimistic one than the book's. For that reason, I would urge anyone who sees the movie to also read the book, or at least volume one, before drawing final conclusions about Tolkien's world.
I enjoyed the movie more than I expected to. The film makes some improvements in order to convey the story to a modern audience, but still shows the disappointing limitations of translating into a movie any book that deals with an interior struggle.
The book is brightened by the gentle, yet strong characters of the leprechaunish Tom Bombadil and his wood-nymph wife Goldberry. The ring has no power over them. Because there's no poetry in the movie (one of my favorite aspects of the book), we can't hear Sam sing the “Song of Gil-galad.” The bad guys in the book are less exteriorly repulsive and more inwardly corrupt: Orcs are not superhuman monsters. They are corrupt gnomes. The Black Riders don't need to be the movie's sword-wielding fencers. They scare people by the very evil that's in their hearts, even before they are seen physically. And where is Glorfindel, the elf lord whose horse can easily outdistance the Black Rider's and at whose glorious manifestation of his true nature they flee into the river in terror? Actually, the larger role played by Arwen is a nice touch. The book is a bit too masculine.
Prizer is right to highlight the shocking, momentary transformation of Bilbo into a vampire-like creature when, in Rivendell, he sees the ring again. I have a different take on this from the review. This is the only place that I felt that the movie betrayed the book. If you read this passage, you'll see that Bilbo does not physically, literally transform. Instead, Frodo momentarily sees Bilbo as a covetous, orc-like creature. The director could have handled this better without sacrificing any excitement.
The flight choreography could have been improved by slowing it down a bit. Jackson's slashing cuts with the angle of the camera are more deadly than the swordplay they depict.
There were ways that the movie improved on the book for a contemporary audience. Arwen adds some feminine balance. The hobbit characters are particularly well-cast. Seeing hobbits played by humans made me identify more with them than with the outwardly homely creatures described in the book, as did the more accessible Gandalf and Aragorn. The heavier emphasis on Aragorn's kindly nature gave the movie a more contemporary political tone. It would be nice to have leaders who don't pursue office for its own sake, but to serve.
MARK OSBORNE Montgomery Village, Maryland
Crisis in New York
Regarding “New York Targets pro-life Pregnancy Centers” (Jan. 20-26):
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, with the endorsement of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL), are initiating convoluted legal allegations to eliminate all pro-life crisis-pregnancy centers. These esteemed personages allege that such centers are engaging is misleading advertising, and the unlicensed practice of medicine. It should be noted that they turn a blind (politicized) eye to the sordid lucrative abortion industry.
Nationwide, on a daily basis, 4,000 innocent unborn children are aborted. Our taxes end up in the deep pockets of abortionists. This is compounded by the fact that better specimens of aborted babies are “recycled” and their body parts sold for profit. All other aborted babies are unceremoniously thrown in dumpsters or shredded in garbage disposals. Compare this daily loss of life to the Twin Towers disaster.
Last year, in California, Planned Parenthood alleged that a major abortion-clinic chain was guilty of “unethical business practices.” In reality it was a turf fight by (human?) vultures fighting over the profitable bodies of aborted unborn children.
Thank God that, in New York, the American Catholic Lawyers Association, the American Center for Law and Justice and the American Family Center for Law and Justice, along with others, will defend all pro-life crisis-pregnancy centers. They will defend and reiterate the fact that all human life is a gift from God.
STEPHEN J. CONWAY Banning, California
Three Wise Readers
I thoroughly enjoyed Tim Drake's wonderful article on G.K. Chesterton, Frank Capra and Charles Dickens (“Our Three Wise Men,” Dec. 23-29) in the Register. He is such a fine writer.
Our family have become old movie buffs since we turned off the TV years ago and decided we'd rent or buy the oldies that had a story to tell without the sex, profanity, vulgarity and violence. Frank Capra films are always our favorites and now we know why after reading “Our Three Wise Men.” Oh that more families would turn to these oldies — they are so much more entertaining, and often leave viewers with a good moral lesson for life.
MARY ANN KUHARSKI Minneapolis
I apologize for the tardiness of this compliment on your fine article (“Our Three Wise Men”) in the Dec 23-29 Register. I receive the Register from a friend who is kind enough to let me enjoy a very well thought-out Catholic newspaper. This article kept to the point and brought out its meaning clearly and precisely. Not having heard or read anything by Frank Capra, I feel I have missed something in not having viewed his films, or if I have, not knowing the credit belonged to a man of humble and conscientious fidelity to the two great commandments.
In bringing the article to an end, I thought of Chesterton, when he said “It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.” Then I remembered the “Yes” that would bring man back, and forever open the way for him to return, from whence he came, through the new Eve, Mary's freely said Yes to God.
I hope I get the opportunity to enjoy more of Drake's writings.
THOMAS JORDAN Seekonk, Massachusetts
To paraphrase Frank Capra, “It's a wonderful article.” We loved it.
LOUISE AND GUIDO PINAMONTI
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion ------- TITLE: Jim Caviezel's a Class Act DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:While you are undoubtedly flooded with letters commending the interview with actor James Caviezel (“This Star Wants Heaven,” Inperson, Feb. 3-9), I'll add my gratitude for his public witness. I particularly appreciated Mr. Caveziel's insight as to “indifference” being a most challenging sin for us as Catholics today.
Not only has indifference affected some of us laity, but it has also threatened to suffocate many religious orders, and some Catholic publishing concerns, too. Thankfully, the Register, an inspiring, truthful, and non-indifferent publication, is fulfilling Jesus's statement: “I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already!” (Luke 12:49).
Mr. Caviezel's personal emphasis on prayer as the antidote to the sin of indifference, as well as for the deepening of the soul's love for, and eventual union with, God, is a treasure to be not only stored but put to immediate practice. We can begin by praying for Jim Caviezel and so many others (including the Register) who bring Christ's fire to the earth in word and action, as there are those whose lukewarm, watery lives attempt to douse Christ and his Church at every opportunity.
Count me with you, in just adoring God and in gratitude for fervent followers.
JOAN MCCLURE Huntington, Indiana
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion ------- TITLE: U.S., Strengthen Your Friends To the South DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:During the 1980s, left-wing organizations in Central America frequently referred to El Salvador as “another Vietnam.”
This was part of their ploy to deter the United States, which sought to prevent the Marxist guerrillas of the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN) from taking control of the government.
We all know what happened next. El Salvador never came close to becoming “another Vietnam.” Instead, thanks to U.S. intervention, the FMLN failed in its attempt to take power and a peace agreement was signed. All that — and the fall of the Soviet Union, too.
In a very similar way, there are not serious chances of Nicaragua becoming “another Afghanistan,” the contrary claims by some notwithstanding. This small Central American nation will never become the harbor of anti-United States terrorists.
Unlike Afghans, most Nicaraguans — indeed, Latin Americans in general — like Americans. When expressing their solidarity with the United States after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Latin Americans were unambiguous in their support as well as in their condemnation of terrorism. Unlike some countries which the United States considers “strong allies,” there was no emphasis on ideas such us “understanding the root causes behind the bombing” or on any other kind of “counterbalance” to an adamant condemnation of the attempts.
Unfortunately, since the countries of greater Latin America do not count for much economically and militarily, the United States in general cares very little if these countries are supportive or not to its policies. The call of the poor cousin is never as urgent as the call of the rich neighbor.
This approach lacks vision.
When Pope John Paul II called for a Synod of the Americas in 1997, he was making a very specific choice, one with geopolitical consequences as well as religious ones. The Holy Father saw that the United States and Canada had more in common with Latin America than with other Western countries. That is why he did not call for a synod of western nations or one of highly developed countries.
Despite the obvious differences, as the secretary for the General Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Jan Schotte, said: “Latin America and North America share a common Christian identity and both share a vibrant concern for keeping that identity … and make it evident not only in private life but in the public square.”
To the Bush administration, led by a man who lives Christian values to the best of his understanding, Nicaragua, for example, represents a good opportunity. The Bush administration could show its concern in building not only a political or military alliance, but a moral friendship as well among nations willing to defend freedom of religion, the right to life from the moment of conception to its natural end and the monogamous married family as the key cell of society.
The call of the poor cousin is never as urgent as the call of the rich neighbor.
Nicaraguan President-elect Enrique Bolaños is a strong pro-lifer, and he has shown his willingness to fight for life at international forums. At the United Nations, for example, he has faced down those who would bring contraception and abortion to Nicaragua. Unfortunately, Nicaragua is a debt-ridden country and its weak economy makes it vulnerable to the kind of economic pressure Northern European countries and the United Nations use to enforce birth control and anti-life policies.
In this scenario, an international policy consistent with Christian principles should lead the United States to invest in a “moral coalition,” by helping Nicaragua to be capable of standing firm to its principles. In the case of Nicaragua, it would be a fairly inexpensive investment.
In fact, Nicaragua's international debt is currently around $6 billion, less what the United States plans to invest in the recovery of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, this amount is completely unreachable for Nicaragua, since it is equivalent to 10 years of its trade surplus.
The idea is not to have the United States paying the bill of corruption or ill administration in Central American countries. It is, instead, to launch a morally inspired version of the Marshall Plan, which brought prosperity and strength to Western Europe in the wake of World War II's devastation.
Why did the United States invest in the Marshall Plan? Because a strong Western Europe had a practical, measurable value for America. By comparison, investing in more than regular food-aid in Latin America seems not to have a “practical” value, or a short-term benefit, for the U.S. foreign policy.
The United States, especially under the new administration, cannot make the mistake of asking how much military or economic might Nicaragua has — or Honduras, or El Salvador — as it evaluates ways to strengthen the hemisphere and keep it safe for freedom and democracy.
This time, the United States would pay a much smaller price than it did after its victory in the Second World War. And it would send a clear and inspiring message to the world: Our only superpower is willing to pay what it costs, and do what it must, to bring Christian values and virtues to the public square.
Alejandro Bermudez, the Register's chief Latin America correspondent, writes from Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary ------- TITLE: Lent Has Always Been Counter-Cultural DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God's own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.”
These magnificent words of Pope St. Leo the Great begin the third part of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” “Life in Christ,” where we Christians are taught how to become good. They are, accordingly, magnificent words with which to begin Lent, reminding us not only that we have been snatched from the jaws of death and darkness, but also that our Lenten goal is to rise to the light of Easter.
Nearly two millenniums ago, the first great catechetical manual, the Didache, warned the earliest converts from paganism: “There are two ways, the one of life, the other of death; but between the two, there is a great difference.” Today, living amid a culture of death, Christians find themselves having to make that same stark choice. For, between the culture of death and the culture of life, there is a very great difference.
In order to understand that difference more clearly, we return to the pagan world in which Christianity arose, the moral world of the Roman Empire, of Emperors Augustus Caesar and Tiberius. In doing so, we will see something both startling and quite illuminating for our own moral situation.
When we visit this pagan world, and examine its characteristic views of the moral life — as it was actually lived, not as it existed in the books of a few moralists — we find that it looks all too familiar. The pagan way of life, which the Didache called “the way of death,” seems suspiciously like our contemporary culture of death. Different time, much the same battle.
Where Are the Children?
If we look at sexuality, for example, we find that, for the Romans, erotic pleasure was the defining goal. Given pleasure as the goal, obviously sex was not confined to marriage; marriage was simply one more place where sex occurred.
As a result, other avenues of sexual pleasure were freely explored and gradually became part of the ordinary social fabric. Married men had concubines and visited prostitutes; men courted young boys; masters had their way with slaves. The socially defining restriction was not set in terms of male and female, but active and passive, superior and inferior. It was good to be a social superior in a sexual relationship — a man rather than a woman; a man rather than a boy; a master rather than a slave — and bad to be the passive inferior. Given this view of sexuality, it is not difficult to see the results in regard to marriage, contraception, abortion and infanticide.
Marriage, for Romans, was merely the locus of bearing legitimate children.
Concubines were therefore quite common. Having children by one's concubine was not frowned upon. Such children simply lacked any claim to the rights and estates of the familial household. Thus, marriage entailed no sexual exclusiveness except on the part of the woman (and the higher the woman in social ranking, the more inclined she was to act with the same sexual freedom as her husband).
Defining sexuality in terms of pleasure had another important effect. When we look back over the records of the Roman Empire at the number of children born to the upper classes, we invariably find that most had only one or two, and many none. Indeed, the situation became so bad that the emperors themselves felt called to urge the aristocracy to bear more children. The cause of such small families? The prevalence of contraception, abortion and infanticide.
HHaving been snatched from the jaws of death and darkness, our Lenten goal is to rise to the light of Easter.
At the other end of human life, we find that euthanasia was also a part of Roman culture. For the Romans, it was not a question of whether euthanasia, or suicide, was bad or good, but of the reason one committed suicide. To end one's life rather than submit to an enemy or a tyrannical emperor was honorable. Avoiding unbearable pain or the ravages of old age, while less heroic, were also legitimate reasons to take one's life. But killing oneself to avoid mild humiliation or debt, or killing oneself impulsively, were considered shameful.
Enough has been said about the moral views of the Romans for us to see this obvious point. In regard to sexuality, marriage, divorce, contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, we are not altogether in a foreign land when we visit ancient Rome — the Rome into which Christ and Christianity were born. It was converts from this pagan way of life which St. Paul reminded, “once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
We live in a culture today that seems to have been, for whatever historical reasons, re-paganized. Of course, western culture could not have been re-paganized if it had not been first Christianized. Such is the history of the first 1,000 years of the Church as it spread over Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. During this time as well, for Christians, becoming good meant shedding pagan ways, the ways of death — and accepting Christian ways, the ways of life. Essential to this conversion was the embrace of the Christian view of sexuality and marriage, and the rejection of contraception, abortion, infanticide and suicide.
As Christianity's hold on society became more firm, the views of sexuality and marriage — and the prohibitions against contraception, abortion, infanticide and suicide, which existed in the Church's penance manuals and canon law in the first 1,000 years of the Church's history — found their way into civil law during the second millennium. The historical lesson should be clear. Such civil laws against sodomy, divorce, contraception, abortion, infanticide and suicide in the West exist only because of this long period of Christianization. (Perhaps it is better to say “existed,” since almost all of them have already been struck down.)
That such laws have been removed is the surest sign that, to a great extent, the West has already been re-paganized, a process that began all the way back in the Renaissance. The Christians who now remain are, by a strange historical irony, in nearly the same situation as the first Christians, facing a culture defined, in large part, by a revived paganism treading the way of darkness and death.
To say the least, such an analysis should add a sense of urgency to every Christian's quest to become good. Christianity has lost its hold on the minds and hearts of much of Europe and America, and been displaced by the very alien way of life into which it had originally been born, and from which it sought to rescue its converts. We have come full circle: from dark, to light, to dark again.
Old Light, New Darkness
If we really understood how dark our times are, we would most likely be paralyzed. And then, not just for this Lent, but for once and for all. But for Christians of any time, all the way back to those first converts, despair is a sin. Hope, its contrary, is the virtue we must embrace when faced with such darkness.
The most hopeful words for us now are those trumpeted by Pope John Paul II: “Be not afraid!” By this, the Pope does not mean that there is nothing to fear, or that the culture of death will slip away of its own accord, but that we must have the same courage as the first Christians.
The first Christians had the courage, by grace, to seek goodness as defined by Jesus Christ himself. “It is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior,” the catechism tells us, “that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the grace of God” (No. 1701).
Such is the goodness that we, as Christians, properly seek. Such is the goodness that shall lift us from the culture of death. And such is the goodness after which we should strive this Lent, so that we may approach Easter “rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.”
Benjamin Wiker teaches philosophy of science at Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary ------- TITLE: Culture of Death Stands No Chance Against 'Feminine Genius' DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Mary Cannon could have taken on any number of stimulating challenges in the heady political world of “inside-the-beltway” Washington, D.C.
In years past, Cannon served as a top political advisor to former congressman and presidential candidate Jack Kemp, then as a high-ranking political appointee in the elder George Bush's administration, then as a corporate executive. She's got a husband, two children and a résumé to envy. Venturing into the working world again with remarkable political expertise and credentials, as well as corporate experience, opportunities for wealth and position were wide open for her.
Such opportunities for place and prestige might appear irresistible from a worldly perspective. But a different perspective motivates Cannon. She wants to do what most needs doing.
Last year, she resolved to take on an immediate, almost hidden and yet eminently menacing threat to the culture.
So it was that she accepted the decidedly unlucrative challenge of serving as director of the Bioethics Project.
Cannon and many women like her, while they may not get the media attention they deserve, are stepping up to the plate. They are sharing the responsibility with their male counterparts, diagnosing threats to human dignity and entering into public life to address problems strategically.
Cannon noticed that there were many organizations doing good things to defend the human person against threats to human dignity. But, because of the extreme and insidious nature of biotechnology's threat to human life, Cannon sees this issue as a top, single-focus priority. She sees that there is a need for one group, focused solely upon informing public opinion and building a diverse coalition of citizens opposed to the specific threats cloning and stem cell research pose. Cannon became an organizational entrepreneur in order to accomplish just that.
She and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol teamed up and gathered a group of national leaders to found the Bioethics Project. The group of intellectual and political heavyweights includes former education secretary William Bennett, Robert George of Princeton, Leon Kass of the University of Chicago, Kate O'Beirne of National Review, Adam Wolfson of The Public Interest, Gilbert Meilaender of Valparaiso University and Wesley Smith, author of Culture of Death. (Dr. Kass has since left the board of the Bioethics Project to serve as chairman of President Bush's advisory council on bioethics.)
It's a formidable team of high achievers, all united behind the idea that science should serve humanity rather than the converse.
The group secured seed money from a grant-making foundation and is now focusing its efforts upon the issue of human cloning. They're pushing hard to get media outlets to cover the story fairly. They are successfully building a broad base of liberal, conservative and diverse religious groups who disagree on many issues while agreeing that “we must draw a bright line between a better human world and a new inhuman one,” as Cannon puts it.
This past July, Cannon, Kristol and other Bioethics Project leaders and allies were instrumental in influencing public opinion to the extent that the U.S. House of Representatives passed an outright ban on human cloning. Prospects for success in the Senate, where the bill is due to be considered early this year, are less certain.
But Cannon understands pressure politics. She has strong words for the biotech industry: “They entice people with promises of miracle cures and confuse them by redefining terms — for example, they no longer use the word cloning; instead they call it ‘nuclear transplantation.’
They want the American people to conclude that these issues are so complex and technical that they are better left to the scientific ‘experts.’ But the truth is that this debate isn't really about science at all; it's about what it means to be a human being, created in the image and likeness of God.”
Such “global thinking” assumes the complementary talents of men and women. Thus is Cannon an example of the feminine genius at work. Participating in the “mystery” to which the Holy Father alludes, she is bringing her unique talents to bear against a serious threat to human life.
I know Cannon personally, and can bear witness to the fact that her impressive political credentials and management expertise are matched by her sincere modesty. This unique combination makes her a standout among successful Washington women. But, more importantly, it is humility — the ability to know one's place in relation to God — that allows the feminine genius to thrive.
Mary could have chosen the road most traveled. Yet she, like so many unsung women in our time, has turned her “feminine genius” to combating the culture of death.
As a woman of faith engaged in politics, Cannon shows the possibility of following Pope John Paul II's clear call to women to bring what he calls the “feminine genius” to bear on cultural ills. Speaking to women preparing for a 1995 conference on women in Beijing, he said: “Politics … geared as it is to promoting the common good, can only benefit from the complementary gifts of men and women.”
Such contributions from women are “proving particularly significant, especially with regard to the aspects of politics that concern the basic areas of human life,” the Holy Father continued. Since the beginning of his pontificate, he has explained how cultural activity calls into question the human person as a whole, in the two-fold complementary sensitivity of man and woman. Offering Mary, the Mother of God, as the ultimate example, he praises woman's ability to see the whole person with wisdom and sensitivity.
The lesson: The culture of death can best be countered by a team that includes both men and women, each responding to their unique calling.
The culture of death should be scared. It should be very scared.
Marjorie Dannenfelser writes from Arlington, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary ------- TITLE: Positively Polish, Faithfully Franciscan DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:New England may be known for its Irish and Italian character — but its three basilicas (all in Massachusetts) aren't.
Two have strong Polish roots. One of them is the Basilica of St. Stanislaus.
It was with that equation in mind that I headed off for Chicopee, a small city next door to Springfield, for “St. Stan's.”
I soon learned that Chicopee had attracted many Polish immigrants who came to work in the area's booming mills in the late 1800s. (Neighboring Holyoke was the first planned industrial center in the country.) They founded St. Stanislaus parish in 1891 to help keep alive their spiritual and ethnic identity, naming it after their cherished saint, the principal patron of Krakow and the symbol of Polish unity.
By 1908, this grand brownstone edifice became the focal point in a residential neighborhood located a short walk from Chicopee's downtown. Driving within sight of the Baroque Revival structure, with its soaring twin towers, I marveled to think how much the immigrants must have sacrificed to build such an impressive church. It turns out the structure was designed and built by the Franciscans of the Order of Friars Minor after the local bishop invited them to administer the parish.
Powerfully Polish
The friars remain a strong presence here to this day. When Pope John Paul II raised the church to a basilica on July 7, 1991, St. Stanislaus became one of 19 basilicas staffed by the Conventual Friars throughout the world. Two orders of nuns — the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi and the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph — are also very active in a variety of parish duties, especially in the parish's large school.
In the basilica's vestibule, a life-sized crucifix gave me cause to pause before I entered the nave. But three sets of glass doors, etched with symbols of the sacraments, through which unfolded an enticing “preview” of the wonderful interior, bid me enter.
Completely renovated in the last decade, this majestic sanctuary is an inspiring place to pray and worship, as the 3,000 families registered here know quite well. Yet all the splendid liturgical art must lead to something beyond admiration alone. And so it does here.
Overall, the interior struck me as unmistakably Polish, distinctly Franciscan and powerfully reverential.
A beautiful San Damiano crucifix is centered on the reredos, above which is a riveting icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Queen of Poland. The Polish revere Mary in this title as a central part of their spirituality.
The basilica's rector, Franciscan Father Michael Kolodziej, explained to me that the icon was painted in Czestochowa, touched to the original, and blessed in Rome by Pope John Paul II. The Black Madonna, as the icon is also called, wears a crown made from donated jewels. The crown was placed by Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, the current archbishop of Krakow and direct successor to St. Stanislaus. Bishop Joseph Francis Maguire, Spring-field's bishop at the time, was present for the crowning.
From above the icon on this restored original altar and reredos, which shines with a marbleized finish replicating the real Sienna marble found elsewhere in the church, the statue of St. Stanislaus, the basilica's patron, looks over the congregation. It was hand-carved in Italy, as were all the statues in this upper basilica, including Sts. Peter and Paul on the main altar, the Sacred Heart above the tabernacle of reservation and the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus.
Marian Might
So many rich helps to contemplation, so little time! The magnificent Stations of the Cross pulled me like a magnet to walk with Jesus to Calvary. Each sculpted station is detailed in very high relief and painted in the same way; the figures are about one-third life-size. Like all the basilica's statues, windows and paintings, the figures of the stations are very Franciscan in that they depict a very earthy, human Christ.
Two added stations surprised me.
The one in front of the 14 usual stations depicts the Last Supper. The one after the regular 14 portrays the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Time has erased the reason for adding them. I speculated their position on the walls close to the sanctuary might be the key. They relate to the sacrifice of the Mass and to the honor given Mary in this basilica.
Along the nave, 16 massive, yet delicately decorated, Corinthian columns of light yellow Sienna marble, each 20 feet tall, aren't just architecturally striking — they also draw our gaze toward stories of Jesus and several saints. First, the arches spanning the columns outline the big, stained-glass windows. Then, as we look up to see the glistening blue and gold capitals of the columns, our attention is directed into the lofty, curved ceiling that's covered by wondrous murals.
Two of these are outlined by ornate frames that seem to open into cerulean skies with puffy clouds. They're “bookends” for the central mural: St. Stanislaus glorified in heaven. Admiring angels and the four Evangelists surround this 11th-century martyr, while people pay homage. Blue and gold rosettes in relief vivify the colorful scene.
Below Stanislaus along the clerestory, other Polish saints and blessed — men on one side, women on the other — are highlighted in several stained-glass windows. Humansized angels and ornate pastels of urns cascading with flowers turn the entire clerestory into a heavenly garden.
On the first level, the original stained-glass windows from Mayer in Munich captured my attention with richly detailed scenes of events and parables like the Prodigal Son, the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The strong devotion to Mary in the basilica shines even to the very top of the apse high over the altar, where the Immaculate Heart is honored in a brilliant, half-round window. Nearby, in a mural in the apse dome, tall angels attend Our Lady of Czechtochowa.
In the lower basilica, Mary appears as Our Lady of Guadalupe in a reverent painting done by Mexican Carmelite nuns. The lower basilica is the site of daily Masses, confessions and morning exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. And a collection of more than 60 first-class relics.
Like other visitors and parishioners, I was drawn to contemplate them. They include the True Cross, several Apostles, Sts. Paul, Stephen, Luke, Martha, Mary Magdelene, Anthony, Francis, Joseph of Cupertino, Sixtus, Clement, Augustine and, of course, the Polish saints Maximillian Kolbe, Faustina, and Stanislaus. In this basilica, Polish heritage is a special blessing to every nationality.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Basilica of St. Stanislaus, Chicopee, Mass. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel ------- TITLE: Get CCD on a Music CD DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:He rocks for Jesus.
As the first cradle Catholic signed by a major contemporary-Christian record label, Tom Franzak has spent nearly 20 years singing rock and pop songs that inspire and challenge his listeners to respond to God's call on their lives. He spoke with Register correspondent Dana Mildebrath.
What has it been like for you as a Catholic in the contemporary-Christian music world?
Where I grew up (in Nazareth, Pa.), all the different churches cooperated and did a lot of things together. I didn't experience any prejudice because I was Catholic. When I signed with Word Records in 1983, it brought to the fore different opinions on the Catholic presence in that market. Some people were very affirming and said, “It's really great that Catholics are using contemporary music to evangelize and teach.” Others had a hard time accepting that Catholics could be, in their terminology, “saved,” or that the company should even be engaged in helping Catholic artists for that reason. I'm not so sure that, even all these years later, that community has gotten beyond that conflict.
How did you get started?
On my mom's side of the family, everybody could sing. My grandparents would always sing to me when I was small, and my mom and I would sing together in the kitchen. On my dad's side, there were a lot of musicians. So, when my parents got married, it was the merging of the singing family and the playing family.
I'm an only child and, when I was very young, my parents owned a music store. I was doomed, because I'd go in and see all those instruments hanging on the wall, and I'd want to play every one of them. I knew from a very young age that I would not be able to escape music. I was just engrossed by it.
I was playing rock ‘n’ roll in nightclubs when I was 16 and, by the time I was 21, I was living in southern California and hadn't been to church for at least three years. My manager was a former Benedictine nun, and she encouraged me to make a retreat. That experience blew me away. The hardest part was when I realized my talent wasn't mine — that it was a gift — and I was responsible to use it in different ways.
I walked away from music and was trained as a youth minister in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. I started writing songs again as a way to make the lessons with my kids a little more special. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a contemporary-Christian music industry.
Your first four albums weren't explicity Catholic. Why did you choose to go in such a specifically Catholic direction with your current album,
The great thing about the Church is that it has survived with a large body of believers lumbering along for 2,000 years. Some things become anchors for which we are grateful because they are solid and have a history. The saints are like that. The accounts we have of some of these people are an awesome testimony and legacy that are important for us to celebrate in any age. Whether you can relate to all of them or not, there's someone there that everyone can relate to. It represents the vast diversity and richness of our tradition.
What advice do you have for young Catholic musicians who want to “make it” in contemporary Christian music?
I usually just tell people to sing as much as they can and pray as much as they can, and let God take it wherever he wants to.
If “making it” means becoming the next Amy Grant, and you're Catholic, that carries a lot of challenges. If you encounter resistance or prejudice because of your Catholicity, you're faced with the challenge of standing up to that and convincing people that, yes, you can indeed have a deep, profound relationship with Jesus Christ within the Catholic tradition.
Unfortunately, what I see some very talented young Catholic artists choosing to do is play down their Catholic faith. My encouragement for young people would be: “Don't play down your faith to the point where you lose the wealth of your Catholic identity.”
There's so much that we can explore in our own Catholic experience, and then share with others, that I'm at a loss to understand how someone would feel that they wouldn't want to do that, unless of course if “making it” means simply having economic success and whatever fame and recognition that brings.
What do you have in mind for future projects?
I'm looking at doing another show that, like Saints, will have a cohesive theme, with a focus and shape to it. I'd also like to devote some time to developing a venue for Catholic artists to be able to get their music out there in live performances and on recordings, and be able to see the time when there is more access to radio air play and a more visible presence in the contemporary-Christian music market.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts ------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Matthew (1997)
Christian joy is one of the delights experienced by believers as they walk with God.
This blessed sensation animates Matthew, a four-hour version of the Gospel produced for video release by the Dallas-based Visual Entertainment, a Protestant company. It is the first installment of an ambitious effort to film every word in the Bible. In the bottom right-hand corner of every frame is the chapter and verse of the passage being dramatized.
Jesus (Bruce Marchiano) is neither the ethereal, detached figure of Italian paintings nor the serene stoic of later great-master characterizations. Instead he's presented as a warm, earthy personality who laughs with children and rolls up his sleeves to play with the disciples. Peter and Andrew are persuaded to leave their nets by the simple radiance of his smile. South African director Reghardt van den Bergh depicts Jesus’ miracles as real occurrences, expressions of his great energy and joy. The pain of the cross and the glory of his resurrection are realized with equal sincerity and conviction.
The Longest Day (1962)
Recent World War II films (Saving Private Ryan) and TV miniseries (Band of Brothers) have highlighted the Allies’ June 6, 1944 landing at Normandy. The most epic presentation of this decisive event is The Longest Day, based on Cornelius Ryan's compilation of interviews and produced as a labor of love by golden-age mogul Darryl Zanuck. The action is divided into three segments. The first chronicles the Allied preparation for the invasion and the wait for the weather to break; the second presents the massive movement of ships across the English Channel and the behind-the-lines maneuvers of paratroopers and commandos; and the third dramatizes the landings and assaults themselves.
The movie has a documentary feel, with few personal stories that are not directly related to the combat operations. Particularly outstanding are the sequences that feature: Col. Benjamin Vandervoort (John Wayne), a paratrooper who hobbles through D-Day with a broken ankle; Brig. Gen. Norman Cota (Robert Mitchum), who leads his troops onto bloody Omaha Beach; and Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt (Henry Fonda).
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
Flashing sword-play, witty dialogue and breathtaking royal balls are the staples of golden-age Hollywood swashbucklers about courage, honor and true love.
The Prisoner of Zenda, produced by David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind) and based on Anthony Hope's novel and Edward Rose's play, is the genre at its best. Major Rudolf Rassendyll (Ronald Colman) is a straight-arrow Englishman who travels to a mythical Balkan country to hunt game. There he's drawn into a dangerous court intrigue that requires him to pose as his dissolute cousin Prince Rudolf (also Colman), who's been poisoned by his enemies.
The perpetrators of these crimes are the dastardly villains Black Michael (Raymond Massey), the prince's wicked half-brother, and the suave Rupert of Hentzau (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who schemes to take the throne away from Rudolf. There's also a romance with the beautiful Princess Flavia (Madeleine Carroll) and a foul kidnapping of the ailing Rupert to the sinister Zenda dungeon. If viewed in the right spirit, this is still great fun.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts ------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, FEB. 17
American Icons: Structures of Glory Travel Channel, 9 p.m.
This new two-hour, two-part special travels to many of America's most cherished structures and explains their design, construction and lasting significance.
MONDAY, FEB. 18
Stealing the Superfortress
History Channel, 9 p.m.
In this new documentary we learn how the U.S.S.R. in the late 1940s was able to design and build the TU-4, a virtual copy of the B-29, a giant U.S. bomber. B-29 crewmen whom the Soviets imprisoned provide insights, as do U.S. and Soviet designers.
TUESDAY, FEB. 19
Bulletproof
History Channel, 10 p.m.
This new documentary tracks scientists’ progress in developing bullet-stopping materials for use in body armor, vehicle armor plating and wall layering.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 20
Places for All-American Animals
Travel Channel, 9 p.m.
This new special looks at the habitats of 10 popular American animal species.
THURSDAY, FEB. 21
Justice and the Generals
PBS, 10 p.m.
Communists murdered untold thousands of Catholic priests and religious in the 20th century; this 90-minute documentary deals with religious and a laywoman murdered by other hands. Sisters Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan were raped and murdered in Dec. 1980 during El Salvador's fight against communist guerrillas. When two generals from El Salvador retired to the United States, they became liable to civil lawsuits by the victims’ relatives. In 2000, a U.S. jury found the generals not responsible for the crimes, for which five Salvadoran national guardsmen were convicted earlier. The generals’ case is on appeal, and they face a separate suit by torture victims. Advisory: Exhumation scenes and accounts of torture.
FRIDAY, FEB. 22
Super Saints
EWTN, 5 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
“I have set thee as an example for sinners,” Jesus told St. Margaret of Cortona (1247-1297), “that in thee they may behold how My mercy awaits the sinner who is willing to repent.” After living with a nobleman out of wedlock until his murder, St. Margaret, whose feast day is Feb. 22, did heartfelt penance, joined the Third Order of St. Francis, founded an order of nursing sisters and got her Tuscan town of Cortona to build a hospital for ill poor people. Jesus gave her locutions and revelations from 1277 on.
SATURDAY, FEB. 23
Firefighter School
A & E, 8 p.m.
In this exciting installment of “Behind Closed Doors,” Joan Lunden joins rescue, emergency and firefighter recruits in training exercises at a huge mock city whose practice facilities include houses, refineries, a ship and an airplane.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts ------- TITLE: How to Acquire Self-Esteem The Old-Fashioned Way DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:One of the most dominant articles of faith pervading the modern curriculum is the notion that children can't achieve and won't succeed unless they have high self-esteem.
In parochial as well as public schools, in reading and writing, in health class and on the sports field, making students feel good about themselves has become a foundational goal in the modern classroom.
Yet thousands of psychological studies have failed to demonstrate that high self-esteem reliably causes anything — or, at least, anything desirable. In fact, some researchers are even suggesting that the “I love me” movement has done real harm to kids, families and education in general. Having seen the effects at close hand, I tend to agree.
So does Paul Vitz, professor of psychology at New York University, the most authoritative Catholic voice on the new psychological faiths. With regard to self-esteem, Vitz believes educational psychology has the cart before the horse.
“Self-esteem should be understood as a response, not as a cause,” he wrote in Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship (Eerdmans, 1994). “[L]ike happiness, and like love, self-esteem is almost impossible to get by trying to get it. Try to acquire self-esteem and you will fail — but do good to others and accomplish something for yourself, and you will have all the self-esteem you need.”
In the Catholic school where I taught for seven years, our staff regularly commented on the fact that, every new school year, the kids coming in seemed less able to work in a sustained and concentrated manner and, by and large, exhibited poorer self-control and less civility. Because of this, teaching was becoming more difficult — class-management and behavioral problems were stealing a larger and larger amount of time and energy from instructional time. In addition, a number of previously unheard-of problems were cropping up.
Probably the most difficult of these was that of “problem parents.” In previous times, parents almost always supported teachers in their administration of discipline. Now, more and more, parents were raising strong objections to the entirely appropriate and relatively mild disciplinary efforts of teachers and administrators to bring unruly children into line.
One didn't have to listen long to realize that the natural instincts of parents were being overridden and corrupted by the ideology of self-esteem. Parents of some of the worst-behaved kids we had were insisting that their child's acting out was the result of poor self-esteem and required not discipline — what in a saner age was called “tough love” — but more support, encouragement and “understanding.”
As anyone who works with kids will tell you, it doesn't take long for some kids to figure out the lay of the land and begin working the system.
I remember one little girl I had in grade four. Let's call her Shelley. Despite the fact that Shelley was blessed with above-average intelligence and ability, she had failed two tests in a row in social studies. I watched her response as I handed back her third test — also with a failing grade marked on it. Without a word, tears filled her eyes and Shelley ran into the cloakroom, crying. I went after her, spoke to her gently and, after a minute or so, led her back into class. I told Shelley I wanted to speak to her and her mother during the lunch period.
After the bell rang, Shelley stood with me outside my classroom as the girl's mother walked up and greeted me warmly. Shelley was still upset as I explained to her mother what had happened.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Mom asked her daughter.
“I don't know what to say,” said Shelley. “Somehow I just don't feel good about myself these days. I don't seem to like myself anymore.”
“That's a bunch of nonsense,” said Mom. “You didn't study.”
A parent with proper perspective — what a relief! “Your daily work hasn't been up to the standard I know you're capable of,” I said when the mother turned to me as if giving me permission to continue her point. “If you had felt good about yourself even though you hadn't done your job I would say you have a serious problem. Now why don't you get down to business, do the job you're capable of, and get a good mark on the next test?”
Good teachers and good parents show their love by caring enough to use discipline and by telling kids the truth. That's what kids need and that's what kids ultimately want. That's also why, in many high schools, the most-admired teachers, and the best-respected, are the athletic coaches — the authority figures who expect performance and rarely worry about self-esteem.
With a Godly context, a little “reality therapy,” some encouragement and the firm refusal of both her mother and her teacher to let her off the hook, I believe Shelley learned an important lesson that day.
I remember her looking excited and a little anxious as I handed back her fourth test. Then Shelley looked up at me from her desk, beaming and proud, as she saw the mark and realized she'd “aced” the test. Her good work had resulted in a natural sense of pride in her hard-earned accomplishment — in other words, a rightly ordered sense of heightened self-esteem.
J. Fraser Field is executive officer of the Catholic Educator's Resource Center (www.catholiceducation.org)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. Fraser Field ----- KEYWORDS: Education ------- TITLE: Weekly Book Pick DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Pope Pius XII once called Dietrich von Hildebrand “our 20th-century Doctor of the Church.” More recently, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger referred to him as “one of the great Catholic philosophers of the 20th century.”
Although his numerous books have been highly regarded in Catholic intellectual circles, little has been written about von Hildebrand's inspiring and courageous life. Until now: Alice Jourdain von Hildebrand, Dietrich's widow, has written a marvelously evocative biography covering the first five decades of the man's life. Von Hildebrand was born in 1889 into a loving, artistically gifted and thoroughly secular family in Florence, the only son and youngest of six children born to Adolph and Irene von Hidebrand. His father was a renowned sculptor; he and Irene often entertained such artistic notables as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Henry James.
Dietrich was only 15 when he determined to pursue philosophy as his life's work after reading Plato's dialogues and realizing “that he had an innate talent for detecting errors and equivocations in arguments and for unraveling a confused line of reasoning, and he set his mind to develop this gift.”
At Munich University, he met the brilliant but thoroughly undisciplined Max Scheler, who became his close friend. From the moment they met, Scheler's limber mind and dazzling personality captivated von Hildebrand. But he was indebted to Scheler above all else for the latter's intricate Catholic analysis of philosophical and theological questions, which eventually convinced von Hildebrand that the Church had received, and still retained, the fullness of revealed truth.
Mrs. von Hildebrand insists that her husband's conversion to the Catholic faith in 1914 was the most important and the most decisive moment of his life. “Every time he mentioned this event his face lit up with joy,” she tells us. “Beautiful and rewarding as his life had been … he was now entering into a radically new world, the world of the supernatural whose radiance, sublimity, and beauty were such that all his previous experiences paled by comparison. He was overwhelmed by a light, the existence of which he had never suspected previously. He could not learn enough; he could not read enough. Every day brought new discoveries; every day was more uplifting than the preceding one. Every instruction was received with attentiveness and gratitude.”
Purely philosophical questions continued to interest von Hildebrand, but he delighted much more now in meditating on the transformation that occurs in one's life when thought is illuminated by revelation. This spiritual transition became the theme of his masterwork Transformation in Christ, first published in 1940 under the pen name Peter Ott, because the publisher could not market the book in Nazi Germany under von Hildebrand's own name, since he had been sentenced to death in absentia.
Von Hildebrand had courageously denounced National Socialism from its earliest days. Much of the second half of Soul of a Lion concerns his terrifying flights and repeated narrow escapes from his Nazi pursuers in Germany, Austria and France until, at the book's conclusion, he and his wife arrive, at last, in New York. They were greeted on the pier by a fellow refugee from Nazism, Msgr. John Osterreicher, with the welcome news that a professorship awaited von Hildebrand at Fordham University.
One reservation: The book ends too soon. Von Hildebrand was only a little over 50 when he landed in the United States in 1940; he continued to live a productive and eventful life until his death in 1977. Much detail is excluded from the present, excellent work. Where are the firsthand insights on his distinguished career at Fordham, his marriage to Alice Jourdain following the death of his first wife, Gretchen, and his founding of the Roman Forum? One hopes that Mrs. von Hildebrand is at work on a second, equally absorbing, volume.
Carroll McGuire writes from Wayne, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: The Lion That Contemplated Christ ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carroll Mcguire ----- KEYWORDS: Education ------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:School Role Models
The curriculum is “best described as meat and potatoes,” says the Monitor’s Craig Savoye.
The newspaper reports that a church-school organizer in St. Louis was receiving more than a dozen calls per day “from groups that want to duplicate the effort in their communities.”
“Similar church-inspired schools already are taking shape in states from Georgia to California,” says the Monitor.
Nice Gift
‘Coercive’ Prayer?
VMI says it will appeal the ruling, which was rendered in response to a suit brought by the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
PC in NJ
TOWNHALL.COM, Jan. 31 — Columnist Suzanne Fields reports that the New Jersey Legislature recently nixed a requirement for students to daily recite the Declaration of Independence 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.”
Civil-liberties groups questioned the phrase “unalienable right” to life, suggesting it was a sneaky euphemism for “anti-abortion” sentiment; one legislator objected to the word “creator” because it would force students to accept a “state-sponsored religion.”
Vineyard Workers
An annual practice at the school through the 1960s, the tradition had faded. Parents who remembered the event brought it back three years ago and hope to restore it as a tradition.
Church-State Charters
Some accuse religious groups of advancing non-sectarian charter schools in the inner cities because it is “their only means of obtaining public education dollars,” writes the Times’ Richard Fausset. Advocates say religious groups can be ideal sponsors because they have classroom space, provide social services, and have “a strong sense of community and mission.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education ------- TITLE: Cross International Builds Hope In Haiti With Help From American Catholics DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:As the dawn breaks, a rooster crows and the bitter smell of smoke rolls through the gorge. In this rocky and barren scar in the landscape of Les Cayes, Haiti, the outcasts and homeless have come to find each other and seek shelter from the elements. Among them are a shocking number of widows with families, including a 48-year-old woman named Monica.
“When we met her, I could see the years of suffering in her eyes, and my heart went out to her. She obviously cared deeply for her children and she was enduring extraordinary things to give them the best life possible,” said Jim Cavnar, president of Cross International. On behalf of Cross International's ministry to the poor, Cavnar was visiting Les Cayes, meeting with local parish leaders and seeking ways to help families there. Again and again, Cavnar heard about requests for help in providing better housing for single mothers living in poverty.
“I met Monica as she was preparing to cook breakfast in a little lean-to shack. It was hardly more than a few sticks covered with a patchwork of discarded plastic, wood and palm fronds. There were a few worn pots, a couple of crude wooden benches and some tiny bags of rice — just a few possessions and enough food for a couple of small meals,” Cavnar related.
“In spite of their extreme poverty, the children were very tidy, and I asked my pastor guide how Monica managed to keep them so clean. He smiled and explained that the Haitians are proud and hardworking people. They make the most of what little they have, and they try very hard to give their children a sense of dignity.”
Cavnar then learned more about the hardships Monica's children were facing. Without help, it was likely the little ones would follow in the statistical footsteps of other Haitian children living in poverty — most of whom are malnourished and uneducated. It was also likely that at least one of them would die prematurely.
“As I looked at those children, I knew how much was stacked against them, particularly with the family living in these deplorable conditions,” Cavnar said.
…what begins as an inspired act of mercy in the U.S. ultimately becomes a spiritual sign of hope among the poor.
Fortunately, the parishes in Les Cayes have established a plan to help Monica and the other poor families in the area. They are able to construct a concrete block home with two or more rooms for between $3,500 and $8,000. The homes are simple, but they represent a dream come true to the families blessed enough to receive one.
To fund the cost of these homes, Cross International depends on contributions from American Catholics who sponsor a house on behalf of a poor family. Some sponsor an entire home, but most give toward the total cost of the home, combining their gift with those of other donors.
“We'll be sent a gift for $250 to do the foundation or $800 for the roof or $150 for the door and windows — a dozen families pitching in from different parts of the U.S. to achieve a common goal. It's a wonderful and heartwarming thing to see. These people feel blessed by the Lord because they enjoy the comforts of home, and they want to bestow the same blessings on a family in need,” Cavnar said.
And what begins as an inspired act of mercy in the U.S. ultimately becomes a spiritual sign of hope among the poor.
“When a family moves into one of these homes, there are tears of joy and prayers of thanksgiving. I've experienced it. You really feel as if the Spirit of God is there among you, and that the Lord is showering you with His blessings,” Cavnar said.
“I look forward to the day Monica feels that new hope,” he added. “I look forward to seeing her children sleeping safe and sound in the comfort of a real home.”
To contribute to Cross International's home-building ministry in Haiti, Belize and other destitute Third World countries, either use the envelope portion of the black and white brochure enclosed in this issue of the National Catholic Register or mail your gift to: Cross International, Dept. AW00115, PO Box 63, Akron, OH 44309-0063.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Poverty's Terrible Impact On Three Young Families - And the Hope Your Compassion Can Give Them DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Little Maria, like many of the children in Haiti, knows the daily fears of poverty. She has known days without food. She has seen the anxiety in her mother's eyes when she asks about going to school.
Maria's body also tenses when she hears a storm moving in at night — she fears the winds and rain. When storms come, the patchwork shack she lives in literally shakes and rain leaks in from above. Like many Haitian children, she prays for a safe place to sleep at night.
Julianne knows the terrible, crushing weight of poverty. She is still haunted by the day it claimed her baby, Haul. When his illness came, there was no way to fight it. No money for medicines. No transportation to reach a clinic. Isolated and desperate, she did everything she could to stop his convulsions. Even before God took Paul away, Julianne knew her efforts to save him would be in vain.
Too often, the poor are forced to live in desolate areas, cut off from the help and support they need. Julianne knows the price of this isolation, and it will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Like his mother before him, Jon lives in one of the poorer areas of Haiti. His home — a crumbling mud-patched shack — rests precariously on an outcropping of rock above a ravine.
“I hope to leave this place someday. I hope to have a real home for my son,” Jon said as he lovingly hugged the boy in his arms. The humble home Jon yearns for is a small cement-block house with two 12 by 12 foot rooms.
Jon is like thousands of poor parents living in the undeveloped countries ofour world. He has simple hopes to live in a simple home. But even those meager hopes are far out of reach.
“As Jon told me about his dreams I prayed to myself— ‘God, please help us make this poor man's dream come true. A little house would give him a chance to rebuild his life, and it would give his children a real opportunity to break out of this cycle of poverty. Please, Father, help us,’” related Jim Cavnar, president of Cross International. Through the church in Jon's village, Cavnar has been working out a program to provide housing for families like Jon's, Julianne's and Maria's.
“As the Scripture clearly says in James 2:15, it isn't enough to give the poor words of encouragement — we need to act in love on their behalf. These people desperately need a house that provides safety, security and support,” Cavnar said.
“The cement homes we construct in Haiti range in cost from $3,500 to about $8,000, depending on the number of rooms and other features it includes,” Cavnar explained.
Even at that relatively low cost, the homes being designed are too expensive for Jon, Julianne and other poor families to afford without help from the church. Less than 20 percent of Haiti's population is employed and most of those who are lucky enough to have a job earn less than $400 U.S. dollars a year.
To provide housing for these families, Cross International has developed a relationship between American Catholics and parishes working with the poor overseas.
“Parishes in Haiti and Belize have house-building programs, but they need funds to buy the lumber, cement and other materials. It's our role to find sponsors for those costs,” Cavnar said.
During his 30 years working in Christian ministries, Cavnar has seen hundreds of homes built for the poor in this way, and he has found American Catholics to be very generous in their response.
“As a Roman Catholic, I have always been uplifted by the people I meet through this program. A man or women will say to me, ‘A priest told me about your efforts to build homes for poor families and I want to help. 1 know how much it means to have a house — this is the most meaningful thing I can do. It's wonderful to see American Catholics reaching out to their brothers and sisters in these Third World countries,” Cavnar said.
He added that these simple homes have a far-reaching impact. In addition to providing security, they help parents maintain steady employment and make it easier for them to send children to school.
“When you contribute toward a house, you are literally changing a life forever — sometimes impacting a family's position for generations to come,” Cavnar pointed out.
Contributors and churches that want to sponsor a home for a poor family through Cross International can contribute any amount to the program. Gifts will be combined together to sponsor individual homes for a families currently on the waiting list. The sponsorship of an entire house is also possible.
“A surprising number of contributors choose to sponsor a complete home because they realize the huge impact their gift will have,” Cavnar said. “For example, someone may sponsor a home for Jon, Maria, Julianne or one of the other desperately poor families in Haiti or Belize. That gift will changed a family's life forever. That sponsorship will have made it possible.”
To contribute to Cross International's home-building ministry in Haiti, Belize and other desperate Third World countries, either use the envelope portion of the black and white brochure enclosed in this issue of the National Catholic Register or mail your gift to: Cross International, Dept. AW00115, PO Box 63, Akron, OH 44309-0063.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Special Outreach During Lent Has Inspiring Impact DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:With these words, Most Rev. Sam Jacobs, touches on the incredible truth and challenge we experience during this holy season of Lent.
At this time of year, we marvel at Christ's incredible depth of love for us. We recount how He suffered and was crucified for us. And, as modern Christians living in our modern world, we consider how He would have us respond to this amazing act.
One powerful passage of Scripture that immediately comes to mind is 1 John 3:16-18. It both magnifies Jesus Christ's sacrifice and points us to a practical path for our Lenten observances. It reads — “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
This passage has become a cornerstone of Cross International, a ministry founded to support church-based programs helping the poorest of the poor in the underdeveloped nations ofour world. Bishop Jacobs, who serves on the ministry's board, has encouraged Catholics to respond to Jesus Christ's love by imitating it when we find others in need.
“We definitely see our ministry as a response to Christ's love, and that does become a very powerful spiritual inspiration for us during Lent,” explained Jim Cavnar, president of Cross International. “How can you contemplate Christ's overflowing mercy and not feel His Spirit stirring within you — calling you to respond to others with that same love.”
Through our acts of mercy, Cavnar added, the impact of Christ's sacrificial love lives on and on.
“Our outreach to the poor during Lent can be seen in the smiling face of a hungry child eating a meal or in the tearful face of a parent who has just been given the shelter of a home. Every day, the mercy of God is revealed and repeated. It is the light that our Lord asked us to shine in the darkness. It's the hope that Lent itself represents,” he said. “Isn't that what Christ's sacrifice was for? Isn't that the life-changing truth that burns in our souls during Lent? I believe it is.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Monsignor Michael Flanagan Joins Cross International DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Monsignor Michael Flanagan has joined Cross International to support its outreach to the poor in Haiti, Trinidad, Latin America and Africa.
For years, Msgr. Flanagan has spoken nationwide on behalf of the poor and the Catholic parishes that are doing social ministries overseas. It is, he says, God's purpose for his life.
“People often say they are searching for God's purpose for their lives. When I hear that comment, I point them to three scriptural passages — Isaiah 58:6-8, James 1:27 and Matthew 25:31-46. Look there, and you may find what God is calling you to do. 1 think it's clear that our Lord wants us to respond to people in need.”
In response to Christ's call to help the poor, Msgr. Flanagan works to forge relationships between parishes in the U.S. and their counterparts overseas. The American parishes are asked to pray for and assist struggling Third World parishes operating feeding centers, clinics, housing projects and other ministries for the poor.
“The priests, nuns and pastors working overseas are dedicated and they are doing a great work, but they lack resources and need our help to do more. What a wonderful goal for us to champion! Working together, we can lift up the dedicated missionaries already working in the trenches among the poor,” Msgr. Flanagan said.
“We call our outreach to U.S. parishes the Missionary Preachers Program, and it's a very positive and uplifting experience. It celebrates the good work being done by Catholic ministries overseas and encourages a spirit of unity and teamwork.” To obtain more information about the Missionary Preachers Program, call 1-800-391-8545.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:When You Can't Agree
Q Recently my husband and I reached a stalemate over which house to buy. Disagreement seems to be a recurring theme in our marriage. Could you offer ideas for resolving our differences?
A Conflict is a familiar foe to anyone who has been married for more than five minutes.
One good way to begin dealing with it is adopting Ephesians 5:21 as a family motto: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Put aside the desire to win every argument. The guiding question must be: “What is best for my family?”
It can be helpful, for example, to defer to each other in areas of recognized expertise. One couple we know agreed that the wife would have final say over decisions about the interior of the house, while the husband would have final say about the exterior. Of course, each of them consults the other and carefully considers whatever is said.
Because we're so comfortable with our spouse, it's easy when arguing to lash out or be short — treating our spouse in ways we'd never dream of treating a friend or co-worker. We cannot allow ourselves to be grumpiest toward the person we love the most.
Even if we get these basics in place, however, and even if we add prayer, there can be times when we don't reach a meeting of the minds. These can be some of the hardest parts of married life.
Ephesians 5 offers more guidance, first to the wives: “Be subject to your husbands as to the Lord” (verse 22). When deadlocked, it may be time for the wife to defer to her husband. It's not that the wife isn't an equal partner; rather, she acknowledges that God has given him a role of leadership for the family. Every corporation needs a CEO, a place where the buck stops. The husband is like that — the family's CEO.
For the husbands, Ephesians 5 continues: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (verse 25). The family CEO doesn't spend all day golfing, and he'd be crazy not to listen to his closest partner in the firm. Husbands instead are called to make great sacrifices for the family. So while the wife bears the cross of submission, the husband too bears a cross of headship, often dying to his own wishes.
We know it's tough. Early in our marriage, Caroline supported Tom through graduate school. Near the end of his coursework, when doctoral exams were looming, Tom considered postponing them for several good reasons. Caroline was bitterly opposed; it meant she would have to teach another year. The debate seemed endless, but finally Caroline resolved to defer to Tom's leadership.
“God blessed me for that decision,” Caroline now says, “I had my best year of teaching ever.” Tom made a special sacrifice too. When it was time for the next round of exams, he had pneumonia. He was sorely tempted to throw in the towel, but knew it would be devastating to Caroline. So he completed the three-day ordeal for the good of his wife — and thankfully passed!
Tom and Caroline McDonald are family life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom And Caroline McDonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life ------- TITLE: Patriotism Catechism DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Thomas Spence, a Dallas publisher and father of eight, didn't use to be very patriotic. “I was pretty disillusioned, particularly as a Catholic, as a Christian, with the American experiment,” said Spence. “All of the things that critics of America say I guess I was believing to some extent; I do believe it still.”
Then, “just a few days after Sept. 11 we went to a concert of the Dallas symphony,” he said. “Andrew Litton was conducting and he opened with the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ It was very emotional. Then he went into the program, a Mozart violin concerto.
“I was sitting there, listening and thinking, we are fighting for Mozart just as surely as we are fighting for McDonald's franchises around the world or Coca-Cola. We have all these flaws; our popular culture is so debased. But if anybody is going to defend Mozart, it's America. I have tried to impart to (my children) a sense of that.”
In days of flag-waving and stadium chants of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” Catholic parents and teachers are looking for ways to properly express — and morally deepen — patriotism.
Gratitude
Jacquelyn Dudasko has a way. The home schooling mother of three in Richardson, Texas, leads her children in singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” and the pledge of allegiance before morning prayers.
“God has blessed our country,” Dudasko tells her children. “We have many sins in our country, but look at everything we have, the bounty. Walk into the grocery store.”
That message is a concrete example of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches about patriotism and gratitude, in No. 2239: “The love and service of one's country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity.”
For Patty Donovan of Plano, Texas, whose four sons attend Catholic schools, “America the Beautiful” helps form her patriotism message.
“One phrase from ‘America the Beautiful’ sums up, for me, America's ideal: ‘liberty in law,’” she said. “We find our freedoms within our laws, including the freedom to worship.”
Donovan said the primary source for her gratitude is America's commitment to religious freedom, which Pope John Paul II has called the fundamental freedom.
“We're so very fortunate — and we remind our children often of this — to live in a country that not only tolerates but encourages religious freedom,” she said. “I've felt especially thankful since the September attacks that our children's school is also a place of prayer.”
Respect for Authority
Donovan raises the other dimension of patriotism mentioned in the catechism — the responsibility to ensure that a nation's laws accord with God's laws:
“Those subject to authority should regard those in authority as representatives of God, who has made them stewards of his gifts,” teaches the catechism (No. 2238). “Their loyal collaboration includes the right, and at times the duty, to voice their just criticisms of that which seems harmful to the dignity of persons and to the good of the community.”
But how does one respect a system of laws that is sometimes terribly unjust?
Indeed, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, if a law is not in harmony with God's law, it is no law at all, said Father Stephen Zigrang, pastor of St. Andrew Church, Channelview, Texas.
“All authority has its authority from God,” he said. As such, the catechism teaches that while Catholics are bound to offer prayers for and obedience to those in authority, if civil authority conflicts with moral demands, “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
“On the one hand we [in America] do the right thing,” said Father Zigrang. “We have democracy, we let people decide the leadership. But then it comes to issues of human rights — the elderly, the disabled, the unborn — the strong win out. It's financially motivated.”
Many Catholics, who have felt that they live in a kind of exile within a materialistic culture, nevertheless see the need to rally behind their country, which is still, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the last, best hope of earth.”
Even the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, sounds as patriotic as the most red-white-and-blue American in many of his statements, including this on Dec. 31, 1999: “The discovery of America, which opened a new epoch of the history of mankind, was, without any doubt, the most important element in the balance of the past millennium.”
There is a difference between being a patriot and a nationalist, and as a Catholic you can be one and not the other.
Yet the Pope never misses the opportunity, when addressing this nation, to call it to live out its own ideals, especially in regard to the sanctity of life: “America will remain a beacon of freedom for the world as long as it stands by those moral truths which are the very heart of its historical experience. … If you want justice, defend life” (Evening Prayer at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, January 27, 1999).
Patriotism, Not Nationalism
Brad Birzer, a Catholic father and an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College in Michigan, agreed that America is the best guardian for the West, from which it has received “a sacred trust.” But, he cautioned, there is a difference between being a patriot and a nationalist, and that as a Catholic he can be one and not the other.
“I have a real loyalty to what the country stands for, such as republican virtue, doing these things for the common good. It's a Catholic understanding, that we're really one body,” he said. “But I think there's a danger in holding too much to ‘Well, I'm an American and therefore …’ I don't like the sound bites and the knee-jerk reaction. We need to have a long discussion about it.”
Some schools are paying special attention to Catholic patriotism. One is Providence Academy, a pre-K through grade 9 Catholic school that opened its doors this year in Minneapolis.
“In its proper form American patriotism ought to be associated with ideas; it's something other than blind patriotism,” said headmaster Todd Flanders. “Americans have the opportunity to go deeper than this, and certainly Catholic Christian Americans do. [There] are interesting ways to bring our civic history and our patriotic involvement into conversation with larger themes of our religious commitments.”
For example, he said, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, students examined how, in his “I Have a Dream” speech, King used the American propositions of equality, liberty and justice to advance greater opportunities for all.
“There's something in the way our country was founded, our founding principles, that help us [Catholics] make our argument in the public square,” he said. “We Catholics unabashedly talk about a right to life. That's language that was first used in the Declaration of Independence.”
Alongside love of country, its history and its ideals, Catholics are also finding a newfound respect for their fellow countrymen, Flanders said.
“My heart is filled with hope,” he said. “We have seen what the soul of our fellow citizens can rise to. Not in my lifetime have I seen a time when there seems to be such a broad understanding of the possibility of good in our people and in our principles.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life ------- TITLE: Life Notes DATE: 02/17/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: February 17-23, 2002 ----- BODY:Lawmakers Want Ultrasounds
Abortion rates in Wisconsin dropped by more than half after the state offered the so-called look-and-listen option, officials said.
The Indiana Senate Health Committee currently is considering the proposal.
Protests Move Speech
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 19 — New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, a Catholic who supports abortion, moved his first public town hall meeting from a Catholic university after pro-life Catholics objected to his plans.
McGreevey moved the meeting from Seton Hall University to Montclair State University. pro-life advocates were angered not only because McGreevey was going to have the town hall meeting at the Catholic school, but also because it was scheduled for Jan. 22, the 29th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Abstinence Funding
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 30 — The Bush administration is asking Congress for a 33% increase in funding for sexual abstinence education programs. In the budget the president proposed a total of $135 million for abstinence-only programs, an increase of $33 million over this year.
The request fulfills a pledge Bush made while campaigning for president — to spend as much promoting abstinence as some have calculated the government spends educating teens about contraception.
Teen Promotes Unborn Bill
Smith is arranging to address Idaho legislators in favor of a law protecting children from people who would hurt or kill them before they're born.
The Idaho teenager was starting her ninth month of pregnancy when she was attacked July 8 in her home. Hit, kicked and stomped, Smith sensed the beating had hurt her baby and was rushed to the hospital. Noah was stillborn.
Pain Relief Discovery
In the latest finding, Dr. Khem Jhamandas of the department of pharmacology and toxicology at Queen's University, concluded that tiny doses of opioid antagonists — drugs normally used to block the toxic effects of opioids — actually enhance the pain-killing qualities of morphine.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pope Cracks Down on Confession Crisis DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Calling for a “vigorous revitalization of the sacrament of reconciliation,” Pope John Paul II issued a new apostolic letter aimed at eliminating abuses of general absolution which he said cause “serious harm to the spiritual life of the faithful and to the holiness of the Church.”
“In some places there has been a tendency to abandon individual confession and wrongly to resort to ‘general’ or ‘communal’ absolution,” notes the Holy Father in his 16-page letter entitled Misericordia Dei (By the Mercy of God). The letter was dated Divine Mercy Sunday and released on May 2. It was issued “motu proprio,” meaning that it promulgates regulations on the Pope's own authority.
General absolution means the priest gives absolution to a number of penitents at once without each one confessing his sins personally. Permitted in cases of “grave necessity,” it has become a routine practice in some dioceses.
It was used most famously — and correctly — recently for Catholic firefighters heading into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Lacking time for individual confessions, the firefighters were in danger of death and so priests on the scene administered general absolution. As in all such cases, penitents who received general absolution are obliged to personally confess their serious sins as soon as possible, even though absolution has already been granted.
“Since the integral confession of serious sins is by divine decree a constitutive part of the sacrament, it is in no way subject to the discretion of pastors (dispensation, interpretation, local customs, etc.),” writes the Holy Father in the key part of the text. “In the relevant disciplinary norms, the competent ecclesiastical authority merely indicates the criteria of distinguishing a real impossibility of confessing one's sins from other situations in which the impossibility is only apparent or can be surmounted.”
“Integral confession” means that penitents must confess all serious sins (also called “grave sins” or “mortal sins”) committed since baptism which have not been previously confessed. Misercordia Dei reiterates that absolution can only be validly received after such an integral confession, together with contrition and a purpose of amendment. Specific mention is made that “penitents living in a habitual state of serious sin and who do not intend to change their situation cannot validly receive absolution.”
Christ's Will
In framing the issue of general absolution in the context of “divine decree,” John Paul is stressing that the Church does not have the authority to change what Christ himself willed. The Church does not have the power to dispense from individual confession; she can only make provisions for cases where it is truly impossible. In this sense, Misercordia Dei echoes the 1994 letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which taught that the Church does not possess the authority to ordain women to the priesthood.
“It is not in the power of the Church to substitute general absolution for personal confession,” said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the press conference presenting the document. “The pope reminds us of this in this new ‘motu proprio,’ which thus expresses the Church's awareness of the limits of her power — expressing the link with the word of the Lord, which binds even the pope.”
“To equate ‘general absolution’ with the ordinary forms of the celebration of the sacrament of penance is a doctrinal error, a disciplinary abuse and a pastoral harm,” added Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
Misercordia Dei does three new things. It clarifies what constitutes the “grave necessity” under which general absolution can be administered, it requires national bishops’ conferences to draw up rules for when it can be done, and it assigns to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments the responsibility for approving those rules on behalf of the Holy See.
Canon 961 of the Code of Canon Law regulates general absolution, permitting it only in danger of death or “grave necessity,” meaning that there are not sufficient priests to hear all the confessions appropriately and that penitents would have to go a “long time” without sacramental grace or Holy Communion.
“It refers to situations which are objectively exceptional, such as can occur in mission territories or in isolated communities of the faithful, where the priest can visit only once or very few times a year, or when war or weather conditions or similar factors permit,” Misericordia Dei clarifies.
“The two conditions set down in the canon to determine grave necessity are inseparable,” the letter adds. In practical terms, this means that only a lack of confessors is not sufficient for grave necessity, but that the faithful would also have to be denied access to the sacraments for a long time. The letter further specifies that a “long time” means at least one month. If it would be possible for the faithful to get to confession and Holy Communion within a month should they wish, grave necessity does not exist. Therefore, “the large number of penitents gathered on the occasion of a great feast or pilgrimage, or for reasons of tourism or because of today's increased mobility of people, does not in itself constitute grave necessity.”
Misercordia Dei also underscores what canon law already states, that no parish priest has the authority to determine what constitutes “grave necessity.” In danger of death, he ought to administer general absolution, but in all other cases, the determination of “grave necessity” is solely the competence of the diocesan bishop.
As well, Misericordia Dei reiterates previous instructions — this time with papal weight — that churches ought to have confessionals “in an open area” and with “a fixed grill so as to permit the faithful and confessors themselves who may wish to make use of them to do so freely.”
In 1998, Archbishop's Herranz's council instructed that both penitent and priest always have the right to confession behind the grill. So-called “face-to-face” confessions require the consent of both parties. A priest need not offer it, and may not force it upon a penitent.
National Policies
While existing law allows for the possibility for national bishops’ conferences to have common policies on general absolution, Misericordia Dei now makes that mandatory. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments will act on behalf of the Holy See in giving approval to such norms, underscoring that this is a matter of the integrity of the sacraments. In purely legislative matters relating to bishops’ conferences, the Congregation for Bishops acts for the Holy See.
It would be possible for a national episcopal conference to say that situations of “grave necessity” never arise in their territory, as has been done by the Irish bishops.
“This is an attempt to assist the local bishop in the application of the law of the Church,” said Archbishop Julián Herranz, president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts. Archbishop Herranz spoke of the bishop's mission as teaching, celebrating the liturgy and enforcing discipline. “It is not enough for a bishop to teach well and celebrate magnificent liturgies if he neglects discipline.”
Archbishop Herranz noted that Misercordia Dei encourages priests to be generous in availability for confession.
“It is particularly recommended that in places of worship confessors be visibly present at the advertized times, that these times be adapted to the real circumstances of penitents, and that confessions be especially before Masses, and even during Mass if there are other priests available, in order to meet the needs of the faithful,” the letter says.
Summed up Archbishop Herranz, “There has not been a crisis in confession, but a crisis of confessors.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Slave Trade Booming in the 21st Century DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India — With the human trafficking scenario in South Asia steadily worsening, Caritas Internationalis units in the South Asian subcontinent have ventured this year beyond their normal “development and relief” work into a new field: to combat human trafficking in the region.
In some major cities in the region, literally tens of thousands of women and girls — some aged 12 or even younger — are sold into slavery, often as prostitutes. And according to the United Nations, trafficking in human beings could soon surpass trafficking in drugs and guns as the world's most lucrative illegal industry.
Representatives of Caritas — a relief and development agency consisting of 154 Catholic organizations around the world — from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka came together at Katmandu in Nepal in February, along with several non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, actively involved in an anti-trafficking campaign to build a pan-South Asian network.
The meeting came thanks to one of the leading Catholic action groups in Asia, Asia Partnership for Human Development (APHD). The Bangkok-based action group, established in 1973, is an association of 23 Catholic development agencies from Asia, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Discussion on trafficking in South Asia at the 1997 APHD General Assembly “brought home the tragedy and seriousness of the issue,” prompting the partnership to take it up as a regional program, said spokesman Scott Marr. This year's joint initiative of Caritas units in the region is the fruit of several programs on trafficking organized since 1998.
“If the campaign against trafficking is to be effective, first we have to identify and bring together all those working in the field,” said Suganti Subramanian, coordinator of the new initiative of South Asian Caritas units.
As a prelude to get the coalition going, Subramanian, who also heads the Gender Desk of Caritas India, said the South Asian Caritas network has resolved to compile before the end of the year a directory of all the NGOs engaged in combating the flesh trade in the region.
“That will help us build up a strong anti-trafficking campaign,” Subramanian said. Though everyone admits “from observation” that trafficking is going up, she said, there is not a proper database on the extent of the trafficking problem. While the data provided the governments are outdated, NGOs can only give estimates.
“But once the list of NGOs in the field is compiled, we can gather authentic data and use it in our advocacy campaigns,” Subramanian said.
“There is no authentic and reliable data on the actual volume of human trafficking in Bangladesh,” admitted Benedict Alo D'Rozario, the director of disaster management and development department of Caritas Bangladesh. However, D'Rozario estimates that in the last 10 years 200,000 women and girls between 12 and 30 years old have been trafficked from Bangladesh to Pakistan alone. Also, about half the girls and women in the brothels in the neighboring West Bengal state of India are from Bangladesh, he said.
Every year 5,000 to 7,000 Nepali girls are sold out for flesh trade in brothels across India. “But, there is no authentic data as such yet,” acknowledged Rupa Rai of Caritas Nepal. Realizing the gravity of the situation in Nepal that has been suffering for a long time, Rai said, the Caritas unit in the Himalayan kingdom has taken up the anti-trafficking campaign as a “major concern.”
Prevention
Last year Caritas Nepal authored the National Report on Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking of Children, published in preparation for the Second World Congress on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children at Yokohama, Japan. Caritas Nepal also produces programs to be broadcast over the government-controlled radio to make the public aware of the evil of trafficking girls and women.
Apart from bringing dozens of grass-roots NGOs to the anti-trafficking campaign with monetary support and workshops, Rai pointed out that Caritas Nepal is even helping the NGOs set up “village surveillance committees” as part of “prevention focus programs.” Caritas Nepal also has been conducting special seminars for church personnel to make them aware of the alarming levels of trafficking in rural areas where unscrupulous flesh traders lure poor parents with cash advances to send their young daughters for “decent jobs” in India.
Jyotsna Chatterji, a Protestant woman activist whose Joint Women's Program action group has been closely associated with the Caritas anti-trafficking campaign, said at least 30% of the 6,000 prostitutes in the G B Road red-light district in New Delhi are “imports” from Nepal.
“Many of them have told us how their families have been duped into sending them to India on the pretext of job,” said Chatterji, who runs a welfare center for the sex workers in the red-light district.
“’We are no longer human beings with emotions. Our emotions and spirit are dead. We have been reduced to sex machines,’” Chatterji said, explaining the “dehumanizing impact” of the trafficking to the spirit on the victims, who cannot even think of going back to their home-lands where they will be treated as outcasts.
Reiterating that “the rehabilitation of prostitutes is a difficult task,” Chatterji noted that “the best option is to check trafficking.”
The Joint Women's Program, along with Caritas India, has brought out an information kit called “Human Trafficking: How to Address the Issue.” Impressed with the content of the information kit, several Indian state governments and NGOs working among sex workers and trafficked women have ordered copies.
Similarly, Caritas Bangladesh has undertaken a major “awareness-raising campaign” against human trafficking.
“We organize training workshops for the staff of grass-roots level NGOs, government representatives and local elites in trafficking-prone areas,” said D'Rozario of Caritas Bangladesh. Besides distributing thousands of posters and leaflets in the high-risk areas along the border of West Bengal state, the church charity has also supported rehabilitation centers where the rescued trafficked women and children are given job training to make them self-reliant.
Father John Noronha, executive director of Caritas India, said the anti-trafficking campaign has not been “in our focus as we have been concentrating primarily on development and relief work.”
“But now we realize that trafficking is counterproductive to the development work we are doing. Trafficking is negating the fruits we look for through women-oriented literacy and development projects,” Father Noronha admitted.
Apart from trafficking from other countries, he added, trafficking within the country is a “major problem.” Agents of brothel owners rush to poverty-stricken and disaster-hit areas to look for easy targets.
Exploiting Tragedy
There was a sudden spurt in trafficking in young girls in the eastern Orissa state after the state was ravaged by a devastating cyclone two years ago, Father Noronha said. “Desperately in need of money to survive, hapless parents fall easy victims to the promises made by the agents,” he added.
“We need tough laws to combat the problem,” acknowledged Subramanian, South Asian Caritas’ anti-trafficking initiative coordinator. “But unless we have a strong network to lobby with the government, our campaign will not bear fruit.” That is why, she pointed out, “we have decided as the first step to prepare a directory of all the NGOs in the field before we proceed to the more active level of lobbying” for legislation and government action to curb trafficking, repatriation and rehabilitation of the victims.
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Colorado Governor to Media: 'We Love Our Church' DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:DENVER — One might expect Catholic politicians, in need of secular support, would distance themselves from bishops and priests while the mainstream press feeds at the trough of the clergy sex scandal.
Not Gov. Bill Owens.
Instead, the Colorado Republican joined 53 other prominent Colorado residents in taking a bold and public stand in support of their clergy. Together, they donated money and bought a $20,000 full page ad in the April 7 Denver Post that said, in part:
“We love our Church, we respect our priests, we support our bishops. The failures of the few, no matter how serious, cannot be an excuse for demeaning or suspecting all.”
Owens told the Register that he feels extreme compassion for victims of sexual abuse by priests. However, he also feels compassion for priests who face negative stereotypes because of the actions of a few.
“I'm so proud of what my Church has meant to the world, that any blemish on that record is of the deepest concern to me,” Owens said.
Owens said he hopes the statement published in Denver might inspire others throughout the United States to publicly support the Church, and build it up in a time of crisis.
“This is a very appropriate time to thank our priests for all that they do for us,” Owens said. “It's easy to be supportive during good times, but it's most essential during the tough times. I hope people do this everywhere, whether by the means we chose here in Denver, or by some other means. By whatever means, Catholics need to rally behind their church because of all the good it represents.”
Signers of the Denver statement included several nationally prominent Coloradans, including Peter and Marilyn Coors, of the Coors Brewing Company; former Denver Bronco tight end Haven Moses and his wife, Joyce; Congressman Bob Schaffer and his wife, Maureen; and Denver Broncos owners Pat and Annabelle Bowlen.
John Saeman, former president and CEO of Daniels Communications Companies, thought up the idea and carried it out.
Role Models
Haven Moses said he signed the letter because priests provided him a role model while growing up in the tough neighborhoods of south central Los Angeles. He attended 12 years of Catholic schools, and said priests in the school and his parish made him a better person. All of his five siblings, in fact, are inner city success stories largely because of the influence of priests and nuns, Moses said.
“They prepared me for the world,” said the former NFL star. “They represented to me how important faith is. The priests I was exposed to lived like Christ in every aspect of their lives. They were in constant communication with Christ.”
Gov. Owens said that that once he read the text for the proposed ad there was no question, for even a moment, that he not sign and defend it. A member of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Aurora, Colo., Owens has long been an outspoken advocate of the Church and a good friend to Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput and other Colorado bishops.
He spoke with five bishops April 19, at the funeral for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White.
“I've had several priests thank me for signing this expression of support, and tell me it's particularly appreciated now in light of everything that's being reported,” Gov. Owens said. “Clergy are feeling pressure, because while these offenses have been committed by a very small number of priests — relative to the almost 100,000 who have been priests while all of this was going on — it unfairly reflects on all of them and they are definitely feeling it.”
Moses says it's difficult, in light of the heavy media attention on priest sex scandals, for the public not to view priests with suspicion.
“People still respect the collar, and I think the reputation will be restored,” Moses said. “But right now it's hard for some people not to look at any priest without some level of suspicion, even though it's only a very small percentage of priests who comprise this scandal. It's similar to a phenomenon taking place in our community of color right now. After Sept. 11, people are having a hard time not acting suspicious toward someone who wears a turban, even though it's not a rational response.”
Before seeking signers for the statement, the text was run by Archbishop Chaput for his approval. Within hours, an idea had turned into an official statement with the arch-bishop's blessing, private donations to pay for ad space and a growing list of prominent signers.
“It was nothing short of a miracle,” said Peter Droege, a former editor of Denver's archdiocesan newspaper who served as Saeman's assistant for the campaign.
Positive Response
Owens says he has received no criticism personally for signing the ad, adding that press coverage has generally been favorable.
“I have had a lot of positive response from Catholics, and one positive comment from a non-Catholic,” Owens said. “I've had six or eight people comment on it in the past week, and when you're governor that's a lot of feedback because you live in this cocoon and people are reluctant to mention things to you.”
Not everyone, however, was pleased with the statement and the governor's support of it. The Rev. Bill Kirton, president of the Interfaith Alliance of Denver, spoke out publicly, saying: “It seems like the politicization of religion. Bill Owens has been very outspoken in his support of government help for sectarian, faith-based purposes.”
Kirton explained that he's worried about Owens and other “conservatives” from various Christian denominations trying to influence public policy, thus mixing politics and religion.
Mostly, however, the ad has led to new stories throughout Colorado about the prominent expression of support for clergy. Molly Moore, a signer of the statement and the wife of a leading Denver investment banker, was interviewed on Denver's Channel 4 News.
“The reporter was very fair and balanced, and I was grateful for the opportunity to express my love for the Church and all that my faith means to me,” Moore said.
Saeman said the vast majority of comments he has received have been positive, but even most of the negative feedback involved some “deep concern for the Catholic Church.”
Owens says he hopes Church officials will do whatever is necessary to prevent future scandals involving inappropriate actions by priests. But he has no advice regarding how the U.S. bishops and Pope John Paul II should manage the scandal.
“I've been asked that by the secular press, and I really don't have anything to offer,” Owens said. “I know how to run Colorado, but I'm not in a position to give the Vatican any advice at this point in time. I don't want to appear to be second-guessing or pre-judging those who are best positioned to handle this.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bethlehem Breakthrough: Church Siege Nears End DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The 35-day siege around the Basilica of the Nativity appeared to be ending May 6 as negotiators closed in on a deal to clear the church of more than 120 people by sending some Palestinian gunmen into exile in Italy and others to the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
The rest of those trapped or held against their will in desperate conditions and under threat of violence would be free to go.
The standoff at the church on Manger Square, built on the spot where Jesus is believed to have been born, has brought international scorn to the Palestinian militants who took refuge there April 2 and to the Israeli troops who have kept Bethlehem locked down for a month.
President Bush, said to be moved by televised images of a part of the church complex in flames last week, pressured Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to resolve the conflict, the last high-profile standoff left from Israel's sweeping military advance across the West Bank.
Sharon arrived in Washington on May 5 for his fifth meeting with the president since becoming prime minister early last year.
Armed with documents that Israel says link Yasser Arafat directly to terrorism, Sharon is expected to press his case that the Palestinian leader should no longer be considered a potential partner for peace. Sharon and Bush were to meet May 7.
Early in the morning of May 6, Bethlehem region Gov. Muhammad Madani said the deal to end the siege at the Basilica of the Nativity stalled over how many gunmen would be deported to Italy and how many sent off to Palestinian-controlled land in the Gaza Strip.
From six to 15 gunmen, those that Israel considers most dangerous, would go Italy, sources said. Up to 40 could be sent to Gaza.
“Progress had been made but there's no deal yet. They're still talking,” a senior Israeli defense source said May 6.
The conflict began when Israeli soldiers stormed into Bethlehem as part of an air-and-land assault aimed at arresting Palestinian militants or terrorism suspects throughout the West Bank. The church became a sanctuary for innocent passers-by and clergy as well as for militant gunmen who fled inside only to be trapped by the Israeli army.
In the past couple of weeks, the makeup of the militants became more apparent from interviews with people who left the church. Among the Palestinians, reports said, were members of militant groups including Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is linked to Arafat's Fatah movement.
Seven Palestinians died during the siege of the Basilica of the Nativity during a month when bullets rained on the basilica of the church and fires, possibly sparked by Israeli flares or explosives, broke out twice.
Bodies collected for days in one room in the Greek Orthodox monastery until their removal was arranged.
Last week, a group of peace activists scurried into the church in defiance of the Israeli blockade, further complicating efforts to end the siege.
Madani, the Bethlehem region governor who has been inside the church for 35 days, said May 5 that the end could not come soon enough.
“People are all very fatigued and stressed,” Madani said, speaking by cellular phone. “They are ready.”
The Basilica of the Nativity in Manger Square fell into snipers’ crosshairs April 2 when Israeli troops descended on Bethlehem as part of a wide and unprecedented attack on Palestinian-held territory in the West Bank.
Late that afternoon, militant gunmen slipped into the church's basilica where dozens of frightened passersby and clerics had hidden. The raid on Bethlehem quickly hardened into a bizarre and deadly standoff between Israeli military and Palestinian militants stuck with a captive, if not captured, audience.
“I went in there thinking: Two hours and I'll go home. I realized on the third day, it probably wasn't going to work out that way,” said 20-year-old Thaer Menasrah, who was shot by a sniper while sneaking out to collect ferns to be boiled as food.
“If I told you that I wasn't scared, that people aren't scared, I'd be lying,” said Menasrah, recovering from wounds to his thigh and arm in a hospital.
It is still unclear whether the trapped people are hostages or willing participants in the conflict.
Even some men who have been released and cleared by Israeli security are reluctant to tell what they saw in the church.
No one disputes that sniper fire was fierce. There was fear of an allout Israeli assault on the church compound, the focal point and tourist lifeline for Bethlehem. Food was scarce, and the Israelis turned off the electricity and water sporadically.
Most men claimed to have lost between 10 and 20 pounds, depending on how long they had been confined in the church where meals were reduced to a bowl of rice a day per person.
Only a few who have left the church would admit that hard-core militants were in the church. None would discuss if or how they defended themselves.
“I don't need to answer that question,” 28-year-old Jamal Yusef said abruptly when asked if he had fired any shots.
Yusef, who described himself as a longtime member of Arafat's Fatah movement, said he had spent nearly four years in prison during the first Palestinian intifada a decade ago.
Yusef contended that the people stayed in the church to show solidarity with the cause. Another young man, who initially said much the same, later changed his story. Some wanted to leave, he said, but were intimidated by the thought of breaking from the pack. He would not give his name.
All who entered the church apparently slipped through the tiny Door of Humility, an entrance that requires most adults to bow their heads as they enter.
There, perched on cold marble stones and ancient mosaics, the militants, some priests, monks and nuns — up to 200 people — waited and hoped.
On April 4, a church bell-ringer decided to walk home and was shot dead. Samir Abraham Salman, who was mildly retarded, apparently did not hear or understand the shouts of an Israeli soldier who ordered him to stop. The Israeli army later apologized.
On April 8, flames broke out in the medieval cloisters, a Franciscan section of the church, and a Palestinian man was shot dead in the upheaval. One police officer who escaped from the church told reporters that the 1,500-year-old church complex had been battered by bullets that cracked nearly every window.
Palestinians claim the fire broke out when Israelis hit the church with flares or an explosive. The dead man, Khaled Siam, a police officer, was shot as he was trying to douse the flames, they said. Israelis deny they caused the fire and said they shot at the man only because he had a weapon.
George Bandak, an insurance salesman who had run for safety in the church, described the Israelis as attacking from all sides that night.
“We didn't sleep at all,” Bandak said by cell phone, shortly after the battle. “At 3:30 a.m., they started shooting everywhere at the church. The walls. The windows. Some of the mosaics in the church were destroyed.”
Five days later, a third man, Hasman Nasser, was shot when he left the basilica. Snipers claimed two more Palestinians in the next two weeks, wounding two others.
“The situation inside was so dramatic,” said 57-year-old Yousef Rihan, released May 3 because he suffers from diabetes. “No one really expected all this to happen.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Christine Spolar ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Grim Numbers on Human Trafficking DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Nepal: 150,000 to 200,000 Nepali girls/women are in India, with 5,000 to 7,000 trafficked annually.
Sri Lanka: 10,000 to 12,000 children from rural areas are trafficked and prostituted to pedophiles by organized crime groups.
Pakistan: An estimated 15,000 children are engaged in prostitution near the Lahore railway station alone, with male children forming a substantial proportion among them. Human Rights Activities estimates 200 to 400 young women and children are smuggled from Bangladesh to Pakistan every month.
India: Twenty percent of Mumbai's (earlier known as Bombay) brothel population estimated to be more than 15,000) consists of girls younger than 18 years old.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mother Teresa Changed His Life DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Jim Towey has gone from working for Mother Teresa to working for President Bush.
Now the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the lawyer who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans previously served as legal counsel for Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity for 12 years. He spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about his work and his life with his wife, Mary, and their four sons.
Where did you grow up? Tell me about your family.
I grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., and attended Assumption Grade School and Bishop Kenny High School. I'm one of four children, and I was named Harry James after my father's brother, who was a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. My father was a traveling salesman. He sold advertising on pens, pencils and calendars. My mother raised us and was a secretary at the school we attended.
Did you grow up Catholic?
Yes. I attended Monday night novenas throughout grade school and early high school. My parents separated when I was 10, and from early on there were a lot of priests in my life. I used to answer the telephone at the rectory for pay, and we had a lot of priests in our home.
Did you ever think about becoming a priest?
Yes. I wasn't a model Catholic, but from 1981 to about 1990 that was constantly in my head. In 1985, when I first met Mother Teresa, she said, “Listen to God. He'll tell you what to do.” In 1997, she encouraged me to take a year to think about it. So I spent some time with the Missionary of Charity Fathers in Tijuana, Mexico. I would have loved to have been a priest, but I never felt a calling.
How did you first meet Mother Teresa?
I first met her when I was working for Sen. Mark Hatfield, (R-Ore.) He had sent me overseas to monitor Chinese refugee camps that the federal government was funding. He knew Mother Teresa, and I had always wanted to meet her, so I dropped into Calcutta to meet her. The problem was that I didn't want to be around poor people. The bargain I struck was that I would go into Calcutta for one day, meet Mother, and then on my way back to the U.S. I would go to Hawaii for five days.
I met Mother on Aug. 20, 1985. Although she was 75, she came into the hallway with boundless energy and joy. She was a tiny, cheerful woman with soft hands. Our meeting was brief, perhaps only five minutes, but she asked me if I had been to her Home for the Dying. When I told her that I had not, she told me to go there and ask for Sister Luke. I went there, with no intention of helping the poor. I thought I would receive a tour and I'd give them a $20 bill and split.
When I got there, Sister Luke thought I had come to work. She handed me some cotton and medical solution and asked me to go clean the man in bed 46 with scabies. I was too proud to admit to her that I didn't want to touch the guy, so I went to clean him. What I wasn't prepared for is that from all eternity the Lord was waiting in bed 46 to touch me back. No bells rang, no lights flashed; there was no ethereal music. I was happy to get out of the house and out of Calcutta, but when I got to Hawaii I was as uncomfortable there as I had been in Calcutta. It was very hard for me to see gardens and pineapples that were healthier and better cared for than these human beings that I had just left in the streets of Calcutta.
That led to a long-term relationship with the Missionaries of Charity, did it not?
Yes. I was hooked with the Missionaries of Charity. When I got back to Washington, I met with the sisters there and started volunteering with them. Eventually, I ended up as legal counsel handling permitting and immigration. The biggest use of my time was protecting the use of Mother Teresa's name and image. She never let her name or image be used for fund raising, saying that she preferred the insecurity of divine providence.
I recall that at our last meeting I had to bring up this issue of a gentleman who had been selling T-shirts and coffee with the picture of a cinnamon roll that resembled Mother Teresa. I asked her if she remembered sending me the news clip from an India newspaper that featured the “nun bun,” and explained to her that someone was selling T-shirts with that image. She interrupted me and said, “Sister Nirmala is now the superior general. Put her face on the T-shirt.” She could always get a good laugh at herself.
Do you have a favorite memory of Mother Teresa?
I have hundreds, but I clearly remember my first days and last days with her. About 10 weeks before she died, I attended a meeting with her in the Bronx. She was in her wheelchair and was exhausted and sick, but very much in command. Her life had been literally poured out like a libation. When the meeting was over she gave me a blessing to say goodbye. As they were preparing to wheel her into the cloister I told her that my wife and children were in the courtyard playing and asked her if she could bless them from the window. She immediately jumped up from her wheel-chair and went to the window to see them. She wanted them brought in and blessed each of them and Mary, and me. That last blessing is one that I'm relying on these days.
You spent a year as a full-time volunteer with the Gift of Peace Home in Washington, D.C. What did you learn from that time?
I saw the difference that a faith-based home could make in some-one's life. Sure these people were homeless and in need of care — they certainly were the poorest of the poor — but it was the spiritual poverty that was most striking. They felt alone, abandoned and unwanted. They felt that no one cared if they got up for the day. Some had been drug addicts and others had been prostitutes. To watch what happened when these nuns started to love them and know them by name was to watch a person reborn, and they rediscovered their God-given dignity. To see them recover that sense that they were made in the image and likeness of God was striking to me. I saw that happen over and over and over again.
During your time in politics you've worked with both Democrats and Republicans. Have you ever found it difficult to be a man of faith in your line of work?
No. I've had the opportunity to work for two men that were extraordinary Christians — Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and Sen. Hatfield. I was very fortunate that I never saw a conflict between serving God and county. Fortunately, I find that exact same thing in serving President Bush.
You've been in your current position for three months. Are you hopeful that Faith-Based Initiatives will be successful?
I think it is being reintroduced and properly understood for what it is. I don't think the president has changed it all. There was this initial hysteria that the wall between church and state was crumbling down, but now people realize that was an absurdity. Organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Salvation Army and Lutheran Social Services receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the government and have been for the past decade. The president's initiative simply wants faith-based organizations to be treated equally with federal dollars. Some groups do not want federal money. Others want to expand their services. We have found that some of these organizations do the work best. They are often in the inner cities and are in relationships with the people who are hurting.
The president feels that we should be reaching out to them. He doesn't want anyone preaching on Uncle Sam's dollar, but he also doesn't want to see religious organizations sacrificing their religious identity in order to receive funding. I'm glad to see this discussion taking place. How can we best serve the needs of our poor? By giving them options regarding services and providers.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Towey ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Catholic Teacher Bucks Massachusetts Union Over Abortion DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Catholic public school teacher has taken his union to court for denying his request to redirect dues in accordance with his religious objection to the union's support of abortion.
In a suit filed last month in Massachusetts federal district court, Gerard O'Brien, a special education instructor in the Springfield school system, claims the right to a “reasonable accommodation” under the equal employment section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The federal case is the latest step in O'Brien's prolonged dispute with the Springfield Education Association going back to1988. He alleges the union has denied his request while at the same time allowing a teacher who is a Seventh Day Adventist to redirect dues to a mutually agreed-upon charity.
A fellow Catholic teacher who began his petition with O'Brien and is now retired also was granted permission to donate his union dues to a charity.
The alleged disparity of treatment, and his determination to withhold support for abortion, drive O'Brien's legal action. He has been paying his union fees into an escrow account over the years as the dispute continues.
“I don't think in my conscience that as a Catholic you're supposed to support abortion,” he explained.
The Springfield Education Association is an affiliate of the Massachusetts Education Association, which is affiliated with the National Education Association. Section I-12 of the NEA's 2001-2002 Resolutions states, “The National Education Association supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom.”
Union Hardball
O'Brien's lawyer, Gregory Hession, said that the union has played hardball with his client to discourage other Catholics.
“We'll win this case if it gets to a jury,” he said. “But even if we do, the union has made such an example of Mr. O'Brien that no one else is going to try to go his route. It's only because his motives are pure that he has been able to continue.”
O'Brien said that when he first began putting his dues in escrow, union officials insisted that he was acting for political and not religious reasons because no other Catholics had objected.
“That's a common tactic,” commented Dan Cronin of the National Right to Work Foundation. “The unions will say that this isn't religious, that it's some right-wing political group trying to target them.”
Cronin's group defended O'Brien's former coworker, Ed Lundrigan, who retired in 1994 and was allowed to pay his dues to charity. “I was willing to go all the way on this,” Lundrigan said. “The more they tried to stop me, the more determined I was.”
Although not a member of the teachers'union, O'Brien, along with other non-members, is required to pay an “agency fee” for the benefits he receives from the education association's collective bargaining. The fee, slightly less than normal dues, is supposed to pay only for the union's jobrelated activities and not for political advocacy.
But O'Brien's lawyer says that the distinction does not hold since most of the dues and fees go toward bringing union delegates to conventions where such things as abortion support are approved. “My client is not opposed to unions,” Hession stated. “But 90% of the cash is going to support the issues he doesn't agree with.”
Union president Tim Collins said that the Springfield Education Association has offered O'Brien all he is entitled to. The union gave O'Brien the option of donating the money in escrow and all future dues to a charity, but required that he pay his legal fees from the same account. The arrangement was approved by the state's discrimination commission.
O'Brien rejected the offer, arguing that the union should reimburse his legal expenses since it should have granted his request at the outset.
“The legal fees would in effect wipe out the whole escrow account,” said Hession, who added that the union should pay for the trouble it has caused O'Brien in defending his civil rights.
Collins insisted that his union does not support abortion or condom distribution, but did admit that money goes to conventions where such issues are voted on. He also said that O'Brien's stance is inconsistent. Tax money goes more directly to support abortion, he said, yet “I don't see him withholding state and federal taxes.”
Case law backs O'Brien, Hession said. A 1990 federal court decision in Michigan favored a Catholic university professor who did not want to pay dues to a union that sought to oust a pro-life judge. The court ruled that the professor could divert his dues to a charity.
And in 1996, a federal court in up-state New York said that a Catholic worker's dispute with the union could only be redressed by allowing the employee to direct his whole fee to an acceptable charity, and not only that part deemed to pay for political activity.
Moral Support
O'Brien has gotten moral support and legal advice from others who have won similar cases. Barbara Wolfe of Montana told him, “Hang in there. There's nothing wrong with being right.”
A Catholic public school teacher, Wolfe won the right in that state's highest court in 1992 to donate her dues to charity. “Joining the National Education Association or any of its affiliates would violate my beliefs because of their support of abortion,” she said.
Kevin Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, said that it appears to be an open-and-shut case for O'Brien. The law is clear that union members are entitled to a religious accommodation, and case law shows that they are allowed to donate dues to an mutually acceptable charity, he stated.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, which represents the state's bishops, said that the organization has not studied the case, but in general it supports Catholics defending their faith.
“Freedom of conscience is a freedom that is imperiled in so many ways today, not only in employee-union relations,” said Daniel Avila, associate director of research and policy. “There are laws being enacted in many legislatures that would seek to force Catholic individual and institutions to violate their personal or institutional conscience. This can only be seen as a dangerous trend.”
Brian Caulfield writes from West Haven, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Investing in Poverty Reaps Rich Rewards
ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 26 — Ohio's Marianist fathers take vows of poverty just like Franciscans, and in that spirit, they practice frugality and scrimp for savings. Unlike most friars, however the Marians also invest and bring in hefty returns that they turn back over to the Church.
Associated Press reported that in late April the order gave $5 million to the University of Dayton, on top of $12.5 million donated earlier to the school in the past year and a half. The money will be used to pay for scholarships and general expenses, according to the university.
The university was founded by the order, officially called the Servants of Mary, which still helps staff the school. “We live very, very simply,” Marianist Father Ken Templin told Associated Press. “We eat lots of pasta. We spend very little money on clothing, very little money on what we would call recreation and culture stuff … Gospel values go counterculture to materialism, consumerism — having everything you want when you want it. With us, there's a resistance to that.”
Nun Says Castro Put Cuba ‘In the Trashcan’
AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, May 2 — Cuba's communist leaders have an unlikely neighbor in what was once Havana's upper-class Nuevo Vedado district — a convent of five cloistered Dominican nuns.
And, the Akron daily reported, one of those nuns is Texas-bred Sister Maria Rosario Fernandez, who left Havana as a teen-ager but returned four years ago to pray for her native country.
Sister Fernandez, now 60, fled Havana at age 18 as communist dictator Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. She returned in 1998, the year of Pope John Paul II's historic visit to the Caribbean island nation.
The Dominican nun said that Castro's physical aging mirrors the deterioration his regime has wrought on Cuban society since he assumed power.
“He's just dilapidated — like the island,” Sister Fernandez told Knight Ridder Newspapers. “When I left, he was 33 and so handsome. This man could have done something beautiful. He turned everything into the trashcan. … To take God out of the home and country, to me that is a big mistake.”
Abuse Allegations Involve Less than Half of 1% of Priests
ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 28 — Deploying its reporters across the United States to survey Catholic bishops and other officials about the extent of recent sex scandals, Associated Press has found that bishops have passed along complaints to police and district attorneys concerning “at least 260 clergymen,” many of whom are already retired or off-duty.
While some dioceses did not give information, Associated Press estimated that the number of priests disciplined since the scandal erupted in the press in January 2001 as “higher than 177.”
The journalists concluded that “even if the figure were higher, it would still likely represent less than half of 1% of the 46,075 priests in the United States. And many of the complaints come from decades ago.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Ban on Virtual Child Porn Introduced to Congress DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Stung by a Supreme Court defeat in April, members of Congress have teamed up with Attorney General John Ashcroft on a new bill to ban virtual child pornography.
“The Supreme Court decision did grave injury to our ability to protect children from exploitation,” said Ashcroft at a May 1 press conference to introduce the bill.
The high court decided 6-3 on April 16 that the Child Internet Protection Act, which banned the possession and distribution of computer-generated images of children engaged in sex acts, was unconstitutional and overly broad.
Over a dozen lawmakers, led by Texas Republican Lamar Smith, introduced legislation to ban many of the same images covered in the 1996 bill.
Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., said that they had to act immediately to the Supreme Court's recent ruling.
“The high court, in siding with pedophiles over children, forces us into action. Today, united, we begin to reverse the damage,” said Foley.
Rep. Smith said his new bill is “substantially narrowed” from the 1996 prohibition. Smith said he worked with officials at the Justice Department to develop the bill.
Smith's bill would ban all digitally generated pictures of prepubescent children engaged in sexual acts. Images involving older children would also be banned, unless pornographers can prove they didn't use real children to create their images.
Court Rulings
Law enforcement officials said that court rulings in recent years have interfered with the prosecution of child pornographers.
Michael Heimbach, chief of the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit, said that a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999 has caused investigators to drop cases in which they cannot positively identify children in the images in question.
“I fear that in many cases, this speculative technological debate will indeed result in a bitter end,” said Heimbach before the House Judiciary Subcommittee May 1.
Making the FBI's job tougher is the price we pay for the First Amendment, argues attorney Louis Sirkin, who argued the case for the Free Speech Coalition before the Supreme Court.
Sirkin said the Free Speech Coalition, which includes groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, has unequivocally stated that child pornography was not free speech.
But he said that it's the responsibility of the government to prove whether a sexual-explicit picture of a child is real or digital.
“I've got to believe in the power of the federal government and law enforcement that they could make this case,” Sirkin said. “If they have to work harder to make their case, they will have to work harder.”
But he stated that a prohibition on virtual child porn is unconstitutional.
“If it's not a child, then it's not child porn,” he told the Register. “That's just what the Supreme Court said.”
If the government has the power to restrict that form of speech, Sirkin added, “You might as well eliminate the Bill of Rights.”
But pro-family activists reject Sirkin's view of the First Amendment and support renewed legislative efforts to ban all child pornography, virtual or real.
“If the purpose of the legislation is important enough, you go back and write the law,” said Thomas Jipping, senior fellow in legal studies at Concerned Women for America.
He said many flaws are to be found in the high court's ruling.
“This decision is bad not just because of its result,” said Jipping. “The Supreme Court could have construed the statute in a way that was constitutional.”
Instead, Jipping said, the Supreme Court interpreted the legislation to prohibit movies like Traffic or American Beauty, which appear to include minors engaged in sexual activity. If the law prohibited such speech, which has artistic merit, then it is unconstitutional, the court said.
Jipping said that the law was never intended to be interpreted that broadly.
“That argument is difficult to make,” he said. “If this legislation would have prevented [movie producers] from their craft, why were these movies made after the law was passed?”
But ultimately, legislation alone won't be sufficient to cure the problem of child pornography, Jipping stressed.
“This problem is evidence of deep cultural sickness. It needs a comprehensive solution,” he said. “Too many people put too many eggs in the legislative basket.”
Wider Problem
Jipping recommended that parents be more protective of their children so that they don't feel alone or isolated because it might make them vulnerable to attack.
And the problem with smut is it goes well beyond just child porn, the pro-family advocate added.
“We have to have a culture where sexually explicit material is disfavored in television, in movies and in music,” said Jipping. “The adult bookstore used to be on the edge of town or in an alley. Now it's on main street.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Ashcroft Hopes Bill Will Survive Court Challenge ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cardinals' Summit Highlights Rome's Role in Fostering Collegiality DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — The American cardinals did something in Rome that they never do in the United States: They worked together, intensely, as brother bishops, for several days.
Unlike the situation when they meet at conferences of the U.S. bishops, the eight American cardinal-archbishops, along with U.S. bishops’ conference president
Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., did not attend common lectures, receive committee reports, or vote on a long list of resolutions.
Rather, together with their brother cardinals in the Curia, they focused for three days on the sexual abuse crisis and they personally made decisions. It was collegiality in action.
And that it took place in Rome rather than stateside challenged one of the most established story lines in the post-conciliar Church. That script says that local Churches — supposedly the seedbeds of creativity and of sensitivity to ordinary people — are hamstrung by the dictates of a remote, central bureaucracy unaware of local needs.
Nowhere was this perspective stated more starkly than in the pages of the Los Angeles Times, covering what it termed a “cultural chasm” between “the Curia and Catholics in the United States.”
“The divide reflects conflicting values,” wrote the Times. “New World openness versus Old World secrecy, American home rule versus Vatican centralization, Anglo-Saxon CEO-style management versus a Mediterranean forgive-and-forget attitude toward sinners.”
Not Black-and-White
All cardinals wear red, but such reporting makes it clear who wears the white hats and who wears the black. Yet it isn't as simple as an old Western.
At last year's synod of bishops, prelates from all over the world were insistent that successors of the apostles cannot be treated as junior officers. The key word was “collegiality,” evoking the Second Vatican Council's teaching that all bishops belong equally to the universal episcopal college. Local bishops are not branch-plant managers for corporate headquarters and should not be treated as such by the Roman Curia.
What is overlooked is that Rome itself is often necessary for collegiality to work at all. Without Rome, the American cardinals would never have met for such intense days of work. In theory, there is no reason why the emergency meetings could not be have been scheduled weeks ago in the United States. It would have been possible for all the cardinals, or all the archbishops, to meet on short notice to respond to the crisis. But it didn't happen.
“You have come to the house of the Successor of Peter, whose task it is to confirm his brother Bishops in faith and love, and to united them around Christ in the service of God's People,” said Pope John Paul II, addressing the American cardinals. “The door of this house is always open to you. All the more so when your communities are in distress.”
In practice, the house of Peter is sometimes the only house where local bishops can meet each other. This is true for both theological and practical reasons.
Theologically, bishops belong to the episcopal college of which the Roman Pontiff is the head. Without its head, the college of bishops lacks a center of unity. What unifies every Catholic bishop with every other Catholic bishop is his communion with the bishop of Rome. That is why the college of bishops can never act authoritatively without its head.
Some commentators have said that the American bishops ought to be embarrassed that they had to run to Rome for help after having spectacularly bungled the sexual abuse crisis themselves. Others, though, note that this bad theology based on an inaccurate “corporate model” of the Church — when things get too hot in the field, it's time to call for help from headquarters.
Instead, the American summit in Rome should be understood not as a dictatorial summons from the chief executive officer of the Church, but as a desire for common action in a time of crisis. And that common action necessarily needs to be nourished by the source of communion — the house of Peter. The primacy of Rome is in service to the collegial action of the bishops.
Practically speaking, there is also the matter that if the bishops are all equally participants in the episcopal college, it becomes difficult for any one bishop to take a strong leadership initiative. Bishops who are conscious of the being the “vicar of Christ” in their own dioceses are not always open to taking direction from others. As a result, necessary initiatives, like the American summit, have to proceed under Rome's invitation.
Open Doors
John Paul has opened the house of Peter before to address particular problems. In January 1980, all the Dutch bishops met for two weeks in a special “synod for Holland” that attempted to heal the divisions in the Netherlands. In 1998, a series of meetings was held in Rome with all the Australian bishops, leading to a joint statement that was the spark for, amongst other things, ending widespread general absolution in that country.
Collegiality is not always easy, and sometimes it requires added stimulus. For example, faced with increasing divisions on ecumenical matters between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Council for Christian Unity, the Pope convened a special “joint plenary” meeting in early 1989. Forced to work together — to be truly collegial — the congregations were able to produce a joint document on directions for ecumenical dialogue.
Roman attention can also assist local Churches in simply focusing attention and energy where needed. The 1994 Synod for Africa was widely criticized at the time for being held in Rome instead of Africa. As it turned out, the 200 African bishops who participated stated openly that had it been held in Africa, no one would have paid attention. In Rome, they had the ear of the entire Church.
Emergency summit meetings in Rome are not the ideal. But as was learned last week, they are better than no meetings at all. What happened in Rome was not the Vatican “finally getting it” as many American officials put it, but rather local bishops finally getting together to address a crisis. It needed to be done, and couldn't be done in the United States.
When this crisis passes and Catholic commentary returns to the old story line about collegiality versus Roman primacy, the April 2002 summit should serve as a reminder that the two are not opposed. To the contrary, the former requires the latter.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:The Pope Goes Forth to Make Saints
THE WASHINGTON POST, April 28 — After trips this spring and summer to Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, Pope John Paul II will visit his native Poland from Aug. 16-19, reported The Washington Post.
Despite his poor health — he is thought to suffer from Parkinson's disease-the pope intends to continue his grueling travel schedule. He will lead celebrations of World Youth Day in Toronto and proclaim new saints in Guatemala and Mexico, including Juan Diego of Guadalupe. Juan Diego will be the second Catholic folk hero to be named a saint this year, after the June 16 canonization of the stigma-tist and mystic Padre Pio of Pietrelcina.
Pro-Condom Lobby Attacks Vatican in European Papers
PLANET OUT, April 30 — The British homosexual activist newspaper applauded the latest move by “Catholics for a Free Choice,” the Planned-Parenthood-funded organization that opposes Church teaching on most issues of sexual morality.
It seems that 29 members of the increasingly powerful European Parliament, “from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and the United Kingdom” have signed their names to the full-page ads from “Catholics for a Free Choice” which appeared for the first time in Sunday's European Voice newspaper.
The ads read, in part, “Catholic bishops preach sanctity of life. But their ban on condoms contributes to the tragedy of AIDS and death around the world. Most Catholics disagree with this policy.”
Neither the advertisement nor Planet Out makes mention of the documented connection between promiscuity and AIDS, or the connection between monogamy and prevention of the disease.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: In the Footsteps of Mary and Joseph DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Today, the first day of May, is Labor Day. We Christians place this day under the protection of St. Joseph the Worker. The importance of this event is emphasized by various initiatives that highlight the value of work, through which man fulfills himself as man by transforming nature and adapting it to his own needs. The invitation to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28) that is extended at the beginning of salvation history is a determining factor in this regard that always has a timeliness to it. Creation is God's gift that he has entrusted to his human creatures because it can provide them with what they need if they carefully cultivate and watch over it.
In a certain way, we might say that man becomes more human through work. For this reason, work is a virtue. But since work actually allows man to become more man, it must always be considered in relationship with the social order of work. It is only under this condition that a person's inalienable dignity and the human and social value of the work activity are safeguarded. We entrust to the protection of St. Joseph the Worker all those people throughout the work who belong to that great family of workers.
The Month of Mary
Today we begin the month that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which has a special place in popular devotion. Many parishes and families, in accordance with their strong religious traditions, continue to make the month of May a Marian month through their many fervent liturgical, catechetical and pastoral activities!
May this month be a month of intense prayer with Mary everywhere! This is my wish for each one of you, my dearest brothers and sisters, and I exhort you once again to pray the rosary daily. It is a simple prayer, seemingly repetitive, but so very useful for entering into the mysteries of Christ and his mother — and our mother. It is, at the same time, a way to pray that the Church knows is pleasing to the Virgin Mary herself. We are also called to turn to this prayer during the more difficult moments of our pilgrimage on earth.
As we begin this month dedicated to Mary, I invite all of you to join me in praying for workers, and, in a special way, for all those who are encountering difficulties in their jobs. Moreover, let us intensify our confident and unceasing prayers for peace in the Holy Land, where our wish is that the Israeli and Palestinian people, who are both so dear to my heart, will once again be able to live together in peace and safety as soon as possible. May the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph her spouse, the guardian of our Redeemer, obtain this wish for us.
Register translation
Register Summary
In many countries throughout the world, including Italy, May 1 is celebrated as Labor Day — a special holiday for workers. On May 1, 1955, Pope Pius XII formally instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, a day dedicated to the dignity of labor and to honoring workers throughout the world. Pope John Paul II highlighted the importance of this day during his general audience on May 1, which took place in St. Peter's Square. Over 18,000 pilgrims from 17 countries were present.
“Work provides that ‘daily bread’ that we ask for when we pray the Our Father,” the Holy Father pointed out. “Man becomes more human through work. For this reason, work is a virtue.” The Holy Father invited everyone to join with him in praying for workers during the month of May, especially those who are experiencing difficulties in their jobs.
Pope John Paul II also noted the fact that traditionally May is the month specially consecrated to Mary. He exhorted Catholics everywhere to pray the rosary daily, making May “a month of intense prayer with Mary.” Finally, he invited all the faithful to join with him in asking Mary and Joseph to intercede for peace in the Holy Land.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: British Study Finds Family Planning Increases Teen Pregnancies DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:NOTTINGHAM, England — In the mid-1980s, Catholic mom Victoria Gillick became a much-derided figure in Britain when she went to the highest court in the land to challenge doctors handing out the contraceptive pill to underage girls.
Courtesy of her prophecy that the policy would only lead to an upsurge in teen sex and pregnancies, the mother of 10 became a hated figure and an object of scorn among politically correct media commentators and the family planning lobby.
Initially she secured a ruling that doctors had to tell the parents of teens if they were prescribing the pill to girls under 16 (the UK age of consent is 16).
The ruling was later overturned, but Gillick has been proved right by new academic research, which has shown a continuing rise in teen pregnancy and sexual activity despite the greater availability of state-funded contraception and sex-education programs.
A study by Dr. David Paton of Nottingham University Business School has found no evidence that providing family planning reduces either underage conception or abortion rates among teen-age girls under age 16 in the UK.
Figures compiled by the UK Office of National Statistics for 2000 revealed that 4,382 girls under age 16 had abortions, up 200 from the year before and a rise of more than 20% over the 1992 figure of 3,510.
In fact Paton's study, published in the March 2002 edition of the Journal of Health Economics, has found some evidence that greater access to family planning services is associated with an increase in under-age pregnancy.
The UK has one of the highest rates of teen-age pregnancy in Europe. The government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has committed itself to halving the rate of conceptions among those under 18 by 2010.
One of its main planks is easier access to contraception and the morning-after pill for teens.
Paton, a senior lecturer in industrial economics, investigated the impact of family planning on teenage conceptions and abortions by testing data from 16 UK regions during a 14-year period.
One of the aims of Paton's research was to explore the impact of the 1984 “Gillick ruling,” which severely reduced attendance by teen-agers at family planning clinics in the UK until it was overturned. Paton explained: “This ruling provided us with a useful natural experiment involving a change in public policy.”
Contrary to forecasts, the Gillick ruling, which forced health professionals to inform parents before providing contraceptives to females under age 16, did not lead to an increase in underage pregnancies. “My research casts serious doubt on current government policy,” Paton said. “Over the past few years, we have had a massive expansion in family planning services for young people in the UK, yet there is no evidence that this has reduced either underage pregnancy or abortion rates.”
Encourages Sex
Said Paton, “Although family planning may make sexually active teenagers less likely to get pregnant, it seems that it also encourages others to start having sex.”
“I think you can say the ruling has vindicated Mrs. Gillick although you have to be a bit careful,” he added. “The pregnancy rate has stayed pretty much the same, more young people are having sex but the same proportion of them are getting pregnant.”
And given his findings, Paton said the recent policy of easier availability for the morning-after pill for teens has been disastrous.
Paton's findings confirm other recent British research. A 1999 study by Gerald Oettinger in the Journal of Political Economy found that increased use of family planning information did not lead to a decrease in unwanted pregnancies, the Guardian newspaper reported March 17. The provision of such information resulted instead in an increase in the sexual activity of teen-age boys.
As well, a study published by the British Medical Journal in 2000 found that girls who were prescribed the morning-after pill were much more likely to have abortions.
Gillick takes no pleasure in this statistical validation of her arguments.
“It is a vindication of what I always said and what all of the pro-family and pro-life groups have said: That an increase in contraception provision, particularly to underage children, does not reduce the levels of pregnancy but it does increase levels of promiscuity and abortion,” she said.
However, Gillick does not assign primary blame to the Blair government, noting that the policy was the same under previous Conservative governments.
“It doesn't matter what political party gets into office; the Department of Health breaks them into their policy,” Gillick said. “There are strong links between the contraceptive industry and government, and government will not change its policy. For example the second-in-command at the new teen-age pregnancy unit is Alison Hadley, former press officer for Brook Advisory Centers, which provides abortion and the morning-after pill for teens.”
Gillick said that the result of this government promotion is a sexobsessed culture among teens.
Despite repeated attempts to get comment by phone and e-mail from the British Government Department of Health, there was no response to the Register's requests.
One Teen's Experience
Mark, 17, recalled his experiences at a Catholic high school: “My friends at school were always talking about sex. Once in my classroom I was sitting between two boys, one of whom was saying to the other that there were no good ‘porno’ films on the TV last week,” he said.
“I was so disgusted that I suddenly interrupted their conversation and told them more people go to hell for sexual impurity than for anything else. I had read about the children of Fatima seeing hell and being taken there by Our Lady,” Mark said.
“I don't intend to preach to my schoolmates but it is hard to put up with their dirty talk,” he said.
Family planning programs aimed at youth also create a tolerance for abortion. “Many of my school friends thought that human life in the womb is not a baby but a collection of cells,” Mark said. “I try to tell them about a baby's soul but they don't believe me and most of them think abortion is OK.”
As a possible alternative to Britain's unsuccessful promotion of family planning as a means of reducing teen pregnancies, Paton intends to study the ef-fects of abstinence programs in the United States. “There is little hard evidence about these programs at the moment,” he said. “The only evidence available is anecdotal, although this has suggested that it is successful.
“Paul Burnell writes from Manchester, England.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Paul Burnell ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:United Arab Emirates to Help Restore Church of Nativity
NOVOSTI, April 29 — The United Arab Emirates will finance the restoration of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity and the nearby Omar Mosque, each of which were damaged in the battle between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants, the Russian news agency reported.
Sheikh Hamdan al-Nahayan, the UAE's foreign minister and chairman of the UAE Red Crescent Society, has contacted Palestinian authorities and begun negotiations for immediate restoration of the religious sites after Israeli troops pull out of Bethlehem.
Instructed by the UAE president, the Red Crescent Society has already discussed the issue with the Palestinian authorities. Sheikh Hamdan said to journalists that historically, Muslims have always respected and protected Christian shrines.
European Politics Affected by Fertility Decline, Group Says
CATHOLIC FAMILY & HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE, April 26 — The recent advances of right-wing, anti-immigration parties in France, the Netherlands, Britain and other European countries are a consequence of the refusal of European families to have children, the New York-based organization said in a press release.
Pointing to Europe's “precipitous drop in fertility,” C-FAM president Austin Ruse warned that “the electoral success of the anti-immigrant French presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen appears indicative of a continent-wide embrace of nationalistic political parties, which hold that cultures are being eroded and that a sharp rise in crime is attributable to the influx of an ever-growing number of poor and uneducated immigrants.”
Ruse noted that France, the United Kingdom, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands all possess sizeable and influential nationalist, anti-immigrant parties. In the absence of a major rise in birth rates across the continent, Ruse added, this trend could only continue.
Muslim Radicals Blamed for Renewed Indonesian Violence
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION, April 28 — The February 2002 peace deal between Christian separatists and Muslim nationalists in the eastern Moluccan Islands has begun to fray, the British network reported.
BBC said that Indonesia's three-year sectarian conflict flared up again after the radical Islamist group the Laskar Jihad renounced the deal in late April. Its leader, Jafar Umar Thalib, told a rally of thousands of supporters to resume attacks on local Christians.
The Laskar Jihad militia, thought to have some 15,000 active members, has been importing Islamic fighters from Java to the Christian region of Sulawesi in the Moluccan Islands to attack Christians. This mirrors the strategy employed by the Indonesian government last year to attempt to crush East Timorese Christians who sought independence.
Only the intervention of U.N. peacekeepers, mostly from Australia, brought that genocide to a halt, and smoothed the way for East Timor's recent free elections as a sovereign nation.
Laskar Jihad seeks to impose Islamic law throughout Indonesia, which is about 85% Muslim with Christian, Hindu and animist minorities.
BBC noted that “the fighting in the eastern Moluccas has left more than 6,000 people dead and forced 750,000 to flee their homes since January 1999,” and suggested that Jafar Umar Thalib may be connected to the al-Qaeda terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Confession at the Crossroads DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:We have come to expect Pope John Paul II to speak with a voice that is both authoritative and prophetic when the Church hits hard times.
The Holy Father's May 2 apostolic letter Misericordia Dei (Mercy of God) — subtitled “On Certain Aspects of the Celebration of the Sacrament of Penance” — continues this legacy.
One of the letter's primary aims is to correct bishops who have encouraged the faithful to “abandon individual confession and wrongly to resort to ‘general’ or ‘communal’ absolution.” But, as he has done so regularly throughout his pontificate, the Holy Father approaches a discrete challenge from a broad, almost panoramic, perspective.
Repeating his invitation from past addresses and documents to “make every effort to face the crisis of ‘the sense of sin’ apparent in today's culture,” he is, in this new letter, even more insistent in calling for “a rediscovery of Christ as mysterium pietatis, the one in whom God shows us his compassionate heart and reconciles us fully with himself.
“It is this face of Christ,” he adds, “that must be rediscovered through the sacrament of penance, which for the faithful is the ordinary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sins committed after baptism.”
This message could hardly have been better-timed. In our day, there are long Communion lines and few confession lines. While the most serious sins have proliferated, the use of confession has almost ceased in many communities. Many Catholics are surprised — or incredulous — when you tell them that common things like missing Sunday Mass or using contraception are considered serious sins that must be confessed before one can receive the Eucharist again.
What happens when confession's importance is ignored for decades? The concept of “sin” disappears. And there's no telling what people will do when they don't believe in sin.
It's a theme that we saw popes pleading with the Church about throughout the 20th century. Wrote Pius XII in 1943: “Let those, therefore, among the younger clergy who make light of or lessen esteem for frequent confession realize that what they are doing is alien to the Spirit of Christ and disastrous for the mystical body of our Savior.”
He was right. As confession became less and less frequent starting then (not starting out of the blue after the Second Vatican Council) the mystical body became more and more tolerant of what should never be tolerated: sin.
This, and not the few lines having to do with sexual abuse, was the overriding concern of the Holy Father's Holy Thursday letter to priests. What he is most concerned with is the very common problem of a crisis in the confessional. He points out twice that those in a state of mortal sin must go to confession before receiving communion.
Then, he continues, in language which gives one the sense of the Pope begging for priests to return to confessionals: “I feel a pressing need to urge you, as I did last year, to rediscover for yourselves and to help others to rediscover the beauty of the sacrament of reconciliation.”
The letter to priests got great play in the United States, because of the mention of sexual abuse. But the Pope didn't say a bunch of pious things and then slip a line in about sexual scandal. He made a plea to return to confession, and put the scandals in that context.
Many dioceses have heard and answered his many calls for more confession — one thinks of the special reconciliation pushes in the archdioceses of Philadelphia and Denver. Others haven't.
As the new millennium begins, the Pope wants the pace stepped up even more. In Misericordia Dei, he reiterates a point he made in Novo Millennio Ineunte:
“I am asking for renewed pastoral courage in ensuring that the day-to-day teaching of Christian communities persuasively and effectively presents the practice of the sacrament of reconciliation.”
If sin isn't real and the sacraments aren't real, we don't need priests at all. If sin is real and the sacraments are real, then, yes, we need to deal with abusers in the ranks. But we also need to stand up very boldly and defend the priesthood when it is being called into suspicion by media hype. More than defend it, we need to promote the priesthood, now more than ever — and promote confession. Souls depend on it.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Archbishop's Argument DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:In your report of Archbishop Charles Chaput's remarks in Mundelein, Ill., one can only agree that abortion and the death penalty “don't have equivalent moral gravity —” (“Denver's Archbishop Chaput: Cafeteria Catholicism Found in All Flavors,” April 21-27).
But it is a high jump to then conclude that that “When Catholic Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia publicly disputes Church teaching on the death penalty, the message he sends is not all that different from Frances Kissling [of Catholics for a Free Choice] disputing what the Church teaches about abortion.”
First of all, abortion is a deadly moral evil that can under no circumstances ever be justified or left open to discussion. It is, simply, infanticide — the murder of an innocent human being in violation of the fifth commandment: “Thou shalt not murder.”
That the civil authority should employ the death penalty only in rare instances is altogether desirable and appropriate. Moreover, great care must be exercised in ascertaining beyond the shadow of a doubt that the one to be so penalized is, indeed, the murderer. But it is not beyond rational theological discussion to question whether the death penalty should be retained or abolished.
The real question is whether the state, [acting] for the common good, has the right to impose the death penalty. It is, at best, an oversimplification to hold that it does not or that it is never to be imposed.
FATHER REGIS N. BARWIG Oshkosh, Wisconsin
The Professor and the Pope
Regarding “Death Penalty Symposium” (March 24-30):
Professor Charles Rice, in his criticism of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's comments on the death penalty, argues that the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae sets forth a “new test” for determining when capital punishment may morally be applied.
Allowing for the fact that the Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms the Church's traditional teaching that the state has the right to impose the death penalty and that the primary aim of punishment is retribution (No. 2266), he says: “Because of the importance of the conversion of the criminal, however, retribution will not justify execution unless the new test for the use of that penalty is satisfied. It must be ‘the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor’ (Catechism, No. 2267). If this were merely John Paul's personal opinion and not a binding teaching, he would not have put it in the Catechism.”
Does the Catechism say that execution, in order to be moral, “must be ‘the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor’”? Here are its words:
“If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”
Indeed, the word must better represents the phrase “authority will limit itself to such means” than does the word should, which was employed in the earlier version of No. 2267. The more imperative term of the rewrite tends to back up Rice's claim that the Pope means the words to bind. Can they? The question of whether to execute or to incarcerate in the case of a particular crime appears to be radically dependent on the circumstances surrounding the crime.
These circumstances may require imposition of the death penalty to save society from evils greater than the danger of death or bodily harm.
When incarceration falls too far short of the redress proportionate to a crime calling for the death penalty, law loses its instructive force, the difference between guilt and innocence is slighted, and life “here below,” which should be held of small account by comparison with the life to come, is exalted above the requirements of truth and justice.
The rewrite of No. 2267 is faulty and should be withdrawn.
THOMAS LINS Houston
Happy 75th, Register
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! There are no words to express my gratitude for all the wealth I have received from your paper.
Hope the paper is around many more years. God bless!
BARB DEPIES New Holstein, Wisconsin
A Disunited United Nations
Regarding “The Bomb That Went Psssst” by Austin Ruse (Commentary & Opinion, April 7-13):
The commissioner responsible for employment and social affairs of the European Commission of the United Nations noted “alarming” statistics that show “one person in three will be at least 60 years old by 2050.” She says the solution is simple: Have more children.
In the meantime, the Population Control Council of the United Nations is advocating and promoting the killing of more and more innocent, unborn babies by abortion.
Another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!
GERARD P. MCEVOY Malverne, New York
What's Going On
Regarding “What Is Going On in the U.S.?” (April 21-27):
As a member of the Catholic Church for many years and having raised a brood of Catholics in my faith, no one can be more depressed than I am over the state of some seminaries, and some bishops, who did not know — or ignored — what has been going on. Worse still has been their use of our money to coverup, and their passing on of the sinners to other [dioceses, thus placing more victims in harm's way].
There is only one possible affirmative aspect to all of this: Pedophilia and homosexual activity are now both out on the table. This may be the way God has chosen to wake up the world to what homosexual behavior is doing, and how it will destroy our society and our families. Fathers, mothers, grandmothers, teachers and preachers have tried to explain this disorder and how it involves acts against the laws of nature. But youth will not listen; arguments over the kitchen table have not convinced them of where these sins were leading. I know one family in which three sons died of AIDS.
Thank God the subject is now open! Or is it? It seems to be getting buried under discussions of “pedophilia” [even though very few of the cases involved pedophilic acts], while the obvious involvement of homosexual behavior is denied. [More than 90% of the accusations have come from men, not women; and they were molested when they were teen-agers, not children.]
We are ignoring the Bible teaching about Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Scriptures that clearly state that it is an abomination before God for a man to lie down with a man.
The Catholic laity has an important role to play here. We must speak up and support the 45,000 faithful priests in our country. How disillusioned they must be, and how we must rally to support them!
True Catholic men and women of courage must face and study these issues so as to be able to speak with knowledge, and to be able to proclaim sexual truth. We can no longer hide our heads in the sand. We must no longer be intimidated by friends, peer culture or the media. As we have seen, the consequences [of inaction] can be overwhelming.
DELPHINE A. MCCLELLAN Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Dragons: No Child's Play DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:The St. George story (“Good Day, Good Knight,” April 28-May4) makes the dragon seem like a fantasy or imaginary addition to the life of the saint. Why would anyone believe in the saint if such an important element of his life is left as fiction? If Catholics would read the Book of Revelation as it was meant to be read, the story of St. George would be far more understandable.
In chapter 12 of Revelation, a dragon named Satan attempts to kill the child of the woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” The child was intended to be the presence of God among humanity and the dragon didn't want that to happen. The child was taken up to God and the woman escaped to earth. The dragon was then cast out of heaven by St. Michael. Once on earth, the dragon pursued the woman and made war on “all who obey God's commandments and bear witness for Jesus.”
In the next chapter, a beast is introduced that looks like the dragon, but represents empires. The beast is worshipped by those whose names are not written down in the book of life of the Lamb of God. The Roman emperor Diocletian started a persecution in 303 A.D. to force a pagan religion on everyone, a religion related to gods who don't exist.
St. George refused to follow the edict of Diocletian and accepted martyrdom as a witness to Christ. Such a witness was important in making Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire a few years later or “in slaying the dragon.”
The story of St. George is used to show how the witness to Christ could destroy the pagan religions. It is an application of what is known from the Book of Revelation to the witness of St. George. Such fulfillment of Scripture should be noted in any account of a saint so great and so important for our time as well.
Do we really want the true message of such a witness to be left as only an apparent fantasy?
DEACON LAWRENCE R. MICHAELS Escondido, California
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Schall Meets His Match: 'SchallClone' DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Originally, I had not noticed anything missing the last time I was in an emergency room. But, somehow, I consented to be cloned.
I thought the papers they asked me to sign were merely those by which I promised not to sue the hospital in case it muffed something. The first inkling I had that something was amiss was when I heard from the IRS, which seemed to have a folder of identical Schall requests for tax rebates. With this information alone, I was not sure whether there were 10 or 20 extra Schalls or only one, that is, two — namely, me and my clone. The clones had evidently been produced in a lab in Paris and given my name. One of them was purchased by an elderly English couple on an experimental basis. They brought him up identical to myself, except that he spoke English funny.
It seems that this Englishman, this “Schall-Clone,” had managed to attend Oxford, something the original Schall never did, though I had visited the place once. Even though the two corpora looked remarkably alike, the one who went to Oxford had taken a course in natural law that was being given there one semester. At the end of the course, he began to wonder whether he had any “natural rights.” This question alone distinguished him from the naturally begotten Schall, who thinks “natural rights,” as we know them, were mostly invented by Hobbes, another Englishman.
What essentially concerned SchallClone was whether, like other non-cloned human beings, he had a “right” to two parents, a male and a female and, if so, where would he go about finding them? Though perhaps my parents could be called his “grandparents,” strictly speaking, he had no parents. But if he did have this right, ought he not be able to sue those biological fabricators who, in Paris, brought him into being in this odd way and thereby deprived him of his natural heritage? He thought, moreover, that he should take it upon himself to meet the original Schall to compare notes, as it were.
SchallClone managed to catch a flight to Washington. He arranged a meeting in my office. I told the man, whom, under the circumstances, I figured I would recognize the minute I saw him, to stop by the front desk. The secretary would call when he arrived. About 11 one morning, I received a tentative call from an astonished departmental secretary. How could I be on the phone with her and standing in front of her at the same time? I asked her what the name of the visitor was. “Schall,” she replied with a gasp in her voice. I instructed her to send him in.
SchallClone shook my hand, cased my office and asked how old I was. I told him that he was the same age as I. “Do you have a ‘birthday’?” I added out of curiosity. “We don't call them ‘birthdays,’” he informed me. “We call them, though somewhat awkwardly, ‘clonedays.’”
I wondered whether his cloneday coincided with my birthday, January 20. “No,” he replied. “My cloneday is July 4, a sort of ‘Yankee Doodle Cloneday,’ if I might make an American pun.” I did not smile. “Do they give you presents on your clone-day?” I asked. “No,” he replied, “but on each clone-day we are asked if we want Schall to continue into the next generation so that there will always be a Schall down through the ages.” I did not smile at this proposition.
“Are you the only person in England who looks exactly like Schall?” I inquired. “As far as I know,” he responded, “I am the only one in England. I have not yet requested to be in turn cloned, though I have a natural right to do so. But I hear that there are about a dozen more SchallClones in France.” “You mean there are French Schalls?” I inquired dubiously “Yes,” he replied. “We clones were a particularly successful batch in Paris when we were made to be Schall.”
At this point, I had to go to class. I said good-bye. When I got to my classroom, there were no students. Thinking this odd, I noticed that there was a sign on the door announcing that my class would be held at the same time in another room down the hall, but in French. The next day, I ran into one of my students. I asked him how the class was the day before. He showed no sign that it was not me who taught that class. He expressed some surprise at the excellence of my French and was equally astonished that I was urging the students to follow the doctrines of Rousseau about the institutional causes of all sin, about which I was distinctly unenthusiastic just a few days prior.
On a long shot, I asked the student when was his birthday. He told me he did not have any birthday, but he did have a “cloneday.” With that, I figured civilization had ended. I retired to my monastic cell, only to find it occupied by someone of the same name speaking English.
Jesuit Father James Schall teaches political science at Georgetown University.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: In Praise of Our Second President's Purity DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:One of the most compelling love affairs in U.S. history involved a president. And I'm not talking about Thomas Jefferson's dalliances with his slave, Sally Hemings. No, for my money, the “hottest” romance in White House history was the one that starred John and Abigail Adams.
A husband and wife — how boring! Right? But, as contemporary historians have turned their attention to this fascinating marriage, an inspiring portrait of sacrifice and devotion has emerged that rivals the best romantic fiction. Perhaps most intriguing is the revelation that, behind Abigail Adams’ “dearest friend” (as she always referred to John in their voluminous correspondence) stood a wife who was in every sense the president's partner, his alter ego — and, not infrequently, his better half.
The past few years have seen a revival of “moral biographies” of some of America's early leaders. Richard Brookhiser's Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington looked at the first American president from the perspective of the moral virtues that made him who he was. David McCullough's recent biography John Adams, still riding the best-seller lists a year after its release, does the same thing for the second president.
Recounting the occasion on which John first met Abigail, McCullough cites an excerpt from Adams’ own diary. It's worth quoting at length:
I had my favorites among the young women and spent many of my evenings in their company and this disposition although controlled for seven years after my entrance into college, returned and engaged me too much til I was married. I shall … [not] give any enumeration of my youthful flames. … This I will say — they were all modest and virtuous girls and always maintained that character throughout life. No virgin or matron ever had cause to blush at the sight of me, or to regret her acquaintance with me. No father, brother, son or friend ever had cause of grief or resentment for any intercourse between me and any … relation of the female sex. My children may be assured that no illegitimate brother or sister exists or ever existed.
Nearly two centuries later, a young Krakow priest was doing research in preparation for a university teaching appointment. He continued to do pastoral work in the parish, ministering to students, and, that spring, would make at least three excursions into the mountains of southern Poland with his beloved students. In 1952, he would also publish his very first article dealing with sexual morality: a two-part reflection on chastity. The priest, Father Karol Wojtyla, was the future Pope John Paul II.
Instinct, Love and Marriage (and its 1953 companion, The Religious Experience of Chastity) predated Wojtyla's opus Love and Responsibility by eight years. Even in the latter book, however, the virtue of chastity takes up the whole of an entire section.
What do an early-American president and a contemporary Catholic pope have in common? Both lived model lives of Christian sexual morality. Wojtyla both explains and lives chastity; Adams shows how it is lived out in a non-celibate, marital relationship.
Cheerful Chastity
Chastity is not, Wojtyla notes, asexuality: The chaste person is not one devoid of eyes or hormones. The chaste person does not deny sex or the values associated with it.
John Adams admitted he was “of an amorous disposition,” and enjoyed “the society of females” from age 10. He had four children.
Chastity is not, says Wojtyla, primarily a “No.” Indeed, chastity is not negative in any way; it is a positive virtue that “consists in the quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation, and [to raise] to the personal level all reactions to the value of ‘the body and sex.’” Chastity does not deny that a person can be sexually attractive; it insists, however, that the other is a person — never a sex object.
The reverse side of the coin is that, because men and women are first and foremost persons, sometimes one has to say No to one's instincts, appetites and feelings. For example, if you make another person the object of a “one-night stand” — even when that person willingly invites or even tempts you to such an exploit — you injure that person's dignity. The object of your fleeting passion may not feel hurt or used, but God is offended.
John Adams clearly valued all the girls he loved before, sufficiently to keep a discreet silence about his “youthful flames.” (You can be sure that his definition of “loved” in this context is not the same as today's.) Even more importantly, he insisted that they were, and remained, “virtuous.” For Adams, it's clearly not a question of “kiss and don't tell.” It's a question of character driving behavior that results in none of his flames having “cause to blush at the sight of me.” Surely it took some self-denial, “seven years” since entering Harvard, but Adams did it. And in Adams’ day, the Ivy League did not distribute condoms at freshman orientation.
Christian love is not passionless, even at the level of emotion or physical attraction. But “love” and “lust” have nothing in common except for being two four-letter “L” words.
The Power of Propriety
When I was teaching moral theology to undergraduates, this was a common stumbling point. Lots of my students thought that the Christian view of love and marriage demands that one be oblivious to physical attraction or emotional compatibility. It doesn't. It does demand, however, that we always treat the other as a person, not just as a source of our physical or emotional fulfillment.
In his Diary excerpt, Adams calls his old girlfriends “modest.” Wojtyla also speaks about modesty when discussing “shame.” Wojtyla reminds us, however, that shame is not necessarily bad; neither is it necessarily an indication we've done something bad. In the area of sex, shame and modesty can be, in fact, good things.
A husband and wife are not “ashamed” of their nakedness (just as Adam and Eve were at first unashamed in Paradise). Where a relationship is characterized by love, a person is willing to be vulnerable. One can “bare one's self” before the other.
When a relationship is infected by something other than love — like lust, for example — the picture changes. One instinctively wants to limit one's vulnerability in order to protect one's self. In the area of sex, modesty does not mean “I'm afraid of sex.” It means “I am afraid of being used if your motives are less than love.” Adam and Eve start covering up after the Fall because, on account of sin, their relationship could now be one of love or one of lust. Because morally healthy people don't want to be used, they literally limit their exposure. Adam and Eve started looking at each other differently because of sin, not because they visited Eden's optometrist.
In his writings, John Adams also highlights the social dimension of chastity. Sex is not just an act “between two consenting adults.” Sex affects the partners themselves, particularly the woman. She may, after all, become a mother. Sex affects children born of the union. And it affects that woman's and that man's relationships to their own and other peoples’ families. Sex is society's business because society lives with its consequences (and its fallout).
To be sure, John Adams was, in many ways, a man of his times. Our America bears little resemblance to the homeland he knew. But, as Pope John Paul II has shown us and taught us, sexual virtue is timeless.
John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian,writes from Warsaw.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The World Yawns as a Priest Gives His Life for His People DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Odds are, you have not heard much about the recent death of the archbishop of Cali, Colombia.
A few weeks ago, he was killed as he left a church in a poor neighborhood of Colombia's third-largest city, having just celebrated a wedding Mass. Two men walked up to the 63-year-old prelate — Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino was his name — and shot him at point-blank range. Four times. Another priest was injured in the incident.
It's still not clear who the assassins were, but the list of suspects is a who's who of troublemakers from Colombia's decades-long civil war: drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, Marxist rebels, right-wing paramilitary forces. Precisely those groups harshly condemned by the courageous archbishop for their role in corrupting and destabilizing an already poor, war-weary country. This past February Archbishop Duarte denounced certain candidates in the country's congressional campaign for their acceptance of financing from drug traffickers. For this, the archbishop paid with his life.
Oddly, Archbishop Duarte's assassination received scant attention in our part of the world. It seems that CNN is everywhere except Colombia. To be fair, the 24-hour cable-news giant has its hands full. Cave-to-cave combat in Afghanistan, café bombs in Israel, tanks in the streets of Bethlehem, deviant American priests. More than enough breaking news to warm the heart of any Time-Warner shareholder.
So what is the worth of an archbishop's life? More to the point, what is the worth of his death?
It's too bad for Archbishop Duarte that he had to pay the price for his principles at a time when Catholic leaders in the United States were paying the price for violating theirs. Too bad for all of us, really. Why? Because Archbishop Duarte's assassination is a stark reminder of the enduring relevance of the Catholic Church in a troubled world. It is also a bold affirmation of the doctrinal soundness of the sacrament of Holy Orders —the priesthood, in lay terms — and of the power of Church leaders to act as Catholic doctrine says they should: as Christ's instruments for the realization of the Church's saving mission.
That may sound like predictable Catholic-speak in the face of a seeming epidemic of sexual sin in the Catholic Church. Many young people have been victimized. And the scandal has embarrassed ordinary Catholics, cast a dark shadow of suspicion and distrust over all Catholic clergy, and damaged the ability of American Catholics to speak with credibility and moral authority on issues from abortion to stem-cell research. But even worse, perhaps, is what the scandal threatens to do to the North American priesthood in general. An institution that is already widely perceived to be anachronistic and irrelevant may come to be viewed, in some quarters at least, as downright useless, if not evil.
Even devout Catholics may have a hard time stomaching Church doctrine that teaches that the sacrament of Holy Orders confers an “indelible spiritual character” on the recipient. How can it be, people will ask, that even the pedophile priest is marked forever with an indelible spiritual character that enables him to act in a special way as a representative of Jesus Christ? How can Catholics of good faith possibly see Christ in a disturbed and dangerous man? And if Catholics have a hard time swallowing this, how can non-Catholics ever take seriously anything the Catholic Church has to say — about anything, especially matters that go beyond the inner workings of Church doctrine or organization?
Enter Archbishop Duarte. Here was a man who knew what it meant to be a servant, not a master. Here was a man who understood what Catholic doctrine means when it says, to borrow from St. Ignatius of Antioch, that the bishop is like the living image of God the Father. A servant of the servants of God. Here was a man who understood, too, the inherent limits of humanity, the vulnerability of his own ministry to human weaknesses. When police urged him to accept the protection of bodyguards, Archbishop Duarte refused, worrying that they might lose their lives in order to protect him. Here was a man, then, who truly lived the paradoxical Christian message that those who are willing to lose their life for the sake of Christ will actually keep it.
Nothing in Catholic doctrine says that ordained ministers are perfect. They are, in this respect, no different from the people to whom they minister — mere mortals, some are psychologically wounded, even clinically ill. They are bound to make mistakes, bound to hurt others — and, in so doing, hurt the apostolic mission of the Church. Church history is instructive here.
St. Augustine wrote almost 1,600 years ago that ordained ministers who commit grievous sins can't obscure the big picture. “As for the proud minister,” he wrote, “he is to be ranked with the devil. … Christ's gift is not thereby profaned: What flows through him keeps its purity, and what passes through him remains clear and reaches the fertile earth.”
The late archbishop of Cali, Colombia, did his part to help that gift to flourish. Will we do ours?
Robert Ventresca teaches European history at King's College, the Catholic affiliate of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Ventresca ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Common American Hero DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:It is bittersweet but not difficult to find a positive outcome from the terrible events of Sept. 11. Americans were reminded that heroes are more common than we may have thought.
Firemen rushing into burning buildings to save perfect strangers are heroes. Policemen and National Guard troops serving as security agents are heroes. Soldiers searching caves for terrorists are heroes. Civilians with the unbelievable courage to fight back against jet hijackers and give their lives to save others are heroes. A U.S. president with the courage to speak the truth and refuse to blink is a hero.
At a time when it often seems folks are getting fat and lazy, it turns out we have lots of people with superhuman courage. We need it.
To be honest, I don't personally know many people who fit these visible, dramatic categories of hero. But I do know lots of heroes.
The heroes I know don't get so much recognition — at least not as much as they deserve. They are pretty anonymous folks.
And in praising them, I don't in any way demean the amazing heroes we discovered over the past few months. Putting on your hardhat and boots and walking into a burning building to save the lives of strangers can't be belittled.
But my heroes are special — at least to me. They ought to have their pictures in the news magazines and on cereal boxes. That ain't gonna happen, but they remain heroes.
Several of my heroes are teachers or administrators at a small Catholic school where I serve as a board member. They work hard. They don't have the fat budgets of the public schools. They certainly aren't getting rich in a material sense. They just spend their lives forming tomorrow's leaders and Catholics. They are heroes.
A good friend left his lucrative corporate career to work for the Church. He used to worry about how to invest his fat income and whether his stock options would increase in value. Now he worries about how to help other people and the condition of his prayer life. He used to worry about getting to the office on time. Now he worries about getting to eucharistic adoration. He is a hero.
My parish priest reminds us frequently of the beauty of the sacrament of confession. Before, during and after several Masses each Sunday, he sits in his confessional.
If he isn't celebrating Mass, he is listening to the faithful, who form long lines outside his confessional. He takes great care with each person and is a font of both counsel and solace. He is a hero.
Several young religious coworkers are serving in my community. They have given up a year or two of their regular lives to be missionaries and witnesses to young people in elementary schools, high schools and colleges. They have put their own lives on hold for a long period of time to serve Christ. They are heroes.
I have a wife and two children who tolerate my many faults and shortcomings and are there for me when I need love and support. They are heroes.
And this scarcely touches the wealth of common heroes I encounter each day. Christ gives us each the chance to be heroes by simply living lives of faith, hope and charity.
I'm afraid that I let too many days pass without accepting Christ's challenge for my life. Perhaps in remembrance of the Sept. 11 heroes, I should resolve to better accept his grace and work a little harder to be that hero he knows I can be.
Jim Fair writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Fair ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Saint of the Impossible's Umbrian Overlook DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:In the Italian province of Umbria, in the small medieval city of Cascia, is a gleaming basilica dedicated to one of Italy's most beloved saints — Rita of Cascia, patron saint of impossible causes.
Thousands of pilgrims throng to the tiny hilltop city throughout the year. But the traffic really picks up during the last two of weeks of May, when special devotions are celebrated in honor of St. Rita's feast day, May 22.
The life of St. Rita, who is also known as “the Pearl of Umbria,” is shrouded in mystery and legend due to the illiteracy and poor record-keeping of her times. Yet it is precisely the story of her life, along with her powerful intercessory prayer, that attracts the hordes to this site.
St. Rita wrote no books, memoirs or dialogues. Still, word of her uncompromising love for God — her reputation for prayer and mysticism, her fervent embrace of the cross of Christ, and her peaceful and gentle manner — spread throughout the region and earned her the esteem of multitudes throughout the centuries. Just this spring many American moviegoers learned about her in the hit movie The Rookie, the story of a baseball player with a dream and a devotion to St. Rita.
Born in 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, Rita was the only child of a devout couple, Antonio and Amata Lotti. The child developed a great devotion to God and expressed her desire to become a nun.
Her parents, despite their deep religious sentiments, refused to allow her to enter the convent. It may have been that they were afraid she might be swept away during a raid on a convent — a not uncommon occurrence during the dangerous days of the 14th century's pope vs. antipope crisis.
Rita dutifully obeyed her parents and, at the age of 18, married a local young man, Paolo di Ferdinando Mancini. From the union, she had two sons, thought to be twins.
Most of their marriage was marked by strife, as Paolo had an explosive temper. Eventually, through Rita's prayers and her total reliance on God, Paolo was converted into a loving, God-fearing man.
But Paolo could not escape the damage done during his earlier life. As the result of a long-standing feud with a couple of townsmen and political rivals, he was ambushed and killed. This left Rita a young widow with two teen-age boys to care for. Worse still, the boys were attracted by the popular notion of the vendetta to avenge their father's death. This greatly grieved Rita, who vigorously pleaded with them to drop the idea. They resisted her pleas.
Rita prayed for their spiritual well-being, asking for their protection from the sinful deeds they were mulling. Within the year, both died of natural causes. Rita grieved, yet was filled with the peaceful assurance that God had saved her sons from hell.
Surprising Stigmatist
Rita turned her attention to good works and rekindled the hope of finally realizing her dream of entering the Augustinian Convent of St. Mary of Magdalene in Cascia. She was rejected three times. The superiors of the convent were concerned because several of the nuns in residence were relatives of the murderers of Paolo.
But Rita, who had long forgiven her husband's assassins, did not give up. She petitioned her three favorite saints — Augustine, John the Baptist and Nicholas of Tolentine — and, finally, the superiors agreed to allow her to enter. So it was that, at the age of 36, St. Rita entered the convent.
In her religious life, Rita devoted herself to prayer and penance, working with the town's poor and lepers. A contemplative and a mystic, she had great devotion to the passion and cross of Christ. Often she begged the Lord to grant her the privilege of participating in his suffering. One day, while she was contemplating Jesus’ agony on the cross, she received, as from his own crown, a single thorn. It lodged into her forehead and caused her pain and discomfort until her death 16 years later. She bore the single stigmata joyfully and offered her suffering for the physical and spiritual well-being of others, and for the salvation of souls.
In the last few years of her life, Rita subsisted practically on the Eucharist alone. She was frail and bed-ridden, yet displayed joy, charity and patience to all, ever-endeavoring to bring peace and harmony to difficult situations.
Several months before she died, a cousin came to visit. Rita asked her to kindly return with a rose from her beloved home town, Roccaporena. As it was January, and the hills were covered with snow, the cousin expressed her doubt that she would be able to fulfill Rita's request. But, just as she approached Rita's house, the woman found a beautiful rose blooming in the garden. Since that incident, Rita has been associated with roses.
Gentle, sweet, humble and long-suffering Rita died May 21, 1457, at the age of 76. It is said that at the moment of her death, the bells of the town rang without the assistance of a human being.
She was beatified in 1627, but not canonized until centuries later, on May 22, in the Jubilee year of 1900 by Pope Leo XIII. Her incorrupt bodies lies in repose in the upper basilica.
Towering Tranquility
The foundation stone for the stunning Basilica of St. Rita was laid in 1937. The church was officially consecrated in May of 1947, and was elevated to basilica in 1955.
While modern, the graceful architecture of the edifice does absolutely no violence to the beauty and scaled-down proportions of the medieval city of Cascia. In fact, it is a strikingly splendid high point of the city, situated at a place that has a breath-taking, panoramic view of the rugged mountains and valleys of Umbria.
Upon entering the basilica, you are greeted by sculpted scenes from the life of the saint; further inside there is the Way of the Cross in white Carrara marble. The layout of the basilica is that of a Greek cross, with the dome or cupola in the center and four major apses extending from the center. Represented on the dome, which is Byzantine in style, are portraits of the Holy Spirit and several Augustinian saints. The main apse is the work of the painter Luigi Filocamo and presents the Last Supper, the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Passover.
The sanctuary, simple and elegant, is carved in beautiful pink Portuguese marble. The glass door and bronze fixtures are by Armando Marrocco.
The apse to the left is of great interest because it is here that the incorrupt mortal remains of St. Rita repose.
A fresco by Ferruccio Ferrazzi depicts Rita kneeling at the foot of the glorified Lord. Other scenes from the saint's life are the work of G.B. Galizzi. Numerous silver hearts of thanksgiving, pictures of loved ones, and testimonial letters of answered prayers are hung on the walls above the saint. This area is imbued with a sense of peace and quiet joy, representative of the gentle saint.
The overall impression of the basilica may be described as elegant, quiet, tranquil and graceful. Peace and reconciliation are principle messages of St. Rita, and peace and tranquility permeate this splendid basilica.
Elena Dwyer writes from Annandale, New Jersey
----- EXCERPT: Basilica of St. Rita of Cascia, Umbria, Italy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elena Dwyer ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Devilish Mentor Made Him Do It DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Most great drama is about moral choices.
The central characters must decide between good and evil and suffer the consequences. The audience identifies with the protagonists’ dilemmas, observes the foolishness or wisdom of their positions, and leaves the theater enlightened.
Changing Lanes doesn't rise to this level. But, unlike most current Hollywood product, every twist and turn of its plot depends on the moral choices of its main characters. Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) and screenwriters Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin (The Player) skillfully put us through the emotional wringer. But the filmmakers pull back when the moral heat gets too intense, opting instead for some sharp social commentary and the conventions of a well-made thriller.
The action begins with the collision of two Manhattan motorists on FDR Drive, then plunges us deep into the depths of their respective bouts of road rage.
Both men are late for court appearances. Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) is a high-priced, well-connected attorney in a large, powerful firm. He wears expensively tailored clothes, lives in the best part of town and dines out at tony restaurants. His complacent arrogance is fueled by an unearned sense of entitlement. He's both successful and cool — a perfect example of the kind of 21st-century yuppie ordinary folks love to hate. We yearn for him to get his comeuppance, and the filmmakers work hard to grant us our wish.
Banek is driving to a probate hearing at which he's to present documents that will cinch his firm's fraudulent takeover of a charitable foundation. His luxury car rams the aging vehicle of Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson), an African-American insurance agent who's on his way to a family-court hearing at which he hopes to be awarded joint custody of his children. Gipson is a recovering alcoholic whose erratic behavior drove his wife to walk out.
The two men react differently to the accident. Gipson is a working-class stiff intent on rebuilding his life. He wants to do the right thing and exchange insurance information. Banek, the upscale lawyer, is used to cutting corners and getting things his own way. He ignores Gipson's request, rushing off to court after handing the seemingly decent man a blank check.
The insurance agent's car is disabled, and he can't get a ride. This makes him late for his court appearance and costs him the custody of his kids.
Banek doesn't fare much better. In his haste to leave the accident, he's forgotten an important file. The probate judge orders him to recover it by the end of the day.
Gipson finds it after he's suffered his own setback and, once again, his instincts are the right ones. But Banek tries to pressure Gipson into conforming to his timetable, illegally altering the insurance agent's credit record and making other unethical moves.
This turns Gipson into Banek's nemesis, and the rest of the film is a contest between the two men to see who can inflict the most damage on the other. “Maybe God wanted to put two guys into a paper bag and let ’em rip,” Banek speculates.
All the action takes place during a single day, and the filmmakers choose Good Friday to put their characters to the test. They follow up with a well-meaning and appropriate exploration of the themes of sin, sacrifice and redemption.
At first our rooting interest is with Gipson. But, as the insurance agent is thrown into the cauldron, we see that he can't control his anger. Once he's provoked, his rage can inflict almost as much harm as Banek's the-end-justifies-the-means ethos.
Banek is shown to have the flickerings of a conscience, albeit one that has been smothered by his lust for status and money. He suffers fits of remorse and tries to undo some of the harm he's done. “Everything is held together by a covenant,” he declares during one of these spasms of moral clarity.
But evil proves to be a slippery slope. Each step Banek takes across the line sets up a situation where he'll be forced to do more wrong. We watch him agonize as he slides downward.
At one point, Banek, exhausted by his duel with Gipson, wanders into a Catholic Church during a Good Friday service. Looking for a quiet place to collect his thoughts, he sits down in a confessional. A priest thinks he wants to make a confession. Banek protests, stating that he's not a Catholic, and rails against life's unfairness.
The filmmakers make us see that the young lawyer badly needs some kind of moral guidance. But the only positive spiritual point of view is presented by Gipson's Alcoholic Anonymous sponsor (Bill Hurt), who offers sage advice and talks about a higher power. This is good as far as it goes, but it's not enough.
The movie intelligently emphasizes class differences more than race, and the portrait of uptown Manhattan lawyering is devastating. Banek's mentor at the firm is his father-in-law, Delano (Sydney Pollack), who functions as a silvery-tongued tempter.
The filmmakers suggest that Banek must stand up to Delano to redeem himself and, at the end, he finds a way to beat Delano at his own game. The movie assumes that it's good enough to wipe the slate clean.
This is too neat and comfortable. Banek never takes full responsibility for his actions and never undergoes the kind of soul-searching change of heart necessary to achieve forgiveness and redemption. The filmmakers are sincere in their intention to create a modern-day urban morality play. But they don't cut deep enough to cope with the issues they've put before us.
John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Changing Lanes is an agile amusement, but a mousy morality play ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens (2000)
Walt Disney was not the only genius working in animated films during Hollywood's golden age. Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens, a feature-length PBS documentary, explores the career and creations of the legendary writer-director of Warner Bros.’ best cartoons. For more than 60 years, audiences have enjoyed his beloved characters — Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Pepe Le Pew and others. Filmmaker Margaret Selby mixes clips from Jones’ best work with interviews with Steven Speilberg, Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) and John Lasseter (the Toy Story series), among others.
Jones’ cartoons aren't meant exclusively for children. They were intended to play in theaters as sixminute lead-ins to feature films for grown-ups. His well-defined characters embody cleverly exaggerated human qualities that are immediately recognizable. Jones’ comic timing and narrative economy have never been matched.
The Love Bug (1969)
Most car movies celebrate speed, risk-taking and an intense competitive spirit. The Love Bug, a Walt Disney live-action classic about racing, is a sweet, slapstick comedy that emphasizes kindness and a good heart instead. Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) is an over-the-hill race driver who buys a Volkswagen Beetle nicknamed Herbie. The vehicle's previous owner, the unscrupulous race driver Thorndyke (David Tomlinson), had mistreated him, and Herbie appreciates the loving care he receives from Jim.
Jim's friend, Tennessee (Buddy Hackett), suggests he enter the Volkswagen in a dirt-track race. Much to everyone's surprise, Herbie wins it and several others. Neither Jim nor the rest of the movie's human characters realize the Volkswagen has a mind of its own. Both kids and adults will enjoy the story's winning ways.
Saboteur (1942)
During World War II there was a fear of sabotage on American soil that's in some ways similar to our current worries about terrorism. Director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully dramatizes these concerns in this imaginative thriller. It develops a common Hitchcock theme found also in his masterworks, The Thirty-Nine Steps and North by Northwest. An innocent man is pursued both by the authorities (who've falsely accused him of a crime) and the real villains (who want to kill him before he tells the truth to the authorities).
Most memorable are the two New York City chase scenes. The first is a gunfight in Radio City Movie Hall during a gangster film; the other is a spectacular struggle atop the Statue of Liberty.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The 'Magna Carta' of Priestly Formation, Ten Years Later DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Ten years ago this spring, Pope John Paul II offered to the Church a document addressing “one of the most demanding and important tasks for the future of the evangelization of humanity.”
The document was the apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis — On the Formation of Priests in the Circumstances of the Present Day.
A decade later, as the priesthood in America faces unprecedented and troubling challenges, it is worth asking: What impact has the Pope's document had on priestly formation in America? And what guidance might it have for the future?
“Pastores Dabo Vobis is the most important document issued on the Roman Catholic priesthood since Vatican Council II,” says Sulpician Father Ronald Witherup, provincial of the U.S. Province of Sulpicians, an international society of diocesan priests dedicated to the preparation of men for the priesthood.
Some of the content of the document, says Father Witherup, is nothing less than “revolutionary.” He points specifically to the Pope's emphasis on the importance of human formation as foundational to priestly formation. That particular point also speaks to the current difficulties of the priesthood in America.
Future priests, the document teaches, “need to be educated to love the truth, to be loyal, to respect every person, to have a sense of justice, to be true to their word, to be genuinely compassionate, to be men of integrity and, especially, to be balanced in judgment and behavior. … Of special importance is the capacity to relate to others.”
On the other hand, Father Witherup notes, while revolutionary in some ways, Pastores Dabo Vobis is also a thoroughly traditional teaching on the Church's theology of the priesthood. The priest is one who stands in persona Christi capitis (“in the person of Christ, the head”) in relation to the Church which is his spouse. “The priest of tomorrow, no less than the priest of today, must resemble Christ,” the Holy Father wrote.
Indeed, a priest's identity comes through as one of the most important themes of the document. The Pope clearly perceives a “crisis of priestly identity” and means to address it.
What is a Priest?
Pastores Dabo Vobis was a positive step toward resolving this problem, says Sulpician Father Harold Bleichner, who has served as rector of Theological College at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., for the past ten years.
“The document brings together the ontological nature of the priest-hood — what connects the priest to Christ — and the functional nature of priesthood — what the priest actually does,” says Father Bleichner. “Our whole program of formation [at Theological College] is to prepare a man for the day when he'll receive this ontological nature and pledge to live this style of life.”
At the time of the document's publication, the American bishops’ Program of Priestly Formation was undergoing a revision. Father Bleichner, who served as a general editor of that work, says that the papal document had a profound impact on the bishops’ work on the program and, as a result, all subsequent priestly formation in the United States.
One strong theme of the Pope's exhortation is the impact of the prevailing culture on the development of vocations to priesthood. Too many young people, wrote the Holy Father, are “prisoners of the fleeting moment,” centering their lives on material gratification and success. This makes the prospect of a priestly vocation “far from the actual everyday interests which young men have in life.”
On the other hand, it is no secret that the Pope recognizes in young people a thirst for great ideals — freedom, justice, openness, peace — and this is the case in Pastores Dabo Vobis as well. Indeed, he has done much to foster that thirst in young people.
Msgr. Peter Finn, recently appointed rector of the Archdiocese of New York's St. Joseph Seminary, sees in this one of the most remarkable developments since the publication of Pastores Dabo Vobis a decade ago.
“Ten years ago,” he says, “the cultural environment put people on a treadmill toward success founded on money and such things. All of a sudden, there was an awakening on the part of men and women. I call it the ‘Trump Syndrome.’ After you've got ten buildings, all you have left to get is ten more. People began to ask, ‘What's it all about? What's it all worth?’”
The Commitment Clause
The result, says Msgr. Finn, is more inquiries from young men considering application to seminary and more candidates for the priesthood. “When you eat too much and drink too much, you sometimes regurgi-tate. Perhaps we're regurgitating as a society,” he adds.
Father Witherup sees the same growing altruism, especially “on the part of the younger generation.” But, he notes, “I am not sure whether they are any more willing to make the kind of commitment that priesthood demands.”
Father Witherup and Msgr. Finn have no doubts that the scandals facing the Church in the United States today will affect the formation of priests in the future. Attention will increasingly be paid to the human formation, the development of “affective maturity,” of which the Pope wrote.
Prayer, too, will play a crucial role. Indeed, the Pope devotes an entire chapter of Pastores Dabo Vobis to the spiritual life of priests.
“That,” says Father Witherup, “is one of the factors lacking in the lives of priests who get themselves into one sort of trouble or another — lack of a solid, regular prayer life.”
Msgr. Finn, while he views the present scandals as “horrible and inexcusable,” remains hopeful. ”I hope it will have the effect something like pruning your rosebushes. A paring down so that a beautiful flowering will result.”
Msgr. Finn, who calls Pastores Dabo Vobis “the magna carta for the education of men preparing to be priests,” is one of many who will look to the document for guidance, encouragement and sound teaching for a long time to come.
Barry Michaels writes from Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barry Michaels ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: War of the Worldviews DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:THE CLASH OF ORTHODOXIES: LAW, RELIGION, AND MORALITY IN CRISIS by Robert P. George ISI Books, 2001 387 pages, $24.95
To order: (800) 621-2736 or www.isibooks.org
The campus revolutionaries of the 1960s and '70s are ensconced by now in influential governmental and academic jobs. They've also all but taken over the media and, for a decade, have been trying to tell Americans what they may and may not say when exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Among intellectuals, a new “orthodoxy” has largely supplanted a centuries-old tradition of Western civilization. Meanwhile America, once the beacon of democratic freedom, has become a major exporter of the culture of death.
Although it is not easy to argue with a culture so deeply entrenched, yet one in which so much has gone wrong (where to begin?), Robert P. George, a legal philosopher and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, is up to the job. The “clash” of worldviews in the title is often depicted as a struggle between “reasonable” public policy and “unreasoning” private religion. George respectfully and vigorously disagrees. “I want to show that Christians and other believers are right to defend their positions on key moral issues as rationally superior to the alternatives proposed by secular liberals,” he writes. “My criticism of secular liberal views is not that they are contrary to faith; it is that they fail the test of reason.”
Prof. George demonstrates that many current views are based on bad philosophy. The mind-body dichotomy in Descartes paved the way for the notion that there can be human “non-persons” (fetuses, the terminally ill) with no right to continue living. Hume's assumption that reason is merely “the slave of the passions,” an instrument for fulfilling desires, redefines human nature. Man, instead of being a “rational animal,” becomes a beast that can rationalize same-sex marriage, embryo experiments and, it seems, just about anything.
George calmly demolishes modern liberal myths. “Even the apparently private acts of private parties can and do have public consequences,” he writes. “What is true of public health and safety is equally true of public morals. … The central harm of pornography is moral harm … [analogous to] the harmful impact of carcinogenic pollutants on the physical health of people subjected to them.”
George's criticism is both colorful and constructive. He eloquently defends the traditional concept of natural law. God's reasons for commanding or forbidding certain actions can be grasped by human reason; to “legislate morality” is not to impose religious belief, but to acknowledge the eminently reasonable practical wisdom of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In a chapter titled “Natural Law and Civil Rights,” George traces this concept through the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King (who quoted Sts. Augustine and Aquinas in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).
I have heard Professor George lecture twice on subjects treated in this volume: the legitimacy of a government that allows the killing of pre-born infants and the dignity of the human embryo. George is an excellent speaker, one who clarifies the twists and turns of the secular dogmas he critiques. In print, however, particularly when summarizing and contrasting two positions, he occasionally constructs labyrinthine sentences that are difficult to negotiate. Reading his essays requires extra effort, but they are well worth it.
On Jan. 16, 2002, George was named a member of the new “President's Council on Bioethics.” That appointment, like this anthology of essays, is a sign of hope for those who cherish traditional values: A brilliant scholar and courageous spokesman for their worldview is working to restore a “healthy moral ecology” to our nation.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: War of the Worldviews DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:THE CLASH OF ORTHODOXIES: LAW, RELIGION, AND MORALITY IN CRISIS
by Robert P. George ISI Books, 2001 387 pages, $24.95
To order: (800) 621-2736 or www.isibooks.org
The campus revolutionaries of the 1960s and ’70s are ensconced by now in influential governmental and academic jobs. They've also all but taken over the media and, for a decade, have been trying to tell Americans what they may and may not say when exercising their constitutional right to freedom of speech. Among intellectuals, a new “orthodoxy” has largely supplanted a centuries-old tradition of Western civilization. Meanwhile America, once the beacon of democratic freedom, has become a major exporter of the culture of death.
Although it is not easy to argue with a culture so deeply entrenched, yet one in which so much has gone wrong (where to begin?), Robert P. George, a legal philosopher and professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, is up to the job. The “clash” of worldviews in the title is often depicted as a struggle between “reasonable” public policy and “unreasoning” private religion. George respectfully and vigorously disagrees. “I want to show that Christians and other believers are right to defend their positions on key moral issues as rationally superior to the alternatives proposed by secular liberals,” he writes. “My criticism of secular liberal views is not that they are contrary to faith; it is that they fail the test of reason.”
Prof. George demonstrates that many current views are based on bad philosophy. The mind-body dichotomy in Descartes paved the way for the notion that there can be human “non-persons” (fetuses, the terminally ill) with no right to continue living. Hume's assumption that reason is merely “the slave of the passions,” an instrument for fulfilling desires, redefines human nature. Man, instead of being a “rational animal,” becomes a beast that can rationalize same-sex marriage, embryo experiments and, it seems, just about anything.
George calmly demolishes modern liberal myths. “Even the apparently private acts of private parties can and do have public consequences,” he writes. “What is true of public health and safety is equally true of public morals. … The central harm of pornography is moral harm … [analogous to] the harmful impact of carcinogenic pollutants on the physical health of people subjected to them.”
George's criticism is both colorful and constructive. He eloquently defends the traditional concept of natural law. God's reasons for commanding or forbidding certain actions can be grasped by human reason; to “legislate morality” is not to impose religious belief, but to acknowledge the eminently reasonable practical wisdom of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. In a chapter titled “Natural Law and Civil Rights,” George traces this concept through the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King (who quoted Sts. Augustine and Aquinas in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”).
I have heard Professor George lecture twice on subjects treated in this volume: the legitimacy of a government that allows the killing of pre-born infants and the dignity of the human embryo. George is an excellent speaker, one who clarifies the twists and turns of the secular dogmas he critiques. In print, however, particularly when summarizing and contrasting two positions, he occasionally constructs labyrinthine sentences that are difficult to negotiate. Reading his essays requires extra effort, but they are well worth it.
On Jan. 16, 2002, George was named a member of the new “President's Council on Bioethics.” That appointment, like this anthology of essays, is a sign of hope for those who cherish traditional values: A brilliant scholar and courageous spokesman for their worldview is working to restore a “healthy moral ecology” to our nation.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:Court Hearing
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, April 25 — The Jesuits’ Gonzaga University was at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing April 24 about whether students can sue colleges under the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which prohibits colleges and schools that receive federal funds from releasing most student records without receiving permission from parents or an adult student.
The justices are being asked to weigh the rights of aggrieved students against the potential costs to colleges and universities of frivolous litigation. Washington State Supreme Court ruled earlier this year in favor of Ru Paster, a former Gonzaga student, who contends that he was unable to get a character reference because his school records included rape allegations that never resulted in formal charges.
Come of Age
FOX NEWS, April 5 — As the first generation of home-schoolers settles into young adulthood, they are proving to be more self-reliant and focused than their traditionally schooled peers, reports the all-news network.
“I wouldn't say home-schoolers are better educated, but they are better equipped to learn,” says J. Gary Knowles, a University of Toronto researcher who has extensively interviewed adults who were home-schooled. Absent from home-schoolers is youthful angst and alienation. The burning desire to isolate and separate themselves from their parents just doesn't seem to be there, researchers say.
Adulthood Rocks
THE CATHOLIC ADVOCATE, April 24 — Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison warned an audience at Seton Hall University April 11 not to get stuck in the “best years” of their lives.
To those who see the college years as life's happiest, Morrison said, “you have my condolences.” Those who remain stuck in the “best years,” said the poet, “never mature.”
She cautioned that there are entire industries aimed at maintaining that immaturity. “If happiness is all you have on your mind, you indeed have my sympathy,” she said. “True adulthood,” she said, “is a hard-won glory.”
Canadian Steubenville
CATHOLIC PRWIRE.COM, April 29 — Ontario's Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, a private Catholic post-secondary institute, has reached an articulation agreement with the Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio) that will allow students completing courses at the academy to apply credits toward a bachelor's degree at Steubenville. Our Lady Seat of Wisdom offers a foundational one-year program rooted in the Catholic vision of the liberal arts with a special emphasis on the western intellectual tradition.
Color Blind
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, April 23 — The latest University of California admission figures prove that the state was right to end affirmative-action programs in 1998, and that California's public schools bear the responsibility for not adequately preparing more black and Hispanic students for college, says columnist Joseph Perkins.
Minorities make up better than 19 percent of last fall's freshman class, a larger proportion than when race was used as a factor in admissions. Perkins adds that nearly a third of California's black and Hispanic high school students fail to earn a diploma, a problem that should prompt educators and activists to turn “their attention to California's public school system.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Happy Birthday, John Paul II! DATE: 05/12/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 12-18, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Even before his election as Pope in 1978, Karol Wojtyla had lived a full and varied life. The Holy Father celebrates his 82 birthday May 18.
As a teen, he split stone at a quarry, wrote poetry and helped smuggle Jews to safety during the German occupation of Poland. As a young priest he was a favorite with students at Lublin University, who flocked to his classes and joined him on camping, hiking and canoeing trips. As the second youngest cardinal ever named by the Vatican, he ran an informal office and celebrated holidays with Krakow actors.
It should have been no surprise that he would redefine the traditional role and demeanor of the papacy by traveling extensively, continuing to enjoy strenuous outdoor activities and taking on a wide range of global political and moral issues.
The future Pope John Paul II was born May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, a small town near Krakow in southern Poland.
His mother, Emilia, was Lithuanian and spoke German at home, giving Karol an early start on his proficiency in languages. She died when Karol was 9, leaving him in the care of his father, whose weak health made the pair dependent upon his military pension.
Karol's only sibling, a physician 15 years older named Edmund, died during a scarlet fever epidemic three years after their mother died.
Lolek
In his local high school, Wojtyla was active in sports and a drama club and he was remembered as a good student who excelled at languages, religion and philosophy.
“Even as a boy he was exceptional,” said Rafat Tatka, a neighbor from Wadowice, who knew the young boy as Lolek, a nickname that translates as Chuck.
After graduation, he and his father moved to Krakow, where Wojtyla enrolled at the University of Krakow, studying philosophy, joining speech and drama clubs and writing poetry.
The Nazi takeover of Poland in September 1939 meant an official end to all religious training and cultural activities. But Wojtyla continued his studies in an underground university and helped set up a clandestine theater group that performed in stores and homes.
During the Nazi occupation, Wojtyla worked with the underground networks that helped hide Krakow's Jews and smuggle them into safe countries, providing a foundation for his efforts as Pope at strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations.
Meanwhile, helping to support his ailing father, Wojtyla found work in a quarry and a chemical factory — experiences that later provided material for his poetry and papal writings on labor. When his father died in the winter of 1941, Karol was 20. Friends said the young student knelt for 12 hours in prayer at his bedside. Soon after, he withdrew from the theatrical group and turned his attention to studying for the priesthood.
Wojtyla continued his college studies throughout the war, eventually entering a theological seminary operated by Krakow's Cardinal Adam Sapieha in his home in defiance of Nazi orders forbidding religious education. He was ordained on Nov. 1, 1946, just as the communist regime replaced the Germans at the end of the war.
Father Karol
Father Wojtyla's first assignment was to study at Rome's Angelicum University, where he earned a doctorate in ethics. Upon his return to Poland in 1948, the young priest was assigned to the rural village of Niegowic for a year before returning to Krakow. There, he served at St. Florian Parish, devoting much of his attention to young people — teaching, playing soccer and drawing university students to his house for discussions.
After earning a second doctorate in moral theology, Father Wojtyla began teaching at Lublin University in 1953, commuting by train from his Krakow parish. He was a prolific writer, publishing more than 100 articles and several books on ethics and other subjects. And at 36, he became a full professor at the Institute of Ethics at Lublin, a position he held even after being made a bishop in 1958.
Father Wojtyla's interest in outdoor activities remained strong. Groups of students regularly joined him for hiking, skiing, bicycling, camping and kayaking, accompanied by prayer, outdoor Masses and theological discussions. His energy earned him the title “the eternal teen-ager” from his younger companions.
In fact, Father Wojtyla was on a kayaking trip in 1958 when he was called to Warsaw for the announcement that he was to be made a bishop. At 38, he became the youngest bishop in Poland's history.
As a bishop, archbishop and later as a cardinal, he continued to live a simple life, shunning the trappings that came with his advancing position. For instance, he only left his Krakow apartment for the more luxurious bishop's residence after friends moved his belongings one day when he was out of town.
In 1964, shortly before the end of the Second Vatican Council, he was named archbishop of Krakow and became the first resident head of the see since the death of Cardinal Sapieha in 1951.
Cardinal Wojtyla
Just three years later, at the age of 47, he became the second youngest man ever inducted into the College of Cardinals. But he continued to have an open approach to the people of the archdiocese, seeing visitors without appointments and holding seminars at the cardinal's residence for actors, workers, students, priests and nuns.
Pursuing his avid interest in the outdoors, Cardinal Wojtyla once was challenged by a border guard while skiing near the Czechoslovakian border. The militia officer initially insisted the skier must have stolen a cardinal's papers because he couldn't imagine a high-ranking church official would be skiing, especially in such shabby clothes.
Another story tells of Cardinal Wojtyla's visit to a rest home for priests. An elderly priest mistook the young man for a sports- loving visitor and sent him on errands, which the cardinal carried out without comment.
He traveled to the United States at the invitation of friends, touring Polish neighborhoods in several U.S. cities. True to form, on a stop to see a friend in Montana Cardinal Wojtyla canceled several meetings to take off canoeing. Yet after a speech to seminarians at Harvard, the student newspaper, The Crimson, aptly predicted the visiting cardinal might be the next Pope.
Pope John Paul II
Even when Pope Paul IV and Pope John Paul I died within months of each other in 1978, Cardinal Wojtyla still was little known outside Poland and the College of Cardinals. The announcement of his election on Oct. 16, 1978, was met with surprise that continued as Pope John Paul II developed his own style in office.
Although age and accidents have slowed his step, he still travels regularly, participates in whatever outdoor activities that time and his doctor allow, and reaches out to children and youths everywhere he goes.
----- EXCERPT: From Quarry to Stage to the Vatican, Pope Has Had a Lively History ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Boston College Honors Abortion Supporters DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:BOSTON — For the second straight year, Jesuit-run Boston College honored abortion advocates at its commencement ceremonies, this time in both its undergraduate and law schools.
The Chestnut Hill college, which has graduated many leaders in New England politics and society, drew heat last year when the law school's commencement speaker was a Massachusetts judge who had served on the board of an abortion clinic.
This year, on May 20, the college gave an honorary doctorate to Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a Harvard University professor and the incoming chairwoman of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which funds the dissident group Catholics for a Free Choice and promotes abortion and population control in the United States and abroad. She has been a foundation board member for more than a decade.
Delivering the commencement address at Boston College Law School May 24 was the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, a Republican who was a vocal abortion advocate while serving as governor of Massachusetts from 1997 until he was appointed ambassador last year.
“The scandal continues,” said Patrick
Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a watchdog organization that offers help to colleges seeking to implement Pope John Paul II's encyclical on Catholic higher education.
The Newman Society has identified 16 Catholic colleges that are honoring individuals who support abortion or publicly dissent from Church teaching. Said Reilly, “In the four years we've been tracking Catholic commencements, this appears to be the worst.”
The Pope wrote in his 1991 apostolic constitution on higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), that a “specific priority” for a Catholic educational institution “is the need to examine and evaluate the predominant values and norms of modern society and culture in a Christian perspective, and the responsibility to try to communicate to society those ethical and religious principles which give full meaning to human life” (No. 33, emphasis in original).
Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said the school does not apply a “litmus test” to awardees or speakers, who are chosen for their professional achievements. He said the college did not know Lawrence-Lightfoot's views on abortion and was honoring her as an outstanding educator. Cellucci, he said, was invited for his contributions to international diplomatic relations. The ambassador is a graduate of the Boston College Law School.
Discussing Dissent?
In a separate action, Boston College announced May 15 the development of undergraduate and graduate programs and lectures on the priestly sex scandal that will begin to be offered in the fall. While presenting Church teaching and maintaining respect for the hierarchy, the programs will discuss a range of issues that could be controversial, said Jesuit Father William Leahy, college president.
Father Leahy said that the Church's hierarchical structure, its teachings on sexual ethics and the celibate priesthood will be among the issues under discussion, the Boston Globe reported. The academic programs also will reach out to the Boston community, with faculty members giving public lectures, the school stated.
In announcing the new programs, which he said would continue for about two years at the campus, Father Leahy said students and faculty are “baffled, bewildered and angry” about the reports of sexual abuse by priests and some bad decisions by members of the hierarchy. “I think people feel betrayed,” he said. “I do.”
He said that Cardinal Bernard Law, whose office is across the street from the college's campus, decided not to attend this year's commencement exercises after hearing that some students and faculty would protest against his presence. Father Leahy said the cardinal, who has been at the center of lawsuits accusing two Boston priests of sexually abusing minors, told him that he did not want his attendance to be a distraction from the ceremony.
Commenting on Boston College's honoring of abortion supporters, Father Peter West of Priests for Life said, “It's totally inappropriate for a Catholic institution to be giving an award to a pro-abortion politician or other public person. Catholics today are examining how well we have responded to such things as the Holocaust or the sexual abuse of children. In the future, we will have to answer for the fact that at a time we were stating officially that abortion is the taking of innocent human life, we were giving awards to people who promote abortion.”
Student Perspective
Boston College student Steve Calme, who runs a conservative newspaper on campus, said via an e-mail statement, “It is true that Ms. Lightfoot and Mr. Cellucci have many commendable accomplishments, but does BC want to send the message to its graduating seniors that it is acceptable to support abortion as long as you do other things that are more positive? As a Catholic institution, Boston College should be promoting the sanctity of life as fundamental to a healthy society.”
Lawrence-Lightfoot will take charge of the MacArthur Foundation board this summer. Reilly called the foundation “a leading funder of radical and anti-Catholic organizations advocating abortion, contraception and population control.”
Reilly is a senior fellow of the Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C., which tracks phil-anthropic organizations. It has published reports documenting the MacArthur Foundation's support of Catholics for a Free Choice, a pro-abortion and pro-condom lobby that has been repeatedly denounced by the U.S. bishops as opposed to the Church's mission and not authentically Catholic.
The MacArthur Foundation also supports International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world's largest private abortion provider, and population control programs in South America, Africa and India, Reilly said.
In response to the criticism over its commencement honorees, BC spokesman Dunn said the college should be recognized for “reaching out to embrace the Catholic Church” through its planned academic programs on the sexual scandals, which he said are intended to promote healing. Dunn added that the school is showing support for priests and defending the Church by the honorary degrees it bestowed this year on Jesuit theologian Father John O'malley of the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass.; Elisabeth Zweig, head of Greater Boston Catholic Charities; and Notre Dame de Namur Sister Marie Santry, principal of the nation's oldest African-American Catholic school in Natchez, Miss.
Other Schools
Boston College isn't the only Jesuit university facing criticism for an alleged failure to adhere to Church teachings. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Society of Jesus, commented in 1997 that secularization is rampant in Jesuit universities. “For some [Jesuit] universities,” he told Father Richard John Neuhaus during the Special Assembly for America of the Synod of Bishops in Rome, “it is probably too late to restore their Catholic character.”
Among the other Catholic institutions honoring abortion supporters this spring is Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Also run by the Jesuits, the university featured U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a pro-abortion Democrat from California, as commencement speaker for the School of Foreign Service.
Speaking at the Georgetown law school's graduation were former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams, both vocal abortion supporters. Giuliani also marched often in the annual Gay Pride Parade on Fifth Avenue, which passed St. Patrick's Cathedral on a Sunday.
A Georgetown spokeswoman said in a statement to the Register that in inviting speakers, the university looks at their records of public service and “the totality of their careers and services.”
Noting that similar statements are routinely offered by Catholic institutions hosting abortion supporters, Father West said, “What would a person have to do or say to be disqualified in the eyes of these schools? Isn't advocating the killing of innocent children in the womb enough?”
Brian Caulfield writes from West Haven, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: College Honors to the Culture of Death DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Along with Boston College and Georgetown, the following Catholic institutions were cited by the Cardinal Newman Society for honoring individuals who hold positions contrary to Church teachings:
E College of New Rochelle (N.Y.): Mary O'Connor Donohue, pro-abortion lieutenant governor of New York, was scheduled to speak May 23.
E College of St. Catherine (Minn.): Pro-abortion U.S. Rep. Betty McCullom, D-Minn., who has opposed legislation to ban cloning of human embryos, spoke May 19.
E College of St. Rose (N.Y.): Frank Rhodes, president emeritus of Cornell University, spoke May 11. In 1987, Rhodes publicly welcomed dissident theologian Charles Curran to teach at Cornell during Father Curran's dispute with The Catholic University of America, which eventually fired him for dissent from Church teaching on contraception, divorce and homosexuality.
E Le Moyne College (N.Y.) Chief Judge Judith Kaye of the New York State Court of Appeals spoke May 19. In 1998, Kaye wrote the court's ruling that individuals and not the state have the right to determine the fate of frozen embryos, who are not “persons.” In 1995, Kaye wrote the court's ruling that homosexual and unmarried partners may adopt children.
E Lourdes College (Ohio): U.S. Rep. Marcie Kaptur, D-Ohio, spoke and received an honorary degree May 18. Kaptur's voting record includes votes in support of abortion rights.
E Loyola College (Md.): Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell spoke May 18. Mitchell authored the Freedom of Choice Act and consistently supported abortion rights.
E Marywood University (Pa.): Yolanda King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke May 12. King is an activist for homosexual rights.
E Mount St. Mary's College (Calif.): Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, spoke May 11. Panetta publicly supported Clinton's position on abortion, including partial-birth abortion. As a U.S. Congressman from California, Panetta co-sponsored the Freedom of Choice Act in 1990.
E Notre Dame College (Ohio): Pro-abortion U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, spoke May 11.
E Saint Michael's College (Vt.): Barbara Snelling, a pro-abortion former lieutenant governor of Vermont and state senator received an honorary degree May 12.
E Stonehill College (Mass.):—Paul Kirk, Jr., former Democratic National Chairman and abortion-rights advocate, spoke May 19.
E Wheeling Jesuit University (W.Va): Pro-abortion Governor Bob Wise of West Virginia spoke May 18. As a U.S. Congressman from West Virginia, Wise helped defeat a ban on partial-birth abortion.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: China Whitewash? DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:BEIJING —A Chinese woman was four-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child when she refused orders to report to a hospital for an abortion.
“I went into hiding in my mother's village. Then my brother, my older sister and my younger sister were all arrested,” she said. “I had no choice but to go somewhere else to hide. They arrested three people in my mother's family but didn't destroy any homes. They arrested six people in my mother-in-law's family and destroyed three homes.”
The woman's testimony was taped in a covert fact-finding mission sponsored by the Population Research Institute last September in China's Guangdong province in Sihui county, where the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has desks in the same office as the Chinese Family Planning Office. It was one of more than two dozen video and audio-taped testimonies documenting pressure, imprisonment, severe financial penalties, destruction of houses and property, forced abortions and involuntary sterilization to keep birth rates down in the region where UNFPA officials claim women freely choose the number and spacing of their children.
Now Congress is in a heated tugof-war over whether the UNFPA is entitled to $34 million in American tax dollars to spend on family planning programs—including operations in 32 Chinese counties—or whether such funding violates U.S. law (the Kemp-Kasten Amendment forbids taxpayer funding of coercive family planning programs and abortion).
On May 13 a three-member “assessment team” appointed by the State Department left on a two-week mission to China to investigate UNFPA programs there and to determine if they are coercive. The team leader, William Brown, former ambassador to Thailand and Israel, was accompanied by Bonnie Glick, a foreign service officer, and University of Arizona public health professor Theodore Tong. They are expected to issue a report to President George W. Bush by the end of June.
Congressional Votes
Before the envoy set out, on May 9 the House Appropriations Committee narrowly passed an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill requiring that all $34 million be released to the UNFPA by July 10, barring evidence that the population control agency is violating the law. Human rights advocates saw the 32-31 vote as unfair since two representatives who intended to vote against it were absent; Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., reportedly rushed in late but his vote was refused.
The vote was reversed on May 15, however, when representatives passed by a 32-30 vote an amendment by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. It restored discretion to the president to determine whether UNFPA “participates in the management of coercive abortions and involuntary sterilization” and to deny or grant funding to UNFPA no later than July 31.
Pro-life and human rights advocates fear the state department's report will whitewash abuses that have been well documented by others. “China is a police state … where the comings and goings of foreigners are closely monitored, and Chinese live in fear of speaking out of turn,” said Steven Mosher, president of the Front Royal, Va.-based Population Research Institute, which commissioned the September 2001 fact-finding investigation that documented China's abuses.
Mosher is the first sociologist to have documented China's brutal enforcement of its one-child policy, and he has written several books on the subject.
Although the Chinese government has agreed to let the State Department visitors go where they wish, Beijing officials will accompany them and have required 24 hours notice of where they intend to go. “A day is more than enough time for the Chinese government to alert officials of their coming and for cover stories of ‘voluntarism’ to be in place,” Mosher said.
Rep. Tiahrt's aide, Knapp, concurred. “We assume the Peoples Republic of China will take [the team members] to only the places it wants them to go,” he said. “We don't mean to impugn our team, but the conditions are hardly conducive to finding the truth.”
UNFPA Responds
“We at the UNFPA are pleased that the team is going to China. We hope that this will settle the issue once and for all,” said UNFPA spokesman Stirling Scruggs.
“We have never supported coercion of any kind in any part of the world.”
But China is unapologetic about its coercive one-child policy, instituted in 1979. In late 2000 the government redoubled its coercive population control measures, claiming to have prevented at least 250 million births since 1980. “We cannot just be content with the current success, we must make population control a permanent policy,” stated an editorial in the state-run communist newspaper, The People's Daily.
The one child policy stipulates that couples living in cities may have one child if they are married, but marriage is prohibited to those younger than age 23. In rural areas, couples may be permitted a second child after an interval of several years, especially if the first child is a girl.
The policy has resulted in widespread sex selective abortions and an alarming sex ratio imbalance: 116.9 males for every 100 females, according to 2000 census data released this month by officials in Beijing. (The normal ratio is 105 to 107 boys for every 100 girls). In one region, the birth ratio was 135 boys to 100 girls.
Some experts estimate there are already 70 million more men than women in China, a problem portending enormous social and economic instability, including increased trafficking in kidnapped young women.
Other ill effects of China's birth control policy have been reported internationally. A scandal erupted in 2000 after a doctor who tried to save an unlicensed newborn saw government birth control officials seize the baby and drown him in a rice paddy.
In March 2000, China drew fire from human rights groups worldwide when, as part of a widespread crackdown against religion, it arrested 20 members of a religious group opposed to the severe reproductive restrictions.
“We believe there is still coercion in China, but not in our counties,” explained UNFPA's Scruggs. “But you can never be absolutely sure of anything.”
Scruggs conceded that in some of the Chinese counties that UNFPA operates, people suffer crippling financial penalties if they have more children than they have been licensed for. “That's something we're trying to change,” he said. “We talk with Chinese officials every time there's evidence of coercion. We are there as a voice of the UN and of all governments.”
However, Scruggs acknowledged UNFPA has been similarly trying to discourage the national preference for girls for 20 years, with “gender empowerment” programs that have been copied by other agencies. The UNFPA effort has produced little benefit, as the sex ratio has dramatically worsened since 1990.
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said he holds Scruggs and the UNFPA “in contempt” because they have turned a blind eye to “massive human rights atrocities … right under their noses” and in so doing have become China's “chief accomplice” and “enabler.”
Far from condemning and trying to change China's brutality, Smith added, UNFPA has publicly “lavished praise” on China for its population control campaign. And he criticized a report UNFPA issued last year claiming no link between China's one-child policy and UNFPA. The U.N. agency's self-exoneration was based on an investigation of UNFPA operations in China conducted by two former UNFPA executives and a committee chairman at the United Nation's 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
The UNFPA envoys were escorted by Chinese family planning officials with whom they shared a barbecue after a whirlwind investigation that, according to Smith, included only 15 minutes in the Family Planning Service offices in Sihui county.
Smith feared that a similar report from the State Department team in China could be devastating. Not only might millions of American tax dollars start flowing through UNFPA to coercive programs, but it would serve as a seal of international approval for ongoing, brutal human rights abuses in China, he warned.
Smith and other pro-life advocates also feared President Bush might decide to interpret the Kemp-Kasten Amendment as President Clinton did—and as did a 2001 memo signed by Secretary of State Colin Powell—to allow funding of UNPA operations in regions where coercion is found not to exist.
“We urge you to use the original interpretation of Kemp-Kasten,” said a letter to the president drafted by the Population Research Institute and to be signed by pro-family organizations said. “Two previous presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, determined that UNFPA activities in China alone were sufficient to render UNFPA ineligible to receive U.S. funds.”
‘Bottom Line’
“The bottom line is people should be calling the White House to let the president know where they stand,” PRI spokesman Scott Weinberg said.
Added Rep. Smith: “To adhere to the law we should have nothing whatsoever to do with a country that is coercing women to abort. Forced abortions by the Nazis were properly ruled a crime against humanity at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. It is no less a crime today.”
Celeste McGovern writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: Critics Question U.S. Investigation Of United Nations Population Fund ----- EXTENDED BODY: Celeste McGovern ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Serving the Men Who Give Their Lives DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:SAN FRANCISCO — Father Paul Donlan, 64, an Operation Desert Storm Navy chaplain, saw nearly every wartime experience imaginable.
His story is the story of what war and its combatants look like through the eyes of a priest. To him soldiers were not statistics but real men whose confessions he heard, men he said Mass for and to whom he gave Communion, men whom he shepherded through the trying time of war.
Father Donlan even spiritually directed some men he will remember this Memorial Day—men who did not return home alive.
“It was a profoundly enriching experience,” said Father Donlan, who now lives in San Francisco. “It taught me never to take anything for granted: sunshine, securi-
ty and safety, a restroom, a bed. The minimum comforts of every day are absolutely luxurious.”
Chaplains such as Donlan are the unsung heroes who risk life and limb for the souls of those who risk life and limb for their country, said Gilbert Duran, 40, a first sergeant in the U.S. Army who has been in the military for more than 20 years.
Their role can be simple and profound. “They're somebody in uniform who has compassion,” Duran said, “someone you can confide in and turn to in any crisis, whether it's dealing with missing home, loneliness, death, marriage-counseling. They're looked upon highly.”
Father Donlan, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, was sworn in and commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Navy in 1988. Within four years, he was on the front lines of the Persian Gulf War.
During that anxious time, Father Donlan ministered to many soldiers— Catholics and non-Catholics alike—in Al Jubayl, Saudi Arabia. “I said daily Mass most of the time,” he said. “I carried the Blessed Sacrament in a pyx with me always. I was ready to give Communion at all times. I was a walking tabernacle.”
While in Saudi Arabia, Father Donlan baptized two soldiers: a private first class and his commanding officer, a lieutenant colonel.
“The [private first class] and I stood on a sand dune at sunset along with his sponsor,” he said. “I used my canteen to baptize him.”
He also spoke a lot about compassion and remembered telling troops that “these Iraqi soldiers don't want to fight, they want to be with their families. They are being used by a dictator. We are not to be vicious or cruel.” He encouraged soldiers to detach themselves and to remember that “we're here to do a mission, to do it and get home.”
Memories of War
His pastoral care also included bittersweet moments that he said showed him what it means to be a part of the human family.
Before departing Camp Lejeune, N.C., a Southern Baptist organist who played at Sunday Mass approached Father Donlan about a Marine who was friends with her daughter. The organist knew the Marine was Catholic but had not been practicing his faith for some time. Both she and her daughter were concerned for his soul as he was being deployed to Saudi Arabia. Father Donlan wrote down the name of the soldier — Cpl. Michael Cooke.
While in Saudi Arabia, Father Donlan providentially befriended Cooke. With Father Donlan's support, he returned to the sacraments and the practice of the faith. Not long after that, Cooke was killed by the accidental explosion of a hand grenade, after having completed a dangerous mission of reconnaissance behind enemy lines.
“On the day he died I was administering to the Catholics of another battalion miles away,” Father Donlan said. “When I returned to my battalion, a bunch of Marines were waiting by my fighting hole to talk. It was very emotional. I spent the rest of the night counseling.”
Cooke was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for a particular heroic deed performed during his last mission.
Father Donlan also sadly recalled a 19-year-old Catholic Marine who committed suicide.
Father Donlan arrived at the bloody scene and gave the dead man conditional absolution and anointing. The incident greatly disturbed fellow Marines. “It was sad,” Father Donlan said, “I did grief counseling. I talked to one officer who threw himself into my arms. The soldiers were close, like fathers and sons.”
He said the fraternity and solidarity of men in combat is very close and very real. “It's a strong brotherhood,” he said. “It really is a band of brothers. It's grounded in God and can be built on. It teaches you what it means to be a human being. We depend on each other.”
A Battlefield Christmas
Christmas of 1990 was an exceptional time for Father Donlan. “I heard many confessions. It was a great time for prayer,” he said. He remembered in particular celebrating Christmas Eve Mass and talking to the troops about the similarities between their Christmas and the world's first Christmas. He told them, “The Holy Family had been uprooted from Nazareth by a decree of Caesar Augustus. Imagine the loneliness of it all. But they had each other. They had love. We have God and each other.”
That Christmas, Father Donlan said, “we sang our hearts out. We prayed up a storm.” And, indeed, a storm came.
On Jan. 17, 1991, one day after the deadline for Iraq to comply with the U.N. mandate that Iraqi forces withdraw from Kuwait, the month-long bombing of Baghdad began. It hailed the advent of Operation Desert Storm. On Feb. 24 the ground war began.
“We were one of the first units to go in,” Father Donlan said. “It was a very tense combat situation. The adrenaline flowed. There were some scary moments.”
One such scary moment was when he was with a convoy advancing in Kuwait. Suddenly the convoy stopped. They were told to put on their gas masks and MOPP gear—Level 4, which meant covering every exposed part of their skin. They were expecting an attack of nerve gas.
Father Donlan remembered the incident: “For the first time in my life I felt panic. I remember praying ‘Lord, not like this. Lord, not like this.’ I said an act of contrition.” Fortunately, the attack turned out to be a false alarm and Father Donlan survived the rest of the 100-hour ground war.
Looking Back
Rabbi Jon Cutler, 45, a fellow chaplain and the only Jewish Rabbi for the Marines during Desert Storm, recalled Father Donlan's good nature. “We were and still are good friends,” Rabbi Cutler said. “He's a very likable person, and he has a real sense of integrity and fairness. He was truly committed to being a priest and a chaplain.”
Rabbi Cutler adds, “I was very impressed with Father Paul's tremendous respect for Judaism and other religious faiths. I was impressed with his ecumenical nature, his openness. He was never judgmental and had a good sense about him.”
Father Donlan's relationship with the Marines was also very strong according to Rabbi Cutler. “He was tremendously respected by the Marines. They respected him because he showed respect for them.”
In retrospect, Father Donlan said he knows God supported him both physically and spiritually during his time in the Persian Gulf.
“The five months were short but very intense. Physically, you adapt to everything,” said Father Donlan. “I think the Lord gives you special strength to adapt. We lived in hot, cold, windy and dry weather. There were flies. You got used to everything.”
He added, “I knew people were praying for me. I felt the communion of saints. I truly experienced the communion of saints.”
As America is now engaged in a far more insidious war, Father Donlan offered these words of counsel to soldiers and civilians alike: “The time has come for the American people to be ready spiritually, psychologically and emotionally to be able to handle an attack as great or greater than those of Sept. 11. We haven't seen the end of it yet. We must have an awareness that at any moment something could happen.”
Martin Mazloom writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Martin Mazloom ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In May, Rosaries For Peace - And Priests DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—As May, the month dedicated to Mary draws to a close, the rosary is moving to the center of Catholics' attention.
Special Masses and recitations of the rosary in the United States, Ireland and England will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of “rosary priest” Father Patrick Peyton. Father Peyton, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., died June 3, 1992. The opening of his sainthood cause was announced in June 2001 by the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., where Father Peyton is buried.
Meanwhile, rosaries are being encouraged to pray for tensions in the Middle East, the United States' new terror alert and the clergy abuse scandals.
Pope John Paul II, who has been urging Catholics to say the rosary daily, has re-emphasized the call.
Speaking to a gathering on the Island of Ischia off the Italian Coast on May 5th, the Pope said, “I always carry in my heart the difficult situations in which not a few peoples of the world find themselves. I wish to present to the Virgin the petition for security and peace that rises insistently from so many parts, especially from the Holy Land. I invite you to pray with me to Our Lady so that these sorrowful invocations will be fulfilled.”
Bishop Donald Montrose, the former bishop of Stockton, Calif., says that Mary understands our troubles. Catholics should think of Mary as their mother because “when people are suffering a mother suffers along with them.”
Father Albert Roux of the Marian Movement of Priests has called upon those involved with his organization to pray with increased intensity because of the Church scandals.
Tammy Oullette at the Marian Movement of Priests Headquarters in St. Francis, Maine said the Marian Movement has been clear in its call for people to seek Mary's intercession in response to the scandals. As a result of the scandal in the Church, “we are calling for increased cenacles of prayer,” Oullette said, explaining that such a cenacle consists of two or more people praying together, and that literature on how to form acenacle is available through the national headquarters.
Oullette suggested that among other devotions, the laity avail themselves of “consecrations to the Immaculate Heart [and] the rosary” during this time.
According to Oullette, as a result of the scandal more people have been returning to prayer. “They are
realizing that prayer and fasting is our only recourse,” she said, adding that Mary's intercession is extremely beneficial.
Peace and Victory Michael Six, the National Rosary Congress Coordinator for the Blue Army in Washington, N.J., stressed that Marian devotion—and especially the rosary — are key to a peaceful world. “In the apparition at Fatima, Our Lady said to pray the rosary every day for world peace.”
Said Six, “There are connections between our actions the world, and we can have a mitigation of war through prayer and especially through the rosary.”
Six also cited the example of the battle of Lepanto in 1571 in which the badly outnumbered Christian fleet defeated the Moorish fleet in a critical victory as a case in which a rosary crusade preceded a military victory. Rosary crusades have also been instrumental in the overthrow of communist governments in Austria in the 1950s and in Brazil in the 1960s, and the prevention of a communist takeover of Portugal in the 1970s.
Six explained that the Blue Army's campaign to get people to say the rosary has been working. They Blue Army launched “The National Rosary Crusade for America” in 1996 in reparation for the sins of Americans and to fulfill the request by Our Lady at Fatima that people pray the rosary each day. Since the program's inception the Blue Army has documented more than 6 million rosaries said, with more than 1 million of those documented since Sept. 13.
Though the national headquarters of the Blue Army has not started a specific rosary crusade as a result of the scandals in the Church, Six said that “some Blue Army divisions have been praying individually for priests” since the crisis. He added that the “Blue Army [as a whole] is praying for priests,” as it has always done. He also said that it is important to remember that the difficulty is with a small number of priests, and “Catholics should pray for them.”
In this period of our country's history, it is especially urgent that people rediscover the rosary, said Six, who sees the recent terrorist attacks as “something horrible, but also a removal of God's protection: a chastisement for our sins.” According to Six: “We have time, but we must change.” At Fatima, he explained, Our Lady described war as “a punishment for sin.”
Car and Home
Another voice echoing the importance of the rosary at this time, especially for families is that of Holy Cross Father Tom Feeley. Father Feeley is the vice-postulator for the most famous rosary crusader of all, Father Peyton, who organized rosary crusades around the world, spreading the message that “The family that prays together, stays together.”
Father Feeley, who is currently working on a series of rosary meditations and will be sending 1 million rosaries to World Youth Day, says that families especially can use May as a time to rediscover Mary. “Invite her into the home, he explained, “and let her be the unseen member of the family at every meal.”
He explained that the rosary is a very versatile prayer. “We can say it in the car,” he said, “it's a great cure for road rage.”
“I judge distances by the number of rosaries I can say,” he continued, and he stressed that “you're not wasting your time when you pray.”
According to Father Feeley, “The rosary is really a contemplative prayer,” and a means for people to come to the “silence and interior peace that comes from living in the presence of God and Our Lady.”
Pope John Paul II had a very similar message May 5 in Ischia, noting: “During the month of May, which has just begun, in the school and company of Mary, we can journey in a truly contemplative way through the recitation of the holy rosary. This traditional practice is undoubtedly a most valid aid to contemplate the mysteries of the life of Christ.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Putting God on the Air DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:James Duffy is the president and founder of Avila Radio and the author of the new book, The Mission of Catholic Radio.
Formerly with EWTN as international radio marketing manager, he has spent 11 years working for various Catholic apostolates and nonprofits. Duffy spoke from Georgia with Register features correspondent Tim Drake.
Where are you from originally?
I grew up in Indiana in a small town north of Indianapolis. I'm the oldest of five children. I have three brothers and a sister. I went to a Catholic grade school and to a public high school. My father worked for General Motors and my mother was a homemaker and made the home very well. It was a great upbringing.
Have you always been Catholic?
Yes; the area where I grew up was only about 2% Catholic. In high school I got involved with a bunch of evangelical friends and participated in Bible studies with them, but I never left the faith. I was always a server at weekday Masses. It kept me on the straight and narrow. I attended college in Spain and studied in Ireland and Italy. During that time I did Catholic missionary work.
You've spent 11 years working with various Catholic apostolates. What specifically led to your work in radio?
After college, when I was in Italy, I would go to Bologna and while there I did a multilingual rosary for Radio Maria. It was interesting because people would come up to me on the street and they would say, “You were the American guy doing the rosary on the radio.” This excited me for the possibility of radio. It opened my eyes to how many people listen to radio and the fact that the faith could be increased through it.
When I was working with Youth and Family Encounter I prayed a lot about my career. I debated between wanting to go into something where I could make money or continuing working full time for the Church. I decided that I wanted to keep working for the Church, but I wanted to be effective. So, media seemed like the most effective way to spread God's word. At the time I met Dave Targonski at EWTN and he said they were looking for someone in radio. One thing led to another and I ended up being hired. That providentially led me to Birmingham. I really enjoyed working with EWTN. Everyone is focused on the spread of the Word and also on producing high-quality material.
From all those years working for the Church you must have some good stories to tell.
I remember on a trip to Poland once the culture shock finally hit me. We went to dinner with a priest at his parish and he brought out three-dayold milk that had come straight from a cow and had been sitting on a shelf. It was slimy. He said it was a delicacy in Poland and that very few Americans probably had this. So we had to choke that down—a sort of half-baked, room-temperature cottage cheese.
I always enjoyed working with the youth. Sometimes I would work with kids that were headed in the wrong direction. There was one teen from Canada that I recall. After a weekend retreat he was so moved that he entered the seminary. It's powerful what God can do even through young people. It's sometimes easier to see God working through young people because they are more open and they take on ideals.
How many Catholic radio stations are there across the United States?
There are about 42 full-time Catholic radio stations and about 65 others that have some Catholic programming, sometimes an hour or two a week. They are very spread out. The biggest concentration is in Wisconsin and Michigan. About half of the 42 are EWTN affiliates.
How did you decide to begin Avila Radio?
When I was with EWTN I discovered that there were about 160 groups in the United States that wanted to start radio stations. During my time with EWTN, we were able to help seven get started. The problem is distribution.
We need a group dedicated to training people in how to get stations up and running. That was my whole purpose in starting Avila Radio in early 2001. We are currently working with groups in Atlanta and Denver. In the next few months we hope to pick up about four more. We work with lay groups or dioceses and train them to manage the campaigns. We provide a 130-page manual, marketing, training materials and infrastructure so that they can create independently owned Catholic radio stations.
In some ways it seems as if Catholic radio lags behind Protestant radio. Why do you think that is?
There are 1,200 full-scale Protestant radio stations in the U.S. If you include the low-power stations it's 1,500. One of the things I've noticed in this work is that Catholics sometimes have a hard time pulling together with one vision and one mind. Protestant evangelicals seem to be very good at that. Therefore they tended to pull together in larger groups and got a jump-start. Catholics are the single-largest denomination in the U.S., so the potential for Catholic radio is huge. Our goal is to have helped bring on 200 more Catholic radio stations in the next 10 to 15 years. We are seeing good fruits in the effort so far. I think we can do it.
What are the key steps to starting a Catholic radio station?
First, we always say if you want to start a Catholic radio station you should call us, because we can take a lot of the headache out of it. What we do is train in fund raising, publicity and organization and also in getting the blessing from the local bishop. We don't work anywhere unless we have the bishop's blessing.
We also have available our book, The Mission of Catholic Radio. It comes with a 70-minute audio CD that has three founders of Catholic radio stations speaking about the virtues of founding a station. It's a great motivation for anyone interested in starting Catholic radio or for any Catholic apostolate.
What kind of fruits have you seen born from the work of Catholic radio stations?
One station in Midland, Texas, recently had two Protestant ministers convert to the Catholic faith in part because of listening to a station there. They started listening out of curiosity, but eventually got hooked and said, “This makes sense, where can I get more information?” The station linked them up with a local RCIA program.
There is also a story of a woman in Buffalo, N.Y. She was in the process of becoming an evangelical and was praying, in her car, that God would relieve her of her Catholic “baggage.” As she was pulling out of a parking lot she almost hit another car that had a bumper sticker for a local Catholic radio station. She figured that listening to the station would help her in her decision. After listening to it for three hours she had most of her questions answered and made the decision to remain Catholic. Hearing the good that Catholic radio stations do keeps me going. Catholic radio is exciting. There is increased interest weekly. I love it.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Duffy ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Bipartisan Marriage Amendment Introduced in Congress DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Standing before a multicultural and religiously diverse crowd, Mississippi Democrat Ronnie Shows introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment into the House May 15.
“I am convinced that our nation will need to take the extraordinary step of amending the Constitution in order to preserve the legal status of marriage and the family for future generations,” said Shows.
The proposed amendment would define marriage across the United States as only between a male and a female. It would prohibit federal or state courts from redefining marriage to include other groupings, like homosexual relationships.
“Gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose. But they don't have a right to redefine marriage for our entire society,” said Matt Daniels, executive director of the Alliance for Marriage, which first proposed the amendment last year.
Walter Fauntroy marched for civil rights with Martin Luther King in 1964. He supports the amendment because he believes marriage is the most effective deterrent to societal ills.
“Because of what is happening to the institution of marriage and the family in our country today, the prospects of our overcoming the teen pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse, school drop out rates, low self-esteem, divorce and poverty rates in our communities are getting dimmer every day,” he said.
Fauntroy added, “Marriage between a man and a woman, who commit themselves to one another and to the children who are the offspring of that union, is the basis for socialization of our young where we learn to care for, protect and defend one another.”
Five other congressmen joined Shows in the introduction of the amendment: Reps. Ralph Hall, D-Texas; David Phelps, D-Ill.; Chris Cannon, R-Utah; Sue Myrick, RN.C., and Jo Ann Davis, R-Va.
The proposed amendment reads:
“Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
Feminists and homosexual activists immediately pounced on the legislation as “anti-gay.”
“At a time when not a single gay couple can marry in any state of this nation, and as our country faces much larger challenges, this is hardly the kind of sideshow anyone needs,” said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual lobby group in Washington, D.C.
Kim Gandy, head of National Organization for Women, agreed.
“I never cease to be amazed that anyone would actively oppose the marriage of any two people who want to make a legal commitment to love, honor and support each other,” Gandy said. “But proposing to amend the Constitution to specifically discriminate against the lesbian and gay community is mean-spirited.”
Catholic Support
But religious leaders from across the country came to the defense of the Federal Marriage Amendment.
“Love and fidelity are indispensable virtues in any human relationship,” said Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, archbishop of Philadelphia. “Marriage, however, is defined as the exclusive relationship of one man and one woman. This definition is non-negotiable aand irrevocable,” the archbishop said.
“Today, the institution of marriage is being questioned and even threatened by those who want to redefine it. It is unfortunate that even legislative bodies in some countries, including our own, are attempting to equate other styles of unions of persons with the traditional definition of marriage and family,” Cardinal Bevilacqua added.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver echoed Cardinal Bevilacqua's comments.
“I join Cardinal Bevilacqua in his support of all who are working toward including a definition of marriage in the federal constitution,” said Cardinal George. “It might seem strange that what has been taken for granted through all of recorded human history should now have to be made explicit in the federal constitution. But what has been evident for everyone through all ages can no longer be assumed as given.”
Said Archbishop Chaput, “Common sense, human experience and the wisdom of our religious heritages all support the substance of this amendment.”
Dr. Jesse Miranda said that the Federal Marriage Amendment had the strong support of Latinos. Miranda is founding president of the Alianza de Ministerios Evangèlicos Nacionales, a coalition of the largest Evangelical Hispanic churches in the United States and Puerto Rico, representing over 7.7 million Latinos.
“Courts in America are poised to erase the legal road map to marriage and the family from American law,” Miranda said. “In fact, the weakening of the legal status of marriage in America at the hands of the courts has already begun.”
Added Miranda, “We are very pleased that a bipartisan group of leaders in Congress has responded to our call to defend the right of the American people to determine for themselves—and for their children and grandchildren — the status of marriage under American law.”
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the nation's largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, stated: “The Federal Marriage Amendment is a reasonable and appropriate response to recent decisions by America's courts in an important arena of social policy. The amendment does not sanction discrimination against homosexuals. It will, however, enshrine in law the traditional and historical definition of the institution of marriage.”
Curbing the Courts
Daniels noted that the legislation would not preclude a state legislature from conferring civil unions to homosexual partners. He noted that civil unions exist today only in Vermont, but that they were imposed by the state's high court, not decided by the people's elected representatives.
“Vermont was court-mandated,” said Daniels. He also noted that 80% of civil unions granted in Vermont are to people from out-of-state. “The amendment doesn't change the status quo. It protects the legal status quo from court-mandated change.”
Amendments to the Constitution require two-thirds approval of both Houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states before becoming law. Only 27 amendments have survived the ratification process over the last 200 years.
Daniels predicted that the debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment would evaporate if state courts would stop trying to force states to recognize homosexual unions.
“All of this is dependent on court cases. If they stop, we won't need this,” said Daniels. “But the courts will do the will of the activists. And I believe this amendment will be ratified.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Absent Parents Drowning ‘Tweens’ in Cash
Such children are increasingly given lavish allowances by “guilt-ridden” parents, who work too many hours to spend much time with them, the paper said. “Tween financial wherewithal is reshaping childhood itself,” it warned, pointing to high-priced pre-teen rituals such as luxury birthday parties, lasertag games, catered bar mitzvahs and other high-end entertainments, which some children are coming to expect.
The Monitor cited another study that found that “tweens” expect parents to spend between $124 and $182 on their Christmas gifts. The story concluded that “to many tweens, money is something that spills from ATMs.”
Bush Aide's Resignation Highlights Women's Hard Choices
The Globe columnist noted that Hughes was strongly motivated by concern about her 15-year-old son, whom she wished to be schooled in Texas, rather than Washington, D.C.
“It is an undisputed fact that women are far more likely than men to quit or scale back their careers for family reasons… A man who puts in long hours at work can be seen as working ‘for’ his family; a woman tends to be seen as shortchanging hers,” Young noted. She suggested that there is some biological basis for this, in the different psychologies of men and women, and the priorities they bring to the workplace.
But Young also argued that some of these priorities are malleable, and that men may have begun to defer career advancement for family reasons as well—although the evidence for such a change so far is scant.
Catholic College Coming to Georgia
The co-founders of the school have already collected nearly $10 million towards the creation of Southern Catholic College, which will operate in Dawsonville, Ga.
Paul Voss, the new school's vice president, is leaving a tenured position as a professor at Georgia State University to help start the school. “I jumped from a wonderful job to a bit of uncertainty,” he told the Journal-Constitution. “As a product of a Catholic school and somebody who values the Catholic intellectual tradition, it's a leap of faith both literally and figuratively.”
Tom Clements, another founder and the chairman of the college, retired in 1999 as CEO of Conduit Software, selling his business for some $70 million. “It became a question of how can I give back and build the community,” Clements said. “There are 235 Catholic colleges in the country. Only seven of them are in the Southeast. There are none in Georgia… [T]he Catholic population has increased by 95% in the last decade. Today we could support two or three Catholic colleges.”
Atlanta Archbishop John Donoghue led a groundbreaking service last week. While the diocese will not have an official role in the management of the college, its founders promise close cooperation with the Church.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Crunching Numbers: Vatican's Statistical Yearbook Shows Ups and Downs DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—If the Second Vatican Council were held today, the Vatican would have to invite more than 4,500 bishops—nearly twice the number that participated in the council.
The seating section for cardinals would have to be doubled, too. In 1962 there were 85 princes of the Church; today there are 176.
The numbers keep going up, and not just at the top of the Church hierarchy.
Since Pope John Paul II was elected in 1978, the number of lay missionaries has grown from about 3,000 to 126,000. The number of catechists has increased 15-fold, from 173,000 to 2.6 million.
The Vatican published its Statistical Yearbook of the Church in May, with statistics updated through Dec. 31, 2000. For number-crunching experts, the book offers everything from global totals of first communicants to analytical charts on priest-to-parishioner ratios.
Year after year, most of the raw numbers in this volume continue to rise. The ones that don't often flag a problem.
For those who track such things, world Catholic population reached 1.45 billion at the end of 2000—up 12 million over the previous year. That doesn't include places like China, where Catholics can't be accurately counted, so you probably could add up to 5 million to the global figure.
The down side: the percentage of Catholics in the global population has dropped from 17.8% in 1978 to just under 17.3% at the end of 2000. So the general population is growing faster than the Church.
The fastest Church growth continues to occur in Africa, which saw its Catholic population jump nearly 5% during the jubilee year—from 124 million to 130 million.
But a flag went up when Vatican officials saw the tally of Catholics for Europe—a drop of 1.5 million Catholics in a single year, even as the continent's population grew by 18 million. It was the fifth straight annual decline in Europe, the only place in the world where the Catholic population is going down.
During the current pontificate, the Church's social role has grown across the world, and it's reflected in the numbers: more than 103,000 Church-run health and social institutions, compared to 64,000 in 1978. That figure includes 16,500 clinics, 14,000 homes for the elderly, 8,700 orphanages and 11,600 marriage advice centers.
But the exception to that trend is a downturn in the number of Church-run hospitals, which went from 6,640 in 1978 to 5,853 in 2000. That's a worrisome development, and a sign that the Church in many countries — particularly in Europe and the Americas—can no longer afford to maintain big health complexes.
In almost every category, what the yearbook calls the Church's “workforce for the apostolate” has increased. In some cases, like catechists, it's been a genuine explosion, while in other areas, like diocesan clergy, it's a tenuous rise. The year 2000 saw an increase of 769 diocesan priests in the world, and the Vatican will gladly take that.
The number of permanent deacons also has enjoyed a steady increase during Pope John Paul's pontificate, going from about 5,000 in 1978 to nearly 28,000 today.
But the population of men and women religious continues to drop—though the rate of decrease has slowed. Male religious priests today number about 139,000 compared to 158,000 in 1978, and women religious have gone from 985,000 to 801,000 in the same period.
Church experts seeking consolation can turn to the pages that break down those numbers by continent and by country: In many dioceses of Africa and Asia, the numbers of religious have risen significantly over the last two decades.
The Vatican also found hopeful signs in the continued increase in the number of the world's seminarians. There were 62,000 seminarians at the higher education level in 1978, and more than 110,000 at the end of 2000. The biggest increases have come in Africa, Asia and South America.
One statistic the Vatican doesn't mind seeing drop is the number of annulment requests handled by diocesan and regional tribunals around the world. The new annulment cases introduced have actually decreased slightly over the last 22 years, from about 77,000 to 75,000.
One trend the Vatican has carefully tracked over the years is the number of marriages between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. The rate of mixed marriages seems to have peaked in the 1990s at close to 9% and has now leveled off at 8%.
Europe is the only continent that has shown an increase in mixed marriages under Pope John Paul II, but the rate has dropped substantially there over the last two years, too.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Thavis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Bush to Greet the Pope in Europe
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 14—It seems that Pope John Paul is a high priority for President Bush, who has made extensive, repeated efforts to win Catholic support for his presidency—for instance, by opposing federal funding for most stem cell research, and by seeking to ban all cloning. According to sources in the White House, the first schedule for Bush's trip next week to Rome did not include a papal visit.
Staffers realized that this was an oversight, reported the Associated Press, and juggled his schedule to accommodate the Holy See. Bush is expected to meet with the Holy Father on May 28, between the president's meetings with NATO officials and Russian diplomats.
Columnist Gloats Over Pope's Illness
He scorned the Pope's attempts to discipline and guide the American cardinals, and craft a new policy that protects youngsters from abuse, while preserving the rights of priests who are accused.
Then Keller suggested that John Paul had learned authoritarian ways from the Communist bureaucrats he used to confront—and finally become much like Leonid Brezhnev, in refusing to re-examine long-held doctrinal positions. The Times writer recounts a capsule history of the background behind Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, noting wistfully that the Church would be quite a different institution had Paul VI not reaffirmed her constant teaching about contraception. Keller went on to speculate about when John Paul will die—much the way the Rastafarians of Jamaica bang on a drum three times a day for the death of the Pope.
Two Cardinals Reach 80, Lose Voting Privileges
CWNEWS.COM, May 9—Senior citizens are a major factor in most secular elections—especially since retiree lobbies are frequently the best organized, and the elderly the most likely to vote. But in papal conclaves, no one over 80 may vote for a new pope, thanks to changes in electoral rules made by Pope Paul VI. CWNews.com reported this week that two cardinals, Bernardin Gantin and Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, had reached age 80 and joined the ranks of the non-voting cardinals. Gantin, once prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, will remain as dean of the College of Cardinals—although his age and ill health mean he will not actually preside over the election. That will fall instead to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as the most senior active cardinal.
The Catholic news site pointed out that Gantin has “worked closely with every Pontiff since Pius XII,” and “had often been seen as a potential Pope himself, and a representative of the rising strength of Catholicism in the Third World and especially in Africa.”
The other retiring cardinal, Kim, was archbishop of Seoul, Korea, from 1966 until 1998, when he retired—overseeing an explosion in the growth of the Church in his country. The Church now has 124 active cardinals—all but seven of whom were appointed by Pope John Paul II.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Traveling Pope to Stay at Three-Star Hotel in Baku DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY— History's most traveled Pope will pass an unlikely milestone in late May when he checks into a three-star hotel in Azerbaijan.
The one-night stay May 22 marks the first time in 96 foreign trips that Pope John Paul II has been forced to take accommodations in a commercial facility. The Hotel Irshad in downtown Baku has probably never hosted such an illustrious guest.
In most countries, the Pope beds down at the local bishop's residence, where he's given royal treatment, or he stays at the apostolic nunciature, the Vatican's equivalent of an embassy.
In a pinch, he has lodged at local monasteries or religious houses. Visiting his native Poland in 1997, he stayed at a Church-run retreat house in the Tatra Mountains. A few years ago in Georgia, he was the first overnight guest in a Caritas shelter for the homeless.
But a hotel? Until now, it's been considered highly unpontifical.
The problem in Azerbaijan is that the Catholic Church has no bishop's residence; in fact, it has no resident bishop. With only 120 Catholics in the entire country—and that's a high estimate—no Church-run building was big enough or equipped enough to host the Pope and his entourage.
In Armenia last year, the Pope stayed at the residence of Orthodox Catholicos Karekin II, a gesture of hospitality that was much appreciated by the Holy Father. But in predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, where the Orthodox are also a small minority, no such invitation was forthcoming.
That left the door open to the Hotel Irshad, whose name in the Azerbaijani language means, believe it or not, “spiritual guide.”
At $140 a night, the hotel is about $40 cheaper than the city's luxury hotels, including the Hyatt Regency, where journalists are staying. There's no swimming pool at the Irshad, and the rooms are rather small, according to local reports. On the other hand, each room has satellite TV and a Jacuzzi bathtub.
The Vatican has booked all 14 rooms, including the two best ones—rooms 51 and 61. The hotel manager says the Pope can make the final choice. The hotel advertises both as “rooms with a view” of the Caspian Sea, but apparently the sea is only barely visible from the balcony.
The hotel solution was arranged by Vatican officials who do the advance work for each of the Pope's foreign trips. Unlike rock stars or Hollywood celebrities, the Pope does not have a long list of “special needs” when he travels, Vatican sources said.
He generally eats the food that's served him, sleeps in whatever bed is made available and tries to grab some rest between meetings with a steady stream of Catholic groups and individuals.
“There are very few needs as far as the Pope is concerned. In fact, they tell us what he doesn't need. It's like bringing a monastic life here,” said a papal visit planner in Canada, where the Pope will visit in July.
The one growing concern in recent years has been to spare the Pope stair-climbing if at all possible. Concealed minielevators have been built at Mass sites so the slow-moving Holy Father can easily reach the altar, and there are plans to use hydraulic lifts instead of stairs when the Pope disembarks from planes.
In Bulgaria, where the Pope travels after his night in Azerbaijan, workmen at the Orthodox Holy Synod headquarters were fixing the elevator inside and putting up a brass railing on the outside steps.
The Pope will stay at the nunciature in Bulgaria, where renovation has been going on for several months. Typically, when the Pope will be visiting a nunciature, the Vatican budgets tens of thousands of dollars for renovation work, money that's used to update utilities, communications and other facilities.
In Ukraine last year, Church officials hosted the Pope at the cathedral rectory in Lviv, which had only recently been given back to the Church by the government. Renovation work in the palace went down to the wire; sources said the paint was still damp in some of the rooms when the Pope arrived in Ukraine.
Visiting the African country of Senegal in 1992, the Pope stayed at the nunciature, where renovation work included the planting of fresh flower beds on the adjoining grounds. During his stay, local Muslims gave the Pope an unusual gift—a ram. Temporarily tethered outside the nunciature, the ram made short work of the flowers and any other edibles it could sink its teeth into.
At the Vatican, the Pope stays on the fifth floor of the Apostolic Palace, in a five-room apartment that is modestly furnished. A year after his election, he had to move out for renovation work, into a 15th-century tower that stands next to the western walls of Vatican City.
The cramped quarters in the tower probably didn't bother the Pope, who as a mountain-hiking priest spent many nights in more primitive lodgings: a tent and a sleeping bag.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Thavis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Is a Merciful Judge DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:During Morning Prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours offers us a series of intensely spiritual canticles to accompany the basic prayers of the psalms. Today we have heard one example, taken from the third and last chapter of the Book of Habakkuk. This prophet lived at the end of the seventh century B.C., when the kingdom of Judah felt itself crushed between two growing superpowers—
Egypt on one side and Babylon on the other.
Yet, many scholars believe that this final hymn may be a quotation. In this view, to Habakkuk's short manuscript there was added, as an appendix, what is definitely a liturgical song “to a plaintive tune,” to be accompanied “with stringed instruments” as the two notes at the beginning and the end of the canticle explain (see Habakkuk 3:1,19b). The Liturgy of the Hours draws upon the theme of this ancient prayer of Israel and invites us to transform this composition into a Christian song by selecting some of its more significant verses (see verses 2-4, 13a, 15-19a).
A God of Light
This hymn, which also displays considerable poetic intensity, presents a grandiose image of the Lord (see verses 3-4). His figure looms solemnly over the entire world and the universe trembles as he solemnly advances. He is coming from the south, from Teman and Mount Paran (see verse 3), from the area of Mt. Sinai, the site of the great epiphany and revelation for Israel. Psalm 68 also described how “from Sinai the Lord entered the holy place” of Jerusalem (see verse 18). Following an old biblical tradition, he is surrounded by light when he appears (see Habakkuk 3:4).
This radiance of his transcendent mystery is being communicated to mankind. Indeed, this light is beyond us: we cannot hold it and we cannot stop it. Yet this light envelops us and gives us light and warmth. God is like this—near yet far, beyond us yet near us, or better still, willing to be together with us and in us. As he reveals his majesty, the earth answers with a chorus of praise: it is a response of the universe, a kind of prayer to which man gives voice.
This interior experience has been deeply felt within our Christian tradition not only in the context of personal spirituality, but also in some bold artistic creations. Besides the majestic cathedrals of the Middle Ages, we would like to especially mention of the art of Eastern Christianity with its magnificent icons and the brilliant and ingenious architecture of its churches and monasteries.
In this regard, the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople remains to this very day a sort of archetype as to how to design space for Christian prayer, where the presence and elusiveness of light lets us feel both the intimacy and the transcendence of the reality of God. It penetrates the entire prayer community to the marrow of their bones and, at the same time, draws them out of themselves and immerses them wholly into this inef-fable mystery. The spiritual and artistic characteristics of the monasteries typical of the Eastern Christian tradition are equally significant. In these truly sacred spaces — and our thoughts turn immediately to Mount Athos—time bears in itself a sign of eternity. Through the constant prayer of the monks and hermits who have been compared to the angels over the centuries, the mystery of God is manifested and concealed in these spaces.
A God of Justice
But let us return to the canticle of the prophet Habakkuk. For this sacred author, the Lord's entrance into the world has a very precise meaning. He wishes to enter into the history of mankind—“in the course of the years,” as the second verse repeats two times —in order to judge and improve the vicissitudes of daily life that we face in a rather confused and often perverse way.
Then, God shows his wrath (see verse 2c) against sin. This canticle refers to a series of God's unrelenting interventions, but without specifying whether they are his direct or indirect actions. It recalls Israel's exodus when Pharaoh's horsemen were drowned in the sea (see verse 15). At the same time, the Lord's prospective work in confronting the new oppressors of his people flashes before our eyes. God's intervention is depicted in an almost “visible” way through a series of images drawn from agriculture: “For though the fig tree blossom not nor fruit be on the vines, thought the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment, though the flocks disappear from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls…” (verse
17). All signs of peace and fertility are eliminated and the world is like a desert. Other prophets were fond of using this symbol (see Jeremiah 4:19-26; 12:7-13; 14:1-10) to illustrate the Lord's judgment, which does not remain indifferent in the face of evil, oppression and injustice.
When faced with God's intervention, the one praying this prayer is terrified (see Habakkuk 3:16): his body trembles, he feels an emptiness in his soul, and he is seized with trembling, because the God of justice is infallible—very different from earthly judges.
A God of Mercy
But the Lord's entrance has yet another function that this canticle exalts with joy. Indeed, in spite of his wrath he will not forget his compassionate mercy (see verse 2). He goes forth from the horizon of his glory not only to destroy the arrogance of the wicked but also to save his people and his anointed one (see verse 13), which are Israel and its king. He also wants to liberate them from their oppressors, pour out hope in the hearts of these victims, and begin a new era of justice.
For this reason, this canticle, although characterized as a “plaintive tune,” is transformed into a hymn of joy. The disasters that are anticipated are actually aimed at liberating the people from their oppressors (see verse 15). Therefore they are the source of joy for the righteous who exclaim: “Yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God” (verse 18). Jesus suggested that his disciples have the same attitude in the time of apocalyptic catastrophes: “But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your hands, because your redemption is at hand” (Luke 21:28).
The final verse of Habakkuk's canticle, where he expresses the peace that he has attained once again, is very beautiful. Just as David did in Psalm 18, he describes the Lord not only as his “strength” but also as the one who make him swift, cool and peaceful in the face of danger. David sang, “I love you, O Lord, my strength..who made my feet as swift as those of hinds and set me on the heights…” (Psalm 18:2,
34). Now the author of this canticle exclaims: “God, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me to go upon the heights” (Habakkuk 3:19). When the Lord is at our side, we will no longer fear any threats or obstacles, but we will continue with confidence and joy along the rough road of life.
(Register translation)
Register Summary
More than 13,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square on May 15 for Pope John Paul II's weekly general audience. The Holy Father continued his teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours with a meditation on the Canticle of Habakkuk.
Using highly poetic language, the Holy Father pointed out that the prophet Habakkuk presents a grandiose image of God using images of light. “This radiance of his transcendent mystery is being communicated to mankind. Indeed, this light is beyond us: we cannot hold it and we cannot stop it. Yet this light envelops us and gives us light and warmth. God is like this—near yet far, beyond yet near us, or better still, willing to be together with us and in us.”
We can perceive this same concept of light in the art and architecture of the medieval cathedrals and the icons, churches and monasteries of the Eastern Church. “It penetrates the entire prayer community to the marrow of their bones and, at the same time, draws them out of themselves and immerses them wholly into this ineffable mystery, ” the Holy Father noted.
Man is often seized with fear when God appears in such holiness and splendor: “his body trembles, he feels an emptiness in his soul, and he is seized with trembling, because the God of justice is infallible—very different from earthly judges.” Yet God is a compassionate God. “He goes forth from the horizon of his glory not only to destroy the arrogance of the wicked but also to save his people and his anointed one (see verse 13), which are Israel and its king. He also wants to liberate them from their oppressors, pour out hope in the hearts of these victims, and begin a new era of justice,” the Holy Father noted. Thus, this hymn that began on a plaintive note is transformed into a hymn of joy.
The Holy Father concluded his general audience by asking those present as well as Catholics around the world for their spiritual support in order to continue his ministry as Bishop of Rome as he approached his 82nd birthday on May 18.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Caught in the Crossfire: Bethlehem University Recovers From Siege DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:BETHLEHEM —When Israeli troops withdrew from the Palestinian town of Bethlehem earlier this month, few people were more relieved than the Catholic brothers who run Bethlehem University in the Holy Land.
The 12 brothers, members of the De La Salle order founded by Jean Baptiste de la Salle, were literally caught in the crossfire when, on Easter Monday, April 1, Israeli troops entered the campus.
At the time the university, whose 2,000 Christian and Muslim students hail mostly from Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Hebron on the West Bank, was closed for Holy Week.
The La Salle Brothers, on the other hand, reside on campus and were present during the military occupation.
“It was the evening of Easter Monday when we heard the helicopters, the F-16 fighter bombers, and then at 2:45 in the morning on April 2 about 30 Israeli soldiers came onto the campus,” recalled Brother David Scarpa two days after the university reopened for the first time in six weeks.
“The soldiers approached the brothers' house and one of us opened the door and was shot at,” Brother David said. “Four bullets missed him and went through the glass door. They hit the picture of our founder on the wall. The soldiers said the shooting had been a mistake.”
Although the university sustained extensive damage during another Israeli military action earlier in the year, Brother David stresses that, until Holy Week, Israeli soldiers had not set foot within the grounds. He insists that the university has never harbored militants, but acknowledges that armed militants sometimes lurk in the streets near the campus.
Said Brother David, “This time, one squad searched every room in the university. Another squad wanted to see every room in the brothers' residence. I accompanied an officer and another soldier. In both cases, they didn't find what they were looking for, the people they called terrorists.”
Brother David says that the soldiers broke into many rooms and painted the doors of those they examined with green paint, defacing the property.
“They stopped only after we offered to accompany them, opening the doors with keys,” he said.
Following the house-to-house search, the soldiers opened John Paul II Street Gate, one of the entryways into the campus, and brought in nine armored personnel carriers, each with about a dozen soldiers.
“They occupied the university for just over four days,” said Brother David. “During this time, the brothers were not permitted to leave the residence house, aside from the vice chancellor, who was allowed to go to his office. After some negotiating we were allowed to go to our offices one hour per day.”
Helping Others
On the third day, the army briefly lifted the tight curfew it had imposed on all Bethlehem residents.
“When we came out of the house, the soldiers pointed their guns at us,” Brother David said. “They demanded our ID cards and told us we must return within one-and-a-half hours. During this time we purchased food.”
The brothers shared this food with an extended family that had sought and received refuge at the university. Their home had been badly damaged during the first operation and they feared for their lives.
Brother David said that he and the other brothers spoke only briefly with the Israeli troops stationed on campus.
“They were anxious to justify their presence. We didn't convince them and they didn't convince us,” he said. When the soldiers left the university, he added, they left large amounts of food behind. “We were able to distribute it to people in need, who couldn't afford to buy any.”
Although the university sustained only minor damage during the most recent siege, much of the town of Bethlehem was not so fortunate.
“There was damage to the town, much of it gratuitous. Although tanks could fit on the main road, they struck down street lights,” Brother David said. “One thing that particularly saddened me was seeing the damage sustained by a monument incorporating part of the spire of Cologne, that was erected as part of the Bethlehem 2000 festivities. The tanks reduced the monument to rubble.”
Several of the university's students were detained by the Israeli army, then released. A few, however, remain in custody.
“How the students fared during the occupation depended on where they come from,” Brother David explained. “One student from Jerusalem told us he'd had a kind of holiday, going to the pictures several days a week. Another one, from the Dehaishe refugee camp near Bethlehem, who's usually very bright and cheerful, arrived emaciated. He had clearly been through a very traumatic experience. He didn't want to talk about it. One student, whose house was surrounded by Israeli tanks, told me that once he graduates he will leave the country.”
As Christian clergy, the brothers try to find the humanity in both sides of the conflict.
“For me, the suicide bomber has to be seen in the context of the occupation, the deprivations,” said Brother David. “Nonetheless, [such attacks] are extreme evil. There's no justification for blowing up young people out for an evening enjoying themselves.”
Back to Work
Since its inception in the mid-1970s, Bethlehem University has prided itself on being an oasis from the problems in the Middle East. Brother David describes it as “the least political university in the West Bank.”
“Our students and staff are gratified to be back,” said Brother David, his voice reflecting deep satisfaction that this crisis has passed. “It's time to get back to teaching and learning.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:United Nations Sex Scandal Gets Scant Coverage
NEWSMAX.COM, May 7—Even as the United Nations wrapped up its contentious conference on children—in which the Holy See and the United States fought with some success to keep “abortion rights” out of the prescription for young people's well-being—most media have been quiet about the unfolding scandal of U.N. aid workers sexually exploiting vulnerable young people, in return for desperately needed food and shelter.
The conservative Web site Newsmax.com and the news service UPI reported on the abuses in West Africa, especially Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, which were first uncovered in February, and have provoked an investigation by U.N. officials. “We can barely cope with the cases that are being referred to us,” Dileep Nair, U.N. undersecretary general admitted to UPI.
In 2001, more than 400 cases were reported of such abuse. In a report, U.N. staffers “acknowledged that they knew such practices happened. Regrettably, even in situations where such information had been brought to their attention in the past, no action had been taken to monitor or redress the situation.”
Newsmax.com pointed to the relatively slight media attention to these ongoing abuses, compared to saturation coverage of long-past cases concerning Catholic clergymen.
Church in Philippines Scrubs the Net
ANANOVA.COM, May 12–Catholic leaders in the Philippines have spotted a serious threat to the practice of the Faith—Internet addiction—and acted to protect the faithful, reported the Internet news site.
Concerned that thousands of Filipinos have become hooked on Internet pornography, gambling and violent content, bishops in the Philippines have launched their own filtered Internet service, CBCP World. This service, they said, “assures the users of fast access to wholesome, clean and educational materials.” A similar service exists in the United States, provided by www.familink.com.
At a public Mass in a park in Manila that accompanied this announcement, Bishop Jesus Cabrera lamented: “Many are so addicted to the Internet that they don't go to church anymore.”
At his Mass May 12 for Ascension Sunday, Pope John Paul II announced a new Church document, “Internet: A New Forum for Proclaiming the Gospel.” Said the Pope, “We must enter into this modern and ever- more replete communications network with realism and confidence, convinced that, if it is used with competence and conscientious responsibility, it can offer useful opportunities for spreading the Gospel message.”
Burrowing into Mohammed's Mountain
In Saudi Arabia, preaching Christ or saying Mass is punishable by death. In Egypt, a moderate ally of the United States that was Christian for centuries before the Islamic conquest in the 8th century, conversion to Christianity is also subject to the death penalty.
In Pakistan, speech disrespectful of Mohammed—for instance, a recital of those sections in Dante's Inferno that depict him in hell as a “sower of discord”—can also merit beheading.
But dozens of British missionaries have decided to brave these dangers and infiltrate “Dar-Al-Islam,” by taking “sleeper” jobs and preaching Christ secretly, reported the Times. An evangelical group called Frontiers, based in Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, has for at least 10 years sent members to take jobs as teachers and doctors, to offer Christ to souls where the Gospel is prohibited by law.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Going on Offense DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:What ever happened to the new springtime of the faith? It wasn't so long ago—the feast of Christ the King in the Jubilee Year—when Pope John Paul II said, “As for the future, there are many reasons for entering the new millennium with well-founded hope.” He spoke of “the Christian springtime, many signs of which we can already glimpse.”
Those were heady times Catholics looked at the millennium to come as a missionary field to be conquered by Christ. It was “the Catholic moment” to some, the “triumph of the Immaculate Heart” to others, “the new evangelization” to us all.
In 2002, that spirit seems to have deflated. When speaking about the faith means having to speak about horrible sins committed by members of the clergy, we tend to find other things to talk about. If we felt exhilarated by the Jubilee then, many of us now feel betrayed by bishops, disgusted by the behavior of some priests and fed up with five months of scandal after scandal.
That's no good. We propose a different response. Let's go on offense.
After all, look at the facts: The Associated Press recently deployed its reporters across the United States to survey Catholic dioceses about the number of priests accused of sexual abuse.
The news service estimated that the percentage of guilty or accused priests nationwide was … less than half of 1%. “And many of the complaints come from decades ago,” the report added.
With that in mind, consider the media's barrage of news reports that have made a crime look pervasive in the priesthood, though it is rarer there than elsewhere. In addition to the evil of the abuse that has occurred, it is obvious that we are witnessing another great evil—an attack on the priesthood. We must address both. We should encourage reform in the Church, yes, but it is just as important to defend the Church in public, because the Church is necessary to humanity's salvation.
Furthermore, it's up to lay people to do it.
What Pope John Paul II said in the year 2000 is even more true now: “The hour of the laity has struck.” Priests and bishops have been unfairly stripped of their credibility by the media. For the moment, that leaves the laity as the best envoys to bring Christ's message to the world.
Much depends on us—and so we should become much more dependable. Many Catholics who in December seemed very close to the Church have spent months now joining in the attacks on bishops, priests and even the Pope. Our faith needs to be stronger than that.
It's time for Catholics to really believe what we proclaim about the Holy Spirit's guidance of the Church, and Christ's presence in it. We'll have to take to heart the fact that we are not here to save the Church; the Church is here to save us.
Here are a couple of suggestions on what we can do to promote the Church:
First, we can publicly show our appreciation for our priests and bishops. Let friends and family know about the more than 99.5% of priests who are doing so much good. Or how about gathering a surprise spiritual bouquet, from the whole parish, to offer our priests on Father's Day? Better still, how about hounding our local media outlets to start balancing coverage of the scandals by doing positive stories of priests' good works?
Second, we can do what the Pope suggested in his letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the New Millennium). Promote Sunday Mass, confession and prayer. Use your next conversation about the scandals to point out the 99.5% and how important their work is in the confessional and at the Sunday altar.
The man who made the phrase “Be not afraid” a clarion call of his papa-cy was preparing us for just such a moment as this—a time to stand fearlessly with the Church against its enemies. And not just against the enemies that give us easy challenges, but the enemies that barrage us with massive, effective attacks.
Look on this page for further ideas of what we can do, and send in ideas of your own.
Let's roll.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Defending the Church: Readers Share Ideas DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Celebrate Your Celebrants
This is the story of how the laity of St. Martin's Church in Gaithersburg, Md., surprised their three faithful priests with a rally of support and appreciation.
The idea came about after Palm Sunday, when the priests of St. Martin's read a letter, co-signed by all three, at all the Masses. The letter touched the hearts of many. In the same manner as Pope John Paul II in the Jubilee Year, the priests asked forgiveness: “To the extent that we represent the whole priesthood, we ask forgiveness; for those times that we may have sinned against you in thought, word or deed, we also ask for your forgiveness.” They also passed on a word of encouragement: “The Church is going through her Good Friday, but it shall also have an Easter Sunday.”
All parishioners began to realize how deeply the current scandals have affected our priests: the pain they feel, the looks of suspicion and whispers they are enduring. It was time that we showed them we cared and that their sacrifices and faithfulness had not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. We would stand by them, offering encouragement and support to help them continue in their call to the priesthood.
But how? On Easter Sunday, word began to spread that a surprise for the priests was being planned. We had less than two weeks to try to get the message out to more than 2,700 registered families. One challenge was the fact that the parish is about equally split between English- and Spanish-speaking communities. With six Masses in English and five in Spanish, we would have to work fast and as quietly as possible. We had to sneak into the planning calendars of our priests, contact family members and close friends, check into stage and sound equipment, and take care of flyers, food, music and other details.
We had our work cut out for us! In fact, we needed an insider. So we recruited Father Dan Leary. We gave him as little information as possible so that it would still be a special event for him. Now, with access to “inside information,” we could see how busy Father Mike and Father Ryan were—and we could see if, perhaps, we could arrange to have a few of their appointments cancelled.
Flyers were made in English and Spanish. We had one Sunday to get the word out, so, secretly after the Masses, some of us secretly passed out flyers to as many people as possible. We notified the Catholic media and the archdiocese.
Imagine our surprise to get a call from the secretary of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. He was writing our priests a letter and, of course, he knew better than to send it directly to the rectory. How many hands that letter was passed to before reaching its final destination!
During the procession, as our priests were smiling and celebrating their call to the priest-hood, Father Ryan said to Father Mike, “Relax and just let it happen.” Soon Mass was underway. Our priests expressed that they usually like to have a little more time to prepare for Mass, so it's a good thing our deacons came through.
After Mass, those gathered shared testimonies, followed by a small reception.
It was good to meet the family and friends of our priests, to thank them for the sacrifices, encouragement and support they have given throughout the years. Father Dan was very happy to see his family. The youngest of six, he said, “It was nice for my family to see the support I have as a new priest here at St. Martin's. It really is a good time to be a priest. People are looking for faithful shepherds. I hope to live up to that expectation, to live my life for Christ.”
One fruit that came from this was the “Banner of Fidelity,” which displays the phrase “Let His Glory Rise Among Us.” The host and chalice are in the center; grape vines were along the sides. This banner, with our signatures on it, would show our faithfulness. It would be a sign for others to see and find hope. God's glory will only rise if we are faithful.
LIZ CARREON Gaithersburg, Maryland
Lift Up Our Priests to the Lord
Each time I turn on the news and hear reports on child abuse, homosexuality, cover-ups, etc., in the Catholic priesthood, or when I read newspaper articles by a certain female journalist who appears to have a problem with Christ's choice of men for his priesthood, my heart breaks a little—not only for the damage being done to our already battered Catholic Church, the beloved Bride of Christ, but also for the unfair attack by the media on the thousands and thousands of God's truly faithful and loyal priests.
I truly believe that Boston Cardinal Bernard Law's attempt at covering up these horrendous scandals, although an absolutely tragic error with far-reaching and long-lasting effects, was an effort to protect the Church he loves from slander. The terrible crime in this case was his having little or no regard for the poor little innocent children involved, and this is something he shall have to live with for the rest of his life.
Because of the small percentage of priests in North America who are guilty of the terrible crimes—the unholy few—many of our priests are suffering rejection and persecution and we must keep them from becoming discouraged.
We must continually pray for all priests, including the ones who have taken advantage of and abused their positions. From all eternity God chose these men to be ministerial priests and, just as Judas, one of his chosen Twelve, betrayed him, so too will some of these. He has given them the free will to do as they please.
The majority, however, like the 11, remain loyal and faithful to him. They have sacrificed and given up their worldly possessions to take up the cross and to do his work on earth. We must pray for them. We must pray even more for the ones who have turned their love from Jesus to the pleasures of this world.
When a man becomes a priest, he is not only promising to serve God and God's people for the rest of his life, but he is also agreeing to sacrifice and to be sacrificed. The priesthood appears to be, at times, a very lonely life. It is a known fact that the most common malady in humanity is impurity, and priests are merely human beings who are bombarded with the same temptations of the world as we. Some of them are weak. They fall just as other people do.
Our lot in life is to pray for the “fallen priests” just as they and the faithful priests pray for us constantly. We must keep in mind always that it is the sin we are to hate, not the sinner. Remember, we, through our baptism, are also part of God's royal priesthood, though not chosen by him to be ordained priests. We are the temples of God and yet we are not worthy.
Therefore, knowing our own failures and shortcomings, how can we not have mercy on, and pray for, the priests who have fallen?
We need our priests! “There is an unholy attack on the Eucharist and the priesthood,” says Father John Corapi. “You get rid of the priest-hood, say goodbye to the Eucharist.” Think about it. No priesthood, no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, our Catholic Churches are nothing more than mere meeting rooms.
We need our priests! We must encourage them. We must show our support for them, but mostly, we must pray for them and ask God's protection for them, that they may be able to withstand this unholy attack on them. They are constantly surrounded by spiritual warfare and, unless they are also surrounded by and protected by God's armor, then, as in any war, there will be casualties.
Priests are our teachers. They bring us sacramental life. We must go before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament at every possible opportunity and ask his help for our priests. We must offer up rosaries as well as chaplets of Divine Mercy for their purity of heart and mind, and for an increase in their love and total devotion to our Lord, his teachings, and his Church. We must offer up Masses and Holy Hours for them.
We must pray for an increase in vocations so that our churches will be filled with an abundance of holy and zealous priests to help the overworked good and faithful priests that we have. It is so easy to get caught up in all the media hype. We must be careful not to sit in judgment of them, but rather to lift them up to the Lord God, and let him deal with them.
NANCY KIRK New Brunswick, Canada
‘Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourselves!’
Elizabeth Reynolds, a 17-year-old from Hudson, N.H., published this column in the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader newspaper.
I am a Roman Catholic, and I think it is about time for someone to stand up and defend the Catholic Church.
I want to extol my wonderful priests at St. Patrick parish in Nashua; I want to thank them for their efforts, for their devotion, for their willingness to assist and to be there when needed. They are true and perfect examples of what Catholic priests should be.
I want to thank the Catholic Church for all that she does for the world, not just for the country. Without her numerous services for the poor, the homeless, the afflicted and the confused, the world would be a much more sorrowful place in which to live. Take away Catholic Charities and other Catholic organizations designed to assist the needy and the less fortunate, and America and the rest of the world would be in bad shape. Take away the separate collections taken up every year for less fortunate countries (that money coming straight from the pockets of faithful Catholics) and you will have some very miserable refugees living in less than perfect conditions elsewhere on the earth.
Take away the missionaries of Africa, made up of priests and nuns, and the poor, starved, dehydrated, uneducated and spiritually hungry population of the poorest parts of Africa would be gone in little time. Take away World Youth Day, and some two billion young people would be deprived of one of the most beautiful spiritual retreats in existence.
Take away EWTN (Eternal World Television Network), run by Mother Angelica, and so many, many Catholics and those seeking answers to questions about the Catholic faith would be at a terrible loss. Take away the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, and we would lose the most precious, invaluable leader on the face of the planet.
Take away the millions of good, chaste, devoted priests, bishops and cardinals, and Catholics would be without their sacraments: they would lose the chance to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. They would no longer be able to confess, they would no longer be able to marry, to be ordained, to receive last rites, to be confirmed or to be baptized.
Take away Catholicism itself, and you will find a huge gap on the face of the earth, a gap that could never be filled by anything else. Take away Catholicism, and you can watch the erosion of what is left of decency on this earth, you can watch nations fall apart, you can watch communism take control, you can watch the world fall into irreparable chaos.
Everyone says that Osama bin Laden and his followers do not represent Islam. Well, the few sexually abusive priests involved in scandals do not represent Christ as they are supposed to, and they do not represent the purity and beauty of the Catholic Church.
Shame on those people who profess to be Catholics and who at the same time turn on the Catholic Church. Shame on those who have lost all trust in the faith that has lasted for some 2,000 years despite much, much worse than this. Shame on those of you who have turned on your bishop and on your cardinal. Shame on all of you, because you are only weakening the Catholic Church, not strengthening her.
If you are unwilling to stand up for your faith now, when you most need to; if these scandals are enough to so shake your faith; if the devil is so much more powerful than your trust in God and in his ability to make things right on earth; if you are so unwilling to forgive in your hearts those priests who have acted in a terrible way, then you do not even deserve to be called Christians.
Stop feeling sorry for yourselves and get up and try to help the Catholic Church out; give her a push, help her get back up again. The Catholic Church is not and never will be irreparably damaged by these events. Christ promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against her, and it is time for Catholics to embrace the bride of Christ and to mend her wounds.
Support your priests, support your bishop, support your cardinal, support your Pope, support those Catholics who still cherish and admire the Catholic Church and her clergy for all of the good that they do as a whole. Good always overcomes evil.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Church Is There, Even for Those Who Despise It DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Nothing could prevent St. John Marie Vianney from running at the call of a dying penitent.
Not inclement weather. Not the lateness of the hour. Not his own grave fevers.
In this trait of selfless duty to people in need, the priest they called the Curè of Ars was emblematic of the entire Catholic priesthood. Yet this is an easy legacy to forget in times like these, when the defects of a few wayward priests seems to give the whole world a chance to take stock of just how “bad” the Church is.
Latin Americans who have paid attention to recent events should know better.
This April 12, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the president of the Venezuelan Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Baltasar Porras, received a strange call from General Romel Fuenmayor, the military man responsible for the capture of the just-deposed President Hugo Chavez.
The soldier informed the archbishop that President Chavez — a man known for his disdain for Archbishop Porras, having publicly referred to him as “the devil” and “the Judas of Venezuela”—wanted to meet the archbishop in order to ask him for spiritual advice. Without hesitation, despite the barricades along the city streets, Archbishop Porras took less than 20 minutes to show up at Fort Tiuna, the place designated to incarcerate Chavez.
Although the archbishop did not reveal the nature of the encounter, he did allow that the deposed president “received the spiritual assistance that any baptized deserves from the Catholic Church, no matter who he is.”
The next day, when Chavez was humiliated and transported to the military island of Orchila, Cardinal Ignacio Velasco, Archbishop of Caracas, still recovering from a recent surgical procedure, flew in to visit Chavez. The cardinal came, he said, because he heard the man was entering into a deep depression and wanted spiritual advice.
The stories of notoriously anti-Catholic dictators turning to the Church in their time of need are nothing new in Latin America. We have seen this scenario before with Juan Domingo Peron in Argentina, General Juan Velazco Alvarado in Peru and any number of once-hostile politicians and generals in Mexico. Some of them, like Chavez, returned to power after their falls; not a few of these quickly forgot the promptness and charity with which Church ministers responded to their pleas for help.
Nor has such forgiving, patient love on the part of the Church been limited to political figures. The famous French anti-Catholic François Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, demanded the presence of a confessor each time his health began to fail. After each recovery, he would explain to his peers and the public that he had merely been mocking the sacrament of penance. Yet, even after each successive, ridiculing equivocation, a humble priest would respond to his every call.
St. Toribio of Mogrovejo, the second archbishop of Lima (Peru) and the patron saint of the bishops of America, once said that Catholics should not be surprised by the fact that the ministers of God are weak, sinners and sometimes full of shortcomings. On the contrary, “the true wonder, the true miracle is the fact that [priests] exist, that the priesthood still can deliver the graces of God to all the corners of the world.”
The holy archbishop of Lima knew what he was talking about: Thanks to his zeal to bring the sacraments to every corner of the wild Andes, most of the former Inca empire was devotedly Catholic in little more than 50 years.
This triumph of the Gospel was not only to the credit of St. Toribio, of course. Indeed, it was mainly the fruit of hundreds of missionaries, most of them unknown to history. They were not highly educated men, and most of them were sent all by themselves to preach Christ crucified. Many went out and many never came back. Some may have died as martyrs; we celebrate their memory only on All Saints' Day. Maybe some others were very bad sinners who scandalized the people with their offensive acts. Yet, through it all, the Lord saw to it that the Gospel reached souls by the preaching of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments.
Recently, an old Colombian peasant, standing in line to pay his last respects to the murdered archbishop of Cali, Isaías Duarte Cancino, expressed what many simple Catholics have known for centuries. “I come here,” the peasant said, “because he was like a father, like a shepherd. He was always there for us, even if he did not have the power of politicians. He had the power of his ears, the power of his big heart.”
Old as he was, the Colombian peasant surely knew plenty of stories about scandalous priests, men who were completely unworthy of their vocation. Nevertheless, he was able to understand where the real Church is, was and always has been: wherever Christ is proclaimed and those in need are loved, served—and forgiven—in his name.
Alejandro Bermudez is the Register's chief Latin America correspondent.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: What's the Use of Newspapers? DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:America's first newspaper appeared in Boston on Sept. 29, 1690. Its publisher, Benjamin Harris, presented a wonderfully unobtrusive vision for his fledgling enterprise. He agreed to provide, once a month, “an Account of such considerable things as have arrived unto our Notice.” He realized that providence might provide more newsworthy items than his monthly could record. Therefore, “if any Glut of Occur-rences happen,” he was prepared to publish Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick more often. The responsibility for making news lay entirely in the hands of God (or the devil).
This theological view of news and news reporting lingered, if it did not dominate newspapers, for some time. In 1866, James Parton observed that “recording with exactness and power the thing that has come to pass, is rovidence addressing men. In his 1962 book The Image: A Guide to Psuedo-Events in America, historian Daniel Boorstin relates the story of a Southern Baptist clergyman before the Civil War who used to say, when a newspaper was brought into the room, “Be kind enough to let me have it a few minutes, till I see how the Supreme Being is governing the world.” And Charles Dana, one of the most celebrated of American editors, defended his extensive reporting of crime in the New York Sun by stating, “I have always felt that whatever the Divine Providence permitted to occur I was not too proud to report.”
Looking at the news of the day through a theological framework gradually yielded to a decisively secular view. As editors realized that reporting the news in print could be financially rewarding, they became less eager to wait for divine providence to act—and altogether excited about priming the populace to purchase their wares. “The newspaper,” as Richard Weaver has pointed out, has become “a man-made cosmos of events around us at the time.” It has become, for so many, a momentary cosmos to which they bind themselves with unquestioning faith.
Consider Abraham Lincoln's familiar maxim: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.” The meaning of this statement rests on two fundamental and plausible assumptions: One, that there is a determinable difference between reality and illusion; and two, that, confronted with a choice between the two, people would prefer reality. One of the effects of the newspaper in the contemporary world, unfortunately, is that it weaves a mesmerizing fantasy that crowds out reality. As Boorstin notes, “The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than the original.”
Reality in Bites
The traditional distinction between reality and illusion has become both blurred and indistinct. “Reality” is now the word we use to describe our frenetic post-modern world, which is as artificial as an alarm clock. “Welcome to the ‘real’ world,” people say, with a sardonic smile. Vice is only too real, while virtue is a nice illusion. It is not so much that newspapers “fool” people, to use Lincoln's term, as much as they cover people in a cocoon of ersatz reality. The media has a smothering effect on people. Having rendered its readers vulnerable, the newspaper, in particular, re-shapes how they think
Ensnarled in this virtual reality — this print creation of editors and journalists — we are repeatedly instructed that abortion is merely a choice, homosexual acts simply represent an alternate lifestyle, religion is repressive, the Catholic faith is dogmatic, pre-marital sex is natural, marital fidelity is idealistic, truth is subjective, values are relative, and political correctness is liberating.
On Oct. 4, 1979, the Washington Bureau of the Globe & Mail ran an article about the new Pope's traditional views about human sexuality. “Pope's Sharp Swipes at Sexuality Begin to Bother Some Young People,” the headline read. The new Pope was fully expected to have new ideas on sexual morality. This successor to the Chair of Peter was assumed to have been formed by the print media. The article, in typical fashion, quotes a 17-year-old girl, identified as a Roman Catholic, who said, “How does he expect to relate to youth with that Dark Age stuff? I'm disappointed in him.” By quoting her in an approving manner, the newspaper was conferring upon this teen-ager a certain legitimacy as a papal critic. The desired implications were clear: The Pope is out of touch with today's youth; 17-year-olds are reliable moralists; the Globe & Mail is liberating its readers from the bondage of an out-moded religion. This is a representative tactic of the newspaper medium and one that is played out every day throughout the literate world.
The doctor of philosophy has been superannuated by the spin doctor. The obligation of the newspaper today is not to report the news, but to put the right spin on it so that it can continue to proselytize its readers in the direction of its political allegiance. Each newspaper is presumed to have its peculiar slant. This being the case, a John Paul II or a Cardinal Josef Ratzinger is immediately cast as an odd-ball. By the same token, documents reaf-firming the sacredness of human life such as Humanae Vitae or Donum Vitae seem utterly incomprehensible.
For those who are familiar with the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, one of his most meaningful and enduring phrases is “quidquid recipitur, recipitur per modum recipientis (whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver). For Aquinas, his word “mode,” in this instance, is equivalent to our current use of the word “media.” Marshall McLuhan, whose thinking is anchored in Thomistic philosophy, made a career out of explaining how the media distorts meaning.
What is News?
Aquinas himself said that the bulk of his learning was directed toward two sources that could not lie: nature and Scripture. He did not have to contend with a self-serving and distorting media. Secular newspapers select and skew news to fit their agenda. They become so accustomed to this that they assume everyone has an agenda. What is the Pope's agenda? They assume it could not be truth. Then what could it be? Perhaps to exercise arbitrary power over his passive flock! The newspaper, therefore, divides the world into those who are in step with the media and those who are not. “News” is stimulating; truth is presumptuous.
“Literature is news that stays news,” said Ezra Pound. “Literature is unread, and journalism is unreadable,” quipped Oscar Wilde. The news is in competition with literature because the latter, at its best, deals with that which endures. News is, by its nature, ephemeral. In order to survive, newspapers must constantly find (or create) fresh sources for their daily fare. The newspaper is like a certain species of hummingbird that must continuously feed and beat its wings in order to survive. The typical newspaper room is a beehive of activity, where reporters hastily put together the latest news items for the next edition.
The original inspiration for America's first newspaper was merely to make important occurrences known to people. No hype. No titillation. No emotional manipulation. Today such an endeavor would seem laughably naive.
Richard Weaver, in his enduring critique of modern society, Ideas Have Consequences, likened the newspaper, cinema and radio to a vast machine which he called “The Great Stereopticon.” He passionately denounced its penchant for manipulating its subjects, orchestrating their emotions by telling them when to laugh, when to cry and when to become morally outraged. “What human spirit,” he wrote, “after reading a newspaper or attending a popular motion picture or listening to the farrago of nonsense on a radio program, has not found relief in fixing his gaze upon some characteristic bit of nature?” This human spirit knows exactly what he was talking about. Here's hoping yours does, too.
Don DeMarco is a philosophy professor at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald Demarco ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Teen Who Took Her Headphones Off DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:I had been so proud to order the tickets.
I could barely afford them, but I felt sure the time with my teen-age daughter would be well worth the relatively minor financial setback.
We would have orchestra seats—one behind the other because we couldn't get two side by side—at an ornate, historic theater built in the grand style of the 19th century. We would wear the best clothes we owned. And, together, we would enjoy a nationally renowned, musical version of the Victor Hugo masterpiece Les Miserables.
Having heard some of the music, I knew it was going to be a wonderful afternoon. In particular, one lyric from the end of the song cycle stuck with me: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
After Mass that Sunday, we climbed into the car. She slammed the door and clamped her headphones on. Uh-oh. It looked like a bad case of teen attitude, that capricious mix of hormones and defiance that darts around like an unpredictable tornado, was looming already.
“Hey,” I said. “Please take the headphones off. I thought we could talk on the way.”
She sighed heavily and threw the phones on the floor. “Fine,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “Talk!”
Her friends, I knew, were getting together that afternoon—to study for a biology test, they said — and I was messing everything up with all this togetherness stuff. I also knew it must have been hard explaining to her pals that she couldn't join them because she had to go somewhere with her mother.
So I talked. And she listened. Actually, “listened” may not be the right word. She knotted up in her seat —tense, frowning, the consummate, allergic-to-parents teen. Doing my best to barely notice, I babbled on about all the plays I wanted to take her to, all the blessings I'd planned for her that day, all the delights I'd set aside for her, just for her, just because I loved her.
We arrived at the theater early. She still wasn't speaking to me, so I had time to brood. How could she treat me this way after I had planned and prepared, at considerable expense and sacrifice, this special day just for her? Was she really that distant from me that she could look right past all that and simply block me out of her life? I felt completely powerless to reach through her attitude and into her heart. I felt hurt.
I found myself wondering if our heavenly Father doesn't feel this way sometimes. This, I thought, is what prayer is about—“taking off the headphones” of our busy lives and listening for God's voice in our hearts. There is so much he wants to give us, so much more than what we can dream or understand. But, so often, we are “me-first” people: What I want is paramount, regardless of the blessings that may come from listening to God and submitting to his will.
I suppose we are not so different, I thought, watching my daughter stew over her broken plans, from the early followers of Jesus in that respect. In the eighth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus invites those who had just watched him heal Peter's mother-in-law to “leave everything and follow” him.
“Another of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first bury my dead father.’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury the dead.’”
Jesus, in this call, overrides the most fundamental family obligation for a Jew or Greek of the time. Those who heard it must have been horrified or revolted. But if you look back to the disciples' statement you understand Jesus' meaning. “Let me first …”
Anyone who says “me first” to heaven's call is in darkness and death; he or she is indeed an appropriate agent to “bury the dead.”
God's love is everlasting, and it is unconditional and constant. We are the ones who put the headphones on. We build the barricade that blocks out God's love. That fortified wall is made of human concerns: the credit-card bill, the car payment, Mom's high blood pressure, anthrax in the mail. The wall will only come down if we ask God to take all these things into his care.
As we put these “dead things” in Christ's hands, his brilliant white light breaks forth and bathes us in triumph. We find the treasure reserved for the Christian: the face of God, fixed squarely on the moody teen-ager sitting next to you.
As the lights came down at the end of Les Mis and the audience leapt to its feet, my teen turned to me. She was shaking and her eyes were brimming with tears of disbelief. “Mom!” she yelled amidst the bravos. “Mom!” The words of the finale resounded in our hearts:
“Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night? / Is it the music of a people who are climbing to the light?
“Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?”
And finally: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
My big girl, my tough teen, clutched my hand all the way to the car. As I pulled out of the parking lot, she was still sobbing, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Glad you took the headphones off?” I asked.
“Oh, Mom,” she said. “I'm so sorry. I'll never put them on again!”
How I hope that is true. And how I will try, from now on, to keep my own “headphones” off. I don't want to miss a single word God speaks to my heart.
Susan Baxter writes from Mishawaka, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Susan Baxter ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: First Communion Is More Than a Memory DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Remember your first Holy Communion? I was reminded of mine recently when I saw the son of a close friend receive his.
Many things have changed in the Church and the world since my first reception in 1965, but it was good to see the boys still wearing white carnations and armbands, and the girls decked out in white dresses and veils. Most important, Jesus was still present in the Blessed Sacrament, humbly hidden under the appearances of bread and wine, waiting to be received by these boys and girls, and waiting also to receive them, to sweep them into his divinity, into a beautiful communion with himself and his Church.
How solemn and joyful these boys and girls were. How proud and tearful were their parents and grandparents. I thought: only God can do this. Only God can reach the heart, mind and soul on such deep levels and band together three generations in a common observance.
If some were distracted by other concerns—photo opportunities and party preparations—Father McCarthy, the pastor, brought them back to reality. Delivering his homily in simple terms every child could understand, he said that the pilgrims held a banquet to thank God for opening a passage to the New World. Catholics also have a banquet to thank God for opening the way to heaven. The food he gives us along the way is the Eucharist, His own body and blood. If we want to get to heaven, we must receive this food, Father McCarthy said.
After Mass, my friend's 7-year-old son expressed the inexpressible with an infectious smile and the simple words, “I feel so happy today.”
I told him that I still consider my first Communion to be the happiest day of my life, a happiness that is renewed each time I attend Mass. After receiving my first Communion I stood on the steps of the Gothic church in midtown Manhattan on an incredibly sunny day and knew that my life would never be the same. Everything I did, every thought I had, every friendship or relationship I entered, would somehow be shaped by the thin, round host I just received.
My faith in the Real Presence had come instinctively months before, during catechism class. Father O'Neill, all 6 foot 5 inches of him, stood before us with an unconsecrated host and an empty chalice. In a slow and sacred voice so unlike his usually booming speech, he related what he called the world's greatest mystery. “When the priest says ‘This is my body’ over a piece of bread,” he said, lifting the host, “It is no longer bread but the body of Christ.” Raising the chalice, he continued, “And when the priest says ‘This is the cup of my blood’ over the wine, it is no longer wine but the blood of Christ.”
A rush of understanding far beyond my second-grade mind came over me as I said to myself, “That's just what God would do.”
There was no turning back from this glimpse of the eternal. In my teens and early 20s this insight was something of a torment as I sought to live my life apart from God. But an unshakable belief that Jesus would be there for me at Mass eventually brought me back to the Church, back home to the happiness of my first Communion.
My faith became deeper and more mature as I learned what the Church says about the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself.”
This is what Catholics have always believed. We have the privilege of passing on this gift to the next generation.
Brian Caulfield writes from West Haven, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brian Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Arisen from the Ruins of War DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:To many Americans, Dresden is one of those forgotten cities of the old East Germany. Others know it as the site of some of the heaviest Allied bombing during World War II.
Happily, in the past dozen years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Westerners having been coming back to Dresden. The city has made great strides in overcoming its communist past and in recovering glints of its former glory.
The city was once the seat of kings, a major political and cultural center in Saxony. The Baroque and rococo flourished there. Its water-front on the Elbe inspired many famous painters, such as the Venetian master Canaletto, to paint it. And whenever they painted Dresden after 1751, they always included the katholische Hofkirche.
Since 1980, the Hofkirche has been the cathedral of the Diocese of Dresden-Meissen — dedicated to the Holy Trinity—but Dresden's Catholic roots reach much farther back.
During the Reformation, Lutheranism prevailed in Saxony. But if the Calvinist Henry IV converted because he thought “Paris is worth a Mass,” Freidrich August I thought the same about Poland. He became a Catholic in 1697 and decreed broader religious freedom for his new co-religionists two years later.
The Jesuits assumed care of the city's Catholics, which included a large art colony and a Croat Diaspora, and Jesuit Father Karl Moritz Vota celebrated Dresden's first official post-Reformation Mass in 1699 in a chapel set up in the royal palace.
Prime Property
The Jesuits' work of evangelization paid dividends, as the Catholic faith once again re-established itself in Dresden. That was when the king hired the Italian architect Gaetano Chiaveri to create a new Hofkirche. Thus was today's cathedral born.
Chiaveri designed the church in rococo style. If location is everything in real estate, the Hofkirche occupies prime property. It sits next to the royal palace, near the Zwinger complex (which still houses the rich royal art collection) and right on the Elbe.
Lorenzo Mattielli's statues, collectively, make up one of the church's most attractive exterior features. Mostly looking down from the roof, they depict the Apostles and other saints as well as allegorical figures who epitomize the virtues. Like the statues on Bernini's colonnade in Rome, you don't really see how much larger-than-life they are until you get up close to them.
Unfortunately, a close-up look at the dark exterior also reveals just how ravaged by pollution Dresden is—it was once as white as the interior still is.
Dresden was then an apostolic vicariate. By 1816, its apostolic vicar would also be a titular bishop. In 1921 Dresden became part of the Diocese of Meissen, although the Hofkirche enjoyed the status of second church in the diocese. By 1964 it was the co-cathedral. In 1980, it became Dresden's cathedral.
Like Dresden itself, the Hofkirche was partially destroyed during World War II. An air raid on February 13, 1945, resulted in major bomb damage. The interior was burned, the roof collapsed and almost half of Mattielli's 78 outdoor statues were damaged or destroyed.
Thus is it particularly fitting that Catholics remember the church, along with all the people of Dresden who died during the bombing campaign, each Memorial Day.
Postwar Pieta
Reconstruction of the church started after the War but dragged on for years. The high altar, for example, was finally rededicated in July 1962. Roof statues were still being put in place in the early 1990s. Today the Memorial Chapel, with its modernistic Pietà, a masterpiece of the local Meissen porcelain craft, is a striking testament to the power of rebirth and renewal in Christ.
Dresden was one of those places where the moral erosion wrought by sustained all-out war was evident.
The abandonment of the moral principle of no attacks on civilian populations had been seen before—take the Bolshevik Revolution and the Spanish Civil War for example—but Hitler literally carried it to new heights with his air raids on London and his attacks on noncombatants in Warsaw, Belgrade and Rotterdam.
The Allies, unfortunately, followed suit, likewise jettisoning the moral principle of noncombatant immunity. The firebombing of Dresden is one such example. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are another.
This visitor to today's Dresden senses that, in some ways, World War II ended east of the Elbe only in the 1990s. The old East German Länder are busy playing catch-up, making up for the lost time of the war and its aftermath.
Knowing the history of the place, a walk through Dresden and a visit to its cathedral should make us pray for redress of the causes of conflict so as to make Pope Paul VI's appeal our own: “Never again war!”
John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian, writes from Warsaw.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Dresden, Germany ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Spider-Morals DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:America is a consumer society, and Hollywood has perfected its rules, manufacturing blockbuster event-films whose narratives are driven by demographic imperatives rather than dramatic imagination.
The studios devise marketing strategies that maximize the subject matter's appeal and work backwards from there. The characters and message of the stories chosen are as carefully tailored to the intended viewers' likes and dislikes as a TV car commercial or a print-media campaign.
Spider-Man, the summer season's first breakaway hit, is a serviceable product. Its distributor, Sony Pictures, has skillfully created a buzz around the film. The result: better-than-anticipated box-office returns. Key to the movie's success is a quick-witted exploitation of recent changes in theatrical releasing patterns.
The good news is that there's nothing to offend family viewers. Good and evil are clearly defined, and you root for the hero to overcome all the obstacles placed in his path. It's an enjoyable roller-coaster ride even though some of the film's pleasures seem at times too calculated. (Parents should be warned that some of the violence in the action sequences may be too intense for kids under 13.)
Spider-Man is an existing franchise with built-in brand-name recognition. Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the main characters for Marvel Comics 40 years ago and, ever since, its tens of millions of fans have been waiting for the movie version. They won't be disappointed.
Director Sam Raimu (Darkman) and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) wisely retain the comic book series' basic premise. It's a coming-of-age story about an ordinary teen-ager who develops super-hero powers but continues to suffer all the agonies of adolescent angst. Young people instantly identify.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a senior at Midtown High School in Queens, N.Y. A nerdy outcast who loves science, he is rejected by the school's in-crowd and ignored by the sweet, pretty girl next door, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). His best friend is a fellow loner, Harry Osborn (James Franco), whose millionaire father, Norman (Willem Dafoe), supplies high-tech weaponry to the Pentagon.
Peter is an orphan being raised by his kind-hearted aunt and uncle (Rosemary Harris and Cliff Robertson). They are struggling members of the lower-middle class who instill in him a firm set of moral values.
Peter's life is changed by a field trip to the Columbia University science museum, where he is accidentally bitten by a genetically engineered super-spider. When he wakes up the next morning, he feels different. He discovers he no longer needs his nerdy glasses. His reflexes have developed way beyond those of an ordinary human, and his once-scrawny body has mysteriously grown muscles strong enough to win a weight-lifting contest.
Things suddenly get better at school. Using his new powers, he's able to act out several adolescent fantasies. He rescues Mary Jane from a potentially embarrassing scene in the cafeteria and faces down the class bullies in a hallway fight scene.
But Peter is soon faced with a more important test. His uncle is murdered in a brutal car-jacking and, in wreaking vengeance on the killers, he finds that he can swing from skyscraper to skyscraper in downtown Manhattan, clinging to a web that spews forth from his arms.
Now Peter's moral education begins, and the filmmakers should be credited for underlining its meaning in such an otherwise manipulative marketing product. The superhero realizes that revenge in and of itself isn't satisfying. He remembers his dead uncle's words: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
The rest of the plot follows Peter's progress in learning how to deploy his unique gifts for the service of the greater good, and he turns himself into the scourge of New York City's bad guys, becoming a media star in the process.
Throughout this moral and physical transformation, Peter retains his ordinary, nerd-like personality most of his waking hours. Only at moments of great crisis does he secretly blossom into a superhero with a sleek, spider-like costume to match.
The movie makes the best of this duality just as the original comic did. Mary Jane, of course, admires the celebrated Spider-Man without ever realizing his true identity, and it breaks Peter's heart when she begins dating his buddy, Harry.
Harry's father undergoes a parallel genetic mutation as the result of a lab experiment gone wrong, The slightly shady millionaire is transformed into a malevolent creature with a terrifying mask-like facade who inflicts harm on others for the sheer joy of it. Inevitably, Spider-Man must rise to the occasion and challenge him.
The emotional glue that holds the movie together is Peter's romantic longing for Mary Jane. This is part of a marketing strategy to hook a female audience. The filmmakers cut between it and the thrilling action sequences designed to grab male viewers. This dual gender appeal is modeled on the success of the otherwise very different blockbuster, Titanic.
Thankfully, Spider-Man bucks the currently popular Hollywood trend to frame all moral struggles in relativistic terms. But one risks being a spoil-sport to point out how two-dimensional its depiction of the clash between good and evil seems when compared to The Lord of the Rings' epic treatment of the same theme. This is because Raimu and Koepp are more focused on scratching their audiences' emotional itches than on elevating the human spirit. The result is two hours of consumer fun that leaves no lasting imprint on our consciousness.
John Prizer writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1999)
Sports stars often do more than win games and break records. Their fame can become a symbol of an underdog ethnic group's integration into the American mainstream. Everyone remembers the importance of base-ball's Jackie Robinson to African-Americans. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is an Oscar-nominated, feature-length documentary about Robinson's Jewish-American equivalent.
“Hammerin’ Hank” was the son of immigrant parents from Romania who became a star slugger for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s and '40s. Greenberg endured occasional ethnic slurs on the field and, during a crucial game on Yom Kippur, he chose to attend synagogue rather than play. Director Aviva Kempner successfully combines archival sports footage with interviews with former team-mates, baseball greats, broadcasters, sportswriters and family members. The result is a nice balance between Greenberg's achievements on the diamond, his personal life and the larger sociological context. Actor Walter Matthau and superlawyer Alan Dershowitz testify as to how the home-run hitter inspired them. Even viewers who aren't baseball fans will find the movie a treat.
Fly Away Home (1996)
Young children are almost always devastated by the death of their mother. Fly Away Home, based on Bill Lishman's real-life memoir, shows us how this loss can also transform the life of the surviving parent as well. The 13-year-old Amy Alden (Anna Paquin) has never had much of a relationship with her eccentric inventor father, Thomas (Jeff Daniels). When her mother is killed in an auto accident, she feels no emotional support from him and retreats into her own solitary world.
The discovery of some goose eggs in a marsh near her home changes everything. After they hatch, she carefully nurtures the goslings' growth and recovers her love of life.
Amy's father has the scientific knowledge to help teach the geese how to migrate South for the winter, and he slowly develops a close bond with his daughter as they work together on this project.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: JOHN PRIZER ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Prayers to Purgatory DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:PRAYING IN THE PRESENCE OF OUR LORD FOR THE HOLY SOULS by Susan Tassone Our Sunday Visitor, 2001 176 pages, $7.95
To order: (800) 348-2440 or www.osvpublishing.com
In this new springtime of Christianity, we have witnessed the creation of apostolates for the pre-born, the elderly and everyone in between. Now writer and speaker Susan Tassone brings us a slim volume of prayers that are actually an apostolate to the dead. This is Tassone's second work on the holy souls in purgatory, and the third in a series of books on eucharistic adoration edited by Capuchin Father Benedict Groeschel.
Father Groeschel introduces the book with a concise clarification of who the holy souls and purgatory are—and who they are not. “An examination of the prayers in this book will dispel the illusion, often held by the uninformed, that our prayers or good works accomplish something directly for the holy souls, that somehow we can ‘buy their way out’ of purgatory,” he writes. “Every prayer in this book explicitly … calls on God the Father in His mercy or on His Son, the Redeemer, to receive the holy souls and bring them into the kingdom.”
The book, a compilation of ancient and modern prayers, is divided into seven sections. The initial “Prayers for the Faithful Departed” are followed by the seven penitential psalms, whose sorrowful hope and thanksgiving have had a long-standing place of prominence in the tradition of the Church.
The “Supplications to Mary” are reminiscent of one brother pleading for another before a loving Mother. To our “Shining Star of the Third Millennium,”
Tassone prays: “May the Souls who come after pray for us who ushered in this new springtime.”
A morning offering, heroic act of charity to Our Lady, and other moments of prayer, recast specifically for the Holy Souls, are our means of helping the suffering members of our family who can no longer pray for themselves. “Holy Hour Prayers” will hold your rapt attention on this good and holy sacrifice of prayer and praise. Along with the Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, we pray, “Eternal Father, since you have given me for my inheritance the adorable Face of your adorable Divine Son, I offer that Face to you. I beg you, in exchange for this coin of infinite value, to forget the ingratitude of souls dedicated to you and to pardon all poor sinners.”
“May the angels lead us into Paradise; may the martyrs come to welcome us and lead us into the holy city of Jerusalem,” reads an entry under “Invocations to the Saints.”
The book also includes “Prayers for Specific People.” Prayers are found for a mother, a husband, a child. The remembrance of a soul on the anniversary of their death will keep us connected to them, Tassone reminds us, as we were in their earthly life. We also are encouraged to ask Christ to have mercy on priests “who toiled so bravely and unsparingly here below. … O Jesus, have mercy on the priest who poured the saving waters of Baptism upon my head and made of me a child of God.”
We remember the war dead through the words of Pope Pius XII, and entrust the souls of non-Christians to God's goodness and mercy. Tassone covers all the bases with one final, powerful chapter—“Novenas for Every Day.” The faithful use of the prayers in this book will bring every reader into an apostolate that has, sadly, lapsed into near-extinction outside the Church. To pray these prayers is, therefore, to perform a rare and invaluable act of mercy.
Nor should the prayers be limited to eucharistic adoration. The book is small enough that it's easily carried to a cemetery or even the home of a grieving family. There is grace here— grace that can transform the Church Militant even as it brings the Church Suffering to glory.
Caroline Schermerhorn is on the editorial staff of Envoy magazine.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Caroline Schermerhorn ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Openly Religious
The book, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (Oxford University Press) is written by George Marsden, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame.
“Why should it be taken for granted that religious perspectives should be out of bounds?” says Marsden, a Protestant. “Feminists say that one's biography is relevant to one's scholarship. I'm saying that about religion as well.”
Shuttering Colleges
Experts said the private college market has shifted in favor of the large, elite institutions and away from smaller schools with only regional reputations.
“Most of the rising demographic demand generated by Baby Boom 2 is being absorbed by public universities and community colleges,” said John Nelson of Moody's Investors Service.
Irish Expel Four
The four athletes—Lorenzo Crawford, Donald Dykes, Abram Elam and Justin Smith, a fifth-year student and former football player — have appealed the expulsions to Holy Cross Father Edward Malloy, Notre Dame's president, whose decision will be final.
Moralism of the Left
Adds Isaac: “It is often politically necessary to employ morally troubling means in the name of morally valid ends. To be politically responsible is to engage this world and to consider the choices that it presents.”
Single-Sex Sense
CNN.COM, May 9—The Bush administration is pushing rule changes to encourage more single-sex classes and schools, marking a significant change in the U.S. government's 30-year policy prohibiting gender discrimination in public schools, says the Web site of the all-news TV network.
Civil rights advocates charge that separate public schools for boys and girls raises questions about education equality.
Proponents say boys and girls often perform better when members of the opposite sex are not present and point to the records of the dozen or so single-sex public schools in the United States as proof the approach works.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Ecucation -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:Tantrum Trouble
Q My son is 4 years old. He's very lovable, but he has a temper that is explosive. I think his anger goes beyond normal bounds. He throws at least one tantrum a day. We're looking for ideas.
A Peak temper tantrum years are commonly held to lie between ages 2 and 6. By that standard, your son is smack in his prime.
Actually, temper tantrums can erupt at any time in childhood, or, for that matter, at any time in adulthood.
The underlying emotions—frustration and anger—are the same across all ages. The tantrum itself is what changes. A 15-year-old may not fling herself to the floor, flail all body parts in opposing directions, choke back her breath, and wildly punch the air or herself. (I said, “may not.”) But as any parent of an adolescent can witness firsthand, older kids are quite capable of their own brand of temper display.
Your worry that your son's anger isn't normal is understandable, especially if you have to mimic a tornado drill during his tirades. Rest assured, your son is not abnormal.
First of all, he averages only a few blow-ups per day. Regularly I see children who throw fits almost as naturally as they breathe, and they suffer from nothing psychologically out of whack. They just let their anger loose too often and too spectacularly, and they need to be taught some self-control.
Second, by their nature temper tantrums can appear bizarre, even scary. Storm's spine is twisting into the letter “Q.” Her eyes are darting independently toward her ears. Sounds never before recorded in nature are bursting from her mouth. Standard parental reaction to this level of emotional convulsion is something like, “I know kids get mad, but this is not nomal.”
Yes, it is.
Never have I seen a child emotionally scarred from a prolonged temper outburst. Anger itself causes no psychological damage; nor does it automatically indicate any. On the other hand, I have seen many children whose temper has become more regular and intense because it succeeded in manipulating shell-shocked adults to yield to childish demands.
Certainly, expressing anger or feelings is not unhealthy. How it's expressed is what needs to be dealt with. Children need to learn to express emotions constructively and with some diplomacy.
Screeching like an air-raid siren, spitting, biting chairs and swinging at anything within arm's reach are not choice ways for anyone, even little kids, to win friends and influence people. The younger a child when he is taught this, the easier the teaching will be on him and his parents, not to mention the rest of the world.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is a clinical psychologist, speaker, and author of You're A Better Parent Than You Think! And Back to the Family.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Stand By Your Mom DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:The afternoon Paul Gamble visited his mother in the hospital after she became ill with pneumonia, she told him something he never expected to hear from her.
“I spoke to God last night,” she said, “and I told him I was ready.”
Gamble, however, was not. He figured he and his mom had been through so much that, by comparison, pneumonia was a walk in the park. They had faced his father's death from cancer. Her serious car accident. His moving back home after her accident to take care of her and his younger brothers. Her trying to recover from a serious lung condition. All that flashed through Gamble's mind that September 1993 afternoon at the hospital, a week before his 36th birthday, so he was in no mood to hear her talk about death.
“Listen, who are you to tell God it's your time?” he recalls telling her. “That's not your decision. Just take the medicine, get better, and cut this nonsense out.”
Two days later, she died in her sleep. She was 62. Her doctor couldn't understand it because she hadn't been that ill. In retrospect, Gamble said, he and his four brothers should have believed her.
“When she said she had that conversation to say she was ready, we should've listened,” he said. “That, to me, was an example of faith. Medical science is wonderful. I thank God for the care my dad and mother received, but when God decides that the time and the hour has come, it has come.”
Faith. Accepting God's will. Those concepts keep coming up in conversations with children who re-arranged their lives to take care of their sick or elderly parents. So do the words “love” and “sacrifice.”
Love and Sacrifice
While growing up in Brooklyn and Queens, Gamble observed his parents making sacrifices all the time. His father, an immigrant from Panama, often worked several jobs to send all of his sons to Catholic grammar and high schools. His mother wanted a job, but decided being a stay-at-home mom was more important. He also learned about faith from them. The family went to Mass every Sunday, where his father was a lector and he and his brothers were altar boys. His dad was also president of the parish council and home-school association, while his mother was a den mother for the parish's Cub Scout group.
Their faith was tested, starting in 1979, Gamble's last year of college, when his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The cancer went into remission, but returned during his last year of law school at Catholic University. After graduation in 1983, Gamble entered active naval service with the Judge Advocate General Corps. Gamble's tour-of-duty was supposed to last for three years in Norfolk, Va., but several days after he graduated from naval justice school in March of 1984, his father died. Eight months later, his mother was involved in a serious car accident, which resulted in several herniated disks and aggravated an existing lung condition. Gamble requested a change in orders so that he could work for the Corps in Brooklyn. During February of 1986, he moved back into his family's house in Queens to take care of his mom and two younger brothers who were still living there.
“It was more reflex,” he said of his move. “I was trained. One of the commandments says to honor thy mother and father. What do you do when your mother and dad become ill? How do you honor it? You take care of them. It's not an issue. You just do it.”
A large portion of his salary went toward taking care of his family. Even after he married and moved to a nearby apartment in 1989, he still supported his mom. His wife, also Catholic and active in church, was understanding, but Gamble admits those days were difficult, both emotionally and financially. There were lots of calls and visits to see how his mother was doing. An image frozen in his memory is her sitting in the living room, an oxygen tube around her nose, looking drawn and gray.
Several years after his mother's death, Gamble was working as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney when he decided he needed a change. Because he wanted to help those experiencing aging and serious illness issues, he opened up his own elder law practice in Manhattan in early 1999. He tells his clients not to dread their parents getting older, but to “cherish” the moments they have together.
Cherishing parents during trying times can be viewed as a crushing burden—or as a way of getting closer to God.
Vulnerability
“Sacrificial loving is the whole Christian challenge,” said Pat Livingston, a nationally known Catholic writer and speaker. “That's the message of the cross. You experience that in any love relationship: that you really do give your life for the one you love.”
Elder care is often extremely trying and emotional, but no matter how difficult the situation, God is always present with his love, said Livingston, who recently spoke about how God makes creation out of chaos during an aging conference in Queens, sponsored by the Diocese of Brooklyn.
The trials of care often “break you open to how much you need God,” but there are “enormous blessings in the mess,” she said
Livingston knows about elder care because her family dealt with it in the late 1980s until 1993, when her parents died. During that period, her father was in a home that offered Alzheimer's care and her mom was in an assisted living facility in a nearby town. Her older sister, Peggy, shouldered the biggest burden of care because she lived in Knoxville, Tenn., a half-hour away from each parent. Patricia, who was living and working at Notre Dame at the time, visited her parents when she could, while their youngest sister lived in upstate New York—too far away to offer any help.
“The vulnerability is huge, and it gets bigger on both sides,” Livingston said. “Financial vulnerability. Emotional vulnerability, in terms of time, and so what does that vulnerability do? That's a huge question in everyone's life. My conviction is that it can be a doorway to love.”
But, for the elderly, being vulnerable is a doorway that's not easy to step through.
Catherine Hess, 77, has relied more on her family because of the following health problems during the past 11 years: double-bypass heart surgery; a burst appendix; the removal of a breast; the repair of an aortic aneurysm; and, earlier this year, a triple-bypass operation.
Since her husband died in 1992, she only feels safe, she said, when her daughter is around.
“She's not only my daughter,” Catherine said, “Maureen is also my best friend. I've never had a friend as dear and as close as my daughter.”
Maureen, 54, never married and lives downstairs in the two-family house she was raised, while her mother lives upstairs. The home, in Ridgewood, Queens, is the same place where Catherine took care of her elderly mother until she died.
When she does feel vulnerable, Catherine is grateful that she has Maureen to help her in her day-today activities and her son, who lives in Pennsylvania and calls her almost every day.
“Every family should be like this,” Catherine said. “Unfortunately, there aren't too many families like this. This is the time when we should always stay close. It should always be this way—not only when there's sickness, but all the time.”
Carlos Briceno writes from Woodside, New York.
----- EXCERPT: Stories of Sacrificial Love ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Spiritual Adoption: Nine Months of Prayer to the Unborn DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The phrase “the hidden life of Jesus” often refers to his life at Mary and Joseph's house in Nazareth. But to Marta Catalano, of Queens, N.Y., it also means his even more hidden life: in Mary's womb.
She said the May 31 feast of the Visitation is an especially appropriate time to contemplate the unborn Jesus.
“Jesus went through all the stages of human development,” said Catalano. “From a fertilized egg, to a tiny bundle of cells, to an embryo weighing only a few ounces. His heart began to beat, his limbs budded. He performed his first miracle from the womb by making himself known to his cousin, John, who then leaped for joy in his mother's womb.”
Catalano's reflections grew into a litany to Jesus in the womb of Mary. “I wrote it on the subway on my way to work,” says Catalano. “It came out of nowhere, a couple lines at a time.”
Catalano gave the completed litany to Msgr. Philip Reilly, who included it in the prayer book for his “Helpers of God's Precious Infants” groups to use during their pro-life prayer vigils. The p r a y e r book also includes litanies to the Precious Blood and the Sacred Heart, both of which many prolifers find particularly moving. Helpers chapters are active across the United States.
In conjunction with their reflections on the prenatal life of Jesus, many Catholics use the feast days that focus on the unborn Jesus—the Annunciation and the Visitation—to pray the Spiritual Adoption Novena for the Unborn Child. The prayer for this nine-month long novena was written by Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
Archbishop Sheen is quoted saying that those who invoke this prayer for the nine months of a baby's developing life will intercede and save the life of a child who is known to God alone. Participants become the spiritual guardians of preborn babies whose parents are considering an abortion.
Several years ago, pro-life activist Ginny Hitchcock began promoting the novena at Our Lady of Peace Church in Santa Clara, Calif. From March through January, monthly bulletin inserts encouraged parishioners to pray the novena, and also educated them about pre-natal development, current abortion law and statistics, and the teaching of the Church.
“What we intended was to make the unborn baby a reality,” said Hitchcock.
It worked. During the novena, couples who were expecting children of their own bought baby items not just for their own children, but also for the unborn baby they were praying for, and then dropped the items off at the parish's pro-life center. They weren't buying lesser items, either. “They were buying brand new, big ticket items—car seats, strollers, and cribs,” said Hitchcock. “Watching what the novena did for the people in the parish—the generosity it inspired—had a big impact on me. It convinced me that people are not bored with the pro-life message, or jaded in any way. Catholics want to hear the pro-life message.”
Parishes or individuals who wish to conduct the spiritual adoption program can find complete instructions and materials on the Knights of Columbus Web site.
Hitchcock is also convinced that pro-life parishes raise pro-life families, who in turn raise pro-life children. And these children grow up to save babies.
“The young people are the ones who save the most babies from abortion, because they're the ones whose peers are having abortions. They're in the trenches with young men and women their age facing this issue head-on,” added Hitchcock.
The Annunciation
In March, at the time of the Feast of the Annunciation, three prominent pro-life organizations, Priests for Life, Human Life International, and Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, faced the issue of abortion head-on with a statement drawing special attention to t h e pro-life dimensions of the Feast of the Annunciation.
“As Catholic leaders at a time when our society is beset with the evil of abortion, and when the human embryo is treated as a mere object for scientific research, we believe that the celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation is more important than ever. By celebrating this feast with special solemnity, and by spending more time meditating on its doctrinal and spiritual lessons, the faithful can be even more solidly rooted in their pro-life convictions, and spurred on to effective action in defense of life.”
More than 50 national Catholic leaders endorsed the statement. The full text, with a complete list of signers, is archived on the pro-life channel CatholicExchange.com.
Most surgical abortions occur before the twelfth week of pregnancy. With the new availability of chemical abortions, such as RU-486 and so-called “emergency contraception” (also known as the “morning-after pill”) the unborn are in an even more uncertain situation. Those who practice the novena spend the time between the Annunciation and Christmas prayerfully meditating upon the mystery of the Incarnation, and by praying for unborn children who may be in danger at this moment.
“Praying for an individual child makes the abortion issue personal,” said Suzanne Spence, who lives in Mountain View, Calif., with her husband Steve and their eight children. “It's no longer an issue out there somewhere, vague and too l a r g e to grasp; it's little people—one lit-
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: CLARE CONNEELY ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Life Notes DATE: 05/26/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 26, 2002 ----- BODY:School Relents on T-Shirt
THOMAS MORE LAW CENTER, May 10 —The principal of Canyon High School in Canyon, Texas, quickly reacted to a demand letter from the Thomas More Law Center, rescinding his earlier decision prohibiting John Denton from wearing his pro-life sweatshirt at school.
Denton, a junior student, was told on April 22, 2002, that he could no longer wear his sweatshirt that displayed the message “Abortion is Homicide.”
The Law Center sent a demand letter to the Canyon school officials explaining Denton's constitutional right to wear his pro-life clothing and demanding that the school immediately provide written assurance that Denton would be permitted to wear his pro-life sweatshirt to school.
On May 9, the School District's attorney sent the Center a letter explaining that the principal had changed his decision and that Denton may again wear his pro-life sweatshirt to school.
Shareholders vs. Billionaire
NEWSMAX, May 7— The Population Research Institute's Steven Mosher introduced a shareholder's motion to prevent investment firm Berkshire-Hathaway's chair Warren Buffett from donating investors' money to pro-abortion and population control causes.
Mosher argued that Buffett's multi-million dollar donations to causes such as the production of RU-486, Planned Parenthood, and Catholics for a Free Choice, have attracted boycotts from pro-life consumers, and in the long run will contribute to reducing the number of potential consumers of Berkshire-Hathaway products.
Mosher urged all Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders to support his motion, calling for the company to cease all charitable donations rather than bankrolling population control, on grounds of economic self-interest.
“Charitable contributions to simpleminded population control programs, in which governments impose restrictions on childbearing, are not in Berkshire-Hathaway's interest,” Mosher said.
‘Touching’ the Unborn
MANHATTAN TECHNOLOGIES, May 7— A U.S. company says it has pioneered a new haptic (tactile) computer technology that enables parents to “touch” the features of their unborn child during ultrasound.
Manhattan Technologies Inc. says “eTouch”(TM), a 3-D system developed by affiliate Novint Technologies Inc., creates the illusion that the customer is feeling the texture of an unborn baby's face and skin by means of a computer mouse and software that simulates the sensation of touch during ultrasound. The procedure will cost $250 per exam.
New York Abortion Facility Set to Close
BOSTON — Few believe he is guilty, yet Msgr. Michael Smith Foster has been on administrative leave from the Archdiocese of Boston for more than a month.
His two suspensions are the result of sexual-abuse allegations so evidently baseless that the civil courts have dismissed them — with prejudice, meaning they can't be filed again — and the Boston Globe has run detailed exposés portraying the priest's accuser as a pathological liar.
His continued suspension, in light of exculpatory evidence that surfaces almost daily, has fueled arguments that “zero tolerance” toward sexual abuse has turned into zero due process for priests.
The first two weeks of Msgr. Foster's suspension were a matter of procedure. A 35-year-old man named Paul Edwards had accused Msgr. Foster and the late Father William Cummings of molesting him as a boy. The accusations came forth in a lawsuit filed in mid-August. Upon seeing the allegations, Msgr. Foster — the highest-ranking canon lawyer in the Archdiocese of Boston — placed himself on leave.
“Being the head judicial vicar, and therefore quite familiar with policies and procedures of the archdiocese, he requested to put himself on administrative leave from the outset, once he was presented with the allegations,” said Helene Solomon, a spokeswoman for Msgr. Foster.
Once the lawsuit became public knowledge, however, friends and former parishioners of the priests came forward to denounce the accusations as baseless. Hundreds of children, who found each other on the Internet, launched a letter-writing campaign in defense of Msgr. Foster.
But it wasn't only friends and acquaintances of Msgr. Foster and Father Cummings who called the accusations into question. Former friends and acquaintances of Edwards also came forward voluntarily, giving detailed accounts of the man's history of lies as an adult and a child.
They told of the time Edwards tried to convince everyone he had been cast as an actor in the move Jaws. Several former friends and acquaintances told the Globe Edwards pretended, through much of his childhood, to be deaf. They said he lied as a young adult about playing semipro hockey and once fibbed that a relative — who was alive and well — had died.
Edwards’ credibility continued to unravel throughout August, and even his lawyer spoke publicly about discrepancies in his accusations involving the two priests. On Sept. 3, with his fantasy world unraveling in the press, Edwards withdrew his case and a judge dismissed it with prejudice.
Twist of the Plot
On Sept. 6, three days after the case was dismissed, Msgr. Foster and his lawyers expressed dismay that nobody from the archdiocese had contacted them regarding a return to his duties. In response, Father Christopher Coyne of the archdiocese communication office told the Globe that archdiocese officials had “turned up the heat” on an internal investigation of Msgr. Foster so he could be cleared and returned to the ministry quickly. But the Globe determined that few contacts had been made by the archdiocese with those who could shed light on the case.
On Sept. 10, Cardinal Bernard Law, archbishop of Boston, returned Msgr. Foster to duty and invited him to concelebrate a high-profile Sunday Mass with him to show the world he was back.
“The cardinal called Msgr. Foster to let him know he was being reinstated, right before Sept. 11,” Solomon said. “And then sometime between that phone call and Friday, Sept. 13, Paul Edwards walked into the archdiocese — and we now believe that was on Sept. 12 — alleging that all he had said before, even though he had withdrawn the suit, was true.”
Although Edwards had been thoroughly discredited in the Globe, on at least one Boston TV station and by a variety of people who knew Edwards well, Cardinal Law decided to reinstate Msgr. Foster's suspension on the basis of his meeting with Edwards.
“Basically, Msgr. Foster was planning his return, in conjunction with the archdiocese, and he gets a call on Friday the 13th saying, ‘We need you to come in and see us, and we're putting you back on administrative leave,’” Solomon said. “So he went in and met with the delegates here in Boston, and he learned that there is absolutely nothing new, and there continues to be nothing new about this case. He went to the chancery for that Friday the 13th meeting, with his canonical counsel and his civil counsel, and his civil counsel were barred.”
Donna Morrissey, Cabinet secretary for communications for the Boston Archdiocese, told the Register on Sept. 27 the investigation and suspension continue because it is archdiocesan policy to conduct a thorough investigation regardless of what the civil courts decide or what gets printed in newspapers. She would not comment on why Msgr. Foster's civil lawyers were banned from the Sept. 13 meeting.
“We are committed to fulfilling our policy and investigating each and every allegation that's brought forth,” Morrissey said. “We are committed to taking into consideration the rights of the person bringing forth the allegation and also the rights of the accused priest. And any action we take in the course of an investigation should not be construed as an implication of guilt of the accused priest.”
‘Credible’ Accusations?
A “zero-tolerance” sexual abuse policy adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June requires that all allegations brought to the attention of any diocese be reported to civil authorities and that each allegation be thoroughly investigated and reviewed internally. Morrissey said the Archdiocese of Boston is following its own sexual-abuse policy, which is stricter than what the bishops’ conference approved and was written before the June conference in Dallas.
In Dallas, bishops debated for hours whether a prelate should determine the “credibility” of an accusation before jeopardizing a priest's reputation by going public and initiating formal procedures, such as administrative leave. Several bishops argued they have received accusations that are obviously untrue.
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., said he hears from a drunken and mentally ill woman several times a month. The woman has accused nearly every priest in the diocese of attacking and raping her in the streets — all delusional accusations. Under strict interpretation of the new policy, Bishop Bruskewitz said, he would have to report the accusations to civil authorities every time the woman calls and initiate a formal diocesan investigation.
Morrissey said under Boston's policy, accusations are screened for credibility before a priest is placed on leave.
“Our policy requires that we get a clear understanding of the nature of the allegation,” she said. “At that point we make a decision as to whether we need to investigate it further.”
Asked whether that means not all allegations result in administrative leave and an internal investigation, Morrissey said, “That's correct.” She did not know whether an allegation had been made that did not result in administrative leave and an investigation since the new policy — with roots back to 1993 — has been in place.
Morrissey said she couldn't comment on how long the investigation of Msgr. Foster would last or on the nature of the investigation.
“That's the most frustrating part of this whole thing,” Msgr. Foster's spokeswoman Solomon said. “The process is very ill-defined. It's just very squishy.”
Morrissey said “efforts will be made to restore the priest's reputation,” should the investigation conclude that the allegations are without credibility. She would give no specifics on how Msgr. Foster's credibility might be restored.
“It's done on an individual basis, depending on circumstances of the case, but our policy requires that if an investigation determines an allegation is without credibility then efforts will be made to try to restore a priest's reputation,” Morrissey said.
Msgr. Foster isn't certain his reputation will ever be the same, Solomon said.
“That's the $64,000 question and then some,” she said. “Certainly the archdiocese sets out to say they will help to restore a priest's reputation. But how does he gain his reputation back? How does the archdiocese help him gain his reputation back? I think the quickest way for him to start to gain his reputation back is for them to close this so-called investigation and admit there's nothing there and get him back to work.”
Severed Relationship
Critics of the new zero-tolerance policy adopted by bishops — and other diocesan zero-tolerance policies and procedures — say the new effort to show priority concern for victims has led some Church leaders to dismiss common sense. As a result, they say, priests such as Msgr. Foster get hung out to dry in response to even the silliest, most baseless charges.
“There is simply no way, in this environment, that a priest can go to his bishop with any kind of problem — and I mean any problem at all — without fear of losing his reputation in this witch hunt,” said Father Steven Moore, a canon lawyer and vicar general for the Archdiocese of Anchorage, Alaska. “I advise priests it's no longer an option for them to go to the bishop with a personal problem and the bishop cannot serve as an advocate for the priests in his diocese. We have created a wedge between priests and bishops that we've never seen before, and it could prove terribly detrimental to the Church and the priesthood over time.”
Morrissey said Cardinal Law and other officials in the Boston Archdiocese fully understand the need for priests to trust their bishops and for priests to be given all benefits of due process as prescribed in canon law.
“But our first priority is the protection of children,” Morrissey said.
As it should be, Solomon said. She said the protection of children is the foremost concern of Msgr. Foster, which is why he has worked tirelessly to aid the archdiocese in its investigation of the Edwards allegations.
“He wanted them to get to the truth right away, and that's why he put himself on administrative leave immediately,” Solomon said. “He's certainly doing everything he can to cooperate, and it's in his interest to do everything he can to speed it along. At the same time, it's just pretty frustrating to not know what the parameters are, to not know how long the investigation will go on and what the nature of the investigation is.”
Solomon wouldn't say what Msgr. Foster thinks about the implementation of “zero tolerance” or about assertions of critics who say due process has been tossed.
But he made his feelings known in a public statement Sept. 14, after his reinstatement was canceled.
“It is inconceivable to me that the archdiocese could further delay my reinstatement based on nothing more than Paul Edwards’ repetition of the same false allegations,” Msgr. Foster said in the statement. “This is particularly shocking in light of the cardinal's phone call to me on Tuesday [Sept. 10] welcoming me back. The call followed not only the dismissal of the lawsuit but also the completion of a thorough investigation.”
Solomon said the monsignor's case speaks volumes about the issues raised by the implementation of inflexible “zero-tolerance” policies.
“You have the answers to those concerns in this whole story,” Solomon said. “You've got the answers to what can go wrong when a good priest is accused just in the chain of events that have occurred here.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- BODY: ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Should Catholic Evangelization Target Jews? DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The Catholic dialogue with Jewish believers has been fraught with difficulty since the Church's earliest days. And when the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. bishops’ office recently released a preliminary statement, “Reflections on Covenant & Mission,” it generated a storm of controversy over issues that lie at the very heart of the Christian mystery. Said the bishops’ committee document: “[C]ampaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church.”
The scholars contacted by the Register for this symposium were eager to respond in depth. Here is a sampling from their comments, which are available in full along with the complete text of “Reflections on Covenant & Mission” at the Register's Web site, www.ncregister.com.
Dr. Eugene Fisher, associate director secretariat, for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:
There is an overwhelming consensus among Catholics that for pastoral reasons stemming from the long, often tragic history of Christian mistreatment of Jews, the Church should sponsor no aggressive, organized proselytizing of Jews. “Reflections” asserts that there may be theological as well as pastoral reasons for this restraint. These reasons flow from the respect Catholics give to Judaism — alone among world religions — as a faith response to God. This is firmly embedded in Church teaching (see the catechism, No. 839). The controversy appears to flow from understanding the Jewish covenant as “salvific.”
If the covenant has not been superseded, then what can it be called other than “salvific” for Jews? Is not God true to his word? Supersessionism was declared a heresy by the Church in the second century. It still is. Affirming the universal salvific validity of the Christ event and the consequent realization that in the Church one finds the fullness of the means of salvation does not necessarily lead us to hold that God has broken his word by rejecting the undying hope and faith his ineffable grace and inscrutable will have instilled in the people he chose for himself so long ago.
A Man From Mars
Jesuit Father James Schall, professor of government, Georgetown University:
If I were someone from Mars who read this text, I would conclude it amounted to two evidently different groups explaining that they have nothing to do with each other.
The Jewish section tells us about the people chosen by Yahweh. They are to remain what they always were, but they have some universal mission to the whole world. Nothing is said of dying or eternal life. The world is to be perfected into “the Kingdom of the Almighty,” with no indication of when or how.
The Roman Catholics affirm that the original covenant is not revoked. But there is a “new covenant.” Christians are supposed to bring its “good news” to all nations. But this “no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history.” The Jews already have a “saving covenant with God.” The Catholics do “witness” to their “faith in the presence of God's Kingdom in Jesus Christ to Jews and to all peoples,” but with no effort to convert.
The Church “now recognizes that Jews are also called by God to prepare the world for God's Kingdom. Their witness to the Kingdom, which did not originate with the Church's experience of Christ crucified and raised, must not be curtailed by seeking the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity.”
Both groups seem to conceive the “Kingdom of God” as primarily “this worldly.” For both, this Kingdom itself may point to something else, but it is very difficult to see. To a man from Mars can judge, the being and figure of Christ, whether he is in fact the Messiah or Son of God, has little or nothing to do with the relation of these groups to one another.
Their Joy Is Boundless
Dr. Ronda Chervin, professor of philosophy, Our Lady of Corpus Christi College:
Throughout the centuries after the death of Christ, misguided and sinful Catholics have thought it pious to persecute Jews for the Crucifixion or to force conversions on others through pressure. But there were also saintly efforts to evangelize the Jewish people, so that they experience the joy of knowing God the Son. Why did he come and die for them if he thought that their knowledge of God the Father was enough?
Does barring “campaigns that target the Jews” mean that any group that is designed to attract and inform Jewish people of the coming of Jesus, their Messiah, is illegitimate? This is contrary to all the documents about evangelization that have come from the Church in the 20th century — including the catechism. These carefully explain that the Church cannot be true to itself without wishing the Jewish people could find the truth about Jesus as the Messiah.
I myself, a Jewish person brought up as an atheist, would never have found Jesus had not zealous Catholics reached out to me in love and brought me to Jesus. Most of my family followed me into the Church. If you read accounts of such famous Hebrew-Catholics as St. Edith Stein, Rabbi Israel Zolli of Rome or Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, you will realize that the joy of the Jew who finds the Jewish Christ, the Jewish Mary and the Jewish Apostles is boundless.
All Israel Will be Saved
Scripture scholar Father Francis Martin, John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, D.C.:
There will always be an Israel; the irrevocability of the gifts and the calling are due to God's love for his people (see Romans 9:25). This calling, for Christians, includes the call to the Gospel addressed to God's beloved people. As St. Paul writes, there will come a time when Israel “too may now be shown mercy as a result of the mercy shown to you [the Gentiles]” (Romans 11:31).
What is fulfilled is neither absorbed nor superseded: It is perfected. Christ is the “goal” of the law, not as its termination but that toward which it moves (Romans 10:4). For Christians, the ancient covenant continues and is “sublated,” that is, taken up into a greater context that needs it. In this sense Christ fulfills the covenant and “love [agape] is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10).
As God's plan has unfolded we have always with us the actual, historical Jewish people — a sign that God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. The completion of God's plan has yet to take place, and this will somehow include both the perdurance of the Jewish people and their unique place within the Church. For it is the Gentiles who are “co-heirs, co-bodied, co-sharers in the promise, in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (Ephesians 3:6), owing reverence toward the mystery of Israel. For our part, we Christians must witness in love to the fidelity of God to his people who has protected them from our sins against them, and we must strive to be worthy of bringing about that plan by which “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).
Will Jewish Agnostics Like Christians More?
Dr. Paul Gottfried, professor of political science, Elizabethtown College, Pa.:
There are problems with taking theological positions on the basis of not wishing to give offense. It does not lead to mutual respect among diverse ethnic-religious communities. (For just one example, see the free-swinging attempts of Daniel Goldhagen, among many others, to blame Christianity, specifically Pius XII, for the Holocaust.) It is hard to see how this document, full of what are supposedly shared faith claims, will make Jewish agnostics like Christians any better. It is equally problematic whether Orthodox Jews will run to embrace the specifically Christian revealed truths that the document proclaims. Why should they unless they accept the historical truth of Christian Revelation?
The Church Must Proclaim Christ
Mark Drogin, editor,
Besides the documents of Vatican II, the Vatican has issued many official documents concerning the Church's relationship to Jews. All these documents have repeated emphatically that the Church, by her nature, must proclaim Christ. Pope John Paul II wrote an encyclical, Redemptoris Missio, to clarify the Church's mission of evangelization. That papal encyclical affirmed that the Church's mission is to proclaim Christ. Any attempt to silence proclamation of the Gospel is contrary to all contemporary magisterial teaching.
Catholics and Jews must enter again into the Jewish dialogue of the first century between the Jewish followers of Jesus and the Jews who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. We must enter into this dialogue with wisdom and compassion born from 2,000 years of hatred and violence (from the Crucifixion of Jesus to the slaughter of millions by anti-Jewish Europeans). We must enter into an honest theological dialogue knowing that God calls every person to conversion. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he quoted the Shema(from Deuteronomy): “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might.” All are called to love God. Jesus proclaimed the good news of salvation; the Church, by her nature, must proclaim the good news of God's boundless and eternal merciful love for all people.
Intended Only for Gentiles?
David Moss, founder of the Association of Hebrew Catholics:
As a Hebrew Catholic, I am quite aware of the tragic history of Catholic-Jewish relations and of past abuses in evangelizing. I am grateful beyond all telling that, since Vatican II, the magisterium has been engendering a new, positive appreciation of the Jewish people. I am also aware of the heroic struggles of many Jews who have journeyed to their Messiah and his Church. But to me, this document suggests that the Jewish people do not need Yeshua, for they have their own salvific covenant.
Is the fact that Yeshua was born a Jew and restricted his mission to his own people no longer relevant? Are we to believe that the new covenant made with the Jewish people is now intended only for Gentiles? Are we now to heed the high priest in Acts and not teach about Jesus? How can we square this document with the New Testament and the teaching of the Church for two millennia? If Yeshua is not the Messiah of the Jewish people, then upon what basis can we believe that he is the Messiah of anyone?
The Association of Hebrew Catholics wishes to maintain the distinctive, historic and God-given identity and witness of the Jewish people, within the Church, through a Hebrew Catholic community (or “rite”).
Only the Lost Sheep of Israel
Martin Barrack, author of
Jesus, during his public ministry, evangelized only Jews. “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5). “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). He told Nicodemus, a devout Jew and member of the Sanhedrin, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven” (John 3:5). That alone is rock-solid evidence that Jews do not live in a saving covenant apart from God's Messiah.
Rabbi Y'shua, Jesus, was the most Jewish Jew of all. The catechism (No. 578) tells us, “He is in fact the only one who could keep [the Jewish law] perfectly.” St. Paul told us, “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). The Jewish people do indeed have an irrevocable role in salvation history: to bear witness to the Messiah. See the catechism (No. 674): “The glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by all Israel, for a hardening has come upon part of Israel.”
Jews can find salvation as Jews. The catechism (No. 1257) describes the doctrine of “baptism of desire.” But all salvation comes through Jesus’ redemptive final sacrifice. As Pope Paul VI's apostolic exhortation, ‘Evangelii Nuntiandi,’ Dec. 8, 1975, No. 14, says: “The task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church.”
----- EXCERPT: A Symposium ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Zmirak ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Latest Research Bolsters Authenticity DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:TURIN, Italy — No single Christian artifact is more challenging to skeptics than the Shroud of Turin: Once dismissed as a particularly adept medieval forgery, in recent years it has been gaining ever more scientific support that it is precisely what tradition has always claimed it is — the burial cloth that for 30 hours was wound about the recumbent body of the crucified Jesus.
In 1988, the shroud's credibility suffered a setback after three separate carbon-dating tests placed the origin of its linen fibers no earlier than the 13th century A.D., about the time it received what has long been assumed to be its first documented references in western Europe. But at a congress in May in Vienna, scientific researchers detailed solid scientific reasons why carbon dating might never work with the shroud.
And a new thesis, advanced this summer by Italian author Orazio Petrosillo and based on research by American, English and Swiss scientists, argues the shroud's carbon dating was compromised by a failure to recognize that new material had been added during a unique mending process undertaken in the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, an increasing amount of research unrelated to carbon dating continues to point to a first-century Palestinian origin for the shroud's material. For example, Dr. Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, former curator of the Abegg Foundation textile museum in Berne, Switzerland, and a world authority on ancient textiles, told the Vienna conference the weave and style of the material were from the Dead Sea area and could only have been woven in the period from 40 years before the birth of Christ up to 70 years afterward.
The material, a rare 3-to-1 herringbone twill weave of hand-spun linen, is so unique that “there is no way it could have been a forgery from the 13th or 14th centuries,” Flury-Lemberg said.
Turin University pathologist Dr. Pieluigi Baima Bollone added that close examination of the cloth revealed images of two coins from the time of Pontius Pilate on the shroud, a further indication the image predated the Middle Ages.
But perhaps the most significant material presented in Vienna came from Piero Savarino, professor of industrial organic chemistry at the University of Turin. In an interview with the Register, Savarino pointed out that the human image on the shroud rests on the outer fibers of the linen weave, in a layer thinner than a human hair. Furthermore, it presents an X-ray-like picture of the skeletal system, particularly displaying the bones of both hands, the left wrist, the skull and front teeth and some of the vertebrae.
“We know the image could not have been a painting because it resulted from rapid dehydration of the cellulose in the fabric” similar to what happens in a fire, Savarino said, “but we also know that this process was done without heat. And how that could happen is a mystery.”
Savarino explained that when the chemical decomposition of material is accompanied by heat, substances called pyrols are left behind. And while those pyrols can be found in abundance in the parts of the shroud scorched by the various cathedral fires it has suffered through the centuries, none are connected to the image itself.
“That's why some scientists have suggested that the image resulted from a controlled nuclear event that occurred at the moment of the Lord's Resurrection,” said Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and director of the Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin. “His body would have given off massive amounts of radiation as it dematerialized and passed through the shroud, leaving a kind of negative photograph with an X-ray component relating to the bones resting nearest the material.”
Whanger noted that Canadian physicist Thaddeus Trenn, director of the science and religion program at the University of Toronto, has hypothesized that an influx of energy overcame the strong force that bound together the protons and neutrons in the body of the man lying in the shroud. Such an instantaneous event would have released massive amounts of X-rays. Moreover, Trenn has pointed out, the dematerialization theory is supported by distortions in the shroud image that indicate it was collapsing in upon itself at the precise moment the image was being produced.
And only dematerialization explains how the body could have been lifted away from the blood that had soaked into the fabric while leaving no trace of pulled fibrils on the shroud's surface.
Whanger said an event like that would have created a massive amount of neutron irradiation, which would lay down levels of carbon-14 all out of proportion to anything that would occur naturally. That could explain why attempts at carbon-14 dating have failed to support the shroud's authenticity.
“I don't think they'll ever get the carbon dating to line up with the rest of what we know about the shroud,” Whanger said.
Author Petrosillo reaches the same conclusion in an article published this past summer in the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero. Researchers, he wrote, have discovered different weaves in some of the threads analyzed in the 1988 carbon-14 dating attempt. The different weaves are the result of an invisible mend, in which new threads were woven directly into older, original material sometime during the Middle Ages.
Where the invisible mend occurred, the newer fibers are coated with a dark yellow starchy substance common for medieval fabrics. The older fibers lack the substance.
A thread from the older side was dated at the California Institute of Technology back to the third century. On the other hand, the newer, coated material dated back to the 13th century. Petrosillo reports that according to Beta Analytic, a radiocarbon dating service, a mixture of 60% of 16th-century material with 40% of first-century material could lead to a dating of the 13th century.
Apart from carbon dating, an extensive amount of evidence indicates the shroud is genuine and from the period in which Christ lived. The nail holes, for instance, are placed not in the palms but in the wrists, a position necessary to support the crucified man's full body weight, but also a bit of knowledge unknown to medieval artists.
Also persuasive are images on the cloth of Roman coins and other artifacts, including the titulus, the board nailed to Jesus’ cross upon which Pilate wrote the words, “The King of the Jews”; the 24 flower images identified on the shroud, all from plants with geographical ranges known to overlap only within the vicinity of Jerusalem; the crown of thorns revealed on the cloth to be lying next to the body, an appearance unique to Christ because no one else is known to have been so crowned prior to their crucifixion.
Moreover, discoveries of ancient records in European libraries and museums, including drawings and written descriptions of the shroud, have pushed knowledge of its existence back several hundred years before it was first known to have begun its Turin residency.
Leading shroud skeptic Walter McCrone, a forensic scientist who has studied the cloth since 1974, did not respond to Register requests for interviews. But in an earlier interview with this writer, he insisted the shroud is a pious fraud designed to compete with similar products in the Middle Ages’ burgeoning relics market. His analysis of fibers lifted from the shroud onto sticky tape led him to conclude that the image is a clever painting, done with a red ochre tint in a very dilute gelatin solution.
“Of course he found evidence of paint,” Whanger replied. “The shroud was known to have been the basis for some 55 ‘true copies,’ handmade reproductions of the shroud's image produced by medieval artists who would then lay their work on top of the original for added sanctity. Such an action would inevitably leave threads behind and provide the source of the iron oxide that has been found.”
Faith and Science
But even the shroud's scientific supporters argue against using it as central proof of the Christian faith. “That's dangerous,” Savarino said. “Faith must be founded on the word of God and Christ, not science.”
Speaking during a May 1998 visit to the shroud in Turin, Pope John Paul II stressed the Church does not regard the shroud's authenticity as a matter of Christian faith. “As it is not a matter of faith, the Church has no specific competence to pronounce itself on these questions. It entrusts the task of research to scientists, to arrive at appropriate answers for questions related to this cloth.”
“What really counts for believers is that the holy shroud is a mirror of the Gospel,” the Holy Father explained, emphasizing that there is a convergence between the Gospel narrative and the image of the man on the cloth.
Nevertheless, a number of former skeptics have found that their shroud studies surprised them with an unexpected spiritual component. “When I really came to accept the shroud's authenticity several years ago,” said Phillip Wiebe, professor of philosophy at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, “I really began to believe in the Resurrection. Then I found that for the first time in my adult life I was also comfortable with the other miracles in the New Testament, including the virgin birth of Christ. I asked myself, ‘If this man had such an extraordinary end, then what was his beginning?’”
Added Wiebe: “I suddenly realized that if Jesus was the God-man, there must have been some purpose behind his death. I was then able to accept Christianity's other fundamental teachings. My faith was restored in a cascading series of insights in what I can only describe as a wonderful act of grace.”
Shafer Parker writes from Edmonton, Alberta.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Shafer Parker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Challenging Pro-Lifers to Change DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:It's that more people should change the way they live.
As director of the Center for Life Principles, a pro-life organization dedicated to re-establishing recognition of human dignity, she has trained hundreds of speakers for the pro-life movement. She is also the founder of the Modestly Yours program and Being With, a campaign to encourage out-reach to the elderly and ill.
She recently spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about the Life Principles approach.
How old were you when your family moved West?
I was born in New Jersey, but when I was 4 we moved to the desert of New Mexico. Our move was quite a shock to the rest of the family because they thought we were going to get eaten up by scorpions. I am the third of six children. I have four sisters and a brother. My father is a professional landscape photographer and my mother took care of the children. She now works at a university.
Did you grow up Catholic?
Yes, I come from a very strong Catholic family. My faith flourished, in large part due to my parents. My dad took it upon himself to teach us the Catechism. He set a good example for us, taking the time to hold classes with all six of us. That left a huge impression on us. He would give us homework and mark it up with a red pen. Mine was always the most marked-up. I struggled with it the most because theology didn't come easy for me. I had too many questions.
Our mother always being present in our lives also helped me to see God in a very real way. She didn't seek a career, she sought God first and family second.
How did you first get involved in pro-life work?
My first involvement in the pro-life movement was not a positive experience.
In high school our neighbors across the street were Protestant and picketed the abortion clinic. Sometimes I would go with them. I remember standing in front of the clinic with a real sense of self-righteousness. I was just too young to understand.
In high school and college my attitude was trying to require that everyone stop being pro-abortion rather than trying to move people toward a sense of true dignity about the human person. In college, we would dress up like the grim reaper and carry around graphic images presenting abortion.
Our activities tended to be radical, but they weren't motivated by Christ. They were motivated by “look what I am doing.”
How did you end up with Life Principles?
After college I wanted to go into politics. I felt that if we could just change a law we could be successful. I worked as a lobbyist with the Washington State Right to Life office, testifying in the Legislature and gathering witnesses for hearings.
While it was fun, it was neither successful nor useful. Every year we were defeated. People, in general, are not living with a higher sense of meaning in their life. If they do not have a higher sense of meaning in their own life, then they will not have a higher sense of meaning for the life of the unborn.
Father Robert Spitzer asked me to run a new education effort that he was starting and my job evolved from a political job to creating educational resources that are used around the world.
Summarize the Life Principles approach.
The Life Principles approach is a huge paradigm shift for the pro-life movement.
It moves from pro-life activism to pro-life evangelization. We're not just trying to change the way a person votes; we're trying to change the way a person lives.
Life Principles is based upon the principle that every human being desires happiness or fulfillment. The problem is that because we are self-conscious, we can choose what we want to believe that ultimate happiness is. In our culture, we are guided to choose types of happiness that are really beneath us.
There are basically four different ways that people can experience happiness: physical pleasure, ego gratification, contribution and communion with God. What we do is help show people that our culture is selling us a life that is beneath our dignity. Our culture focuses on the first two levels and stops there. It says, “Get those and you'll be satisfied.” Yet people are miserable and don't know why.
How does that inform the work that you do?
We believe abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, addictions, violence and most human problems are the result of living beneath ourselves. They are the result of living at the first two levels. If we can show people that true meaning is at levels three and four, then we can change the culture.
Life Principles tackles the abortion argument in a much different fashion than most pro-life organizations.
Abortion undermines not only happiness and rights, but also a healthy understanding of freedom, quality of life and the common good. Choice without justice will turn a society into a tyranny. The crux of the issue is suffering. We do not understand suffering because we do not know what we are destined for. We have no idea who God is.
This also manifests itself in your Being With program. Tell me about that.
Being With encourages people to go into hospitals, prisons, nursing homes or wherever people are suffering and simply be with them. A “being-with” kind of love is more profound than a “doing-for” kind of love.
At some point, with most terminal illnesses, you reach a point where you can no longer help. That's when our culture says, “Quick, end the despair. Kill them in a gentle way and move on.” Being With says that is a robbery. It moves into compassion, looking into the eyes of the other and seeing the eternity of God. The transformations that we are seeing are amazing.
Do you have an example?
Yes. There was one man I visited, Mr. Watson. He had had knee surgery and then an embolism, which caused a heart attack. He was supposed to die in two weeks. The day I visited Mr. Watson, I had been getting kicked out of patients’ rooms all day. I fell back into levels one and two, concentrating on my bruised ego. When I sat down with Mr. Watson he talked for 45 minutes. When he was done, I was very bored, hot and hungry and wanted to go home.
When I got up to go, he shot out his arm and said, “Please, don't go. I need someone to be with me.” I realized that I hadn't been with him. I was being with me. After that we engaged in conversation. He felt free to cry and we talked of God. I was able to share my faith with him. When I got up to go, I kissed him on the head and said, “I think you got what you needed.” He replied, “No, I think you got what you needed.”
Our culture says that if someone is sick, get rid of him. Yet I would have lost the opportunity to connect with Mr. Watson, and the end of the story is that he lived. I see him every couple of months and he continues to ask about my faith.
How has your work influenced your faith?
My own personal relationship with God has moved from an intellectual understanding of who God is to an affective understanding. My view of God now, compared to when I was younger, is that God is my eternal beloved and he loves every human being as if you were the only person he was in love with. The thought of infiniteness loving little, finite, fallible, bumbling me is enough to make me follow him anywhere.
----- EXCERPT: For Camille De Blasi, the message of events like Respect Life Sunday (on Oct.6) is not just that more people should change the way they vote. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Camille De Blasi ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Programs Highlight Need to Examine Role of Church Lay Ministers DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore. — Lay ministers are taking an ever-greater role in the Catholic Church in 21st-century America. Whether that role will be positive or negative is the subject of ongoing debate.
Virtually nonexistent in 1962, the lay ecclesial ministry now routinely controls youth ministry, out-reach and youth and adult education at the parish level. According to a report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there were approximately 30,000 lay ecclesial ministers as of June 2000. With another 30,000 in degree or certification programs, the report said, it is likely the lay ministry will outnumber active ordained clergy 2-to-1 by 2010.
Paving the way for this new class of non-priest parish professionals are academic programs designed to confirm their status as the functional core of local Church life. With the blessing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and local diocesan authorities, the lay ministers are being educated to serve the priests and parishes.
However, the enhanced professionalism of the lay ministry is not without risk, as many appear to misperceive their position in relationship to both the clergy and the people in the pews.
As the 2000 bishops’ conference report on lay ecclesial ministry stated, “It is essential to maintain the distinction between those ecclesial ministries that are entrusted to the laity appropriately because of their baptismal call and those ministries ordinarily reserved to the ordained.”
Link With Hierarchy?
One example of this conflict over roles is the Archdiocese of Portland training program for pastoral ministry, where the student and faculty view of their position diverges from that of the archdiocese, which sponsors the program.
“Those who are called to the priesthood are to maintain the sacramental knowledge and serve as examples of holiness. Lay ministers are the ones who counsel, visit the sick, teach and care for the parish community,” said Barbara Harrison, director of catechesis for a Portland, Ore., parish and one of 22 students enrolled in the master of arts in pastoral ministry degree program at the Northwest Center for Catholic Graduate Theology, operated by the University of Portland.
Along with the rest of her class, she looks to the future of the Catholic Church and foresees in it a place for specially trained laity as a link between the Church hierarchy and the people in the pews. It is a view their instructors share.
“The ministry of the Church today is more intensive and extensive than before,” said Father Jim Dallen, who was teaching one of the courses. “It's the responsibility of the clergy to facilitate and coordinate ministries.” He said it's the job of the laity to minister.
It has been two years since the University of Portland's department of theology inaugurated the pastoral ministry master's degree. Modeled on a similar degree program at Gonzaga University and offered in cooperation with the Spokane, Wash., school, the University of Portland's weekend program is designed for people already working in lay ministry. The American Theological Society certifies the program through Gonzaga.
Courses mirror a master's in divinity degree, said Dr. Matthew Baasten, director of the graduate program. Emphasis is on biblical studies, systematic theology, contemporary ecclesiology, ethics, the theology of Christian worship and issues in religion and culture. However, he noted, there are “practical components for a broader area than a pastor would be trained for,” such as religious education, youth ministry, outreach and counseling.
The Archdiocese of Portland has been the driving force behind the University of Portland program. It was created at the suggestion of the archdiocese, which also provides the bulk of the scholarship money for students. In addition, the archdiocese has made the master's program a prerequisite for candidates for the deaconate. This requirement alone has provided 13 of the 37 students in the first three cohorts.
“We recognize the importance of lay ministry,” said Father Paul Peri, director of the archdiocese Office of Ministry Formation.
“The members [of the presbyterial council] called for appropriately educated and formed lay people,” he said. “The priests told the bishops that they are depending more on lay staff. They wanted them to have the [theological and ministry] tools.”
While that is the goal, Archbishop John Vlazny of Portland takes exception to the role of the lay minister as intermediary. The archbishop said Harrison and Father Dallen's comments were “a clear signal that these folks need formation.”
“It is true that priests have a unique role in the sacramental ministry of the Church,” he wrote in correspondence with the Register, “but they are in no way excluded from the other ministries cited. They are uniquely commissioned to help the bishop teach, sanctify and guide the people of God.”
Disputed Roles
Archbishop Vlazny's position has been echoed in the bishops’ conference's relationship with the National Association of Lay Ministers, the primary organization for promoting and certifying Catholic lay ministers. It is also an organization that routinely positions itself and its membership as opposed to hierarchy.
In a recent newsletter, the association's board chairman, Dennis Beeman, wrote, “As ministers in the Catholic tradition, we are well aware that our Church is patriarchal. From my experience, there is an almost automatic temptation for the persons at the top of the system's patriarchal pyramid to become self-serving and self-preserving.”
The strained relationship between the association and the bishops was highlighted during the preparation of the bishops’ conference report on lay ecclesial ministry. Disagreement occurred over the bishops’ desire for less quasi-clerical job titles, preferring “manager” and “director” to “minister.”
Pope John Paul II, in a recent address to Brazilian bishops, warned against the trend in the Church to “clericalize” the laity. (See the full story on page 4.)
Said the Pope, “Not everyone has the same function, because not everyone participates in the same way in the priesthood of Christ.”
The Holy Father stressed that Catholics who are not ordained may “carry out some tasks and functions of cooperation in pastoral service” only “when they are expressly appointed by their respective consecrated pastors, in keeping with prescriptions of the law.”
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Columbia President Apologizes for Anti-Clerical Barb
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 25 — Columbia University President Lee Bollinger apologized for a snide remark made over the public-address system at halftime as his school's football team played longtime rival Fordham University on Sept. 21, according to Associated Press.
Columbia's marching band announcer made an allusion to recent sex scandals involving clergy, using a double entendre referring to altar boys.
Bollinger phoned Fordham President Father Joseph O’ Hare to say he regretted the student's remarks, which Fordham students, along with the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, had called anti-Catholic.
The marching band member who wrote the script stood by it. Said Columbia student Andy Hao, “You should blame the priests that molest kids and degrade the name of the Church rather than blaming some college kid who wrote a football script.”
Davis Endorses Human Embryonic Research
REUTERS, Sept. 22 — California Gov. Gray Davis, a self-described Catholic, signed a bill Sept. 22 endorsing research using human embryos — destroying them, then mining them for “stem cells,” which could produce medical advances.
Such experiments were partly defunded by President Bush last year and are explicitly condemned by the Church.
“As the country ages, I believe more and more Americans will see the value stem cell research has in enhancing quality of the lives of the people they love,” said Davis, a vocal supporter of abortion.
Searching for God at Ground Zero
A former executive at General Electric, he has done pastoral work with homeless people, street gangs and Kenyan refugees. Now he is the associate editor of America magazine and an author. His latest book is Searching for God at Ground Zero (Sheed & Ward), a reflection on his own experiences working with rescue workers, volunteers and survivors at the site of America's greatest domestic terror.
Father Martin writes, “If any people still doubt the reality of evil in the world, let them come to the World Trade Center. And if any doubt the presence of God in the world, let them come to the World Trade Center.”
Prepare for World War IV
TOWNHALL.COM, Sept. 25 — Columnist Paul Craig Roberts, in last week's Townhall.com, pointed to the broader ambitions of some policy-makers who favor a war with Iraq.
He cited Commentary magazine editor Norman Podhoretz's recent call for the United States to wage “World War IV” against most of the Islamic world. Podhoretz wrote last month that “regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil, [Iraq, Iran and North Korea].”
“At a minimum,” Podhoretz wrote, “the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as ‘friends’ of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority.”
Podhoretz suggested the United States “impose a new political culture” on the defeated region of the Middle East.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Sacrament of Confirmation: When Should It Take Place? DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:FARGO, N.D. — In the largely rural Diocese of Fargo, N.D., Father Paul Duchschere will soon be one among many priests helping to prepare children for a sacrament commonly reserved for later in life.
In August, the newly appointed diocesan bishop, Samuel Aquila, announced he was changing the sequence of first Communion and confirmation, making third-graders receive the sacrament of confirmation immediately preceding their first Eucharist at the same Mass.
Father Duchschere agrees with the new policy, saying that in a world increasingly fraught with vices, the earlier youth can receive the sacramental graces of confirmation the better.
“That's the primary advantage as far as I can see,” said Father Duchschere, pastor of St. Paul's Neumann Center in Fargo. “It seems to me that nowadays our young people have so many temptations out there to drive them away from our Lord Jesus.”
The prospect of such a policy sparked discussion among clergy and diocesan officials last spring, raising concern about third-graders receiving a sacrament usually conferred to those in junior high or high school.
Stella Jeffrey, the diocesan director for evangelization and catechesis, was involved in the discussions.
“The general consensus of everyone, except for one person, was to either do confirmation as late as possible or as early as possible,” Jeffrey said. “Some were very passionate about having the earlier age, and some were very passionate about the later age, too.”
The decision to reverse the order of the two sacraments is not unprecedented. In fact, bishops have opted to do the same either permanently or in pilot programs in other U.S. dioceses, including the Diocese of Saginaw, Mich., and the Diocese of Cleveland. Some bishops in Canada, Scotland and Australia have also adopted such a policy.
They point to the practices of the early Roman Church in the West and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, particularly Pope Paul VI's apostolic constitution on the sacrament of confirmation.
“This is a movement in the Western Church today,” said Father Neil Roy, assistant professor of theology at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. “It's catching on.”
Bishop Aquila outlined the new confirmation policy and the history of Christian initiation in an 11-page letter dated Aug. 15, the Feast of the Assumption.
In the letter, the bishop said the new policy was implemented for theological reasons, one being that the reception of confirmation before the Eucharist is more in line with the ancient practice of initiation into the Church.
“I hope by this policy that the true place of the Eucharist as the summit of that initiation and the source of all Church life will be more fully recognized in our diocesan family,” stated the bishop, who was away in Rome and could not immediately be reached for comment.
The bishop also said reversing the order of the two sacraments would put more emphasis on confirmation as a sacrament and not something earned after completing a certain amount of religious instruction.
“The perfection of baptismal grace found in the sacrament of confirmation is not dependent upon age or knowledge of the confirmed,” Bishop Aquila stated. “The grace that is conferred is a free gift.”
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, confirmation is sometimes referred to as the sacrament of Christian maturity, but the Catechism stresses that one should not confuse “adult faith with the adult age of natural growth” (No. 1308).
Early Church Practice
In the first centuries of the Church, bishops administered confirmation immediately after baptism during one celebration. But the increase in infant baptisms, rural parishes and the growth of dioceses often prevented bishops from being present at all baptismal celebrations, delaying confirmations.
The Western Church split from the Eastern Church, where priests — not bishops — administered baptism and confirmation in a single celebration.
In the West, although the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and first Communion were spread out, the order remained the same, with first Communion being received at around age 12. But in 1910, Pope St. Pius X encouraged first Communion at the age of discretion — about 7 years old — which pushed confirmation back to a later age.
When clergy and officials in the Diocese of Fargo began their discussions, Father Duchschere said a few were concerned that celebrating confirmation and first Communion during the same Mass might detract from each sacrament being a special occasion. Others questioned whether educators could properly prepare third-graders to receive confirmation.
Some wondered if the children would quit going to religious education classes after receiving confirmation and Communion, believing they've done all they've needed to do in their faith.
But Father Roy said this mistaken view of confirmation has evolved because of the practice of confirming youth at a later age.
“The sacrament itself was being reduced to a prize for attending CCD classes,” he said. “So they were using the sacrament as a carrot.”
Atlanta
Still, many say confirmation should be reserved for youth closer to their teen-age years or those in high school.
On Sept. 1, the Archdiocese of Atlanta implemented a policy requiring that confirmation not take place until 10th grade. In a letter accompanying the new confirmation guidelines, Archbishop John Donoghue stated he had spoken with priests in the diocese and determined age was a crucial factor.
“Young people in the sixth through ninth grades are at a time in their lives that is full of confusing changes, and I do not believe this is the best time for them to have a full grasp of the commitment they are to make when they receive this sacrament,” the archbishop stated.
But the Vatican has accepted the decision of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to allow children to be confirmed as early as age 7 and as late as age 16, making the U.S. norm effective July 1 of this year.
In Fargo, Father Duchschere said that religious education classes will be held for youth up to the 12th grade, rather than stopping at eighth or 10th grade, as was the policy in some parishes throughout the diocese.
According to Bishop Aquila's letter, the first group of third-graders will be confirmed in spring 2005.
Said Father Duchschere, “I think a lot of the priests are excited about the idea, in terms of this is really in more line with the Church.”
Bart Price writes from St. Augustine, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bart Price ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Official Clarifies Statement on Homosexual Ordination
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 20 — Last week an influential Vatican official, Father Andrew Baker of the Congregation for Bishops, published an article in the Jesuit journal America arguing that homosexually inclined men should not be ordained priests.
In the face of controversy, Father Baker has stood by his position but made it clear he is not promulgating official teaching in the article.
In the article, Father Baker argued that homosexual men have special difficulties staying celibate in an all-male seminary environment and remaining faithful to Church teaching — especially those that condemn homosexual behavior and call homosexuality a disorder.
War Over the Cross in Italy
NEWS24.COM, Sept. 19 — A proposed law that would place crucifixes in public places in Italy — such as schools and train stations — has sparked controversy.
Promoted by the conservative party The Northern League, the bill has been attacked by Islamic and Jewish groups, who said it hearkens back to fascist Italy.
The bill was introduced after a recent appeal from Pope John Paul II during a talk on the Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross that crucifixes be made more visible throughout society.
Abdel Smith, leader of the controversial Italian Union of Muslims, responded to the bill by likening the crucifix to a rotting cadaver.
Education minister Letizia Moratti explained to parliament that the crucifix would hang in state schools and hospitals as “a symbol of Christian civilization, its roots and its universal values, all of which are essential elements of the historical and cultural heritage of our country.”
Pope Blesses Soccer Team
The team is nine-time winner of the European Cup. It went to Rome to see the Pope, who played goalkeeper as a teen-ager, wearing No. 1 for his school team in Wadowice, Poland.
The Holy Father addressed Real Madrid, speaking of the “nobleness” of sport and of its power to bridge differences among peoples.
Future Accord With Traditionalists?
UNA VOCE.ORG, September — On its Web site this month, the “traditional Catholic” group Una Voce offered hints of a possible accord between followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and the Vatican.
It cited an interview in the French Una Voce magazine with Jesuit Father Pierre Blet, professor of Church history at the Gregorian University in Rome. In the interview, Father Blet noted some members of the Pius X Society were warmly received at the Vatican during the Jubilee Year, but negotiations had stalled over what level of acceptance the society must give to the documents of Vatican II. Father Blet said he expected this snag to be overcome.
He went on to address the liturgy, suggesting that many cardinals in the curia are open to wider permission for the Mass of St. Pius V, noting that “the Pope himself celebrated this Mass during his recent vacation.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Four Cardinal Points for a World of Peace DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Psalm 85, which we have just heard, is a joyful song that is full of hope in the future of salvation. It reflects the exciting moment when the people of Israel returned to the land of their fathers from exile in Babylon. They are beginning once again their life as a nation in their beloved homeland, which was destroyed during the conquest of Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar's armies in 586 B.C.
Indeed, in the original Hebrew version of the psalm, the verb shûb is repeated several times — a word that denotes the return of those who have been in exile but that also has the meaning of a spiritual “return” or “conversion.” The psalm, therefore, refers not only to the rebirth of a nation but also to the community of the faithful, who experienced their exile as punishment for the sins they had committed and who now see their return home and their new freedom as God's blessing for their conversion.
A Spiritual Return
We can follow the development of the psalm in its two fundamental stages. An initial reading reveals the theme of “return” and everything it entails, as we have pointed out. First of all, it celebrates Israel's physical return: “You … Lord … restored the good fortune of Jacob” (verse 2); “Restore us once more, God our savior. … Please give us life again” (verses 5 and 7). This is a precious gift from God, who is anxious to set his children free from oppression and who is committed to their prosperity: “For you love all things that are. … But you spare all things because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls” (see Wisdom 11:24, 26).
However, besides the “return” that concretely unites those who have been in exile, there is another, more interior and spiritual “return.” The psalmist devotes ample space to this theme, which he highlights. The theme is valid not only for ancient Israel but for the faithful throughout the ages.
The Lord is actively at work to bring about this “return” and reveals his love by forgiving the iniquities of his people, wiping away their sins, setting aside his wrath and turning back his anger (see Psalm 85:3-4).
It is this deliverance from evil, forgiveness of guilt and purification from sin that makes God's people new. This is expressed in an invocation that has also become part of our Christian liturgy: “Lord, show us your mercy and love, and grant us your salvation” (verse 8).
Our Response
But God's “return” to us through forgiveness must be answered by man's “return” or “conversion” to God through repentance. Indeed, the psalm states that peace and salvation are offered to “to those who trust in him” (verse 9). Those who make the decision to follow the path of holiness will receive the gifts of joy, freedom and peace.
It is worth noting that often the biblical terms that are used when referring to sin talk about taking the wrong road, missing the mark or straying from the straight path. Conversion is simply a “return” to the straight path that leads to the Father's house, who is there waiting to embrace us, forgive us and make us happy (see Luke 15:11-32).
A New World of Peace
At this point, we come to the second part of the psalm (see Psalm 85:10-14), which our Christian tradition cherishes so highly. It describes a new world where God's love and faithfulness “meet” as though they were two people; likewise, justice and peace “kiss” when they meet. Truth springs forth in a new springtime, and justice, which also means salvation and holiness in the Bible, looks down from heaven and begins its journey amid humanity. All the virtues, which were banished at first from the earth because of sin, enter history anew, and, as their paths cross, plot out the map for a world of peace. Mercy, truth, justice and peace are sort of the four cardinal points for this geography of the spirit. As Isaiah sings: “Let justice descend, O heavens, like dew from above, like gentle rain let the skies drop it down. Let the earth open and salvation bud forth; let justice also spring up! I, the Lord, have created this” (Isaiah 45:8).
As early as the second century, the psalmist's words were interpreted as the proclamation of “Christ, begotten of the Virgin,” as St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote (Adversus haereses, III, 5, 1). Indeed, when Christ came, mercy flowed, truth blossomed, justice bloomed and peace shone forth in splendor.
For this reason, our Christian tradition interprets this psalm, especially its second part, in the context of the Nativity. This is how St. Augustine interprets it in one of his sermons for Christmas. We will conclude our reflection with his words: “‘Truth sprang forth from the earth’: Christ, who said, ‘I am the truth,’ (John 14:6) was born of a Virgin. ‘Justice looked down from heaven’: whoever believes in him who was born does not justify himself but is justified by God. ‘Truth sprang from the earth’: because ‘the Word became flesh’ (John 1:14). ‘Justice looked down from heaven’: because ‘all good giving and every perfect gift is from above’ (James 1:17). ‘Truth sprang from the earth’: for it took on a body through Mary. ‘Justice looked down from heaven’: because ‘no one can receive anything except what has been given him from heaven’ (John 3:27)” (Discorsi, IV/1, Rome, 1984, p. 11).
(Register translation)
Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with pilgrims from around the world in St. Peter's Square for his general audience on Sept. 25 after a short helicopter flight from his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. He continued his teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours with a meditation on Psalm 85.
“Psalm 85 is a joyful song that is full of hope in the future of salvation,” the Holy Father noted. The psalm celebrates Israel's return from exile in Babylon. “The psalm refers not only to the rebirth of a nation but also to the community of the faithful.”
The Pope pointed out that the first part of the psalm celebrates not only Israel's return from exile but also its turning back to the Lord in faith and obedience to his covenant, which are valid themes not only for ancient Israel but for the faithful throughout the ages. “God's ‘return’ to us through forgiveness must be answered by man's ‘return’ or ‘conversion’ through repentance,” he stressed.
The second part of the psalm, the Holy Father said, “describes a new world where God's love and faithfulness ‘meet’ as though they were two people; likewise, justice and peace ‘kiss’ when they meet.” The psalm plots out the map for a world of peace. “Mercy, truth, justice and peace are sort of the four cardinal points for this geography of the spirit,” he said.
John Paul concluded his reflections by quoting St. Irenaeus of Lyons and St. Augustine, who found the highest expression of this “new world” in the coming of Christ.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Despite Crisis, South American Bishops Hopeful About Globalization DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:SAN MIGUEL, Argentina — Resisting pressure from political and social sectors, Catholic bishops of the Southern Common Market — known as Mercosur — have decided on a moderate, even hopeful statement regarding the possibilities of globalization and continental economic integration.
For the third time since Mercosur was created 10 years ago, the bishops of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia — Chilean bishops did not attend because the meeting coincided with the country's national feast day — gathered in San Miguel, near the Argentinean capital, to evaluate the effects of globalization and free trade in the region.
Unlike previous gatherings, the meeting on Sept. 16-18 took place while the region, including the two “big partners” — Argentina and Brazil — is undergoing a deep economic and social crisis that many leaders blame on the attempt to free the economy.
The approximately 25 South American bishops who arrived in Buenos Aires were under extreme pressure to issue a highly critical position against the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Continental Free Trade Agreement (known as ALCA) proposed by the United States and against globalization in general.
In fact, before the meeting, Hugo Moyano, president of one of the largest Argentinean workers’ unions, sent a letter “in the name of the Argentinean workers” demanding the bishops openly reject ALCA and globalization.
The delegates of Brazil, the world's largest episcopate, arrived at the meeting shortly after expressing great skepticism about ALCA and calling for a referendum “to let the Brazilian people decide” if the largest Latin American country should join the U.S.-sponsored proposal.
The Argentinean episcopate issued a statement prior to the meeting explaining that the bishops would gather “to analyze the radical abyss between rich and poor, the increasing process of social exclusion and the failure of a policy which, under the name of ‘neo-liberalism,’ has destroyed our economies and deeply damaged our social structure.”
Nevertheless, they made it clear that “as bishops, we will provide a pastoral perspective, inspired by the Gospel, in order to see both the challenges and opportunities for the new evangelization.”
‘Opportunities’
Sergio Rubín, political commentator of the daily Clarín, predicted the day before the meeting that “this time, the bishops will not be able to make general remarks about the social teachings of the Church but will have to take a critical stand toward ALCA, regarded by many as a new neo-liberal project.”
But Rubín was wrong.
In fact, the bishops came up with a balanced document, in which although critical of international organizations such as IMF, they admit globalization “may bring better opportunities.”
Moreover, the bishops concentrated their firepower on the local corruption and the incompetence of the region's political and economic leadership.
A source attending the event, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “At the beginning of the meeting, the environment was clearly very anti-globalization, especially on the part of the Brazilian and Bolivian delegates.”
Nevertheless, according to the source, the intervention of two lay experts invited by the bishops, Brazilian ambassador to Argentina José Botafogo Gonçalves and Uruguayan intellectual Alberto Methol Ferré, was decisive in changing the environment.
“Both Mr. Gonçalves and I explained that globalization is both a challenge and an opportunity, and that it will become whatever we, as Catholics, make of it, as long as we participate in shaping it,” Methol Ferré said.
According to Methol Ferré, Gonçalves made clear to the bishops that “there is no place for isolated economies in the world, and a strong regional organization like Mercosur is not necessarily opposed to a more global agreement such as ALCA.”
“On the contrary, they could interact in a beneficial way,” Methol Ferré said.
U.S. and Globalization
According to the source, Archbishop Estanislao Karlic of Paraná, president of the Argentinean Bishops’ Conference, argued strongly against an anti-globalization position by quoting Pope John Paul II's 1999 apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America.
Said the Pope, “The ethical implications [of globalization] can be positive or negative. There is an economic globalization which brings some positive consequences, such as efficiency and increased production and which, with the development of economic links between the different countries, can help to bring greater unity among peoples and make possible a better service to the human family. However, if globalization is ruled merely by the laws of the market applied to suit the powerful, the consequences cannot but be negative” (No. 20).
This passage, as well as other papal texts quoted by Archbishop Karlic, moved the discussion in favor of a more cautious, even hopeful approach to globalization.
The bishops’ final document stated “the need to speed up regional integration, strengthening each particular cultural identity, the values and traditions of each particular people, in relation to the phenomenon of globalization.”
After criticizing the “questionable role” of the IMF and slamming the “dramatic culture of corruption” among regional leaders, the bishops recognized that “globalization can become a positive experience, as long as it promotes an integration based on the most deeply human values: cultural and religious ones.”
“That is why we have tried to respond in the best possible way to the Pope's request of turning the Church into a ‘house and school of communion,’ despite the limitations of such a brief meeting,” the bishops said.
During the final press conference, Cardinal Julio Terrazas Sandoval, president of the Bolivian Bishops’ Conference, said, “The current social, political and economic landscape of our nations is evidence that there will not be a quick recovery.”
“But we believe the IMF and the most developed nations should provide better opportunities for a regional growth,” the cardinal added.
“The bishops have come up with a fair, illuminating final document that we hope will be taken into serious consideration by our leadership,” said José María Simone, president of the Argentinean Association of Christian Entrepreneurs.
According to Methol Ferré “currently, the rejection of globalization and political and economic integration is the lost cause of misguided first-world kids or Latin American political dinosaurs.”
“The bishops were right in leaving the issue of ALCA in the hands of responsible lay leaders,” Methol Ferré said. “We have to work to give a Christian soul to globalization, but we have to do it through concrete initiatives that have to take shape in specific political, social, cultural and economic terms.”
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Russian Patriarch: Rome Is ‘Expansionist’
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 18 — Hopes for a papal meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II seemed to fade last week as the Moscow prelate made bitter public complaints against what he called the “expansionist” actions of Latin-rite Catholics in Russia.
Patriarch Alexei gave an interview to the magazine Famiglia Cristiana, in which he related a list of grievances. He said Roman Catholics behave as if “there exists neither a church nor a Christian culture in Russia,” pursuing a “vast expansionist strategy for Russia.”
Meanwhile, pressure by the Russian government on Catholic priests and laity continued, in what Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz has called a “large-scale anti-Catholic campaign.” He noted that five foreign-born priests had been expelled from the country, numerous churches had been vandalized and construction permits for new parishes had been denied.
According to Associated Press, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told reporters that the expulsion of priests was tantamount to a persecution of the Church.
Musical Dialogue Bridges Christian-Muslim Divide
>FIDES NEWS, Sept. 23 — Even as attacks on Christians by Islamic militants continue in Pakistan, clergy of the two faiths seek to promote peace, according to a report by Fides, the Vatican's missionary news agency.
Addressing a Christian-Muslim program of “Interreligious Dialogue Through Music,” Bishop Andrew Francis, ecumenical officer of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said, “We are a people of hope in the present-day situation of hatred, intolerance and killing.”
Recalling incidents of violence and killing of Christians in the last 12 months in Pakistan, the bishop urged media figures to use their public platform to promote values of brotherhood and respect among members of different religions.
United States Helped Iraq With Biological Weapons
These germs included West Nile Virus, E. coli, anthrax, botulism and other potentially fatal biological cultures. The Commerce Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush permitted at least 72 such sales between 1985 and 1989.
These germ cultures, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later noted had “biological warfare significance,” also included clones, substances and chemicals that could devastate wheat crops, cause rickets and produce a nerve gas much more lethal than sarin — the gas used on the Japanese subway by cult members some years ago.
The testimony was given to the Senate Banking Committee during hearings concerning the poor health of returning Gulf War veterans. The Buffalo News questioned whether Saddam still possessed the materials and whether they might be used against invading U.S. troops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God's Chosen People DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Catholics were understandably alarmed by “Reflections on Covenant and Mission,” a subcommittee document from a U.S. bishops’ office. Its key sentence said that “campaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church.”
That sentence is fraught with difficulty and points to problems that pervade the document. The phrase “campaigns that target Jews” is vague. What campaigns? Efforts that exclusively target Jews or any effort that addresses them? The phrase “no longer theologically acceptable” is worse. If it was once “theologically acceptable,” what about theology has changed? While the prudence of something may change with time, its conformity to theological truth, one presumes, would not.
That said, the document was denounced unfairly by many Catholics. Much of it spoke to the nuanced relationship between the new and old covenant in the way Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does.
We thought it would be helpful this week to offer, in addition to our front-page symposium, the words of Cardinal Ratzinger in the extraordinary new book, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald (Ignatius, 2002).
Cardinal Ratzinger: That is, especially just recently, a hotly disputed question. It is quite obvious that the Jews have something to do with God and that God has not abandoned them. And that is how the New Testament sees it, too. Paul says to us in the Letter to the Romans: In the end all of Israel will be brought home. It is another question, how far, with the rise of the Church — the people of God called from all peoples — and with the coming of the new covenant, life under the old covenant, a life that remains closed to the new covenant that comes from Christ, is still a valid way of life. …
Israel still has a mission to accomplish today. We are in fact waiting for the moment when Israel, too, will say Yes to Christ, but we also know that while history still runs its course even this standing at the door fulfills a mission, one that is important for the world. In that way this people still has a special place in God's plans.
No, because he is faithful. Of course, we can see that Israel still has some way to go. As Christians, we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ. But they are not simply done with and left out of God's plans; rather they still stand within the faithful covenant of God.
That is what we believe. That does not mean that we have to force Christ upon them but that we should share in the patience of God. We also have to try to live our life together in Christ in such a way that it no longer stands in opposition to them or would be unacceptable to them but so that it facilitates their own approach to it. It is in fact still our belief as Christians that Christ is the Messiah of Israel. It is in God's hands, of course, just in what way, when and how the reuniting of Jews and Gentiles, the reunification of God's people, will be achieved.
This is another of the paradoxes that the New Testament sets before us. On one hand, their No to Christ brings the Israelites into conflict with the subsequent acts of God, but at the same time we know they are assured of the faithfulness of God. They are not excluded from salvation, but they serve salvation in a particular way, and thereby they stand within the patience of God, in which we, too, place our trust.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Dems Persevere DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:In “Catholic League Fights to Purge ‘Anti-Catholic’ Link From DNC Web Site” (Sept. 15-21), I was disappointed that you wrote the obituary for pro-life Democrats by referring to Mr. Novak's comments following Bob Casey's loss in Pennsylvania. As Democrats For Life of America said then, and I will repeat now, one race does not constitute a trend or translate into the demise of the pro-life Democratic movement. Pro-life Democrats are alive and feisty.
On the same day that Casey was defeated, a pro-life Democrat won the primary for the nomination for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania. A few weeks later a pro-life Democrat in Ohio knocked off a pro-abortion incumbent for a U.S. House seat. Additionally, pro-life Democrats won primaries in Maine and New Mexico for winnable open seats.
With regard to [DNC spokesman] Bill Buck's comments about the Democratic National Committee “always looking for more groups to add” to the DNC Web site, I contacted the DNC in June to see if they would add a link to our Web site. However, evidently, Mr. Buck only meant groups that agree with the pro-abortion leadership. After several months of no response from the DNC, the message seems clear. We hope that they will reconsider their position and add our link. After all, we are Democrats.
Kristen Day Washington, D.C.
The writer is Executive Director of Democrats for Life of America.
Doctors and Death
I rarely do this sort of thing, but a front-page article from the Sept. 1-7 issue was rather disturbing. It was titled “HMO Recruits Doctors to Help Kill Patients.” As both a gerontologist and the admissions coordinator of a long-term-care facility, I find this proposal quite appalling. The act of supporting euthanasia is disturbing in and of itself, but to have an insurance company actually attempt to recruit physicians to participate in the practice is socially and morally disturbing to me.
I believe in allowing an individual a death with dignity, at all costs. However, that is where the practice/art of hospice care should come into play. Palliative care is the primary focus of the hospice mission and allows for pain management. By controlling the pain experienced during the dying process, one can hopefully offer a person a higher degree of quality to their last days. If this is accomplished, then the time spent with loved ones in those final days is also more fulfilling.
I was quite pleased to note that several physicians have opted to not participate in this activity, saving some face for the medical profession. A common fear among health care workers and providers is that the ethics have disappeared from the act of providing appropriate and adequate medical care, regardless of the patient's prognosis. My hat is off to those who stood on moral ground in light of the almighty HMO.
I agree with Dr. Gregory Hamilton in his assessment that the HMO is more driven by the bottom line than the wishes of expediting a death that is likely inevitable.
God has his plan for each of us. He carved it out the day we were conceived, and it is not our place to alter it with human means. If we as a society are able to become more accepting of the dying process and see that there are ways to make it less painful, maybe we can overcome this need to speed up the process through suicide. Besides, isn't suicide punishable by afterlife in hell?
Debbie Taylor St. Louis
The writer is admissions coordinator at Truman Restorative Center, which serves elderly patients.
Focus on the Hollywood Family
I am writing in response to “The Family, According to Hollywood” (Sept. 15-21). In the article the family of Hollywood was discussed, how families are portrayed without traditional two-parent role models. One movie mentioned was Lilo & Stitch. This movie was spoken of, along with others, by movie critic Michael Medved. He said he doesn't “think it reflects any sort of sinister intent by Hollywood producers to undermine traditional families.”
This couldn't be further from the truth regarding Lilo & Stitch. I read an article on this movie that told one of the co-producers is openly homosexual. His intent in making this movie was to portray families as anything but traditional in order to show that a “family” consists of any people who live together and love each other, the underlying message being that homosexual couples should be able to adopt and have children. The article also said that the movie showed relatives of Stitch dressed in drag. Not exactly wholesome family viewing, in my opinion.
I feel that we as parents have much to be concerned about with the movies coming out of Hollywood today, which is probably why our family doesn't see many of them.
Michelle Snyder Richland, Iowa
Catholics and Political Parties
The opinion column “Will Catholic Voters Pray Now and Swing Later?” by Scott McDermott (Sept. 15-21) has prompted me to write regarding to which party Catholic loyalty belongs, based on the platforms of the two dominant parties.
It has never been clear to me what objections Catholics have to the Republican platform. Mr. McDermott decries them for proclaiming the right to bear arms. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear the right and even the grave duty to defend the lives of others (No. 2263-65). He groups “the right to life (for the unborn) and the right of churches to express their religion publicly” as additional positions of the “right-wing individual-rights party.” I don't see anything against Catholic teaching in any of those positions. Especially when compared with “…individual-rights party of the left, promoting privacy (abortion) rights, women's rights, homosexual rights and various other civil rights.” Our Church has been very clear about the rights of the unborn.
Joe Ninnemann, Ponca City, Oklahoma
God Is Not an Opinion
I'm sure the disgust I experience with each new controversy over the use of God's name in schools, offices and government buildings is not unique among faithful Catholics. There is something so ludicrous in these stories that it is almost hard to define. But your Sept. 22-28 coverage of the lawsuit in Dallas (“On School E-mail, Can You Say the Word ‘God?’”) helped me better define my impressions of injustice and got me thinking that even well-intentioned Christians may be taking the wrong approach to this spiritual battle.
The essential argument against the invocation of God's name in public places seems to be that it is oppressive or even unjust to institutionalize a belief that is not held by all people. Our opponents argue that we are making a significant minority of people feel uncomfortable or unrepresented because they do not believe in God. At worst, we may be prejudicing these people (who have a right to their beliefs) toward a Christian religion. And who are we to force our religious beliefs on others?
At present, the common reply to such arguments is that Christians, like any other religious group, have a right to express their beliefs in a public forum. We argue that the law protects “God-speak” just as it protects any other form of personal expression. Over time, I've become convinced that this argument, while possessing some legal validity and support, plays right into the hands of Satan and leads us down a path of no return.
The current dispute over freedom of speech not only belittles our heavenly Father, but it also distorts (or at least ignores) any sense of reality and truth on this question. We easily fall into the trap of professing that others can live in ignorance as long as they are sincere. Now, we don't make young children feel stupid for not knowing the solution of 2+2 and we shouldn't make anyone feel stupid or inferior for not recognizing the fact of God's existence. But we at least need to engage this question on the grounds of reason and proof, or else we end up helping our opponents strip the Church of its very essence — its role in helping us recognize and correspond to reality.
Carleton Palmer Lincoln, Nebraska
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Go Easy on Iraq DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:I'm writing in response to the pro-war columns and letters I've been reading in the Register. Each pro-war writer has intoned the mantra that “Saddam has gassed his own people” as if that were an accepted fact of life. It isn't.
During the Iran-Iraq war (in which the United States supported Iraq with armaments and intelligence) there was a battle in an Iraqi border town called Halabja, not far from Baghdad. On March 16, 1988, several hundred Kurdish Iraqis living in Halabja were killed by poison gas and shelling. The Iranians were the victors in this battle and took photographs of the dead Kurds. These photos were picked up by the Western media and used during run-up to the Gulf War to prove that Saddam was indeed a very evil man.
However, those Kurds were killed by Iranian gas, not by Saddam. A 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait, shows that the unfortunate Kurds were the victims of cyanide gas, which Saddam did not use, because he lacked the ability to produce it. Saddam did use mustard gas, but against the Iranians, not his own citizens.
The Pentagon report that details this unhappy incident was written by Stephen Pelletiere, Douglas Johnson II and Leif Rosenberger of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pa. It's easy to find online. What's even easier to find are the distortions and outright lies about this incident. In some of the more florid accounts, there were 100,000 dead Kurds; in others, 100,000 Iraqis were rounded up, machine-gunned and buried in mass graves. These tales do make Saddam seem quite despicable, but there's no evidence to support them. They are simply not true, no matter who repeats them.
There may be legitimate reasons for ousting Saddam, but poison gas isn't one of them. Let's all calm down and be certain our cause is just and true before we begin a bloody assault on another country — especially the only Arab state that permits Christianity to flourish.
Glenn Wright Raymore, Missouri
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: What Led Me to the Catholic Faith? Reasonable People DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:A few years ago, on a windy and cold January day in Washington, D.C., I stood in the snow as five or six Catholic bishops greeted the people gathered for the annual March for Life.
None of them said very much. They were, after all, only a few of the many people to be introduced before the march began.
They simply affirmed their love for the unborn and their support for laws that would protect them from harm.
I was then an Episcopalian, and served on the board of the Episcopal pro-life ministry NOEL. There were no Episcopal bishops in Washington that day and very few Episcopal priests, and my eyes filled with tears as the Catholic bishops spoke. They did not say much, but it was enough for me that they were there.
Last year, at the Easter Vigil, my family and I were received into the Catholic Church. A person becomes a Catholic for a lot of reasons, but one reason that I said “I believe all that the Catholic Church teaches” was the sight of those bishops standing for the unborn, and all their witness told me about the life and faith of the Catholic Church.
Among the most important things it told me was that the Catholic Church thought clearly. She had that mixture of clarity and confidence that I saw as a hint of the divine, in part because the mixture was so uncommon. In the bishops on the platform, I saw the heart of the Catholic Church, but I also saw her mind.
By saying that the Church thought clearly I mean that she, almost alone among human institutions, began with the fact that the unborn child is a human being and drew the conclusion that he or she must be protected from harm. It seems an obvious thing to think, but an amazing number of intelligent people do not think it.
As an activist, I had dealt for years with pro-choice activists, and found that they make two mistakes. First, some will tell you that the unborn child is not a human being. The closer he is to conception the more likely they are to say this. But they cannot produce any good reason for believing that a creature with the human genetic code, who will develop into a creature whose humanity is obvious to plain sight, is not human.
Here, I saw, was the truth about human life recognized and proclaimed.
Second, many will say that the unborn child is a human being and then say that he can be killed if his mother does not want him. But they cannot produce any good reason for believing that one type of human being can be killed at someone else's instructions while everyone else must be protected. (The odds are that these same people oppose capital punishment, and think it very bad to kill killers.)
Some of these will try to produce a philosophical explanation for letting people kill other people at will. They will tell you — I got a letter to this effect as I was writing this — that the unborn child is human but not a person. Having said this, with rare exceptions these people will not follow their logic to the end and argue for killing born babies who do not qualify as persons under their criteria.
Some people will try to cheat. They throw up their hands and declare that the decision to abort a child is a tragedy, forced upon us by the irreconcilable needs of the mother and the child. But they argue no more rationally than the others. They will not give you any way of deciding why this is a tragic situation that justifies one killing the two, while a child's need to remove his parents to get his inheritance is not.
In other words, you rarely find in the pro-choice position a truly rational argument for abortion, one that the pro-choicers are willing to work all the way through. Their reasoning either depends on an axiom they cannot defend or does not draw the conclusions their assumptions require.
In the Catholic faith I found a truly rational argument. The unborn baby is a human being and therefore has all the rights of a human being, among which is the right not to be killed. One may disagree with the argument, but it makes sense in a way the pro-choicers’ arguments do not.
I became a Catholic in part because in the Church I found the most reasonable people. Here, I saw, was the truth recognized and proclaimed.
I had tears in my eyes when we were received at the Easter Vigil. They were, in a way, the same tears I had shed six years before, standing in the snow listening to the Catholic bishops tell the marchers that they stood for the unborn.
David Mills is the author ofKnowing the Real Jesus (Servant/Charis) and a senior editor ofTouchstone magazine (www.touchstonemag.com).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Mills ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Brother From Another Planet: Redeemed? DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Is there life on other planets? People have wondered over that question for centuries — and still do, as evidenced by the runaway popularity of the movie Signs this summer.
For the past 40 years, since the technology of large radio telescopes became available, astronomers have been listening in on nearby stars, hoping to pick up signals from intelligent extra-terrestrials. The U.S. government funded these studies for a while, but when no signals were picked up after three decades of listening, taxpayer support dwindled and eventually dried up altogether. However, so broad was the interest in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project that private investors stepped in and provided millions of dollars to fund the search. It continues to this day.
SETI received a great boost in 1995, when astronomers confirmed the first planet orbiting an adjacent sun-like star. (The planet was not seen directly: It was discovered by detecting a “wobble” in the path of the star.) Since 1995, reports of planets shown to be orbiting sun-like stars, just as the earth orbits its sun, have been coming in at a steady rate. The count reached 100 this past July 1.
The late Cornell astrophysicist Carl Sagan probably did more than any other scientist to popularize the possibility of life on other planets. Through his writings and his popular TV show Cosmos, Sagan raised people's awareness about the immensity of the universe and the vast possibilities that may exist for life to appear.
In 1985, Sagan published a novel, Contact, describing the chain of events that might be set in motion by the discovery of intelligent life on other planets. Sagan's story is much more than fiction, however. It contains a respectful invitation to consider how science and religion might profitably interact. While the characters in the book are attempting to devise a response to the aliens, it is not only the scientists who are asked for an opinion: There is a place for religious figures to offer appropriate insights.
For a book authored by someone who was widely regarded as a dogmatic atheist, it is remarkable how well-balanced the characters in Contact actually are. There is no attempt to caricature the representatives of religion or to portray the scientists as universally enlightened. There is a mixture of good and bad on both sides of the religion-science divide, just as exists in real life.
Intelligent Life Elsewhere
Underlying the novel's plotline is the question: Is there really a God and, if so, what can science find out (and say) about him? Sagan does an intriguing job of outlining what a scientist might consider to be proof of God's existence in the natural world. The main character in Contact performs a mathematical test for God's existence, and Sagan's description of its results seem to suggest that he, himself, believed in the existence of God. This, of course, flies in the face of the popular perception of Sagan as a sort of “atheist-in-chief” among scientists.
The fact that Sagan was able to face squarely the question, “Is there a God?” is in marked contrast to what happened in the 1997 movie version of Contact(starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey). By the time the movie was in production, more than 10 years after the book appeared, Sagan, terminally ill, was in no shape to advise the screenwriters. The latter took great liberties with the text, slanting the story in a very different direction than the book had taken. The movie is unabashedly anti-religion — or, more specifically, anti-Christian; the Christian ministers in the movie are portrayed in a decidedly negative light.
Apparently, certain nonbelievers (including the screenwriters for the movie Contact) are convinced that religious people have no room in their belief system for the possibility of life on other planets. Religious believers are supposed to imagine that God “favors” human beings to such an extent than he could only have made intelligent life here, on earth. If we ever contact aliens, it will spell the end of organized religion as we know it, for no organized religion can accommodate a teaching about life on other planets.
Who's to say there are not many intelligent races of being in the univers?
Wrong again. At least one theologian laid the groundwork for Catholics to accept alien life forms within the context of the faith. And we are not talking about a modern theologian who just happens to be keeping up with the current scientific literature. No, the theologian in question, Thomas Aquinas, did his work more than 700 years ago, while he was a theology professor at the University of Paris.
What did Aquinas have to say that is relevant to life on other planets? Since the first public profession of faith in Christ's divinity — “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16) — Christians have known that there is more to Christ than meets the eye. In Christ is found the fullness of humanity as well as the fullness of divinity.
It took a few centuries for the Church to figure out how Christ can be simultaneously fully divine and fully human. But the Church Fathers finally decided, at the Council of Ephesus in 431, that the best human language could offer to explain the mystery was to condense it down to what is called the hypostatic union.
When Aquinas discusses the hypo-static union in his Summa Theologiae, he makes the following point: It is inevitable that the second person of the Trinity possesses at least one nature (the divine nature). As long as there is only one nature and one person (let us refer to this as the one-in-one case), there is no mystery involved. The mystery enters when we go beyond the one-inone to the two-in-one teaching of Ephesus. It is indeed a profound mystery of the Catholic faith how Christ can be one person with two natures.
And yet it is part of the story of Redemption that one of the divine persons took on human nature in order to redeem human beings.
Here is where Aquinas’ argument takes a surprising turn. He points out that, once a divine person chooses to take on more than one nature, there is no reason why that person should be limited to having merely two natures. There is, in principle, no reason why the divine person should not have the ability to take on three, four or many natures — all united in an expanded version of what we refer to in our poor human language as the hypostatic union.
Interplanetary Redemption
In view of the modern interest in life on other planets, this insight of Aquinas must be considered remarkable. For if there are rational creatures on other planets, endowed with free will, then it is possible that sin exists on other planets. And, if so, those fallen beings will require redemption just as we humans do. Presumably, the second person of the Trinity, through whom all things were made and for whom all things were made (Colossians 1:16), would be the one to effect the redemption of those fallen beings also. And how would he do that? By taking on their nature in addition to his own divine nature. His person would remain single (the second person of the Trinity), but he would perform his actions in that other world through the nature of the rational beings of that other world.
Using this insight of Aquinas, we Christians do not have to fear that “our God is too small” to accommodate the possibility of alien life. Instead, we can rejoice that it may not be only ourselves who can claim: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 1:28). Perhaps there is another race of beings who can rightfully make the same claim. Who's to say there are not many such races?
To be sure, this race — or these races — may not live on any of the 100 sun-orbiting planets known to today's astronomers. But if such races exist, they must live on some planet somewhere. And someday, if God wills, we may be permitted to make contact with one of them.
Wouldn't that be the day! If God wills it, among the people who would rejoice we will see two former university professors — one from Paris, the other from Cornell.
Dermott J. Mullan writes from Elkton, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dermott J. Mullan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: It Was 40 Years Ago This Week, Vatican II Began to Speak DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:These were the first words of Pope John XXIII's opening speech on the council's first day, Oct. 11, 1962.
The Church did indeed rejoice. Forty-five months earlier, “Good Pope John” had declared his intention to call a council. As he was only three months into his pontificate at the time, the announcement came quite out of the blue.
The idea had come to him (as he said in the council's opening speech) “completely unexpected, like a flash of heavenly light.” His personal journal, published after his death, tells us the flash came on Jan. 20, 1959.
Whatever the experience was like, he must have been convinced very quickly that the idea was indeed of the Holy Spirit, because he made his historic intentions public just five days later. Following a Mass at Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, he met with a group of cardinals in the adjoining Benedictine monastery. “Beloved sons and venerable brethren,” he said, “trembling a little with emotion, yet at the same time with a humble resoluteness of purpose, we pronounce before you the name and plan of a double endeavor: a diocesan synod for Rome and an ecumenical council for the universal Church.”
While we have no way of knowing what went on in the minds of the 17 cardinals gathered with him, Pope John did write later in his journal that his proposal was met with “devout and impressive silence.” (One wonders if this is simply a particularly papal way of describing eyebrows raised high and jaws falling low.)
Whatever the initial reaction, there were almost 3,000 bishops from 79 countries gathered in St. Peter's Basilica on Oct. 11, 1962. They had traveled to Rome by planes, trains, ships and cars. The bishops of Poland, among them the 42-year-old Karol Wojtyla, had arrived by special train four days earlier. There were 239 American bishops in attendance as well.
The sense of anticipation was high. Several years of preparation had led up to this moment. The Pope had been calling for the prayers of the Catholic people for the upcoming council, and they had responded. Just a month earlier, in a radio message broadcast on Sept. 11, Pope John had proclaimed: “Lumen Christi, lumen ecclesiae, lumen gentium! [Light of Christ, light of the Church, light of the nations!] What in fact has an ecumenical council ever been but the renewing of this encounter with the face of the risen Jesus, glorious and immortal King, shining upon the whole Church, for the salvation, joy and splendor of the human race.”
The Holy Father had prepared intensely for the speech, which he considered one of the most important of his life. He'd spent several days during September on private retreat, which he dedicated to his own spiritual preparation for the council and, more specifically and practically, preparation of the opening speech. He also went on personal pilgrimage, just days before the council opened, to the holy sites in Loreto and Assisi.
The opening speech the Pope offered to the assembled bishops that Oct. 11 stirred their hearts — as well as those of millions of other people, Catholic and otherwise, around the world. The speech is best remembered for Pope John's dismissal of the “prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.” It set a tone of optimism and vigor that was to pervade the council's deliberations for the next three years.
Less remembered from that speech, to our misfortune, is the Pope's clear and repeated indication of the council's raison d'etre. Why a council at all? What did he hope to achieve in calling it?
“The greatest concern of the ecumenical council,” Pope John said, “is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously.” The council “wishes to transmit [this] doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion.” In calling the council, the Holy Father said, he intended that the teaching of the Church “might be presented in exceptional form to all men throughout the world.”
Salient words for us 40 years later. Indeed, they might well prompt an examination of conscience on the part of Catholic leaders and teachers everywhere. Have we allowed the council to become, through its monumental teaching documents, an instrument of guarding and teaching the faith more efficaciously? Or have we promoted some other “spirit of Vatican II” that has little to do with transmitting the Church's teaching “pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion”?
It is little wonder, given the intentions that Pope John articulated in that speech on the council's first day, as well as the council fathers’ subsequent efforts to carry them through, that our present Pope chose the same day 30 years later to offer to the world an extraordinary instrument for teaching and guarding the faith. On Oct. 11, 1992, Pope John Paul II signed Fidei Depositum, the apostolic constitution formally promulgating the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. An anniversary gift.
We could use a good shot of optimism and vigor in the Church in America today. We could also use a renewed sense of courage and zeal in our efforts to bring our faith to the world, in all its purity and beauty. Blessed Pope John, who is celebrated on Oct. 11, pray for us!
Barry Michaels writes from Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
The text of Pope John XXIII's speech of Oct. 11, 1962, can be found on the Internet at www.christusrex.org/www1/-CDHN/v2.html.
----- EXCERPT: "Mother Church rejoices..." So began the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 40 years ago this week. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barry Michaels ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Abused and Orphaned Children Face Uncertainty as Funds Runs Dry DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Santa Teresita Home for Abused and Orphaned Children in Arecibo, Puerto Rico is a long-standing and respected facility on the brink of closure due to the plummeting economy and changes in government requirements for like childcare facilities. “When the Home opened its doors, one adult caregiver was needed for every eight children,” said Father Joseph Schreck, O.F.M., Chancellor for the Diocese of Arecibo. “However, that requirement changed, leaving us to staff one caregiver for every four children. We received a faxed notification regarding the policy from the Department of the Family on March 19, 2002.” Santa Teresita Home currently cares for more than 20 children, ages two through five, who have been abused or abandoned by their parents. There is an ongoing waiting list to get in.
“The new requirements should not be challenged, as we often see the need for one caregiver per child,” continued Schreck. “One such recent case left us faced with two siblings ages two and five who had been terribly traumatized by the mutual stabbing of their parents. Not only did they suffer frequent flashbacks, but they cried and called out for their older siblings who would have been some comfort but were in another facility. Often the caregivers work overtime to calm the fears and soothe the sobbing. More caregivers are needed but, of course, more caregivers means more money for salaries.”
“We have forwarded $25,000 in emergency aid,” said Dick Ritter, Vice President of Catholic Extension, the largest supporter of missionary work in the U.S. and its territories. “But we are worried for the staff, the Sisters, and the endless list of children who depend on this facility.” The facility was built with a grant from Catholic Extension donors in 1998.
“The government here can no longer fund many individual institutions and, therefore, counts on the private sector to meet needs such as those at Santa Teresita,” said Schreck. “A generous offer made last year by the municipal government has yet to be realized because of decreased revenues. Federal funds, under one title or another, supply about one fourth of the monthly budget. The rest needs to come from donors, and their donations have dropped drastically.” Donations to Santa Teresita Home fell from $87,000 in 2000 to $64,000 in 2001, and total a mere $26,000 so far this year. “We are praying for help with this unexpected crisis. So many small business have folded, and even the larger shopping centers are completely empty. Santa Teresita Home will also be forced to close its doors as well, unless they begin receiving a monthly subsidy of $14,000.”
"The economy here is devastating," said Sister Roberta Grzelak, C.D.P., Director of the Promotion of Human Development, Diocese of Arecibo. "The economy is forcing residents to lose their good paying jobs, and so they settle for minimum wage jobs. They can't keep up the mortgage because the salary is not enough to pay for food and mortgage — therefore, there is the risk of losing their house and becoming homeless. There are so many stories.
"One woman was on the streets for three years. She lost her children. They were gathered up and sent to different places. I personally went with her, for six months, while trying to find help. She's willing to work, to do anything to have her kids back. She couldn't find the work because she doesn't have the education. She couldn't get her kids because she doesn't have a house. She couldn't get a house because her husband was involved with drugs — so she threw him out. But she still is blackballed because one strike and you're out. Here, in Puerto Rico, if anyone has been linked in any way to drugs, he or she cannot qualify for public housing.
"There are so many different pressures," said Grzelak. "And it is going to affect children. They desperately need places like our orphanage — Santa Teresita [Home for Mistreated Children]. The Family Department doesn't have enough housing to contain all of the displaced children — the orphans of poverty. And unconditional love is something children often forfeit when placed in a facility that does not adhere to a spiritual mission."
In this area, a distinguishable upper class is non-existent. Successful conglomerates do not make their home in Puerto Rico and, therefore, do not support a lower or middle class. Third-world countries become more appealing to large companies due to the abundance of work force, low cost of living, and lack of far-flung island shipping expenditures.
Only 20% have completed college, 48% have completed high school and the remaining have not completed school, according to Grzelak. An estimated 30% of residents are illiterate, yet without a high school diploma one cannot be considered for janitorial or other entry-level positions.
And what about those who are qualified? Often they may live too far from the job site to accept an available position because they simply cannot afford transportation. Without modern pubic transportation in far-reaching areas, scattered workers can likely access one commuter vehicle per day — if lucky. A blue-collar worker will commonly wait for that car at an early hour, crowd in with others, return in similar conditions after sundown, and the cost will swallow half of his salary.
Praying for Hope
“We never imagined that we would face such economic problems, or that housing and food for the children would actually be in jeopardy,” said Maria Alonso, administrator of Santa Teresita Home for Abused and Orphaned Children.
"The children here at the orphanage are ages two through five. And these kids give me something,” said Alonso. “Because when you finally have learned to see Jesus in everyone, then He is always calling you. He shows you in the eyes of others that He needs you in some way."
“The children are energetic and obviously loved," said Stefano Mereu, husband of a Catholic Extension employee and recent visitor to Arecibo. "Bright colors in play areas and theme-decorated bedrooms help the children to feel at home. I felt as though I was attacked by 23 smiles. They lined up to sing songs, laughed and played well together, and turned to the warm arms of the Sisters and other staff members as if they were their own mothers. It was heartwarming. That staff is doing exceptional work."
The children of the orphanage can stay for a maximum of one year. Through the Department of Family, they are often adopted by area couples or carefully back into the extended family of the birth mother when at all possible.
But money problems continue to grow. Puerto Rican laws have recently changed the adult/child ratio for such facilities, creating financial and staffing concerns for Santa Teresita. “We need ongoing general assistance,” wrote board member Gladys Tavarez. “We hope that Catholic Extension donors will find a way to support the home. These children are so loving and they depend on the constance of the care, the surroundings, the education, and the love provided here.”
Donors to assist the orphanage are needed. “We have helped them to build the center, provided some emergency aid, and now we need some generous donors to assist with ongoing care,” said Dick Ritter, Vice President of Catholic Extension. “One of our favorite quotes is that of St. Francis of Assisi: All we have left is what we have given away."
Donations can be made on-line at www-catholic-extension.org. Please designate your gifts to the orphans in Arecibo. You can also mail in your donation with the coupon below.
For more information call JoAnn Marciszewski at Catholic Extension, toll-free, at 1-888-4R-FAITH (1-888-473-2484).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carrie Swearingen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cardinal Poletto Discusses Relic's Recent Restoration DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:TURIN, Italy — At a late September press conference, Cardinal Severino Poletto, archbishop of Turin and the shroud's official custodian, announced that the cloth had spent five weeks in June and July undergoing a secret restoration while remaining in the Cathedral of San Giovanni's sacristy.
The work, which Cardinal Poletto said was undertaken in secrecy because of security concerns that the shroud might become a terrorist target, was headed up by Swiss expert Mechtild FluryLemberg, former director of the Abegg Museum in Berne, Switzerland, and an authority on ancient textiles.
Cardinal Poletto said 30 triangular patches, sewn onto the shroud by the nuns of Chambery, France in 1534 after a fire had damaged the relic, were removed. As well, the “Holland cloth” that had served as a supportive backing for some 450 years had been replaced.
The restoration served to preserve the material and the image, while at the same time enhancing its display qualities. Eliminating the patches, Cardinal Poletto explained, enabled restorers to remove dust and debris that had accumulated beneath them and begun to cause deterioration of the surrounding cloth.
The cardinal stressed that the cleansing process had been entirely mechanical. Each grain of dirt was removed with tweezers and no chemical agents were involved.
Photographs of the restored shroud may be viewed on the Internet at www.sindone.org and www.shroud.com. Between viewings, it will be stored in a climate-controlled urn. The next official viewing for the public is scheduled for 2025.
Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and director of the Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin, attended a pre-press conference viewing held exclusively for shroud researchers on Sept. 20.
“I think Mechtild is an extraordinary technician,” Whanger said after viewing the restoration work. “Like most of the other scientists invited to Turin, I was relieved to see that she had done such a good job.”
— Shafer Parker
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Shafer Parker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Purgatory: Pain and Gain
“No pain no gain!” shouted my high school basketball coach as our team ran up and down the court during practice.
Sweat pouring off my face, my legs ready to give out, I actually wanted to fall over and die. I didn't think I could take another step much less make it through another long, grueling, painful practice.
My coach was preparing us for the coming season. He knew that the harder we worked the better shape we would be in, and the greater advantage we would have over our opponents.
I learned a valuable lesson from that season: There is a point to pain. This is true for basketball, in life, and also in death. The pain that many of us will experience after death is called purgatory. Purgatory comes from the Latin word purgare, which means “to cleanse” or “to purify.”
The fact that life is already filled with so much suffering begs the question: Why then do we have to suffer after we die? Purgatory exists because we are not able to enter into heaven until we are totally purified.
Aplologitics
Scripture says, “Nothing unclean” can enter into heaven (Revelation 21:27). If a mere glimpse of the Glory of God was enough to knock Paul right off his horse and cause the Apostle John to fall to the ground “as though dead” (Revelation 1:17), why would it be different for us when we come face to face with the “all-consuming fire of God” (Hebrews 12:29)?
The Catechism says: ”All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (No. 1030). Jesus has saved us from eternal punishment (damnation) yet we continue to sin. Sin leaves a residue, a scar upon our soul that requires a temporal punishment to remedy.
Take King David as an example. In 2 Samuel 12:7-14, David is forgiven for adultery and murder and restored to friendship with God. His eternal punishment is remitted yet a temporal punishment, the loss of his child, is required. This causes him a great deal of suffering, but it also purifies his soul.
There are many other references to purgatory in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 3:13-16 is the most explicit. It describes that after death and judgment a type of suffering will purify the soul for heaven. “Each man's work will become manifest; for the day will disclose it … If the work of any man is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as passing through fire.”
Another key passage is Matthew 12:31-32. “Whoever says a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” It implies that there are some sins that will be forgiven after death.
Jesus, in Matthew 18:32-35, describes the temporal punishment incurred by a man who settled his own account with the king but did not show forgiveness and mercy to his brethren. He was “delivered to the jailers till he should pay all his debt.” Jesus then warns the same type of punishment will befall us if we fail to forgive others.
Is there anything besides pain in purgatory? St. Catherine of Genoa says Yes! She believes that souls in purgatory are able to rejoice in God to the extent they are united to him. In her Treatise on Purgatory she describes how the souls in purgatory actually grow in happiness: “God flows into these souls, more and more as the hindrance to his entrance is consumed.”
The most important thing we can do is offer our sufferings up to God in prayer. When we do this we imitate Christ in his sacrifice and unite ourselves to the power of the cross. This will make us holy! Why wait for purgatory?
Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Christina Mills ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Holy Toledo - A Rosary of Living Stone DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:“Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral,” Robert Louis Stevenson once observed.
To take in the splendors of Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio — informally known as simply “Rosary Cathedral” — is to see exactly what the famous writer meant. And there's no time like the present to take it all in: The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary is Oct. 7.
The beauty of this place is sublime, its design unique. A number of top ecclesiastical architects consider it the most glorious cathedral in the United States. In fact, in the entire world this is the only Plateresque-style cathedral.
Plateresque, a romantic style that arose between the Gothic and Renaissance periods, is the name given the work of 16th-century Spanish silversmiths (plateros) who distinguished their work with elaborate, delicate, filigree-like ornamentation. In Rosary Cathedral, abundant Plateresque embellishments highlight the combined Romanesque and Saracen architecture to shape a one-of-a-kind masterpiece built for the glory and love of God and the Blessed Mother.
The Plateresque detailing mainly adorns the interior, but strong elements can be found about the exterior, too. Right away, upon approaching the cathedral from the street, the bright imperial Spanish tile roof struck me as different than anything I'd seen before. Deep blue, purple, green, orange, red and chartreuse tiles form what I learned are typical of Plateresque patterns.
Twin towers named after Peter and Paul, each topped with bells cast in Croyden, England, soar sky-ward past these multicolored tiles. The façade between them is, simply, grand.
Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, carved of a single block of limestone more than 6 feet tall, takes a prominent place of honor over the arched main portal's massive cypress doors. With a crown of roses and a golden halo, Mary stands enthroned under an intricately carved canopy. She is surrounded by statues and scenes, from her parents to the Annunciation, all carved in rich and revelatory detail.
Better With Age
The unusual cornice alone can keep a visitor busy for hours with its abundant symbolism. It nearly circles the exterior with 50 bas-relief panels illustrating the history of the Church, from Jesus handing the keys to Peter to a scene of the cathedral's completion.
Holy Rosary was dedicated in October 1940, its cornerstone having been laid in 1926, precisely 700 years after the completion of the ancient cathedral in sister city Toledo, Spain. Even though the American edifice is only 75 years old, it was built exactly like its 13th-century medieval predecessors. Not a single inch of steel was used. Everything is solid masonry, starting with the Massachusetts granite and Indiana limestone that buttress the exterior.
Immense as this cathedral is, its delicacy, gracefulness and abundance of warm liturgical art keep the sanctuary from overwhelming the visitor. There's no question you're in a holy temple.
One monumental fresco by Viennese artist Felix Lieftucher begins above the Rose Window with “Creatio Mundi.” Angels carry medallions illustrating creation; the scene continues through the seven bays of the Spanish vaulted ceiling to the sanctuary's Crucifixion scene with Mary the Mother of Sorrows, then gloriously fills the apse with the epic Crowning of Mary, Queen of Heaven. Angels and the Church Triumphant, Militant and Suffering surround her in this spectacular celestial mural. The frescoes, done in the Keim manner, actually brighten with age.
The larger-than-life crucifix suspended in midair between this 83-foot-high heavenly scene and the altar is so moving a reminder of what it took to win our salvation that I couldn't help but kneel in spontaneous prayer. The crucifix is of European walnut, while the corpus is carved from Black Forest oak. This masterful work was done by August Schmidt in Cologne, whose multitude of carvings include the lace-like intricacies of the pulpit and canopy, and the Stations of the Cross. Their frames carry a motif of carved thorns and passion flowers with Plateresque gold leaf illumination.
At every step around the cathedral, art combines the Bible and 20 centuries of Church history in a way that inspires prayer and contemplation. We can even pray the rosary visually as we follow the mysteries painted along the ceilings of 14 bays in the wide side aisles. Each rosary mural correlates an Old Testament event with New Testament scenes. The Annunciation, for instance, is paired with Tobias; the Crucifixion is joined by Moses with arms held aloft for victory.
When Jan de Rosen, artist for the mosaics in the papal chapel at Castel Gondolfo, Italy, painted these murals, he used parishioners’ faces, mostly schoolchildren's, for his models. One red-haired mother inspired the red-haired angel Gabriel.
The mysteries move past murals commemorating the Battles of Lepanto in 1571 and Temesvar in 1716 — famous victories attributed to the power of the rosary prayed devoutly. The rosary murals reach the Blessed Virgin Mary Chapel with the 14th mystery. The 15th mystery soars high in the apse.
The statues at both side altars — Mary as Queen of Peace, affectionately called the Smiling Madonna, and St. Joseph, both holding the Child Jesus — are carved of Trani marble from Florido, the quarry of Michelangelo's Pieta.
Tower of Power
Both chapels are divinely inspired. Their brilliant Venetian mosaics imitate 12th-century frescoes. Two years in the making, the candlesticks and tabernacles for both these altars are dazzling enamel melted on bronze — the largest pieces of cloisonné in the world.
The octagonal Blessed Sacrament Chapel, intricately laid with tessellated marbles, has an elaborate tabernacle symbolizing Mary as the Tower of David. It replicates the belltower dome of the cathedral in Spain so accurately that the visiting mayor of Spain's Toledo recognized the replica as the sight he sees daily from his office window.
Another Spanish connection in this chapel is the remarkable copy of El Greco's Descent of the Holy Spirit. When the chapel's gates were displayed at the Smithsonian in 1979, experts called them the best example of hand-wrought aluminum in the world.
The equally astonishing baptistery hood, also of aluminum, is embossed with symbols and topped with an image of John the Baptist. Using only hand tools, Natale Rossi carved this superb, jewel-like masterpiece in the cathedral basement from one solid 400-pound block. The hood covers a marble baptistery carved in the form of a Spanish fountain
I could go on. The many wonders filling this singular Plateresque cathedral give a luminous example of people giving the very best. To paraphrase Stevenson, “Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it visited such a cathedral” — like this one, built to glorify God and honor Our Lady of the Rosary.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Rosary Cathedral, Toledo, Ohio ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Saving Western Civ, One Brushstroke at a Time DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:He spoke about his craft, and why he has turned it toward helping to build the Kingdom of God, with Register correspondent Joseph Pronechen.
What first piqued your interest in liturgical art?
I've always had this interest in the faith and in religion. At one time I drifted away from the Catholic faith, then returned in my early 30s after a crisis in my life. As an artist, I realized I had a strong interest in religious subjects.
Were you, yourself, inspired by religious art?
Yes. I grew up in a little country church that had a great influence on me, St. Mary's in East Eden, N.Y. It's the second-oldest in the Buffalo diocese. I fondly remember the mural of the Assumption. I was a boy 10 years old when that mural, based on a mural of the Immaculate Conception by Murillo, appeared. I also remember the old Communion rail, the polychrome stations, the statues and the carved “wedding cake” marble altar that rose to the top of the ceiling 30 feet high. The image is etched into my mind. The whole foundation for any experience in religion goes back to St. Mary's Church. It's like bedrock to me.
How would you classify yourself as an artist?
I'm a traditional artist. I love figurative work. I like to paint figures of people in situations. But when I was 30 I went through a lot of problems when I returned to the University of Buffalo for a degree in fine arts. I was discouraged from any interest in faith. They tried to push me into abstraction — everyone was studying abstraction back then. But I felt the use of the figure in art was central to western civilization. I saw the history of western culture and the history of the figure in art were one. I knew eventually society had to get back to the figure. So I was a fly in their ointment because people were all trying to steer me to impersonal works.
Why do you see “the figure” as vital to artistic expression?
In Christian art, the Stations of the Cross, statues, the Passion — the great works of Raphael on the Ascension, the Transfiguration, for example — are all figurative art. There's a history to it. There's tradition. People have recognized this in every century. Until the mid-20th century we had an almost unbroken 2,000-year tradition of relating art and religion in the world. But in the 20th century we began chronicling chaos. Everything was broken down. It's an enormous problem.
What do you think brought on this development?
The movement goes back to many of those people who came from Europe after World War II. They were disillusioned. Many of them were atheistic and their purpose was to discredit Christianity and create art that was independent of our Christian roots and our history — our figurative, western-civilization roots.
How did this mindset work its way into Church art?
Some segments of Catholic society have lost their identity as a faith community. Some of our leaders have been duped, buying into a situation that is destroying us. They basically gutted the churches, ripped out the beautifully carved altars and painted over the murals with 10-inch rollers. And look what's happened to the Catholic Church in America in the process. How can the culture cut itself off from tradition and survive?
And art is a key component if we are to restore what's been lost.
Yes. We've got to build liturgical art up from the beginning. We've got to go back, pick up the pieces and rely on the example of art history and the great religious works of the past. We have to look at the work of the Renaissance — the babies, the children, the spiritually beautiful women. Renaissance artists weren't afraid to picture these things. That period comes down to us as perhaps the high watermark of western civilization regarding art and the Church.
It makes more sense for America to rebuild its artistic heritage on this rather than go to the orthodox style of art. Iconography is a different tradition. It's from Eastern Europe, Russia. It's not our nearest relative in terms of western church art. We need to look at Italian, German, Irish, French, English, Spanish and Polish cultures. There have got to be experts in art history who are willing to sacrifice their own careers for the bigger picture. We need the right leadership to step forward and talk about these issues for the good of the Church and the good of the arts.
Do you think art is essential to the Church?
Art and the Church are inseparable. I can't look at the Catholic Church worldwide without looking at the art. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in his Letter to Artists a couple of years ago, art and faith work together for the same goal: the salvation of souls, and the giving of honor and glory to God through his Son, Jesus Christ.
How do you approach a church-mural project?
In 1999, I did three paintings for St. Francis of Assisi Church in Buffalo. There's a major Crucifixion scene over the main altar. To the sides there's the Sermon on the Mount and the Baptism of Christ. Each is about 15 to 18 feet high and 10 feet wide.
I did a lot of research on them. I added local landmarks such as Niagara Falls to the Baptism of Christ just as Renaissance artists added local landscapes to their religious scenes. It got people's attention and brought it to their level where they could connect with the biblical scene. I hope, in all humility, that these murals are going to have an influence on generations of Catholics. I hope young people will see them, grow up, marry, have families, their children will see them. We need to start thinking about the young people again. The Pope knows.
I understand some local people find their way into your works.
Sure. For the life-sized angels in St. Peter's Church in Lowville, N.Y., for example, I used local grade-school children as the models.
What advice can you give to aspiring liturgical artists?
Practice the faith. Receive the sacraments. Pray for guidance because you're going to need to take on some civic or secular work to support yourself; liturgical art is not a lucrative career path. Young Catholic artists need to be good Catholics. They have to look for friendships and associations with other good Catholics.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: The murals and paintings of Ron Dabelle, a liturgical artist based in Providence, R.I., help beautify churches and other public spaces across the United States and Canada. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Nova: Why the Towers Fell (2002)
This PBS documentary reveals some of the other, more complicated causes of the World Trade Center's implosion with interviews with the buildings’ designer, engineer Leslie Robertson, and a careful analysis of their construction by experts like MIT's Dr. Thomas Eagar.
When Robertson conceived the 110-story skyscrapers in 1966, he developed innovative techniques that allowed for the creation of more rentable office space. At the time no one imagined the structures would ever be struck by anything like two Boeing 762 jets moving at high velocity.
Filmmakers Garfield Kennedy and Larry Klein follow investigators as they test building materials, calculate the role of jet fuel in the collapse, estimate the aircrafts’ speed and examine the effectiveness of the escape and fire protection systems. There are also moving interviews with rescue personnel and the attack's survivors.
Newsies (1992)
Some movies that are box-office flops during their theatrical distribution finally connect with their target audience when they're released in video and DVD. Disney's Newsieshas developed cult status among younger viewers.
An energetic, well-choreographed musical, it is set in 1899 when the boys who sell newspapers on city street corners are finding it difficult to make ends meet. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer (Robert Duvall) raises the papers’ wholesale cost, practically eliminating the newsies’ already small profit margin. Street-smart Jack Kelly (Christian Bale) and the more cerebral David Jacobs (David Moscow) organize a picket line of fellow orphans and runaways to resist.
There are brawls, chases, betrayals and conflicts with the police. Among the boys’ allies are reporter Brian Benton (Bill Pullman) and his singing-and-dancing friend, vaudevillian Medda Larkson (Ann-Margret). The songs are fun to listen to even though the score didn't produce any platinum-selling hits.
The Four Feathers (1939)
This 1902 A. E.W. Mason novel has been made into a movie seven times. The most recent, starring Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley, is to be released in the next few weeks. The version against which it and all others are measured is this pre-World War II English production.
A stirring saga of cowardice, courage and redemption, The Four Feathers is set during the British Imperial Wars of the 19th century. The aristocratic Harry Faversham (John Clements) resigns his army commission to marry Ethne Burroughs (Jane Duprez). His former comrades (Ralph Richardson, Donald Gray and Jack Allen), disapprove, giving him three white feathers that symbolize cowardice before they depart for Sudan. Surprisingly, his wife presents him with a fourth. Faversham decides to prove his mettle and follows his buddies on his own, disguising himself as a Muslim tribesman to save them when all looks lost. Director Zoltan Korda combines magnificent battle sequences with intense personal moments. The uprising's Muslim leader (John Laurie) may remind some viewers of Osama bin Laden.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, OCT. 6
Canonization of Blessed Josemaria Escriva EWTN, 4 a.m. live
In this three-hour event, Pope John Paul II will canonize Opus Dei founder Blessed Josemaria Escriva. Rebroadcast at noon, 7 p.m. and midnight, as well as on Monday, Oct. 7, at 5 p.m.; Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 1 p.m.; and Thursday, Oct. 10, at 10 p.m.
SUNDAY, OCT. 6
Hispanics and the Medal of HonorHistory Channel, 7 p.m.
Forty American fighting men of Hispanic descent have received the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry at the risk of their lives, above and beyond the call of duty. This premiere describes their deeds and lets us hear from several of the heroes themselves.
MONDAY, OCT. 7
Dogs with Jobs: Dani and King National Geographic Channel, 6:30 p.m.
A cancer-surviving beagle mixed-breed plays with the kids in a cancer ward at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, and a German shepherd helps clear minefields in the former Yugoslavia.
TUESDAY, OCT. 8
Nova: Lost Roman Treasure PBS, 8 p.m.
As a hydroelectric dam starts to flood a Turkish valley, residents flee — and archaeologists scramble to uncover the ancient Roman city of Zeugma, document the site and retrieve precious artifacts.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 9
And Thou Shalt Honor PBS, 9 p.m.
This moving two-hour documentary tells the stories of some of the 30 million or so Americans who care for parents, spouses and friends at home. Some invent new ways of helping. Some experts hope to revamp nursing homes to make them much more hospitable and helpful. Actor Joe Mantegna hosts.
THURSDAY, OCT. 10
The New This Old House Hour PBS, 8 p.m.
Home repairs hit prime time as This Old House kicks off its 24th season by fixing up a Colonial Revival house. Then, at 8:30 p.m., a new feature, Ask This Old House, debuts with host Steve Thomas, his contractor sidekicks and guest experts solving homeowners’ problems by answering viewers’ letters and making house calls.
FRIDAY, OCT. 11
MLB Players’ Choice Awards ESPN, 7 p.m.
If fans’ and sportswriters’ best-player votes have ever snubbed your favorite baseball star, this poll of the major leaguers themselves might be more to your liking.
SATURDAY, OCT. 12
The Power of Water National Geographic Channel, 10 p.m.
This hour-long “National Geographic's Extreme Planet” recalls the huge floods on the Mississippi and the Missouri in 1993 and examines conflicting claims on the flood plains.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Distance Learning Grads Use Degrees to Serve the Church DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Five years ago Dan Schneider was being evangelized by Baptists and began to doubt some Catholic Church teachings.
Today he evangelizes other Catholics by teaching adult education classes on Scripture and the sacraments for the Diocese of Las Cruces, N.M.
“The more I teach about Jesus Christ, the deeper he becomes present to me,” he said.
Schneider's conversion and ministry stem from theology courses he is taking through the distance-learning program of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. The professors emphasize the need to “align yourself with the teaching authority of the Church” and to become involved in ministry, he said.
Using study guides and audiotaped lectures at home has enabled the 35-year-old husband, father and operator of three dry-cleaning franchises to complete eight of the 20 courses required for a master's degree in theology and Christian ministry.
Schneider is among hundreds of adults throughout the world who have converted their homes into pseudo-libraries with audio and videotapes, computers and print materials they use to expand their knowledge of the Catholic faith. They study through programs developed by institutions such as Franciscan University; Catholic Distance University in Hamilton, Va.; St. Joseph's College of Maine in Standish, Maine; and International Catholic University, an entity of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.
The majority of students are middle-aged, employed lay Catholics preparing for ministry — a pursuit that has led to the life-changing experiences of Schneider and some of his counterparts.
“[The courses] have deepened and enriched every aspect of my life,” Schneider said. “If theology doesn't penetrate the heart, hands, feet and checkbook, it's just a head trip.”
He attributes success in his service business more to theology classes than to his degree in business administration. “The more I know about God, the better I handle complaints of customers,” he said.
Students in Franciscan University's off-campus program listen to taped lectures of college classes, read the required texts and can e-mail their questions to the lecturing professors, who then respond. Some courses will later be available online.
A master's degree in theology requires completion of eight undergraduate background courses and 12 graduate courses. Six credits must be earned on campus. Graduates must pass a comprehensive examination, administered by approved proctors. A $600 fee covers costs of tapes and print materials for each course, which should be completed in six months, according to coordinator Virginia Garrison.
The graduate program, which began in 1999, currently reaches about 350 students. Some live in Australia, Singapore, Kenya and Jamaica, Garrison said. The first two students will graduate in May.
Dr. Les Haddad, 59, of Savannah, Ga., completed the undergraduate background courses this year by studying at home and attending summer sessions at the accredited Franciscan University. His goal is “to serve the Lord” by praying with some of his emergency-room patients and volunteering as a hospital chaplain.
Other adults can participate in a variety of theology programs through the Catholic Distance University in Hamilton, Va., which currently enrolls more than 900 students. About 160 are studying for a master's degree in religious studies, and some 400 are taking undergraduate courses, which can be transferred to other Catholic colleges. CDU does not award bachelor's degrees and does not require any courses to be taken on campus.
Since opening in 1983, the university has enrolled more than 10,000 students. About 10 adults have received master's degrees through its 5-year-old graduate program, which is accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council, according to Marianne Evans Mount, CDU executive vice president.
CDU charges $655 for a three-credit graduate course, which does not include textbooks. Undergraduates pay $450 per course, and those in the Continuing Education and Catechetical Diploma programs pay $125 per credit.
Adults in the four programs receive manuals containing lessons, the course author's lecture and reading assignments. Audio and videotapes are available for a few courses, and graduate courses will later be offered online, Mount explained.
CDU aims to foster spiritual growth in its students by deepening their knowledge of Church teaching — a mission some students see fulfilled in their lives.
Michele Milano of Stafford, Va., has completed 10 of the 12 courses required for a Catechetical Diploma. While her husband was stationed in Germany with the Army in the late 1990s, she gave hundreds of presentations in Germany and France on topics such as prayer, “housewife holiness” and God's love shown through his Church.
“When you're open to God in your life, he will use you in ways you would never expect,” Milano said. “God wants us to share our education.”
Deacon John Pontillo, 57, of Denver, shares his education with parishioners at Sts. Peter and Paul Church and with men in the archdiocesan diaconate formation program. He recently earned a master's degree in religious studies from CDU, which helped him appreciate “the purity of our faith that has been passed down through the centuries. You can never know enough about your faith,” said the deacon, who also holds a doctoral degree in ministry.
These students praise the flexibility and convenience that distance-learning programs provide. Pontillo, a full-time United Parcel Service supervisor, said, “It's ideal for a person in a work-a-day world who wants to complete a college degree.”
Distance learning is also ideal for Michael Kelly, 73, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., who is taking continuing education courses from CDU. The diabetic outpatient cannot attend regular college classes, but said he likes “working at my own speed.”
Sue Davis of Tacoma, Wash., also values the independence that off-campus education provides. “There is no way I could attend a university,” she said. The mother of seven children and director of religious education at Holy Cross parish in Tacoma is studying at home for a master's degree from Franciscan University.
Distance learning benefits adults “who want to learn without the interaction” found in classrooms, which is more important to undergraduate students, said Dr. Stephen Miletic, dean of faculty at Franciscan University.
Franciscan Father Sebastian Cunningham favors off-campus programs in theology for “mature, responsible adults, as long as the institution is orthodox in its teachings.” Father Cunningham directs Holy Cross Retreat House near Las Cruces, N.M.
He said distance learning permits more Catholics to advance their religious education “so they can share it with the next generation.”
Joyce Carr writes from San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joyce Carr ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Unity + Procreation = Healthy, Holy Marriage DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:LIFE-GIVING LOVE: EMBRACING GOD'S BEAUTIFUL DESIGN FOR MARRIAGE by Kimberly HahnCharis, 2002 375 pages, $13.99 Available in online and retail bookstores or call (800) 486-8505
The bond between the procreative and unitive dimensions of sexual intercourse, a nexus established by God, should not be broken by man. That is Catholic teaching. That is the teaching of Humanae Vitae. And that is the theme of Kimberly Hahn's Life-Giving Love— a fresh, upbeat, positive, Catholic and welcome addition to the ample literature already out there on the subject.
What's so special about Hahn's work? After all, she's saying what the Church says, what Pope John Paul II has reiterated so often. But she says it in a way that even the Pope cannot. She says it as a mother, as a woman who's given birth to six children and lost three others. She says it as a former Presbyterian who found the Church because of Humanae Vitae. And she says it through the words of literally hundreds of other people who have shared their testimonies, their joys or sorrows, for having cherished or spurned God's gift of life-giving love.
This is no dry theological tome tracing the evolution of the Church's teaching about the inseparability of procreation and unity in sex. This is the testimony of a woman facing a Cesarean section. The poignant poetry of another woman who mis-carried. The story of another couple who raised a little girl handicapped by microcephaly.
Hahn always remains both faithful to Catholic teaching and intellectually honest. She faces the criticisms — and brings them down. She runs the whole gauntlet of objections: life and health considerations, fears of having a disabled kid, claims of being too young/-old/recently married/emotionally limited/afraid/poor. She answers them in ways that buoy both confidence and faith. Her appendix, “Ministry to Moms,” rife with practical suggestions about how to help mothers, is the spiritual and corporal works of mercy applied to everyday life.
“According to some claims, raising a child is very expensive,” she writes. “The caption for one health insurance company ad picturing a newborn read like this: ‘Three years of dancing lessons. Eight years of piano. It all adds up. Today, it costs $224,800 to raise your child to college age. And that's assuming she's going to like her nose.’ $224,800? Who calculated that amount? ‘Like her nose?’ Are they implying that caring for children's needs may include plastic surgery? … How sad to select between designer clothes for two children or sharing clothes and being able to afford a third child. What poverty to value things over people!”
Throughout, Hahn shows an impressive flair with words, cutting to the quick and illuminating timeless truths with contemporary lights. “On one of her early trips to the United States,” she writes, “Mother Teresa of Calcutta picked up a little child and was overheard saying, ‘Why are they so afraid of you?’ Or to put it in the words of the comic strip Cathy, ‘My generation has to decide whether to have a child or to be one.’”
Hahn discusses contraception, the value of every child, the relation of the communion of persons in marriage and the Eucharist, natural family planning (NFP), miscarriage and stillbirth, infertility, and sterilization (including the possibility of reversal). Her chapter on resources for each of these subjects is rich.
There's only one bone I would pick with this work. Hahn thinks that if a couple uses NFP with a “contraceptive mentality,” such behavior is wrong but remains a venial sin. I believe that, sometimes, a contraceptive mentality can so infect even NFP that a person acting with such intentions can sin gravely.
This won't stop me from recommending this book enthusiastically. Catholic couples: Get this book and learn to value your vocation as “life-giving lovers and life-loving givers.” Priests: You need this book as a resource for counseling, preaching and teaching. Mothers and fathers of engaged progeny: This could be the most important gift you'll give your future grandchildren.
John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian, writes from Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Donor Woes
Kozlowski — a Seton Hall alumnus and a member of its board — and two other former executives were also indicted on criminal charges that allege they used Tyco as a personal line of credit to pay for items that included mansions, jewelry, ski chalets and the donation to Seton Hall.
A spokeswoman for Seton Hall, which is administered by the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., said the university was “troubled to learn about the allegations against Mr. Kozlowski” and that it would be “premature to comment on ongoing allegations.”
Morning After
Of 358 health centers that responded to the 1999 survey, 52% reported offering emergency-contraceptive pills. One-sixth of those that offered them said they had started to do so within the previous year.
The survey showed that colleges located in the Midwest and the South were less likely than other colleges to offer the pills, as were private colleges, including many religious institutions.
No Baby Seals?
THE UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON, Sept. 20 — The Marianist university's Center for Social Concern will host six presentations this fall that cover “stories of activism.”
Topics will include the alleged injustice of U.N. sanctions against Iraq; the tragedy of AIDS in Africa; opposition to the U.S. Defense Department's School of the Americas; opposition to the death penalty; and a panel discussion on “Ethics and War in the 21st Century.”
Least Debt
CHRISTENDOM COLLEGE, Sept. 18 — The Front Royal, Va., college ranked first among all Catholic national liberal arts colleges in America by US News & World Report in the category of “least debt incurred by its graduates.” No other Catholic national liberal arts college was listed in the “least debt” report.
The study, included in the magazine's “Best Colleges” issue published earlier this month, revealed that the average debt incurred among the 76% of Christendom graduates who acquired student loans amounted to $8,000. The amount of debt that students accumulated from educational loans at national liberal arts colleges throughout the country reached as high as $24,448 at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.
US News ranked Christendom first in its tier in the area of SAT scores among incoming freshmen (1,110-1,350), first in graduation rates and third in freshmen retention.
Fighting Cancer
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, Sept. 19 — University biologist Edward Hinchcliffe, a biologist in the university's Walther Cancer Center, has received a four-year, $700,000 Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society (ACS).
His grant proposal, “Centrosomes and Cell Cycle Progression,” was ranked first out of 44 submitted to the society's Cell Cycle and Growth Control Committee.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:How Can I Do It All?
Q Recently you wrote about the importance of being “relationship-oriented” at work instead of “task-oriented.” Can you offer any practical tips on applying this principle when your “job” is raising young children, supporting a husband, maintaining relationships with family and friends, keeping house, running an apostolate and home schooling?
A With a busy life such as yours, it may be tempting to try to put people on our “to do” list along with “apostolate” and cleaning the house. And on a day when it appears that “nothing” has gotten done (the kids are sick, the dishwasher breaks, you talk on the phone with your sister for two hours because she is in a crisis), you will be tempted to feel that your day was a failure.
Put first things first. Out of our love for God, out of our own daily prayer, arises the desire to serve him. And, in serving him, we are trying to achieve important, prayerfully discerned goals, not simply “do a lot of things.” Watch out for the trap of mere activity. When we fall into that trap, we are more likely to treat people as objects, as an annoyance or hindrance keeping us from getting to the “important” things on our list of things to do. What is “apostolate” but “bringing souls to Christ”? And you may not be able to put that on a list of things “to do.”
Another consequence of falling into the activity trap is to become completely discouraged when we think we haven't accomplished 100 things. Sometimes we may not have knocked off a lot of things on the list, but we are still on track for achieving our long-range goals (for example, raising our children in a faith-filled, loving home). Let's be realistic: Sometimes we hit bumps in the road. We get knocked down. But we can always get up again — as long as we keep our eyes fixed on Christ.
You asked for practical suggestions. Here are three: prayer, planning and Proverbs 3. What sometimes hinders our ability to accomplish what Christ wants us to accomplish in any given day is lack of a plan. As soon as the alarm clock goes off, our head is swimming with things to do. We jump out of bed, realize that we have no time to pray and rev up to full throttle. A lack of a plan will have us doing what is “urgent,” but perhaps not truly important. Pray first, since Christ is the source of our charity and our effectiveness. This relationship with Christ is the relationship par excellence upon which all others depend. Ask him to help you plan your day to fulfill his will. This will help you not to waste time and to become a more effective apostle. You will also keep your eyes on the truly important goals: loving your spouse, your family and friends, your neighbors and bringing as many souls to Christ as he puts in your path that day.
Our priest gave a homily today about “shaving in the headlights.” Do what you ought to do now — in the headlights — instead of wasting time debating whether or not you should do what you ought to do and end up shaving by the rear backup lights, which is much less efficient. Proverbs 3:27-34: “Refuse no one the good on which he has a claim when it is in your power to do it for him.” If there is something good that you are asked to do by someone who has the right, do it — now.
Art Bennett is the director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Service.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Fact of Life DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:MARRIAGE HELPS MEN LIVE LONGER
British professors have released the results of a study showing that married men live longer than their single counterparts. The research also found that married men and women were healthier than their single counterparts.
Married Men 6.1% less likely to die over a seven-year period than single men.
Married Women 2.9% less likely to die over a seven-year period than single women.
Source: Traditional Values Coalition, Aug. 22, 2002
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Empty Stomachs, Full Hearts DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Judging by its schedule of prayer, Theresa and Mike Bergida's rural home in this community west of Washington, D.C., is something of a miniature monastery.
At least four times a day, the couple gathers with six of their seven children — one is away at college now — to pray. They also bolster their prayers twice a week with meatless meals and at other times such as Lent with increased sacrifices, some of which are chosen by the children.
The Bergidas are among a growing number of Catholic families who are praying and fasting together for the needs of the world — for peace and an end to abortion in particular. Their times of family prayer are in keeping with a recent message from Pope John Paul II, who said: “It is very important to pray every day, personally and as a family. May prayer, and prayer together, be the daily breath of families, parishes and the whole community.”
It wasn't always so for the Bergidas, whose five boys and two girls range in age from 4 to 19. “We started with one thing, heard about another and started doing it,” says Theresa, a home-schooling mother. “You just start small with something you feel drawn to, maybe say a decade of the rosary at a certain time of day or grace at the table.”
Regular fasting and prayer became part of the rhythm of Bergida family life after Theresa went to Medjugorje, BosniaHerzegovina, with two of the children nearly 13 years ago. “It was kind of a conversion experience for me,” she says. “I found as I grew deeper in faith and came back and shared with my husband and children, we began to do more of the traditional Catholic practices that were always there but that we had kind of gotten away from.”
The family began to pray the rosary more frequently and then added the Divine Mercy chaplet each afternoon. “For a while I tried to fast on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday,” Theresa recalls, “but I was always pregnant or nursing a baby, so it wasn't really good health-wise for me. Now we have worked out something better for us to do as a whole family, so we always fast from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.”
International Intentions
During Lent, the family abstains from desserts. And at other special times, they may give up watching videos. The Bergidas also observe the annual International Week of Prayer and Fasting — scheduled this year for Oct. 6-14 — by abstaining from meat for the entire week and offering the week's intentions for the conversion of nations, an end to abortion and world peace when they pray the Divine Mercy chaplet and the rosary.
Maureen Flynn of Signs of the Times Apostolate, who started the International Week of Prayer and Fasting 10 years ago, says many families are being moved to fast and pray during what many consider a crucial period in history.
“We have the possibility of having a world war, which could be nuclear next time,” says Flynn. “We sense a tremendous inspiration and motivation to actually do something. I'm hearing of prayer vigils in parishes in Tennessee and Texas. People are being mobilized to do things in their own families.”
Flynn says one family she talked to plans to turn off the TV set during the International Week of Prayer and Fasting. Others will eat more simple meals, such as soup and bread, giving the money they save to a crisis-pregnancy center. In families where the children are older, some plan to fast on bread and water a few days a week.
“Some are doing just one meal a day and cutting back on the other two,” says Flynn. “Some love their coffee so they give up coffee and sweets. Other families are going to try to pray the rosary as a family right after supper.” Still others will try to attend Mass during the week, make an all-night prayer vigil, minimize complaining, do extra things for each other or try to focus more on prayer during the day. Whatever they do, Flynn says, “I'm telling people to start now — don't wait for the week.”
Flynn says she believes it is especially important to add fasting to prayer, citing the example of St. John Vianney, who would fast several days on end when he wanted to obtain a divine favor.
Father Stephen Valenta, a Franciscan priest from Staten Island, N.Y., says fasting with prayer is rooted in Scripture and disposes people to receive the graces God is willing to give. He points out that Jesus fasted before he began his public life. “We are even told by the Blessed Mother,” he adds, “that through fasting and prayers wars can be averted.”
Flexible Fasts
Families who want to fast and pray should adjust what they do to the age levels of their children, says Father Valenta. For example, he said, if a family decides to say a rosary, the younger children could be required to say just one decade, while the oldest would remain for the entire devotion. He adds that, when it comes to fasting, children can be invited to fast from arguing with one another or from not wanting to make their beds or do homework. Families also can fast as a group from television or try to incorporate more silence into their lives by talking less and listening more.
Theresa Bergida notes that, although even young children can make sacrifices to accompany their prayers, she would never put a restriction on a child that would harm him or be more appropriate for an adult.
Meatless meals work in her home, says Bergida, because “everybody knows we're not having meat, so they know something is different about today. We also talk about forgiving someone and offering it up. Even with babies, they are hearing that we move the heart of God to move someone's heart, change someone or stop abortion. These are things you're just practicing so your children see it from the start. You're talking about it at their level.”
Bergida said she often lets her children take turns leading a decade of the rosary while her husband leads the meditations on the mysteries. She also has asked her children to contribute to those reflections by relating them to the particular suffering of someone for whom they are praying. “With the little ones the rosary is a harder one to make them sit still for. I give them bigger beads or a holy card or little book to look at.”
During the upcoming International Week of Prayer and Fasting, Flynn's group is asking people to fast, attend daily Mass and holy hours of eucharistic adoration, say a daily rosary and pray the Divine Mercy chaplet as individuals, families and parishes.
“If enough people really begin to trust God and implore his mercy through prayer, God will answer our prayers,” says Flynn. “Some think this is a done deal that we are going to go to war. I've been telling them it's not true. Prayer and fasting stops wars.”
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
From the Catechism
1434 The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms fasting, prayer and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself to God and to others. Alongside the radical purification brought about by baptism or martyrdom, they cite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins effort at reconciliation with one's neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints and the practice of charity “which covers a multitude of sins.”
----- EXCERPT: In a time of war, prayer and fasting gain popularity ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 10/06/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 06-12, 2002 ----- BODY:Campus Censorship
LIFESITE, Sept. 16 — Three former University of British Columbia students who stood up for life are seeking damages from the Alma Mater Society, which, the former students say, suppressed their rights to free speech.
The dispute began in the fall of 1999, when Alma Mater condemned “the tactics of the Genocide Awareness Project,” which was invited on campus by a pro-life club called Lifeline. Alma Mater's specific objection was to the display of pictures of aborted babies in the student union.
The current Alma Mater censorship resolution is very broad and even prevents the images from being shown in the private meetings of pro-life clubs. Alma Mater has continued to enforce this policy by requiring the removal of snapshots and, only two weeks ago, preventing the showing of an abortion documentary on the UBC campus.
Physicians See Cancer Link
LIFESITE, Sept. 16 — The National Physicians Center for Family Resources released a CD in which increased breast-cancer risk is cited as a long-term medical complication resulting from abortion.
The CD is intended to be a resource for parents and health educators to assist them in answering children's questions about puberty, reproduction and sexual health.
It says: “During a normal pregnancy, the female's body produces high levels of the hormone estrogen. This causes the milk-producing glands in the breast tissue to become active, a process that is completed during the third trimester of pregnancy. … Elective abortion interrupts these changes in the breast tissue, which makes the cells more likely to become cancerous.”
Swiss in Assisted-Suicide Cases
REUTERS, Sept. 13 — An assisted-suicide organization based in Switzerland is being investigated by public prosecutors over cases where it helped foreign nationals end their lives.
Assisted suicide is tolerated under Swiss law, as long as the drugs are self-administered and the person is making a rational decision to die. The organization, Dignitas, is based in Zurich and says it has a membership of 1,625 people from all around the world.
It pledges to help anyone who wants to “die with dignity” and says that last year it helped 50 people to kill themselves, 31 of whom were Swiss citizens. “We are investigating cases where Dignitas has helped Austrian, Dutch, French and German nationals to kill themselves,” Zurich public prosecutor Andreas Brunner told Reuters Health.
Parents Block Video
ROME—More than 300,000 people squeezed in and around St. Peter's Square in Rome on Oct. 6 to see Pope John Paul II declare Opus Dei's founder, Josemaría Escrivá, a saint of the universal Church.
It brought together Opus Dei members and supporters from 84 countries. Organizers said a third came from Italy, a third from other European countries and a third from outside Europe. About 4,000 people came from the United States.
During the solemn ceremony, which 29 television networks beamed to five continents, even the numerous children present were quiet and composed as a white-clad John Paul pronounced the words of the canonization.
The Holy Father, who in 1982 made Opus Dei a “personal prelature” (a sort of global diocese) recalled how Msgr. Escrivá dedicated his life to spreading the word that “we are all called to holiness, regardless of race, class, culture or age.”
In his homily later, John Paul praised the message and teaching of the new saint, who encouraged Catholics to seek holiness in ordinary, everyday life, especially through work. “This teaching is increasingly urgent and important today,” the Pope said, “as materialism threatens to dissolve the genuine identity of Christ's disciples.”
Opus Dei (Latin for “Work of God”), the movement founded by the charismatic Spanish priest in 1928, now numbers approximately 84,000 members worldwide. They come from a range of backgrounds and do a wide variety of jobs but all strive to live out their faith according to the same guidelines set out by Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá.
The mood among those present at the canonization was one of sober jubilation.
“It's really encouraging to see so many people who think and live as I do,” said Emmanuel Bala, a 40-year-old civil servant from Nigeria who said he came into contact with Opus Dei five years ago through a friend. Currently a collaborator with the group, Bala said he was considering becoming a full member in the next few years.
“The canonization is wonderful because this message is so needed today,” said Mary Zeidler, 20, a student from St Louis. “Most of us spend 90% of our time working, so to know that you can be a saint by doing this—and not be doing anything astounding—is tremendously important.”
The head of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarría Rodriguez, made a similar point in an official statement released the day before the canonization. Bishop Echevarría, who lived and worked with Msgr. Escrivá for 25 years, said he had witnessed the new saint's daily struggles to achieve holiness precisely in the way he prescribed to others.
“The founder used to say that the nub of the message that God had placed in his soul was the sanctification of work and of ordinary life,” Bishop Echevarría said. “I think the new saint speaks to working men and women, saying, ‘Cheer up, because there, in the heart of your less-than-exciting days, you can discover Christ.’ It is this ordinary existence which can and must become full of the love of God.”
For Rolando Castro, a publisher from Peru who traveled to Rome with his family, one of the important points about the canonization of Opus Dei's founder is that it draws the whole Church's attention to Msgr. Escrivá's ideas, announcing that his message is one for all Catholics. “This is something we've been waiting for for a long time, and it's very satisfying,” he said.
Castro said he had been a numerary member of Opus Dei for 10 years and that it had strongly affected his approach to running his book business.
“I think I treat my workers better than many other bosses,” he said. “I pay them decent wages and don't yell at them. Also, I approach the accounting and other chores with a new spirit—I'm doing it for God.”
Elizabeth Heil, 26, an American Opus Dei member working at the Vatican museums, said the spirituality also causes her to look inward.
“This canonization is a call to look at your own life, put it against his and take this as an impetus go deeper,” she said.
“I'm a long way from sainthood, there's no doubt about that,” she added with a smile. “But St. JosÈmaria is okay about that and it's such a comfort. When I mess up, I always remember how he said the point was to get up and start again, not to never mess up.”
Chorus of Critics
Opus Dei and its founder have faced their share of controversy over the years. Some of its critics have been priests and members who left the movement, complaining about restraints on their psychological freedom. It has also been targeted in the secular press and accused of being a secretive society wielding surreptitious power both in the Church and in politics.
“We've had some bad press over the years, but it's fading now as people start to understand our message and way of working,” said Father Tom Bohlin, a high-ranking official in Opus Dei who is responsible for relations with the Holy See and bishops. In an interview with the Register, Father Bohlin stressed that the only area in which the members have to abide by strict tenets is in matters of spirituality and theology, which remain very much within the Catholic mainstream.
Father Bohlin, 48, from New Jersey, admitted that a few priests had left Opus Dei over the years, and that a few had even left the priesthood. He said precise figures were not available but assured that in both cases the number was very small.
“Becoming a priest in Opus Dei is a long and careful process which usually takes at least 10 years,” he explained. “So people know what to expect and don't usually have second thoughts.”
Father Bohlin, who himelf became one of Opus Dei's 1,200 priests five years ago, said the movement had aroused initial suspicion, even in the Church, because of its “new approach.”
Members don't wear priestly garb or go about preaching and yet they make binding promises to serve God, he noted.
“Even our legal status as a papal prelature is a new thing—it's not surprising people didn't know what to think to begin with.” Opus Dei's early years in a Spain riven by civil war and under the subsequent dictatorship of General Francisco Franco had also thrown a cloud of politics over the underlying mission, he added.
Whatever confusion there may have been in the past, Opus Dei's message is getting through loud and clear these days.
John Paul's wholehearted support for the movement has brushed away many cobwebs and contributed to making the movement attractive to thousands of young Catholics keen on a secular career but also determined to live out their faith in as deep a way as possible.
Of Opus Dei's 82,000 lay members worldwide, most are married, and there are about an equal number of men and women. There are about 3,000 formal members in the United States.
Martin Penner writes
from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: At canonization, Pope calls Opus Dei urgently needed ----- EXTENDED BODY: Martin Penner ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Crop Walk Stumbles: Two Dioceses Back Out DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:LA CROSSE, Wis.—Crop Walk has become “Crop balk” in two dioceses in the United States: La Crosse, Wis., and Rockford, Ill.
A nationally renowned hunger-relief program, Crop Walk raises money for the poor by enlisting the aid of local communities. Participants raise money from sponsors for global and local relief through a walking event.
Parishes and Catholic schools in the Diocese of La Crosse have participated in Crop Walk for many years. This year, however, Bishop Raymond Burke has officially withdrawn diocesan support from Crop Walk.
In his weekly column in the Sept. 5 issue of The Catholic Times, the La Crosse diocesan newspaper, Bishop Burke cited several instances where Church World Service, an interdenominational refugee assistance organization and Crop Walk's founder and organizer, has broken or compromised the Church's moral teaching on contraception.
According to the U.S. government's 1973 “Area Handbook for the Dominican Republic,” since 1965 Church World Service has been financially supporting a solution to the so-called overpopulation problem in that country.
Church World Service helped finance a group called Friends of Family Planning, the report said. Eventually, it “became affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation.”
According to the report, Church World Service took an even more aggressive part in the efforts to control the Dominican population as it “was given authorization to import contraceptives on a duty-free basis by classifying them as ‘religious educational materials.’
But Judy McDowell, director of community fund raising at Church World Service, said there were no doubt “unique circumstances” in this particular report. She insisted Church World Service does not “export contraceptives.”
Still, until recently, Church World Service has been promoting contraception in Web site material and advocating it in legislation despite its own assertions that it takes no position on these issues.
A Web site education module called “Hungry Decisions” presents government-sponsored contraception as a legitimate means of family planning. In the module, found at www.-churchworldservice.org/decisions/in dex.htm, visitors are invited to play out optional scenarios as an impoverished husband or wife from the Third World. According to the site, the options with the best outcomes are those where the woman gets contraceptives and establishes a home business. Otherwise, the Web site suggests, the woman and her children are destined for a life of misery.
Also, Church World Service had publicly advocated on its Web site the passage of the Global Action and Investment for New Success (GAINS) for Women and Girls Act (H.R. 4114), U.S. legislation that would pressure the Third World poor into an increased use of contraception and abortion for family-planning purposes. That link has been removed since the Diocese of La Crosse raised the issue with Church World Service.
‘Not Our Mission’
According to the Rev. John McCullough, Church World Service executive director, in an October 2001 letter to the Rockford Diocesan Social Services Director Thomas McKenna, “CWS has no history ofádistributing contraceptivesáthis simply is not our mission.”
Judy McDowell denied that McCullough wrote the October 2001 letter, but agreed it is his signature appearing at the bottom.
“It was written by someone in our department on [McCullough's] behalf—and validly on his behalf,” McDowell explained. “But this letteráoffered far too simplistic a response.”
McDowell admitted Church World Service's partner agencies offer family-planning programs as one strategy to combat hunger.
Still, Gaston Razafinanja, director of the state Church World Service office in Madison, Wis., worked for the service for 20 years in Africa before taking the desk job and is convinced there is a misunderstanding of Church World Service's position.
As an umbrella organization that represents many churches, “we cannot tend to one side or the otheráso we take a neutral stand” on these issues, Razafinanja told The Catholic Times. “By nature we should not support this and our leaders know that.”
Dr. Arthur Hippler, director of the Office of Justice and Peace of the La Crosse Diocese and local Catholic Relief Services director, said Razafinanja's comments were similar to those made to local Catholic Crop Walk participants.
‘There's no sense in getting people to raise money for a group whose basic philosophy goes against Church teaching.’
But Hippler cited McDowell's statements affirming the involvement of Church World Service partner agencies in family planning services and stressed the offensiveness of this position to Catholics. “Many act as if promoting birth control and abortion in the Third World is a small matter,” he said. “But it is immoral and arrogant to solve the problems of development by killing the children of the poor. It sounds like the attitude P.J. O'Rourke has described as ‘just enough of us, too many of you.’”
Crop Walk participants can designate the funds they raise to go to a specific charity, Hippler noted. Many Catholics designate Catholic Relief Services as that charity. Also, 25% of the proceeds go to local hunger-relief programs.
But, according to a recent Catholic Relief Services report, average contributions from Church World Service to Catholic Relief Services from 1979 to 2001 totaled no more than $91,000 a year from the entire United States.
McDowell admitted Catholic Relief Services has had “problems tracking income.” Catholic Relief Services requested that Church World Service work with it in identifying the source of some checks Catholic Relief Services received, she added, and this may account for the low average income through Crop Walk.
Hippler suggested an alternative vehicle for raising funds for Catholic Relief Services. “Let's have a CRS walk and designate 25% of that to stay here and help the hungry in our community. That way CRS won't lose a dime and people still have an opportunity to help the hungry of the world. It's not Church World Service that's important, but feeding the hungry. CWS does not have a monopoly on feeding the poor.”
Reasons in Rockford
The Diocese of La Crosse is not the first to withdraw its support of Crop Walk. The Diocese of Rockford publicly withdrew its support for the same reasons last year.
According to Patricia Bainbridge, Rockford Diocese Respect Life assistant director, Bishop Thomas Doran's decision was based on information she had been collecting for years on Crop Walk and Church World Service.
In an Aug. 20, 1996, letter to Bainbridge, Church World Service official Ronda Hughes admitted that some partner organizations it funds are involved with family-planning programs. “Some of these partner organizations,” Hughes wrote, “also include, as a component of their maternal/child health programs, the supply of contraceptives.”
More significantly, Bainbridge cited the case of Father John Osterhout. In 1988, Father Osterhout was a priest of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis and director of student life at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. (He is now a priest of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.) At that time, he informed Church World Service that Franciscan University was pulling out of the Crop Walk in Steubenville because the service was discovered to have funded birth-control programs in the Third World.
In a Nov. 9, 1988, letter to Father Osterhout, Church World Service Associate Director Theodore Stanley wrote that he was sorry to hear Franciscan University was no longer going to participate in Crop Walk because “Church World Service allocates some of its overall funding for birth-control methods and education in the developing world.”
“We do not allocate a substantial or significant amount of our funding for birth control,” Stanley continued, “because it is our belief that improvement of the overall quality of life of persons of life [sic] in the developing world is the best way to limit population.”
Bainbridge said that for a hunger-relief organization to fund contraception programs is unacceptable. Quoting the U.S. bishops' document “Living the Gospel of Life,” Bainbridge noted, “the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the rightness of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community.”
Bainbridge was pleased to hear other dioceses in the country have joined the Rockford Diocese in withdrawing participation from Crop Walk.
“Obviously other dioceses are recognizing the problem,” she said. “There's no sense in getting people to raise money for a group whose basic philosophy goes against Church teaching.”
Joseph O'Brien is a staff writer
for The Catholic Times,
newspaper of the Diocese
of La Crosse in Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph O'Brien ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Medical Journal: Abortion Kills More Mothers Than Childbirth DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:SPRINGFIELD, Ill.—For years, abortion practitioners have claimed that abortion is safer than childbirth. A recent study, however, conducted by the Elliot Institute and published in the August issue of Southern Medical Journal, has turned the table on that claim.
The study reveals that women who have abortions are at a significantly higher risk of death than women who give birth. So far, the secular media have largely ignored the study.
Researchers examined the death records for approximately 173,000 low-income California women and discovered that women who had abortions were almost twice as likely to die in the following two years and that the elevated mortality rate of aborting women persisted over at least eight years.
During the eight-year period studied, women who aborted had a 154% higher risk of death from suicide, an 82% higher risk of death from accidents and a 44% higher risk of death from natural causes.
The Southern Medical Journal is not the first to reveal a correlation between abortion and mortality. A 1997 Finnish study reported that women who had abortions were 76% more likely to die in the year following abortion compared to non-pregnant women. It also found that, compared to women who carry to term, women who abort are 3.5 times more likely to die within a year. Furthermore, a subset of the same data reported that the risk of death from suicide within a year of an abortion was more than seven times higher than the risk of suicide within a year of childbirth.
The recent study confirms the trend discovered in Finland and is the first American study to use a uniform standard for comparing deaths associated with prior abortions and births. It is also the third study released in recent months that has largely been ignored by the media.
“This problem has been ignored for decades,” said David Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, “largely at the behest of population-control groups which are more concerned about protecting abortion than protecting women.”
Marla's Story
Thomas and Deborah Cardamone are not surprised by the research. Thirteen years ago, the couple lost their only child, 18-year-old Marla, as the result of complications arising from an abortion.
Approximately 18 weeks pregnant, Marla feared that antidepressant medications she had been taking had harmed her baby. Reluctantly, she went to Pittsburgh's Magee Women's Hospital on Aug. 15, 1989, for an abortion.
“They had used a needle to remove the amniotic fluid, inserted laminaria into her cervix and did an instillation of urea to induce the abortion,” said Marla's mother, Deborah. “When Marla came out of the room she had tears in her eyes and said that she was in much pain. My only consolation was that she was in a major hospital.”
Deborah stayed with her daughter until about 11 p.m. “It was the last time I saw Marla alive,” she said.
Unbeknown to medical staff, during the preliminary abortion procedure Marla had been invaded by a fast-acting blood infection called speticemia. She died the next morning.
“When they finally let me see her, I kept thinking they had made a mistake,” recalled Deborah. “She was distorted and swollen from the infection. Her face was purple. The whites of her eyes were yellow. The only thing I could recognize on my daughter was her hair.”
It wasn't until eight years later, just prior to going to trial, that the family received an undisclosed settlement from the hospital. Louisville, Ky., attorney Ted Amshoff represented the family. He is one of only a few abortion malpractice attorneys in the country.
“I began receiving referrals of women that had been injured by abortion in the 1980s from organizations and other attorneys that were not comfortable with the issue,” Amshoff said. “To date, Amshoff & Smith has successfully resolved, by judgment or settlement, 12 cases against abortionists resulting in settlements in excess of $14 million.”
Amshoff has represented cases in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, New York and Connecticut. “The cases have run the gamut from independent abortionists to major hospitals and national chains,” Amshoff added.
Ignoring the Issue
The mortality study is actually the Elliot Institute's fourth study published in a major medical journal. These and other studies suggest the elevated mortality rates after abortion could be connected to negative psychological reactions to abortion.
The institute's first study, released in January and published in the British Medical Journal, revealed that women who abort have more subsequent depression than women who carry unintended pregnancies to term. A later study printed in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry revealed higher rates of treatment for mental illness following abortion. Their most recent study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry showed that children of women who had abortions had less supportive environments and more behavior problems.
“The research certainly confirms what I have seen in my own practice. It fits with my experience,” said Dr. Martha Shuping, a psychiatrist who has been involved in post-abortion work in Winston-Salem, N.C., since 1984.
According to Rachel's Vineyard founder Theresa Burke, mental-health issues among post-abortive women commonly manifest themselves in eating disorders, substance abuse, clinical depression and suicide.
Dr. Paul Vitz, professor of psychology at New York University, said it would not be abnormal for some post-abortive women to experience flashbacks or depression.
“Abortion is for many women a serious trauma,” Vitz said. “It falls clearly within post-traumatic stress disorder, which is an official category of mental pathology in the DSM-IV [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely used by psychiatrists and psychologists for diagnoses]. It is not always, but in many cases, a trauma that clearly meets the criteria for things that can cause stress in the DSM, but for political, ideological and financial reasons, the official psychological association will not admit it.”
Yet, despite the institute's findings, the research has been ignored by the media and pro-abortion organizations such as National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. Neither organization was willing to comment on the recent study.
“If these groups had an answer, they would give it,” Shuping said. “I believe that they know there's a problem and they don't know what to say about it.”
Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, Shuping said, have gone on record saying that there is no such thing as post-abortion syndrome.
“I've examined the studies they cited, and you can see in those studies that there were people that had post-abortion-related problems, but they didn't make up the majority in those studies,” Shuping said. “With more than 40 million abortions performed in the U.S., even if only 10% of women present a problem, that's still millions of women. Even some of the pro-abortion studies confirm that, so why should it be a surprise if we find that some women do have problems?”
Reardon finds the media silence puzzling. “Reuters [news service] can run a story showing that a study found an association between beer and good cholesterol, but with abortion they have a different standard,” Reardon said.
It's not as if the institute hasn't done its homework. Each of the institute's studies has been submitted to major medical journals and has gone through a thorough peer-review process.
“The study is submitted to a journal editor who then sends it to others that are deemed experts in the field. The journal then makes recommendations for changes or rejects the study. It takes anywhere from six months to a year before it's published,” Reardon explained.
Statistician Iain Murray, writing for Tech Central Station, has disagreed with the study's findings. Murray described the study as flawed because it didn't take into account whether the subjects were married.
“The Elliot Institute study found a 93% greater chance of death by homicide among women who had aborted. Yet the latest National Criminal Victimization Survey shows persons who are married are much less likely to be victims of violence than persons who have either never married or are divorced or separated. This is because married people are much less likely to place themselves in risky situations. Marital status might therefore account for some of the difference in outcomes after pregnancy,” Murray said.
Reardon agrees that further research is necessary, but he doubts whether marital status alone would impact the differences associated with death following abortion.
“The 1997 Finland study did take marital status into account. It revealed a sevenfold increased risk of suicide in the year following abortion and found that while marital status did have an effect, it was not enough to explain away the differences,” Reardon said.
“While there may be confounding factors, or other causes,” Reardon continued, “at this point the preponderance of evidence shows that abortion is connected with elevated mortality rates.”
While the media might ignore the evidence, those who work in post-abortion counseling say the evidence can't be hidden forever.
“Post-abortive women are trying to break the denial that exists in our society,” said Theresa Bonopartis, founder of the post-abortion referral network Lumina. Thirty years ago, while still a teen-ager, Bonopartis had an abortion.
“No one wants to believe that we exist. Yet, there are over 4,000 abortions in our country every day,” she said. “These people are everywhere. They are in our workplaces, our churches, our neighborhoods and our families. Just because few have verbalized it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.”
Tim Drake writes from
St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Medical Missionaries Boost Faith in Spiritually Needy Amazon DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:ITACOATIARA, Brazil—When a small team of Catholic medical missionaries brought expertise, medicine and personal care to up to 200 people a day in this Amazon region in August, little did they realize they would awaken the sleeping giant of faith.
Few attend Mass, few couples are married, and even fewer know the catechism, said Legionary Father Peter Hopkins of New York, one of two priest chaplains who participated in the Amazon trip organized by the Texas-based Helping Hand Medical Mission.
But they have a simple piety and a love of the Virgin Mary, he said, and they responded readily to the compassion and witness of the Catholic doctors, eagerly accepting the 3,000 rosaries brought by the missionaries, who were invited by the local bishop to set up temporary clinics for the poor in this Amazon region.
“They were very receptive,” said Dr. Oscar Tijerina, an emergency medicine specialist from Mission, Texas, and one of the 17 members of the mission team. “We would pray the rosaries with the patients. They were all very excited. They all have faith in the Virgin of Guadalupe. But they just need the push, the encouragement.”
The patients lined up early, hours before the clinic opened, and prayed a rosary with the medical team before the day's work began.
Afterward they spontaneously sang Marian hymns, said Lupita Assad, a nurse and volunteer director of Helping Hand, which has conducted 26 missions to Latin America since 1996.
Because of the success of the 10-day mission, Bishop Gritti Carillo of the Itacoatiara prelature hopes to raise the funds to build a permanent clinic to offer health care, natural family planning classes and catechism instruction year-round, Father Hopkins said. In this way, the bishop is seeking to rebuild the faith in a remote jungle area that has largely been forgotten by the wider Church.
“He was flooded with calls from people thanking him for having the Americans come,” Father Hopkins said. “[With a clinic], we could come down a couple times a year to do missions there, and he would have a place of evangelization.”
Once nearly 85% of the people in this 32,000-square-mile prelature—not yet a diocese—were Catholic, Father Hopkins said. Because of 20th-century liberation theology that weakened faith practices—and the insurgence of evangelical Christians, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses—that number is down in some areas to 50%, he explained.
When Bishop Carillo arrived two years ago from Italy—he hails from the birthplace of Pope John XXIII, as does a neighboring Amazon bishop—there were only four Catholic marriages in the entire prelature, Father Hopkins said.
Since the Helping Hand mission, several couples have come to the bishop seeking to have their common-law marriages regularized in the Church, the priest said.
The presence of the U.S. medical team, who paid their own way and brought their own medical supplies, was an encouragement to the local people, said Dr. Nicoleta Manciu, an anesthesiologist from Minnesota.
“They appreciated the fact that—and I'm quoting one of them—that we treated them like human beings,” she said.
Though the people of Itacoatiara are poor, the doctors found them to be rather healthy, blessed by a natural food supply, clean air and a lifestyle of physical exertion.
“Most complaints were what we would consider fairly nominal,” said team member Yvonne Stewart, a physician's assistant from Boston who has recently left on an extended mission to Congo. “A lot of the complaints were back pain, headaches, some visual problems, needing reading glasses. They are generally very strong people. They're not complainers.”
One of her most memorable patients was a 95-year-old indigenous woman with an unusual report: “Aches and pains if dances too much,” Stewart recalled, laughing.
“She was absolutely gorgeous; She actually danced for us. If she was 95, I hope I look like that when I'm 65. She was just in phenomenal health,” she said.
Mission volunteer Dr. Cecile O'Connor, a retired public health doctor from Beeville, Texas, observed an appealingly gentle manner in the people.
“You can get them to smile very, very quickly,” she said. “You could hardly see someone with wrinkling on the forehead.”
Poverty also proved no obstacle to hospitality, which was extended to all the missionaries, she observed. “It's a very small house and they have one chair, but they want you to sit in that chair,” she said.
The gratitude of the simple people struck Roberta Tijerina, a high school senior who assisted her father and the other doctors by taking histories and helping in the clinic pharmacy.
“You know that your work there is minimal—you're only there for a week—yet they're so grateful for it,” she said.
Father Hopkins saw that as well. “They would go into one of the doctors and would have six problems. The doctor could only address one of the six, and they were overcome with gratitude,” he said. “If [the doctors] could do anything, no matter how small it was, they would thank the doctor profusely. It was very nice.”
Government family-planning programs have had their effect in the area, several doctors observed. While there were many families with five or six children, there were also many women, some as young as 20, who they found were sterilized.
“There was a young woman who was 24 and who had two children,” Manciu said. “She was sterilized and unmarried. This was perhaps the saddest one I had seen; she did not realize what she had done. If she decides to get married and have a family with her husband, that's not possible. She's done. That's it for her life. It's very, very sad.”
On the other side of the spectrum, there was a husband and wife who traveled with their baby for four hours to come to the clinic, she said.
“They appeared to be in their late 30s. For whatever reason they came to me, and they had 11 children. The father seemed to just adore the baby, the tender way he held him. You could easily see Christ in this man. They were a beautiful family.”
Bishop Carillo navigates the vast river area using a government-subsidized boat, Father Hopkins said. Along with 30 catechists and three or four priests, he goes from village to village evangelizing, he said.
The prelature is growing—he has 12 men studying for the priest-hood, five of them in the Legionary seminary established in Sao Paolo at the request of the Holy Father to serve the dioceses of Brazil, the priest said.
But the Amazon bishop is up against some stiff competition from the numerous Christian and non-Christian sects in the area, Father Hopkins said. During the mission the priest met an American missionary who flies a biplane up and down the river, stopping at villages to try to establish new Baptist churches.
“They arrive to a town, and they recruit one of the locals who is willing to become a Baptist minister,” the priest said. “They send him to Manaus for a year, train him as a minister, and in the meantime they build a church. They send him back, and now he's the Baptist minister, and he recruits a congregation.”
Said Dr. Brendan O'Connor, a radiologist with the Helping Hand mission: “Without people like us going down to support them in their faith, it makes it easy for these other groups to convert them.”
Mission director Lupita Assad said the mission met its objective by helping the local Church in evangelization. The spiritual program of Helping Hand for the patients and for the doctors is as important as its medical outreach, she said.
“The bishop was elated. I haven't seen a bishop so happy,” she said. “It's not how much we can accomplish, but that we bring hope to these people, and to the bishop. That's our main, main work.”
Ellen Rossini writes
from Dallas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Caught in the Middle in the Holy Land DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:It's a long way from the Netherlands to battle-torn Jerusalem, where Father Guido Gockel distributes food and medical supplies.
Father Guido Gockel
The Dutch-born priest joined the Catholic Near East Welfare Association's Jerusalem staff in 1996. On a recent visit to the United States, Father Gockel spoke with Register correspondent Wayne Laugesen.
How did your work get started?
In the beginning of our work, the priority was to coordinate all the work of the Catholic organizations all together, and out of that grew a greater cooperation between all Catholic organizations, like Catholic Relief Services, the Latin patriarch, ourselves, etc., so that we were aware of one another and what we were all doing.
It became apparent to us that the greatest need was for these people to work. As you know, people can tighten their belts a bit more and live minimally when faced with crisis. But people cannot live without work. Life without work destroys the family life, and that was the biggest crisis these people were facing—life without work.
Why is that?
I don't think one can be happy without work, under any circumstance, whether it's inheritance or war reparation. I had a very wealthy friend in Belgium years ago, who was a multimillionaire. One day he lost his job, and he was trying to get work, but he couldn't. There's something creative in all of us that wants to give to others. This friend wanted work, he couldn't get it, and he basically burned out before he was 50. Knowing this, I began to see a lot of Palestinians sitting in their homes, not doing anything, waiting for help. They were creating this tremendous tension and the aggression that comes with unemployment, and it was directed sometimes toward the children. When a family is out of work, you see aggression toward the children and from one spouse to the other. So I said, Let's do something that puts them to work.
I started what I call the Labor Intensive Community Development Project. The stress is on community development. What we did was try to get the people of the institutions—municipalities, hospitals, churches, schools, homes for handicapped, etc.—to think about ways they could improve their institutions or their services to the community at large. As they identified needs, we would create jobs for people—jobs that made these improvements happen at the institutions. If there was construction involved, the institutions would provide the materials, and we would provide the labor. The institutions could take 20% of a grant for material as well, but 80% would go to the people who were working there.
As a result, first of all, services to the community are being improved. Second, the individuals who have been put back to work feel the institutions have helped them, and it has created a link between the institutions and the people. Third, the individuals—now working and getting a salary—feel much happier. At least they can survive. It's creating a greater community spirit among them. These people feel they have some ownership in these institutions.
Do you take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
I think I do take sides. I work mainly with Palestinians. I see this as a little bit like being incarnated in the Palestinian community, with the Palestinian people. I'm so much with them that I know their fears, their anger, their frustration. So their pain and their anger have become a part of me. It's my task as a missionary to be one with them—to be there and to share their feelings of hatred and frustration, and to get beyond those feelings, to surmount all of that. It's a calling, and the situation calls me either to be an angel or a devil. I can either give into the anger and frustration, or I can say, “No, I'm called to something different.”
What about Catholics in the United States? Should American Catholics take sides in this conflict? How does an American Catholic assess where to come down on this conflict?
It's very difficult for a Catholic in the United States to take sides on this, one way or another. With all due respect to the media, the media in the United States are rather biased toward Israel, in my opinion. So what do you have to judge the situation? I do understand the suffering of some Israelis. I have Israeli friends as well. There's an imbalance to the whole situation. People want to give a balanced view about a situation that's imbalanced. So I don't expect people in the United States to make a judgment. They cannot. But they can at least listen to both sides, whenever given an opportunity.
What about Christians in the West Bank and Gaza? What is this like for them?
The Christian community in the region is suffering a great deal in this whole situation. In one way, Christians can identify with the course of the Muslims, yet they know if we don't identify with them now, when there's a Palestinian state, they will kill us. This is their big problem that they have now. They're caught in the middle. They're in between a rock and a hard place.
Please explain, in a broad sense, the injustice being suffered by the Palestinians.
Israel is trying to create a ghetto state and does not really want the Palestinians to be there. They want a state only for Jewish people, and as for the others, well, there is no place for them. Ariel Sharon, and people like that, talk openly about the transfer, getting the non-Jewish people moved out of that country.
How did you get involved in this conflict?
I'm a member of the Mill Hill Missionary Society in England. I was working in Malaysia as a pastor. I had a sabbatical, and during that sabbatical I was invited to the Holy Land. I was not able to go back to Malaysia because of visa problems, so I was looking for something else to do. To be very frank, until that pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as a Dutchman I had grown up very much in love with Israel and the Jewish people as a consequence of the war. So for me it was a shock to find out what was happening to the Palestinian people.
Wayne Laugesen is based
in Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Pro-Family Groups Make Gains Against Hotel-Room Pornography DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—A coalition of pro-family groups is hoping to build on the recent success of a Cincinnati organization in getting three local hotels to stop providing adult-oriented programs in guest rooms. The coalition is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to crack down on hotels nationwide that provide these types of programs.
Catholic Church and legal officials applaud the effort and believe the campaign to eliminate pay-per-view and other adult videos from many hotels has a good chance to succeed, particularly if a large number of citizens join the effort.
The coalition, called the National Pro-Family Forum on Pornography, met in September in Washington to discuss the issue of sexually explicit movies in hotels. Its leaders and members are calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials to threaten prosecution of any hotels offering material the coalition claims meets the legal definition of obscenity.
“Our ultimate goal is to eliminate hard-core pornography from every television set and every video store in the country,” said Phil Burress, president of the Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values and a member of the coalition. “We want to get this stuff off the face of the earth. Obviously that's not possible, but we're going to do the best we can. Pornography is a major crisis in our country.”
‘Our ultimate goal is to eliminate hard-core pornography from every television set and every video store in the country.’
The coalition represents more than 20 million families across the country and has met quarterly in Washington for six years to discuss issues of concern to families. It includes such groups as Morality in Media, Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America.
Burress said the coalition is in the midst of a campaign to educate people about their rights in regard to law enforcement and how obscenity laws work. He said because the major providers of hard-core adult movies are distributing the movies via satellite, they are in violation of federal law.
The coalition later this year plans to launch a Web site, www.cleanhotels.com, which identifies hotels that are not providing adult entertainment. “We're trying to find out which hotels are not offering in-room pornography so we can let people know about them,” Burress said.
Community Values
Adult-oriented entertainment for hotels is big business. Officials estimate 40% of the hotels in the country offer adult movies, which amount to about $500 million in revenue each year.
The battle against adult videos in hotels began in Cincinnati, where Citizens for Community Values in July and August successfully stopped three area hotels from providing explicit pay-per-view movies in guest rooms.
The organization, founded in 1983 as a pro-family, anti-pornography lobbying group, alerted prosecutors to the explicit nature of movies being shown in rooms at local Marriott, Comfort Suites and Travelodge hotels. Group members checked into the hotels and videotaped some of the movies as evidence.
All three of the hotels agreed to stop providing the programming after county prosecutors in Ohio and Kentucky warned the owners they were violating community standards of decency and would face criminal obscenity charges if they continued to show the material.
Violation of community standards is one of the court tests for obscenity as determined by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1973 case Miller v. California. The court ruled that each community has the right to determine its own standards of decency.
James Bendell, an attorney based in Port Townsend, Wash., and the West Coast litigation counsel for the American Catholic Lawyers Association, applauds the efforts of anti-pornography groups. But he said it might be hard to prosecute some of the cases because of the difficulty in proving that something is obscene and in establishing that hotels are actually committing criminal acts.
“On the other hand, I believe that citizens through letter writing and picketing can urge these hotels not to commit these acts,” Bendell said. “The threat to hotels is that this is bad publicity and possible lost business.”
Bendell said Catholics have a moral obligation not to view or publish pornography. “It harms marriages, and people can become addicted to pornography,” he said. “We're supposed to support Catholic values, and we have higher standards than secular laws. For example, if I know a guy down the street is raising money for an organization that preaches hate, it's my obligation to say he should not support them.”
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati also applauds the efforts of the pro-family groups, said spokesman Dan Andriacco. “This is an issue of concern to the archbishop,” he said. “Pornography debases the human person, and not just the one who uses it. The entire community has a stake in eliminating pornography because the whole community is in some way affected by it.”
Opponents of the efforts argue they amount to an invasion of privacy and denial of First Amendment rights to free speech.
The adult programs “are a form of real expression, sometimes on the margins of First Amendment protection, but nonetheless protected speech,” said Raymond Vasvari, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. “When you have a small group working with prosecutors and setting up cameras in hotel rooms, that's of a censorial nature. This [adult entertainment] is being used by adults alone in a proper setting, who are not hurting anyone else.”
Pro-family groups in other parts of the country are trying to take similar action in their regions. For example, the American Family Association of Michigan, based in Midland, has urged prosecutors in the state to stop hotels in Grand Rapids, Midland and Holland from showing explicit programs in their rooms.
Burress is confident more groups will be successful. “Success for me is a hotel here and there,” he said. “I think we can make a major dent once we get the Web site up. Most parents, grandparents and conventioneers don't want to stay in hotels that provide this type of programming.”
Bob Violino writes from
Massapequa Park, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Violino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Saddam and al Qaeda Are Not Allies
Like other fundamentalist Muslim sects, al Qaeda is dedicated to overthrowing secular despotisms such as Saddam's. Benjamin argued that attacking Iraq “would not be a continuation of the war against terror but a deviation from it.”
While Saddam is eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction, Benjamin argued, there is no evidence to show he is inclined to hand them over to elements he cannot control, such as Islamic terrorists who might be as likely to use them against him as against the United States.
However, Benjamin concluded, if Saddam were about to be removed from power—and likely hanged from a lamppost by angry Iraqis—then he “might break the taboo on giving terrorists weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, as images of the United States attacking another Muslim nation are beamed throughout the Middle East and South Asia, many will take it as confirmation of Mr. bin Laden's argument that America is at war with Islam.”
Health Providers Can Refuse to Fund Abortions
REUTERS, Sept. 25—Last week the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill strengthening “conscience clauses” that allow health plans and hospitals to refuse to offer abortions without any state or federal penalty Reuters news source reported.
The Abortion Nondiscrimination Act passed with a majority of Republicans voting for it and most Democrats opposing it, according to Reuters. The bill, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would protect Catholic hospitals that have merged with secular health care companies, which are now under heavy pressure in several states to offer abortions.
‘St. Francis’ Opera Opens in St. Francisco
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 26—Olivier Messaien, an avant-garde 20th-century composer, was also a fervent Catholic. His grandest work, “St. Francois d'Assise,” is one that is rarely performed, perhaps because it lasts five hours and requires a 97-piece orchestra and a score that weighs 25 pounds.
But the San Francisco Opera last month premiered the piece to great audience enthusiasm and glowing reviews, according to Associated Press.
“This company has never undertaken this kind of challenge,” said Conductor Donald Runnicles to Associated Press. “Just the size, the dimensions. This has galvanized the company.áWe all feel like evangelists.”
Runnicles worked with German director Nicolas Brieger, who at first declined the task. “It was my prejudice,” Brieger said, “I thought, ‘I have nothing to do with this Catholic world.’ I had left this Church. When they offered it to me I said, ‘No.’ Donald said, ‘Wait. Listen. Take your time.’”
Brieger now says he is proud to have been part of presenting such a unique, accomplished piece of music. The opera follows the life of St. Francis, including his conversion, his mystic experiences and his reception of the stigmata, or wounds of Christ.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Oct. 16 to be 'Pope Day' in New York and Other Cities DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—For months, newspapers and television stations have been presenting a picture of priests who are not trustworthy, bishops who are irresponsible and a Pope too old and out of touch to solve the crisis of sexual abuse in the Church.
A number of young people in 15 cities in the United States and abroad will present a different view of Pope John Paul II on Wednesday, Oct. 16. That's the 24th anniversary of his election to the papacy, and they'll be telling anyone who cares to listen that the Pope has answers to the abuse problem—and a lot of other questions faced by society.
Many of these young adults have been mining the Holy Father's wisdom in discussion groups for the past couple of years, and they'll be inviting people to attend lectures and concerts that evening celebrating one of history's longest pontificates.
“Pope Day,” as chief organizer Peter McFadden calls it, is an anniversary gift to John Paul—and a response to his call at World Youth Day in Toronto this year for young Catholics to be “salt of the earth and light of the world.”
“We're trying to be the salt of the city,” McFadden said.
During busy lunch hours in Manhattan, Denver, Saskatoon and other cities, volunteers will stand in front of churches and in downtown areas offering free copies of a 32-page booklet of the Pope's writings, chiefly from Love and Responsibility, his 1960 book on love and marriage.
Different Flavors
The celebration will take on different flavors in different locations. At the midtown Manhattan Church of Our Saviour, Father George Rutler, pastor and well-known Eternal Word Television Network host, will celebrate a votive Mass for the Pope. After Mass, choirs will serenade commuters walking past the church on the way to Grand Central Terminal, and speakers inside will examine the Pope's example of out-reach to youth and his writings on conscience. And a former Swiss Guard will tell of how his life was transformed by some close encounters with the Pope at the Vatican.
In Denver, speakers will discuss the Pope's theology of the body, ecumenism and personalist philosophy. High school students in the Czech Republic, where McFadden once worked, will be staging “The Jeweler's Shop,” an early play written by then Karol Wojtyla. Seminarians from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will discuss papal infallibility. And Oct. 16 will be part of Pope Week in Couva, Trinidad. Festivities there are being organized by a girls high school teacher who picked up the “Love and Responsibility” booklet at World Youth Day.
That booklet will be distributed at Ave Maria University in Ann Arbor, Mich., College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and Columbia University. The Newman Center at Hunter College in New York will screen Witness to Hope, the video based on the biography by George Weigel. Votive Masses for the Pope will be celebrated in the Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For Anastasia Northrop, who is organizing Denver activities, Pope John Paul II has an important message to offer a society that is confused about the meaning of sexuality. It has to do with his understanding of the human person, said Northrop, 26, who works with her family's taping ministry, Our Father's Will Communications. “He teaches us about why we were created male and female, what our purpose is here. Our vocation is to love.”
Northrop has led a group of young people studying John Paul's theology of the body, which is based on a series of talks he gave early in his pontificate. The message, she has found, “really touches people's hearts.”
“It rings true. It appeals to what people want: fulfillment and love. It's not about use but about gift,” she explained.
That message seems particularly relevant to many American Catholics, given the recent revelations regarding sexual abuse of minors by priests.
Denise Iona, a 25-year-old accountant in Boston, perhaps the place hardest hit by the sex-abuse scandals, said her participation in a Love and Responsibility group there has “taught me the right perspective on relationships and human dignity.”
But McFadden, 39, is quick to point out that Pope Day is not meant as a response to the sex-abuse crisis but as “our desire to share the beauty of the Pope's teaching.”
He and fellow New Yorker Alberto Mora have led a weekly discussion group on Love and Responsibility for the past two years and have encouraged the formation of similar groups in other cities. The book emphasizes the need for a correct understanding of love and warns against treating people as means to an end or objects to be used. Anxious to share the message, McFadden excerpted key passages and had 50,000 copies of the resulting booklet printed. He and other New Yorkers gave away 13,000 copies at World Youth Day in Toronto.
Non-Catholics, Too
In searching for a printer, McFadden met H.C. Vale of Seattle through the Internet, who put him in touch with someone in Toronto. “I wrote him a thank-you note to let him know how well it worked out and he responded by saying he's going to put together a Pope Day in Seattle,” McFadden said.
That was surprising, since Vale is a Methodist. But the Seattle salesman said he was impressed with what he read in the booklet. It's a message that needs to be heard, he said, “especially now, when the act of love has been reduced to the equivalent of a drink of water, to a trivial recreation. It used to be considered a monumental act, not something casually entered into.”
Vale and his boss, Brenda Galang, who is Catholic, will distribute some 450 copies.
As Pope Day passes, McFadden and his group will continue reading John Paul's works, including the play “The Radiation of Fatherhood.” They have other plans on the horizon, including a coffeehouse in Manhattan where such plays might be performed, a papal birthday celebration next May 18 and another Pope Day next year.
Predicted McFadden, “The 24th anniversary this year will set the stage for an incredible 25th anniversary.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: media watch DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Vatican Criticizes Italian Leader Over Quip
REUTERS, Sept. 28 — While his policies have been much more favorable to the Church than those of previous governments, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has come under fire by the Vatican for making insensitive remarks about 35 Liberian immigrants who drowned last month while trying to enter Italy illegally.
In an interview last week, he was questioned about why police used small, pedal-operated boats (or pedali) to collect the bodies. Berlusconi said, “It's not every day that they have to pick up corpses, and sometimes pedali work well. None of the [corpses] complained.”
The next day, Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano condemned his remarks as flippant.
“Sometimes spirited quips are not only out-of-place but also macabre, in bad taste and downright offensive,” the paper wrote in an editorial. “It is inconceivable to be ironic about the dead.”
Berlusconi replied to questioners, “Perhaps you would have preferred it if the bodies had been picked up in a big boat.”
Hundreds of illegal migrants try to enter Italy every day through her large, vulnerable coastline as an entry point to the European Union, which has abolished internal border controls. The Berlusconi government has taken numerous measures to try to stem the flow of immigrants, citing the burdens to its public welfare system and the increasing threat of Islamic fundamentalism in Italy.
Pope to Become Honorary Citizen of Rome
LA REPUBBLICA (Rome), Sept. 23 — It is a city in which his first predecessor, St. Peter, and many other popes died as martyrs and which later popes ruled as monarchs right up until 1870, when Italian nationalists conquered the last of the papal states. Successive popes until Pius XI held themselves “prisoners of the Vatican.” Now, the City of Rome will offer Pope John Paul II honorary citizenship.
Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni will confer citizenship on the Holy Father on Oct. 31, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Details have yet to be finalized, but Holy See officials said the mayor would likely hand the Pope the keys to the Eternal City at a Vatican ceremony.
Holy Father to Address Parliament of Italy
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 2 — In a historic gesture, Pope John Paul II in November plans to address a joint session of the Italian parliament, a body that once helped displace papal government in Italy and for which Catholics were once forbidden to run or vote on pain of excommunication.
The Holy Father will speak to the legislators on Nov. 14.
Marco Politi, a biographer of the Pope, wrote in La Repubblica, “It will be a Polish Pope to enter the palace that symbolizes the sovereignty of the Italian people. It's as if only a Pope who came from afar could definitely close the gap” separating Church and state in Italy, where anticlericalism is still alive and well.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:During his general audience for 15,000 people in St. Peter's Square on Oct. 2, Pope John Paul II told pilgrims that God is our “eternal Rock” on whom our faith and trust must be based as we face the ups and downs of daily life.
The Holy Father was commenting on a canticle from the first 12 verses of Isaiah 26 that appear in the Liturgy of the Hours. His talk was another meditation in the series he has been doing for the last year on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours.
The canticle, the Pope pointed out, presents a contrast between two opposite cities: a rebellious city and a holy city. In the holy city, God “flings wide open the gates to receive a nation that is just.” But, he added, “for whoever enters the city of salvation, there is one essential requirement.” That requirement is trust in God. “The gift that God offers his faithful ones is peace, the messianic gift par excellence, the fruit of a life lived in justice, freedom and the joy of communion.”
The Fathers of the Church, John Paul noted, thought that “this promise of peace foreshadowed the words that Christ would speak centuries later: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.’” Armed with such reassurance, the Holy Father pointed out, we are able to face the challenges of daily life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Is Our Eternal Rock DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Different voices that span a long period of time converge in the book of the prophet Isaiah, whose authorship and inspiration are all attributed to this great witness to God's word, who lived in the eighth century before Christ.
Within this long scroll of prophecies, which even Jesus himself opened and read in the synagogue in his own village of Nazareth (see Luke 4:17-19), there is a series of chapters—24 to 27—that scholars generally call the “Great Apocalypse of Isaiah.” In fact, a second, smaller series is found in Chapters 34-35. In a text that is often passionate and full of symbolism, the author describes God's judgment on history in a powerful and poetic way and exalts the just, who are waiting for salvation.
The Holy City
A contrast is often made between two diametrically opposite cities, as is the case in John's Apocalypse: the rebellious city, embodied in some historical centers of those days, and the Holy City, where the faithful are gathered.
In line with this, the canticle that we have just heard, from Chapter 26 of Isaiah, is indeed a joyful celebration of the city of salvation. It rises strong and glorious, because the Lord himself has laid its foundations and its fortified walls, making it a safe and peaceful dwelling place (see verse 1). He then flings its gates wide open to receive a nation that is just (see verse 2), which seems to repeat the words of the psalmist who, as he stood before the Temple of Zion, exclaimed: “Open the gates of victory; I will enter and thank the Lord. This is the Lord's own gate, where the victors enter” (Psalm 118:19-20).
‘The gift that God offers his faithful ones is peaceáthe fruit of a life lived in justice, freedom and the joy of communion.’
For whoever enters the city of salvation, there is one essential requirement: “firm purposeátrust in youátrust” (see Isaiah 26:3-4), which is faith in God, a solid faith based on him who is “an eternal Rock” (verse 4).
Trust Brings Peace
Trust, which is already expressed in the original Hebrew root of the word “amen,” is a concise profession of faith in the Lord who, as King David sang, is “my strength, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my rock of refuge, my shield, my saving horn, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:2-3; see 2 Samuel 22:2-3).
The gift that God offers his faithful ones is peace (see Isaiah 26:3), the messianic gift par excellence, the fruit of a life lived in justice, freedom and the joy of communion.
This gift is also forcefully reaf-firmed in the final verse of Isaiah's canticle: “O Lord, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done” (verse 12). This verse caught the attention of the Fathers of the Church: For them this promise of peace foreshadowed the words that Christ would speak centuries later: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27).
In his Commentary on the Gospel of John, St. Cyril of Alexandria reminds us that Jesus, in giving us his peace, gives us his own Spirit. Therefore, he does not leave us orphans but remains with us through the Spirit. St. Cyril goes on to say that the prophet “prays that God would give us his Spirit, through which we have been read-mitted into friendship with God the Father, we who were at first far away from him because of the sin that rules in us.” His commentary then turns into a prayer: “Grant us peace, O Lord. We will then admit that we have everything and we will realize that whoever has received the fullness of Christ does not lack anything. To have God dwelling in us through the Spirit is to have, in fact, the fullness of every good (see Colossians 1:19)” (Commento al Vangelo di Giovanni, vol. III, Rome, 1994, p. 165).
The Way of the Lord
Let us take one last look at Isaiah's text. It presents a meditation on the “way of the just” (see verse 7) and a declaration of fidelity to God's just decisions (see verses 8-9). The dominant image is the classical biblical image of the way, which Hosea, a prophet who preceded Isaiah, had already proclaimed: “Let him who is wise understand these things.áStraight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them” (Hosea 14:10).
In Isaiah's canticle, there is another component, which is also rather thought-provoking because of its liturgical use in Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. Mention is made of the dawn after a night devoted to seeking God: “My soul yearns for you in the night; yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you” (Isaiah 26:9).
It is precisely at the beginning of the day, when work begins and daily life begins to pulsate in the city streets, that the faithful man must renew his commitment to walk in “…your way and your judgments, O Lord” (verse 8), putting his hope in him and his Word, which is the only source of peace.
It is then that his lips will proclaim the words of the psalmist, who professed his faith at the dawning of the day: “O God, you are my God—for you I longáfor you my soul thirstsáfor your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:2, 4). With his spirit reassured, he is then able to face the new day.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Will Ireland's Catholic Voters Shoot Down the Treaty of Nice Again? DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland—On Oct. 19 Ireland will go to the polls for the second time in a little more than a year to vote on a treaty that, if passed, will help to determine the future shape of the European Union.
NEWS ANALYSIS
Called the Nice Treaty after the French city in which it was negotiated in 2000 by the heads of government of the EU, the vote will be closely followed throughout Europe—including by Pope John Paul II, who has taken a great interest in the development of the European Union.
The treaty was already presented to Irish voters in June 2001. To the great shock of the government, the main opposition parties, most of the media, employer groups, trade unions, plus the bishops, all of whom supported the treaty, the electorate rejected it by a 54%-46% margin.
It was the first time ever that Irish voters had rejected an EU treaty. This caused shock waves to reverberate throughout the European Union as well, because previously Ireland had shown itself to be the most pro-EU of European countries and because the rejection of a single EU member nation prevents the treaty from coming into force.
Every other member-state of the EU has already ratified it, although Ireland is the only country where the matter has been put to the people.
The shock waves also spread into Eastern Europe where 11 countries, along with the staunchly Catholic Mediterranean island nation of Malta, are queued up to join the European Union by 2004.
These countries—or at least their governments—fervently hope that Ireland says Yes to Nice this time because if not, their hopes of entering the EU in two years might be dashed. An Irish rejection could set back enlargement of the EU by several years.
This is because the treaty was specifically designed to ensure that the EU continues to work efficiently when its membership goes from the current 15 states to the projected 27 and then almost certainly higher in the future.
The treaty would also widen the policy-making authority of the EU in a number of areas, such as free movement of citizens, judicial cooperation and industrial policy, allowing changes on the basis of only a “qualified majority” of EU member states instead of by unanimous consent.
Anti-Religious Trend
But despite the best efforts of the political establishment to ensure the treaty wins approval from Irish voters this time, there is no guarantee it will. One reason is that a growing number of Irish Catholics, including pro-life advocate Dana Rosemary Scallon (who is a member of the European Parliament) are concerned the EU is moving in an increasingly anti-Christian—indeed, anti-religious—direction. They have a considerable body of supporting evidence.
For example, earlier this year the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution called Women and Fundamentalism. This feminist-inspired document stretched the definition of fundamentalism to cover everything from the Taliban to those who oppose abortion or women priests. It told churches to steer clear of public life but then called on Christians to support abortion and on religious organizations to allow women access to their highest levels—code for “women priests.”
European Parliamentarians who voted for the resolution seemed unable to see any irony in telling the religiously motivated to keep their beliefs to themselves while at the same time seeking to impose their feminist and egalitarian beliefs on all religions.
Also this year, the parliament voted in favor of another document called the Van Lancker report. Among other things, this called on all member-states of the EU, as well as all candidate countries, to legalize abortion.
While neither this resolution nor Women and Fundamentalism have legal force and strictly speaking have nothing to do with the Nice treaty, to critics they illustrate militantly secularist tendencies at work in the EU. And they make many Catholics less inclined to vote for anything related to the union.
Catholic Voices
However, while many of the laity are increasingly skeptical of the EU, most bishops—and probably most priests—are thoroughly in favor. In addition, COMECE, the Church commission representing the views of the bishops of EU countries on European matters, is also thoroughly pro-EU.
Then there is the Pope himself. He has already expressed strong support for the euro, the new currency of the EU that is knitting its member countries much closer together.
The Holy Father has also expressed the constant wish that Europe be allowed to “breathe with two lungs,” meaning the lungs of Eastern and Western Europe. Many observers interpret this to mean the Pope favors the EU's enlargement.
This interpretation was strengthened by remarks he made in August when in his native Poland, one of the nations seeking EU membership. Before returning to Rome he expressed the hope that his country “find its due place in the structures of the European community.”
To judge from his writings on this matter it appears the Pope supports the EU because he sees it as a vehicle for peace and as a way of spreading the economic benefits of the EU to the less-well-off nations of Eastern Europe.
However, the Pope also warned Poland not to lose its identity in the aforementioned structures, so he is aware of existing tendencies within the EU and is concerned about them.
And in December 2000, John Paul criticized the anti-religious tone of the new European Charter of Fundamental Rights. The nonbinding charter was approved by EU leaders earlier that month, at the same summit where they endorsed the Treaty of Nice.
In a message to a symposium marking the 1,200th anniversary of Charlemagne's crowning, John Paul expressed his “disappointment over the fact that the charter's text does not include a reference to God, who is … the supreme source of human dignity and its fundamental rights.”
Said the Pope, “It must not be forgotten that it was the denial of God and his commandments that created the tyranny of idols in the last century, expressed in the glorification of a race, class, state, nation, party, instead of the living and true God. Indeed, in light of the misfortunes poured on the 20th century, it can be understood that the rights of God and man are either affirmed together or they fall together.”
So far, though, such concerns have not made the Pope turn against the EU. Whether they are enough to make the Catholic faithful of Ireland turn against it will be answered, in part at least, on Oct. 19.
David Quinn is editor
of the Irish Catholic.
War in Ivory Coast Near Basilica
REUTER/FIDES NEWS, Sept. 29—Even as U.S. and French troops attempted to evacuate hundreds of foreign nationals from the civil war-torn nation of Ivory Coast, regional leaders met to attempt to resolve the crisis in that country, which began with an unsuccessful army coup on Sept. 19.
Rebel units still control much of the northern and central regions of Ivory Coast. Meanwhile, fighting has come within 30 miles of Yamoussoukro, site of Our Lady of Peace, a grand basilica modeled on St. Peter's in Rome.
“We have already evacuated about 300 people and there are about 20 to go,” said a French military spokesman.
An Italian missionary told Fides News, “Every day our parish sees the arrival of as many as 200 people fleeing violence. The local Church appears to be the only institution able to offer some sort of assistance to these poor people. We organized their transport here and now we hope to send them on to Abidjan to be reunited with their families. However, our resources are limited and food supplies will last only a few days.áThis catastrophe is beyond the means of a few missionaries. I call on international bodies to intervene.”
Peace Concert Held at Former Nazi Rocket Lab
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 28—Late last month the town of Peenemuende, Germany, was the site of an international peace concert, organized to emphasize solidarity among once-hostile European nations and the importance of international peace.
The Baltic town was chosen because it was once the site of the Third Reich's V-1 and V-2 missile programs, which rained death down indiscriminately on British civilians late in World War II. Thousands of slave laborers died in the production of these missiles. Ironically, the research done at Peenemuende helped make possible many achievements of the U.S. space program.
Leading musicians included Mstislav Rostropovich, a cellist born in the former Soviet Union. He led a performance of Benjamin Britten's sobering “War Requiem,” written after World War I, combining the text of the Mass for the Dead with the pacifist verse of Wilfred Owen, who himself died late in that war.
According to Associated Press, noted guests included former Soviet ruler Mikhail Gorbachev, German President Johannes Rau and the American and British ambassadors to Germany.
U.N. Pressure Legalizes Abortion in Nepal
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 1—The small, traditional Asian monarchy of Nepal legalized abortion last week, permitting it for 12 weeks on demand, 18 weeks in cases charging rape or incest and “at any time if pregnancy posed a danger to the health of the woman or if tests showed the pregnancy would result in the birth of a disabled child.”
This makes Nepalese law as permissive as American statutes and more liberal than those in much of Europe.
CWNews.com reported that in 2001, the U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights pressured Nepal's impoverished, aid-dependent government “to reinforce reproductive and sexual-health programs, in particular in rural areas, and to allow abortion when pregnancies are life-threatening or a result of rape or incest.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Leaders Condemn Violence In South Asian Hot Spots DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India—Alarmed over increasing sectarian violence in South Asia, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India ha demanded tough action against those “spreading hatred between communities in the name of religion.”
The strong Church reaction followed two lethal attacks on religious targets in India and Pakistan late last month. Unidentified gunmen executed seven staff members of the ecumenical Institute for Justice and Peace in Karachi, Pakistan, on Sept. 25, after tying the victims to chairs. This was the fifth deadly attack on Christian minorities in Pakistan, pushing up number of casualty to three dozen lives since October 2001.
The previous day, heavily armed militants stormed the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat state in western India and shot dead 30 Hindu devotees and injured 70 others. Notes recovered from the terrorists indicated the attack was in revenge for recent anti-Muslim riots in the state.
More than 1,000 people—mostly Muslims—were slaughtered by Hindu arsonists following the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims at Godhra township in Gujarat state in February.
“Such killers represent no religious community but only a section that believes in the cult of violence, whose inhuman acts only further widen the gap between religious communities, aggravating the agony of the larger human community,” the Indian bishops asserted in their statement following the two massacres.
“We fully agree with the Indian bishops,” Archbishop Lawrence Saldana of Lahore, chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Pakistan, said when asked for his reaction to the spurt in sectarian violence in the region.
“Unless the government acts tough with the fundamentalist forces, the situation is not going to improve. But unfortunately, this is not taking place,” pointed out Archbishop Saldana. On the contrary, the archbishop said, those in power in the region find it “politically expedient” to ignore fundamentalist violence as they are reluctant to offend influential fundamentalist lobbies.
India
According to Bishop Stanislaus Fernandes of Ahmedabad, chairman of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights in Gujarat, religious fundamentalism has now become a “political weapon to assert Hindu identity” in troubled Gujarat. The Gujarat state government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been “trying to capitalize on the Hindu identity,” Bishop Fernandes said.
He said the communal violence following the Godhra train burning was a “good occasion to score [political] points” for the BJP, which has been promoting Hindu nationalism. In fact, representatives of Gujarat's BJP government have condoned and in some cases even justified last winter's orchestrated attack on the state's Muslim minority as a “spontaneous Hindu reaction” to the torching of the Hindu pilgrims' train.
More than 80% of India's 1 billion inhabitants are Hindu. Muslims account for about 12% of the population, while Christians comprise less than 3%.
During a recent trip to Europe, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the leader of the BJP at the national level, declared that he was “ashamed of what happened in Gujarat.” Bishop Fernandes countered that this expression of BJP remorse is contradicted by Gujarat state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, who has promoted gaurav yatra, or pride marches, that the bishop said are “belittling” to the state's religious minorities.
Bangladesh
According to Bishop Theotonius Gomes, secretary general of Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bangladesh, “Fundamentalist thinking is shaping new political philosophy in the region.”
Commenting on the sudden spurt in anti-minority violence in Bangladesh since the pro-Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) assumed office last year, Bishop Gomes said, “The government is constituted by the parties run it. When the government fails to assert itself, others around it assert themselves.”
Bangladesh's population of 130 million is 83% Muslim and 16% Hindu.
Recently, Islamic fundamentalists have carried out a series of attacks on minority Hindus, forcing hundreds of Hindu families to flee from Bangladesh to the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal. Bishop Gomes said the BNP government's alliance with the Muslim fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party explained the “silence” of the government about attacks on the minority Hindus and on Christians
The Bangladeshi bishop said South Asia's increasing religious fundamentalism is due to several factors, with poor education a leading cause. And, with nearly half a billion illiterates in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, political parties that thrive on religious nationalism are becoming increasingly powerful.
This explains the “reluctance and silence” of the governments in the region to speak out against fundamentalist groups, Bishop Gomes said.
Pakistan
Though Islamic fundamentalists are a small minority in Pakistan (where 95% of the county's 140 million inhabitants are Muslim), Archbishop Saldana said that “these groups wield lot of influence on the government and the ordinary people.”
With secular education being highly expensive in Pakistan, ordinary people commonly rely on the madras—Islamic religious schools that often advocate a militant brand of Islam—making them susceptible to Islamic fundamentalism.
Archbishop Saldana fears the latest deadly attack on the Christian charity in Karachi might “aggravate the alienation” of the minuscule Christian minority in Pakistan. Though many Muslim groups came out to deplore the Sept. 11 terror strikes in the United States last year, there has been a clear decline in similar criticism of the recent attacks on Christian targets, the Pakistani bishop noted.
Under these difficult circumstances, local Church leaders say it is the state's approximately 100 Christian schools (whose 100,000-plus students are mostly Hindus) that provide the best means to promote religious tolerance in Gujarat—the home state of Mahatma Gandhi, who preached equal respect for all religions.
Anto Akkara writes
from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Religious Leaders March for Peace in India DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India—Christian leaders in New Delhi have joined their Hindu, Sikh and Muslim counterparts in a peace march against the spread of hatred in the name of religion.
Church of North India Bishop Karam Masih and Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent Concessao joined prominent national leaders for the final stretch of the five-day march, which ended at Raj Ghat, the Mahatma Gandhi memorial, on Oct. 2, a national holiday commemorating Gandhi's birthday.
Christian schoolchildren were among hundreds from schools in Delhi who walked a few kilometers carrying placards saying “shed hatred” and “let's keep Gandhi alive.”
Several dozen peace activists, a majority of them Hindu, marched the length of the 700-kilometer route, starting on Sept. 27 near Ayodhya, a Hindu holy town.
The march ended at the sacred flame at Raj Ghat, the spot where Gandhi was cremated.
Church of North India pastor Valson Thampu, one of the march organizers, told ENI: “At a time when the merchants of [ethnic hatred] are trying to divide the nation and polarize [religious] groups, our message is let us unite and not divide people in the name of God.”
The exploitation of religious sentiments for political gain, Thampu said, was “one of the greatest evils faced by Indian society now. That is why we decided to carry out this march.”
Thampu lamented, however, that the government of the state of Uttar Pradesh had refused permission to begin the march from Ayodhya itself—a town that had become a “symbol of the misuse of religion for divisive purposes” in recent years.
Thampu was referring to the meteoric rise of the ruling pro-Hindu BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) over the past decade after a massive campaign to build a large Hindu temple at a disputed religious site in the town of Ayodhya.
That campaign culminated in the razing of a 16th-century Muslim mosque at the Ayodhya site in 1992 by Hindu zealots, who claimed it had been built after demolishing a Hindu temple on the site, believed to be the spot where Hindu deity Ram was born.
The razing of the mosque led to nationwide riots between Hindus and Muslims that left several thousend dead.
— Ecumenical News
International
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Three Saints DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:The canonization of St Josemaría Escrivá on Oct. 6 was the last of the “big three” canonizations of 2002. The Spanish priest and founder of Opus Dei (Work of God), who died only 27 years ago, has been raised to the altar alongside Juan Diego and Padre Pio, whom Pope John Paul II declared saints earlier this summer.
USA Today tried to make a story out of speculations that the Pope is canonizing too many people, but its attempts to find “unworthy” saints seemed strained. Besides, Catholics know better: Our age's crisis is a crisis of saints, and the Holy Father is filling the breach.
The canonizations of 2002 are a perfect illustration of the John Paul principle of plenty of saints. The ceremonies themselves, our Rome correspondent Father Raymond J. de Souza tells us, show three distinct ways of being Catholic.
Opus Dei, faithful to their charism, organized St. Josemaría's big day with utmost professionalism. The flowers in St. Peter's Square were second only to the decorations used on Easter Sunday.
The choir saluted the canonization formula with a rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. Mass booklets were distributed with complete translations in all the major languages. Simultaneous translation was provided on local radio frequencies. The splendid gold vestments worn by the Holy Father and the concelebrants were all new—made by Opus Dei's own ecclesiastical tailors in Madrid with fabric produced in New Delhi, India.
The well-scrubbed, well-behaved, well-dressed professionals who comprise the majority of Opus Dei's 85,000 members worldwide attended Mass with deep reverence, seeming almost subdued, given the usual ambiance of a papal event. The lasting impression of the canonization festivities was a demonstration of St. Josemaría's conviction that worldly excellence is not opposed to the Gospel, but to the contrary, is demanded by a desire to do all things well for love of God.
There are other ways to holiness, too.
During Padre Pio's canonization last June, a blessed chaos reigned over the whole blisteringly hot day.
The crowds were doused by fire trucks during the Mass to keep cool—and there was not much danger of fine clothes being water-damaged. The Holy Father was unable to finish the solemn canonization formula without interruption—as soon as he mentioned Padre Pio's name the crowd erupted in sustained cheering, which was repeated during the Eucharistic Prayer at the invocation of St. Pio.
If Msgr. Escrivá's canonization was evidence that the Gospel could be lived sincerely by those who excel in the ordinary ways of the world, Padre Pio's was evidence that sanctity also has the most extraordinary manifestations. Last June, observers got the sense that entire villages had come to honor the bilocating, stigmata-bearing, soul-reading saint—everyone from the mayor to the butcher to the schoolboys whose deportment was more evocative of a soccer match than a pilgrimage. Padre Pio was such an extraordinary eruption of the supernatural that he caught the attention of those for whom the world is all too mundane.
And if villages came for Padre Pio, then Juan Diego brought an entire culture and nation, and showed how much Mexico has matured.
The exquisite canonization in July at Guadalupe—the heart of Mexican Catholicism—sought to celebrate the virtues of the indigenous cultures of Mexico and Central America, and to show how far Mexico has risen with this legacy. Yet Juan Diego's canonization, so ardently desired by all of Mexico, demonstrated that the event of Guadalupe transformed those very roots; henceforth what it meant to be Mexican included the Mother of God on Tepeyac Hill.
St. Juan Diego is not so much a model or an intercessor as he is the personification that Mexico was born as a Catholic nation in the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Pope John Paul II is the saint-making Pope—and it is likely that he will announce in the next few months the “mother” of all beatifications, that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Why does he make so many saints? The canonizations of 2002 have given an answer: Because there are so many saints, in so many places, and so many walks of life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Plaudits From Father Pavone
I wish to thank the Register for the article “Meeting Pro-Life Standards Gets Harder for Candidates” (Sept. 29-Oct. 5). The moral question of working for “imperfect legislation,” which stops some but not all abortions, comes up constantly in my work with Priests for Life, as it did when I worked at the Vatican.
There are actually two questions here that often get confused. One is moral and the other is strategic. The moral question is, “May we work for legislation that protects some but not all babies?” The answer is, “Yes, under certain circumstances.” Those circumstances include [the times when] the legislative proposal is actually advancing protection for the unborn to the maximum degree possible at the time. If, when all abortions are already legal, we do everything possible to make as many of them as possible illegal, the ones that remain legal do not remain legal because of us. They remain legal because of those who made them legal in the first place. But, for us, to reduce an evil is, in fact, a good.
The strategic question is different. It asks, “Is an incremental approach the best way to reach our ultimate goal?” That question can only be answered with experience and should be discussed with a healthy respect between those who disagree. What we need to keep in mind as we work it out is that different answers to that question do not make anyone less “pro-life” than anyone else.
FATHER FRANK PAVONE
Staten Island, New York
The writer is director of Priests for Life.
‘Exceptions’: Strategic Disaster
Your discussion on the morality of “exceptions” in pro-life legislative efforts (“Meeting Pro-Life Standards Gets Harder for Candidates,” Sept. 29-Oct. 5), deserves further comment.
First, the section commonly cited in Evangelium Vitae that apparently supports the use of exceptions must be read in the context of the sentence that immediately precedes it: “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to … vote for it” (73.2). Laws containing exceptions for cases of rape, incest or allegedly to save the mother's life are “intrinsically unjust” because they explicitly “permit abortion.” When can we vote for them? “Never.” Therefore, when the Holy Father later refers to the permissibility of “proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law,” he does not mean these intrinsically unjust exceptions.
Second, though the author of your piece cites cardinals O'Connor and Gagnon to defend the moral permissibility of supporting exceptions in legislation, cardinals Krol, Manning, Cody and Medeiros were of the opposite opinion when testifying before a Senate subcommittee in 1974. All four declined to endorse a constitutional amendment recognizing the personhood of all children from the moment of conception that contained a life of the mother exception. Speaking on their behalf, Cardinal Medeiros stated that they “could not endorse any wording that would allow for direct abortion”; and that “the Catholic Conference does not endorse such an approach in principle and could not conscientiously support it.”
Third, in his book The Winning Side, professor Charles Rice shows logically and statistically how support for exceptions in legislation and for politicians who support them has been gravely detrimental to the pro-life cause. When the common definition of “pro-life” is diluted to mean support for the legal killing of some pre-born boys and girls (rape, incest, etc.), Rice shows how these policies have reinforced “the trend toward public acceptance of legalized abortion.” Support for exceptions is not a position “just short of perfection,” but one that is fundamentally flawed. If the law can tolerate the direct killing of some innocents, then it can tolerate the killing of many.
It is practically indisputable that this strategy of permitting the killing of some “exceptional” babies has been a disaster over the last 30 years. When pro-lifers take the time to look closer, they will find that supporting the lie of exceptions can never lead to a cultural affirmation of truth.
PATRICK DELANEY
Stafford, Virginia
The writer is assistant director of public policy at American Life League.
To Each His Own School
Daria Sockey's “Musings of a Home Schooling Mom” (Sept. 22-28) implies that there is a fundamental divide between those who home school and those who don't. This is a divide that doesn't have to exist.
I choose to send my children to a parochial school while my best friend in another state home schools her two youngest children. Each of us sees the advantages and disadvantages of both methods. If she lived here, she would probably send her kids to parochial school, and if I lived there I would most likely be home schooling, too.
My friend isn't “a bore” because she's constantly obsessing over her children's curriculum, and I am not constantly worrying about my kids' “souls and psyches.” We both wonder why our otherwise-intelligent second-graders cannot seem to remember that 8 plus 5 equals 13. We compare notes on how we're preparing our daughters for first Communion. We obsess over whether our sons should start kindergarten this year or next year. She sees the way my son has come out of his shell since he started school and wishes it for her son. I see the way her daughter zips through two years of phonics in one year and wish it for my daughter. But we both realize that, in time, they will end up in the same place.
I am surprised that anyone would think that I am “delegating the precious task of passing on the Catholic faith” by sending my kids to parochial school. I don't expect any school to pass on the faith to them; I expect their school to reinforce and supplement what we are doing at home. Pope John Paul II's “Letter to Families” is often quoted as an argument for home schooling because it states that parents are to be the primary educators of their children. The same letter also tells us that “parents by themselves are not capable of satisfying every requirement of the whole process of raising children, especially in matters concerning their schooling.”
Of course my husband and I are the first and most important educators of our children, but that does not mean we have to be the ones teaching them long division. I'll readily admit that we have delegated that not-so-precious task.
I don't see my children's friendships at school as “relentless peer influence,” and I'm not worried about teachers who occasionally teach things I don't agree with. It gives me an opportunity to teach my children to think through issues based on their own faith and morals. I am confident that the foundation they've received at home will allow them to counter any outside influence.
Catholic parents have many options for educating their children. I fully respect and support those who home school, and I hope they respect my decision as well. We should all work together to raise a generation of faith-filled Catholics.
LYNN BETE
Beavercreek, Ohio
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: To Kneel or Not to Kneel? DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Kneeling for holy Communion is not a matter of human registration. It is a revealed truth (“No-Kneeling Rule Sparks Widespread Outcry,” Sept. 29-Oct. 5). St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians confirms this. In fact the Church too has upheld it throughout the centuries. “So that at Jesus' name every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth …” (Philippians 2:10).
Maybe the U.S. bishops are affected by their failure to reform seminaries. This so-called “no-kneeling rule” shows two things—a denial of faith in Jesus as God and a lack of [proper respect for] Jesus' role as God. When we do not believe that Jesus is God and take him as human, the best thing we can do for him is to afford him the highest respect offered to dignitaries, for whom we stand. However, if we accept Jesus as God, then we take the revealed way of respecting God, which is kneeling. God revealed this on many occasions [in Scripture].
At holy Communion we come face-to-face to face with God. Like all revealed truths, kneeling for holy Communion should be accepted as such.
FATHER MATTHIAS W. KIBUKA
Niagara Falls, New York
The eminent professor of canon law at the Gregorian University, Jesuit Father Felice Cappello (1879-1962), taught that the supreme law of the Church was the salvation of souls. He also taught that one needed common sense and much goodness in the practical application of Church law. This erudite scholar, author of books and countless articles, is best remembered for his hours spent hearing confessions, recommended by no less than St. Padre Pio. While his scholarship was anything but “liberal,” he was criticized by contemporaries for his generosity and, in the confessional, even accused of laxity.
I wonder what Father Cappello would make of the draconian enforcement of the “no-kneeling” rule for the reception of holy Communion by some American liturgists and priests. What comments would he offer to the statement that, should a person insist on kneeling to receive Communion, “they clearly will be demonstrating dissent from the mind of the Church?” As a priest I am disturbed by the lack of concern for the care of souls, by the lack of common sense and, especially, by the lack of goodness in this discussion. And it is not those wishing to kneel who disturb me.
FATHER GREGOIRE J. FLUET
Moodus, Connecticut
Regarding “No-Kneeling Rule Sparks Widespread Outcry” (Sept. 29-Oct. 5):
You placed a photograph of Bishop William Higi of the Diocese of Lafayette, Ind., directly under the headline, as though he were responsible for the controversy. You also quoted a statement from Bishop Higi that was part of an extended, detailed catechesis, and you used it out of context. You focused on one section of a larger issue, without acknowledging (as Paul Harvey was wont to say) “the rest of the story.”
In fact, as he has stated publicly, Bishop Higi is taking steps to ensure that all the prescriptions of the revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal are upheld in all parishes in his diocese. He has provided detailed catechesis to inform the faithful of the revised content of GIRM and of the history and reasoning behind those revisions. Some of those revisions are popular with “liberals,” and some are popular with “conservatives.” All of them are instructions from the bishops of the United States to all the faithful of the United States. We faithful cannot pick and choose in which areas we will practice the virtue of obedience.
To provide just one example, Bishop Higi wrote in his diocese's weekly newspaper, The Catholic Moment, in July: “In the Diocese of Lafayette, Ind., the assembly is to kneel during the eucharistic prayer where it is possible to do so, and in churches that currently do not have kneelers (there are several), kneelers are to be installed in a timely fashion.” You can read his columns yourself online at the diocesan Web site: www.dioceseoflafayette.-org/moment.html.
KAREN GILSON
Indianapolis
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Karen Gilson ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: In Defense of a Theologian Who Keeps DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Sixteen years ago, when I was a pastor in Milwaukee, a graduate student in theology at Marquette University, a Protestant, began showing up at my Masses and later for meetings in my office.
We struck up a friendship, and I was delighted to be the one to receive Scott Hahn into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 1986.
In the years since, I have come to consider him a spiritual son, and I know that he considers me to be his spiritual father. I have enjoyed, as every father does, watching this son “grow up” and do great things with his life.
In his theological and exegetical research, in his lectures and writings, Scott has found a way of conveying the deepest mysteries of our Father's saving plan to hundreds of thousands of people, and he has inspired a generation of young Catholics who are faithful to the magisterium and passionate about the spread of the Gospel.
I was astonished to pick up the latest issue of the New Oxford Review (September 2002) and read an editorial that seemed to heap accusations of an irresponsible kind upon Scott Hahn and his latest book, First Comes Love: Finding Your Family in the Church and the Trinity (Doubleday).
What the editorialist attacks is Scott's exploration of ancient Catholic (and Jewish) tradition regarding the bridal and maternal actions attributed to the Holy Spirit in the economy of salvation. In this effort, Scott stands in a long line that begins with the very texts of the Sacred Scriptures as they have been interpreted by saints and doctors of the Church, and by the Church's living tradition and liturgy—not to mention by some of the finest orthodox theologians of our generation.
Among others, he quotes from the great Fathers of the Church—St. Methodius of Olympus and St. Ephrem of Syria, who is also a doctor of the Church—and from St. Catherine of Siena (also a doctor), St. Maximilian Kolbe and St. Edith Stein. He also cites the contemporary thinking of the eminent Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
All of these have suggested the fruitfulness of the theological reflection on the maternal and bridal dimension of the mission of the Holy Spirit.
Of course, nowhere does Scott suggest any such things as his accuser alleges, let alone change the traditional use of male pronouns to refer to God or the Holy Spirit. In this, the editorialist strangely appears to think, for instance, that our belief in the fatherhood of God somehow establishes a physical “gender identity” for God, and that the overshadowing of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation was somehow a sexual act.
In these times, we need more theologians and exegetes like Scott Hahn—people who make the sacred page the wood of their theology and see their work as a vocation.
In short, the editorialist seems to distort Scott's ideas into a sick parody.
I am troubled by the harm and confusion that such an attack can have at a time when the Catholic flock in the United States is already reeling from scandal—and at a time when many faithful Catholics are already profoundly distrustful of theologians and biblical exegetes.
I can certainly understand the great sensitivity that many in the Church feel in the face of the cultural onslaught of the radical feminist agenda and the homosexual ideology, and I would be the first to agree that the Church has been less than well-served by many of its theologians and exegetes in recent years.
However, I do feel the need to speak up to defend Scott Hahn's reputation.
Indeed, I would say that, in these times, we need more theologians and exegetes like him—men and women of deep faith who make the sacred page the wood of their theology and who see their work as an ecclesial vocation, carried out in the Church and for the Church and in complete adherence to the supreme teaching authority of the Church.
First Comes Love bears the endorsements of two of my brother bishops, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and Bishop Donald Wuerl of Pittsburgh. To their voices I add my own.
More importantly, First Comes Love bears yet another bishop's imprimatur, and for good reason—it is both completely orthodox and exceptionally useful.
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz is
the ordinary of Lincoln, Nebraska.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop Fabian ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Cheap Forgiveness DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:The Scriptures are filled with calls to forgiveness. In fact, forgiveness comes a close second to generosity as being one of the chief characteristics of a follower of the Lord.
In the light of the scandal of priests abusing adolescent boys and bishops covering up, time and again we hear that we should be forgiving. Those who advocate for zero tolerance are said to be “lacking in forgiveness.” Assigning rehabilitated priests who abused adolescent males to ministry to the aged and other offices away from children is said to be an act of forgiveness.
While getting tough on crime has been very popular with conservative politicians, the battle cry of liberal politicians has been to focus rather on “the root causes” than on the malefactors. Since we are all political animals, those positions influence each and every one of us. And that's why it's important to ask us just what forgiveness entails.
But restitution is an essential ingredient of genuine forgiveness. And its presence or absence gives us help in deciding whether forgiveness is warranted or not. Let's look at several examples to see how this works.
12-Year-Old Victim
Recently the nightly news featured a tragic story of a young 12-year-old girl who was brutally raped. A microphone was insensitively stuck in the face of the little girl's father. With tears in his eyes, he said: “Jesus says we should forgive and therefore I forgive the man.”
Feelings of compassion welled up for the man, yet there was great sadness in my heart that someone had so misinformed him about the nature of Gospel forgiveness. He was feeling guilty that he was angry. “Jesus doesn't want you to be angry”? It was as if he never heard the words: “Whoever causes one of these little oneáto go astray, it were better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18: 4; Mark 9: 41; Luke 17: 1).
What the man should have said was: “I am so angry right now that if I could get my hands on that fellow I would strangle him.” There is a place for anger and there is a process for working through it.
The second example is this: If one of my boys steals $50 from me and then comes and says: “Father Peter, I am very sorry for what I did. Will you please forgive me?” Don't be surprised if my response is: “Where is my $50?”
We do adolescents a great disservice if we teach them they can steal with impunity. Forgiveness requires restitution. You must pay back. If he says: “No, I just want to say I'm sorry. Let's forget the $50,” then he has misunderstood what forgiveness entails.
Let's take one more story: There is a 13-year-old girl here with us at Girls and Boys Town. She was very badly sexually abused by her father. As a result she became involved in drugs and sex and alcohol and has tried to hurt herself. Now she in on the road to recovery. She has a healing relationship with her mother and has not seen her father, who is divorced, for several years.
Recently he called to stay he is in therapy and is ready to apologize to his daughter and seek her forgiveness. I asked him what the apology entailed. He replied: “I'll tell her I am sorry. Really very, very sorry. And I've gotten help and am getting better and would she please forgive me.”
His therapist told him it is the time to do this. I asked if he was ready to make up to his daughter for what he did. He said that there was nothing that he could do to make up for it.
Beware of any response that involves a lawyer: ‘My lawyer said I can't do that.’ Such a response precluded the possibility of forgiveness.
I said: “Yes there is. You took her childhood. You took her innocence. You took her happiness. You made her believe it was her fault. And you can take much of that away by showing her that it was not her fault, that you groomed her for months on end, and that you convinced her that she liked it. You need to tell her it was not her fault in any manner, shape or form.” He needs to realize all these years of her holding herself guilty were additionally his burden, not hers.
He acted surprised. “My therapist told me nothing of this,” he said. “I only want to get on with my therapy by asking her to forgive me so I can feel better.”
I told him: “Absolutely not. First you abuse your child. Your hurt her in the most horrible way possible and you impose upon her years of guilt and pain and therapy. And you did it for your own pleasure and selfishness. And now you come and try to impose upon her a second burden, namely, her need to forgiveáfor your own self-centered purposes. And you won't lift a finger to lighten her burden.”
I told him: “No deal. This little girl deserves better than that.”
What does forgiveness entail? It entails saying, “What can I do to make it up to you?” Without that, forgiveness is a sham.
Forgiving Father
Let's apply this straightforwardly to the situation of priests abusing adolescent males.
Let's say that the priest is truly repentant and has gone through therapy similar to the therapy this fellow has gone through. In all fairness, we have to ask the priest what he has done to make it up to the victim. Even through it may have taken place 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.
Beware of any response that involves a lawyer: “My lawyer said I can't do that.” Such a response precluded the possibility of forgiveness. It's hiding behind the lawyers. Our bishops have been doing that way too much and should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.
In summary, forgiveness needs to touch the heart of the victim if at all possible. Otherwise we will simply have a materialistic world in which all of our obligations are satisfied by monetary exchanges involving lawyers and all of our feelings are assuaged by clever therapies.
There is much more to forgiveness than these few little ideas shared above.
For example, a person can be so ashamed by the unspeakable harm he has caused young boys that he does not believe he is worthy of God's forgiveness. He would be very happy to see reparation if only he could bring himself to accept God's forgiveness in his life.
A very different example would be the powerless Jewish victims of the Nazi concentration camps where forgiveness of the capos and lesser guards brought peace to some in the midst of unthinkable horrors. Then there are the kidnapped hostages in the Middle East who, when liberated, talk about the feeling of freedom that came to them from praying for their persecutors.
On the other hand, it's pretty hard to pray for a devil like Hitler of Stalin or Pol Pot.
Just remember. None of this further example takes away for one moment the need for restitution if forgiveness is to take root in our lives.
Father Val J. Peter
is executive director
of Girls and Boys Town
in Omaha, Nebraska
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Val J. Peter ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Dissent Got Us Where We Are; Only Fidelity Can Get Us Out DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:The cause of the Church's current crisis is not the perverse sexual proclivities of a few wayward priests.
Neither is it the shameful handling of sexual abuse cases by bishops—some naÔve, some inept and some corrupt.
The true cause of “the situation” is found in the culture of dissent and the abandonment of Church teaching on sexuality begun with the failure of Church leadership to defend and promote Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.
Nobody articulates this enlightened point of view more cogently than George Weigel. In his latest book, The Courage to be Catholic, he reviews some of the key historical moments that mark the victory of the culture of dissent in the Church.
Particularly disturbing is the report of the treatment of Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle of Washington, D.C., who in the late 1960s disciplined many of his priests who openly dissented from Humanae Vitae. When an appeal was made to Rome, Rome forced him to reinstate the priests. Weigel persuasively argues that U.S. prelates got the message that they were not to discipline dissenters.
Weigel has a name for what the dissenters have been selling and what the bishops have been tolerating, if not promoting, and what seminarians and the laity have been imbibing. “Catholic lite,” he calls it. It is a clever moniker and captures something of what has gone on—but I fear that the label is too innocuous. Catholic lite is not simply a bland, unexciting and nonnutritious version of the Catholic faith. It is, in fact, toxic and carcinogenic. Dissent from Humanae Vitae led people to think that sex just for pleasure—sex without respect for the procreative meaning of sexuality—is moral. If heterosexuals can have sex just for pleasure, what's wrong with homosexual sex or masturbation? And if one isn't risking having babies, what's wrong with sex outside of marriage? Sometimes logical consequences become real-life consequences.
In deciding to treat the current crisis as one of policy—as one of the proper treatment of sexual-abuse charges—the bishops are in danger of treating a cancer that has already seriously metastasized through the body of the Church as nothing more than an ugly boil that needs to be lanced. The Vatican discerned one pocket of the cancer: poor formation in seminaries.
The cancer of dissent, of individuals in places of influence and power who do not accept Church teaching is, however, rampant in Catholic educational institutions and hospitals. It's also present in chancery offices. The majority of Catholics contracept and seem not to know about the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, to cite just two examples of woeful disconnect between Catholics and their Church. In the sphere of Catholic education, it is fairly clear that Ex Corde Ecclesiae's mandatum will not be an effective vehicle for ensuring that Catholic professors teach Catholic doctrine. Perhaps bishops could resort to the personal touch and meet with presidents and boards of Catholic colleges and universities, and impress upon them how important it is that those who study at their institutions will be learning the fullness of Catholic truth and not being initiated into the culture of dissent.
Weigel offers good advice for many areas of the Church needing reform—from selection of bishops to the relationship of bishops to their priests to living situations for priests and more. Were the bishops to take his advice, we would have a much-improved Church. He recommends that the bishops yearly ask every priest a set of questions about their spiritual life and their personal life, such as: “Do you sleep alone?” and “Do you make use of pornography?” The need for this kind of direct confrontation with priests should not be underestimated. No matter what policies are put in place, one-on-one work with priests is essential to restoring the priest-hood.
Precise numbers are not there for the crunching, but it is more than a little likely that some dioceses and orders have significant numbers of active homosexuals in their midst. These men were likely not taught how to achieve chastity during their formation and may well have been affirmed, if not encouraged, in their homosexuality in the seminary. Homosexuals often lead a double life. They become accustomed to pretense and many of those skilled at pretense rise easily in organizations. It is not implausible that some of those highly placed in the Church—vocations directors, rectors and even some bishops—are, or have been, active homosexuals. How often must it be the case that bishops are not getting good information about sexual abuse by priests because their vicar general or secretary is protecting fellow homosexuals?
Since there is a growing unwillingness to tolerate the presence of the unchaste in the priesthood, priests struggling with or indulging homosexual tendencies are likely now very stressed and more likely than ever to take refuge in homosexual support groups. Many priests and lay people know of, and are demoralized by, their knowledge of active homosexuality among priests. Bishops and superiors simply must find a way to minister to them for their own sake and for the rest of the Church, especially for the sake of their faithful priests and those considering the priest-hood.
Weigel's book is a virtual crash course for those interested in contributing to these efforts. Those who want a more comprehensive unraveling of the tale might want to review James Hitchcock's The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism (1972), George Kelly's Battle for the American Church (1979; revised 1995), Ralph Martin's Crisis of Truth (1982), Anne Muggeridge's The Desolate City (1986), Dietrich Von Hildebrand's Trojan Horse in the City of God (1970; revised 1993) or, more recently, Ralph McInerny's What Went Wrong with Vatican II (1998). Prophets have been among us for some time, but they have been ignored. Perhaps scandal and financial devastation will do what these respectful exposÈs could not.
We should not doubt that out of these dark times the Holy Spirit can call forth from the bishops the toughness, courage, love and holiness needed to do the job. We lay people, by our prayers and sacrifices, should strive to win graces for them as they embark upon this necessary reformation.
I understand that all bishops will be getting a copy of Weigel's book. Priests, religious and lay people should get their own copies so they can discuss the issues intelligently—maybe even with a bishop.
Janet E. Smith is Visiting professor of
life issues at Sacred Heart Major
Seminary in Detroit.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Janet E.Smith ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Catholic Writing DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:I write because I breathe. It's what I do.
I've always known that it was what I would do. As a child, making weekly trips to the local library and creating my own magazines, I knew in my heart that I would write.
Seven years ago, when I crossed the threshold of the Catholic Church, I knew that it was time to put away childish things. Suddenly, I realized that I must write about Christ and his Church. Ultimately, no other writing seemed to matter.
A few weeks ago I was fortunate to take part in a gathering of Catholic writers on the campus of Franciscan University of Steubenville. They gathered—poets, playwrights, journalists, bloggers, novelists and all manner of Catholic writers—to wrestle with questions that Catholic writers have long grappled with. “What is Catholic writing?” “What makes a Catholic writer?”
The gathering offered an opportunity to learn about my craft, to rub elbows with successful writers, to trade stories and to develop relationships with other writers, editors and publishers with whom we too often have worked only over the telephone or via e-mail.
In the hallways and on-campus in between the workshop sessions, it was common to hear debates over Catholic writers and their work. “What should be the purpose of Catholic fiction?” “How do we reach beyond the Catholic ghetto?”
Act One professor and screen-writer Barbara Nicolosi and novelist Ron Hansen emphasized the importance of, first, telling a great story. They argued that too many stories try too hard to proselytize at the expense of the story.
On the other side of the aisle, Marcus Grodi, fresh from writing his first novel, How Firm a Foundation, spoke of his zeal for souls as the driving force behind his book. His novel has a point because he hopes to bring readers one step closer to heaven.
The debate has been going on a long time. It is the difference between Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. One tries to tell a story. The other tries to prove a point. Both are great stories. The art is in the execution.
Some may wonder whether the festival signals a kind of Catholic Renaissance. Not only is it too early to tell, but even if it did there would be no way of knowing. Certainly, for Catholics, the present situation of the Church seems both perilous and uncertain. The Church struggles with a crisis of identity. Faced with a time where many are likely to be questioning, or even jettisoning, their faith, we realize that Catholic writers are needed now more than ever.
Professor and mystery writer Ralph McInerny reminded participants what a slippery term “writer” is. It includes the biographer, the blogger, the self-published author, the poet, the playwright, the novelist, the apologist and the journalist. McInerny's comment brought to mind novelist Flannery O'Connor's famous comment that “the Catholic novelist doesn't have to be a saint; he doesn't even have to be a Catholic; he does, unfortunately, have to be a novelist.”
Recall that approximately 70 years ago, a small group of writers gathered together in Oxford's college rooms for readings, criticisms of their work and lively conversation. That group, known as the Inklings, included some of the finest writers of the past century—C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams. Perhaps the Catholic Writer's Festival can serve as the impetus for the creation of the Inklings of the new millennium.
Tim Drake is executive editor
of Catholic.net.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Mother Church of the Holy Father's Homeland DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:In terms of sheer physical size, the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in Poznan, Poland, is not especially impressive.
The distance from the door to the main altar measures about 225 feet.
The church's magnificance lies elsewhere—in its history and its beauty.
The cathedral, the country's oldest, is the mother church of the Catholic Church in Poland. Not a bad place to spend Oct. 16, the 24th anniversary of the election of Poland's most celebrated prelate to the see of St. Peter, for those who have the chance.
The seat of a bishop has stood on this spot since the year 968, before the sees of Gniezno, Kolobrzeg, Wroclaw or Krakow were erected.
Such antiquity is not only important for the Church in Poland. It is significant for the nation as well. Poland's existence as a sovereign country dates from 966, when King Mieszko I was baptized. His choice was decisive for Poland's spiritual and political identity. The country became Roman Catholic, distinguishing it from most of its Slavic Orthodox neighbors. As a Catholic country, Poland could appeal to the pope against the predations of the Teutonic knights. The Catholic faith sustained the Polish spirit despite all sorts of invaders, her communist dictators being only the latest occupiers to come and go.
Visitors to Poznan can pray at the tomb of that visionary king: His sarcophagus (together with the remains from other members of Poland's first royal dynasty, the Piasts) lies in the Golden Chapel behind the main altar. Be sure also to visit the crypts below the cathedral, which contain a baptismal basin that might have been Mieszko's.
The cathedral's guidebook takes care to note that SS. Peter and Paul is a millennial church in at least a twofold sense: 1966 marked the 1,000th anniversary of Poland's baptism, but 1968 marked the millenium of its hierarchy. Poland's first bishop, Jordan, was nominated in 968.
Peter, Then and Now
Pope John XXIII elevated the church to the rank of a minor basil-ica. John Paul II visited in 1983. The symbolism was striking for Poles: a Polish bishop who became successor of Peter returning to the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, the church where the faith in his home-land first began.
The cathedral, the country's oldest, is the mother church of the Catholic Church in Poland.
The cathedral may be modest in size, but it more than compensates with its sumptuous beauty and elegant proportions. The walls are a warm red brick, radiating a lambent glow in the light of a late winter afternoon when I visited. In most Gothic cathedrals, stonework is either white or dark, giving off an otherworldly coolness. Poznan's feel is warm and inviting.
Speaking of Gothic, a word should be said about the cathedral's architecture. Gothic elements predominate today, although pre-World War II visitors might remember the church as neoclassical. The region around Poznan, “Greater Poland” (Wielkopolska), was the site of much fighting in World War II. Unlike Krakow and Warsaw, which the Germans turned into a quasi-colonial regime, the General Gouvernement, Wielkopolska was annexed directly to the Third Reich. The most vicious persecution of the Church as well as the most thor-oughgoing extermination of Catholic clergy occurred in that region and on the Polish Baltic coast. When the war ended, 65% of the neighborhood around the cathedral was destroyed and St. Peter's itself needed to be repaired.
Panels of the Passion
Although the very first cathedral on the site was Romanesque, the origins of the present building lie in the Gothic era of the 14th and 15th centuries. (Even here, development is not continuous. A fire left only the cathedral's walls standing and, when the interior was rebuilt, it came out Baroque).
The first thing to catch a visitor's eye in the church is the polyptych over the main altar. The center panel depicts the Virgin Mary in the company of St. Barbara and 12 other virgins. When closed, the panels show eight scenes from the Passion of Christ. The polyptych dates from the 14th-15th centuries, the work of Silesian masters. Below the altar Christ is depicted at the Last Supper, surrounded by his Apostles. Next to the altar is an ornate pulpit from 1720, testifying to the church's baroque period. Twelve side chapels surround the church. A memorial to Cardinal Mieczyslaw Ledochowski stands in St. Joseph's Chapel. The cardinal defended the Poles' rights to faith and language during the forced Germanization campaign of Bismarck's Kulturkampf in the late 19th century. The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, set off by 18th-century gates, is on the same side of the church and next to the sacristy.
Poznan is famous for its annual trade fairs, which attract businessmen from Europe and beyond. The largest fairs take place in the fall and in January, so hotel space can be in demand—make reservations! And while visiting Poznan, make time for a visit to its jewel of a cathedral.
John M. Grondelski
writes from Warsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Poznan, Poland ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M.Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The End of Honor? DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:It sounds like a premise ripped from today's headlines: A band of soldiers who believe they're defending Western civilization risk their lives in a far-off desert war fighting the blood-thirsty followers of a fanatic Muslim leader.
This is the subject of A.E.W. Mason's 1902 novel of Victorian honor, The Four Feathers, which has been filmed seven times, and it would seem to be relevant to some of the issues facing the American soldiers currently fighting Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the Middle East. But this most recent version boots away the opportunity, because director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth) and screenwriters Michael Schiffer and Hossein Amini can't figure out how to handle the British Empire.
In the novel and every previous movie adaptation, all the creative parties involved assumed the righteousness of the imperialist enterprise, and their fiction's central characters subscribed to the values that made it work. Nowadays nobody would want to endorse the racist, colonialist aspects of the British Raj. But Kapur and his collaborators try to solve the problem by revamping their premise according to currently fashionable notions of political correctness. Along the way, they wind up draining their story of its dramatic impact.
Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) is a young British officer in the 1890s whose father (Tim Pigott-Smith) is a well-regarded general. He and his best friend, fellow officer Jack Durrance (Wes Bentley), are in love with the same woman, Ethne Burroughs (Kate Hudson). When Harry and Ethne announce their engagement, his entire regiment cheers, including Jack.
At the same time, their unit is mobilized to put down an uprising in the Sudan, which is under British control. Harry resigns his commission just before he's to ship out. Three of his regimental comrades (Michael Sheen, Kris Marshall and Rupert Penry-Jones) send him white feathers as symbols of what they consider to be his cowardice.
When his fiancÈe Ethne gives him a fourth, Harry is so shamed he believes he must take decisive action to re-establish his good name and takes off for Sudan on his own.
There he disguises himself as a black native and tries to catch up with his unit to help them defeat the rebels.
In order to understand where Kapur and his screenwriters went wrong, it's important to grasp the values of that period and how they would affect Jack, his regimental comrades and Ethne. The British army provided the muscle that kept the empire together, but its officers believed they were doing more than advancing their homeland's economic interests. They also thought the empire propagated a superior civilization based in part on Christian values and that they must fight to preserve it.
In keeping with the contemporary zeitgeist, Kapur chooses to underline this in a negative way, deviating from the original. We see an Anglican vicar bless the regiment's mission as a necessary means for the achievement of the empire's higher purposes. This is meant to stand in ironic counterpoint to the officers' later racist behavior.
In the real British Empire, all this was held together by a code of honor that everyone shared. In the novel and the earlier film versions, Harry is presented as violating this code by refusing to go to the Sudan. No one, including his fiancÈe, can forgive him. But Kapur is determined to find other reasons to explain behavior he hopes contemporary audiences will find more congenial.
“I sometimes wonder what a godforsaken desert in the middle of nowhere has to do with Her Majesty the Queen,” Harry declares in explaining his resignation from the regiment. This is the logic of an anti-war protester during the Vietnam War, not the sort of argument likely to be offered by a 19th-century British officer.
“I don't care what people think. I just care about us,” Harry later exclaims to Ethne as he tries to persuade his fiancÈe to stick by him. These are appropriate sentiments to our contemporary me-first culture. Once again Kapur makes no attempt to re-create the Victorian mindset that privileges values other than this kind of personal satisfaction.
It gets even more anti-Western. The filmmakers give Harry a guide and mentor in Sudan who's black. This is to make us realize that our protagonist isn't a racist like his fellow officers. Abu Fatwa (Djimon Hounsou) is a Muslim tribesman who tells Harry he must look after him because “God has put you in my way.”
Fatwa's Islamic faith is the most positive expression of religion depicted in the film. In contrast, the filmmakers emphasize the weakness of the British commitment to Christianity. Before a major battle almost the entire Muslim army gets down on its knees. At the same moment only a single British officer is shown praying.
The film's pro-Muslim tilt also requires the uprising's fanatic leader to be kept off screen as there's no way to present his behavior in a way that's sympathetic or politically correct. This deprives the film of its natural villain.
Good movies have been made that deconstruct the British Empire (Passage to India, Gandhi). The Four Feathers can never be one of them. For its story to work, the audience must comprehend the centrality of the concept of honor to its main characters. The filmmakers are unwilling to acknowledge this and, as a result, our rooting interest is destroyed. Because we never hook into why Harry has to go to Sudan, we don't care what happens to him or his fellow officers during the well-staged action sequences. Their individual acts of bravery have no emotional or dramatic context.
John Prizer writes from
Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Terrorists Among Us (2001)
Almost everyone agrees that America didn't pay enough attention to the threat of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism during the 1990s. Much of the current political and media heat on the subject focuses on a search for scapegoats.
Terrorists Among Us, an update of a one-hour documentary that originally aired on PBS in 1994, leaves the blame game to others.
Instead narrator-producer Steve Emerson prophetically documents the numerous ways these terrorist groups have organized themselves on American soil. Most compelling are his selections from the videos shot and/or produced by the Muslim associations themselves. They openly preach hatred of the Jews and the United States and recruit followers for training camps located here.
Some FBI and CIA officials were aware of these activities, but before the World Trade Center attacks they were hamstrung by political higher-ups and many of the laws then on the books.
What's even more horrifying is that al Qaeda is only one group among many. It and the others functioned with relative impunity before Sept. 11.
Watch on the Rhine (1943)
The 1990s weren't the only time many Americans were blind to a lethal, barbaric threat to their civilization. In the 1930s, respectable public figures believed that fascism could be somehow contained without sacrifice and the use of force.
Watch on the Rhine, directed by Herman Shumlin and adapted by Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman from Hellman's play, tells the story of German Resistance leader Kurt Muller (Paul Lukas), who moves his family to America in 1940 to live with the wealthy mother (Lucile Watson) of his American-born wife, Sara (Bette Davis).
The war in Europe seems remote until a Romanian count (George Couloris) discovers that Muller is here to raise money for his resistance activities over there. The amoral aristocrat tries to blackmail the freedom fighter, threatening to reveal his activities to the German embassy here.
Muller is forced to take desperate measures to protect himself, his family and his cause. Although the action is at times stagy and the dialogue occasionally preachy, the movie's message is still relevant today.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: My life for Christ. DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:If you are a man of faith and a man of your word, if you want to leave your mark and transform the world with the Gospel, then find out if this is your call.
Go on a retreat in your area, go on a pilgrimage to Rome, visit our thriving seminary to meet he men who've found what you're looking for.
A spirituality centered on Christ and consecrated to Mary. Loyal to the Holy Father and committed to the New Evangelization. On mission throughout the U.S., Europe and the Americas.
Life is worth giving.
Fr AntonyBannon
----- EXCERPT: One life to live. One chance to live it. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Focus Staffs Secular Campuses With Full-Time Missionaries DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:BOULDER, Colo.—The University of Colorado at Boulder can be a scary place for parents to send their kids, fresh out of high school.
In recent years the school has been known for routine riots in neighborhoods surrounding the campus, complete with burning police cars and millions of dollars worth of property destruction.
Playboy magazine came to campus this year to photograph nude and near-nude college women, and the school came in as the sixth-best party school in the country in the 2002 issue of Princeton Review. “Inside Edition” plans to feature the school as a “typical” university with a “typical” drug and alcohol problem.
But amid the highly publicized mayhem are a lot of students who would like to maintain their Catholic roots and lead moral lives of prayer and service to the Lord, said Libby Ariniello, a full-time missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). Already in her first semester of doing business with the University of Colorado, she's heard from dozens of students who want to maintain, improve or return to their Catholic roots.
“You know, I think it has reached the point at some campuses that students are seriously searching for something more meaningful—something real and fulfilling,” said Ariniello, who works as marketing director for Focus at the organization's headquarters in Greeley, Colo.
“There was this big ad campaign for a bar in Boulder recently that said, ‘Did you lose something tonight?’ with a picture of a woman's underwear, and it was just very offensive and was promoting casual sex. I had one student seek us out because she was just so upset with that ad,” Ariniello said. “She realized that the type of behavior it was advocating leaves you very empty and can be very damaging.”
This year, Focus opened a full-time chapter, staffed with four full-time missionaries in their 20s, at the University of Colorado and three other universities: Troy State University in Troy, Ala., Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont., and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I've been waiting four years for a group like this,” said Tommy Dickinson, a senior at Troy State who recently began attending Bible study meetings and social events organized by Focus.
Growing Ministry
Focus was launched in spring 1998 at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. Almost five years later, the organization has branched out to consist of full-time staffs of two women and two men at 11 college campuses in six states. Part-time chapters have been started at two other colleges, and the organization has big plans for expansion in the near future.
Ariniello said the organization, with 48 missionaries and hundreds of participating students, plans to add six new campuses in 2003 and expects to have chapters at 65 campuses by the 2007-2008 school year, serving some 13,000 students.
The organization was founded as a kind of Catholic variety of Campus Crusade for Christ, an evangelical organization that helps Christian students continue or discover lives of prayer. While Campus Crusade has traditionally attracted Catholic students, it has often worked to uproot their Catholic faith and turn them away from the Church.
“We have a lot in common with Campus Crusade for Christ, but we bring the whole richness of the Catholic Church, and sometimes Campus Crusade is anti-Catholic in its approach,” Ariniello said. “A lot of Catholic students end up following them, but we're seeing a lot of students who found refuge in Campus Crusade coming to us now, even after years of being with that organization, because they're getting everything Campus Crusade had to offer plus all the richness of the Catholic faith.”
Ariniello said Catholic and secular colleges alike have been inviting the organization onto campus. Often a Focus chapter works closely with campus parishes and Catholic ministries such as Newman Centers.
“We work really well with existing Catholic organizations, and I think they really appreciate our help,”
Ariniello said. “Newman Centers and chaplains do the sacraments, and we do the recruiting. We get people involved in weekly Bible studies, because we can make it social and fun.”
“We see them [Focus] as a great force of evangelization,” said Paulist Father Dave Dwyer of St. Thomas Aquinas, located near the the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. He said he thinks of the organization as one, new vital piece of a total campus ministry, referring to its new full-time staff members as “adjunct staff.”
Ariniello said the goal of Focus' next expansions will probably be to land chapters on East Coast campuses.
“We are always looking for missionaries, and it can be a wonderful way to spend a few years right out of college,” Ariniello said, encouraging prospective and recent college graduates to consider making the mandatory two-year commitment.
Missionaries earn what Ariniello calls “competitive” full-time salaries, and are responsible for soliciting donations to pay for the organization's work.
“This is work that prepares you for teaching, law school, medical school and a variety of professional careers such as sales and marketing,” Ariniello said. “And it's a lot of fun.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from
Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Mystics in Your Neighborhood DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:NO WONDER THEY CALL IT THE REAL PRESENCE: LIVES CHANGED BY CHRIST IN EUCHARISTIC ADORATION
by David Pearson Servant/Charis, 2002 177 pages, $10.99 Available in online and retail bookstores or call (800) 486-8505
Every February I attend a festive Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to mark a friend' sanniversary of sobriety. I walk away each year with the same thought: These regular folks conduct the rigorous self-examination and reform of life that one would only expect of a monk.
I was left with a similar impression after reading this collection of interviews, conducted by Register features editor David Pearson, with lay Catholics who have taken up regular adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
The book demonstrates how Catholics who make a weekly holy hour— a practice that has become more common with the spread of perpetual adoration of the exposed Eucharist— often experience all the delights and challenges, the dryness and consolations, that saints such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross outlined in their great works on prayer.
“I couldn't believe the warmth that I felt, this ineffable love,”says Simonetta of her early experiences in adoration. In time, she learned how occasional “dryness and darkness— the nagging sense that God isn't there anymore— is the most important source of grace there is in adoration.”
Arranged in a question-and-answer format in which the subjects are identified only by first name, Pearson'sbook confirms that regular prayer before the Eucharist is profoundly transforming and of immense value to the Church as a whole.
“Things will never be the same for you,” was the prediction of two different priests to a school teacher and track coach named Jay who signed up for weekly adoration on something of a lark. And they haven't. Jay was not especially pious, but he soon became more active in his parish and eager to learn as much about his faith as he could. “Right off the bat,”he says of the spiritual life, “I just got the sense that this was something I had been missing out on.”In addition to a better marriage and greater job satisfaction, Jay has acquired something that most of Pearson'ssubjects have also found: a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, Mass and holy Communion.
Pearson's subjects demonstrate that adoration of the Blessed Sacrament uses a classic form of Catholic piety — one that has retained its power to draw the laity— to foster contemplative prayer and help realize the Second Vatican Council'suniversal call to holiness. “You can't very well sit in Jesus' presence hour after hour, week after week, and tell him how much you love him, how much you want to follow him and be close to him and change for him— and then go and casually commit all kinds of little sins,”says Mal, a former U.S. Marine.
Entries in the growing library of recent books about adoration range from collections of prayers and meditations to theological explanations and apologetics. Pearson'sbook goes in a different direction, taking the pulse of the adoration movement and providing nine testimonials from a representative sample of participants who have allowed their faith lives— and their lives in general — to be re-ordered, in some cases radically. Interior transformation that bears fruit exteriorly as greater witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ: This is the theme that informs Pearson'sinquiry throughout.
No Wonder They Call it the Real Presence is ideal for anyone considering a commitment to adoration or just starting the practice. It is a highly readable introduction to the romantic adventure and serious work that is prayer. The book also offers a vivid glimpse at what this leads to— authentic intimacy with Christ.
Veteran eucharistic adorers may benefit the most by No Wonder— they and the people they pray for. “A lot of very down-to-earth, non-fanatical people are having transcendent, mystical experiences in eucharistic-adoration chapels,”writes Pearson. “They're retreating from the world for a while [and]ábecoming more realistic, more concerned for the welfare of other peoples' souls.”Both groups will find in this book plenty of motivation to persevere in prayer.
Joe Cullen, a financial writer
for a Wall Street firm,
is a regular participant in
eucharistic adoration.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Moving Right
They found the gap was most pronounced on issues such as school prayer, with 69% of teenagers surveyed saying it should be allowed, compared to 59% of adults between the ages of 27 and 59.
On abortion, 44% of those aged 15 to 22 supported restrictions, while 34% of adults older than 26 shared that feeling.
Based on 1,258 telephone interviews, the survey has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Christmas Cheer
Tina Derr, 46, lost her own New Mexico home to a wildfire in 2000 and was especially cheered by the gift of 28 Christmas ornaments from neighbors that helped make Christmas possible that year.
This year's collection efforts have spread to the main campus of University of St. Francis in Joliet.
“This is an example of how students are mentored in the Franciscan tradition of service,” said Maria Connolly, dean of the St. Joseph College of Nursing and Allied Health.
Phys Ed
MARYWOOD UNIVERSITY, Sept. 20—Ken Rundell, 50, has been named director of the Human Performance Laboratory, the Scranton, Pa., university announced. The laboratory is part of the Keith J. O'Neill Center for Healthy Families, a new health-research and teaching facility.
Rundell is a former senior sports physiologist at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y.
Marywood is administered by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
More MTV
Known as CTN, the network is most visible in public spaces at about 750 American colleges and universities and offers news, music videos and some original programming.
Noting an advantage to the acquisition that will not please critics of the music network, Judy McGrath, president of MTV Networks, said, “We now have a terrific means of deepening our connection with a critical part of our audience.”
New Lease on Life
The Riverhead, N.Y., school will be renamed Bishop John McGann High School after the second bishop of the diocese, who died in February.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The 'Re-' Generation? Ever Johnson's Ecumenical Experiment DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:As publisher of re:generation quarterly, a magazine associated with her work on the board of the Regeneration Forum, Ever John-son's goal is to bring together Christians of all divides to help them move toward unity, inspired by Pope John Paul II's efforts.
Johnson also serves both as the Catholic studies project manager and research assistant to George Weigel at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Prior to her work in Washington, D.C., she worked in the Texas state legislature.
She spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about her faith formation, work on the Regeneration Forum and her job at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Where are you from originally? Tell me about your family.
I'm a Texan born-and-bred. My father is from Fort Worth and my mother is from Gloucester, Mass. They met in college at Loyola University-New Orleans, where they were both members of the “Conservative Club.” They also belonged to the Wanderer Forum in those days—one of my mother's relatives was the founder of the forum. I think they must have been a bit peculiar as college students in the '60s! Real straight arrows. My dad still reads the Wanderer, but he swears by the Register for the most balanced and interesting news (honestly!).
After a stint in Vietnam, my dad went into his family's business—cafeterias—and they settled in Fort Worth. My mother is a poet, a beautiful soul, and the heart of the family of 12 children—eight girls and four boys. Our Catholic faith (in the Bible Belt, no less!) was the defining essence of our childhood. Mom chased us out the door each day to check if we were wearing our scapu-lars and sprinkled us with holy water. Dad led the family rosary every night. Was there a Catholic devotion we didn't have? Probably not. Our Baptist school friends were amazed at the intense physical evidence of our faith—statues, beads, medals, pictures. We kids were a little embarrassed by it all, especially when Mom evangelized people, which she never let up doing, but we loved the Church nevertheless.
A lot of people were critical of my parents for having so many kids. They just thought the whole enterprise couldn't come to any good. But, lo, we turned out well! When I think back, I have to attribute that to the protection of the Blessed Mother. As much as we rolled our eyes and huffed and puffed about it when we were kids, all those rosaries had a good effect. Every one of us still holds a strong and growing faith.
Have you always had a strong faith life?
As a child, I had a deep respect for and attachment to the faith. As a teen-ager on through my early 20s, I asked all the usual questions, but mostly with the conviction that the Church was right, even if I didn't understand how, for instance, Jesus was really present in the host and wine. I would say I spent a good 10 years actively seeking to understand, to some small extent, the more perplexing doctrines of the faith. And the Holy Spirit patiently helped me through that initial part of my path to a more mature faith. As for practice, I never really had the leisure to think I didn't need the sacraments. Some early experiences of the painful reality of the human condition kept me coming back.
How did you become involved with the Ethics and Public Policy Center?
Originally, my education and work experiences prepared me for work in public service. In graduate school, I studied international relations in Italy, where I did an internship at the Vatican. That got me thinking about serving the Church first and country second. I began to crave such integrity of life, and so my faith gradually came to be the most important element of my work.
When I returned to D.C. for my second year of graduate school, the Ethics and Public Policy Center was doing a joint lecture series with my school on religion and international relations. The center is dedicated to bringing Judeo-Christian principles into public policy debates. I thought it would be an interesting place to work, so I wrote to George Weigel, who was just beginning the research for Witness to Hope, and he took me on as an intern and then as his assistant. It's been a great five years here. Mr. Weigel is a generous and kind boss, and the center has a wonderful spirit to it.
As young Christians come to know and trust each other, a new environment of willingness and open-mindedness is created.
As Catholic studies project manager at EPPC, I receive applications from students who want to attend our annual Tertio Millennio Seminar in Poland, where we study Catholic social teaching on the nature of a free society. In 2000, my future husband's application came across my desk. I was so intrigued by Soren's background that I put him at the top of the list and looked forward to meeting him. It was pretty much love at first sight. Three weeks in the romantic city of Krakow decided our fate, and Mr. Weigel didn't even realize it until the seminar was over! So, I'm grateful to Ethics and Public Policy Center for more than a fulfilling job.
I understand that you are also currently studying theology.
After a year at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, I started studying theology part time at the Dominican House of Studies. I just finished the course requirements for the master's degree and have decided to go on for the licentiate degree. My area of concentration is systematic theology. I love it for its own sake, but especially because I think it will eventually help me to participate in aspects of the Church's life to which I feel called—ecumenical dialogue and inculturation of the Gospel in varied cultures. I'd like to help “translate” the faith in terms and images that people coming at it from very different places can understand.
With regard to ecumenism, I have very high hopes for the future. I don't think official dialogues will bring about unity to begin with, though. What I see among younger Christians of varying traditions now are grass-roots movements—working together on social issues that they already agree on, especially pro-life issues. As they come to know and trust each other, a new environment of willingness and open-mindedness is created. As Christians of varying traditions have the experience of each other as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and so begin to personally feel the pain of the divisions, doctrinal discussions may come to seem more worthwhile to a sizeable enough segment of the Church to jump-start official dialogues.
You're also on the board of the Regeneration Forum. Tell me about your work with that.
Working with the Regeneration Forum is an outgrowth of my interest in ecumenism. As a movement that produces the young Christian faith-and-culture magazine re:generation quarterly as well as facilitating about 30 readers' forums around the country and an annual conference, the forum is dedicated to bringing together Christians across all sorts of divides, especially that of tradition, Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, with hopes of changing the future of the Church in ways that our generation sees as important.
Specifically, we challenge young Christians to respect and learn from Christians of other traditions, to develop a healthier critique of and use of our culture for the sake of the Gospel, and to make a more radical commitment to a truly Christian lifestyle. Although the magazine was started by an evangelical-turned-Catholic, most of its staff and readers are evangelicals, with a good sprinkling of Catholics and Orthodox involved. I hope to see more and more involvement from young Catholics as they realize and take to heart how immensely important Christian unity is to the Holy Father. Our current project, “as ever!” is to fund the magazine, which is really quite nice, but we are also hoping to find the time to encourage our readers groups to become more active in engaging our culture and doing charitable work within their communities.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Regeneration Forum, in its Own Words DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Our Mission
Rooted in orthodox Christianity, the Regeneration Forum gathers emerging Christian leaders across deep differences, advancing conversations and relationships that will impact the future of the church and the culture. Our primary audience is college-educated Christians beginning careers of leadership in the academy, the arts, business and the professions, the home, media, politics and the church.
The Regeneration Forum helps emerging leaders cross the divisions that could easily render their influence shallow, cacophonous or ineffective. We bring them together with Christians who are seriously different from themselves, not watering down differences in lowest-common-denominator fashion, but inviting conversations where all the specificity of different Christian traditions and vocations are brought to bear on contemporary questions. We are uniquely focused on conversations and relationships that cross disciplinary and professional lines, believing that such interaction is essential to addressing the multifaceted challenges of the postmodern flood. And we have a deep connection to historical Christianity that balances the general youthfulness of our audience.
Our Values
While our principal purpose is to facilitate conversation and relationships, not advance one particular agenda, the forum seeks to shape those conversations and relationships along several core values:
• the priority of community—corporate manifestations of Christian faith and practice that eschew privatization and pietism and are built on growing love and mutual accountability.
• the comprehensiveness of the Gospel—its relevance to every area of nature and culture.
• the necessity of discernment—cultivating clear thought and expression in a sound bite-driven culture.
• the primacy of cultural engagement—resisting Christian ghettoization and self-marginalization through “Christian” music, art, et cetera, and encouraging Christian participation in the wider artistic culture.
• the imperative of Christian unity—as far as possible, without abandoning deeply held convictions, seeking to realize the unity of the Church described in John 17.
The Regeneration Forum pursues its mission through three related initiatives: the magazine re:generation quarterly, local RQ forums in cities throughout North America and the annual gathering, The Vine.
re:generation quarterly
The purpose of the magazine re:generation quarterly is to provide commentary, critique and celebration of the Church and contemporary culture. Our core conviction is that communities of Christians, in many forms, are the paramount resource of transformation in their neighborhoods—hence our tagline, “community transforming culture.” Over five years, RQ has established itself as a leading thoughtful journal on faith and culture. In 1997 RQ was named as one of the “top 10 resources for cultural literacy” by Christianity Today. We have received significant attention beyond the Christian community—in 1999 RQ received the Utne Reader's Alternative Press Award for spiritual coverage, and RQ or its principals were featured in media as diverse as the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Times, and PBS's Religion and Ethics News Weekly.
----- EXCERPT: The mission statement of the Regeneration Forum: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mel Gibson: The Latest Interpretation of Christ DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Superstar Mel Gibson is currently in pre-production on The Passion, a feature film about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ. He will begin shooting in Italy on Nov. 4. Faithful Christians are wondering what to expect.
The last time a major Hollywood figure made a movie about Jesus, many considered the final product a blasphemous outrage. Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ emphasized what the director understood to be Jesus' human nature in a carnal, exploitative way. The film so enraged faithful Catholics and Protestants around the world that tens of thousands demonstrated in the streets.
The chances are that Gibson will produce a more orthodox version of Jesus' life. Gibson, like Scorsese, has made much of his Catholic roots. But there the resemblance ends.
Gibson says he has tried to live his adult life in accordance with his religious beliefs, a distinction that makes him a rarity in contemporary Hollywood. He has often described himself as “an old-fashioned Catholic,” but Gibson has declared his independence from the Catholic Church—he prefers a self-styled brand of old-style religious ritual.
“I believe in God,” he recently told the Italian paper Il Giornale. “My love of religion was given me by my father.” Raised in a family of 10 brothers and sisters, he has been married to his wife, Robyn, for 22 years. They have seven children, one of whom has chosen a religious vocation. His only daughter, Hannah, 21, has decided to become a nun, but Gibson refuses to name her order.
Gibson has also made speeches condemning abortion, contraception and homosexuality that haven't always played well in tinseltown, and he has built a private chapel in his beachfront Malibu estate, where a Latin Mass is said every Sunday.
Gibson's conduct augurs well for his approach to The Passion. The movie will chronicle the suffering Christ endured between the night of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. It will address some of the same themes as Scorsese's work but in what appears to be a more reverent and traditional manner.
“It is the drama of a man torn between divine spirit and human weakness. From the Garden of Gethse-mane, along the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross), Christ has always been described as someone who went to his death without fear,”
Gibson told reporters in Rome. “My Christ will instead be someone who is deeply affected by suffering and from his side real blood will flow. The screams of his Crucifixion will be real as well.”
Gibson wants all the details of the narrative to be authentic. “It is a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be,” he said. “Many people have told the story, but it's like looking at it from the wrong end of the telescope. I mean Jesus either suffers from bad hair or it's inaccurate or you don't believe it.”
Gibson has chosen for his locations the towns of Matera and Craco in the rugged, impoverished Basilicata region of Southern Italy. Matera is famous for its paleolithic, limestone caves or “Sassi,” in the old center of town. Piero Paolo Pasolini shot there his 1964 masterpiece, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, which is on the Vatican's list of top 45 films.
Gibson says he won't be using any fancy special effects because Matera presents a “photocopy of the landscape you travel through as a Christian pilgrim in Israel.”
Gibson plans to shoot for 10 weeks beginning Nov. 4. He says the Italian autumn will bring “the right light to re-create the particular atmosphere I want.” There will also be some interior scenes shot on four sound stages at Rome's Cinecitta Studios.
Ironically, Gibson once turned down an offer to play Jesus in Scorsese's film, and once again he's staying away from the role. “There's two things I wouldn't do on film, and I said this when I was in my 20s,” he said. “I will never play myself if it comes to it and I will never play Jesus.”
In the two previous movies Gibson directed, the Oscar-winning Braveheart and The Man Without a Face, he also played a leading role. This time he wants to focus all his energies on directing. In The Passion, the part of Jesus will be played by Jim Caviezel (The Count of Monte Cristo and High Crimes), who's an outspoken Catholic.
Gibson and Ben Fitzgerald wrote the screenplay. The sources they credit include the four Gospels and The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by 19th-century German mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich, and The Mystical City of God by the 17th-century Spanish mystic Mary of Agreda.
Gibson is producing the movie through the Marquis Films division of his powerhouse Icon Productions. No Hollywood studio has picked up the distribution rights—not even Fox where Icon is based. Gibson refuses to reveal the cost. “[This project] is good for the soul, not the wallet,” he quipped.
One reason Gibson is paying for the production himself may be that he intends to shoot it in Latin and Aramaic, an ancient Near Eastern language that many historians believe Jesus spoke. “Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages,” Gibson explained to reporters in Rome. “They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius. Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers without subtitles with visual storytelling. If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to.”
Bill Fuco, a Los Angeles-based Jesuit linguistics professor, has translated Gibson and Fitzgerald's screenplay into Latin and Aramaic, and will act as dialogue coach on the set.
There are media reports Gibson has sought the advice of bishops and theologians in Rome. But during his interviews with reporters there, he responded to a question about the Vatican in a way that may trouble some. “I agree with everyone who says the Vatican is a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said.
It's not clear exactly what he was referring to. Time magazine's Web site on Sept. 13 characterized this as “a scathing attack” on the Church as an institution. They point out Gibson's known affection for the Latin Mass and speculate that this is the reason for his comments about the Vatican. But the interview text itself does not confirm this.
Later in a Sept. 20 interview with Reuters, he remarked: “It's very easy to be shaken these days faith-wise. All this kind of pedophilia stuff in the United States, it's hard to hang on to a foundation with this stuff going on.”
According to the Hollywood grapevine, the problem may be that Gibson has not yet hired a press agent to help him manage interviews and he's making the kind of off-the-cuff comments that can get him in trouble when quoted out of context.
Gibson's upright lifestyle leads one to hope for the best in his movie's treatment of its subject matter. He has researched the material carefully. “The idea came to me 10 years ago and has been rambling around in my empty head, very slowly taking shape ever since,” he said.
It's clearly a labor of love on which he may lose millions of dollars of his own money. Nothing he has said or done, including his preference for the Latin Mass, indicates he would try to do anything other than present a traditional Christian understanding of Jesus' final hours and death. But the faithful should remain vigilant. They have been disappointed before.
John Prizer writes from
Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Priz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:No End In Sight
Do children ever stop misbehaving?
Some questions are elegantly simple, yet profound. They seek the very essence of a truth. No, children never stop misbehaving. Adults never stop misbehaving. Nobody ever stops misbehaving.
Parents instinctively know this. We just as instinctively tend to deny it. Almost unconsciously we hope, even expect, that the stuff of misconduct will someday be all gone. True, lots of kid turbulence—temper tempests, meal ordeals, bedtime badtimes, tattling—does fade away with the years. But the core nature of misbehavior—defiance, passive resistance, unruliness, irresponsibility—will take many forms over a childhood and will never completely disappear.
A 14-year-old may not fling herself to the floor, slapping her head with each sob, but any parent confronting a hostile or disdainful teen can tell you the most nasty forms of temper aren't always the loudest or most theatrical. The rebellion of a toddler may be more in-your-face than that of a 12-year-old's subtle foot dragging. Yet the older child may be acting no less willfully.
Is this to say that discipline really only serves to eradicate one misbehavior until another evolves to take its place? Absolutely not. The purpose of discipline is to teach good behavior. As such, the better the discipline, the better the behavior over time. But, and this is a big but, discipline will remain an integral part of your parenthood until the day Harmony leaves the house.
Most misconduct exhibits a similar life cycle. The behavior appears for the first time at some point in development. The longer it lingers, the longer it will take for discipline, no matter how firm and consistent, to reduce it. Initially its intensity may surge in response to discipline. But as the discipline brakes are applied, the misconduct slows, sometimes dramatically to a near zero level. But seldom is it every fully eradicated. Why? Because kids are human (most of the time) and humans, until the day they leave this earth, retain the proclivity to act wrongly.
Let's say you've decided to assign a 500-word essay on respect each and every time your 15-year-old gets mouthy. Within mere weeks his snotty attitude is one-tenth of its former strength. Yet that last stubborn, residual one-tenth may persevere until the day he moves out. This does not mean your discipline isn't working. It's working very well. It took care of 90% of the problem. As you persevere in disciplining that remaining 10%, tell yourself that you are teaching your son that disrespect is wrong, and that he will always be held accountable for it, even if he doesn't learn your lesson completely. Time and life are on your side. They should take care of most of that last 10%.
Take heart. The bad news is that you'll never see perfect results. The good news is that you can get real close. Besides, there have to be some things for their spouse to work on.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10,
a psychologist and an author.
He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Feeding Families' Souls DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:COLUMBIA, S.C.—When Tammy Simpson decided to leave her full-time job and stay home with her 4-year-old son and infant daughter, she realized she'd lost her support system.
“I wasn't getting pats on the back any more,” says Simpson, 36, a member of St. Peter's Catholic Church in Columbia, S.C. “I felt very isolated. I was so busy taking care of my children that I was neglecting myself physically and spiritually.”
At the invitation of a friend, Simpson joined the Ministry of Mothers Sharing (MOMS), a growing national ministry where she found friends, spiritual renewal and the zeal for her faith that launched her into other areas of service for her parish.
“My husband saw the change in me when I'd come home from MOMS,” says Simpson. “It made him want to get more involved in the parish, too, so he decided to sponsor someone through RCIA. Now we've accepted the invitation to coordinate our parish's upcoming evangelization program.”
MOMS is not a parenting class. It is a superb spiritual renewal program for women—whether they are single mothers, married mothers, stepmothers, foster mothers or grandmothers, according to Benedictine Sister Paula Hagen, who planted the seeds of the ministry in 1986 in Mesa, Ariz., and today runs the program from her office at St. Paul Monastery in St. Paul, Minn.
“I look at mothers as the window to the soul of the family,” says Sister Hagen. “When you renew them, you renew the family, and that energy flows out into parish life.”
A typical MOMS group has 10 to 12 participants, plus three facilitators—a presenter, prayer leader and “guardian angel” in charge of hospitality. Child care is often provided.
Prayer, sharing and writing in MOMS: A Personal Journal are key elements of the eight-session curriculum. A different topic is covered during each two-hour meeting: self-esteem and self-acceptance; stress, worries and anxiety; everyday spirituality; feelings; personal growth; expressing values in friendships; and discernment.
A “celebration dinner” is also an integral part the program. During the seventh session, participants dine with women from their parish who have supported them through prayer during their MOMS journey.
“We are realizing our God-given call to our vocation as mothers and responding to it,” says Ruth McNicholas, 51, regional coordinator of MOMS for the Diocese of Knoxville, Tenn. “It's contagious. About 1,000 women in 20 parishes in eastern Tennessee have joined MOMS since 1999 and I'm working with six new parishes right now.”
“In my own parish of 207 families [Holy Trinity Parish in Jefferson City, Tenn.], 51 women have been through the MOMS sessions,” adds McNicholas. “We have 12 new women signed up for the next program.”
Called and Gifted
Spiritual formation in MOMS is based on the 1995 U.S. bishops' document “Called & Gifted for the Third Millennium.” Participants learn to discern their gifts and are encouraged to share their giftedness with their families and community. They also learn to make personal renewal a regular part of their spiritual lives.
“This is an introduction to a healthy spirituality,” explains Eunice Cheshire, 63, a facilitator-trainer for MOMS in Dallas and the associate director of adult formation at Prince of Peace Parish in Plano, Texas. “A woman who is formed in this can move on to a really deep spirituality.
“MOMS is very empowering to women, and it really boosts a parish,” Cheshire says. “When women are affirmed in their gifts, they say, ‘You mean I can be a lector or a eucharistic minister?’ I have seen so many ministries spring forth from MOMS. Women have formed a young married couple's group, a ministry to empty nesters and gone into hospital ministry.”
“This ministry is very solid, very good,” says Father Al Faesser, pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in North Platte, Neb. “Typically, parents with young children are very wrapped up with raising their families and not necessarily active in parish life. Through MOMS, they reassess their values and priorities. They become more active participants in parish life and in sacramental ministry. It enhances the community in a wonderful way.”
To date, MOMS has touched more than 300,000 women from more than 3,200 parishes in more than 100 dioceses in the United States, Canada and Ecuador. Since 1997, the Sisters of St. Benedict have received grants of more than $50,000 from the Koch Foundation to develop this peer outreach ministry.
“The growth of this ministry shows what a tremendous need there is in the Church for it,” says Sister Hagen.
Many of the women's stories have been collected and published in book form by Resource Publications Inc. Titles include Instant Inspiration for Mothers, Quiet Contemplations for Mothers and Minute Meditations for Mothers. In addition, two training manuals are now in their third printing: MOMS: Developing a Ministry and MOMS: Facilitator's Guide.
“I'm very enthused about MOMS. I think it has a great future,” says Notre Dame Sister Eileen Tierney, pastoral associate at St. Daniel the Prophet Parish in Chicago, where MOMS has been active for three years. “The program sells itself. The women have such enthusiasm—they talk to other people about it so freely. It works best by personal invitation.”
“The first time I went through MOMS, I did it with a group of women my own age,” says Cheshire, a grandmother. “We all said, ‘We wish we'd have had this when we were younger—we could have avoided a lot of burnout. Let's start it for the younger women.’ We want it for our daughters and daughters-in-law. My own daughter-in-law attended session one last week.”
“The demands to be a good Christian woman without a support system are just too great,” says Sister Hagen. “Through MOMS, there is a tremendous network of women forming solid friendships. You can really see the Holy Spirit working through them.”
Dana Mildebrath writes
from Chico, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Mildebrath ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Little Pro-Life Group That Could DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—As the birthplace of Planned Parenthood and headquarters for several leading abortion organizations, New York City is the de facto heart of the abortion industry.
But abortion activism isn't the only worm in the Big Apple. Nearly half the city's pregnancies end in abortion—and abortion providers outnumber pregnancy-resource centers by more than 10 to 1.
Those pregnancy-resource centers could be the catalyst for change in the nation's biggest city. Through an organization called Project Reach, the influence of pregnancy-resource centers is growing as the centers provide the message to women in crisis that there are life-affirming alternatives to abortion.
Figures obtained from the New York Department of Health by Project Reach show that New York State had 133,000 abortions in 1999, of which 96,000 were performed in New York City. The Brooklyn borough alone had more than 33,000 abortions; the Bronx borough had more abortions than live births. What is particularly alarming about Brooklyn, says Project Reach's executive director, John Margand, is that 60% of pregnancies among blacks end in abortion.
“We're looking at populations that have been targeted for extinction, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics,” says Margand. “The numbers are overwhelming. The abortion ratios in New York are among the worst in the nation. The stakes are high because New York is the ‘birthplace’ of abortion in the United States and has become its abortion capital. Any progress we make here is bound to have national repercussions.”
In response to the crisis, Project Reach has launched a Web site, www.ProjectReach.org, which depicts abortion data by zip code as reported by the New York City Department of Health. The Web site educates the public about the nature and severity of the abortion crisis that has plagued the New York City area for more than three decades. It also provides crisis-pregnancy centers with reliable data to assess their own outreach programs and catalyze joint ventures among pregnancy centers, pastors and pro-life medical providers to target abortion-vulnerable communities where the pro-life presence is most needed. The project is seeking funding to post the 1999 and 2000 figures.
“Project Reach was started in 1998 to unite the pregnancy-resource centers, provide support for their needs and create more centers,” says Jim Manning, a founding member. More important, the centers needed to organize and focus pro-life efforts in New York, which he said is behind the rest of the country. Project Reach is currently working with 12 pregnancy-resource centers in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County. The hope is to help New York catch up to the rest of the country, where pregnancy-resource centers outnumber abortion clinics by an average of 3 to 1.
“What we're doing with Project Reach is really David and Goliath,” says Manning. “We're just beginning to crawl here. But you have to crawl before you walk.”
Manhattan Momentum
In a survey of resource centers, the leaders of Project Reach discovered that they needed more training for their staff and more advertising support. They conducted a series of seminars over two years for staff and board members, promoted telephone help-line techniques and developed manuals for centers to follow. They also started a pilot project in which peer counselors can get college coursework in counseling to help them better understand the issues involved with women in crisis, how to listen to their needs, and help those who are abortion-bound.
Perhaps most telling, Project Reach has helped the pregnancy centers purchase joint full-page ads in the New York-area Yellow Pages directories. The Yellow Pages is one of the first places a woman will look when seeking help, notes Manning, and there are nine full-page ads for abortion providers in the Manhattan Yellow Pages directory alone, along with hundreds of listings. The pregnancy-resource-center ads, which come first in the directory under “Abortion Alternatives,” have created greater exposure and increased the number of women calling and visiting the centers from 4,500 to 10,000 a year over the last three years. That number continues to grow.
Lorraine Gariboldi, executive director of the Life Center in Long Island, says the ads have been one of the best things Project Reach has done for the centers. She has been able to place more ads than before and is now drawing about 200 women a month to her center. The more women come through the doors of such centers, the more they will hear about the support services available to them—and the truth about the child in their womb through sonograms. Gariboldi refers women to an OB-GYN doctor nearby who offers free sonograms. A second life center under construction in Nassau County will offer sono-grams on site.
“I've never met a woman who's wanted an abortion. I've met many women who thought they had no other choice,” says Gariboldi. “When we can't change her heart, 98% of the time, the doctor does just by showing her her baby.”
Top Cop Stopped
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's recent attack on the resource center inadvertently raised public awareness about the good work that they do, notes Gariboldi. Last January, he served “carbon copy” subpoenas on pregnancy-resource centers throughout the state, charging them with false advertising and practicing medicine without a license. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) backed the effort and developed a manual for dismantling crisis-pregnancy centers, called “Unmasking Fake Clinics.” Much of the wording in the subpoenas was “cut and paste” from that manual, says Gariboldi, who has 80 copies on hand for her staff.
Spitzer's actions backfired when numerous legal organizations and pro-life attorneys from prominent firms offered pro bono legal help, including the Christian Legal Society in Annandale, Va., the American Catholic Lawyers Association and the American Center for Law & Justice. Within two weeks, Spitzer withdrew the subpoenas when it was clear he was up against a legal stronghold and he could not produce any formal complaints against the centers.
Samuel Casey, chief executive of the Christian Legal Society, says the pregnancy-resource centers originally thought they operated under the laws for commercial speech. But his legal team, which represented 11 of the 12 centers, pointed out that, because these nonprofit charitable organizations do not charge for their services, they are fully protected by the First Amendment right to free speech and not subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of the attorney general as commercial speech.
Casey says his organization was motivated to help by the facts of this case and the abortion situation in New York. “We could see that the resource centers began to grow and get funding for their media outreach, and the abortion industry stood up and took notice. Based on the results in this case, I would say that the pregnancy-resource center movement will only grow.”
During the process, three accredited associations for resource centers, Heartbeat International, Care Net and the National Institute for Family & Life Advocacy, issued a set of press releases to the media about pregnancy-resource centers and the services they provide. That resulted in some positive publicity in the media, while Spitzer's office remained mute, says Margand.
“The attorney general has inadvertently helped to promote unity within the pro-life community throughout the state,” he adds. “He has helped to catalyze an authentic ecumenism among pro-life attorneys, Catholics and evangelicals [Protestant], who are now looking seriously about collaborating on other causes.”
“The pregnancy resource centers were able to demonstrate with the help of competent counsel, that they were operating well within their First Amendment rights in promoting the pro-life message,” says Margand. “That sends a significant message to pro-life movements across the nation.”
Barb Ernster writes from
Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 10/13/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 13-19, 2002 ----- BODY:Pro-Life Photo Now Free
LIFESITE DAILY NEWS, Sept. 23—Remember the photo of baby Samuel's hand reaching out from his mother's uterus during fetal surgery? The image has turned the veteran photojournalist behind the shot into a pro-life activist.
Michael Clancy, who snapped the photo for USA Today after seeing the baby's hand jut out of the hole in the womb made by the surgeons, now offers his image free of charge to pro-life groups.
In his business's mission statement, according to the Canadian Web service, Clancy says he wants to “print the picture of Samuel on posters for donation to Crisis Pregnancy Centers.” Billboards, he adds, are next on the agenda.
S.C. Records Law Upheld
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 19—A South Carolina law allowing state inspectors access to all abortion-clinic records does not violate patients' privacy rights, a federal appeals court has ruled, Associated Press reported.
The 2-1 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower- court ruling on the privacy issue, said the report.
Two clinics had challenged the regulations, arguing the confidentiality of patient information is vital because women seeking abortions could face harassment. However, the appeals court noted that the state is required to keep patient records confidential, said the news service.
The court upheld other provisions in the law stating that abortionists must have admitting privileges at a hospital in case of emergency, clergy must be available for counseling if requested by a patient and abortion clinics must meet a variety of building standards, for example, to insure proper air flow.
Peruvian Cardinal Denounces Pill AGENCIA EFE, Sept. 20—Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani has denounced the use of the morning-after pill, calling it a crime because it causes a “chemical abortion,” reported the service.
In a speech inaugurating a debate on bioethics sponsored by Peru's Catholic Church, Cardinal Cipriani said the morning-after pill was “an attack on life.”
Present at the conference was Health Minister Fernando Carbone, who has been accused of basing the government's family-planning policies on Catholic ideas. Carbone suspended the distribution of the morning-after pills at public clinics in the country.
End Of Contraceptive Dumping LIFESITE DAILY NEWS, Sept. 25—The Agency for International Development (USAID) says it will end its supply of contraceptives to the Philippines within two years, reported Lifesite.
Agence France-Presse reported that USAID will continue to push $3 million worth of contraceptives in 2003 and 2004 on the largely Catholic country but will end the supply afterward.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Life Issues in the Balance DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The outcome of this fall's U.S. Senate elections will determine the fate of much of President Bush's pro-life agenda.
Political analysts say Republican control of the Senate would provide by far the largest shift in favor of pro-life issues that could be generated by this year's elections. Democrats in control of the Senate have made it clear that they are committed to blocking any pro-life legislation. They have grown increasingly aggressive in voting down judicial nominees who might dilute Roe v. Wade. If any Supreme Court justice should retire, a Democrat Senate would likely be even more aggressive in blocking a pro-life successor.
Meanwhile, control of the U.S. House seems likely to remain with Republicans (see sidebar, page 7).
At this point, no one can predict how the Senate will turn out, given its razor-thin margin and the number of close races around the country.
Further complicating the picture are recent events in New Jersey, a liberal state that was widely regarded earlier this year as being unassailably Democratic in the Senate. But after scandal-tarred incumbent Sen. Robert Torricelli fell far behind Republican challenger incumbent Sen. Robert Torricelli fell far behind Republican challenger Douglas Forrester in polls, he withdrew from the race Sept. 30 and was replaced as Democratic nominee by former Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Polls after the candidate switch showed the race to be a dead heat.
A survey published by National Journal's Hotline on Oct. 9 indicated Democrats would win 50 seats, Republicans 49 and Jeffords would remain the sole Independent. In his Evans-Novak Political Report mailed to subscribers the same day, pro-life political commentator Bob Novak estimated the “current outlook” to give Republicans control with 50 seats and Democrats with 49.
Though in such a scenario Jeffords would caucus with Democrats to give them 50 effective seats, Vice President Dick Cheney would use his tie-breaking power to give Republicans control. Under that arrangement, Republicans might choose to share power with Democrats, as they did in the first few months of Bush's term prior to Jeffords’ defection, but would still have the ability to force floor votes on legislation and nominees.
Catholic Voters
When it comes to motivating American Catholics to vote for prolife candidates, “the [bishops’] conference doesn't have any special effort this year,” said Cathy Cleaver, pro-life spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
She pointed to the document Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics issued in 1998 as giving clear guidance regarding the pre-eminence life issues should hold for Catholic voters.
In it, the U.S. bishops proclaimed, “Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing and health care. … But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life” (italics in original).
Life issues have been particularly prominent in the fall campaign in Michigan, where pro-abortion incumbent Sen. Carl Levin is facing pro-life Republican challenger Andrew “Rocky” Raczkowski, and where Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer Granholm, who is Catholic, has been publicly challenged by prolife Catholics over her pro-abortion position.
Over the weekend of Oct. 5-6, Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit had a letter read at Masses throughout the archdiocese. “These basic truths about right and wrong must shape our political judgments and our decisions about how we vote,” the cardinal's letter said. “And most importantly, where does the candidate stand on abortion, described by the Michigan Catholic Conference as the ‘pre-eminent threat to human dignity because it directly attacks life itself, the most fundamental human good and the condition for all others.’”
Since taking control of the Senate last year, Democrats under the direction of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., a Catholic, have throttled attempts at pro-life legislation. There are 14 Democratic Catholic senators, all of whom are pro-abortion except Louisiana's Sen. John Breaux, who has cautiously staked out a moderate position.
Through inaction, Senate Democrats are allowing House-passed bills banning partial-birth abortion and human cloning to die, since supporters would have a majority of votes for the partial-birth abortion ban if a vote were allowed. The House-passed Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which would criminalize assaults that harm or kill an unborn child, will also expire at the end of this session due to inaction.
On July 18, the Senate did, however, pass the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, criminalizing the murder of all born children, including those born during a botched abortion. President Bush signed the bill into law during the summer.
Judicial Nominations
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have also killed, on partyline votes, the nominations of Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen to federal appeals courts. Senate Democrats attacked both nominees for not being pro-abortion. And the committee seems prepared to let a third nomination, that of Miguel Estrada, die for similar reasons.
Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., a Catholic, chairs the Judiciary Committee.
It is in this contest that the outcome of single race could make a key difference regardless of how the others turn out. Privately, Senate Republican sources say that if the Republican nominee, Rep. Jim Talent, wins his race in Missouri, they will call back the Senate and confirm some of Bush's judicial nominees, even if Democrats retain control in the overall Senate elections. Since Talent is running in a special election, he would be sworn in before the other new senators, giving Republicans control of the Senate for two months.
Dan Allen, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, identified South Dakota, South Carolina and Missouri as close races where there is an especially stark choice on life issues between the candidates. Asked if there are any pro-life Democratic Senate candidates running this year, Tovah Ravitz-Meehan of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said, “Nothing comes to mind.”
Key Races
Though 34 Senate seats are up this year, only some are considered competitive. The four very close races:
► Colorado: A poll conducted by Zogby on Sept. 17-18 found 42% in favor of both incumbent pro-life Sen. Wayne Allard (R) and pro-abortion challenger and former U.S. attorney Tom Strickland (D).
► Minnesota: A Sept. 18-19 Zogby poll gave pro-abortion Sen. Paul Wellstone (D) a 41-to-47% lag behind pro-life former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. This race has shifted back and forth, however, and Wellstone's skepticism of the war in Iraq could determine this race.
► New Hampshire: A University of New Hampshire-WMUR poll conducted Oct. 3-8 put pro-abortion Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) at 47% and prolife Rep. John Sununu (R-N.H.) at 43%. It should be noted that the margin of error in the poll makes the race a dead heat. There is no incumbent since pro-life champion and Catholic Sen. Bob Smith (R) lost his primary to Sunnunu.
► South Dakota: A POS poll Sept. 22-23 put pro-life Rep. John Thune (R) over pro-abortion Sen. Tim Johnson (D), 48 to 43%. This intense race in Majority Leader Daschle's home state has drawn tremendous interest. Johnson supporters have been trying to convince some pro-lifers that their man is not as pro-abortion as Thune supporters make out, but there is a clear distinction in voting records. “John is pro-life, Tim Johnson is not,” said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for Thune. “He is trying to claim he is personally pro-life, which raises the question of why he doesn't vote that way.”
The following races are not as close but could still go either way:
► Georgia: Though a POS poll conducted Sept. 30 to Oct. 1 gave pro-abortion Sen. Max Cleland (D) only a four-point lead, 45 to 41%, over pro-life Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R), most observers think Chambliss will have a hard time overcoming triple-amputee Cleland's war record and affability. But he certainly has a good chance of scoring an upset.
► Missouri: There is still hope left for pro-life Rep. Jim Talent (R) to overcome the lead of pro-abortion Sen. Jean Carnahan (D). But a Zogby poll done Sept. 17-18 gives Carnahan a 48-to-40% edge.
► South Carolina: Pro-life Rep. Lindsey Graham (R) has pulled ahead to a 46-to-38% lead over pro-abortion Alex Sanders (D) in a Garin-Hart-Yang poll done Sept. 18-19, and his chances of victory are considered solid.
► Texas: This open seat created by the retirement of pro-life Sen. Phil Gramm (R) should, in principle, easily go to pro-life Attorney General John Cornyn (R), but proabortion Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk (D) is giving him a hard time. A Fairbank-Maslin poll conducted Sept. 22-24 gives Cornyn the lead 39 to 35%, and the Republican is likely to win.
One final wild card race emerged last week in Montana when, with his campaign tanking, the Republican candidate dropped out of his race against pro-abortion incumbent Sen. Max Baucus, complaining the Democrats ran an ad that made him look like a homosexual hairdresser.
At press time, Republicans were considering trying to repeat what Democrats did in New Jersey and put a last-minute replacement candidate on the ballot — perhaps even former Gov. Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Joseph D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
GOP Holds Edge In House Races
WASHINGTON — The conventional wisdom in Washington now is that Republicans will keep control of the U.S. House after the Nov. 5 elections.
Still, a six-seat swing could give Democrats control of the House, though it may actually take more if Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Texas, makes good his threat to vote for the most conservative candidate for House speaker next time around, which is unlikely to be the Democrat.
The Gallup generic ballot, in which likely voters were asked if they would vote Republican or Democrat in their congressional races, found 48% for the Democrat and 47% for the Republican in a poll done Oct. 3-6 with a margin of error of four points. That's a decline from 50-46% in favor of the Democrats on Sept. 20-22, and district- by-district breakdowns by most political observers give Republicans a slight edge.
Bob Novak's latest Evans-Novak Political Report predicts a four-seat net gain for Republicans, even though conservative, pro-life Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., has fallen behind in his race. There are about 40 seats considered close nationwide.
Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg says Democrats seem stuck in their efforts to win. “The only way to do that is to change the tilt of the playing field a little bit. They don't have that right now,” he said. If Republicans do pick up seats in the House, they might set a new trend begun by Democrats in the Clinton years: Historically, the party in the White House has lost House seats in midterm elections, but in 1998 the opposite occurred.
— Joseph D'Agostino
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Universities Won't Reveal Theologians' Status DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:SPOKANE, Wash. — Chicago Cardinal Francis George and Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Weurl, chairman of the bishops’ education committee, both say universities should make public information about which of their theologians have a mandatum and which don't.
But, as parents are finding, many universities disagree. They are keeping their lips sealed about the canon law recognition a Catholic teaching theologian must seek from the bishop.
The problem isn't just at universities known for dissent — but even at some that have excellent reputations.
When her daughter was considering colleges last spring, Maureen Yantes called Gonzaga University here to ask if its theology professors have a mandatum, the recognition granted by the local bishop that Catholic professors who are teaching Catholic theology are doing so in communion with the Church.
“I felt, as a parent, we should know if someone has a mandatum or not,” said Yantes, of Rapid City, S.D. “It's a wonderful tool for parents” who are concerned about the kind of education, especially in the faith, their children will receive.
Someone in administration at Gonzaga told Yantes the mandatum did not apply at the university because it has a religious studies — not a theology — department. As it turned out, the person was misinformed on the subject: Gonzaga professors are subject to the requirement.
But the university official “assured me that [theology professors are] faithful to Church teachings,” Yantes said. Still, she was concerned and, even now, does not know which teachers have a mandatum. Nor does her daughter, who is taking a New Testament course.
Even a law professor at Gonzaga, David DeWolf, who has a son studying at the university, says he “can't identify whom I could rely on to teach Catholic doctrine.”
In this current semester, the first in which the mandatum is in effect — professors were required to have one by June 1 — it is being implemented in a wide variety of ways. Some professors — and some universities — boast about having one, while others seem to wish the matter would simply go away.
At Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., for example, having the mandatum is “a condition for professors teaching Catholic theology here,” said Edward Sri, chairman of the religious studies department. “We get a number of students who are looking for whether we support the idea of the mandatum or not.”
In some dioceses, however, the matter seems to have been put on hold. The sexabuse scandals of the past year have absorbed the attention of many bishops, leaving the mandatum at a low priority. But those scandals came about in large part, some observers argue, because theological dissent has been tolerated, especially in the area of sexual morality.
“How many of the priests and bishops who have brought such suffering to minors and scandal to the public were who have brought such suffering to minors and scandal to the public were encouraged by teachers and theologians to cut corners and dissent from this or that truth of Catholic faith and moral teachings?” Father Matthew Lamb, professor of theology at Boston College, wrote in a recent article for National Review Online.
He noted, for example, that the Catholic Theological Society of America has never ordered the reworking of “Human Sexuality,” edited by Father Anthony Kosnik, a book that “made excuses for” homosexuality, cohabitation, adultery and other sexual deviancies, even though it was criticized by the U.S. bishops and censored by the Vatican. The society has never publicly repudiated the book's dissent, Father Lamb noted.
In his April remarks to U.S. cardinals in Rome to discuss the sex abuse cover-up crisis, Pope John Paul II linked Catholic teaching and the sex abuse crisis when he said:
“People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young. They must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
Newsweek magazine religion editor Kenneth Woodward kicked off a two-year academic inquiry into the sex scandals at Boston College on Sept. 18 by calling for, among other things, a better job on the part of universities at passing on the Catholic faith.
But some theologians in Boston have requested mandata from Cardinal Bernard Law and gotten no response. A spokesman of the Boston Archdiocese failed to respond to a request for comment.
Shawn Copeland, president-elect of the Catholic Theological Society and a visiting professor at Boston College, said she would not tell a student whether she had a mandatum or not. “These are private matters between a bishop and a theologian,” said Copeland, who normally teaches at Marquette University in Milwaukee.
Critics have wondered how the mandatum, which is Latin for “mandate,” can have its intended effect in promoting the Catholic identity of Catholic universities if it is a strictly private matter.
“Some bishops genuinely believe it ought to be kept private. I don't think the argument behind that holds up,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, which works to restore a Catholic identity to the nation's more than 230 Catholic colleges and universities. “The original purpose of Ex Corde Ecclesiae was to ensure that Catholic theological teaching is authentic. The way this is set up, it doesn't accomplish that.”
According to the bishops’ “Guidelines Concerning the Academic Mandatum in Catholic Universities,” if a professor does not obtain the mandatum within the required time period, “the competent ecclesiastical authority should notify the appropriate authority in the college or university.”
But an ecclesiastical authority has the right to offer the mandatum on his own initiative. That would require that the theologian's commitment to teach in full communion with the Church is clear. It also would require an acceptance on the part of the theologian.
If a bishop is contemplating the denial or withdrawal of a mandatum once granted, the document says, “he should discuss this informally with the theologian, listing the reasons and identifying the sources, and allowing the theologian to make all appropriate responses.”
Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church), Pope John Paul II's apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education, amplifies the canon law requirement for the mandatum.
“A student has the right to be assured that a teacher is teaching authentic Catholic theology,” Reilly contended. Canon law is ambiguous, he said, and he would like the Vatican Congregation for Education to clarify whether the mandatum is meant to be public or private.
Shouldn't Be Secret
But Chicago's Cardinal George believes a mandatum is a public act, like baptism or becoming a professor. “It's part of being a Catholic theologian at this point,” he said. “It doesn't have to be kept as a guarded secret.”
The cardinal believes a student has a right to ask if a teacher has a mandatum. “If the facts are right, the facts are public,” he said. But he criticized attempts at making public lists of professors who do or don't have a mandatum, in particular a Web site that did so even before any mandata were issued.
And Bishop Wuerl of Pittsburgh, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ committee on education, said in an interview earlier this year that although the mandatum is the concern of the professor and the local bishop, “there should be some provision for students to find out” whether a professor has one or not.
“It should be a concern of parents and students to know whether a professor has taken a stand with the Church,” said Alan Schreck, chairman of the theology department at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, which requires all theology professors to have a mandatum. “We see [being theology professors] as an ecclesial vocation.”
“It's important for us to know because so many theology and philosophy courses are required,” said Yantes, mother of the Gonzaga student.
Ex Corde Ecclesiae was issued in 1990, but debates over the mandatum held up its implementation in the United States. The Vatican rejected an initial proposal from the U.S. bishops because the proposal did not contain norms. The Vatican insisted that the implementation be not simply exhortative, but normative. Rome approved of a U.S. adaptation of the constitution in 2000, however the definition of what a mandatum is was left up to the U.S. bishops. The U.S. bishops issued guidelines on issuance of the mandatum last year.
One source of worry among theologians was that the mandatum would stifle their academic freedom of inquiry. They feared being regarded by their non-Catholic peers as being little more than catechists, repeating the official teaching of the Church.
According to the U.S. bishops’ documents on Ex Corde, the mandatum recognizes the professor's “lawful freedom of inquiry” and his “responsibility to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church's magisterium.”
Sri, at Benedictine College, says he has no fear of encroachment. “I don't believe the mandatum in any way limits my scholarly pursuits but rather enhances them,” he said. “After all, as a Catholic theologian, I have the responsibility and desire to teach in full communion with the Catholic Church.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bishops' Abuse Point Man Says Rome Doesn't Matter DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:EASTON, Mass. — Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who heads the U.S. Bishops’ National Review Board on Clergy Sexual Abuse, probably didn't intend to dismiss the authority of Pope John Paul II and the Vatican after a recent speech, says Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, director of communications for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Knowing what kind of a Catholic he is, I really don't believe that's what he meant,” Msgr. Maniscalco said.
After giving a speech Oct. 4 at Regis College, a Catholic women's school located just outside Boston in Easton, Mass., Keating was asked what would happen if the Vatican did not fully approve the sexual-abuse policy devised by American bishops at their June meeting in Dallas.
“Whatever Rome does, we're still alive,” Keating told the Boston Globe. “Whatever Rome does, we intend to implement the charter.”
The dismissive reference to the authority of the Vatican is the latest in a series of controversial statements and sound bites by Keating, who was appointed by the U.S. bishops conference in June to monitor implementation of its new policy. Much of the policy, which would invoke particular law on U.S. prelates and mandate specific punishments for offending priests, must be approved by Rome before it becomes official policy.
Keating's Rome comment came after a speech rife with statements challenging the authority of Church hierarchy. In his Regis College remarks, he also criticized a decision by a Boston auxiliary bishop to ban Voice of the Faithful — a dissentdriven organization that says the Church needs to be restructured — from meeting in a North Andover, Mass., parish.
In the same speech, Keating repeated controversial advice he gave to the laity this summer. Keating said anyone who is displeased with the way a prelate handles sexual-abuse accusations should attend Mass in another diocese. Furthermore, Keating said, the faithful should stop writing checks if they disapprove of a bishop's handling of sexual-abuse cases.
‘Adversarial’ Panel
Msgr. Maniscalco said Keating's comments have given rise to concern among some Catholics, who have contacted the conference to ask about the statements or to express concerns. Among the outraged is Jeff Miller of Jacksonville, Fla., who operates a Catholic blog site on the Internet.
“His statements have reflected an ‘us-against-them’ philosophy, lay against clerics,” Miller said. “He has moved from head of an advisory panel to head of an adversarial panel.”
Msgr. Maniscalco said Catholics must be careful not to confuse Keating's sound bites as official words from the conference of bishops. He doubts many Catholics have a hard time making a distinction between Keating's statements and Church doctrine or official stands of the conference of bishops.
For example, Msgr. Maniscalco said, few people would mistake Keating's advice about attending Mass in another diocese as anything other than the governor's personal advice.
“I think people know the bishops would advise them to support their local Church,” Msgr. Maniscalco said. “They know that Gov. Keating is expressing what he might do in that circumstance, rather than what he would expect all Catholics to do.”
In his Regis College speech, however, Keating was clearly trying to encourage disenfranchised Catholics to take action by withholding donations and worshipping elsewhere.
“If a bishop basically said ‘pound sand,’ then what do we do?” Keating asked rhetorically, addressing a hypothetical circumstance in which a bishop failed to implement the sexual-abuse policy. “We vote with our pocketbook and our feet, and we go elsewhere.”
Keating did not return calls to the Register regarding his comments about implementing the charter despite whatever decision comes down from Rome. Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, was away and unavailable for comment when the Register contacted his office.
“I think what [Keating] meant is that there's much in there [the sexual-abuse policy] that can be carried out even if the Holy See doesn't make it particular law or doesn't accept certain aspects of it,” Msgr. Maniscalco said. “There are certain parts of the charter that are discretionary to the U.S. bishops and their pastoral governance of the Church. So that's what he was talking about. What most needs approval of the Vatican are those aspects of the policy that involve penalties for priests.”
Rome will also have to approve the establishment of sexual abuse review boards in every diocese, which involves implementation of particular law in the United States.
“If Rome didn't grant the review boards this particular law, it would mean they would not be required,” Msgr. Maniscalco said. “But the individual bishops could put them into action voluntarily. Anything that isn't mandated by Rome could still be done as a matter of choice by bishops, and that's what Gov. Keating was trying to get across.”
Removing Bishops
After the announcement of his appointment in Dallas, Keating said he would seek ways to have bishops removed from authority should they be found to have mishandled past complaints about sexual abuse.
“That's not the work of the board that Gov. Keating heads,” Msgr. Maniscalco said. “Again, that might be something he personally would take on, but that's not the work of the board. Gov. Keating has worked very responsibly to bring about an effective board to help with compliance of the charter.
“I think sometimes when the media insist on bringing up the issues they like to bring up, you see these kinds of statements. But when you see him working with his board, I see someone who is very effective in trying to bring about the situation that board was established for, which is to see that the bishops are getting compliance with the charter.”
In June, and again during his Regis College speech, Keating expressed outrage at the way Cardinal Bernard Law, Boston archbishop, handled past sexual-abuse cases that became media spectacles last spring. Despite that, and despite his criticism of the decision to ban Voice of the Faithful, the Boston Archdiocese is officially pleased with Keating's performance.
“Gov. Keating has the right, as does anyone, to voice his own opinion,” said Donna Morrissey, Cabinet secretary of communication for the Archdiocese of Boston.
Support for Dissenters
Certainly he has the right, acknowledges Miller. But Miller says it was unwise for Keating — considering his position of authority — to defend Voice of the Faithful as an organization worthy of accommodation by the Church.
Several bishops have banned Voice of the Faithful meetings from taking place on Church property, due to the prominent place the group has given to individuals and groups that dissent openly from Church teachings. At a Boston Voice of the Faithful regional meeting in July, for example, the list of invited speakers included proponents of women's ordination and opponents of Catholic teachings on sexuality, along with Debra Haffner, former director of counseling, education and public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington.
In a July 20 press release, C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, said, “What we are witnessing here today is the cynical exploitation of a tragedy by dissidents with an agenda. When an organization which purports to be Catholic has a speaker affiliated with Planned Parenthood, it tells us all we need to know about its alleged Catholic credentials. The presence of Debra Haffner, along with representatives of the Women's Ordination Conference, CORPUS and Call to Action makes a mockery of VOTF's pretentions to be Catholic.”
Given Voice of the Faithful's outlook, Miller said Keating was wrong to criticize Church leaders for barring the dissent-dominated group.
“True debate in the context of Church teaching can be beneficial, but Voice of the Faithful does not truly speak to this context, regardless of public statements made to the contrary,” Miller said.
Miller concluded, “All of this only goes to further prove G.K. Chesterton's maxim: ‘The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.’”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: Keating has proved a lightning rod for controversy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugese ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Patrick Madrid Surprised by Success DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:He has engaged for the last 15 years as a full-time apologist for the Catholic faith and will soon be a grandfather.
He spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about his work and his most recent book, Surprised by Truth 3.
The last time we spoke, your book
Actually, I've had five additional books published since Pope Fiction came out three years ago: Surprised by Truth 2, Where Is That In the Bible?, Why Is That In Tradition?, Search and Rescue, and most recently, Surprised by Truth 3. I guess it's no exaggeration to say I've been trying to concentrate on writing books!
2001 and 2002 have been hectic but very fulfilling and happy years. It seems I'm busier now than ever with new book projects and public speaking. Though first, I concentrate on being a good husband and father. God has blessed me in allowing me to work mainly from home, and that helps a lot. It looks like I'm on schedule to publish a book or two per year for the next several years with Our Sunday Visitor Press and Sophia Institute Press. Envoy magazine is thriving. We're working hard to increase our circulation and are always looking for opportunities to improve the magazine and load up the Web site with even more apologetics content.
The balance of my time is spent doing public speaking at parishes and universities around the United States and in Europe. I've been fortunate that many priests and bishops have invited me to speak to their dioceses. The public speaking helps me maintain a “sharp edge” in apologetics and keeps me plugged in to the kinds of questions and concerns many people raise today about the Catholic Church.
Didn't you recently debate prominent Protestant apologist James White? How did that go?
On July 11 we had a four-hour public debate on the communion of saints at a convention center on Long Island. Nearly 1,000 people attended, about evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. I defended the thesis that prayer to and veneration of the saints, as well as veneration of images that represent them, is consistent with Scripture and Christian tradition.
Jim concentrated on what amounted to a single argument — that veneration of the saints and asking their intercession, as well as the veneration of icons and images, such as a crucifix, constitutes idolatry. At one point during the debate, as I was explaining from Scripture the proper use of sacred images, I raised up a large crucifix, holding it before the audience. “Since we are talking about icons, I thought it would be beneficial to actually show you one,” I said. The Catholics in the audience were smiling and seemed happy to see the crucifix raised high. Many Protestants, however, had a look of consternation on their faces. The room became hushed.
I told them that, if they believed what my opponent was telling them, that icons are really idols that cannot be shown honor, then similarly, it wouldn't matter if an icon were shown dishonor. Therefore, I explained, the Protestants in the audience should have no problem coming forward to stomp on or spit upon the crucifix I was holding. I asked rhetorically how many would be willing to do this? I then added that none would be willing to show disrespect to that icon of Christ because, even though the wood itself was meaningless, they knew in their hearts that to show disrespect to the icon would be to show disrespect for Christ himself.
How much more so, I added, would the veneration of the icon show respect for Christ. It was an electric moment for the audience, and my opponent was not able to offer a coherent response to that point.
How is
Surprised by Truth 3 was published Oct. 1 and had pre-sold nearly 10,000 copies before it was released. The “Surprised by Truth formula” for this volume is that of the first two: first-person conversion stories of non-Catholics and former Catholics who came back. The first volume featured 11 testimonies. The second had 14. Volume 3 has 10 stories, plus my chapter on what it is about Catholic truth that “surprises” non-Catholics so deeply. This volume has an incredibly rich and powerful mix of conversion stories.
What
I see God frequently using five key elements to surprise people with Catholic truth.
They include: 1) Authority. When a Protestant convert realizes the Bible does not teach sola scriptura (the Bible alone), it is a mindblowing experience. 2) History. Examining the facts of Christian history, that the early Christians were Catholic, not Protestant, is incredibly powerful. As Cardinal John Henry Newman said, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” 3) The power of beauty. God often uses the beauty of architecture, music and sacred art to initially draw someone to the Church. 4) The Eucharist. Realizing Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist draws people inexorably. 5) Personal testimony. When non-Catholics encounter the often-powerful, lived testimony of Christ by faithful Catholics, it helps them see the grace of Christ operating in the Catholic Church in ways they may have been blind to before.
You spend a lot of time speaking with people on the road during your Surprised by Truth seminars. What do you find people are hungering for?
Wherever I speak, I have found that people all have experiences in common. First, they know the pain and frustration of seeing Catholics leave the Church and go into some other religious group. Many of these people are parents of adult children who have left the Church, and they know the anguish of not seeing their grandchildren baptized or receive the sacraments.
Second, Catholics everywhere know the frustration of not having a good answer to tough questions about the faith people sometimes ask them. They want to know what they can do to remedy both of these situations. In my seminars, I endeavor to show lay Catholics how they can begin reaching out to non-Catholics and those who have left the Catholic Church as well as how they can fortify themselves in their knowledge of the Catholic faith.
----- EXCERPT: As the founder and publisher of Envoy magazine, bestselling author of eight books and the father of 11 children, Patrick Madrid is, suffice it to say, a busy man. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Legatus at 15: Christ's Ambassadors in the American Marketplace DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Tom Monaghan's greatest passions in life are his Catholic faith and pizza.
In 1960 Monaghan, now 65, bought a foundering pizzeria called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti, Mich., and through tireless labor and remarkable business ingenuity built it into the Domino's Pizza empire.
This December will mark the fourth anniversary since he sold Domino's, but Monaghan is far from being retired: No longer concerned with delivering pizzas, he can concentrate his talents on delivering the Gospel message throughout the business world through the Legatus organization he founded 15 years ago.
According to Monaghan, it was during a trip to Rome to see Pope John Paul II in 1987 that the Holy Spirit inspired him to found Legatus. “It occurred to me that there should be an organization like the Young Presidents Organization, but for Catholics,” he said.
Named after the Latin word for “ambassador,” Legatus is an association of Catholic CEOs and presidents whose mission is “to study, live and spread the faith in our business, professional and personal lives.”
“It boils down to one thing — to help members to be better Catholics,” Monaghan said. “Members of Legatus are ambassadors of their faith. They are people who are role models.”
Legatus Executive Director Stephen Beal pointed out the longtime need for an organization like Legatus. “There were many ministries but no ministry for the Catholic CEO who has many responsibilities and temptations,” he said.
The Holy Father himself reminded Church leaders in 1999 that the rich and powerful have souls, too. “Love for the poor must be preferential, but not exclusive,” the Pope declared. “The leading sector of society have been neglected, and many people have thus been estranged from the Church.”
Legatus now has 45 chapters with more than 3,000 members in the United States and Toronto. Each chapter comprises 20 to 60 couples —Catholic business leaders and their spouses — and meets monthly to attend Mass, have dinner and hear a keynote speaker who talks on a topic of the faith or some aspect of business and morality.
Chapters also conduct retreats and conferences as well as “forums” that meet frequently to provide spiritual formation, education about the faith and moral support.
Monaghan said he has heard about many positive effects from chapters’ monthly gatherings. “There's a lot of great stories of [Legatus members] going to confession more often, saying the rosary every day and serving the Church in various ways as a result of the Legatus experience,” he said. “Every member's knowledge of the faith has increased and strengthened.”
Rita Illig Liebelt, 44, president of Illig Construction Co. in Los Angeles, has been a Legatus member for four years. Initially hesitant about joining “another group,” she attended a meeting of the Pasadena chapter and was immediately hooked.
“My husband and I thought, ‘This is different,’” she said. “It was terrific that people could come together, have a Mass together and learn to be better equipped to bring our faith and values into our everyday lives.”
Liebelt, who served as chapter president last year, said she has benefited greatly from Legatus’ faithbuilding activities. “The retreats have helped me to schedule a prayer life and stick to it,” she said. “We're responsible for a lot of people's lives and livelihoods.”
Liebelt added that the spiritual formation she has received from Legatus has helped her make critical business decisions. “What would Jesus be telling me to do? I try to keep the compassion and sensitivity that gets lost when making business decisions,” she said.
For Monaghan, sharing with employees is caring about them. “A lot of it boils down to sharing your goals and problems with your employees,” he said. “Workers appreciate it. Their job makes more sense to them.”
Chaplain's Perspective
Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, president of Gonzaga University and national chaplain of Legatus, stressed the need for spiritually well-formed leaders in a growing era of corporate scandals. “That just shows the need for Legatus,” he said. “When you have leaders trying to be ambassadors of Christ, they can do so much good.”
“Legatus members will get together and get proactive,” he said. “They'll do things within a diocese, for a church or for Catholic charities. They're generous, spiritually aware individuals. They're naturally going to get together and do things.”
Martin Hogan, 34, president of U.S. Intermodal Corp. in Savannah, Ga., and his wife have been members for the past five years. Hogan was inspired by Monaghan's example. “Tom Monaghan is hip,” he said. “Here's this guy who's into pizza chains and baseball and still has time for the Lord.”
Hogan noted that Legatus has been instrumental in keeping him humble. “The Catholic Church has the tools. Some of us forget where the shed is. You become selfish. Pride takes over. You don't attribute it to faith, but yourself. Legatus helps you remember how you got there.”
Hogan also likes that Legatus focuses on family. “A lot of people don't get caught up in organizations because they take away from your wife and kids,” he observed. “This thing [Legatus] is open to your spouse. Both of you can join.”
Beal, too, emphasized the importance Legatus places on a Catholic CEO's spouse. According to Beal, husbands and wives are as much a part of Legatus as their spouses who are CEOs or presidents of companies.
Although Legatus as an organization does not take any official political or social stands, Father Spitzer believes members can use their influence positively to affect society and culture at large. “Not just on a Catholic level,” he said, “but also nationally, in faith, ethics, education. At the end of the day, they're people who genuinely love their Church.”
As money and power continue to corrupt many in the business world, Legatus members appear to be sincerely striving to be as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves.
“We've built our company on values and honesty,” Liebelt said. “You're tempted with competition that doesn't do that. But if we don't get the job, that's fine. We won't compromise, and the day we have to is the day we close our doors.”
Martin Mazloom writes from Monterey Park, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Martin Mazloom ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Amazon Sells Pedophile Books
WORLDNETDAILY.COM, Oct. 2 — Columnist Art Moore has revealed on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com that the online bookseller Amazon.com openly and knowingly sells books advocating sex between adult men and boys.
Two such books it sells are Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers by David Riegel, and “another book apparently published by the North American Man-Boy Love Association called Loving Boys,” according to Moore. In that book the author admits that he “eschews both the common Judeo-Christian belief that man-boy contacts are morally wrong and the traditional psychiatric premise (never honestly tested) that they are unnatural, perverted and harmful for boys.”
The U.S. Justice Foundation, a conservative think tank, has threatened to sue Amazon.com for “contributing to the potential rape and molestation of children,” by selling these books.
In response to threatened lawsuits, boycotts and prosecution, Amazon.com released a statement saying it did not endorse the ideas contained in such books but believed “people have the right to choose their own reading material. … Our goal is to support freedom of expression and to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover and buy any title they might be seeking.”
Bush Gives Green Light to Condom Cash
Some 800,000 more New Yorkers will now be eligible for the expanded program, according to The New York Daily News.
“It's an enormous breakthrough,” crowed Joanne Smith, a lobbyist for contraceptive services.
Bush administration officials claimed they had never been opposed in principle to the expansion of such services, as contraceptive advocates had claimed.
Pro-Abortion ‘Catholics’ Grab Abuse Issue
The testimony will take place in Geneva next week, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
The witness, Mark Furnish, 31, is an attorney based in Albany. He has accused Father Robert O'Neill, now a suspended priest, of abusing him in the early 1980s. Furnish will also speak at a Rome news conference.
According to Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for Free Choice: “We want to talk about the problem of clergy sexual abuse, which is a worldwide problem. We want the committee to engage the Vatican in a conversation regarding this problem and to ask the Vatican what it is doing about it.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Muzzling Miss America: Beauty Queen Defies Ban on Promoting Purity DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Erika Harold may be wearing the crown, but it's not certain that she has the microphone — at least not when she wants to promote sexual abstinence.
Crowned Miss America 2003 on Sept. 21, Harold said Oct. 8 pageant officials had ordered her not to talk publicly about abstinence, the cause she championed as a beauty pageant contestant in Illinois.
Harold, from Urbana, Ill., told The Washington Times that “there are pressures from some sides to not promote abstinence.”
On Oct. 9 she told reporters at a press conference in suburban Chicago that her complaints had succeeded in removing the muzzle imposed by pageant officials.
Harold said Miss America Chief Executive George Bauer had rescinded the prohibition on speaking about abstinence, The Washington Times reported.
“I don't think the pageant organizers really understood how much I am identified with the abstinence message,” Harold said at a ceremony crowning her successor as Miss Illinois.
“If I don't speak about it now as Miss America,” she said, “I will be disappointing the thousands of young people throughout Illinois who need assurance that waiting until marriage for sex is the right thing to do.”
However, The Washington Times reported that as of Oct. 9, Bauer had still declined to make a public statement regarding the pageant's position. But Harold said at her press conference that he would issue a statement affirming her freedom to promote abstinence “in the next few days.”
Harold has advocated premarital chastity throughout Illinois on behalf of Project Reality, a Chicago-based nonprofit that has been a pioneer in the field of abstinence education. By the time she was crowned Miss Illinois in June, Harold had presented that message to more than 14,000 young people.
Since 1990, Miss America and affiliated state pageants have required contestants to adopt an official “platform” issue. Harold won the Miss Illinois contest with her platform of “Teen-age Sexual Abstinence: Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself.”
“The Miss Illinois state board asked all candidates to sign a pledge that if they won they would adopt the state issue of violence prevention,” said Kathleen Sullivan, director of Project Reality. “Erika agreed to sign that pledge because sexual involvement is one of the chief causes of teen violence. She could make abstinence part of the overall message. Now she is being pressured to talk only about violence prevention.”
Happened Before
It's a tactic other pageant winners have said is common.
“The pageant people see [abstinence promotion] as a political issue rather than a moral one,” said Mary-Louise Kurey, 1999 Miss Wisconsin. “When I competed and won Miss Wisconsin with the abstinence platform, the Miss America pageant contacted the Miss Wisconsin state board and encouraged them to have me change my platform.”
“The board approached me and told me that I could change my platform to character education and have abstinence be a part of it, but they left the decision up to me,” Kurey recalled. “I said, ‘No way.’ This message is too important to water down.”
According to Kurey, some states ask candidates to adopt a state platform, “but with Miss America, her platform is whatever she has won the state competition with. Just because you win the crown does not mean that you lose your right to freedom of speech.”
“Erika won saying that she would speak about this issue,” Kurey continued. “They are wrong to try to take that away from her. She has encouraged teens to be abstinent for years. Her heart is in this issue.”
Harold and Kurey are not alone. Project Reality has identified more than 30 Miss America candidates who chose abstinence before marriage as their platform. In fact, a group including both Harold and Kurey testified before Congress on increased funding for abstinence education last April.
The morning after winning the title, Harold told Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” that she was not asked to change her platform.
“When you win the state title, you find some way to incorporate a message that is really important to you into the violence prevention platform,” Harold told Sawyer. “So it's not that you change what you're talking about, but you expand your message and broaden it so that you really touch a lot of lives during the year.”
Asked whether she would continue to talk about abstinence, she responded, “That will be something I talk about, but I'm going to talk about it in the context of youth violence prevention and how promiscuity and teen pregnancy can be a risk factor in terms of violence and destructive behaviors.”
Still, others wonder if Harold wasn't being bullied.
“The Illinois pageant people are putting a lot of pressure on Erika. They're going with the platform that is most politically correct,” said Libby Gray, public relations director with Project Reality.
“We are hoping that the Miss America people will see that it is to their advantage to let Erika talk about this issue, which is so important to her and will reach hundreds of thousands of students,” she added.
‘Changed My Life’
Gray mentioned an e-mail a young girl from an inner-city Chicago school sent to Harold after she won the crown. The e-mail asked her to continue her abstinence message.
“You changed my life because of what you said, and now I made the decision to be abstinent because of what you said,” the e-mail stated. “I really hope that as Miss America you continue to share that because it changed my life and I think it can change lots of others.”
“It's a great witness to what her message could do,” Gray said.
“I would hate to think that there are kids all over the country who now wonder, you know, ‘Did I make the right decision in making that commitment, if this person who inspired me to do it no longer is willing to share that commitment on the national stage?’” Harold said. “I would feel like a hypocrite if I did not.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.N. Intern Program Gives Young Catholics Overview of International Church DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — Two young Canadian women are working at the Vatican mission to the United Nations in an internship program that lets young adult Catholics not only see the Church's contribution in the international arena but become a part of it.
Julianne Rawson, 28, said in a recent interview at the mission in New York that she was on the staff working with Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, national director of World Youth Day 2002, when in February “he not so much asked me as told me that this internship was what I would be doing next.”
A 1997 graduate of the University of Toronto, she had known previous interns and learned from them that the internship, which began Sept. 9, was an “intense but rewarding” experience.
“It will be fascinating to learn how the Church represents itself diplomatically on an international level,” she said. “It's already been an eye-opener.”
Julie Korol, 24, also worked on the World Youth Day staff after her graduation in 2001 but said Father Rosica asked her to start planning for the U.N. internship when she was still just a secondyear student at the University of Toronto and he was director of its Newman Center.
“This is a tremendous honor,” she said. “I'm excited about being a part of the Church's voice at the U.N.”
Church teaching can have a positive effect on the kind of issues the United Nations handles, she said.
In a telephone interview from Toronto, Father Rosica said the intern idea originated in 1995, when he brought Archbishop Renato Martino, the Vatican's U.N. nuncio, to the Newman Center for a lecture on “The Holy See in the International Arena.”
During an informal session with a group of students afterward, some told the nuncio they would like to work with the Church in that kind of activity, Father Rosica told CNS.
“Archbishop Martino turned to me and told me to do something,” he said.
The first interns were Kishore Jayabalan, a U.S. citizen who went to Toronto to study, and then Larissa Gray, a Canadian from the Diocese of Peter-borough.
Initially the internship is for one year but can be extended. The first interns proved their worth and wanted to continue, so their service was extended.
After that Jayabalan remained interested in working with the Church and went to Rome to join the staff of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Gray returned to Canada to take a major staff position with Father Rosica preparing for World Youth Day and handling follow-up.
As their successors, Father Rosica selected Larissa Gray's brother, Rhys Gray, and another Canadian, Marisa de Souza. They also served beyond the initial year.
Father Rosica said in the interview he was to spend a few more months winding up his work for World Youth Day, held July 23-28 in Toronto, but expected his order would assign him to a chaplaincy at another university. There, he said, he would continue to find outstanding young people for the internship program.
“It's a unique and wonderful opportunity for young adults to serve the Church,” he said.
Father Rosica said he received funding for the program from two philanthropists — Fred Hill of Regina, Saskatchewan, and Dominique de Menil, a Houston resident, now deceased, who with her husband was known for founding the Rothko Chapel there. Money also came from an agency of his order and other contributors, he said.
In New York, support is provided by the Path to Peace Foundation, an agency established by Archbishop Martino to carry out projects that are related to the U.N. mission's work but are not included in its budget.
Archbishop Martino said the Vatican Secretariat of State approved the internship program without raising any objections, and the Canadian bishops gave “enthusiastic approval” when he told them about it.
“The benefits are multifaceted,” he said. “In the first place, it gives international experience to young Catholics and enables them to gain an appreciation of the Church's work in the international arena.”
Put into situations where they deal with ambassadors and other senior personnel, they get a “crash formation” course in the Church's diplomatic work, he said.
But the nuncio said the interns also helped the mission by carrying out all the various activities connected with staying abreast of U.N. work and making the Church's views known.
“They participate in our staff meetings on an equal basis, and they are assigned all sorts of other tasks,” he said.
The interns sometimes have delivered statements at the United Nations, which gives them the rare opportunity as young adults to speak to representatives of the entire international community on behalf of the whole Church.
At times, they have been sent abroad to serve on Vatican delegations to international conferences.
Archbishop Martino said he has received requests from other schools to arrange internships for their students and has taken a few on a shortterm basis.
The program will be expanded if more funds can be found, he said.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tracy Early ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prayer Intentions DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:GENERAL INTENTION
That parishes and catechists may work together for the new evangelization. That catechists may have the prayers and collaboration of their parish communities for the successful accomplishment of the new evangelization.
MISSION INTENTION
That proclaimers of the word teach Christ's love for the poor. That missionaries, priests, religious and the laity courageously teach Jesus Christ's love for the poor.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Pope Receives an ‘Arms’ Chair
WWW.NEWS24.COM (South Africa), Oct. 2 — Artists from the African nation of Mozambique gave Pope John Paul II an armchair crafted out of dismantled weapons left over from that country's decades-long civil war, which was resolved with the help of the Catholic lay apostolate, the Community of Sant'Egidio.
News24.com, an Internet news source for South Africa, reported the artists presented the Holy Father with the chair during his weekly audience on Oct. 2 with some 15,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. The artists are exhibiting other works in Rome.
After the audience, sculptor Fiel Dos Santos told News24.com, “The Pope expressed his wish that our country will live in peace after so many terrible years.”
The artists also gave John Paul a symbolic pickaxe in honor of the peacemaking campaign begun in 1996 when the ecumenical Christian Council offered people pickaxes in return for turning in their weapons. Two years later, sculptors associated with the group “Nucleo de Arte” volunteered to turn the weapons into artworks that celebrated peace.
The Holy Father also offered greetings to the people of Mozambique, who celebrated “10 years of peace without weapons in their hands.”
Orthodox Patriarch Welcomed by Pope
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Oct. 7 — After meeting pilgrims who came for the canonization of Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá, Pope John Paul II welcomed a visit from Teoctist, the Orthodox patriarch of Romania, according to the Vatican Information Service.
“Beatitude and dear brother,” said the Pope in Romanian. “You are making this visit animated by the sentiments and the hopes that I myself feel. Your current visit is a purifying act of our memories of division, of often-strong confrontation, of acts and words that have led to painful separations. The future, in any case, is not a dark and unknown tunnel. It is lit by God's grace: on it the invigorating light of the Spirit shines in a consoling way. This certainty prevails not only over every human discouragement or fatigue that at times hinders our steps; it convinces us above all that nothing is impossible for God, and that, therefore, if we will be worthy of it, he will grant us the gift of full unity.”
Princess Invites Pope to Visit Sweden Next Year
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 4 — Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden brought greetings to Pope John Paul II and once again invited him to visit that Lutheran country in honor of the famous St. Brigid of Sweden.
Princess Victoria, 25, met with the Holy Father briefly as she visited Rome. According to Associated Press, she invited the Pope to attend celebrations from May 31 to June 1, 2003, at Vadstena, site of the convent St. Brigid founded, to mark the 700th anniversary of St. Brigid's birth.
“He's a fantastic man,” the princess concluded about the Pope. Papal spokesmen made no statement about whether the Pope would be able to make the trip.
Associated Press noted that although John Paul has trouble standing, he insisted on getting up from his chair for a group photo with the princess and her associates.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Drafts Directives Against Admitting and Ordaining Homosexuals DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has prepared a draft document containing directives against the admission of homosexuals to the priesthood, informed Vatican sources said.
The document takes the position that since the Church considers the homosexual orientation “objectively disordered,” such people should not be admitted to the seminary or ordained, the sources said Oct. 8.
The question of excluding homosexuals from the priesthood had been quietly considered at the Vatican for years without finding a consensus. It received new and more urgent attention in the wake of U.S. clerical sexabuse cases, many of which involved homosexual acts.
The Congregation for Catholic Education prepared the draft document in collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and other Vatican agencies, the sources said. The draft was being circulated for comment in October among a wide range of consultants, including theologians, canon lawyers and other experts, they said.
At the same time, the education congregation has finished work on a separate document that examines how psychological sciences can be used in discerning vocations — another hotly debated issue at the Vatican in recent years. Its publication was expected before the end of the year.
The document on psychological testing will take the form of guidelines for bishops to use in their seminaries, the sources said.
The draft document on homosexuals, however, will take the form of norms, to be used throughout the universal Church, they said.
“The document's position [on admission of homosexuals to the priesthood] is negative, based in part on what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says in its revised edition, that the homosexual orientation is ‘objectively disordered,’” said one source.
“Therefore, independent of any judgment on the homosexual person, a person of this orientation should not be admitted to the seminary and, if it is discovered later, should not be ordained,” he said.
Last year Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, said in a Catholic News Service interview, “Persons with a homosexual inclination should not be admitted to the seminary.”
In September a U.S. Vatican official at the Congregation for Bishops, Father Andrew Baker, articulated arguments against acceptance of homosexuals as priesthood candidates in an article published in the U.S. Jesuit magazine America.
Father Baker said that if a man has a predominant or exclusive same-sex attraction, that in itself is grounds for bishops to have “a prudent doubt regarding the candidate's suitability” for receiving the sacrament of orders. Church law says if such a doubt exists the person should not be ordained.
Father Baker said homosexuality was a “disordered attraction” that can “never ‘image’ God and never contribute to the good of the person or society.” He cited potential difficulties for homosexual seminarians or priests; they included problems dealing with their tendencies in a largely heterosexual society, questions about adherence to Church teachings and possible temptations presented in male environments like the seminary or the priesthood.
Father Baker said his article reflected his personal opinion and not the official position of the Vatican. While some Vatican officials have expressed similar views, others are concerned that such an attempt to “weed out” candidates to the priesthood would rely too heavily on interpretive evaluations of an individual's sexuality.
The officials who spoke to Catholic News Service said there was no definitive time frame for the document on homosexuality and admission to the priesthood.
“Only the Holy Spirit knows that,” said one official.
Because of the sensitivity of the issues involved, Pope John Paul II and other top Vatican officials will be carefully reviewing it before publication, the sources said.
“There could be changes, especially because this is an interdicasterial [interdepartmental] work. There are some passages that must be written with very careful attention,” said one official.
The wording in the catechism that describes the homosexual inclination as “objectively disordered” was added when the definitive Latin text of the catechism was released in 1997. Earlier editions of the catechism said homosexual acts were intrinsically disordered and said homosexual tendencies represented a trial for most people.
The document on psychological testing, titled “Orientations for the Use of Psychological Methods in the Admission and Formation of Candidates to the Priesthood,” was discussed at the education congregation's plenary assembly in February.
At that time, the Pope told the congregation's members that guidelines on the use of psychology to evaluate seminary candidates could ensure that such decisions are made with “a wider sense of awareness.”
The Holy Father said the support from psychological sciences should be used in a balanced way as part of the overall vocational path, integrated in a candidate's formation program. He said recourse to psychological methods should only be understood in the context of the “climate of faith” that marks the vocational decision.
Psychological methods “do not eliminate every type of difficulty and tension, but favor a wider sense of awareness and a freer exercise of liberty” when it comes to the challenging choice of a priestly vocation, he said.
Many Vatican officials have privately voiced apprehension about over-reliance on psychological methods to screen candidates to the priesthood. The document is said to address those concerns by stressing a balanced approach that recognizes the potential contributions of psychology, but within a limited sphere of competence.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Every Person Has a Vocation DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Register Summary
More than 16,000 people from more than 26 different countries gathered in St. Peter's Square for Pope John Paul II's general audience on Oct. 9. He continued his teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours with a meditation on Psalm 67.
“God will grant a vocation even to those who do not belong to his chosen community,” the Holy Father remarked. Moreover, he noted, all people are called to discover his plan for salvation, “his Kingdom of light and peace.”
The Pope said God's blessing is the greatest good to which every person can aspire. “According to the psalmist, this blessing, which has been poured upon Israel, will be like the seed of grace and salvation that will be planted throughout the entire world and throughout history, ready to blossom into a thriving tree.”
John Paul pointed out that the Fathers of the Church associated this psalm with Christ, the fruit of the Virgin Mary's womb, who is now offered as food for man in the Eucharist.
The Holy Father ended his audience with an appeal to all people to pray the rosary during the month of October, which is traditionally dedicated to the rosary. He also prayed for peace in the Ivory Coast, which has been torn by conflicts and strife for several weeks.
We have just heard the voice of the psalmist from of old, as he raised a joyful song of thanksgiving to the Lord. This is a short but compelling text that nonetheless encompasses a vast panorama, embracing in thought all the peoples of the earth.
This universalistic openness [to the possibility that non-Jews could also be saved] probably reflects the prophetic spirit of the era following the Babylonian exile, when it was hoped that God would lead even foreigners to his Holy Mountain, where they would be filled with joy. Their sacrifices and burnt offerings would be pleasing, because the Lord's Temple would become “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).
In Psalm 67, the universal choir of nations is invited to join in Israel's praise at the Temple of Zion. In fact, the following antiphon is repeated twice: “May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you!” (verses 4 and 6).
Salvation Is for All
God will grant a vocation even to those who do not belong to his chosen community. Indeed, they are all called to know the “way” he has revealed to Israel. The “way” is God's plan for salvation, his Kingdom of light and peace, whose functioning will involve even the pagans, who are invited to hear Yahweh's voice. The result of listening obediently to him is fear of the Lord to “all the ends of the earth” (verse 8), an expression that does not evoke a sense of dread but rather worshipful respect of the transcendent, glorious mystery of God.
At the beginning and end of the psalm, the insistent desire for God's blessing is expressed: “May God be gracious to us and bless us; may God's face shine upon us. … God, our God, blesses us. May God bless us still” (verses 2, 7-8).
It is easy to hear in these words an echo of the famous priestly blessing that Moses taught in God's name to Aaron and to the descendents of the priestly tribe: “The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!” (Numbers 6:24-26).
A Life of Fruitfulness
According to the psalmist, this blessing, which has been poured upon Israel, will be like the seed of grace and salvation that will be planted throughout the entire world and throughout history, ready to blossom into a thriving tree.
It also makes us think of the promise the Lord made to Abraham on the day that he chose him: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. … All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Genesis 12:2-3).
According to biblical tradition, one of the tangible effects of God's blessing is the gift of life, fruitfulness and fertility.
The psalm explicitly refers to this concrete reality, which is so precious for our existence: “The earth has yielded its harvest” (verse 7). This observation has led scholars to see a link between this psalm and the thanksgiving rites that were offered for an abundant harvest, which was a sign of God's favor and a testimony for other peoples of the Lord's closeness to Israel.
God's Ultimate Blessing
This same phrase caught the attention of the Fathers of the Church, who took its agricultural perspective to a symbolic level. Thus, Origen applied this verse to the Virgin Mary and to the Eucharist — to Christ, who comes forth from the flower, which is the Virgin, and who becomes fruit that can be eaten. From this perspective, “the earth is Holy Mary, who comes from our earth, from our seed, from this mud, from this clay, from Adam.” This earth has given its fruit: What it lost in paradise, it has found again in the Son. “Earth has given its fruit: First its produced a flower … then this flower became fruit so that we might eat it, so that we might eat his flesh. Do you want to know what this fruit is? It is the Virgin from the Virgin, the Lord from the handmaid, God from man, the Son from the Mother, the fruit from the earth” (74 Omelie sul libro dei Salmi, Milan 1993, p. 141).
Let us end with some words from St. Augustine's commentary on this psalm. He identifies the fruit that has blossomed from the earth with the newness that Christ's coming produces in men — the newness that is conversion and the fruit of praising God.
Indeed, “the earth was full of thorns,” he explains. But “the hand of him who uproots drew near, the voice of his majesty and of his mercy drew near, and the earth began to give praise. Now the earth is giving fruit.” Of course, it would not have given fruit “if it had not first been watered” with rain, “if God's mercy from on high had not come first.” But now we are seeing ripe fruit in the Church thanks to the preaching of the Apostles: “Then, by sending rain through his clouds — through the Apostles who proclaimed the truth — ‘the earth has yielded its fruit’ more abundantly, and this harvest has now filled the entire world” (Esposizioni sui Salmi; II, Rome 1970, p. 551).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Catholic Missions Bring Welcome Relief to War-Battered Palestinians DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM — Arkaid Bakley smiles broadly as she turns on the tap to her kitchen sink and watches the water flow. Besides the sink, the kitchen boasts a table and little else, but Bakley, 64, is beaming.
The tiny Christian Quarter apartment she and her husband — who are both Christians — share was in terrible disrepair before Pontifical Mission for Palestine performed what she calls “a miracle.”
The Pontifical Mission for Palestine, a humanitarian aid organization, along with more than a dozen other Catholic organizations are actively assisting Palestinians in need of everything from health care to playgrounds. They repair homes and provide jobs and vocational training to help the needy help themselves.
For 45 years the top-floor oneroom apartment the Bakleys rent had no running water. Their toilet, a hole in the ground dating back to Turkish times, was one flight down a precarious set of stone stairs that is exposed to the elements.
Pontifical Mission for Palestine paid for a waterline to be installed in the Bakleys’ makeshift kitchen, for new floor tiles and for a tin roof to replace the existing asbestos roof. They also installed a modern toilet and sink in the downstairs bathroom. Unfortunately, they were unable to build an upstairs bathroom, but Bakley isn't complaining.
“Look, I don't have to buy bottles of water or go to my neighbor's,” she said.
Pope Pius XII founded the mission in 1949 to care for the estimated 800,000 Palestinians who lost their homes when Arab armies attacked the newly established State of Israel in 1948.
Another of the mission's charities, Catholic Relief Services, often partners with the World Food Bank and the U.S. government's USAID program to provide food, work and shelter to Palestinians in the Middle East.
Stepping Up Aid
Since the start two years ago of the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, Catholic relief organizations have stepped up their assistance in response to urgent appeals from desperate Arab families.
Due to the intifada and Israeli army closures and curfews, tens of thousands of wage earners are without work and their families sometimes go hungry. Many homes and businesses have been damaged or destroyed in Palestinian-Israeli clashes.
Because of the ever-dwindling number of Christians in the Palestinian-ruled areas — Christians comprise only about 2% of the population, and more are leaving all the time — the overwhelming majority of Catholic aid earmarked for Palestinians actually goes to Muslims.
“We work on the basis of need, not creed,” said Don Rogers, the Holy Land's country representative for Catholic Relief Services, explaining why his organization does not distinguish between Christian and Muslim recipients. “Palestinians in general are in need.”
“We are all Palestinians, Christians and Muslims,” insisted Father Raed Abusahlia, former chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. “We all are experiencing the same difficulties.”
According to relief workers, the No. 1 problem for Palestinians is the high rate of unemployment. Catholic Relief Services addresses this problem by funding projects in the West Bank and Gaza — and elsewhere in the Middle East — that utilize the skills of unemployed Palestinians.
“We help create jobs,” Rogers explained, “whether it be through building a road or digging a cistern. We try to give unemployed people their dignity.”
In cooperation with the World Food Program, the organization also distributes basic foodstuffs to some 10,000 families in Bethlehem, Jenin, Hebron and the Gaza Strip.
The Pontifical Mission for Palestine has a similar strategy: to employ local workers in communitybased development projects.
“The greatest need people here have is work,” said Father Guido Gockel, Pontifical Mission for Palestine's regional director. “When men and women can't work, something inside them dies.”
One recent project enlisted the cooking skills of local women in Jericho, who then sold their food in local supermarkets. Another entailed repairing sidewalks.
One ongoing project employs laborers to renovate homes in desperate need of modernization. In the Old City of Jerusalem, for example, many residents reside in hovels on the verge of collapse.
“We recently renovated the home of an elderly man who lost a leg,” said Rose Karborani, a Pontifical Mission for Palestine caseworker, giving a tour of the Old City's Christian Quarter. Due to the small but steady stream of emigration by Jerusalem's Christians and overcrowding in the adjacent Muslim Quarter, the Christian section of the Old City is now predominantly Muslim.
Entering a small stone courtyard shared by several Christian families, Karborani described the old man's plight.
“His rooftop apartment had no glass in the windows,” she said. “His bathroom didn't have a toilet, just a hole in the ground.”
Thankful for Help
Sara Musa, a 70-year-old Christian who resides with her daughter and four other relatives in a dark, damp two-room apartment in the Christian Quarter, is also grateful for the help the family has received from Catholic charities.
Dressed in a traditionally embroidered Palestinian robe and a cross around her neck, Musa showed a visitor how a cadre of volunteers renovated her kitchen and bathroom, which are separated from her flat by the length of a courtyard.
“We have a toilet and a sink in the bathroom,” said Musa's daughter, Rifka. “And the kitchen was expanded, painted and plastered against moisture.”
A large percentage of the Old City's original buildings, some dating back hundreds of years, have few windows and little sunlight, promoting the growth of mold.
Although one of the apartment's two rooms has also been treated against humidity, the domed ceilings are already peeling, revealing a hint of dampness underneath.
“If it weren't for the Catholic organizations and the patriarchate, where my husband works, we'd be in a terrible state,” Rifka Musa said. “They're the reason we've been able to hold on in the Holy Land.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Ambassador Says Bangladesh Is Example of Harmony
He praised the government for its role in promoting interethnic and interreligious amity in a part of the world that sees much strife. Adams called his six years in Bangladesh the “golden time” of his life.
Bangladesh president Dr. Iajuddin Ahmed cited the work of the Pope, who has visited Bangladesh in the past, in fostering peace, tolerance and compassion around the world — especially between members of religious groups that have historically been hostile toward each other.
Bangladesh is a Muslim enclave in the Indian subcontinent, created as part of Pakistan during the bloody postwar partition of Britain's former colony. It later won independence after a destructive civil war.
Marriage Helps Men and Women Alike
LIFESITE NEWS (www.lsn.ca), Oct. 4 — For some 30 years researchers have believed that marriage benefits men more than women. Feminist research in the early 1970s suggested that marriage was a patriarchal institution, created for and mainly benefiting men. But a recent, exhaustive study in Australia suggests both sexes find emotional and psychological advantages to those who marry as opposed to those who remain single.
The study covered 10,641 adults who took part in the 1996 Australian national survey of mental health. Psychologist David de Vaus of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, wrote of the results in the winter issue of Family Matters. He said it is “unequivocal” that, “when a range of types of mental disorders are considered, marriage reduces the risk of mental disorders for both men and women.”
Ban Designer Children?
Published in the current issue of Genetics and Human Behaviour, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent research institute, linked such efforts with the discredited “science” of eugenics.
Chief of the Nuffield Council, professor Bob Hepple, told the Daily Telegraph: “This is a potentially explosive area. The subject has an ugly history.” He went on to call abortions carried out based on genetic information about a child's likely intelligence or behavior “morally unacceptable.”
He also suggested that criminal justice could be disrupted if defendants began to cite their genetic predispositions to anti-social behavior as factors mitigating their personal responsibility.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:It would be hard to overstate the importance of the debate that continues in American Catholic academia about the mandatum. It captures the top Catholic stories of the last decade in a single issue: The culture of dissent in many parts of the Church, the rejection of the Church's sexual teachings, and the consequences of that rejection that are seen so starkly in the sex-abuse cover-up crisis.
Starting in 1983, canon law required that a theologian teaching in a Catholic university receive a mandatum from the local bishop. When it became clear that Canon 812 was being overlooked by many dioceses, Pope John Paul II in 1990 brought it to the front of the debate again with the apostolic constitution for Catholic colleges and institutions, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church). He called it a “magna carta” for Catholic universities.
It took U.S. bishops 11 more years to implement that “magna carta.” Questions persist, however, about just whether the current U.S. version of the mandatum can be effective.
Canon 812 reads: “It is necessary that those who teach theological disciplines in any institute of higher studies have a mandatum from the competent ecclesiastical authority.”
Neither canon law nor Ex Corde Ecclesiae provides a definition of what such a mandatum is, exactly. So the U.S. bishops defined it in their June 2001 guidelines — in a way that all but strips the mandatum of significant normative content.
Even the bishops’ explanation of the mandatum seems to contradict the basic vocation of the Catholic theologian.
According to the Church's understanding, as elaborated in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1990 instruction “The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian,” one who has become a Catholic theologian has “freely and knowingly accepted to teach in the name of the Church” (No. 38). This is why a mandatum from the appropriate bishop is required in the first place.
But according to the U.S. bishops’ understanding of the mandatum, as explained in their June 2001 guidelines, “Theologians who have received a mandatum are not catechists; they teach in their own name in virtue of their baptism and their academic and professional competence, not in the name of the bishop or of the Church's magisterium.” (Italics added.)
This notion that a theologian teaches in his own name reverses the Catholic understanding. That a theologian teaches in virtue of his baptism is used, strangely, to justify keeping the mandatum secret. Baptism is a public, ecclesial event, and there is no reason a theologian's vocation shouldn't also be public and ecclesial. Nevertheless, college presidents are claiming that there is an “agreement” with the bishops that the granting or withholding of the mandatum may remain secret.
The fact is that the norm of the mandatum as it stands is hollow: It is a norm with no visible or measurable normative effect on the renewal of the Catholic character of our colleges and universities.
As such, it is a monument to ingenuity, not authenticity. It is a canonical breakthrough, an entirely new entity in canon law: a norm devoid of normative consequences.
And it comes at a time when the grave danger of dissent from Catholic moral teaching is on display.
“The abuse of the young is a grave symptom of a crisis affecting not only the Church but society as a whole. It is a deep-seated crisis of sexual morality,” said the Pope in April, addressing U.S. cardinals on the sex abuse cover-up crisis.
“People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young. They must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality,” he added.
The Church no longer has the luxury to pretend that aberrant teachings are simply an exercise in esoterica.
Rather, we should be insisting that the living magisterium of the Church be brought to bear on our culture's pressing problems.
Think of what could happen if Catholic universities reconnected themselves with the living tradition of the Church. The bioethics errors that have led to a culture of death could be given a massive response from our universities, and more scientists could be brought to recognize the dignity of every person. The crisis of marriage and family could be overwhelmed by many universities thoughtfully developing and applying the Church's liberating teachings on sexuality. Social and political questions could be enlightened by the wisdom of the Church's social teaching.
If the mandatum were truly a mandatum, it could help the Church reach these noble goals. As it is, don't look to a norm that is not always required, may be kept secret, and has no penalties if ignored.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Look Hard at Iraq DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:I am writing in response to the letter to the editor titled “Go Easy on Iraq” (Oct. 6-12). The author references an Army War College document questioning the assertion that Iraqi forces were responsible for the chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja.
The letter's prominent position gives the letter special emphasis and, along with the author's sure tone, confers authority on the letter's sentiments. The implication is that the Bush administration has made a cynical attempt to play loose with the facts and intends to provoke a war based on a false pretense. Consequently, I think the letter deserves a response.
Regardless of who perpetrated the attack on Halabja, chemical weapons are indeed one of the reasons for removing Saddam Hussein from power. President Bush clearly mentioned the threat during his address to the United Nations. He also mentioned, however, violations of cease-fire terms and U.N. resolutions, support of terrorist organizations and activities, and nuclear weapons research. Saddam's threat will only continue to grow. Does anyone seriously believe that he would permit unfettered inspections or the disarmament of his regime? We know that he certainly has the capability to wreak havoc. The only question is what are his intentions.
Two additional points. First, American support for the Iraqi regime during the 1980s in no way makes an attack on that same regime in the 2000s illegitimate. The purpose for our support during the Iran-Iraq War was to stop the spread of the Iranian revolution to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. Times and circumstances can obviously change.
And second, I would question the characterization that Christianity is allowed to “flourish” in Iraq. Iraq is by no means the only Arab country that has a Christian element. Ask any Coptic Christian in Egypt. Other Arab countries, such as Syria, also have Christian minorities. In addition, the presence of Christians among the Iraqi population should not be a deterrent to removing the Saddam regime.
The issue of regime change in Iraq is indeed a complicated one for the devout Roman Catholic. There are, however, reasons to believe that Saddam poses a threat to the United States and its interests. To criticize the Bush administration based on an opinion piece is a distraction from more substantive debate, for instance on the regional impact of a war, the character of a post-Saddam regime or the justness of the cause.
JOE SCHWENINGER Dublin, Ohio
Swing Away, Catholic Voter
The letter from Joe Ninnemann titled “Catholics and Political Parties” (Oct. 6-12) actually caused me to dig up the original opinion column by Scott McDermott (“Will Catholics Voters Pray Now and Swing Later?” Sept. 15-21) to see what was Mr. Ninnemann's problem with Mr. McDermott's column.
I agree with Mr. McDermott's general opinion of how a Catholic should react with his or her vote. It is my understanding that the bishops are in general opposed to a Catholiconly political party, and having the Catholic vote act more as a swing vote makes a lot of sense when you consider the history of our American political system. This ensures that the Catholic position becomes something desired by politicians or they face being rejected in the next election.
I have seen and read about too many Catholic politicians whose faith becomes corrupted by the party machine just to remain in lock step with some party mantra. One thing that is seemingly missing in this debate is the fact that the American bishops are saying the Church in America is about 50% Hispanic. If this is true, and a good percentage of the Hispanic population cannot vote due to immigration status, what political voting power does the American Catholic Church have in this nation? In short, our Catholic views may be deemed politically irrelevant because we lack a solid swing vote.
ANDREW MARTIN Rockville, Maryland
Covering Theologians
Regarding “Bishops Help Bring Wayward Theologians Back Into the Fold” (Oct. 6-12):
Where has Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger been all these years since Vatican II? Why did he help the bishops of this (and other countries) keep the cover on these “theologians?” My goodness, to come out now of all times and tell us he and the other bishops were aware of — and did nothing to stop — dissenting theologians who have been spreading errors.
Even if some bishops erred in allowing dissenting views to go on being circulated, why did the good cardinal keep so mum? He definitely had it in his power to call for a few heads to roll. Instead, we have “theologians” the likes of Father Richard McBrien, who to this day has a very high place in one of our most prestigious Catholic schools and is allowed to keep spreading his stuff! We do have e-mail, fax, satellites — no excuse for him now not to use these modern devices to do that job! It isn't the Middle Ages, where communication took 250 years. This could be done right now!
For almost 40 years, we — the faithful — have endured the “theologians” and their speculations, along with the added vinegar to our wounds of our clergy telling us we were in the wrong and this is “where the Church is going.”
We are to the point in our Church where the news media only call on these wayward theologians and other dissenters in the hierarchy to interview for the Church's official view on ... just anything.
RETA TALLMAN Reno, Nevada
Mexican Bishops’ Immigration Ire
With all due respect to the episcopal office, I was disappointed by the criticism stated by Mexico's bishops regarding stiffened U.S. border controls that are impacting illegal immigration (“Mexican Bishops Attack Post-Sept. 11 Border Controls,” Sept. 22-28).
The bishops’ statement seems to condone illegal immigration into the United States and fails to give due recognition both to poor Mexicans who are abiding by the law to enter the United States legally as well as to the U.S. government having the right to control passage through our borders, especially when terrorist attacks have killed some 3,000 Americans. I don't think illegal immigration has “its roots in poverty”; rather, I think it has its roots in Mexicans who are willing to violate our immigration laws.
Instead of attacking the United States for enforcing its immigration laws, Mexican bishops should consider devoting their efforts to enhancing economic development and conditions in Mexico to reduce the incentive for Mexicans to seek illegal entry into the United States.
ROBERT BARNETT Minneapolis
Grateful Traveler A long overdue note of appreciation for your inclusion of the architecture and art of great churches and shrines in your “Travel: History & Saints” section.
The recent article by Mr. Joseph Pronechen on Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio, is a case in point (“Holy Toledo — A Rosary of Living Stone,” Oct. 6-12). Completed in 1940, this magnificent temple of the Lord is a great inspiration to those trying to build again in a manner durable, dignified and beautiful.
I hope that Mr. Pronechen will consider publishing his essays as a book with manifold color photos, while including plans and, of course, the name of the architect.
DUNCAN STROIK Notre Dame, Indiana
The writer is a professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture and editor of Sacred Architecture Journal.
Shrouded From Change
I am just reading your otherwise-excellent article on the Shroud of Turin, “Shroud of Faith?” (Oct. 6-12).
The comment is made that Walter McCrone did not respond to Register requests for interviews. I have no way, of course, of knowing when this article was written, but surely you are aware that Walter McCrone died on July 26, 2002. I am thoroughly familiar with his work on the shroud, and on the Vinland Map (I own the massive work on this latter, issued by Yale University) and, between you and me, have no use for the gentleman.
I enjoy the Register very much and share it with a neighbor who appears to enjoy it even more than I do! Keep up the very good work.
KATHLEEN SMITH Via e-mail
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Are Aliens From Outer Space Redeemed? DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:As a fan of both science fiction and fantasy, I had to read Dermott Mullan's commentary “Brother From Another Planet: Redeemed?” (Oct. 6-12). I can only say, “Decidedly far-fetched!”
The idea of rational creatures with free will and an immortal soul existing on another planet is, I offer, directly opposed to divine revelation and Christian tradition. Mullan suggests that St. Thomas Aquinas offered such possibilities in the Summa Theologiae when he commented on hypostatic union. However, Aquinas often presented notions that he did not support; he was simply testing the ideas of his day. For example, when discussing evolution, Aquinas leaves open the possibility of our first parents evolving from other creatures, other species. However, he personally posited that God did not make that choice, that Adam and Eve were created as the Scripture states, i.e., God simply created them from the primordial slime. While God has abilities beyond our imagining, he [does make] choices. Using the sense of hypostatic union to support the aliens proposed by Mullan is a very long jump.
Next, if Mullan's aliens were to exist, how do they fit into the basic sense of our Catholic faith? Christ is the bridegroom and the Church, created in his image, is his bride. The Church has always held one bridegroom/one bride for mankind, who is made in God's image, i.e., we are called to be monogamous.
Are we now to consider that Jesus is polygamous? That alien species are also his brides? And what about Mary as queen of heaven? How does her role fit into the alien-species notion? Are there other Marys as well?
The cosmos is a cathedral of time and place made by God for his bride-to-be. It is a great act of creation. But how does that act compare to his work of creation that we find in the cross and the Eucharist? It does not! The cosmos pales when compared to the cross and the Eucharist. The cosmos simply gives us a hint of the enormity of God's love for mankind.
Finally, Mullan fails to consider the greatness of the bride of Christ, the Church. I offer that the Son of God finds his bride to be most satisfying and he has no wandering eye for another (read Song of Songs). Alien life on another planet on a par with or higher than mankind? Foolishness!
MICHAEL A. FAULKNER Ocean Grove, New Jersey
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael A. Faulkner ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Voting The Church's Conscience DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:At least, that's one way of looking at the election season. Political strategists know that there are more than 62 million Catholics in the United States — a hefty 22% of the total population. Political clout like this should shore up considerable support for candidates who support the Church's teachings on abortion and other key moral issues. Yet a closer look at the Catholic vote tells a different story.
In the 1996 presidential race, 54% of Catholics voted for Bill Clinton. Even among practicing Catholics, those who attend Mass at least weekly, Clinton won 44% of the vote. In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore managed to win a small majority of the Catholic vote over President Bush. All this raises a tough question: Why would any Catholic vote for a political candidate who holds secular and liberal ideas hostile to the faith and morals of the Church?
I've heard many reasons for this phenomenon, but none quite like Kathy's. Kathy is a woman I sat next to last year on a plane trip from North Carolina to Rhode Island. Middleaged, heavyset and quite gregarious, she described herself as an openedminded Catholic raised in the New England tradition. Her friendly demeanor explained her willingness to talk. We chatted about a number of things before the topic of politics came up. She gave high approval ratings to certain politicians who hold to political ideologies contrary to Catholic morals. I didn't want to start an argument, but I couldn't let this one go by. So I simply asked her:
“Kathy, are you aware that the politicians you mentioned staunchly support anti-Catholic causes such as partial-birth abortion, worldwide condom distribution and stem-cell experimentation?” I noticed Kathy began to squirm a bit in her seat.
“Father, I don't judge any political leader on a single issue like abortion,” she said. “I make my decision after weighing his position on a broad range of issues.”
“What issue,” I replied, “could be more important than a person's life?” Her forced smile vanished. With a rather terse tone of voice, she retorted: “Like most Catholics, on these matters, I follow my conscience. Whomever I decide to support politically is, for me, a matter for my own conscience.”
Without realizing it, I think Kathy uncovered the root cause why many Catholics vote the way they do. They appeal to their private, personal conscience as the ultimate arbiter of moral discernment. Like most everyone in our society, Catholics too are quick to say: “I ask that my conscience be respected.” Furthermore, many Catholics, like the general public, justify and defend questionable moral decisions by asserting, “I acted in good conscience.”
So: How important is personal conscience for Catholics? In Catholic Tradition, the conscience receives eminent respect. The Fathers of the Church call it “the spark of the Holy Spirit,” “the sacredness of man” and “the sanctuary of God.” The catechism calls the conscience “man's most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths” (No. 1777). But, as lofty and noble as each individual's conscience may be, none is infallible. Our conscience will only be an accurate guide of discernment to the extent that it is receptive to truth. As Catholics, we acknowledge a revealed truth about God and man — about what is good and evil.
This truth remains regardless of an individual's openness to it. When we ignore basic truths, our conscience cannot make sound judgments or good decisions. In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II explains why: “Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes … instead [there will be] a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly.”
In other words, if not checked by truth, the individual conscience tends toward error. How can we avoid following a flawed conscience? The Church affirms there's one sure way: to correctly form one's conscience. To form a good conscience, the Church proposes a few practical means. The first is the acceptance and practice of Catholic moral teaching as taught by the magisterium of the Church. Every Catholic has a serious obligation to know the Church's moral teaching in order to form good conscience. Next we need to strengthen our knowledge of the moral truth with prayer and mediation. Prayer enlightens the dictates of our conscience and directs us toward God, the source of all truth. To form a conscience that conforms with God's will, we need to examine our conscience frequently in light of Christian morality. This is the best way to prepare for the fruitful reception of sacramental confession. Finally, our conscience can acquire a more objective moral judgment through spiritual direction. A spiritual director well-grounded in Catholic doctrine can help us reach a very high degree of moral rectitude.
The Church will never endorse a political candidate or party. This is not her mission. But she will urge every Christian and person of good will to defend the truth by making his or her well-formed conscience heard at the polls next month.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Studies in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: If you're a Catholic, you're about to become a target. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: High Stakes On the Ohio DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:A mile and a half up the Ohio River from our house, over on the Indiana side, a quaint-looking paddle wheeler sits in dock at the town of Rising Sun. A casual observer, glancing quickly through the trees, might assume he is glimpsing the Delta Queen or the Mississippi Queen, two passenger boats that ply the Ohio and Mississippi systems.
But no, this boat at Rising Sun is the Grand Victoria, a gambling casino that never leaves port.
When the Hyatt Company brought the Grand Victoria from New Orleans to Rising Sun, the boat was required by the state of Indiana to leave port for two-hour cruises — up around the bend and back again, virtually all day long, nearly 365 days a year, including Christmas.
Now, however, Indiana has granted casino companies permission for their gambling boats to remain permanently in dock. In that way, customers do not have to wait to board the boat, nor do they have to limit their visit to two hours. Rather, they can stream endlessly onto the boat and can stay as long as they like, even as late as 5 a.m.
There are no clocks on the Grand Victoria to remind customers of the time. The painted windows on the boat are fake, and so, once inside, customers are programmed to be lost to time and the outside world.
States Roll the Dice
The state of Indiana has licensed five of these casino boats on the Ohio River and five more in other locations. In addition Indiana, once known as a conservative state, now has off-track betting parlors in downtown Indianapolis and elsewhere.
Indiana, however, is not alone.
The love affair with widespread institutional gambling extends to nearly every state. Government-owned lotteries, for example, are an enormous and accepted means of revenue in many states. Casinos, although not owned by state governments, are licensed by them and provide so much tax revenue that it is in the interest of state governments to promote them and to give casino companies hefty breaks. Little wonder that big, publicly held gambling companies were among the darlings of Wall Street during the '90s.
Native American tribes, too, participate heavily in the gambling industry, once again urged on by government. When traveling home from our vacation place in northwestern Michigan, we pass an ever-expanding Native Americanowned casino, its parking lots bulging, just one of scores of such casinos across the country.
Gambling is surely as old as man. The wagering instinct seems embedded in the human urge to take risks, to see what might be gained with only a little outlay. Horses, fighting roosters, dogs, sporting events, card games and so forth have always been the object of betting. America, like most other countries, has, since its beginning, had its share of gamblers.
It is conceivable that, proportionate to the population, there is scarcely more gambling now than there ever was. Gambling, after all, was part of the American frontier. Furthermore, riverboat gambling, the “gaming industry” likes to remind us, is a tradition in America.
Without denying that nice people do gamble and do so just for fun, there is no question that gambling in this country wears a new face.
It is no longer an individual game of chance. These days gambling is statesanctioned and often state-sponsored. States have become so dependent on the revenue from lotteries and the taxes on casino winnings that they are locked into encouraging ever-bigger lottery powerball games and ever-closer buddy arrangements with casino owners to expand gambling operations. Along with big gambling, needless to say, has come a huge bureaucracy to regulate it and heavy law enforcement to police it.
At the same time, questioning whether small towns ought to depend so heavily on gambling revenue to shore up their economy or whether Native American tribes ought to rely on their casino businesses for their greatest source of revenue is to brand oneself as insufferably politically incorrect.
The morally irrefutable reason or, more accurately, the excuse for communities like Rising Sun to promote as its major industry the Grand Victoria riverboat casino is that the Grand Victoria creates jobs and pays big taxes, which supposedly go to the community's public schools and to improve streets and public works. Even though proceeds from gambling may go to renovate or build a schoolhouse, it can never be proved that gambling profits have improved the quality of public education even one iota. Instead, it can be shown that the gambling industry offers shoddy sustenance to a community.
“Beginning Aug. 1,” reads the fullpage advertisement in the Cincinnati Enquirer, “Argosy Casino (in Lawrenceburg, Ind.,) will be firmly tied to the dock. We've extended our hours, so you can play until 5 a.m. every day. It's all right here, just 20 minutes from Cincinnati. Your ship has come in. And this time, it's not going anywhere.”
Ecstatic gamblers now report how delighted they are to receive this new convenience of wee-hour gambling. Yet is this even more intense gambling exposure contributing to the good of citizens — or is it corrupting them?
To take but one example of corruption, downriver at Vevay, Ind., Pinnacle Entertainment, owner of the Belterra Casino, recently paid $2.26 million in fines and was forced to close the casino for three days because of a prostitution scandal in which the company flew in out-of-state prostitutes and offered them to guests at a casino-sponsored golf tournament.
Citing another lamentable case, the Indianapolis Star, in an editorial criticizing Indiana's addiction to gambling revenues, deplored that on the same day the state gaming commission fined the Belterra Casino, the Indiana Supreme Court suspended the license of an Evansville attorney with the unfortunate name of Allan Loosemore Jr., “who stole clients’ money to feed his gambling addiction.” Loosemore, the Star noted, “is one of an estimated 45,000 problem gamblers in the state.”
Games of chance, or wagers, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others” (No. 2413).
Adds the catechism: “The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement.”
The enslavement can be subtle and insidious. Rising Sun appears to have a more thriving economy since the Grand Victoria came to town. Yet the town is congested, and the tone and quality of the community have changed for the worse.
So far, our little hamlet of Rabbit Hash, Ky., across the river remains relatively immune — in part because when Grand Victoria owners made the outrageous proposal to buy our tiny village some wise Rabbit Hash citizens laughed and said, “No thanks.” The owners wanted literally to raze our town and turn it into a parking lot — all in exchange for the opportunity to run a ferry from the Kentucky side to the Indiana side so as to serve potential gambling customers.
Towns that rely for revenue on gambling casinos are related to the old company coal towns of the eastern Kentucky mountains. The towns are kept women, so to speak — except that in those company towns of yore, at least a product, that is, coal, emerged. In a gambling town, nothing emerges.
That is the point.
Gambling may be fun, but fun or addictive, in either case it offers mostly empty pockets; it offers nothing for something. By nearly anyone's standard, gambling at 3 or 4 in the morning is not a fruitful way to spend time. When a handful of people engage in such activity, it may be relatively harmless. When government, however, urges everincreasing numbers of citizens to deluge casinos, all because the state cannot survive financially without taxes from gambling, then the state acts as a parasite rather than a protector. It consequently corrupts its own citizenry.
As more and more exotic gambling schemes invade American life, one wonders how our souls can remain unaffected. Even non-gamblers are touched when political decisions are made to court the gambling industry.
Slick and Slippery
“Gambling itself is morally neutral,” writes moral theologian Msgr. William Smith (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, December 1995), but “issues relating to gambling can make it morally unacceptable. This, I believe, is especially the case with state-sponsored and state-advertised gambling. It is a general principle of social justice that civil government should rely on equitable tax policies and not excessively on tax revenues from gambling. It is here that we may be constructing a nation of gamblers and approaching the risk of ‘enslavement’ which the catechism repudiates.”
Msgr. Smith speaks of a “gambling epidemic” that masquerades as a social good. Because gambling revenues supposedly go to good causes, especially schools, then any personal heartache or public corruption engendered by gambling fever can be ignored or at least tolerated for a so-called greater good. Who, after all, would oppose better schools for our children?
“Thanks to the public blessing of gambling by government,” says Msgr. Smith, “the moral stigma was removed: some high rollers now pretend to be big-time civic heroes.” Gambling in a friendly Friday-night poker game is light years away from what Msgr. Smith declares is actually “state-sanctioned redistribution of wealth — moving money from people who don't have much of it to people who have plenty.”
Boarding the casino riverboats at all hours are the retired set by day and the younger, hipper set by night. Inside the casino, noisy slot machines and garish, flashing lights provide diversion and stave off loneliness for two or three hours. Inside the casino reality appears as a thrilling risk. What might I get for nothing?
Sooner or later, however, customers give up hope and come back outside to the real world. In the real world there is indeed the thrill of risk, but the risk is the opportunity to answer a call that promises not nothing but everything.
Anne Husted Burleigh, a free-lance writer and contributor to Magnificat, writes from her farm at Rabbit Hash, Kentucky.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anne Husted Burleigh ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Faith Made Johnny Unitas the Best There Ever Was DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:It was a moniker that seemed designed by a Hollywood scriptwriter. Yet, as if it were his destiny, he could not have been more worthy of this most auspicious appellation.
While Cardinal William Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, officiated at his funeral at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on Sept. 17, a plane flew overhead carrying a red-lettered banner reading “Unitas We Stand.” Twenty-two hundred people packed the church, some arriving as early as 4 a.m. to pay tribute to a man who, in the cardinal's words, “led and touched others by his integrity and loyalty.” Frank Gitschier, Unitas’ former coach at the University of Louisville, was the first to speak. He referred to his hero as “the most accessible legend I've ever heard of,” a man who “always had his priorities right: God, family and job.” Journalists Brian Anderson and Peter Reinharz praised him as “a devout and temperate Catholic who lived [with his family] in the Baltimore suburbs — the very model of civility and respectability.”
Unitas left behind his wife, two daughters and six sons, who served as pallbearers.
The words of William Wordsworth provide a fitting epitaph to the life and legend that is Johnny Unitas: One in whom persuasion and belief had ripened into faith, and faith became a passionate intuition.
Unitas was born May 7, 1933, in Pittsburgh. His father died when Johnny was 5 and his mother raised her four children by herself, supporting them by working two jobs.
At St. Justin's, a small Catholic high school, Unitas played two positions, halfback and end, until he replaced the injured starting quarterback early in his junior year. It was during his high school years that Unitas accidentally shot himself in the finger while cleaning a .38 revolver. The mishap left him unable to bend the first joint of the index finger of this throwing hand. Nonetheless, his gridiron performance in his senior year drew some attention from colleges.
Unitas wanted to play football for Notre Dame. Another Lithuanian, like himself, Moose Krause (Edward Kraucianas) had become a legend at that school, earning All-America honors both in basketball and football. Notre Dame passed on the aspiring quarterback, believing that Unitas, at 139 pounds, was too light. Other schools ignored him. The University of Pittsburgh offered him a scholarship, but Unitas failed the school's entrance exam.
Frank Gitschier, the University of Louisville coach, took an interest in Unitas. After he promised Unitas’ mother that her son would go to Mass every Sunday and would graduate, she agreed to let him attend Louisville. “It was no great recruiting coup,” Gitschier later confessed, “we got Johnny U. because no one else wanted him.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Unitas in the ninth round in 1955. He played none of the team's five exhibition games and was released without even throwing a single pass. An Associated Press photograph of Unitas appeared in newspapers across the country. It did not show him taking a snap from center, however, but explaining how to hold a football to a Chinese nun.
The next step for the ever-faithful Mr. Unitas was playing for a semipro team in Pittsburgh for $6 a game. At this point, his prospects for a career in football looked rather bleak. In addition, Unitas did not look at all like a football player. Noted sports journalist Frank Deford has described Unitas in rather unflattering terms: “He had stooped shoulders, a chicken breast, thin bowed legs and long, dangling arms with crooked, mangled fingers.”
Weeb Ewbank, the head coach of the Baltimore Colts, however, saw something he liked about this gawky young quarterback and signed him to a contract. By this time, Unitas had 190 pounds on his 6-foot, 1-inch frame.
Unitas’ debut was a shaky one.
His first pass was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. He botched a handoff on his next play, resulting in a fumble recovered by the opposition.
Legends are made of sterner stuff. There had been enough setbacks and deterrents in Unitas’ life up to this point to induce him to abandon his dream and try a different career track. Yet, despite the discouragements, his faith was still ripening. He threw nine touchdowns in his rookie year, including one in the season finale that started his record 47-game streak. His 55.6% completion mark was a rookie record. The next season he threw for 2,550 yards and 24 touchdowns and was named Most Valuable Player.
His career spanned 18 years. He set 22 NFL passing records, was named Most Valuable Player of the NFL three times and was named to the Pro Bowl 10 times. He became a legend. Sports Illustrated declared on the basis of meticulous statistical reckoning that Johnny Unitas was “The Best There Ever Was” (Sept. 23).
He was a legend in football. Only a legend! In life he seemed larger than legend. His faith was indeed passionate and fully vindicated. The man with the “golden arm” had a warm and gracious heart. “Johnny U's talents were his own,” wrote Deford. “The belief he gave us was his gift.”
Dr. Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: His name sounded like a rallying cry for team unity: Johnny Unitas ("Unite Us!"). ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald Demarco ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Debate: Who Speaks for Catholic Colleges? DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — An organization that has been calling for stronger Catholic identity in colleges and universities is charging that another organization for Catholic higher education is undermining its work in a document about student life on campuses.
The Cardinal Newman Society is planning to finalize a document on student life at its annual conference here on Nov. 9.
But Monika Hellwig, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), in a Sept. 25 letter to college presidents, campus ministers and directors of student life, warned that the proposed guidelines are unrealistic and punitive.
Hellwig said in an interview that the Cardinal Newman Society does not speak for Catholic higher education. A letter inviting college officials to its conference has them worried that colleges soon will be subjected to even more guidelines from the bishops, in addition to those issued in 1999. She also invited college officials to the ACCU's own conference on student life in Washington, D.C., which drew 70 participants Oct. 9.
Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, charged that the invitation was intended to draw people away from his conference, but Hellwig said the ACCU conference was planned during the last academic year.
The ACCU president noted that the Newman Society conference will take place at a hotel across the street from where U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is having its annual fall meeting. “As always many bishops have been invited to attend, a number of whom have little if any contact with Catholic colleges and could easily be persuaded that our campuses are places of reckless immorality and corruption of the young,” Hellwig said.
The two organizations have different ideas on how colleges should shape Catholic life on campus. The Newman Society's guidelines propose minimum expectations for Catholic colleges in the areas of residence life, campus ministry, student activities, student conduct and other aspects of college life outside the classroom. It takes a hard line on topics such as overnight visitation in dorms and sexual activity in residence halls, as well as invitations to campus speakers who are abortion-rights politicians and activists.
But the “tenor” of the guidelines is “punitive and rests on the assumption that there is little moral education on our campuses, and that the culture is one of thoughtlessness and recklessness,” Hellwig wrote.
“That nicely describes many Catholic colleges today,” Reilly retorted.
The Newman Society says it will encourage the bishops to develop a document on Catholic campus life as a companion to their 1999 guidelines to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education.
Hellwig believes the Newman proposals, which can be viewed at www.cardinalnewmansociety.org under “documents,” assume an unrealistic control a college has over students on and off campus.
She said the ACCU and the Newman Society have the same understanding of Catholic morality and Catholic life but differ in their understanding of the formation of a d u l t Catholics. The N e w m a n Society, she contends, wants students kept under tight control, while the ACCU favors teaching students to discern the proper response to moral choices, especially when they are in situations where there is “no external enforcement.”
“You can't teach moral standards without minimal expectations and real consequences for violating them,” Reilly said. “But our guidelines strongly emphasize teaching and helping students develop in positive ways. I'd question the extent to which many Catholic colleges are serious about doing this.”
He said many Catholic colleges sponsor sexuality programs that are “not in line with Church teaching,” encourage contraceptive use and remain neutral or condone homosexuality. Many campus health centers, he said, refer pregnant students to Planned Parenthood.
Although programs addressing alcohol usage are common, very few positive programs encourage sexual abstinence, he said.
Hellwig said ACCU conference participants discussed ways to coax young people into seeing the reasons for Christian moral values. The answer is in a combination of curriculum, campus ministry, student affairs and “the kinds of people we hire and the examples they give,” she said.
“Those are all issues we're addressing in our conference,” said Reilly, who criticized the ACCU's approach as being too laissezfaire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Health Plan Includes Contraception Coverage DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:First in a three-part series on the promotion of contraception and abortion on college campuses — and how some Catholic and pro-life groups are fighting pro-abortion initiatives.
WASHINGTON — Last spring, officials at George Washington University received a letter sent on behalf of three law students demanding the student health insurance plan cover prescription contraceptives.
The letter claimed the exclusion of contraceptive coverage constituted sex discrimination and therefore violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act.
The university quickly complied and added insurance coverage for oral contraceptives for the 2002-2003 school year. Dean of Students Linda Donnels said it was simply a matter of identifying and meeting another need for the 1,500 students enrolled in the plan.
The situation never made it into court because the school complied immediately, but some question whether the incident is just one of several in a concerted effort. During the past year, numerous colleges and universities have received this same request for contraceptive coverage. Most have acquiesced.
Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, doesn't think each case is an isolated incident. “Increasingly, it seems apparent that there's a coordinated campaign going on to provide contraceptives on campus,” he said.
Fueling this thought is the fact that in the GWU case, the letter was sent by three organizations known for pro-abortion views: Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, National Women's Law Center and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Planned Parenthood also joined forces with a student at the University of Delaware last year. At their request, contraceptives became a standard component in the student health plan. Students at New York University signed petitions demanding that emergency and prescription contraceptives and abortion be added to the health insurance plan, while University of Virginia students took a different tact by petitioning the student council and sending letters directly to insurance representatives demanding contraceptive coverage. Although students at the University of Illinois already had contraceptive coverage, they lobbied for the same benefit for faculty and staff.
The lobbyists base their demand on the section of Title IX that applies to student health and insurance benefits. It states that schools may not “bar benefits or services which may be used by a different proportion of students of one sex than of the other, including family planning services.”
“If the university chooses to provide a health plan to students, Title IX requires that it be offered on a nondiscriminatory basis,” said Jocelyn Samuels, vice president for education at National Women's Law Center.
But Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, said the interpretation of the legislation is incorrect. “Title IX never meant to cover contraceptive drugs in general,” he said.
Section 1688 of the amendment states that “nothing in this chapter [of the amendment] shall be construed to require or prohibit any person, or public or private entity, to provide or pay for any benefit or service, including the use of facilities, related to an abortion.”
Religious Institutions
The application to Catholic colleges is unclear. Thompson added that even if Title IX meant to cover contraceptives, “religious institutions could make a ‘right of conscience’ decision not to cover them.”
Title IX applies to any college that receives federal funds, and Reilly said this includes most Catholic colleges. Title IX does include the provision that exempts “practices in schools controlled by religious organizations whenever compliance with Title IX would be contrary to their religious beliefs,” but the exemption is not automatic. Schools must apply in writing for this exemption.
Title IX does not address the issue of religious institutions founded or run by lay individuals. Samuels said schools in this instance would not necessarily be exempt. “It would be on a case-bycase basis,” she said.
Samuels said she is not aware of additional schools being targeted for contraceptive coverage. Planned Parenthood and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice did not return phone calls for comment.
Thompson, who calls contraceptive coverage in schools an “issue that's on the front lines of the culture battle,” urges Catholic schools that are faced with this challenge to pursue legal representation. By not fighting, he said, “you just embolden the other side to become more aggressive.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Next week: How pro-life groups such as Feminists for Life are countering efforts by pro-abortion groups to spread contraception and abortion providers on college campuses.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Be Brave - Be Uncomplicatedly Catholic DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:THE COURAGE TO BE CATHOLIC: CRISIS, REFORM, AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH by George Weigel Basic Books, 2002 256 pages, $22 Available in online and retail bookstores, or call (800) 386-5656
To understand the nature of the crossroads the Catholic Church has come to at this moment in its history, you must first understand that Church teachings did not provide the pavement. Failed disciples did.
Restore fidelity and you will restore the Church's moral authority. Many agree with this perspective. Few can make the case as compellingly as George Weigel.
“Crisis means trauma; crisis also means opportunity,” Weigel writes. “The trauma of the Catholic Church in the United States in 2002 will become an opportunity to deepen and extend the reforms of Vatican II if the Church becomes more Catholic, not less — if the Church rediscovers the courage to be Catholic.”
It's clear that Weigel, acclaimed biographer of Pope John Paul II, knows and loves the Church. It's equally evident that he is a writer of considerable courage himself: One of the leading Catholic intellectuals of our time, he doesn't shy from making strong, if carefully nuanced, arguments sure to draw heat from those hoping to use the present crisis to advance a narrow, progressivist agenda.
“The answer to the current crisis,” he writes, “will not be found in ‘Catholic Lite.’ It will only be found in a classic Catholicism — a Catholicism with the courage to be countercultural, a Catholicism that has reclaimed the wisdom of the past in order to face the corruption of the present and create a renewed future, a Catholicism that risks the high adventure of fidelity.”
Weigel points out that sexual abuse of minors by clergy is not a solely Catholic phenomenon; nor is it especially prevalent in the Catholic Church. True, too, is that the overwhelming majority of the cases that have come to light are cases of “homosexual molestation” — not of prepubescent children, but of teenage boys and young men, often in schools or seminaries. Such facts, while important, are not meant to excuse, however. Weigel makes this emphatically clear: “Any sexual misconduct by persons placed in positions of trust and responsibility for the young is wicked and scandalous.”
Weigel is optimistic about how things will turn out, and his hopefulness seems well-founded. He declares “Catholic Lite” on its way out and points out today's “young men and women, formed in the image of John Paul II and joyfully living the Catholic sexual ethic” filling the graduate theology and philosophy departments at Catholic schools. Meanwhile, the dissenters — even if they are providing the media with memorable sound bites — are aging. Fidelity may yet win by attrition.
“The Catholic Church learned the truth about reform from its parent, Judaism, for the pattern of authentic Catholic re-form first took shape in the Hebrew Bible,” writes Weigel. “There, the prophets insisted that the answer to Israel's whoring after other gods was neither greater subtlety in the worship of false gods (Idolatry Lite), nor more clever ways to cover one's theological bets (Syncretism Lite), but rather radical fidelity to the one true God and His commandments. Similarly, crises of fidelity in the Catholic Church are never remedied by Catholic Lite, but only by more radical fidelity to the fullness of Catholic faith. That is the truth the current crisis is compelling the Catholic Church to remember — and to act upon.”
How was it that Catholic scandals came to hog the headlines during the beginning months of 2002? How did the Catholic Church get to where it is today? And where do we go from here? Read The Courage to Be Catholic and you'll be well on your way to answering those kinds of questions — and to helping the Church ease its way back on to the road its founder intended it to travel.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is executive editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:What Scandal?
“The finding is significant,” said the newspaper, because it “is the first opportunity to measure how Catholics responded to the [clergy sex-abuse] scandals.”
William Madges, a theology professor at Cincinnati's Xavier University, credited the solid reputation of the local schools and the fact that less than 1% of American priests have been implicated in the scandal.
Campus Church
Brooklyn Bishop Thomas Daily used the same shovel that has been employed at every St. John's groundbreaking since the school's founding in 1870.
The new building — scheduled to be the only free-standing church on any of the university's five campuses — was made possible with a $10 million donation from St. John's alumnus John Brennan.
New President
Barry has worked in educational administration for 29 years, including stints at two other Catholic institutions, St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, and at Avila College in Kansas City, Mo. His responsibilities have included public relations, marketing and fund raising.
Mount Marty is staffed by the Sisters of St. Benedict of Yankton.
Oops
Several students objected after discovering a link to Planned Parenthood on the group's Web site, prompting administrators to promise to be more vigilant about who is allowed to perform at the Washington, D.C. university, including better procedures for vetting possible performers.
‘Indian School’
Built by St. Katharine Drexel in 1888, the brick building sits across from the main campus. Once the home of Chippewa boys as they learned to be farmers and tradesmen, it served as a dormitory for St. Joseph's for 40 years before it was shuttered in 1975.
Uses for the building have not been finalized by the university, which is administered by the Precious Blood Fathers.
Land-Rich
ST. ANSELM COLLEGE, Oct. 4 — The New Hampshire college has received the donation of a 38-acre property valued at $11 million — the largest gift in the history of the Benedictine Fathers’ college.
Located several miles from the main campus in Goffstown, it was given to the college by the Flatley Company of Braintree, Mass.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Sprit & Life DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Calvary on the Altar
Thanks be to God! We hear it every Sunday at Mass. The priest says, “The Mass is ended; go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” The congregation responds: “Thanks be to God!”
A member of our parish's youth group once told me she thought Mass was boring. Consequently she offered her “thanks be to God” in appreciation for Mass finally being over, not because she was actually grateful for the real presence of Christ she had just received.
My guess is that many Catholics, at least at one point, have felt the same way. Without a deeper sense of the history of the Mass and what is actually occurring on the altar, Mass probably will be boring. So, what is Mass about?
The first Mass can be traced back to the Last Supper. Celebrated within the context of a Passover meal, it marked the transition from the Old Covenant to the New. Jesus commissioned the Apostles, saying “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). The Apostles faithfully carried out these words. We can see the fruit of their work as early as early as 150 A.D., in St. Justin Martyr's First Apology: “On the day named after the sun (Sunday worship) all who live in the city or countryside assemble, and the memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets are read (the Liturgy of the Word). When the lector has finished, the president addresses us, admonishing us and exhorting us to imitate the splendid things we have heard (the homily). When we have finished praying, bread, wine and water are brought up (the offertory). The president offers prayers of thanksgiving (the eucharistic prayer), and the people give their assent by saying “Amen!” (the Great Amen). Next, the gifts over which the thanksgiving has been spoken are distributed and each one shares in them (Communion).”
It's extraordinary! The basic outline of the Mass, as we know it today, had already taken shape by 150 A.D.
One point that is frequently misunderstood is the idea of sacrifice in the Mass. Protestants will often ask the question: If Jesus died “once for all time” for our sins (Hebrews 10:12), why do Catholics “re-sacrifice” him at every Mass? The answer is simple. Jesus is the Sacrifice of the Mass — but he is not “re-sacrificed” at every Mass. When the priest speaks the words of consecration, the one-time eternal sacrifice of Christ on Calvary is made present upon the altar. This is possible because of Christ's words: “Do this in memory of me.”
The Jewish understanding of a memorial was more than just reminiscing. It involved making a past event present. During the Passover meal, the Jews did more than just remember the exodus — they relived it. In Exodus 20 they were commanded to gird their loins and dress themselves with sandals on their feet and, walking stick in hand, to slaughter and eat the paschal lamb, bitter herbs and unleavened bread. In this way every Israelite of every generation was bound in solidarity with their ancestors. Through each subsequent Passover, they all shared in the original Passover, the delivery out of Egypt.
Each time we go to Mass, then, we are doing much more than remembering: We are actually reliving the events of the Last Supper, where Jesus offered up his body and blood before going to Calvary to sacrifice himself for our sins. Mass makes present to us — and to people of every generation — the eternal sacrifice of Christ, with all its power, blessings and graces. Boring? Anything but. Thanks be to God!
Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Christina Mills ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Peter and Paul's Caribbean Cathedral DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Upon discovering the Virgin Islands in 1493 — naming them after the legendary beauty of St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgins — Christopher Columbus promptly dubbed one St. Thomas, after the doubting Apostle.
But it wasn't until 1666 that the island was settled by Lutheran colonists from Denmark. Because the Danes believed in religious tolerance, a small Catholic population was allowed to practice their faith in peace. The Catholics’ sacramental needs were met by transient priests, particularly Irish Dominicans.
From 1805 to 1807, a parish priest from the island of St. Croix came to St. Thomas Island every three months to bring the sacraments to the Catholics there. He also assisted the parishioners in rebuilding their church, which had burned to the ground in 1804. The new house of worship was consecrated on Jan. 12, 1806, and named after Sts. Peter and Paul.
In August 1856, the Redemptorist Fathers were invited to come and minister to the Catholics of the Virgin Islands. The Redemptorists offered uninterrupted service at Sts. Peter and Paul Church from May 1858 until May of 1989.
During their stay, the Redemptorists made many improvements to the church. In 1878, a new bell tower was built; a new organ was obtained from France in 1897. In 1902, statues of the two patrons, Sts. Peter and Paul, were placed above the outside entrance. Also between 1899 and 1901, two Redemptorists, Belgium artists, painted 12 major and several smaller murals inside.
In 1917, the United States purchased the Danish West Indies, including the islands of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, for $25 million. On June 30, 1960, Pope John XXIII created the Prelature of the Virgin Islands with the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul as the cathedral parish.
Today, the majority of the residents of the island are Catholics — and what a lovely place they have to call their cathedral.
Song and Stone
Major improvements were made to the sanctuary during the 1960s. These included the addition of marble decorations to the bishop's throne, sanctuary walls, chairs and pillars. Two stained-glass windows, one honoring Peter and the other Paul, were placed on either side of the main altar.
In April 1977, the Prelature of the Virgin Islands was raised to the Diocese of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The diocese is also part of the Episcopal Conference of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
In 1993-94, because of damages resulting from Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the belfry was refurbished, and a new roof was put in place. Both the interior and exterior were repaired and repainted, windows and alcoves were decorated, the original marble stations of the cross were cleaned, and two damaged murals were restored.
There has always been a school attached to the cathedral. The Sisters of Charity of Convent Station, members of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton foundation, have taught here in recent years.
At one time, there were as many as 16 sisters; at present there are only two.
Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral is located on 22 Main St. in the city of Charlotte Amalie, which is the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Besides the cathedral, there are three other churches on the island of St. Thomas.
The cathedral, which seats 450, sponsors four choirs. The adult choir is well-known. In fact, it has made a number of recordings; they're on sale in the cathedral office. The cathedral congregation loves to sing, too. If the adult choir cuts a hymn short, leaving out some verses, the choir members may have to answer to the congregation.
Tourists come from all over the world. Some stay for a day, particularly those who arrive on cruise ships. Other visitors stay for months at a time.
The Bishop's In
Some tourists also come to St. Thomas Island to enjoy Carnival, which is held the last week of the month of April. Carnival includes cultural celebrations with bands, dances and parades on the streets. Each island has its own such festival; the people select a time that will not conflict with the others so that more visitors will come to their unique celebration.
Since May 15, 1989, subsequent to the departure of the Redemptorists, the rector of the cathedral has been a diocesan priest. The current rector, Msgr. Jerome Feudjio, is assisted by one other priest. Because there are only two priests to meet the spiritual needs of a large congregation, it is not unusual for St. Thomas Jesuit Bishop George Murry to come in and help out. The Catholic traveler shouldn't be surprised to see the bishop himself saying daily Mass.
Every priest ever stationed at the cathedral gets lots of exercise. The rectory is located on a hill above the cathedral, and there are 103 steps connecting the two. It's not unusual for each of the two resident priests to make the taxing trip several times a day. I'm sure they feel it's worth it for the honor of serving such enthusiastic (and musical) parishioners in so beautiful and historic a setting as this.
Joseph Albino writes from Syracuse, New York.
Planning Your Visit
Mass is celebrated daily at 7 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. A novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help is said 15 minutes before the Wednesday daily Masses. On the first Friday of each month, immediately following the 12:15 p.m. Mass, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed for an hour of adoration. Confessions are heard Saturdays from 5 to 5:45 p.m. For more information, call (340) 774-0201.
Getting There
From the port where the cruise ships dock, it is a 15- to 20-minute walk up the main street to the cathedral, located at 22 Main St., behind the local Holiday Inn, in the city of Charlotte Amalie. Most visitors take a taxi for a cost of between $4 and $6.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Albino ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' Goes Digital DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Someone I know recently went to a dinner-theater production of The World Goes ‘Round. Just before the first act began, an announcement was made: “It is against the law to record this play.“
I wonder if the theater company knows about the latest in miniaturevideo camera technology. There are now videocams on the market so small they can fit in a shirt pocket. Whether one is dealing with plays, movies, videos, music or software, technology has made it possible to bypass copyright laws very easily. Anything can be copied.
A few years ago a Catholic filmmaker produced a film on the Blessed Mother's apparitions around the world. The project cost him half a million dollars. He was told that, for every video he sold, six copies would be made — 86% percent of the film's video sales would be lost to piracy. Who would pay $20 for a video they could get for free from a friend? Some of us don't see a problem with making copies and giving them away. We aren't making any money on the copy, just enjoying it ourselves. What's wrong with that?
The problem is that the creators of the work are being cheated out of a rightful sale of their work. They had no intention of “giving away” their hard work. And, like in the case of the Catholic filmmaker, they have bills to pay for producing it. Distribute enough free copies and they could be financially ruined.
Being a religious, I've been offered lots of “free” software programs from lots of well-meaning people. One friend of the monastery wanted to give me a $600 database program that would help manage our mailing list. Why didn't I take him up on his offer? Because he wouldn't really be “giving” me the software. He'd be copying his own, legally registered version of the program and providing me with an unregistered copy of it in violation of copyright law.
The Internet has taken an already difficult copyright situation (CDs and videos have been getting illegally copied and distributed for years) and made it much worse. Now millions of people are just a couple of mouse clicks away from sharing copies of copyrighted material with the world. I thought I had seen and heard it all until I recently learned that even newly released movies — the ones that just opened in the local cineplex — can be downloaded from the Internet for free. (Now don't be asking me where!) People are attending the movies on opening night armed with miniature digital camcorders. The whole movie is recorded, downloaded to their computer's hard drive in a compressed format and then shared on the Internet. Anyone with a high-speed Internet connection can download the movie in minutes.
Many of you are familiar with what happened to Napster for sharing copyrighted music. They were sued in a big way by the music companies for infringement. But it seems that, for now at least, a way has been found around the copyright law — sharing copyrighted material from one computer to another. There is a service that puts people directly in touch with other people's computers on the Internet for the express purpose of sharing movies, music and other entertainment products.
Free, but Not Easy
Now all this loss of revenue due to copyright infringement has not escaped the attention of those who are in the media business to make money. For example, although the music industry may receive revenue for the sale of an original CD, it receives no compensation when Internet pirates make copies of the music available. Consequently, hundreds of music companies have joined forces to create the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI). SDMI's goals are to encourage digital music commerce and prevent piracy. SDMI defines standards that content creators and hardware and software manufacturers must follow to create certified products. An SDMI-compliant media file contains a watermark, an identifier that validates the authenticity of the content. (This is likened to images placed on dollar bills by the government to distinguish them from counterfeits.)
So how does all this affect you? Soon you may find that copyrighted music downloaded from the Internet or obtained in any other illegal way will not play on your computer. And your CD burner will not allow you to make a copy of a music CD or music file to share with your friends, or even to download it to your personal digital assistant or MP3 player. On the down side, music content authors can severely limit the use of even legitimately bought music and “fair use” of it. You may be restricted on what you can play it on and how many backup copies you can make.
Digital-rights management is a growing field. Expect similar moves to be made to protect software, DVDs, movies and computer games. John Fanning, a Napster co-founder, is starting up an online movie-distribution service called NetMovies. The company has secured rights to more than 200 titles from Blockbuster's video library, and with Blockbuster's assistance has several pending deals with major motionpicture studios for rights on a payper-view basis to current releases as well as some catalogue titles. This time around, Fanning is pledging to protect copyrights.
Will the same technology that has enabled people to copy anything and everything be used to prevent them from doing so? I wouldn't bet against it.
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration, writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:This month we'll look at sites on which you can learn about adoration of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
The Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament is a worldwide lay apostolate and evangelization ministry. Their sole purpose is to bring people to Jesus, especially in eucharistic adoration. There is an abundance of information on their Web site, www.acfp2000.com.
The Association of Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, which promotes eucharistic worship and devotion, emphasizes the value of perpetual adoration before the exposed Blessed Sacrament. At www.peainc.org you will find its guidelines, statutes, online store and more.
The Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association, at www.therealpresence.org, is based in Chicago. Here you will find listings of eucharistic adoration sites in the United States, information about the holy Eucharist, Catholic home study courses, an adorers society, a perpetualadoration manual and more.
If you are scratching your head wondering what adoration is all about, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church at scborromeo.org/ccc/p2-s2c1a3.htm, “The History of Eucharistic Adoration,” by the late Jesuit Father John Hardon at ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/HISTOREA.txt or the other links in my online Catholic directory on this topic at www.-monksofadoration.org/adoretxt.html.
— Brother John Raymond
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:American Experience: Ulysses S. Grant (2002)
Many historians believe Grant was a more popular figure than Abraham Lincoln throughout the 19th century. This PBS documentary helps us understand why. Grant rose from humble origins and early failures to achieve great military victories and gain the presidency, making him a symbol of the American dream for his time. He won the decisive battles of the Civil War — Vicksburg and Richmond — and accepted Lee's surrender at Appomattox. But his term in the White House was tarnished by corruption and, upon retirement, he joined a Wall Street firm that went bankrupt in scandal.
Filmmakers Elizabeth Deane and Adriana Bosch use interviews with experts and period photographs and records to make the period come alive. Grant's intelligence and tenacity as a general are contrasted with his poor judgment in finance and in his choice of business and political associates. A humble man of few words, he also proved himself to be a surprisingly talented writer when his memoirs were published.
Caddie Woodlawn (1988)
Growing up out west while the frontier was being settled was both more innocent and more dangerous than what kids face today. Caddie Woodlawn, a TV movie based on Carol Ryrie Brink's novel, dramatizes the adventures of an 11-year-old tomboy (Emily Shulman) during the mid-19th century in Wisconsin. She wrestles with problems that at first seem familiar as she cruelly teases her refined cousin from Boston and resents the object of her brother Tom's affection.
But Caddie also prefers to swim across the river to visit her Dakota Indian friend, John, rather than stay at home and knit. When a pioneer family is murdered nearby, the Indian camp where John lives is suspected of harboring the killers. Vigilantes decide to take revenge. Caddie overhears their plans and must defy her family and the settlement to prevent an unjust retribution. The film focuses more on Caddie's psychology than on the action sequences.
The Long Gray Line (1955)
As America prepares for war, its military traditions are once again an object of scrutiny. The Long Gray Line, based on Marty Maher's autobiography Bringing up the Brass, evokes the West Point mystique as seen through the eyes of a feisty Irish immigrant. During his 50-year career at the Point, Maher (Tyrone Power) rises from being “another Mick waiter” to become a much-loved athletic trainer and football coach. In the process, a hot-tempered young man matures into the mentor of several generations of cadets that include future leaders like Dwight Eisenhower (Harry Carey Jr.)
Director John Ford chronicles Maher's courtship and marriage to the fiery, religious Mary O'Donnell (Maureen O’ Hara) and the personal tragedies they endure. We also watch their contemporaries leave the Point to fight in wars and die. These heroes’ sons then grow up to serve under Marty as their fathers once did. Ford uses broad humor and sentimentality to show us that West Point is more of a giant family than an academic institution.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, OCT. 20
Nature: Horse and Rider PBS, 8 p.m.
This special delves into the bond that riders and horses develop. Experts explain that the rider first must understand the horse and take measures to build trust so that both man and animal will begin to communicate well and then work together smoothly.
MONDAY, OCT. 21
7th Heaven WB, 8 p.m.
The entire family of Eric and Annie Camden (Stephen Collins and Catherine Hicks) has to deal with the ramifications of Eric's double-bypass heart surgery. After seven seasons, this program about a Southern California family continues to be WB's toprated show. Re-runs appear weeknights at 7 on ABC Family (formerly the Fox Family Channel).
TUESDAY, OCT. 22
A Nose for Crime Animal Planet, 8 p.m.
Watch as highly trained dogs demonstrate how they fight crime and save lives.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23
EWTN Live EWTN, 8 p.m.
In a rare appearance on U.S. television, Jesuit Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Society of Jesus, visits with fellow Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa. Their topic: “Marian and Eucharistic Devotion in Light of the New Evangelization.”
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23
Venice Under Siege National Geographic Channel, 8 p.m.
Venice is home to many beautiful and historic churches, squares, palaces, galleries and monuments. But, over the last century, the Adriatic has nibbled away nearly a foot of its foundation. Learn what methods scientists are proposing to save the city.
THURSDAY, OCT. 24
Life on the Rock EWTN, 8 p.m.
Despite never playing in the major leagues, guest Rich Donnelly has spent the last two decades as a coach with several big-league teams, including the 1997 Florida Marlin world champs. He is known as one of the game's top wits — and as a man of principle.
FRIDAY, OCT. 25
Amazing Sea Rescues Travel Channel, 8 p.m.
Many question the recent federal law under which the U.S. Coast Guard has to force some freedom-seeking Cuban rafters back to Castro. But this show focuses on the brave Coast Guardsmen who risk their lives to save people in all sorts of emergencies at sea.
SATURDAY, OCT. 26
Automobiles: 1955 Chevrolet History Channel, 2 p.m.
Chevrolet's 1955 model year became a watershed in U.S. automotive history, thanks to innovations such as Motoramic styling and the 180-horsepower small block V8 engine.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts and Culture -------- TITLE: One Heart, Twelve Promises DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Through St. Margaret Mary, Jesus made 12 promises to Christians who enthrone the image of his Sacred Heart in their homes:
1. I will give them all the graces necessary for their state in life.
2. I will establish peace in their families.
3. I will bless every house in which the picture of my heart shall be exposed and honored.
4. I will console them in all their difficulties.
5. I will be their refuge during life and especially at the hour of death.
6. I will shed abundant blessings upon their undertakings.
7. Sinners shall find in my heart a fountain and boundless ocean of mercy.
8. Tepid souls shall become fervent.
9. Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.
10. I will give to priests the power of touching the hardest hearts.
11. Those who propagate this devotion shall have their names written in my heart, never to be blotted out.
12. I promise you, in the excessive mercy of my heart, that my all-powerful love will grant to all who receive Communion on the first Friday of the month for nine consecutive months, the final grace of penitence; they shall not die in my displeasure nor without their sacraments. My divine heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Q I've gotten into the habit of buying lottery tickets with the hope that I'll win and be able to pay off my debts. I have also been looking into a number of business and investment opportunities that promise both quick and sizable returns. Lately I've begun to feel that maybe I shouldn't be involved with these. What do you think?
A You've touched on an important issue and I'm glad that you are beginning to question the wisdom of participating in these “get-rich-quick” schemes. While the “promises” of wealth made by those promoting gambling and investment scams can be enticing, the normal result is ever-deepening financial bondage. It is unfortunate that both gambling and investment scams prey on those least able to afford it.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes how we should view “games of chance” as follows: “Games of chance (card games, etc.) or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice. They become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement” (No. 2413).
I just received a letter from a woman who has struggled for years with her finances and has thousands of dollars of credit-card debt, yet she spends hundreds of dollars a year on lottery tickets with the faulty hope that she'll hit the jackpot and solve her problems. In reality, this bad habit is enslaving her further.
You also mentioned that you are considering business and investment opportunities promising quick and sizable returns. I encourage you to use caution. The story of another family comes to mind: The wife heard about a home-based business that would allow her to stay home with their children while generating sufficient income to pay down their debts. In order to get started in the business, a $12,000 fee was required, plus equipment and training to the tune of another $4,000. Since the couple had no savings, these charges also went on credit cards.
You can guess what happened. After taking the money from who knows how many people, the operators are nowhere to be found. Now this family, which already had credit card problems, is in the position of having added thousands of dollars more to their debt.
While not as glamorous as hitting the “jackpot,” the solution to your money problems rests in getting back to the basics of living on a budget and developing a debt-repayment plan that you follow consistently. Read the following references from the Book of Proverbs. Then pray for the grace and discipline needed to overcome your temptation with these get-rich-quick schemes.
“Wealth hastily gotten will dwindle, but he who gathers little by little will increase it” (Proverbs 13:11).
“The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to want” (Proverbs 21:5).
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own insight” (Proverbs 3:5).
God love you!
Phil Lenahan is executive director of Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Enthronement of the Sacred Heart's Comeback DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Today's Catholic family is under so much pressure on so many fronts, it sometimes seems like it would take a house visit from Christ himself to ease the strain.
Ask and ye shall receive.
When Jesus appeared in the 1670s to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun, he asked that homes be consecrated to his Sacred Heart as a sign of families’ faith in his living presence in the Church. This consecration — or “home enthronement” — was blessed by Pope St. Pius X (1835-1914).
It has been renewed by every pope since — and it is being rediscovered and promoted in the 21st century by the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis.
Speaking to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus promised “peace in your families, refreshment in your labors, the blessing of heaven in all undertakings, consolation from heaven, and refuge during life and at the hour of death.” All that, and more, just for enthroning Christ as king of the home.
The enthronement ceremony focuses on the familiar image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: bleeding from open wounds and flaming with love. A series of prayers and readings are led by a priest or by the head of the household, and the image is blessed and hung in a prominent spot. The image becomes for the family a daily reminder that, in living out our love for one another, we can make reparation for the sins and ingratitude of the world.
This is not simply a picture-hanging ceremony; in fact, the rite is only the beginning. By formally recognizing Christ as Lord of the family, a father places his own authority in the service of Christ. The family also promises to lead a Christ-like life, to develop Christian virtue in the home, to not compromise with the spirit of secularism and to cultivate deep love for Christ by the frequent reception of holy Communion. Grace inspires families to perform acts of charity, participate in family prayer and frequent the sacraments of penance and Eucharist.
Perhaps it's due to the frenetic pace of our times that home enthronement of the Sacred Heart is seeing a resurgence just now. And then, not only in homes, but also in schools, businesses and, in at least one instance, an entire diocese.
In 2001, Bishop Raymond Burke of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis., decided to bring the enthronement to every parish in his diocese.
“I was inspired by my experience with a devotion to the Sacred Heart from my own childhood,” Bishop Burke recalls. “I was also [motivated] by a great need among people for a devotion which would bring the Eucharist to the home — to enable the family to continue to live consciously in the presence of Christ at all times. In this way, Christ is recognized as the king of the heart, of the home and as a constant member of the family.”
Ignited by the graces of the Jubilee, the diocese invited the Sacred Heart Apostolate of Syracuse, N.Y., to come and prepare the faithful for a diocesanwide enthronement. Pastors and laity were given extensive doctrinal and practical instruction in preparation for the event, which fittingly took place in November 2001 on the feast of Christ the King.
A Sacred Heart icon was created for the enthronement of the cathedral, and copies were made available throughout the diocese. “Having the same diocesan icon available to all the faithful created a unique connection between the family and the parish,” says Chris Carstens, director of La Crosse's sacred worship office. “It was a reminder of the ideal of the enthronement: having Christ in the home and Christ in the tabernacle.”
Matthew Brasmer, director of La Crosse's office of stewardship and development, says signs that the initiative made an impact were not hard to come by.
“In parishes where the enthronement was actively promoted,” he says, “we have seen increases in giving, in parish involvement and in participation in eucharistic adoration.”
Bishop Burke remembers a number of instances in which the graces received through enthronement were clearly evident. “One family wrote to tell me about one of their members who was dying of cancer,” he says. “He was confined at home, feeling very restless and upset. The neighbors, who were close to the man's family, suggested to the wife that perhaps the enthronement should be done over the sick bed — they thought it might bring the sick man the help he needed. It was truly miraculous. After the enthronement, the man became very much at peace. He ended up dying a peaceful death.”
Nor are the graces available through enthronement limited to the spiritual realm. Phil Lenahan, a certified public accountant who serves as vice president of Catholic Answers in El Cajon, Calif., says he has even seen the benefits of enthronement carry over into family finances. “Restoring the kingship of Christ over the home brings both spouses to desire the will of God for everything in the family,” he says. “That includes the ways they spend money.”
Carstens encourages families throughout the United States to consider what enthronement has done for the Diocese of La Crosse — and what it could do for them. “This devotion will not take all family problems away, of course,” he says. “But having Christ in the home can only help situations that families face today. When we have Christ actively in our midst, it helps families to stay together.
“The promises Christ made to St. Margaret Mary are not magical,” adds Carstens. “However, they are promises made by God himself, so they are serious. If we do what he asks of us in honoring his Sacred Heart, those promises will be fulfilled.”
Caroline Schermerhorn writes from Newark, Ohio.
Information
Christ Carstens
Sacred Worship Office
Diocese of Lacrosse
Worship@dioceseoflacrosse (608) 791-2674
National Enthronement Center 3 Adams St.
Fairhaven, MA. 02719
Sacred Heart Apostolate: Scaredhc@dreamscape.com (800) 851-5320
Directory of Popular Piety and the Liturgy www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/C DWPIETY.HTM
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Caroline Schermerhorn ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: All the Island's a Pulpit DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Edmundite Father Thomas Hoar worked as a college administrator and chaplain before accepting his current assignment: director of St. Edmund's Retreat on Enders Island, 12 acres of peace and prayer just off the mainland of Mystic, Conn. There he's overseen the launch of the St. Michael Institute of Sacred Art and co-founded a radio show, “Abound in Hope,” now broadcast on the Ave Maria Radio Network. He's also a popular parish-mission preacher around New England and a superb chef known for his fund-raising dinners and English high teas on the island. He spoke with Register correspondent Joseph Pronechen about the retreat ministry and his priestly vocation.
How do you preach the call to holiness?
It's about living ordinary lives extraordinarily well with the grace of God. We all have crosses in our life. Can we deal with them with dignity and grace? Can we live in hope? We haven't been preaching Christian hope with enough dynamism and authenticity. That's why so many people are running off to psychics, New Age gurus and mega feel-good churches. Jesus Christ, Lord of Heaven and Earth, said, “If you believe in me …” We have to help people hear the message of hope and new life in Christ.
Is there a way that you apply it to yourself?
I've had three cancer surgeries. Once we can let go of the fear of death — we're all going to die — then we can truly live our lives in hope and without fear. Hope isn't about making people feel good. Jesus didn't feel good hanging on the cross. I didn't feel good about having cancer surgery. But you can still be at peace, still have hope, still live under the assurance of God's promise of his presence. Jesus falls three times in the Stations of the Cross. But he gets up and he continues. So must we.
I look for all sorts of ways to interact with people and invite them to discover the Lord in ordinary ways. It's not my message. It's the message of the Church, the message of the Gospel, the message of Jesus Christ. I've been privileged to witness to it for the past 24 years.
What do you do in addition to your duties on Enders Island?
I help out in local churches and I preach parish retreats from Nova Scotia to Texas — I never turn down an invitation when I'm asked to preach, no matter how far I have to travel to get there. God's given me a lot of energy and blessings and it's really only because of his grace that I can do it. I try to have balance in life, too. One of the things I do for leisure is ride horses. It gives me an opportunity to put away all the administrative stuff, clear my mind and do something enjoyable. Being balanced physically, spiritually and emotionally, and having your life centered in the Eucharist, the Lord — that's not just important for priests. It's important for everyone.
How did you come to join the Edmundites?
I went to St. Michael's College in Vermont as a pre-med major. The Society of St. Edmund founded the college in 1904. I was going to daily Mass and was impressed by the preaching and personality of Edmundite Father Ray Doherty, who was the college chaplain. I started to think about the priesthood, which I had thought of as a boy, and it seemed natural to join the Edmundites. I liked the fact that they worked on college campuses, and that is what I did for the first 15 years of my priesthood.
How did your priestly ministry develop?
I professed my vows on Aug. 22, 1971, and was ordained a priest on the vigil of Pentecost — May 13, 1978 — at the Chapel of St. Michael the Archangel at the St. Michael's College in Winooski Park, Vt.
I went on for a doctorate, became a college vice president and then returned to St. Michael's. There we promoted volunteerism and created excitement about campus and social-justice ministries. Our efforts to invite students into the Mass resulted in a vibrant Sunday worship community.
In 1989, before taking a trip to Lourdes, I found myself trying to remember the mysteries of the rosary. I was touched by the whole story of Lourdes and by the procession with thousands of people praying the rosary in every language. That was a powerful moment in my life. Then I said Mass at the grotto with my feet by the holy well dug by Bernadette.
When I returned to America, Mary became for me a means to come to a deeper understanding of God's call to personal holiness. My preaching followed my personal development; I started to stress God's call to personal holiness over the social-justice ministries. I came to see that, if we don't have a real commitment to grow in holiness, we can easily fall into the trap of becoming secular humanists. The Christian, I believe, is called to be much more than just a very dedicated volunteer.
How has Enders Island changed since you arrived?
One of the first things I did nine years ago was to consecrate the island to the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart. And we moved forward, by God's grace. Back then we were running a deficit of well more than $100,000 annually and the facilities needed $1 million in repairs. Now our retreats are breaking even. Our new chapel will be dedicated on Dec. 7.
I noticed the construction project — it would have been hard to miss. Looks like a major addition to the island.
This chapel will be the heart of the island and it's already a powerful symbol.
Some of our neighbors who have a view of the island were opposed to the cross that tops the chapel — it's very prominent and visible from a long way away. But the cross is key to victory. It's right where it belongs.
The stones on the chapel's façade are being placed by hand with great care. Some special rocks are being placed; they came from Marian shrines throughout the world and from the abbey where St. Edmund is buried. This physical building is such a representation of the Church universal. It's a traditional Romanesque design, but it's also unique. All the artwork is done by people who teach at the St. Michael Institute of Sacred Art here on the island.
This is symbolic of the real challenge we have in the world today: to build the Church out of living stones. To me, the fundamental ministry of the priest is to build the Church.
How did you come by the principal relic of St. Edmund, his arm and hand?
The relic of St. Edmund, a contemporary of St. Francis, came to this country in 1950. It was held at the chapel of St. Michael's College until about 1965, then it was moved a couple of times. I asked if we could have it for Enders and the new chapel. So St. Edmund came here last year just after we broke ground for the new chapel. Around that time we also made an exciting discovery in the basement of the main house here — a box of firstclass relics was found; it included a relic of the true cross with the papal seal of Innocent IX. This will be placed in our processional cross.
How will the chapel's art inspire people?
The stained glass, the stations, the frescoes, the icons — all will be catechetical, teaching people about the wonders and powers of God. It's the Gospel in living images. It's important for people to hear the message of hope even in their brokenness. The Holy Father is always talking about hope. He's a great role model to me. And in our chapel, the altar is smack in front of you: The heart of everything is the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Baby Mugs DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Name: Emma Rose Alva
Birth date: Feb. 12, 2002
Birth weight: 8 pounds, 3 ounces
Personality: Patient and happy
Latest accomplishment: Using her foot as a teether
Loves: Her older brother, Rafael, 4, and sister Elizabeth, 2; playing in the waves at the beach.
To celebrate life, the Register wants to print your baby pictures — with captions that are funny, sentimental or inspiring. A recent photo of any child 3 months to 3 years old is eligible. The best photo/caption combination will be printed each week.
Include all information you see in the feature.
For each photo we use, we'll send you a 2 ounce Baby Mug.
Send your photos to Baby Mugs.
Baby Mugs National Catholic Register 432 Washington Avenue
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----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 10/20/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 20-26, 2002 ----- BODY:Cardinal Maida on Prolife Politics
The reminder follows protests by prolife activists aimed at Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic candidate for governor, who is Catholic and proabortion, reported Detroit's largest daily newspaper.
“Ultimately, there is a higher law, the law of God,” the cardinal said in a statement that was read at all Masses in the Detroit area Oct. 5 and 6.
The article also quoted Monica Migliorino Miller, a theology professor at St. Mary's College and leader of a group that has picketed Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Plymouth, where Granholm worships. “It is reasonable to conclude that his remarks are made with Jennifer Granholm in mind,” said Migliorino Miller, “and that he seeks to blunt the effects of a scandal that [Granholm] has caused within the diocese.”
No Room for Abortions
According to the daily newspaper, local businessman Jerry Uht Jr. bought an office suite in the building formerly owned by Brigham's company, Peach Street Real Estate. Uht bought the office suite for just $2,400 after Brigham failed to pay overdue taxes on the property.
The office Uht purchased is the largest of Brigham's six suites in the building — and the likely locale of the abortion business he had hoped to open. Legal abortions have not been performed in Erie County in more than 20 years.
Stars Defend Life in Prime Time
LIFESITE DAILY NEWS, Oct. 3 — Former supermodel Kathy Ireland and Emmy-award-winning actress Patricia Heaton of “Everybody Loves Raymond” have taken their pro-life views to the TV news-show circuit.
Appearing Sept. 30 on Fox News Channel's “Hannity and Colmes,” Ireland told co-host Alan Colmes: “If you can show me evidence that the unborn is not a human being, I will gladly join the prochoice side.” Regarding the pro-abortion atmosphere in Hollywood, she said, “I know it's not a popular issue. … I have no choice but to defend the most vulnerable among us.”
On Oct. 1, Heaton told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly that she has felt disdain at times from colleagues. “I wore a Quayle-Bush button,” she said, “and literally people would stop and look at the button, and look at me and give me dirty looks and, you know, say nasty things to me.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: All for Mary: New Mysteries Kick Off a Year of the Rosary DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II celebrated his 24th anniversary as Pope by signing a new apostolic letter, “The Rosary of the Virgin Mary” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae), in which he announced a “Year of the Rosary” and added five new decades, called the “mysteries of light” or “luminous mysteries.”
The Pope began the Wednesday audience of Oct. 16 by signing “The Rosary” and then repeating the words he spoke during his recent visit to Poland.
“Mother Most Holy, obtain also for me strength of body and of spirit, so that I may be able to complete to the end the mission assigned to me by the Risen One,” he said. “To you I return all the fruits of my life and of my ministry; to you I entrust the destiny of the Church; in you I trust and to you I declare once again: Totus tuus, Maria! Totus tuus! Amen.”
At 24 years in the See of Peter, Pope John Paul II is now the fifth-longest reigning pope in history; only St. Peter, Blessed Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius VI have had longer pontificates.
Proclaiming the “year from October 2002 to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary,” the new apostolic letter speaks of an “urgent need to counter a certain crisis of the rosary, which in the present historical and theological context can risk being wrongly devalued and therefore no longer taught to the younger generation.”
The rosary has been a “genuine path to growth in holiness” for many saints, notes the Holy Father, specifically mentioning St. Louis de Montfort and St. Padre Pio. He quotes Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926), a “true apostle of the rosary,” who said: “Whoever spreads the rosary is saved!”
Blessed Bartolo Longo's devotion to the rosary led him out of interest in the occult. He built the shrine of Our Lady of Rosary of Pompeii near Naples, Italy. The image of Our Lady of Pompeii was specially brought to St. Peter's Square from the shrine for the signing of “Rosarium,” accompanied by 1,500 pilgrims on two special trains who came for the anniversary.
New Mysteries
“The Rosary” proposes five new mysteries for the rosary: the “mysteries of light” or the “luminous mysteries.” The new mysteries “bring out fully the Christological depth of the rosary” according to John Paul, applying the “luminous principle” of Vatican II that Mary is the one who most fully participates in the mystery of Christ.
The five luminous mysteries of Christ's life are: “(1) his baptism in the Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, (3) his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call to conversion, (4) his Transfiguration, and finally, (5) his institution of the Eucharist as the sacramental expression of the Paschal Mystery.”
These mysteries broaden the rosary to “include the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his baptism and his passion.”
As to the practicalities of the new mysteries, “The Rosary” proposes that the luminous mysteries be prayed on Thursday. The joyful mysteries, traditionally prayed on Monday and Thursday, would now shift to Monday and Saturday—“Saturday has always had a special Marian flavor [suitable for the joyful mysteries in which] Mary's presence is especially pronounced.” The sorrowful mysteries would remain on Tuesday and Friday, and the glorious mysteries would be prayed Sunday and Wednesday.
John Paul is not enforcing or legislating these changes, but only proposing them, for “The Rosary” does “not intend to limit a rightful freedom in personal and community prayer ... what is really important is that the rosary should always be seen and experienced as a path of contemplation.”
The new mysteries made the front page of USA Todayand the paper also included a feature teaching readers how to pray the rosary. Scott Hahn, a theology professor at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, reacted with enthusiasm.
“When I announced it to students, it blew their minds. They think it's awesome because it connects Jesus and Mary even more than before,” Hahn said.
“It doesn't seem so much an addition to a tradition as the filling of a gap,” wrote Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, demonstrating that the rosary was news beyond just Catholic circles. “The new mysteries seem like something that had originally been there but was somehow lost to time. ... It was odd to contemplate the joyfuls one day and jump to the sorrowfuls the next; something was missing.”
While the rosary has maintained its traditional format for about 900 years, the changes proposed by the Holy Father are “not something out of the blue” according to Msgr. Arthur Calkins, a Vatican official and Marian expert who has written a book on John Paul and Mary: Totus Tuus: John Paul II's Program of Marian Consecration and Entrustment.
“When Pope Paul VI wrote Marialis Cultus (The Cult of Mary) in 1974, there was already a movement toward new mysteries, but it was thought—I think wisely—that there were already too many changes going at the time,” Msgr. Calkins said.
“There have long been complaints that the rosary goes from beginning to end, from the infancy to the passion,” he added. “I think the Holy Father must have been aware of this the background and has now deemed that the time is right.”
As to the practical aspects of the new mysteries, Msgr. Calkins noted that it remains only a proposal that will have to be accepted or rejected by common practice.
“This shouldn't hurt anything,” he said. “This is not being imposed—those who say the 15 mysteries are free to continue to do so. Those who wish to use the new mysteries can do so.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: `Luminous' Message: `Do Whatever He Tells You' DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—“The rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer,” writes Pope John Paul II in The Rosary of the Virgin Mary” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae). “With the rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty of the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.”
In signing the document at the Oct. 16 audience, the anniversary of this papal election, rather than on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct. 7, the Holy Father clearly wanted to link his appeal for a “revitalization” of the rosary to his own personal experience and piety. In effect, the preparation for his Silver Jubilee as Pope next year will be a year devoted to Mary through the rosary.
“The Rosary” is marked by the same personal meditative quality that marked John Paul's apostolic letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte” (“As the New Millennium Begins”). That letter, which marked the end of the Great Jubilee, contained an extended invitation to “contemplate the face of Christ.” In “Rosarium,” which the Pope describes “as a kind of Marian complement to [“Novo Millennio Ineunte”],” he says that “to recite the rosary is nothing other that to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.”
The Holy Father defends the rosary as proper Christian prayer directed toward Christ himself and, because of this focus on Christ, not an obstacle to ecumenical relations. In addition, he proposes the rosary be prayed especially for the cause of peace and the defense of the family.
“The rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home of Nazareth,” writes the Pope. “This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care, until Christ is‘fully formed' in us (Galatians 4:19).
“This role of Mary, totally grounded in that of Christ and radically subordinated to it, in no way obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power. This is the luminous principle expressed by the Second Vatican Council, which I have so powerfully experienced in my own life and made the basis of my episcopal motto: Totus Tuus.”
“The Rosary” is written from the heart of a disciple, priest and Pope who has long contemplated the face of Christ through the eyes of his Mother. John Paul, who often prays several rosaries a day, notes that “in the course of those mysteries we contemplate important aspects of the person of Christ as the definitive revelation of God.”
The traditional 15 mysteries of the rosary focus on the infancy and childhood of Christ (the joyful mysteries), the passion and death (the sorrowful mysteries) and the definitive triumph of the resurrection (the glorious mysteries). The public life of Christ is absent—a gap the Holy Father hopes to correct with the new luminous mysteries.
“It is during the years of his public ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of light:‘While I am in the world, I am the light of the world' (John 9:5),” writes John Paul. “Certainly the whole mystery of Christ is a mystery of light. Yet this truth emerges in a special way during the years of his public life, when he proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom.”
“In these mysteries, apart from the miracle at Cana, the presence of Mary remains in the background,” writes the Holy Father of his new mysteries. “The Gospels make only the briefest reference to her occasional presence at one moment or other during the preaching of Jesus, and they give no indication that she was present at the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. Yet the role she assumed at Cana in some way accompanies Christ throughout his ministry. The revelation made directly by the Father at the baptism in the Jordan and echoed by John the Baptist is placed upon Mary's lips at Cana, and it becomes the great maternal counsel which Mary addresses to the Church of every age:‘Do whatever he tells you.' (John 2:5).”
In the rest of the‘Rosarium' letter, John Paul reflects on how the contemplative prayer of the rosary leads one to a deeper knowledge of the mystery of Christ, which reveals the mystery of man—with all his “problems, anxieties, labors and endeavors—in the mystery of God: To pray the rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother. Twenty-five years later, thinking back over the difficulties which have also been part of my Petrine ministry, I feel the need to say once more, as a warm invitation to everyone to experience it personally: The rosary does indeed‘mark the rhythm of human life,' bringing it into harmony with the‘rhythm' of God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny and deepest longing.”
Children's Rosary
This Marian letter from this Marian Pope concludes with him turning to another of his favorite themes: young people.
“To pray the rosary for children, and even more, with children ... is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated,” he writes. “Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and creative—as shown by the World Youth Days!—is capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the rosary is well-presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the enthusiasm typical of their age group.”
Why not try it? At the beginning of his 25th year, John Paul asks the world to rediscover what he calls his “favorite prayer.”
—Father Raymond J. de Souza
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Religious Investment Funds: Doves in a Bear Market? DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:LOS ANGELES—When Mary Naber finished her consultant internship in Santa Clara, Calif., she invested a portion of her paycheck in a top-performing mutual fund mentioned in Money magazine.
“It's what everyone was doing,” she said. But later she discovered the fund invested in corporations profiting from pornography and abortion. She not only sold the investment but found an ethical investment that better suited her Christian values.
According to a recent investor survey, a growing number of investors like Naber have been putting their money where their faith is—in religious-related investments.
Managers of such funds say investing has continued even while stocks have lost value.
The investor survey, done by Thomson Wealth Management for Mennonite Mutual Aid, showed that religious-related mutual funds have grown from 34 funds in 1999 to 75 funds today. In addition, the research also showed that individuals are investing money in such funds at a rate almost double investments in the remainder of the mutual fund industry.
Religious funds—a relatively recent creation—shadow socially responsible investing (or SRI, as the trend is known in the industry), which has become popular in the past 30 years. Whereas these funds traditionally screen against companies profiting from alcohol, gambling or tobacco, religious-related investments go a step further. They include funds such as the Amana Funds, an Islamic fund that shuns liquor, pornography, gambling and investments that pay interest; and the Timothy Fund, one of the first biblically based religious funds.
According to the Kennewick, Wash.-based Carlisle Social Investments, more than 70% of socially responsible investing portfolios in the United States in 2001 were not in compliance with the investment guidelines adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops due to their failure to employ abortion and/or birth control screens.
Therefore, a handful of Catholic investment funds have entered the horizon over the past decade. They include Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund, Aquinas Funds Inc., The Catholic Funds and the Catholic Values Investment Trust, as well as the Carlisle Catholic Indexes and Christian Brothers Investment Services, which are open only to Catholic institutions.
Investment Trend
Naber's run-in with unscreened funds led her to explore the trend in religious investing. A Harvard graduate in economics and religion, her senior thesis examined the effects of screens on Catholic investing and also led her to found FaithfulSteward.org, which provides resources on ethical investing. She now works as a financial adviser for Merrill Lynch in Beverly Hills.
Studies by Naber and the Social Investment Forum demonstrate that there appears to be little difference in returns between religious or socially conscious funds compared with others.
Naber's research on Catholic principles from 1991-1995 was published in the Journal of Investing. She concluded that religiously screened portfolios did not yield a significantly different return once adjustments were made for market risk, such as taking into consideration the high volatility and risk found in traditional “sin” portfolios that contain pharmaceutical or military companies.
Naber chose to research Catholic investments because “the Catholic Church has the most well-thought-out guidelines on the subject,” she said, referring to the National Council of Catholic Bishops/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' 1991 document “Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines.”
“The U.S. bishops' guidelines outlined the procedures that they intended to follow regarding the collective investments of the bishops' conference,” explained Dr. Robert Kennedy, a Catholic studies and management professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. “It includes a hodgepodge of specific things they did not want to invest in such as abortifacients, tobacco or companies that did not have enough women represented on their boards.”
“The bishops are clear in their direction that in considering investments one must consider both the financial and the social aspect. It is clear that the ethical dimension is important and requires attention,” said Brother Michael O'Hern, Chief Executive Officer for Christian Brothers Investment Services, the country's first Catholic investment company and one of the largest with nearly $3 billion in institutional assets.
Brother O'Hern said Christian Brothers uses the U.S. bishops' guidelines and its document “Economic Justice for All” to help make investment decisions.
However, aside from those guidelines, when it comes to Church teaching on the issue of investing, the guidance is sparse. Very few Church documents speak directly of investments.
“The function of the Church and magisterium is to remind us of moral principles,” Kennedy said. “It is the task of the laity to imply those moral principles in specific professions.”
Therefore, he said, Catholic ethicists have not devoted much attention to the problems of investing with a conscience, since so much of investing quickly becomes case-specific. “There is a need to look at individual companies in order to make judgments about them,” he said.
Ethical Concerns
Looking at individual companies is what most Catholic investment companies attempt to do. By most accounts, the Catholic-related funds tend to follow the bishops' guidelines. Whereas Christian and socially responsible funds traditionally avoid stocks associated with alcohol, tobacco and gambling, Catholic funds tend to avoid corporations that support abortion, pornography and nuclear weapons. Still, the funds all take a different approach to the screens they employ.
Catholic Values Investment Trust, one of the first Catholic funds available to individuals, started in 1997 and screens out companies related to abortion and birth control, those that belittle human dignity and those that produce weapons of mass destruction.
“We work closely with our board to screen investments that adhere to the Church and its teachings,” said Executive Director Walter Miller.
The Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund employs additional screens, choosing not to invest in companies that support the American Civil Liberties Union and corporations that offer benefits for same-sex couples. This prevents them from investing in corporations such as Intel and Microsoft.
“Because in the eyes of the Church marriage is a unique relationship—and is, in fact, a sacrament—we would choose not to invest in companies whose policies put nonmarital relationships on a status with marital relationships,” former fund manager Greg Watkins said shortly after the fund was developed. “This means domestic-partner benefits. If a company offers that, we would choose to invest in a different company.”
“That opposes the law in many states,” noted Miller, whose funds do not take this issue into consideration. “Thirty-nine states have laws mandating same-sex benefits.”
Christian Brothers Investment Services and the Dallas-based Aquinas Funds use a different method. In addition to screening, they take a proactive approach.
“We will invest in companies with the intent of changing corporate policy,” said Aquinas President Frank Rauscher. As an example, he cites Aquinas' success in getting companies such as Whirlpool, Harley-Davidson Motor Co. and Dayton Hudson Corp. (owner of Target stores) to stop funding Planned Parenthood.
While admirable to some, others question Rauscher's tactic.
“It's arguable whether it works or not. Some question whether an investor is materially cooperating with, and profiting from, such companies while you own them,” said James Kelly, financial adviser with the Front Royal, Va.-based Paladin Financial.
“We will not invest in intrinsically evil companies such as Playboy. With other companies, if we don't feel we are making progress with a company, we divest and blacklist them,” Rauscher said.
“If you own stock in a company, you're financing it,” said Thomas Strobhar, president of Pro Vita Advisors, a nonprofit that does investment research to expose corporate support of abortion, pornography and religious bigotry. Strobhar founded the organization in 1989.
Both Catholic Values Investment Trust and Ave Maria use research by Pro Vita Advisors to help screen their investments.
Strobhar's organization has influenced the investment practices of hundreds of religious institutions and has filed a variety of shareholder resolutions on controversial topics. In the mid-1990s he was the first to file a shareholder resolution on contraceptives with Bristol-Myers Squibb. While the company did not adopt the resolution, it decided to sell its contraceptive business a couple of years later.
Profitable?
In addition to ethics, the real question for investors tends to be whether religious-based investments offer a return, especially during struggling economic times. The statistics tend to show that they do.
“The good news for Catholic institutions and individuals is that they can do what the bishops called for without sacrificing returns,” said Jeffrey Petersen, president of Carlisle Social Investments. “We know from our own experience that it is not necessary to suffer below-average returns just because 300 or so companies have been removed from a universe of 3,000 companies.”
“We've had more people buying shares than redeeming them,” Rauscher said. “Even though market evaluations are down, we've had a net influx of money.”
Anna Hall, Aquinas Funds' marketing officer, said its funds have been doing better, overall, than the market. “While they are down, they aren't as down as others,” she said.
Miller agreed. “Our funds are performing exactly even with the market. We don't see people pulling money out. In fact, it's a great time to buy.”
Tim Drake is executive editor of Catholic.net.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cardinal Francis George: The Vatican Got It Right DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:In Dallas, Chicago's Cardinal Francis George said he would support the U.S. bishops' sex-abuse norms reluctantly.
Now the Vatican has weighed in on them regarding some of the same concerns Cardinal George had in June. He assessed the Vatican's Oct. 18 letter about the Dallas policy in a conversation with Register correspondent Wayne Laugesen.
What is your take on concerns expressed by the Vatican about the sexual-abuse policy the bishops devised in Dallas?
I suppose they have the same concerns the American Canon Law Society has. This violates the Code of Canon Law as we now have it, and we knew that when we passed it. That's why we asked for instructions on how to proceed, and now they're saying we'll get together and talk about it. The Vatican always sticks close to the code, so we'll have to see how much they're willing to alter the code for a particular purpose, but I think they are willing or they wouldn't have had a mixed commission. They would have just rejected it.
The Vatican seems concerned with the appeals process.
It's all part of due process, of respecting people.
The bishops have said they want to place victims first, yet the Vatican would like some more focus on due process for priests. Do you worry that public discourse about the appeals process might look disrespectful to the victims?
What if it's a false allegation?
The Vatican has also expressed concern about the statute of limitations, which is nonexistent under the Dallas policy.
The statute of limitations can be changed. We just put aside the statute of limitations and said anyone who's had something like this in his background at any time would not be able to stay in public ministry. There are other instances in the code where there is no statute—solicitations in the confessional, for example. So the statute of limitations is imposed by the code; it can also be changed.
Should it be changed?
That should be looked at, because this is such a grave pastoral problem, and once somebody has been proven to have this in his background it makes it very difficult to pastor.
Let's say it's 30 years in a priest's background, and he has completely reformed. Are you saying those 30 years should have no bearing on what happens to the priest?
No, it should. But that's something that can be discussed only once you say there is no statute of limitations. In other words, the statute of limitations is a priori, so you can't even consider it if it happened 30 years ago and you have a statute of limitations. Effectively our policy ignored the statute, and that's against the code.
The Vatican also expressed concern about the requirement out of Dallas that bishops must turn over all allegations to civil authorities. What are your thoughts on that?
The problem is, a bishop becomes someone who reports a priest to public authorities and that traditionally has not been something a bishop has done. But I think they've come to understand the need to do that in American civil law now, depending on how the bishop receives the allegation. So again, that's something that's also going to have to be worked out by the mixed commission.
Are you comfortable turning over every single allegation that comes your way? Some allegations must be incredibly silly and without foundation, aren't they?
I think, personally, that this reporting requirement is necessary in order to restore trust. The argument against bishops being involved in this at all is that sometimes in the past they passed on an abuser into another set of circumstances instead of reporting the abuse to the public authorities. And therefore, in that circumstance, I think it appropriate they do that [report to civil authorities]. Granted, 99% of the time they passed it on to civil authorities and the civil authorities said we can't do anything because the civil statute of limitations has run out. But it's still important to pass it on, I believe.
I spoke to a bishop at the Dallas conference who said he gets calls every week from the same delusional drunk who accuses priests of attacking her and molesting her in the streets. This woman is ill, and her complaints clearly aren't credible. It seems odd that such complaints must be turned over to civil authorities.
That's not a serious allegation, what you're talking about. An allegation has to be turned over with some sense that this is possibly happening. When you have someone who effectively isn't responsible, you don't pay attention to almost anything they say. That's not an allegation, what you described.
So, it's your understanding that bishops can use common sense and personal judgment—in following the Dallas policy—in deciding whether to contact civil authorities?
I would think so. Otherwise police won't listen to you when you call. But you have to be cautious about that and not excuse yourself too easily from reporting to the civil authorities. This is a very serious situation in which children have been abused, and it's not something we should play around with.
In dealing with the sexual-abuse crisis, bishops have had a major public-relations crisis on their hands as well. Does the Vatican understand this aspect of the crisis—meaning the need for bishops to answer to an angry American public?
Some do. The Holy Father certainly understands. Beyond that, whether each individual understands and to what extent they judge the relative importance of public opinion versus canon law, etc., I don't really know.
How much should the U.S. bishops worry about public opinion?
Public opinion is part of the equation around pastoral effectiveness, so yes, we have to be concerned about it.
Why not do just what canon law says, and to heck with what the secular world thinks about it?
Of course we have to do what canon law says, but we also have to look at the situation in which we're supposed to be pastoring. What the canonists say is “if you bishops had attended to this earlier on and tried some of these people as canon law provides for, we wouldn't have this mess.” I think they might have a good argument there.
Will this partial rejection of the policy cause a rift between American bishops and Rome?
The Vatican has done exactly the right thing. They've said we accept it in principle, but we have problems with details, particularly around canonical process, and therefore we're going to iron them out with a mixed commission. So they're bringing the American bishops into the discussion.
So you don't expect a rift, hard feelings or stalled negotiations?
Well, we'll see what the mixed commission comes up with. But this is not a rejection. This is being characterized as a rejection, and it's not a rejection. People who write that it's a rejection should be fired. It's irresponsible, because this is not a rejection. Look, you hand in a term paper, and the teacher throws it back in your face and says, “I reject it.” Or the teacher makes a few corrections and says, ”Might we talk about some of these problems in your term paper?” That's what's happened. That's not a rejection.
Might you be on the mixed commission?
We'll find out.
Will you explain all of this to your flock anytime soon? Will you try to tell them just what's going on with the Dallas policy and the Vatican?
No, I'll wait to see what happens. There's no hurry.
Will meeting the Vatican's concerns water down the bishops' policy?
I don't think so. There's certainly zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of minors. The problem is, what do you do with the priests? Of course there's zero tolerance for the behavior; absolutely.
At the Dallas conference, you said you would support the policy reluctantly because it was flawed.
Yes. Now's the time to get the flaws out of it. We had to put aside canonical process in order to do this. And a bigger flaw is in the Pope's own concern for forgiveness as a dimension of the Church's ministry, and how does that function with this policy? Now, you can have someone forgiven and still he shouldn't minister. But, more explicit attention to that is needed on that subject. We have to think that through.
The Pope seems to be more forgiving than American society, which wants heads to roll.
No, he said there should be no place in the priesthood for those who are a danger to children. He's not saying they can't be forgiven, he's just saying they don't have a place. They have a place elsewhere. They're not out of the Church. They're forgiven by God, but there are consequences to forgiven sin. It's called satisfaction, sometimes, in moral theology.
How are you doing with the application of this process in the Archdiocese of Chicago?
We've abided right down the line on this. We are in complete conformity with the Dallas charter in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Will this change anything regarding how you are currently handling sexual-abuse cases?
No. What we have are five people who are appealing my decision, and they have a right to do that, and now, hopefully, we'll have a process for appealing. Before, we didn't know what to do. We asked for instructions.
Now you'll get them?
I believe so.
So this comes at a good time for you?
Very good.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cardinal Francis George ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Rome to U.S.: Dallas Policy Needs Fixing DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Citing concerns over the unintended consequences of the U.S. bishops' sex-abuse policy, the Holy See has refused to approve their proposed norms for priests who sexually abuse minors.
Speaking at a news conference in Rome on Oct. 18, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stressed that the norms were not rejected outright but rather were in need of “further reflection and revision,” according to the official Vatican response.
That policy, overwhelmingly approved at the Dallas meeting of the bishops in June, required Vatican approval in order to become binding on all U.S. bishops. Senior U.S. bishops had predicted the Vatican would approve it. (Cardinal Francis George gives his opinion in the Inperson interview on this page.)
The Dallas policy now has to be examined and revised by a mixed commission made up of four American bishops appointed by Bishop Gregory and four bishops from the relevant Vatican departments.
“The mixed commission is a welcome step,” George Weigel told the Register. “After it finishes its work, it will be time to move quickly to the more fundamental reform of seminaries, the priesthood and the episcopate.”
The Holy See's response came in a two-page letter from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops. The letter praised the U.S. bishops' “firm condemnation of sexual misdeeds against minors.” Nonetheless, it said, the Dallas policy could “be the source of confusion and ambiguity ... because [it contains] provisions which in some aspects are difficult to reconcile with the universal law of the Church.”
Furthermore, Cardinal Re noted that since Dallas, more than a few cases have shown that “the terminology of these documents is at times vague or imprecise and therefore difficult to interpret.”
The Register has reported on several such cases, most recently that of Msgr. Michael Smith Foster, who has been on administrative leave from the Archdiocese of Boston for more than a month. The archdiocese suspended him because of sexual-abuse allegations so evidently baseless that the civil courts have dismissed them—with prejudice, meaning they can't be filed again—and the Boston Globehas run detailed exposés portraying the priest's accuser as a pathological liar.
Wrote Cardinal Re, “[I]t has been judged appropriate that before the recognitio [Holy See approval] can be granted, a further reflection on and revision of the [Dallas policy is] necessary.”
Cardinal Re's Congregation for Bishops handles matters arising from bishops' conferences, but the Vatican response was formulated after consultation with the dicasteries (Vatican offices) responsible for doctrine, clergy, seminary formation and canon law.
Due Process
Cardinal Re's letter did not mention specific objections, but Vatican officials who spoke to the Register said a lack of “due process” for accused priests was a chief concern.
“When the Church defends the human rights of all, she must also defend the human rights of her fallen priests,” said Cardinal Dario CastrillÛn Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, at another Oct. 18 press conference on a separate topic.
Bishop Gregory himself indicated three problem areas: the definition of “sexual abuse,” the role of diocesan review boards and the conformity of the proposed disciplinary procedures with the requirements of canon law.
Bishop Gregory stressed that the Vatican decision should not be seen as a rejection of the U.S. norms, nor should the situation be seen as a “conflict” between the U.S. bishops and the Vatican.
“Officials of the Roman Curia have shown great pastoral care in their sensitivity to the pain caused to victims, their commitment to the need to protect society from perpetrators of abuse, their regard for the respect that needs to be shown the rights of the accused and their pain at the anguish caused to faithful Catholics by this sinful and criminal conduct,” Bishop Gregory said. “We are grateful beyond words to the Holy Father for strengthening his brothers in this time of trial.”
Answering questions from reporters at the Rome press conference Oct. 18, Bishop Gregory repeated several times that the work of the mixed commission should be complete in time for the November meeting of the U.S. bishops. When one reporter commented that such a quick resolution would be a “miracle,” he responded, “You are talking to a man who believes in miracles.”
In private comments to the Register, Vatican officials noted the November deadline was not mentioned by Cardinal Re or any other Vatican source.
Bishop Gregory said the accelerated timeline indicated that the Dallas policy was “fairly well-done” and only in need of “fine-tuning.” He stressed that “no matters were completely unacceptable” to the Vatican and “nothing has been ruled out” of the Dallas policy. Vatican officials were not quite so optimistic, indicating that changes would be necessary in such major areas as the definition of sexual abuse and the power of review boards.
Immediate consequences were unclear. In response to questions about the status of the Dallas policy, Bishop Gregory said that bishops should continue implementing it.
“The bishops who have begun to implement the [Dallas policy]—will they stop? No,” he said. “I don't believe a bishop should halt [use of the norms].”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Youth Day Inspires Surge of Orthodoxy North of the Border DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:OTTAWA—It is safe to say not all of Canada's bishops are comfortable in the media limelight, issuing bold declarations of Catholic orthodoxy.
But in the 12 weeks since Pope John Paul II's visit for World Youth Day, those who broke ranks were enough to keep resurgent Catholicism continually in the news. With bishops in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary breaking pro-life ground, observers sense a renewed confidence.
For the first time, a Canadian bishop said last month that “liberalism” in the Church may be to blame for the decline of cultural Catholicism, once deeply rooted in Canada and particularly in Québec.
In a Sept. 20 homily at the start-of-term Mass for St. Paul University in Ottawa, one of Canada's most liberal institutions, Archbishop Marcel Gervais lamented that “the culture which we labeled ‘Catholic' has gone.”
Citing members of his own family and flock, he implied that the young have been deprived of basic teaching. “I have a delightful grandniece,” he said, “who never had any catechesis at all, knew nothing about the Eucharist, went up the aisle with everyone else to receive the Host, tasted it and said,‘Ugh! That tastes awful!'” Another boy, he said, pointed to a crucifix and said, “Who's that guy?”
Archbishop Gervais, 71, linked the loss of faith with the rise of material comfort during his lifetime. He then named an unexpected culprit. “Perhaps it's not just the improvement in our material well-being,” he said. “Perhaps it is the liberalism that we all adopted.”
He quoted Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago and a graduate of St. Paul's, who said in 1998, “We are at a turning point in the life of the Church in this century. Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project. Essentially a critique, even a necessary critique at one point in our history, it is now parasitical on a substance that no longer exists. It has shown itself unable to pass on the faith in its integrity.”
Young Catholic observers are delighted. “In what seems to be a miracle of World Youth Day,” said John-Henry Westen, editor of the online pro-life Lifesite News service, Church leaders “have been bolstered in their courage to boldly proclaim the truth by the ... joy and genuine faith shown by hundreds of thousands of youth.”
Bishops Speak Out
On Sept. 19, Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic, the archbishop of Toronto, refused to attend the annual cardinal's dinner hosted by the city's Thomas More Lawyers Guild upon learning organizers had invited Joe Clark, the ex-prime minister who now leads an opposition party, to be the guest speaker.
Two years ago, Clark said on CBC radio, “I am a Roman Catholic, I am pro-choice. ... Anyone who knows anything about the Roman Catholic Church knows that [abortion] has been an issue of division for quite some time.”
However, while he skipped the lawyers guild dinner, Cardinal Ambrozic said Mass for them. And, with Clark in the front pew, he said in the homily, “Somehow the people who are pro-abortion ... think [the unborn] don't feel the horrible pain that accompanies every death. I don't know one piece of living flesh that doesn't feel the pain when life is being gouged out of it.”
On Sept. 29, Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary startled Calgary Suntabloid readers with a column charging that “a deadly blindness has come over our land.”
“What was once seen as an act of desperation—the killing of one's own child—is now fiercely defended as a good decision and promoted as a right,” Bishop Henry wrote. “Some behaviors are always wrong, always incompatible with our love of God and the dignity of the human person,” he added.
Pro-abortion activists who regard themselves as Catholics also perceive the trend—and they don't like it.
“What the bishops have been saying is symptomatic of the whole move to the right,” said Joanna Manning, author of Take Back the Truth: Confronting Papal Power and the Religious Right and Is The Pope Catholic? A Woman Confronts Her Church.
“There is a trend to more sectarian conservative Catholicism in the hierarchy,” Manning said, “and it's coming from the top. ... But I suspect that it's more of a power play to maintain control.”
Manning said it is not liberalism that is to blame for the decline in Canada's Catholic culture, but the marginalization of its “more radical theological offspring”—what she calls “creative” feminist and liberation theology.
“The lay Church has grown up since Vatican II and they're not going to follow what they can see is a corrupt hierarchy,” said Manning, a retired teacher who, despite her dissenting views, received the 1995 Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association award for outstanding contributions to Catholic education.
Not everyone shares this view of the laity. “Young people are saying things like, ‘Why didn't someone tell me this was wrong?'” said Marilyn Bergeron, founder of Canadian Alliance for Chastity, referring to some World Youth Day participants' belated discovery of authentic moral teaching in Toronto.
“As long as we explain and help them understand why the Church teaches certain things,” Bergeron said, “the young are willing to take up their cross and carry it with joy. ... They will work for social justice but they want the truth first.”
Bishop Henry said activists like Manning fail to understand that not everyone in the Church speaks authoritatively on matters of doctrine: “As Vatican II confirmed, you have bishops for that—you cannot set up your own magisterium.”
But he denies there is a new trend in the hierarchy to make this clear. “From my vantage point,” he said in an interview from Calgary, “there has been no conscious decision, no plot. We have been consistent all along.”
Last year, pro-abortion Catholic politicians, including Prime Minister Jean Chretien, came under episcopal fire. Bishop Henry vowed that, “should Joe Clark predecease me,” he would likely refuse to bury Clark (who lives in the diocese) in hallowed ground.
Signs of Renewal
Archbishop Gervais himself said on Sept. 20 that signs of renewal “are numerous enough to give me hope that things are going to get better.” The building of “a new Catholic, a new universal culture,” he said, is under way.
“The future of the Church,” said Lifesite editor Westen in agreement, “is embodied in vibrant Catholic youth who are totally in love with Christ and his Church, loyal to the Pope and willing to sacrifice all—popularity, riches and even their lives—to defend the hope that is within them.”
Chris Champion writes from Ottawa.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Chris Champion ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Ohio Schools May Teach Evolution Debate
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 14—Last week a committee of the Ohio Board of Education recommended the state's science teachers teach students about the theory of evolution—including the ongoing debates over its accuracy and completeness.
According to Associated Press, individual school districts would be allowed to decide whether or not to discuss “intelligent design,” a theistic position promoted by many scientists that argues the development of life in the universe reflects traces of a higher intelligence. The wire service reported this unique approach to the origins of life is already in place in many school districts.
Vandals Trash Ex-Homosexual Ads
CONCERNED WOMEN FOR AMERICA, October Bulletin—Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) has placed colorful ads in the Metro subway stations in Washington, D.C., “in response to the hate directed against ex-gays,” as the group's executive director Regina Griggs told the pro-family group Concerned Women for America.
“With all this talk of‘diversity,' we thought it was time to alert people to the need for tolerance of ex-gays and the possibility of overcoming homosexuality,” she said.
“It's time that people trapped in homosexuality know that they have a choice,” said Robert Knight, a board member of PFOX.
Vandals have trashed at least two of the 10 advertisements so far, covering them with insulting graffiti, reported Concerned Women for America.
In the past, homosexual activists such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have pressured media companies to reject ad campaigns featuring former homosexuals. In 1998, when a coalition of pro-family groups, including Concerned Women for America, sought to place TV ads featuring ex-gays, GLAAD successfully lobbied TV stations to reject the ads.
Bad Taste Stops Selling
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 11—For at least 20 years, radio pundits have said bad taste makes for good ratings and station managers will put up with anything that boosts their Arbitron ratings. But that seems to be changing, according to Associated Press.
A wave of cancellations and dismissals has struck the “shock” industry, the wire service reported.
Just this month, a Phoenix disc jockey called the widow of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile. “You're hot,” the DJ said to the bereaved mother of three. “Are you going to the game today? Do you have a date?” He was fired a few days later.
Likewise, the New York-based radio announcers Greg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia were canned shortly after they egged on a couple who had sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral on the Feast of the Assumption as part of a stunt campaign sponsored by Sam Adams Beer.
Scott Shannon, an influential national radio programmer, told Associated Press, “For the stations and the shows that do those kind of stunts, there certainly has been a re-examination of conscience, attitudes and guidelines.”
Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio,agreed. “They're becoming more careful. There's a thing in their heads, the self-censoring thing:‘Should I do that?'”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Welfare Bill Languishes Due to Debate Over Work and Marriage Waivers DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—Welfare reform has come a long way since 1996, when opponents warned reform might throw millions into poverty and leave children freezing on grates. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 passed and poverty rates among children and single mothers began to plunge—helped along by the robust ,90s economy.
But now the economy is in recession and the first phase of the reform experiment is over. Welfare reform—TANF, or Temporary Aid to Needy Families, the program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children—has reached its expiration date and remains in effect only until Dec. 31 under a stopgap bill signed by President Bush on Sept. 30.
The House has passed one bill extending welfare reform and the Senate Finance Committee has passed a competing bill. The Senate bill has not yet come to a vote and the two houses have not been able to compromise on some key features. If Congress can't come to an agreement before the end of the year on work requirements, child-care subsidies and aid to legal immigrants, it will have to enact another stopgap bill that would let TANF limp along for another year without any changes.
Both Catholic Charities USA and the U.S. bishops' conference prefer the Senate version of the bill, which provides more money for child care and allows job training and education to fulfill the work requirements.
The House bill would require recipients to spend 40 hours a week in “productive activities,” 24 hours of which must be spent at a job. (Current law requires 30 hours of productive activities.) The House bill also provides more money for marriage- and fatherhood-promotion programs and greater flexibility for states.
Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy of Catholic Charities USA, argued that the House bill's work requirements would take parents away from their children.
“Care of children is the parent's highest duty,” she said. “The way the welfare programs work now, there really is not an option for mothers to stay at home when their children are very young.”
“The Senate bill,” she noted, “does have additional funding for child care and it does not have the extreme new work requirements.” She was disappointed that the Senate bill did not have as strong support for marriage and fatherhood programs as the House bill, “but we did support the bill on the whole,” she said.
Abortion Rate Drops
A recent study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a research organization affiliated with Planned Parenthood) found that the abortion rate had dropped 11% overall in the last half of the 1990s but spiked up 25% among women below the poverty line and rose 23% for poor women who earned less than twice the poverty limit.
“We think the existence of cash assistance is an incentive for a woman to not have an abortion,” Daly said.
A recent survey of eight welfare studies found that teens with working mothers on welfare were more likely to do poorly in school, get suspended or drop out, compared with teens whose welfare-dependent mothers didn't work. Many of the mothers in the study worked 30 hours a week.
More general studies of welfare recipients' families have found that teens tend to benefit less than adults and younger children. Researchers have speculated that some mothers rely on teens to help take care of younger children, thus adding to teens' stress, while other teens spend their time just “hanging out” with peers who provide bad role models.
But Maggie Gallagher, an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values and a Catholic opinion columnist, argued that “tougher work requirements or stronger families?” is a false dilemma. She pointed out that single mothers' poverty rates, as well as child poverty rates, dropped dramatically after welfare reform. She said single mothers on welfare are often depressed, facing “disorganized neighborhoods” and “disorganized lives.”
“Work tends to be very good for depressed women,” Gallagher said. “It organizes life and puts you in an environment that is relatively safe, [an environment that] makes sense. If the alternative is a sense of perpetual dependence, that in itself” can keep women down.
However, Gallagher quickly added, “I don't think work is an excellent solution to the real problem, which is that we have so many unwed mothers. Making good marriages is what would really encourage good parenting and child well-being.”
Gallagher, like Catholic Charities and the bishops' conference, strongly supported the House bill's marriage-promotion aspects. Critics have charged that the government should not get involved in something as intimate as a couple's marriage decisions. To those critics Gallagher replied, “Right now you have a government that talks to pregnant and unwed mothers about all kinds of things—how to dress, how to talk on the phone, what kind of contraceptives to use. But somehow the one word you're not allowed to use is marriage, because that's too personal?”
She emphasized that “marriage promotion” doesn't mean a “coercive or punitive approach.” She described an approach in which “when the government takes clients it asks them—particularly new parents, many of whom are cohabiting and most of whom are interested in marriage—if they would be interested in premarital education programs. And if they say, ‘No,' you can leave them alone! And if they say,‘Yes,' you can refer them to community and faith-based programs.”
Still Unresolved
There are two main obstacles to understanding the current welfare debate: First, the specific bills currently on the table are not the bills that will ultimately get passed. The bills will be warped and massaged in closed-door conferences, with each side offering compromises and making concessions. Second, the specifics of the bills can be difficult to follow. For example, many critics of the Senate bill charge that it weakens the work requirements by allowing job training to “count” toward the required work hours.
Similarly, Gallagher charged that “the Senate attempted to gut the money strengthening marriage,” allowing that money to be used for helping recipients meet their transportation and child-care needs. She said sardonically, “We would have a marriage bill in which the money could all be spent on transportation and child care.”
Eve Tushnet writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eve Tushnet ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A `Righteous Gentile' Steps Forward to Defend Pope Pius XII DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Author of Hitler, the War and the Pope, University of Mississippi law professor Ron Rychlak has been studying Pope Pius XII and the tense relations between the Holy See and the Third Reich for the past decade.
As a special commentary in its Weekly Analysis dispatch, Zenit, a Rome-based news service, published a piece on Pope Pius XII by Rychlak.
Before the recent abuse scandal, perhaps the biggest ongoing controversy involving the Catholic Church had to do with Pope Pius XII and the relationship between the Holy See and the Third Reich during World War II. The Church is considering Pius for sainthood, and the Vatican's investigating judge has said that there is an excellent case to be made.
Pope John Paul II has called Pius “a great Pope.” Golda Meir and numerous other Jewish leaders from that era praised Pius for his support of victims during the Holocaust. Critics, however, charge that he turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering in the Holocaust. Some have even alleged that he was sympathetic to Hitler's cause.
Much of the debate centers on the activities of papal nuncios and other Catholic officials around Europe. It is indisputable that many of them risked their lives and more to protect Jewish victims from Nazi persecution. The debate in recent years has focused on whether these rescuers acted on their own or at the behest of the Pope.
According to some accounts, Pius sent instructions to his representatives throughout Europe, telling them to do whatever they could to help Jews and all who were suffering. Many authors have noted that the similar activities undertaken by different individuals in remote areas suggest a common plan, but no copies of a letter from Pius have surfaced and most of the firsthand witnesses are long gone. Recently, however, an eyewitness with impeccable credentials has come forward to set the record straight.
Tibor Baranski, executive secretary of the Jewish Protection Movement of the Holy See in Hungary during World War II, has been honored by Yad Vashem (Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority) as a Righteous Gentile for his rescue work. Officially he saved 3,000 Jews. Unofficially he saved at least that many more.
Baranski worked closely with Archbishop Angelo Rotta, papal nuncio in Hungary during the war (who was also recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile). Baranski makes clear, however, that these life-saving activities were not the lone actions of himself or Nuncio Rotta. “I was really acting in accordance with the orders of Pope Pius XII.” Charges that Pius was not involved are “simple lies; nothing else,” and claims that Pius should have done more for the Jews are, according to Baranski, “slanderous.”
Baranski personally saw at least two letters from Pius XII instructing Rotta to do his very best to protect Jews but to refrain from making statements that might provoke the Nazis. He adds: “These two letters were not written by the authorities at the Vatican, but they were handwritten ones by Pope Pius himself.” He goes on to note that “all other nuncios of the Nazi-occupied countries received similar letters.” Italian Jews, for instance, were sheltered in monasteries, seminaries and other Church buildings on the “direct instruction of the Vatican.”
Baranski explains that for Pius, the first and foremost concern was saving human lives. “It was precisely because [Pius] wanted to help the Jews” that he refrained from making repeated public condemnations. Pius “intervened in a very balanced way,” trying to save lives without provoking retaliation. He did not, however, behave differently depending upon the status of the victims. Baranski notes that these same concerns prevented the Pope from making repeated public appeals when the Nazis killed thousands of Catholic priests.
“The Pontiff did not only encourage the nuncio to protect Vatican [baptized] Jews,” explains Baranski, “but as many persecuted persons as possible, in the ghetto or elsewhere.” The nuncio kept Pius well informed of efforts undertaken in collaboration with other embassies, including close work with Swedish diplomat and rescuer Raoul Wallenberg, who also was declared a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem.
Baranski, who says that he was “fantastically near” to Wallenberg, reports that if Wallenberg were alive today, he would defend Pope Pius XII. In fact, Baranski explains that the Catholic Church collaborated with Wallenberg in his rescue efforts. “Look, there was not problem or disagreement whatsoever between the Catholic Church and Wallenberg. I personally arranged unofficial, private meetings between Wallenberg and Nuncio Rotta.” Baranski reports that Wallenberg “knew Pius was on his side.” Rotta, Baranski, Wallenberg and—yes—Pius XII worked together as a team.
Baranski is now working on a book about his life. It will be an important contribution not only because of the firsthand history it will set forth, but also because of the morality and fundamental dignity of the author. He dismisses or deflects praise offered to him: “Look, dear professor—the good Lord was so humble to allow a little nobody (me) to work his lifesaving mission....” He also tells the story of a Nazi who once asked him: “Why do you, a Christian, protect and defend the Jews?” He replied bluntly: “You are either silly or an idiot. It is because I am a Christian that I help the Jews.”
Baranski acknowledges that Catholics might have reasons to apologize to Jews for things that have happened over the course of history. He makes clear, however, that the wartime Pontiff is not a leader for whom Catholics need to apologize. In fact he agrees with the recently published opinion of Rabbi David Dalin. Yad Vashem should recognize Pope Pius XII, along with Baranski, Rotta and Wallenberg, as a Righteous Gentile.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Vatican Stands Up for Children
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Oct. 15—Archbishop Renato Martino, outgoing Holy See representative to the United Nations, addressed a U.N. committee Oct. 14 concerning the rights of children. He noted the problems facing millions of children around the world, including injustice, poverty, epidemics and sickness, lack of educational possibilities and lack of basic social services, according to the Vatican Information Service.
Archbishop Martino said that “carrying out the mission of promoting and protecting the rights of children and caring for their spiritual and physical well-being has been the concern of various agencies of the Catholic Church for centuries. Let this discussion help to remind the family of nations that the future of humanity rests upon the shoulders of today's children and young people. Let us pledge to lighten that burden by continuing to promote and protect their rights and provide them with what they need to enhance their well-being.”
Vatican Condemns Falwell's Prophet-Criticism
In a meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the Holy See, Mostafa Boroujerdi, Daoud stressed that Christians respect Islam as a monotheistic religion, according to the Teheran Times.
Daoud said the Vatican was eager to deepen its dialogue with the Muslim world. He also thanked the Islamic Republic of Iran for its tolerant treatment of Christian minorities and Catholics in particular. Boroujerdi responded by reaffirming the need for mutual respect among the followers of different faiths.
Dispute Over Mother Teresa‘Miracle'
On Sept. 5, 1998—one year after the heroic sister died—Monica Besra, a resident of Dangram, almost 500 miles from Calcutta, invoked Mother Teresa's help for abdominal pain. She pressed a medallion with the sister's image against an area that contained a tumor and the pain immediately ceased.
Two weeks ago, the Vatican accepted this event as probably miraculous and moved forward the process for Mother Teresa's canonization, the magazine reported.
But questions have arisen about the miraculous nature of Besra's cure from her husband, Seiku Murmu, and the doctors who had been treating Besra.
“My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle,” Murmu said. “I want to stop this jamboree, people coming with cameras every few hours or so.”
Besra admitted she saw doctors, but insisted the pain from her tumor only abated when she applied the medallion and prayed to Mother Teresa.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Year of the Rosary DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:During my recent trip to Poland, I addressed Our Lady with the following words: “Most Holy Mother, … obtain also for me the strength in body and spirit, so I can carry out to the end the mission assigned to me by the risen Lord. To you I commend all the fruits of my life and my ministry; to you I entrust the future of the Church; ... in you do I trust and once more to you I declare: Totus tuus, Maria! Totus tuus!Amen” (Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Aug. 19, 2002). Today I repeat these same words, and thank God for my 24 years of service to the Church in the See of Peter. On this special day, I entrust once again into the hands of the Mother of God the life of the Church and the life of humanity, which has suffered so many afflictions. And to her I entrust my own future, too. I lay it all in her hands, so that she will present it to her Son with a mother's love, “for the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12).
Mary Leads Us to Jesus
Christ, the Redeemer of man, is at the center of our faith. Mary does not overshadow him, nor does she overshadow his work of salvation. The Virgin, who was assumed into heaven in body and soul, was the first to enjoy the fruits of her own Son's passion and resurrection, and she is the one who leads us most surely to Christ, the ultimate goal of our activity and of our entire existence. Therefore, when I recalled Christ's exhortation to “put out into the deep” to the whole Church in my apostolic letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte,” I added the thought that, “On this journey we are accompanied by the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom ... in the presence of a great number of bishops ... I entrusted the third millennium” (No. 58). Inviting believers to contemplate the face of Christ unceasingly, it was my great desire that Mary, his mother, be a teacher for all of us in this contemplation.
Year of the Rosary
Today I wish to express this desire with greater clarity through two symbolic gestures. In a few moments I will sign the apostolic letter “Rosarium Virginis Mariae.” Moreover, along with this document, which is dedicated to praying the rosary, I proclaim the year extending from October 2002 to October 2003 the Year of the Rosary. I do so not only because this is the 25th year of my pontificate; it is also the 120th anniversary of the encyclical Supremi Apostolatus Officio, with which my venerated predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, began publishing on Sept. 1, 1883, a series of documents specifically devoted to the rosary. There is also another reason. In the history of the Great Jubilees, it has been the custom after the Jubilee Year, which is dedicated to Christ and to his work of the redemption, to proclaim a year in honor of Mary, as if imploring her help so that the graces received at that time would be fruitful.
Mysteries of Light
Is there any better instrument than praying the rosary for the demanding yet extraordinarily rich endeavor of contemplating the face of Christ together with Mary? Nonetheless, we must rediscover the mystical depth that is contained in the simplicity of this prayer, which is so dear to our popular tradition. Indeed, the structure of this Marian prayer is such that it is above all a meditation on the mysteries of Christ's life and mission. As we repeat the Hail Mary, we can reflect profoundly on the essential events of the Son of God's mission on earth, which were transmitted to us by the Gospel and by Tradition. In order that this synthesis of the Gospel be more complete and offer greater inspiration, I have proposed in my apostolic letter “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” that another five mysteries be added to those upon which we already meditate in the rosary, and I have called them “the mysteries of light.” They encompass the public life of our Savior, from his baptism in the Jordan to the beginning of his passion. The purpose of this suggestion is to expand the scope of the rosary, so that those who recite it with devotion and not in some mechanical way will be able to penetrate even deeper the contents of the Good News and conform their own lives even more to Christ's life.
I thank all of you who are present here, as well as those who are united to me spiritually on this special day. Thank you for your good will and I especially thank you for the assurance of your constant support in prayer. I entrust this document on the holy rosary to the bishops and the faithful of the whole world. The Year of the Holy Rosary, which we will experience together, will certainly produce fruit in the hearts of all, renew and intensify the grace of the Great Jubilee Year 2000 and become a source of peace for the world.
May Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary, whose beautiful image we see here before us as venerated in Pompeii, lead the Church's sons and daughters to the fullness of union with Christ in his glory!
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II met with more than 17,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during his general audience on Oct. 16, which marked the 24th anniversary of his pontificate. “On this special day, I entrust once again into the hands of the Mother of God the life of the Church and the life of humanity, which has suffered so many afflictions. And to her I also entrust my own future, too. I lay it all in her hands, so that she will present everything to her Son with a moth-er's love,” he said.
Christ, the Holy Father explained, is at the center of our Catholic faith, and he emphasized that Mary does not overshadow him or his works of salvation. “She is the one who leads us most surely to Christ, the ultimate goal of our activity and of our entire existence,” he observed. He said it was his desire that Mary be a teacher for all Catholics in contemplating the face of Jesus.
The Pope used the occasion to present his latest apostolic letter, “Rosarium Virginis Mariae,” to the public. During his audience, John Paul told pilgrims he was proclaiming the year from October 2002 to October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary. He also said he was proposing another set of five mysteries be added to the rosary, called “the mysteries of light,” which focus on the public life of Jesus from his baptism up to his passion.
“The purpose of this suggestion is to expand the scope of the rosary, so that those who recite it with devotion and not in some mechanical way will be able to penetrate even deeper the contents of the Good News and conform their own lives even more to Christ's life,” the Holy Father noted.
He ended the audience by thanking the pilgrims who were present as well as the faithful around the world for their good will and support in prayer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Church Persecuted: Today's Worldwide Anti-Christian Violence DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:ROME—Antonio Socci is a journalist and writer specializing in religious issues. He was director of the International Catholic magazine 30 Giorni and is currently editor of the Italian newspapers Il Giornaleand Il Foglio, and of the weekly Panorama.
Socci's most recent book, published in Italy, is The New Persecuted: Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs.
In his book, Socci notes that an average of 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990, mostly by Muslims in the Third World.
“This global persecution of Christianity,” he writes, “is still in progress but in most cases is ignored by the mass media and Christians in the West.”
Socci spoke to Register Latin America correspondent Alejandro Bermúdez in Rome, where Socci is now producing a series of documentaries on religious persecution around the world for the Italian TV network RAI.
Persecution of Christians is a rather new issue in your field of interest. How did you decide to write this book?
Last year, I tackled the issue of Christian persecution for several newspapers. There were stories coming from all corners of the world—from news agencies or missionary institutes—but they never made it into the big news. And I don't mean front page. They didn't even make it into the news at all. I decided to tell those stories.
I was not too enthusiastic about the idea, but I thought that if so many Christians were being persecuted or were living under very hard circumstances just for being Christians, I was actually being asked for very little.
And how was the experience of writing the book?
I thought I was well-informed about these stories since I had been covering the news for a while. But when I started investigating deeper I realized that the proportion of this tragedy is absolutely mind-blowing. This is so regarding the Christians martyred during the 19th century, but even more regarding the constant persecution in areas in the world where some 600 to 800 million Christians live.
It is hard to believe this is happening at the very doors of the West—is it ignorance or complicity?
I tend to be prudent and also very skeptical about the tendency to blame the West for everything. Having said that, I believe that in the West there is a complete ignorance of the conditions in which Christians live in other parts of the world.
If I were to blame the West for anything it is for exactly the opposite of which it is commonly accused. I blame it for its complete lack of spine in defending its values, despite the fact it is frequently accused of trying to “impose” its values in a sort of “imperialism.”
I believe the European Union, which has a relationship of cooperation and development with many countries of the Third World, should establish from now on—since it has never done it before—the respect for human and specifically religious rights as a condition to any type of economic cooperation.
Especially considering Christianity is the foundation of the EU's identity.
Exactly. Since Sept. 11, I believe many people have realized that we live in a rare space of liberty and prosperity, mainly because we have in our past a history that has established the principle of the sacredness of human dignity, a history of respect for human freedom, which is a distinctively Christian heritage.
That is why I feel so frustrated, even if I am trying not to be judgmental, by the silence and complicity of no small part of the Catholic world in regard to dictators whose hands are stained with Christian blood.
Do you mean the official voice of the Church?
No. I believe the Pope's prudence is critical in this matter. He has gone around the world raising his voice in defense of the human person, but the Church cannot go around every single day condemning a particular regime, because that would expose Christian minorities to retaliation and further persecution. It is smarter to use diplomatic and political channels.
But I believe many in the Catholic media have committed a sin of omission in this regard—first by not telling the stories of persecution of Christians and also by letting some of the stories die and be forgotten. Moreover, when non-Christians, even nonbelievers or Jewish politicians, have spoken in favor of persecuted Christians, liberal Catholics have been among the first to protest, claiming we are fueling a “clash of civilizations.” This is simply unbelievable.
In fact, many of the complaints I have received for writing this book came from the Catholic world. The theme of the book has been positively accepted by nonbelievers and by Jewish intellectuals in Italy. The only opposition has come from the Catholic world. Catholic intellectuals have told me that everything I have said may be true, but by saying so, I risk igniting a “clash of civilizations.”
What are they talking about? One hundred sixty thousand Christians die each year only because they are Christians! If right now your daughter, your wife, your father were in jail in Pakistan as a consequence of the infamous “blasphemy” law, would you stay silent just to avoid a “clash of civilizations”? I find it completely crazy. It makes no sense.
Do you think there are real possibilities of obtaining basic rights for Christians in Islamic societies?
At present the situation is quite somber. Obviously we can't keep thinking that these societies have nothing to do with us. After Sept. 11 we have realized the first attack against world peace is the attack against human rights. Peace never comes without human rights, just as the Holy Father said in his World Peace Day message in 1999: “If you want peace, defend the rights of the human person.”
What can the West do?
Well, the conduct of the European nations has been shamefu—at least all those nations controlled by socialist parties. I think there has been a shameful and obscene policy of insensibility regarding human rights, when not of complete cordiality toward tyrants.
I think the new center-right turn can be a source of hope in Europe. We hope the political change will bring also a change in this regard.
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermudez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Clerics Protest Anglican Primate's Homosexual Views
Instead they will be paid directly by their congregations. The revolt might spread across the country, said Rev. William Taylor, rector of the parish leading the protest, St. Helen's Bishopsgate in London. He called Williams' views immoral and divisive. Taylor and other “evangelical” members of the Anglican Church have threatened other protest moves as well.
A group representing their views, Reform, was scheduled to meet in mid-October. It has called on Williams to change his views in an orthodox direction or resign.
Crash Survivors Still‘Alive'—and Winning
REUTERS, Oct. 12—If you've seen the movie Alive, you know that three decades ago, a team of rugby players from Uruguay endured a plane crash in the Andes. The survivors were driven to eat the flesh of those who died in the crash. (St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that one may consume the dead if the only alternative is starvation.)
Now the surviving team members have gotten together again, this time to play the match that never took place 30 years ago.
The team, the “Old Christians,” crashed on Oct. 13, 1972, en route to play the Chilean team “Old Boys.” Some 16 team members survived more than two months in the snow—through desperate measures—before they were rescued by helicopter.
Twelve of the players reconvened on the 30th anniversary of the crash to beat the former Old Boys players 28-11, according to Reuters news service. Priests celebrated Mass on the rugby field before the game, and helicopters whirred over the field to commemorate the rescue.
“To this day, the sound of helicopter rotor blades makes the hair on my arm stand on end,” survivor Javier Methol said.
What had he learned from the ordeal? “You should not fear death but live your life fully.”
Women's Group Labeled‘Heretical'
The group's organizer, Ann Ryan, told the paper she had been described as a “heretic” and “rabid feminist” by other Catholics, and many Catholic papers across Australia had refused to run ads for the conference.
Ryan called the charges merely “amusing,” and rejected the Pope's 1994 authoritative letter, reiterating the constant teaching that the Church can never ordain women. She told the paper she wished she had more publicly dissented from Humanae Vitae when it was issued in 1968.
“We don't expect change on the issue of women's ordination soon, but we do want to keep discussion open,” Ryan said. “This is not about the Church of today, it's about the Church of the future.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:The announcement in Rome that the Vatican would not approve the U.S. bishops' Dallas sex-abuse norms met with a calm and untroubled reception in the United States. Gone was the piling-on of Church critics eager to paint the Church as a harbor for perpetrators.
For that, both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops deserve credit. Both have learned important lessons since the onset of “The Crisis” last spring.
The Vatican learned that public opinion is not an inconsequential player in the handling of the sex-abuse scandal.
It was easy to dismiss the ramped-up accusations of the media before June. News stories sensationalized events, and by April, news stories had taken the less than half of 1% of priests who were accused of abuse (few even in that number were accused of abusing young children) and used them to denounce a culture of tolerance of “priest pedophiles” in the Catholic Church.
When the charges are that absurdly exaggerated, why change Church policy over them?
U.S. bishops who felt the sting of loss of credibility, loss of trust by the laity and crippling losses of missed donations were able to tell the Vatican why.
Meanwhile, U.S. bishops had to learn the opposite lesson. In Dallas, it seems that they were all too prepared to take the media's sense of the scandal at face value. In their zeal to show that there is no place in the priesthood for those who have abused children, rights of accused priests were overlooked.
Father John Beal, an associate professor in the department of canon law at The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., spelled out in a recent article in America magazine how the Dallas policy violated the principles of canon law. Some examples from his article:
Shifting the Burden of Proof. The classic standard of “innocent until proven guilty” is reversed by the norms, says Father Beal. The process for priests goes like this: An accusation is received, the bishop removes the priest from clerical duty and then may or may not begin an investigation into the charges. “[I]t is incumbent on the accused priest to prove, usually with little cooperation from the diocese, that the alleged offense did not occur,” writes Father Beal. The classic standard of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is thrown out the window by the new policy, too.
Statutes of Limitations. The Dallas charter and its Essential Norms also do away with any statute of limitations for the punishment of sexual abusers of minors. A fed-up public might not care: The sexual abuse of minors is such a horrible crime, why shouldn't a perpetrator pay, no matter how long after the fact his crime is discovered? But it makes priests very vulnerable to false accusations. It is easy to make false changes a long time after the fact and difficult for a priest to prove his innocence. In abuse claims stretching back decades, suggests Father Beal, “potential witnesses disappear, memories dim, relevant documents are lost or inadvertently destroyed, alleged crime scenes are razed or renovated.” It's already tough under the norms for a priest to clear his name. In older cases it would be nearly impossible.
Conflicting Responsibilities of Review Boards. The article next points to the difficult circumstances the structure of the review boards invites. “On the one hand, review boards are responsible for ensuring that the Church provides a safe environment for children,” writes Father Beal, and thus, “must err on the side of the safety of children.” On the other hand, review boards are supposed to assess the evidence supporting priests and would presumably need to err on the side of the priest. The two can't serve both masters and, as it turns out, don't. They tend to side against priests.
Combining the American emphasis on reassuring the public that bishops are doing the right thing with the Vatican's emphasis on protecting the canon law rights of priests, the work of the new mixed commission will be a genuine exercise of ecclesial communion. We can expect it will produce good fruit.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Pro-Life or Pro-Wordplay?
Pro-life voters are desperately seeking candidates who unequivocally support the right to life of all innocent human beings without exception. Unfortunately, in many contests, neither the Democrat nor the Republican is interested in abolishing abortion. The underlying difficulty is that established pro-life organizations often endorse those who favor some abortions. Examples of such confusion abound.
In a number of congressional and gubernatorial elections, for instance, the Democrat supports child-killing on demand, while the Republican supports only limited restrictions on abortion (e.g., regulating partial-birth abortion and/or permitting abortion in cases of rape, incest or purported threat to the mother's life). The Republican who supports a lesser degree of abortion often earns the National Right to Life stamp of approval and is touted as “pro-life.”
In my humble opinion, a politician who merely wishes to regulate abortion is not pro-life, whether he is Democrat, Republican, third party or independent. Such a candidate does not deserve to be called “pro-life,” and such a candidate does not deserve an iota of support from any pro-life voter. The law can never legitimately tolerate the direct killing of innocent human beings, born or pre-born. If a politician is unwilling to honor this most fundamental duty of law, he is unworthy of even one pro-life endorsement, regardless of his party affiliation.
While National Right to Life Committee and others maintain that it is critical to support the more restrictive pro-abortion candidate in order to chip away at the culture of death, history contradicts that proposition. If there is one lesson we have learned from the last 30 years, it's that compromise of fundamental principle enables the death peddlers to chip away at us while continuing to slaughter our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.
It's time to put to rest the flawed concept of voting for the lesser of two evils. There's no such thing when dealing with acts of murder. Abortion is intrinsically evil. No one should admit to the admissibility of even one act of abortion. To do so is to contradict what is clearly an absolute value: the personhood of the human being. Pursuing the so-called lesser-evil option is not acceptable.
Pro-life Americans must insist that political candidates, in order to claim the pro-life mantel, must honor their moral obligation as legislators to defend and protect all innocent human beings from the moment of conception. Organizations that purport to represent pro-life philosophy must stop settling for politicians whose support for a little abortion violates the most fundamental purpose of civil law. The alternative is to squander another 30, 50 or 100 years to sanctioned child killing.
Judie Brown
Stafford, Virginia
The writer is president of the American Life League (www.all.org).
Editor's note:A “catechism for voters” appears on our back page.
Palestinians and Prosperity
Father Guido Gockel and the Catholic Near East Welfare Association are to be commended for their important humanitarian work in Jerusalem (“Caught in the Middle in the Holy Land,” Oct. 13-19). Both Palestinians and Israelis are suffering horribly, and creating jobs is important in restoring human dignity that all persons created in the image of God deserve.
Father Gockel should be more careful in his politics and historical statements, however. Ariel Sharon never talked of or advocated “transfer” of non-Jewish people out of Israel. The position of every Israeli prime minister since Yitzchak Rabin—including Sharon—is for territorial compromise and a two-state solution to the conflict. Sharon has said frequently that he advocates a Palestinian state that is consistent with Israel's legitimate security needs.
“Transfer” is the idea of a small extreme group in Israel that has never determined Israeli policy. Israeli governmental policy is pragmatic and open to concessions—unlike Palestinian policy, which rejected a peaceful solution at Camp David and to this day is determined by extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that practice terror and refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist.
When Palestinian policy becomes pragmatic and substitutes realistic compromise for terror and violence, Palestinians will be on the road to restoring the human dignity and prosperity that all deserve.
Dr. Eugene Korn
New York City
The writer is director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.
No More War
By way of introduction, I'm a U.S. veteran who loves this country very much.
At the time of the Gulf War, the Defense Department estimated that 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Now we are contemplating another war in that same country. Many more people will be killed, not only Iraqis but also Americans.
We say we abhor violence and tell our children to settle conflicts peacefully while at the same time applauding wars that cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings and that maim many more.
Following two world wars and 100 million deaths, many (including army generals like Eisenhower and MacArthur) became convinced that war is obsolete. Yet, how many millions more have been killed since 1945? How many more millions will be killed? How many more wars will we start? How many more children will lose a father, mother, son, daughter, wife or husband?
When will we start viewing the concept of the “just war” in light of the fact that, in the history of mankind, the “greatest inhumanities have been perpetrated in the name of‘humanity,'‘civilization,'‘progress,'‘freedom,'‘my country' and, of course,‘God'” (Thomas Merton)?
When will we come to grips with the fact that every one of us is violent whenever we make the other different and declare ourselves the norm and center of human behavior? When will we put a stop to this cycle of violence and revenge, this culture of war? When will we start singing with Schiller and Beethoven (Ninth Symphony), May all people become brothers and sisters, all people sisters and brothers?
Joseph G. Vandenheuvel
Albuquerque, New Mexico
God Bless Parish Schools
I was glad to see Lynn Bete's letter “To Each His Own School” (Oct. 13-19) in response to Daria Sockey's article “Musings of a Home-Schooling Mom” (Sept. 22-28). Mrs. Bete articulated many of the things I felt after reading Mrs. Sockey's article.
After much prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, my husband and I discerned that God was calling us to send our kindergarten-age daughter to our parish's school this year. This was not an easy decision. In fact, it terrified me because I do so fear the influence of the world and the peer pressure that exists even in a parish school as good as our own. Yet with all my soul I have felt that God is asking this of us and calling us to trust him with our most precious treasure, our children. And yet, when I explain my decision to home-schooling moms, I often get the sense that they don't totally believe me. The impression is given that obviously we haven't prayed hard enough about it or are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to home school.
I love the idea of home schooling and I support my friends 100% in their decisions. And I am glad they feel so confident that this is the path God has chosen for them. But God is not boxed, and home schooling may not be what he has chosen for every single Catholic child.
I very much appreciate and support the National Catholic Register's many articles in support of home schooling and do not wish in any way for the Register to scale them back. But it would be helpful to see articles by parents of children in parochial and/or public schools who share their experience and wisdom in raising their children to live in the world, but not be of the world.
May God bless all of our children and our efforts to keep them safe, pure and holy.
Jenny Boudreaux
Fishers, Indiana
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jenny Boudreaux ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Churches Built to Last DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Your article “Why Church Construction Costs More for Catholics than Protestants” (Sept. 8-14) misses a very important point. We use our churches far more intensively than Protestants do.
At my parish we have six Masses that count for Sunday obligation. A couple of parishes I went to in New York had eight. Before my conversion I went to many Protestant churches where they have one, two or, at most, three services on Sunday.
The article also mentions that Catholic churches are built to last. They should be—the faith will last. The large Protestant congregation will often last only until their popular minister is given a better offer.
The article says that Catholic churches cost 50% more, but we should remember that they may have several times as many people per seat in Catholic churches. So the cost per person is actually much less. When it comes to buildings we are not the most inefficient—we are closer to being the most efficient.
Richard Bruce
Davis, California
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Richard Bruce ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Stasis? It's Time to Do What Lincoln Did DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Is there anything new to say about the abortion issue after all these years?
No doubt it continues to cause controversy. The Democrat-controlled Senate won't confirm President Bush's judicial appointees if they are suspected of harboring pro-life sympathies. Democratic lawmakers and activists are furious about the Bush administration's decision to let states classify fetuses as “unborn children” eligible for government-funded health programs.
But is there anything new to say about it all? I believe so, and strangely what I have learned about it comes from studying the Lincoln-Douglas debates. These debates occurred in the nineteenth century, and were about slavery. But look at how closely the arguments parallel the abortion debate.
Stephen Douglas, the Democrat, took the pro-choice position. He said that each state should decide for itself whether or not it wanted slavery. Douglas denied that he was pro-slavery. In fact, at one time he professed to be “personally opposed” to it. At the same time, Douglas was reluctant to impose his moral views on the new territories. Douglas affirmed the right of each state to choose. He invoked the great principle of freedom of choice.
Abraham Lincoln, the Republican, disagreed. Lincoln argued that choice cannot be exercised without reference to the content of the choice. How can it make sense to permit a person to choose to enslave another human being? How can self-determination be invoked to deny others self-determination? How can choice be used to negate choice? At its deepest level, Lincoln is saying that the legitimacy of freedom as a political principle is itself dependent on a doctrine of natural rights that arises out of a specific understanding of human nature and human dignity.
If Negroes are like hogs, Lincoln said, then the pro-choice position is right, and there is no problem with choosing to own them. Of course they may be governed without their consent. But if Negroes are human beings, then it is grotesquely evil to treat them like hogs, to buy and sell them as objects of merchandise.
The argument between Douglas and Lincoln is very similar in content, and very nearly in form, to the argument between the pro-choice and the pro-life movements. Pro-choice advocates don't like to be considered pro-abortion. Many of them say they are “personally opposed.” One question to put to them is, “Why are you personally opposed?” The only reason for one to be personally opposed to abortion is that one is deeply convinced that the fetus is more than a mere collection of cells, that it is a developing human being.
The ‘hard-liners’ of the pro-life movement are misguided.
Even though the weight of the argument is strongly on the pro-life side, the pro-choice side seems to be winning politically. This is because liberals understand that abortion-on-demand is the debris of the sexual revolution. If you are going to have sexual promiscuity, then there are going to be mistakes, and many women are going to get pregnant without wanting to do so. For them, the fetus becomes what one feminist writer termed “an uninvited guest.” As long as the fetus occupies the woman's womb, liberals view it as an enemy of female autonomy. Thus liberalism is willing to grant to the woman full control over the life of the fetus, even to the point of allowing her to kill it. No other liberal principle, not equality, not compassion, is permitted to get in the way of the principle of autonomy.
The abortion issue reveals the bloody essence of modern liberalism. In fact, it is the one issue on which liberals rarely compromise. Being pro-choice is a litmus test for nomination to high office in the Democratic Party. Liberals as a group oppose any restriction of abortion. They don't want laws that regulate late-term abortion. Many liberals object to parental notification laws that would notify the parents if a minor seeks to have an abortion. Some liberals would even allow partial-birth abortion, a gruesome procedure in which the abortionist dismembers a child that could survive outside the womb. One may say that in the church of modern liberalism, abortion has become a sacrament.
What, then, is the challenge facing the pro-life movement? It is the same challenge that Lincoln faced: to build popular consent for the restriction and ultimately the ending of abortions. Right now the pro-life movement does not enjoy the support of the American people to do this. Neither, by the way, did Lincoln have a national mandate to end slavery. It is highly significant that Lincoln was not an abolitionist. He was resolutely anti-slavery in principle, but his political campaign focused on the issue of curtailing the spread of slavery to the territories.
In my view, the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times this will require political and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hardliners in the pro-life movement. These hardliners are misguided. They want to outlaw all abortions, and so they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions, with the consequence that they end up preventing no abortions. These folks should learn some lessons from Abraham Lincoln.
Dinesh D'Souza's new book is Letters to a Young Conservative (Basic Books).
He is the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dinesh D'Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Marriage on the Block In Massachusetts DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:In his video, “The Crisis of Marriage and Family in Modern Society,” the theologian Scott Hahn mines the Book of Genesis to learn what happens to societies that embrace behaviors that tear apart the covenant of marriage.
Like contemporary cable TV, Genesis is rife with examples of sexual sins, such as fornication, adultery, and sodomy. But unlike HBO, Genesis also details the real consequences of these acts on families and on societies. It is a pity that some of the legislators in my state are ignoring these timeless lessons.
Massachusetts, America's “Cradle of Liberty,” is now considered “ground zero” by special interest groups that want to give same-sex couples the myriad of legal and financial benefits traditionally reserved for marriage-the building block of society.
Aggressive and organized, the advocates of “equal rights” initiatives in Massachusetts are led by gay activists, but also include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the National Organization for Women, and even the AFL-CIO. (Do all those iron workers, teachers and truck drivers know what their labor unions are promoting?)
Their objective is to force same-sex marriage on the state through the courts-thereby setting a legal precedent for the other 49 states.
Church on Defense
Meanwhile, the local Church is attempting to defend the marriage bond. The Massachusetts Catholic Conference supports a proposed “Protection of Marriage Amendment” to the state Constitution, affirming that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, and would prevent “civil union” or “domestic partnership” benefits (examples of the “small steps” strategy for the ultimate recognition of same-sex marriage).
The journey of the proposed amendment has been a rocky one with hairpin turns.
According to The Massachusetts News, homosexual activists used harassment, intimidation and vandalism to interfere with voters signing petitions for the amendment. As a result, Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage, the sponsor of the amendment, was forced to hire paid signature-gatherers-whom local gay rights activists trailed, as they'd been trained to do at an AFL-CIO union hall, by ACLU organizers flown in from California. Despite this harassment and a smear campaign in the press, Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage collected 76,607 valid signatures, as certified by the Secretary of State.
The amendment has broad support-polls indicate more than 60% of citizens support “defense of marriage” legislation. But so far it has been blocked at a critical stage, in the heavily Democratic legislature. According to Massachusetts law, the amendment needs to be approved twice by the legislature before it can make it to the voters in 2004.
The leading enemy of the amendment is Senate President Thomas Birmingham, a labor lawyer by profession-and an avowed Catholic. Birmingham toes the AFL-CIO line on the bill, opposing any “defense of marriage” legislation. In a July article in The Boston Globe, he said the Amendment was “wrong-hearted and wrong-headed.”
C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League commented in the Globe about Birmingham's procedural maneuver to kill the ballot question. “Everything that is wrong with Massachusetts state government was apparent today for all the world to see,” Doyle said. “A lame-duck Senate president, Thomas Birmingham, abused his power to subvert the Constitution and frustrate the democratic process because his failing gubernatorial campaign could not withstand pressure from the homosexual lobby.” (Birmingham lost his bid to run for governor as a candidate of the Democratic Party to State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien in the September primary.)
Legislators were put under heavy pressure, and accused of attempting to deny health care to single people if they supported the amendment.
But enough lawmakers would have stuck with the amendment to shepherd it through two legislative sessions if they were not adjourned. Gerry D'Avolio, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference, praised these lawmakers: “Those legislators who refused to be swayed by the extreme misrepresentations by the Amendment's opponents deserve our most heart-felt gratitude. They stood tall despite a withering stream of attacks accusing supporters of the Amendment of harboring bigotry and hate.”
A lawsuit has been filed against Birmingham and the Secretary of the Commonwealth by Sarah McVay Pawlick, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage. In September, supporters of the Amendment organized sit-ins at the State House, to draw Acting Governor Jane Swift's attention. The fate of the Amendment is still uncertain.
In May, the Superior Court affirmed state marriage laws in answer to a lawsuit filed last year by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders on behalf of seven same-sex couples. GLAD has filed an appeal to the decision. It is clear from the battles that are being waged on Christian teaching on life, marriage and the family, that Catholics have a renewed responsibility to be informed, active, and responsible participants in the political process.
As Maria Parker of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference has said, “If we don't act now, the courts will make the decision for us, like they did in Vermont.”
Vermont law now treats persons in same-sex “civil unions” as spouses with all the rights of spouses except for the federal benefits associated with civil marriage. Grassroots efforts are crucial, Parker says. “Without Catholics and other concerned citizens in their districts coming forth to express their support, legislators can simply walk away from the issue.”
50-Year Sieige
When individuals and nations do not renounce their sins and those of their forefathers, as the Book of Genesis records, then their descendants embrace those sins, even institutionalizing them.
And that is what we have seen in America, over the past 50 years.
The gradual dismantling of marriage and family life - beginning with their legal status - are the fallout of the sexual revolution, which began with the erosion of religious faith, and the legalization of all birth control in the early 1960s. It proceeded with the institutionalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade (1973), the creation of no-fault divorce-which made marriage a contract that is legally unenforceable-and now culminates in proposals for same-sex marriage. All this would have seemed unthinkable to most Americans in 1960.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops 2001 Statement on Same-Sex Marriage affirms that “marriage is a faithful, exclusive, and lifelong union between one man and one woman, joined as husband and wife in an intimate partnership of life and love. This union was established by God with its own proper law. By reason of its very nature, therefore, marriage exists for the mutual love and support of the spouses and for the procreation and education of children.”
The statement calls for Catholics to preserve, protect and promote the institution of marriage in both private and public realms, “At a time when family life is under significant stress, the principled defense of marriage is an urgent necessity for the wellbeing of children and families, and for the common good of society.”
The Massachusetts State House is a good place to carry this out.
Kathryn Dillon works in the Clinical and Trial Advocacy Programs at Boston University School of Law.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Dillon ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Figuring Out the New Archbishop of Canterbury DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Because it is riddled with the English class system, being an Anglican can be as daunting as one of those dinner parties where each place is set with a dozen pieces of silverware.
Where do you start?
Like England itself, the Church of England is full of quaint customs and eccentric social habits. In addition, the Anglican Church is a maze of differing theological opinions.
You not only have to negotiate the three classic categories of Anglican: Evangelical, Liberal and Anglo-Catholic, but nowadays you have to find your way through the multitude of sub groups within those divisions. So it is not good enough to know whether a person is an Anglo-Catholic.
You also need to know whether he is Charismatic Anglo-Catholic, Traditionalist Anglo-Catholic, Liberal Anglo-Catholic, Radical Anglo-Catholic or Activist Anglo-Catholic. When you consider his worship he may be happy clappy Anglo-Catholic, Cathedral Music Anglo-Catholic, Gregorian Chant or TaizÈ Music Anglo-Catholic.
The same permutations exist for the other two main headings, and when you add the class system, you can see that to be a member of the Church of England today is an ecclesiastical form of white water rafting on a surfboard.
The athletic fellow who has to oversee this extreme sport is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Catholics should understand that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not simply an Anglican pope. He is really only the Bishop of an English diocese, but tradition has landed him with the job of being the leader of the Church of England and the symbolic head of that worldwide collection of independent national churches called the Anglican Communion.
Evangelical missionaries founded some of these churches; Anglo-Catholics founded others. Furthermore, the evangelical Anglican churches in the Third World are enjoying huge growth. There are more Anglicans in Nigeria alone, for example, than in all of Great Britain and the United States put together.
In an attempt to please everyone, the English government (acting for the monarch) chooses an Evangelical then an Anglo-Catholic to be archbishop in turns. This seems like a good idea, but the effect is that both halves of the church take it in turn to be infuriated and insulted by their leader. George Carey, the outgoing Evangelical, alienated the Anglo-Catholics when he approved women's ordination 10 years ago.
As a result nearly a thousand Anglican priests left to become Catholics.
Now it is the turn of the Anglo-Catholic Rowan Williams. He seems fairly conservative in his t h e o l o g i c a l approach, but he is reported to be soft on the homosexual question, and this has upset the Evangelicals. They don't like his Catholic theology and style, but they would be willing to live with that. What they really don't like is that he seems to be pandering to the homosexual lobby. The hearty Evangelicals have always accused the effete Anglo-Catholics of being pink. Now they have to put up with an Archbishop of Canterbury who is on their side, and they're hopping mad.
Archbishop Williams is no lover of the Evangelical fringe. He has poked fun at them by saying they are tambourine bangers who love to sing “Blessed Assurance.”
In return, even before he has taken office, they have called for him to resign; threatened to withhold their financial contributions and have started a campaign to have their own church within a church. In the end, it will all die down and they will have to live with one another. The Evangelicals will have to put up with an Anglo-Catholic who they consider to be limp on sexual morality, and the new Archbishop will have to put up with a loathsome group of enthusiasts that make up the majority of his constituency.
From a Catholic point of view, Williams will be better than Carey.
One always got the impression with George Carey that he was out of his depth. The problem was not so much that he disagreed with Catholicism, but that he didn't really understand it. Like his evangelical predecessor, Donald Coggan, Carey kept fouling the ecumenical atmosphere by calling for full intercommunion between Catholics and Anglicans. Anglo Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury like Robert Runcie and Michael Ramsay were far more diplomatic. They understood and respected Catholicism and therefore made historic contributions to ecumenism.
For Catholics, Archbishop Williams has much to commend him. Unlike Carey, he is a first rate scholar. Unlike Carey, Williams also understands and loves Catholic spirituality. He has written an excellent book on Teresa of Avila and in his student days considered becoming a Catholic Benedictine monk. Williams also has a deep appreciation for the ancient theologians of the church, and therefore has a deep respect and love for both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology. Catholics may not agree with his stance on moral matters, and we may want to challenge him on some points of theology, but at heart we will find much that is agreeable in the new Archbishop.
The formal relationships between Anglicanism and the Catholic Church have cooled during Carey's time. From a Catholic perspective, when they ordained women to the priesthood, the Anglicans acted unilaterally and placed some pretty big boulders in the path to unity. Williams might be able to chip away at the boulders. But I suspect the new Archbishop of Canterbury will be content to simply keep the relationship with Rome warm, while seeking to build bridges with the Eastern Orthodox.
Maybe that is why he sports such a splendid beard. If the battle with the Evangelicals becomes too tiresome he could take a quiet holiday to Athens, adopt a suitably Greek name-and pass himself off as a patriarch.
Dwight Longenecker used to be an Anglican priest. He is the editor of a book of British conversion stories,
The Path to Rome. His new book is More Christianity.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dwight Longnecker ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Roman Day of Decision: A Correspondent's View DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—The old line is that the Vatican thinks in centuries. None of curial officials I have interviewed actually do think in “centuries,” but in the case of the U.S. bishops' sexual-abuse policy, thinking only in terms of months was sufficient to see the flaws in the American response.
While Bishop Wilton Gregory insisted on the fundamental soundness of the Dallas policy, rejecting suggestions that it had been conceived in haste and aimed at the next news cycle, there can be no denying that the Vatican is insisting on sober second thought.
The Dallas policy—as is—has been rejected. What will be finally approved will not be the Dallas policy but a substantial modification. Because the outright rejection of such a high-profile proposal would constitute a major embarrassment for the American hierarchy, both sides here were quick to point out that the mixed commission is a cooperative process. Left unsaid is that had the Dallas policy been consistent with the principles of natural justice and canon law, no mixed commission would be necessary at all.
To give a sense of the reaction in Rome, my colleague from Reuters news—a secular, international news service—asked Bishop Gregory point-blank: “Doesn't this mean that you are being sent back to the drawing board—but this time not alone?”
It was a not-too-subtle way of suggesting that perhaps the Vatican thought the American bishops needed supervision.
That's not a fair assessment—even if the rhetoric in this scandal can get overheated.
What has happened is not unlike what happened when the Vatican judged the proposed new American lectionary unacceptable. Approval was withheld and various joint groups were formed to study different aspects of the question and reach a consensus. The Vatican does not usually say “No” to national bishops' conferences; what is usually said is “Not yet” or “Not in this form.” That, in effect, is what Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said in his letter to Bishop Gregory.
Reading between the lines, Cardinal Re's decision tells American bishops that they cannot run roughshod over the rights of priests in order to salvage their own reputations—a hard message to take, but nonetheless one that most bishops would welcome. Bishops are priests too.
And it was American priests who played a key role in leading Rome to the decision it made.
How the Curia Works
While “the Roman Curia” is often thought of as a bastion of Italian bureaucracy, it is actually an international work force that works in an Italian ambience. Specifically, there are priests from the United States—on loan from their own American bishops—who work in almost all the major Vatican departments.
Within days of the Dallas meeting, many of those priests were already meeting to work out their objections to what the U.S. bishops adopted. Bishop James Harvey, a Milwaukee native who serves as prefect of the papal household, is also able to bring American perspectives to bear from outside official channels. The Vatican does not depend entirely on reports from the U.S. bishops for its news.
All that explains why, despite an overwhelmingly favorable vote in Dallas and intense lobbying by the U.S. bishops' leadership, the Vatican was confident that in rejecting the Dallas policy it was not out of step with the whole Church in the United States.
Bishop Gregory and Msgr. William Fay, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made what they hoped would be a secret trip to Rome in June to lobby for the Dallas policy. While the official statements from the bishops' conference's executive office indicated they were on a personal vacation, Catholic News Service—another arm of the U.S. bishops' conference—reported the truth.
But even by that time, the Vatican was getting an earful about the Dallas policy. While it met with generally positive reviews from self-styled “progressive Catholics,” commentators generally more friendly to the Vatican weighed in with stinging criticisms.
Who Rome Heard
George Weigel's book The Courage to be Catholic did not address the Dallas policy but severely indicted the U.S. bishops' handling of the whole crisis. The papal biographer's new book was received in the papal household well before it hit the bookstores.
More to the point, First ThingsEditor in Chief Father Richard John Neuhaus wrote a scathing attack on the Dallas policy, accusing the bishops of betraying the Gospel by sinning against both justice and mercy. His comments were widely circulated and favorably received among senior officials in Rome.
“I am encouraged by the response, which is both necessary and hopeful,” said Father Neuhaus of the decision to reject the Dallas policy. “Yet we will still have to see whether this will help heal the breach that has opened between priests and bishops. Feelings are very intense, and many priests feel very strongly about being betrayed. They are saying to the bishops: You are violating something that was clearly established at ordination and which you alter at great risk.”
The sense of betrayal among American priests played a key role in the Vatican's decision. One of the ironies of the sexual-abuse crisis is that American priests were able, in effect, to get a stronger hearing at the Vatican than they were from their own bishops.
“I am not unaware [of] the serious problem,” answered Bishop Gregory when asked about the damage done to the bishop-priest relationship. “This has taken its toll on that relationship, and we need to work to restore the trust that must bind a bishop to his priests, and the priests to their bishop.”
The work of the mixed commission will have that as a high priority, Bishop Gregory predicted. Which is fitting, as the breach between American bishops and American priests was a major reason that the Dallas policy was rejected and the mixed commission created.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Live-in‘Friends'
Q Our collegiate daughter recently informed us that she and a male friend want to share an apartment to save money. She insists they're just friends. While we know she is well-intentioned, we know this isn't appropriate. We aren't sure how to articulate the argument.
A On the surface, this situation may not seem like a problem. After all, if Suzie is buddies with Annie, it would make sense for them to share a place together, especially if they need to save money for tuition, books and car insurance. So what if Suzie's buddy isn't Annie, but Andy? They're only friends, so what's the big deal?
At first, perhaps nothing. They will be friends and respect each other's space, as most new roommates do initially. As time passes, however, tensions invariably arise. Consider the very nature of a “home.” When we're in social situations, we dress, speak and act in particular ways—ways appropriate for those settings. When we have guests in our home, especially good friends, we loosen up a bit, still projecting at least a minimum level of decorum. Once all the guests are gone, we feel free to drop our guard and lounge around in our favorite pajamas or exercise in our skivvies. Unless the member of the opposite sex living in our house happens to be a member of our immediate family, it wouldn't be appropriate to do that in front of him or her.
With a roommate of the opposite sex, either we would never feel free to be our “at-home” selves or, more likely, we would eventually grow tired of maintaining decorum 24 hours a day and would finally get comfortable. Neither option is desirable.
Second, lots of best friends fall in love, even if they've just been buddies for years. Imagine if a young man and woman who are “just friends” begin to let their guard down around each other in the intimate setting of their home. If they develop feelings for each other, their living situation will artificially accelerate the process. The occasion of sin will not just be near—it will be banging down the door. If only one of them develops these feelings, things will get awkward fast.
In addition, suppose one roommate began dating. Would the boyfriend or girlfriend be ill at ease encountering that living situation? And how about the intimacies encountered through sharing a bathroom? The intimacies that develop from living together are best saved for a spouse.
Most important, we must ask what message we're sending to the world. Young lives are being devastated by a rejection of God's plan for sexuality. When practicing Catholics live together, even if nothing is going on, it serves to validate what our neighbors are doing—the one who do have something going on. After all, we can't march around with signs reading, “We're just friends.”
If finding an alternative living arrangement requires financial sacrifice, tell your daughter she will be all the better for it. God will surely honor that sacrifice.
The McDonalds are family life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom and Caroline Mcdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Traditional Families
Marriages in which couples share a traditional interpretation of gender roles are the least likely to end in divorce, according to one of the most comprehensive divorce studies ever conducted. The highest-risk marriages were those categorized as “Pursuer-Distancer,” in which the wife raises problems that the husband dismisses. “Operatic” marriages, characterized by alternating cycles of fighting and sex, rated “high” on the risk scale.
Source: For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: A Brief Catechism for Catholic Voters DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:1. Isn't conscience the same as my own opinions and feelings? And doesn't everyone have the right to his or her own conscience?
Conscience is not the same as your opinions or feelings. Conscience cannot be identical with your feelings because conscience is the activity of your intellect in judging the rightness or wrongness of your actions or omissions, past, present or future, while your feelings come from another part of your soul and should be governed by your intellect and will.
Conscience is not identical with your opinions because your intellect bases its judgment upon the natural moral law, which is inherent in your human nature and is identical with the Ten Commandments. Unlike the civil laws made by legislators, or the opinions that you hold, the natural moral law is not anything that you invent, but rather discover within yourself and is the governing norm of your conscience. In short, conscience is the voice of truth within you, and your opinionsneed to be in harmony with that truth.
As a Catholic, you have the benefit of the Church's teaching authority or magisterium endowed upon her by Christ. The magisterium assists you and all people of good will in understanding the natural moral law as it relates to specific issues. As a Catholic, you have the obligation to be correctly informed and formed by the teaching of the Church's magisterium. As for your feelings, they need to be educated by virtue so as to be in harmony with conscience's voice of truth. In this way, you will have a sound conscience, according to which, you will feel guilty when you are guilty, and feel morally upright when you are morally upright. We should strive to avoid the two opposite extremes of a lax conscience and a scrupulous conscience. Meeting the obligation of continually attending to this formation of conscience will increase the likelihood that, in the actual operation or activity of conscience, you will act with a certain conscience, which clearly perceives that a given concrete action is a good action that was rightly done or should be done.
Being correctly informed and certain in the actual operation of conscience is the goal of the continuing formation of conscience. Otherwise put, you should strive to avoid being incorrectly informed and doubtful in the actual judgment of conscience about a particular action or omission. You should never act on a doubtful conscience.
2. Is it morally permissible to vote for all candidates of a single party?
This would depend on the positions held by the candidates of a single party. If any one or more of them held positions that were opposed to the natural moral law, then it would not be morally permissible to vote for all candidates of this one party. Your correctly informed conscience transcends the bounds of any one political party.
3. If I think that a pro-abortion candidate will, on balance, do much more for the culture of life than a pro-life candidate, why may I not vote for the pro-abortion candidate?
If a political candidate supported abortion, or any other moral evil, such as assisted suicide and euthanasia, for that matter, it would not be morally permissible for you to vote for that person. This is because, in voting for such a person, you would become an accomplice in the moral evil at issue. For this reason, moral evils such as abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are examples of a “disqualifying issue.” A disqualifying issue is one which is of such gravity and importance that it allows for no political maneuvering. It is an issue that strikes at the heart of the human person and is nonnegotiable. A disqualifying issue is one of such enormity that by itself renders a candidate for office unacceptable regardless of his position on other matters. You must sacrifice your feelings on other issues because you know that you cannot participate in any way in an approval of a violent and evil violation of basic human rights. A candidate for office who supports abortion rights or any other moral evil has disqualified himself as a person that you can vote for.
You do not have to vote for a person because he is pro-life. But you may not vote for any candidate who supports abortion rights. Key to understanding the point above about “disqualifying issues” is the distinction between policy and moral principle. On the one hand, there can be a legitimate variety of approaches to accomplishing a morally acceptable goal. For example, in a society's effort to distribute the goods of health care to its citizens, there can be legitimate disagreement among citizens and political candidates alike as to whether this or that health care plan would most effectively accomplish society's goal. In the pursuit of the best possible policy or strategy, technical as distinct (although not separate) from moral reason is operative. Technical reason is the kind of reasoning involved in arriving at the most efficient or effective result.
On the other hand, no policy or strategy that is opposed to the moral principles of the natural law is morally acceptable. Thus, technical reason should always be subordinate to and formed by moral reason, the kind of reasoning that is the activity of conscience and that is based on the natural moral law.
4. If I have strong feelings or opinions in favor of a particular candidate, even if he is pro-abortion, why may I not vote for him?
As explained in question 1 above, neither your feelings nor your opinions are identical with your conscience. Neither your feelings nor your opinions can take the place of your conscience. Your feelings and opinions should be governed by your conscience. If the candidate about whom you have strong feelings or opinions is pro-abortion, then your feelings and opinions need to be corrected by your correctly informed conscience, which would tell you that it is wrong for you to allow your feelings and opinions to give lesser weight to the fact that the candidate supports a moral evil.
5. If I may not vote for a pro-abortion candidate, then should it not also be true that I can't vote for a pro-capital punishment candidate?
It is not correct to think of abortion and capital punishment as the very same kind of moral issue. On the one hand, direct abortion is an intrinsic evil and cannot be justified for any pur-pose or in any circumstances.
On the other hand, the Church has always taught that it is the right and responsibility of the legitimate temporal authority to defend and preserve the common good and more specifically to defend citizens against the aggressor.
This defense against the aggressor may resort to the death penalty if no other means of defense is sufficient. The point here is that the death penalty is understood as an act of self-defense on the part of civil society.
In more recent times, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II has taught that the need for such self-defense to resort to the death penalty is “rare, if not virtually nonexistent.” Thus, while the Pope is saying that the burden of proving the need for the death penalty in specific cases should rest on the shoulders of the legitimate temporal authority, it remains true that the legitimate temporal authority alone has the authority to determine if and when a “rare” case arises that warrants the death penalty. Moreover, if such a rare case does arise and requires resorting to capital punishment, this societal act of self-defense would be a morally good action even if it does have the unintended and unavoidable evil effect of the death of the aggressor.
Thus, unlike the case of abortion, it would be morally irresponsible to rule out all such “rare” possibilities a priori, just as it would be morally irresponsible to apply the death penalty indiscriminately.
6. If I think that a candidate who is pro-abortion has better ideas to serve the poor, and the pro-life candidate has bad ideas that will hurt the poor, why may I not vote for the candidate that has the better ideas for serving the poor?
Serving the poor is not only admirable, but also obligatory for Catholics as an exercise of solidarity. Solidarity has to do with the sharing of both spiritual and material goods, and with what the Church calls the preferential option for the poor. This preference means that we have the duty to give priority to helping those most needful, both materially and spiritually. Beginning in the family, solidarity extends to every human association, even to the international moral order.
Based on the response to question 3 above, two important points must be made. First, when it comes to the matter of determining how social and economic policy can best serve the poor, there can be a legitimate variety of approaches proposed, and therefore legitimate disagreement among voters and candidates for office. Secondly, solidarity can never be at the price of embracing a “disqualifying issue.” Besides, when it comes to the unborn, abortion is a most grievous offense against solidarity, for the unborn are surely among society's most needful. The right to life is a paramount issue because as Pope John Paul II says it is “the first right, on which all the others are based, and which cannot be recuperated once it is lost.” If a candidate for office refuses solidarity with the unborn, he has laid the ground for refusing solidarity with anyone.
7. If a candidate says that he is personally opposed to abortion but feels the need to vote for it under the circumstances, doesn't this candidate's personal opposition to abortion make it morally permissible for me to vote for him, especially if I think that his other views are the best for people, especially the poor?
A candidate for office who says that he is personally opposed to abortion but actually votes in favor of it is either fooling himself or trying to fool you. Outside of the rare case in which a hostage is forced against his will to perform evil actions with his captors, a person who carries out an evil action “such as voting for abortion” performs an immoral act, and his statement of personal opposition to the moral evil of abortion is either self-delusion or a lie. If you vote for such a candidate, you would be an accomplice in advancing the moral evil of abortion. Therefore, it is not morally permissible to vote for such a candidate for office, even, as explained in questions 3 and 6 above, you think that the candidate's other views are best for the poor.
8. What if none of the candidates is completely pro-life?
As Pope John Paul II explains in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), “when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.” Logically, it follows from these words of the Pope that a voter may likewise vote for that candidate who will most likely limit the evils of abortion or any other moral evil at issue.
9. What if one leading candidate is anti-abortion except in the cases of rape or incest, another leading candidate is completely pro-abortion and a trailing candidate, not likely to win, is completely anti-abortion. Would I be obliged to vote for the candidate not likely to win?
In such a case, the Catholic voter may clearly choose to vote for the candidate not likely to win. In addition, the Catholic voter may assess that voting for that candidate might only benefit the completely pro-abortion candidate, and, precisely for the purpose of curtailing the evil of abortion, decide to vote for the leading candidate that is anti-abortion but not perfectly so. This decision would be in keeping with the words of the Pope quoted in question 8 above.
10. What if all the candidates from whom I have to choose are pro-abortion? Do I have to abstain from voting at all? What do I do?
Obviously, one of these candidates is going to win the election. Thus, in this dilemma, you should do your best to judge which candidate would do the least moral harm. However, as explained in question 5 above, you should not place a candidate who is pro-capital punishment (and anti-abortion) in the same moral category as a candidate who is pro-abortion. Faced with such a set of candidates, there would be no moral dilemma, and the clear moral obligation would be to vote for the candidate who is pro-capital punishment, not necessarily because he is pro-capital punishment, but because he is anti-abortion.
Father Stephen F. Torraco, Ph.D., is an associate professor of theology at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.
This article is excerpted from an article that can be read in its entirety on www.EWTN.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Stephen Torraco ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Victories Prolife
Adult Stem Cells' Benefits
REUTERS HEALTH, Oct. 3—New research has raised hopes that adult stem cells may one day be used to treat brain injuries.
In a study led by Dr. Tracy McIntosh of the Head Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, mice with brain injuries were injected with neural stem cells. The treated mice showed significant improvements in motor skills.
Colorado Abortion Drop
According to the Denver daily newspaper, Colorado saw 9,384 abortions in 1995; five years later that number dropped to 4,215—a decline of 63%.
The change was reported to the Newsby Liz McDonough, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services. McDonough also reported that, although the numbers of live births to Colorado teen-agers aren't declining, fewer Colorado teens are getting pregnant.
Pro-Life Doctor to Advise FDA?
According to the Post, the Bush administration is considering Dr. W. David Hager for an appointment to the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee—the same panel that recommended the approval of the abortion pill RU-486.
In August, Hager was one of several physicians in the Christian Medical Association who petitioned the FDA to shelve RU-486 pending a review of the approval process and complications attributed to the drug.
School Okays Pro-Life T-Shirt
On Sept. 27 Aaron Kaat, a senior at Sheboygan South High School, arrived at school wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “Abortion is homicide” on the front. The message on the back read: “You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation.” According to the Sheboygan Press, he was sent to the associate principal's office.
Kaat said he was warned he would face disciplinary measures if he wore the shirt to school again, but a spokesperson for the school district said school officials changed their decision. “The more we thought about it, the more we thought that it was just a political statement” allowed by the district dress code, co-superintendent Joe Sheehan told the newspaper.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Reason for the Season: A Character Study DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:The Saints' Guide To
Knowing The Real Jesus
by David MillsCharis, 2001 168 pages, $9.99 Available in bookstores or call (800) 486-8505
“What is the good of words,” G. K. Chesterton once asked, “if they aren't important enough to quarrel over?” He further noted that “the Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only things worth fighting about.” It is an observation that David Mills, senior editor of Touchstone magazine, has taken to heart in writing this pithy and challenging book. His goal, Mills writes, is to “explore the early Christian saints' passion for saying exactly the right things about Jesus. They cared about distinctions and fine points of wording to which few today outside a seminary give two seconds' thought.”
When it comes to discussing God, faith and salvation, a flawed tolerance is often esteemed over clarity and firmness to the point where truth inevitably yields to relativism. “To us the early Christians' attitude seems—let us be honest—really, deeply, seriously ... weird. It's not practical. It majors in the minors. It quenches the spirit. It's unkind. It's divisive.” Yet, Mills points out, the early Christians were right and we are wrong. Words matter because they point to the real Jesus, and paint a correct picture of who he was, what he did and what he continues to do. Without the right words, we encounter a false Jesus.
In the early centuries of the Church, theology was a dangerous discipline. Insisting on a certain word over another could lead to exile and even death. As Mills shows, the turmoil surrounding the Arian heresy, which held that Jesus was a lesser god than the Father, bears witness to the vital nature of words. “For the earliest Christians, getting the words right was a matter of salvation.” Many accepted martyrdom rather than accept the wrong words. For us, words are often cheap; for the early Christians, words were often priceless. In a chapter titled “Words to Die For,” Mills introduces readers to Gnosticism, the most pernicious of the early heresies. We meet Marcion, a “Catholic” whose clever attempts to subvert Scripture to his false ends were apparently quite successful.
These false teachings were, however, rejected by those who knew the right words, read Scripture with the mind of the Church and looked to the apostolic teaching for guidance. The Rule of Faith, passed along by the Apostles and their successors, was a sure, clear portrait of him. “We find the early Christians asking for a Rembrandt,” Mills writes, “where we would settle for connect-the-dots.” These portraits were defended with intense vigor. There was no dialogue with heretics; rather, they were condemned in no uncertain terms and even described as serpents or agents of Satan. This probably offends us, Mills notes, but likely for the wrong reasons. The early Christians warned of incorrect words because those words proclaimed a false Christ and placed souls in danger of damnation.
“If you want to hear the Word of the Lord, you will want to hear it within his body,” writes Mills. “If you don't want to hear it within his body, you probably don't really want to hear it.” It is just one of many timeless challenges in this timely book.
Carl Olson is editor of Envoy magazine.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Book -------- TITLE: Heavy With Child, Filled With Love DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Blessed Gianna Beretta Molla: A Woman's Life
by Giuliana PelucchiPauline Books and Media, 2002 144 pages, $14.95 To order: (800) 836-9723 or www.Pauline.org
The sun-drenched vistas and snowcapped mountains of Northern Italy appear in the 40 pages of photos that illustrate this brief but vivid biography. A woman of the mid-20th century, Gianna Beretta was born in 1922 and died in 1962. Her inspiring life is recalled here in interviews with her relatives, excerpts from her diaries and correspondence, and pages from the Molla family album.
We see Gianna as a girl in a formal portrait with her devout parents and many brothers and sisters, among whom there would be two priests, a nun and two physicians. We see her as a young doctor, in charge of gaggles of children at a summer camp—and smiling. We see her skiing with her fiancé, the business manager Pietro Molla, then at their wedding and, finally, in many charming, candid shots with her first three babies, her “treasures.”
Love beams from these photographs. Love and a special serenity that will be recognized by those who have encountered it before as sanctity.
Gianna put off marriage for many reasons. She was in medical school during World War II. She wondered whether she should apply her skills as a doctor in the missions like her older brother and sister. At age 33 she discovered, though, that her vocation was to be a wife and mother. The newlyweds wasted no time and, by July 1959, they were the proud parents of a son and two daughters. (This biography, oddly, is silent about Gianna's two subsequent miscarriages.)
Pietro describes the dilemma his wife faced during her sixth pregnancy: “She wasn't some mystical type. ... Gianna was a woman who could take pleasure in the small and great joys God grants us even in this world. Nevertheless, she did not hesitate when she learned of the large tumor that threatened the normal development of her pregnancy. Her first reaction was to ask the doctors to save the child in her womb. ... Gianna chose the [surgical] option [that was] the riskiest for herself. ... Gianna trusted in God.” Gianna Molla was able to hold her fourth live baby in her arms, but she herself died a painful death shortly afterward. She had laid down her life for her little one.
Giuliana Pelucchi has written and compiled an intimate portrait of an extraordinary woman. Especially moving are excerpts from the love letters of Gianna and Pietro, and tributes written by their children, who are now adults. Gianna Emanuela, their youngest daughter, describes her mother's heroic witness: “Every moment of her entire existence was a real testimony of Christian love and faith, which she lived with joy in her everyday life. ... She always trusted in divine providence, and she crowned her exemplary life in the name of a love without measure.” Blessed Gianna was beatified in 1994, during the Year of the Family.
Michael J. Miller translated Married Saints and Blesseds for Ignatius Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Saints From the Year it Was Christmas for 13 Months DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Saints of The Jubilee
by Tim Drake 1st Books, 2002 (888) 280-7715 or www.1stbooks.com
The Great Jubilee of 2000 was a dramatic year in the life of the Church. In manifold ways, this was due to the guidance of Pope John Paul II, who, by his own admission, spent most of his very long pontificate preparing for the Jubilee. The entire year, in its preparation and extensive celebration, bore the unmistakable stamp of the Holy Father.
Saints of the Jubilee, edited by Register staffer Tim Drake, is a monument to this particularly inspiring aspect of the Jubilee Year. It includes nine biographical essays from a variety of Catholic writers on many of the 151 new saints and 56 new blesseds recognized by the Church during 2000.
Drake's book is a reminder that this “year of saints” was noteworthy and dramatic for reasons other than the number of souls honored. Among them were Faustina Kowalska, famous for her Divine Mercy devotion, who has the distinction (surely not by accident) of being the first saint of the new millennium; large groups of martyrs from turbulent and controversial periods in the histories of Mexico and China; Katharine Drexel, a wealthy American woman; and Jacinta and Francisco Marto, the two deceased Fatima visionaries.
Anyone who reads this short book without being stirred and inspired many times over is not paying close attention. In a single year, we see a microcosm of the vast communion of saints that fills the centuries of the Church's history and now populates heaven. We get a dramatic illustration of the variety of lives—young and old, rich and poor—from nations the world over, into which the grace of God is poured.
The biographies are, for the most part, very readable and interesting. I'm looking forward to using at least a few of them in the religious education we do at home with our 11-year-old daughter. They are also suitable for spiritual reading, accompanied by quiet time of prayer and reflection.
The 12-page biography of St. Katharine Drexel, who died in Philadelphia in 1955, is alone worth the price of the book and should be required reading for every Catholic American. Reading the stories of the Mexican and Chinese martyrs is jarring simply, but not only, because of their numbers. One wonders at the extraordinary lives lived so well and offered so completely, summarized, in many cases, in a paragraph.
And this is perhaps the book's main shortcoming. At 100 pages, it suffers for its brevity. I would have loved to read more about many included here. And some very prominent “saints of the Jubilee” are not mentioned at all.
USA Today, in a recent article about John Paul as “history's champion saintmaker,” quoted one “expert” as saying that, while this Pope makes many saints, most of them are “not terribly interesting.” The comment says more about the person who said it than the saints themselves. Someone should mail him a copy of this book.
Barry Michaels writes from
Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barry Michaels ----- KEYWORDS: Book -------- TITLE: City Girl, Country Woman DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:America remains a deeply divided nation on issues of moral values and some might argue that the fault line is, in part, geographic.
Remember the famous map of the 2000 presidential election? It divided the country into red and blue zones, depending on whether the areas had voted for Bush or Gore. The South and the heartland voted for the Republicans, and the big cities and the West Coast went for the Democrats.
Many commentators suggest this split reflects cultural differences rather than economic issues or financial status. Their assumption is that the Republican Party is more conservative on social issues while the Democrats are more permissive. This, some say, explains how the various regions voted. In other words, the part of the country you live in may also be a good indicator of what you stand for and what you believe in.
Sweet Home Alabama, directed by Andy Tenant (Ever After) and written by C.J. Cox and Douglas Eboch, is a slick romantic comedy whose premise hinges on these sorts of differences. The movie opens in Alabama. The preteen Melanie Smooter (Dakota Fanning) is telling her boyfriend, Jake Perry (Thomas Curtis), that she has things she wants to do before she gets married. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning strikes as if to underline her words.
We next see a grown-up Melanie (Reese Witherspoon) in Manhattan having achieved her childhood dreams. She's now a dress designer on the verge of great success. But she's also changed her last name to Carmichael and lost most of her Southern accent. Her roots are hidden or forgotten.
The man in her life seems to be the ultimate Prince Charming, at least from a big-city perspective. Andrew Henning (Patrick Dempsey) is the son of New York's ambitious mayor, Kate Henning (Candace Bergen). A JFK Jr.-lookalike, he has a smooth smile, perfectly coifed hair and political ambitions of his own.
All Andrew needs is an appropriate mate and, much to his mother's chagrin, he chooses Melanie. To make this Peoplemagazine fantasy complete, he pops the question in Tiffany's after hours and tells her she can pick any diamond ring in the store. Melanie rushes back to Alabama to explain her new love to her parents, Earl (Fred Ward) and Pearl (Mary Kay Place). But there's also a more serious problem. She's already married.
As a teen-ager, she got hitched to her childhood sweetheart, Jake, and never bothered to get a divorce when she left him for the big city. She's also neglected to tell anyone in her high fashion, high-society world about the husband she left behind. Back in Alabama, Melanie experiences culture shock. “People need a passport to come down here,” she quips.
Her folks are a problem. They aren't the plantation aristocracy she'd made them out to be to her New York friends. They're one step above trailer-court trash and proud of it. They live in a doublewide trailer decorated with Confederate flags and enjoy participating in Civil War re-enactments.
We also learn that the well-behaved, focused career girl our heroine became in the Big Apple bears almost no resemblance to the teen-age hellraiser she was in Pigeon Creek. Nicknamed “Felony Melanie,” she is still remembered for her outrageous exploits.
The grown-up Jake (Josh Lucas) seems to be a “good old boy” of limited ambition. He lives in a shack by a lake with his dog and likes to fly planes. Melanie begs him to sign the divorce papers. He refuses.
There are still sparks between them and, unexpectedly, she finds herself uncertain of what to do next. Both men have their qualities. Melanie must choose between redneck Jake and limousine-liberal Andrew—and the two very different lifestyles they represent.
The rest of the movie unfolds much in the style of a variation of the 1930s screwball comedy called the “remarriage comedy” (The Philadelphia Story, The Awful Truth, etc.). In these narratives, the protagonist is prevented from hooking up with a second spouse by the machinations of the first one so that, in the end, the original couple is reunited.
To those who believe present-day Hollywood is a die-hard bastion of permissive liberalism, some of the filmmakers' creative choices within this genre may be surprising. They favor life in rural Alabama over the sophisticated, fast-paced whirl of Manhattan's upper-east side. By extension, one could even say that the red-colored regions that voted for Bush are made to seem more appealing than the blue-colored urban areas that went Democratic.
Down-home relationships are shown to be more grounded in reality. Unlike Melanie, Jake has kept as best friends the people he grew up with. Unlike Melanie's associates in New York, the old crowd in Pigeon Creek sees having babies as a virtue.
More astonishingly, the villain of the piece is Andrew's mother, a Democratic celebrity-politician. She's depicted as exploiting poor people to get their votes while remaining a wealthy snob at heart.
Like the golden-age classics that inspired it, Sweet Home Alabama is more an affirmation of the glory of first love than an endorsement of the sacrament of marriage. Both it and its predecessors explore the ramifications of our modern culture of divorce without asking the hard questions. The point, then and now, is to keep the laughs coming.
The makers of Alabama may keep us entertained, but they sell their premise short. Rather than dig deeper into the meaning of the values differences between the two regions, they settle for the cute and the picturesque. Also, sad to say, the profanity and repeated homosexual references may make the movie rocky going for family viewing.
John Prizer is currently based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Sweet Home Alabama affirms small-town values ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Copenhagen(2002)
Science is never neutral. Its discoveries and how they're applied have profound moral implications. Copenhagen, a PBS adaptation of Michael Frayn's play, explores the morality of nuclear physics and its relationship to politics. The action centers on a mysterious meeting between two of the 20th century's scientific geniuses during World War II. Werner Heisenberg (Daniel Craig), discoverer of the famous uncertainty principle, heads Germany's wartime atomic research. In September 1941, he pays a visit to his Danish mentor Nils Bohr, and his wife Margarethe, in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen. The two physicists take a walk in the woods that ends in anger. What was Heisenberg's purpose in coming? And what did they discuss during their walk?
Experts have never agreed as to the answers. Director-screenwriter Howard Davies begins with the principal characters' ghosts discussing the incident in present-day Copenhagen and flashes back to 1941 to present various interpretations as to what might have happened. The viewer may conclude that, if that conversation had gone differently, Hitler might have gotten the bomb.
Cheetah (1989)
Most of the news about Africa emphasizes disease, famine and political upheaval. But it is also a continent of breathtaking natural beauty and extraordinary wildlife. Cheetah, based on Alan Caillou's book, is a charming family film that accentuates the positive. Ted (Keith Coogan) and Sarah (Lucy Deakins) Johnson are typical Southern California teen-agers who're taken to Kenya for six months by their scientist parents. They befriend a young African goat herder, Morogo, and adopt a cub cheetah named Duma whose mother has been captured by poachers.
The Americans realize that they must eventually turn the wild animal loose so it can learn to hunt and live free. But some corrupt gamblers steal the cub so they can race it against greyhounds. Ted and Sarah set out in the uncharted wilderness to rescue Duma with Morogo as their guide. The result is a thrilling adventure about friendship, courage and survival.
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
During its golden age, Hollywood made movies about Afghanistan. But, as they were set during the heyday of the British Empire, they were rarely critical of colonial occupation. Some viewers today may have trouble with these attitudes.
But if you can get past the implicit jingoism, you may find The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, based on Major Francis Yeats-Brown's novel, a rousing tribute to military courage and comradeship. Col. Stone (Sir Guy Standing) commands the 41st Lancers in Bengal. Nearby Afghan tribes under the leadership of Mohammed Khan (Douglas Dumbrille) are on the verge of rebellion. The colonel wants to lay siege to a fortified Afghan village. His subordinate, Capt. MacGregor (Gary Cooper), argues for a direct attack.
The colonel's son, a young lieutenant, and his comrade, Lt. Forsythe, take MacGregor's side. When they're captured and tortured by Khan, the colonel must decide whether or not to change his plans. Director Henry Hathaway captures the atmosphere of colonial life and stages a rousing climactic battle.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: No Room at the Inn? Pro-Life Groups Offer Services to Help DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Second in a three-part series on the promotion of contraception and abortion on college campuses—and how some Catholic and pro-life groups are fighting pro-abortion initiatives.
WASHINGTON—Chances are a woman in college who takes a pregnancy test at a student health clinic won't be offered very many choices.
“They say,‘I'm so sorry you're pregnant.' No congratulations. Just‘here's the number for the abortion clinic. They take Visa and Master-Card,’” said Serrin Foster, president of Feminists for Life of America, a nondenominational organization that promotes basic human rights and helps student pro-life groups organize and lobby in support of pregnant and parenting students on campus.
Foster points out that far from representing a truly “pro-choice” viewpoint, this approach gives the pregnant woman no choice at all.
The result is that pregnant women in college are faced with the almost inevitable decision of dropping out of school or having an abortion. Out of every five abortions, one is performed on a college woman. A 1996 Gallup poll reported that while after high school only 37% of women considered themselves “pro-choice,” that percentage rose to 73% after college. The trend is mirrored on the campuses of Catholic colleges.
Eva St. Clair, a student at Stanford University, said 75% of students on her campus are “pro-choice.” St. Clair's Stanford Students for Life group has hosted speakers, organized conferences and distributed pro-life materials to campus health centers, but she can recall only one major event sponsored by Stanford Students for Choice. “I have seen them surface only two or three times at events they were not sponsoring,” she said.
However, pro-choice groups are highly visible on other campuses. A “Student Organizer” sent via e-mail to students from the National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League gives instructions on effective campus organizing. One section of the e-newsletter tells readers “too few women know about and use emergency contraception.”
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America includes on its Web site student-written accounts of activities on various campuses. One student described a recent “celebration” at Tulane University as providing “an educational sex-trivia contest,” “music by local rock goddesses” and “of course, free condoms!”
A “human sexuality event” at the University of Florida at Gainesville was even more explicit. A panel of “sexperts” answered questions from the audience about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and “sex toys,” and giveaways included “male and female condoms, dental dams, a variety of lubricants.”
The pro-life side is fighting back. The Cardinal Newman Society, a group that works to restore Catholic identity to Catholic colleges and universities, has teamed with the Catholic bishops, the Nurturing Network and other pro-life groups to launch the Campus Culture of Life Project, which will help establish programs and services on Catholic campuses for pregnant students.
“We want to push college campuses to build a culture of life,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society. To do so they will work with college administrators to develop education and counseling programs, facilitate student transfers to other colleges during pregnancy, develop and promote student pro-life clubs and institute policies to forbid referrals to pro-abortion health and counseling facilities, invitations to pro-abortion campus speakers, distribution of contraceptives and distribution of pro-contraceptive and pro-abortion literature on campus.
Signs of Hope
Some colleges are already permitting, if not embracing, the activities of pro-life groups who want to present students with alternatives to abortion. Foster of Feminists for Life said she has seen changes in the attitudes of some college administrators. Several universities have added accommodations such as parking spaces for pregnant women and recorders for taping class lectures. Some have even designated special housing for pregnant students or single parents. With guidance from Feminists for Life, Georgetown University instituted the Hoyas for Kids Child Care Center.
Those instances, however, are far from the norm. Many pro-life groups encounter difficulty with the simplest tasks, such as placing advertisements in student newspapers or persuading the health clinics to distribute pro-life information to pregnant students.
The main focus of the Human Life Alliance is to place more pro-life advertisements in college newspapers. As paying customers, this should be easy. Not so, said Director of Campus Outreach Jenni Speltz. “At least half don't accept our ads,” she said. Among them is Loyola University of Chicago, a Jesuit Catholic college.
Regardless, Human Life Alliance manages to place ads in about 240 college and high school papers per year, and Speltz said students' reaction to the 8-12 page supplement of pro-life resources and information is highly positive. “It gives them hope,” she said.
Feminists for Life encounters similar problems. Some schools refuse its ads—although they are free of political or religious content—therefore violating the First Amendment right to free speech.
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life voiced the same concern about the Genocide Awareness Project, which juxtaposes photos of aborted babies with graphic images of victims of genocide and violence, such as lynchings and the Holocaust.
“The First Amendment forbids content-based restrictions on free speech,” he said. “It is ironic that this project has more success getting into secular universities ... than it has getting into Catholic universities which, as private institutions, have more leeway to control who comes in and who doesn't.”
He also recounts a more physical form of silencing. At pro-life demonstrations or vigils, abortion promoters will often hold up large sheets to obstruct the view of pictures of aborted babies.
“They try other kinds of demonstrations also,” said Father Pavone, “but it does not stop crowds of students from coming and being impacted.”
Mary Cunningham Agee, founder of the Nurturing Network, doesn't encounter the same amount of resistance as other pro-life groups on college campuses, and she attributes this to her “Mother Teresa approach.”
“We're compassionate and practical,” she said of the organization she started in 1985 to provide practical, lifesaving support to women facing pregnancies. The group has helped more than 15,000 women.
The secret to her success, she said, is to refrain from mixing political activism with the organization's main intent of providing help. “The minute that I do, the more trouble I'll have,” she said. To that end, she keeps her ads free of politically charged language. They offer support, compassion and a toll-free phone number for women in need.
Agee also aims to get student health clinics to distribute her information, which has proved a greater challenge than placing ads. “It runs the gamut,” she said of colleges' attitudes toward her brochures. “It goes all the way from certain colleges that only give [students] information from Planned Parenthood to the authentically Catholic colleges that only give out our information.”
Handling Pressure
The pressure on college women to abort babies is strong, Agee said. She named four “pressure points” that influence decisions: the attitudes of the boyfriend, the peer group, the parents and the employer, who may decide that the woman is no longer credible to customers.
“A quick escape hatch when someone is panicky is very attractive,” Agee said.
Feminists for Life also shows alternatives to the “escape hatch” of abortion and, like the Nurturing Network, it focuses on supporting the woman.
Foster said that specific focus is what makes the organization a safe haven for so many women.
“[A woman] can see that we love her,” Foster said. “Even if she had an abortion, we love her unconditionally.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
Next week: Can medical schools require abortion procedure training for their students?
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Mass Distractions
Stephen pulls at the neckline of my sweater. His tiny wet fingers explore my ears and neck. He grabs a fistful of my hair and stuffs it into his mouth. I keep my eyes forward, silently congratulating myself for paying attention to the first reading despite the antics of my 7-month-old sidekick. When I glance at the missal over my husband's shoulder, however, I discover that I am actually listening to the second reading. How could that be? What was the first reading? Did I really miss the Psalm?
I pick up my own missal to refresh my memory. As I flip through the pages, the crinkle of paper attracts Stephen's attention and he lunges for the book. I try to hold it out of his reach, but he whines in frustration so instead I close the missal and put it away. His whine turns into a wail. When I try to silence him with a pacifier, he slaps it from my hand and shrieks with rage. A few people in the front pew turn around to look at us. My husband grimaces.
I smile apologetically, squeeze past my older children sitting in the pew and begin a familiar walk down the aisle toward the back of the church. Men avert their eyes. Old ladies smile at my screeching bundle. Children crane their necks to watch us walk past.
“Where's Mama going?” I hear the sound of my 2-year-old's voice above the Alleluia.
So goes another Sunday morning, and I am exiled once again. I stand at the back of the church, balancing Stephen on my hip. He clings to me like a tiny monkey and at last is quiet. I sometimes wonder about the kind of spiritual life God expects me to have when I find it difficult even to pay attention while I am at Mass. With young children occupying my days and nights, it seems that attending an uninterrupted Mass once a week would be a minimal request. I find some comfort, though, in knowing I am not the only parent with a far from contemplative spiritual life.
“Let's put it this way,” my sister joked in a recent phone conversation. “I'm not in danger of levitating any time soon.”
The other outcasts I meet at the back of the church each Sunday also appear to have their feet planted firmly on the ground. We share knowing glances as we rock boisterous babies in our arms. We exchange apologies and nods of understanding when the toddlers we are chasing happen to collide. We wave to each other's children at the sign of peace.
An older woman once stopped me after Mass and told me not to be embarrassed by Stephen's disturbances.
“He gives glory to God by being the best baby he can,” she explained.
I think she was right. Babies may not sit peacefully in the pews worshipping God as grown-ups do, but they praise God in the only way they can, by being the beautiful creatures he intended them to be. They don't waste time wondering about God's expectations or longing for different circumstances. They wholeheartedly embrace the role they have been given. Every squirmy, drooly, grabbing, shrieking inch of these little ones testifies to the glory and wonder of God's creation.
Perhaps we parents who are distracted by their pawing hands and active bodies can learn from their example. Just as Stephen's job is to be a baby, mine is to be his mother. God doesn't want me to levitate. He wants me to give my little ones the attention they require, even when it's inconvenient, even when it seems there are holier things to do. I cannot easily follow the readings or meditate on the sermon while at Mass, but I can unconditionally accept the tasks God gives me right now, even on Sunday morning.
Glory be to God!
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor,
New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Ukrainian Christmas Castle DATE: 10/27/2002 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 27-November 2, 2002 ----- BODY:Philadelphia is more than the “City of Brotherly Love.” It's a city of shrines, two American saints and two Catholic cathedrals.
The one Roman Catholics often miss—but shouldn't—is the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It was only on my most recent visit to Philadelphia that I finally discovered this remarkable cathedral, with its resplendent Byzantine mosaics and icons. The cathedral humbly commands a quiet side street just four blocks from the National Shrine of St. John Neumann. Even though it's near the heart of the city, park-like grounds with trees and shrubbery surround it. The cathedral is the seat of the Metropolitan Archeparchy of Philadelphia.
Once I discovered the cathedral's whereabouts, my eyes immediately homed in on its gigantic gold dome, reflecting the spring sunlight like a small star. Venetian tile, made up of 22-carat gold fused to glass, covers the dome's exterior.
The dome caps an edifice that was built in 1966 to replace the original cathedral established in 1907 by the Ukrainian Catholics' first bishop. The new design harmonizes Byzantine and contemporary lines. The repeating geometric forms enhance the striking look or the building, whose faÁade is of limestone and architectural concrete, and they're also symbolic. The trio of archways over the doors of the main entrance, for example, reminded me of the Trinity. The three very tall arching windows above each door magnify this effect.
All the curved geometric lines bring a reassuring, welcoming character to the structure. Speaking of “welcoming,” that's exactly how our Lord appears in the mosaic over the central door. Christ stands in red and blue robes, extending his hands with open palms in a warm gesture to greet us and receive us into his magnificent temple.
Inside, I thought of the cathedral as a visual symphony composed of natural light and glistening mosaics, iconography and stained glass. Dazzling gold scrollwork and overlays provided the gentle, but steady, percussion. I stood in the vast octagonal nave knowing I was in a throne room for the King of Kings and his Most Holy Mother, the Immaculate Conception.
Everywhere, the architecture's curving lines and arches subtly help shape the peaceful atmosphere. No, they do more—they gently direct our attention to the magnificent icons and the all-important spiritual stories conveyed therein.
For instance, the arching ceiling lines in the sanctuary become a framework for luminescent iconostasis—the “icon screen”—that extends across the entire sanctuary. These arching lines also frame the glowing icon of the Immaculate Conception that fills the apse.
High overhead, robed in symbolic red and blue, Mary opens wide her arms in a gesture of prayer; at the same time she shows us the Child Jesus, whom she bears for us to approach and adore. Behind Mary, celestial sunrays form a cross. This remarkable icon vividly projects Mary in her major primary Eastern title of Theotokos (literally, “God-bearer”).
Inviting Icons
Icons play a major, reverential role in the Eastern-rite churches. The iconostasis that separates the sanctuary from the nave also holds more than 40 icons within the dazzling gold faÁade. The delicate scroll and filigree work that frames these icons and the central royal doors mirrors the entry into heaven itself. Everything lifts our hearts to God, his Mother, and his angels and saints.
At the top of the royal doors—the center ones used by the priest to reach the altar behind the iconostasis—the icon of the Annunciation reminds us that Gabriel brought the news to Mary that she was to be the God-bearer. Just below the scene, round icons picture the Four Evangelists.
The elaborately wrought golden arch that spans high over the royal doors has an ornamental design as delicate as the priciest jewelry. It frames several icons. Directly above the royal doors, in ascending order, there's the Last Supper and Christ the King in red and blue. Above them and at the pinnacle of the arch is a crucifix with Mary on one side and John on the other. They're all directly in line with the icon of Our Blessed Mother, which fills the apse high above.
The liturgical artistry and effect here is breathtaking. The symbolic, painstakingly crafted art becomes a mini-catechism. Back on the iconostasis, for example—in a traditional fashion for Eastern rite churches, plus Orthodox churches—Jesus and Mary appear in icons to either side of the royal doors. In this cathedral, they're much bigger than life-sized. As we look at the iconostasis, Jesus is also always to the right side, Mary to the left.
Colors tell a story. Red garments symbolize heaven; blue stands for earth. Jesus and Mary wear both colors—reversed. Jesus' red reminds us how he came from heaven and took on an earthly (blue cloak) nature. Mary's blue means she began on earth and then was assumed into heaven (red mantle).
To Jesus' side, a smaller icon of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, appears on the deacon door with a larger-than-life-sized John the Baptist at the end of the icon screen.
On the deacon door on the Blessed Mother's side, St. Michael the Archangel stands holding an orb. In keeping with Eastern tradition, St. Nicholas follows next, again larger-than-life-size.
An Inexhaustible Feast
I felt I could have spent days examining and meditating upon the iconostasis alone. It's that rich. Twelve more icons, circular ones, fill the archway, whose “keystone” icon is the one of Christ the King. These Byzantine icons depict the major Marian and Christological feasts, of which I counted 12.
Then to either side and in another arch above, more individual icons present the 12 Apostles and 12 Old Testament figures and prophets.
This holy icon screen, an incandescent masterpiece, was designed and painted by well-known artist Chrystyna Dochwat, who was obviously inspired by the Holy Spirit to capture such heavenly majesty in art. After a while I noticed that every icon but the Last Supper is within an arched or circular framework. Even the geometric architecture enhances our spiritual experience in the cathedral's interior.
The sights from anywhere in the great nave—it can seat 1,200 with another 1,000 standing—are bathed in bright natural light. As I looked to find every source from where it's streaming in, my eyes lifted up to the windows in the 106-foot dome where the heavenly, traditional icon, here in brilliant mosaic, of the Pantokrator, Christ the almighty ruler, looks over the congregation in majesty.
Surely, this radiant icon—together with so many others—reminded me that Jesus is the source of all light. I found myself wondering what Pope John Paul II had to say about this magnificent cathedral on Oct. 4, 1979, when he paid a papal visit here. Maybe he was like me—speechless.
Joseph Pronechen writes from
Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Philadelphia ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Abuse Scandal Dwarfs Church's But Sparks Little Outrage DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:ALBANY, N.Y. — A bill requiring “anyone in a position of trust” to report cases of suspected child abuse to the authorities passed in the New York state Senate on March 18. The legislation does not mention counselors at abortion clinics but does specify members of the clergy.
The bill comes in the wake of the recently-publicized Church sex scandals of years ago. But it seems to ignore evidence suggesting that abortion clinics routinely aid and abet the crime of statutory rape, a form of child abuse in which an adult has sex with a child.
Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, accused law-makers of succumbing to abortion lobby pressure. He noted that a bill introduced last June that would require all adults to report cases of suspected child abuse was withdrawn after a protest mounted by the pro-abortion lobbying group Family Planning Advocates.
“In no uncertain terms, they contended that if all adults were blanketed, it would mean that abortion providers would have to report cases of statutory rape,” he said in a statement March 19.
A survey by the pro-life advocacy group Life Dynamics Inc. that purportedly exposed 90% of 833 abortion clinics as willing accomplices to child sexual abuse has been ignored by child-welfare advocates and prosecutors, including those who have crusaded for punishment in response to child sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church. By contrast, a New York Times study suggests that only 1.8% of priests have even been accused of sexual abuse.
“It's now rather obvious that the real goal of these people is not to protect the kids but to get the Catholic Church,” Donohue said. “If you're truly concerned about kids, it makes no difference whether the predator is a priest, a plumber, a rabbi or a schoolteacher.”
Life Dynamics, based in Denton, Texas, conducted a survey of abortion clinics in 49 states (Mississippi has no clinics). A woman with a childlike voice called each clinic pretending to be a 13-year-old girl who had been impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend.
In 90% of the calls, mostly to Planned Parenthood facilities, the girl was told she could come in for a pregnancy test and nobody would ever be told of the crime.
In states without laws that require parental consent for abortions, she was told routinely the abortion would be performed without anyone being contacted and her boyfriend could pay for it all. Repeatedly, in states with parental-consent laws, the girl was coached to lie about her age and the age of her boyfriend.
Clinics told the girl she could receive birth-control pills in an ongoing arrangement, and she was assured the grown man who was having sex with her was free to pick them up and pay for them.
“How come some people are being prosecuted, and others are not?” asked Ed Zielinski, general counsel for Life Dynamics.
Answer, according to Donohue: “Anti-Catholic bigotry.”
“The sexual-abuse scandal in the Church has given anti-Catholic bigots some new cover,” Donohue said. “They can go after the Church and the priests without sounding like bigots because they can feign concern for the children. Yet when presented with evidence of far more widespread child sexual abuse — abuse that's facilitated by the abortion industry — there's no concern.”
Beyond the seeming lack of outrage, Donohue said, is a concerted effort to protect the abortion industry while harming the Church. At least eight states — New York, Maryland, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Iowa and Arizona — have recently considered or are considering legislation to negate state respect for the seal of confession.
Some of those championing the laws, such as the New York City branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, have fought vigorously to maintain the confidentiality protection for abortion providers and argue that only clergy should lose rights to converse secretly about crimes.
Bobbi Watson, senior vice president of Planned Parenthood of the Rockies, which covers most of the western United States, has denied that abortionists aid and abet statutory rape. Rather, “they make efforts that seek to respect the privacy of young girls seeking abortions,” she told the Register last year, after Life Dynamics first revealed the tapes. “In doing so, they never ask about the girl's partner.”
Donohue charged that the ACLU has “worked openly, hand-in-hand with the abortion industry, to ensure that the abortion industry is exempted from mandatory-reporting laws.”
“They realize that the abortion industry is in a pickle when it comes to statutory rape,” he said.
Marc Tuttle, a researcher for Life Dynamics, said transcripts and tapes from the survey are so damning it seemed as if child-welfare advocates and prosecutors would have to take action.
“Justice is supposed to be blind,” Tuttle said. “When it involves the abortion industry, however, justice apparently looks for a blindfold.”
‘Nothing to Say’
In Boston, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly has taken a no-holds-barred approach in a legal campaign to bring justice to all cases of past child sexual abuse involving priests. He has forced the Church to provide thousands of documents and requested dozens of subpoenas in an effort to indict bishops in connection with past sexual crimes of priests.
Yet Reilly has had no response to the Life Dynamics survey, which found that abortion clinics in Massachusetts knowingly help foster child sexual abuse. Reilly refused repeated requests by the Register for a statement about the findings and his reaction to them.
“We're not going to comment on this issue,” said Beth Stone, a spokeswoman for Reilly.
Register: “Why no comment? Is it Mr. Reilly's belief that it's okay for a 22-year-old man to impregnate a 13-year-old girl in Massachusetts?”
Stone: “I've talked it over with people in the office and we're just not going to comment. I'm not going to tell you why. We have nothing more to say.”
The reaction doesn't surprise Gay Guptill, a pro-life Boston resident who stands on sidewalks outside abortion clinics in an effort to counsel women who seek abortions. Guptill calls the police when he counsels young women who have been impregnated by grown men, but the authorities do nothing.
“They do not investigate nor follow up,” Guptill said, claiming the police are far more concerned with monitoring pro-life advocates than with fighting child sexual abuse. “You might say they are the security guard company for the Planned Parenthood facility, because they baby-sit outside the [abortion] mill every Saturday.”
In Oregon, attorney David Slader describes himself as a relentless child advocate who hopes to counter child sexual abuse. He's suing the Diocese of Baker, Ore., for nearly $80 million because of child sexual abuse allegations that are all more than 20 years old. Yet he downplayed the finding that Oregon abortion workers coach pregnant girls to lie and promise not to report the sexual abuse.
“The Catholic Church tells children that the priest is God's representative on Earth,” said Slader, who is Jewish. Priestly abuse is “much different than a sexually active teen sleeping with a man who's probably not much more psychologically mature than she is. The average person on the street doesn't think ‘child abuse’ when a 13-year-old girl is sleeping with a 22-year-old. They think it's inappropriate, but they don't think it's rape. Technically it's illegal, and it should be enforced, but it's not the same as believing that you've been chosen by God to be raped.”
Father James Logan, a canon lawyer and chancellor of the Diocese of Baker, said Slader and other child-welfare advocates were conspicuously silent in the 1990s, when then Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts and then U.S. Surgeon General M. Joycelyn Elders, both Democrats, made issue of the fact that more than half of all teen-age pregnancies are caused by adult men and that 40% of pregnant girls age 15 and younger have partners older than 20.
“It has been real clear since that information was released that we have a huge problem in this country with statutory rape, but nobody seems to care,” Father Logan said. “It was a mere blip on the radar screen of public concern. There's all this hysteria about priests. Yet you need 50 years’ worth of nationwide data to come up with numbers of allegations involving priests that match the number of child sexual abuse cases that occur in Massachusetts alone in just one year.”
Tuttle believes widespread sexual abuse of minors is tolerated for the same reason the Life Dynamics survey has failed to generate outrage: The abortion industry has loads of money and political clout. To the abortion industry, Tuttle explained, sexually active teens are cash.
“There's no excuse for child molestation anywhere, anytime, and particularly in the Catholic Church, which should be held to a higher standard than the rest of society,” Tuttle said. “But with the cases against priests, we're talking mostly about incidents that happened at least 15 to 20 years ago in most cases.”
When Life Dynamics presented a possible case of someone suffering ongoing abuse, “people at the abortion clinics in most cases chose to help sustain the abuse rather than calling authorities,” he said.
The Catholic League's Donohue said the media, prosecutors and self-appointed child advocates who are attacking the Church have also ignored factual findings that show child sexual abuse has historically been no higher, and probably lower, among priests than among other groups of clergy and secular professionals.
“Clearly, this ongoing focus on the priests isn't about protecting kids,” Donohue said. “It's about getting the priests. I'm not trying to exculpate abusive priests and bishops who looked the other way. But there's a lot more at stake here. The sexual abuse of children is rampant in this society, and nobody seems to care — except for that small fraction of cases that involve priests.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: On the Front Lines - Marines' Prayers Unite Them With Home DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:SOUTHERN IRAQ — Marines moving north toward Baghdad have a priest beside them and an extra weapon: prayer.
Father Timothy Hogan, a lieutenant commander in the Navy assigned to the Marines in Iraq, said as convoys move north they spend time being briefed on the safety and operational issues involved. Then the battalion commander, Col. John Wissler, a devout Catholic, speaks to the troops. After he talks, he asks Father Hogan to pray for the convoy. After the prayer for the entire convoy, Father Hogan calls all the Catholics together for confession and Communion.
Father Hogan, who corresponded with the Register by e-mail, could not reveal his location in Iraq for security reasons. A Marine Corps spokesman would say only that Father Hogan had been “moved forward” from Kuwait.
Both on the front line and on the home front, prayer is increasingly becoming the glue that holds people together as they deal with the stresses of combat, according to chaplain, soldiers and family members.
And while some protest the war at home, the troops say they are too busy to notice.
From inside Iraq, Father Hogan, who said his battalion has already been involved in a couple of “skirmishes” that he characterized as “nothing serious,” added that he has had a great deal of counseling to do now that the battle has started.
“Counseling now is dealing with the aftershock of witnessing dead bodies on the side of the road and children and adults begging for food,” he said.
Father Hogan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, said the troops continue to have Mass once a week followed by the rosary and, when possible, the Stations of the Cross each Friday. He added that he and the other Catholic chaplains in Iraq also minister to battalions that do not have priests to make sure soldiers have access to the sacraments.
Because they move so much, Father Hogan said, there is also a good deal of “private” prayer time for the troops.
Those troops not at the front are praying, too. Major Brad Bartelt, a Catholic and a spokesman for Central Command Forward in Doha, Qatar, said with war under way he has many reasons to pray.
“[War] makes you think more and more,” he said. “You have friends that are out there and you pray for them constantly.”
Though not on the front line, Bartelt said private prayer is the norm for him while working 18- to 20-hour days in Qatar.
“When I get back to my rack to get some sleep, that's my time [for prayer and reflection],” he said. He also said the military does its best to accommodate the spiritual needs of soldiers by letting them attend religious services despite their hectic schedules.
As for the effect protests are having on morale, Bartelt said it is minimal. “Honestly, they don't see the protests on the front line,” where TV news is not available, he said.
Troops don't have time to worry about such things, he added, because they are too focused on the mission and on surviving.
Praying Parents
With loved ones in danger, family members back home face long days of waiting — and praying.
That's especially true for the family of Shoshana Johnson, one of several American POWs whose face was splashed across Iraqi television as she and the others were held in captivity.
Their Army maintenance unit had been ambushed by Iraqi soldiers March 22. Johnson's mother, Eunice, had given her a rosary before she deployed, and the Catholic family from El Paso, Texas, is hoping Shoshana will soon be reunited with her 2-year-old daughter, Janelle.
Walter Carew, who lives in Massachusetts, said he and his wife pray constantly for their stepson, Sgt. Christopher Culbert, a father of four who is in the 101st Airborne Division.
“We're proud of him and we're worried,” Carew said, echoing the sentiments of many parents.
Carew said he and his wife constantly pray from a small prayer book, which his father, a captain who survived the Battle of the Bulge despite being wounded, used during World War II.
“I fight over [that book] with my wife,” Carew said.
He also said the Eucharist has been the most important thing to him in his praying for the troops and his stepson.
“The Eucharist is the greatest gift to us Catholics,” he said, adding that he would encourage others to pray before the Eucharist for the troops as well.
Another proud but worried parent, Mary Grace Sundy, the mother of Lt. Patrick Sundy, a Marine Corps officer in Iraq, said she also turns to prayer. Even everyday tasks remind her to pray for her son.
“I pour myself a glass of water,” she said, and then prays, “please don't let him get dehydrated, Lord.”
When Sundy breathes, she prays for her son's lungs in an atmosphere that has pollutants from dust and burning oil wells; when she awakens, she prays for his sleep, and so on.
One thing that comforts her, she said, is that “Patrick went to confession before he deployed.”
Sundy said she has been pleasantly surprised by how many people — including those in her parish, Sts. John and Paul in Sewickley, Pa. — have been “incredibly supportive” of her and those in the military.
“At our parish,” she said, “a display went up today with an American flag and the names, addresses and photos of military members and a book in which parishioners can write notes to them.”
Support From Bishops
Some bishops in the United States have begun offering the Votive Mass in Time of War.
Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., a diocese where the Pentagon and several military installations are located, has begun saying the Mass to pray for peace, the troops and their families.
The bishop hopes to offer the Mass once a week until the war ends, said Linda Shovlain, communications director for the Diocese of Arlington.
Shovlain said the intention of the Mass is “for the true and lasting peace” in the world, especially Iraq and the Middle East; the protection of coalition military personnel and the comfort of their families; innocent Iraqi civilians; and “wisdom and farsightedness for our national leaders and world leaders to build a world in which true peace can take root and war abolished forever.”
Also offering the votive Mass is Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria, Ill., who asked Catholics to pray the rosary for the troops and for civilians.
“In this Year of the Rosary, it seems especially appropriate that we ask Our Lady, the queen of peace, to pray with us and for us,” he said.
Supported by prayers at home, chaplains such as Father Hogan look forward to the day when they can help Catholic Iraqis as well as the troops.
“I am hoping that, when this is over and when we are in the reconstruction stage,” Father Hogan said, “I will have an opportunity to meet with some clergy in Iraq and set up an opportunity to celebrate Mass with them and assist them in rebuilding.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Priest Fought for Saddam - Now Roots for America DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Like many Iraqis living in the United States, Father Noel Gorgis is following the war in his homeland with special interest. And he is watching it from a very different vantage point than the last time the United States fought Iraq.
Father Gorgis, a priest at St. Paul Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in North Hollywood, had to serve with the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War.
He was stationed at the H3 airfield, the suspected Scud headquarters in western Iraq that allied special forces seized in the early hours of the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Though he was a priest, he was given no special status in the Iraqi army.
“The Iraqi army has no chaplains; I was a regular soldier,” Father Gorgis said. He endured air bombardments and, as the war continued, he fled to Turkey. From there he made his way to the United States in 1992.
Like many Iraqis living in the United States — Christian and Muslim alike — Father Gorgis sees the current war as an opportunity for improvement in his country, an opportunity the American government has vowed to see through to the end.
“Most people here are looking for change in Iraq,” Father Gorgis said of his parishioners who are almost all of Iraqi origin. “Ninety-nine percent don't like Saddam.”
He believes Iraqis back home want change, too, though they cannot voice their feelings for fear of the current regime's henchmen. Iraqis “don't like Saddam, except in Tikrit,” the town where the dictator was born, he said.
Reports from Iraq indicate Saddam's Baath party is forcing men to fight by holding their families hostage, but “if they had their choice,” Father Gorgis said, the Iraqis “would rise up” all over the country.
So great is the fear of Saddam's security apparatus that even Iraqis here in the United States are unwilling to speak out for fear of reprisals against their families, according to Father Gorgis.
“Last night I talked to my sister in Baghdad,” he said March 27, “but I can not say ‘wait for freedom’ because she might be harmed.” He said his sister was leaving Baghdad for the relative safety of the north ahead of the ground assault on the city.
Father Gorgis said Christians still in Iraq have real concerns.
“[Iraqi] Christians are afraid from the bombing, the embargo and their Muslim neighbors,” he said.
Don't Repeat ‘91
Because among Muslims “there is much hostility to Christians,” Father Gorgis said he hopes “the Americans will stay longer” than in 1991 and a government is established that will ensure Christians can live in peace.
A senior Bush administration official, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that Pres -ident Bush and many in government do indeed intend to stay long enough to make things work.
The administration's strategy is to “identify moderate Muslims who can speak for the heart of Islam,” to help them promote a message “of tolerance and peace” and to “amplify their voices,” the official explained.
The moderates, he said, have been squelched between their own governments and Islamic extremists.
Christians make up only about 3% of Iraq's population. They include Assyrians, an Orthodox Church, but the majority of Christians are Chaldean Catholics, who left the Assyrian Church to come into communion with Rome 450 years ago.
As many as 250,000 Iraqi Christians now live in the United States.
Bishop Bawai Soro of the western diocese of the Assyrian Church of the East was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, and educated in Baghdad before emigrating. He came to the United States in 1976 and lives in San Jose, Calif.
Like Father Gorgis, he looked with hope to a post-Saddam Iraq. He said Assyrian Christians, even more than Chaldeans, have been “Western-oriented” since World War I, when they helped the British drive out the Turks and form the state of Iraq.
Mideast Model?
“The time is right to transform global politics in the Middle East,” Bishop Soro said, adding that he believes Iraq is the perfect place to start that transformation.
Once the initial anger about casualties wears off, people will welcome the Americans as liberators, the bishop predicted.
He is heartened by the resolve of the Bush administration to create a free Iraq.
“The wisdom of the administration is providential [because] everybody in the Arab world looks at Iraq as the model,” he said.
According to Bishop Soro, Iraq is looked up to because it has the best combination of advantages of any Middle Eastern country: It is wealthy, well educated and business savvy, he said. Its riches include not only oil but also its agriculture, minerals and well-educated people.
“It is shocking to see Iraq sunk to [its current] level,” he said sadly.
The bishop explained that many Iraqis are angry at Saddam because of the political repression and the fact that his government has gone about a program of “Arabization” in which the other cultures in Iraq — Assyrian, Turkish and Kurd — are ruthlessly suppressed. The persecution, he said, is not so much religious as it is cultural and political.
Entifadh Qanbar, a Muslim who is the Washington representative of the Iraqi National Congress, an expatriate opposition group that hopes to be at the forefront of the political restructuring of Iraq, said his vision of Iraq is one of religious freedom and democracy.
Though some have praised Saddam for not persecuting Christians outright for their faith, Qanbar insisted a new regime “will be more tolerant: It will be democratic.”
Even the prosecution of the war itself gives Bishop Soro hope.
After “being abused by [Saddam] for 35 years and before that 10 years of coups,” the people of Iraq are conditioned to accept force, he said.
The way you change that “is through love,” Bishop Soro said, and the way the war — which he characterized as “a charitable war” — is being fought, “accepting surrenders, avoiding civilian casualties,” will go a long way toward healing the citizens of Iraq.
And while the politicians and military commanders make their plans, Father Gorgis said he wants people to remember to take part in that which brings the greatest hope of all: prayer.
“Prayer,” he said, “is our most powerful weapon for peace and justice.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Is 'Renew' Renewed? Two American Archbishops Think So DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:MILWAUKEE — Often criticized in the past as a “liberal extremist” organization that fosters dissent from Catholic orthodoxy, Renew International has won the approval of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is widely known as an orthodox leader among bishops.
Since his appointment to head the troubled Milwaukee Archdiocese last August, Archbishop Dolan has incorporated Renew International's newest program to help bring about healing among his flock in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
Archbishop Dolan has strongly encouraged the 225 parishes in the archdiocese to use Re new In ter na tional's “Renewing the Bo dy of Christ” program during Lent, and one-third of the parishes are doing so. More plan to take the bishop's advice later this year because they had booked up Lent schedules before Archbishop Dolan proposed the idea.
“The archbishop hopes this will help bring about healing for people who are having a hard time maintaining their faith in the aftermath of the Church sex scandal,” said Jerry Topczewski, spokesman for the Milwaukee Archdiocese.
His endorsement counters the reputation of the organization, which Catholic author Beth Roney Drennan called a “front for Call To Action” just five years ago. Call to Action is a pro-abortion organization based in Chicago that wants the Church to condone homosexual activity and ordain women as priests.
Back in 1998, Renew International was promoting a program called “Renew 2000,” directed by Margo LeBert. She and other principal organizers of the program were found to have strong ties to Call to Action, which that year hosted a conference in Milwaukee featuring a day of dialogue in which “pro-choice” advocates of abortion were given a forum to increase understan d ing of their position. LeBert had been featured in a 1992 video that promoted the idea of “Christ -Sophia,” a female Jesus with a pierced nose.
“Renew 2000 was a temporary program, just like ‘Healing the Body of Christ,’ is temporary,” explained a women religious at Renew International headquarters in Newark, N.J., who goes merely by the name Sister Alice. “We're constantly creating new programs and moving on.”
LeBert died, and others involved with Renew 2000 have moved on. Today, Renew International officials claim to have no ties to Call to Action or other unorthodox, dissenting organizations.
“You can look at any of our written material and anything that we're doing now, and you'll see that we adhere strictly to the catechism and Catholic theology,” said Deirdre Trabert Malacrea, assistant director of Renew. “We seek theological approval from the bishops regarding everything we do.”
That's true, said Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., who oversees the archdiocese that is home to Renew. He wrote the imprimatur for the “Healing the Body of Christ” textbook and reviewed all of the course materials to ensure they're in line with Scripture and Church teachings.
“Many years ago they had a reputation,” Archbishop Myers said. “Today they have a sincere interest in adhering to Church doctrine and in using the catechism well. Their materials are excellent. They really do get people thinking about their faith and praying more.”
“When my brother bishops call to ask about this program,” he added, “I give it my full endorsement and that's something I don't take lightly.”
The next program scheduled to come out of Renew International will be called “Journey Through the Catechism,” which Malacrea said has been reviewed and approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ ad hoc committee to oversee use of the catechism.
To date, “Healing the Body of Christ” has been implemented in 77 dioceses throughout the United States, and Malacrea estimates 80,000 Catholics are participating in the program during Lent. In Milwaukee, Archbishop Dolan told pastors they had the option of offering the program during Advent if the Lent schedule was too hectic.
Randy Nohl, director of Adult and Family Ministries for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said thus far the program has resulted only in positive feedback from participants.
The program involves six 90-minute sessions. The first, titled “The Church in Time of Crisis,” takes the issue of Catholic life in the midst of scandal head-on.
“It deals with the question of ‘how do we continue to live our faith lives knowing that we're not part of a perfect Church?’ It deals with the fact that we're not perfect people,” Nohl said.
Each session consists of prayer, small group discussion, Scripture reading, discussion and sharing on the Scripture readings, and an “action step” in which participants are instructed to determine what specific actions they will take in the following week to incorporate the Scripture lesson into their lives.
Nohl said the Renew In -ternational program is part of a balanced approach Archbishop Dolan is taking to help his flock heal. The archbishop is also placing a new emphasis on the sacrament of reconciliation, attending reconciliation services scheduled throughout the archdiocese during Lent.
Archbishop Myers said he's confident “Healing the Body of Christ” will help renew faith among Catholics because of its emphasis on prayer.
“This program takes people back to the roots of their faith, as found in Scripture,” he said. “And because it facilitates general prayer, I think it will serve as an instrument for the Lord to bring healing.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: A Mom's Journey to U.S. Bishops Office DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:For her, that has included an abundant family and work for the church.
Wills is associate director for education at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Register correspondent Kathryn Jean Lopez talked to Wills about how she wound up where she is professionally and personally.
How did you become involved in the pro-life movement?
You'll be sorry you asked! Come with me to the confessional. I am not among those amazing and wonderful people who've been actively opposed to abortion since 1973 or the late 1960s. I was one of those who went merrily about the business of life, “too busy” to get involved in anything outside my home and job. Our first child was born in 1973 and I started law school the following year. The next two arrived in my fourth semester and after I'd been practicing for one year. Juggling three kids and two jobs takes a toll on family life, so eventually I quit — in 1985 — became pregnant again and began a serious grown-up study of the faith.
Up to that point, I had thought of abortion — rarely — only as a private wrongdoing. I soon realized that abortion is catastrophic — for individuals and for civilization. Has there ever been a time in the history of the world when killing on this scale took place with the general approval of society? When the killing was carried out — not by trained soldiers or murderous thugs — but by physicians, at the request of young mothers? Other than grandmas, maybe, is there any segment of society sweeter, more sensitive and caring, and less prone to violence than young women? What forces in our culture, I wondered, could trap girls into being parties to killing, and what does this mean for our future?
By temperament I'm disposed to sit around and curse the darkness rather than get involved in anything, but the enormity of the evil afoot and the saintly example of pro-life volunteers in and around Coral Gables, Fla., led me to take a baby step, volunteering at a local crisis pregnancy center.
The stories of the women who came for help would break your heart. Often they had already been through an abortion, were suffering deeply and could not face that ordeal again. Almost always, the boyfriend whom they loved and trusted did not want to be inconvenienced by the burden and/or expense of raising a child. The young woman either feared approaching her family for help or, too often, her family viewed the child's death as the easiest solution.
It takes a lot of courage for a young single woman to continue a pregnancy without emotional and practical support from the baby's father or her family. I also saw how their lives changed dramatically for the better through the love, respect and support the crisis pregnancy center volunteers offered them.
How important is it that lay people — and women especially — are representing the bishops in the way you do?
It's very important for the public to see laywomen presenting pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church. The abortion lobby would like everyone to believe that the only pro-life Catholics are the select group with miters and crosiers and that the rank-and-file are “pro-choice.” They claim the Church and the pro-life movement are dominated by men determined to keep women in traditional roles.
I don't know if they believe this bunkum, but it has no basis in reality. Look how the bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities stacks up: of 13 staff members, 12 wear skirts and high heels — occasionally, anyway — and only one is comfortable with facial hair. And we 12 are not exactly Stepford wives. Three of us are lawyers, another is completing her doctorate, another is working on a master's degree and our boss has represented the Holy See — along with Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon and other accomplished women — at major U.N. conferences from Cairo to Beijing.
And fundamentally, of course, there's nothing pro-woman about destroying one's child. Emo -tionally, spiritually and physically, abortion deeply wounds women. It practically encourages men to be cads, forcing single women to cope alone with an unplanned pregnancy.
As Feminists for Life points out, those mantras of “her body” and “her right to privacy” really translate into her problem. True feminists today, and the early feminists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, see abortion as the “ultimate exploitation of women,” to quote Alice Paul, original author of the Equal Rights Amendment.
How big is your family?
Big, but not big enough. My sainted husband of 30 years and I were blessed with a daughter and four sons, and when the older kids were toddlers, we came to love and then adopted an orphaned teen-ager from Nicaragua who lived with us while studying here.
But we would have loved to have a few more children, mainly because we miss the exuberance and fun that little people bring to a household.
Do you think abortion will always be legal?
No. Roe and Doe and the whole line of cases that followed are fundamentally flawed. For 30 years, the Supreme Court has deprived state legislatures of the power constitutionally delegated to them, all the while trying to maintain the fiction that its abortion rulings are dictated by this or that privacy right, or maybe it's a liberty interest, situated here, there or somewhere else among the amendments to the Constitution.
I know of no prominent abortionist, clinic owner or abortion activist who was won over by intimidation or bloody fetus photos.
It has even claimed that earlier abortion decisions, although perhaps wrongly decided, should nevertheless be upheld on the grounds of stare decisis [let the decision stand] and preserving the court's supposed reputation for resisting the winds of public opinion. And if the cost of preserving that reputation is 1.3 million dead children a year, tant pis!
Nullifying some 30 state bans on partial-birth abortion in the 2000 decision of Stenberg v. Carhart was only the latest and most egregious example of outcome-based opinion writing. If the rule of law is to survive in the United States, abortion law will be reversed and jurisdiction over abortion will return to the states. Of course, that's only the beginning of the end. Planned Parenthood complains that 86% of counties in the United States currently have no abortion “provider.” So we're getting there, but a country that can look the other way while 1.3 million abortions are being done annually is not ready for a total ban.
That's why one or two more “pro-life” justices on the Supreme Court will not be enough to end abortion. For that we will have to do better in converting hearts and behaviors. We need to teach everyone about the true, sacred meaning of the human body and the marital act.
Is there one argument or one experience you think could make a pro-lifer out of the staunchest abortion advocates?
Only one thing. The “staunchest abortion advocates” are very few in number and I think their advocacy can nearly always be traced to a personal abortion experience, theirs or that of a close family member/friend.
In the latter case, they love the woman who's had an abortion and think condemning abortion would mean condemning her. More often, I think the problem is not being able to come to terms with their own abortions. We all find it hard to acknowledge our mistakes, face up to our failings. We rationalize endlessly and try to get our friends to validate our decisions. Appeals to principles don't crack this mind-set, but love and prayer can. These are deeply wounded women who need the healing and forgiveness only God can give, but we can be instruments of that healing and forgiveness.
I know of no prominent abortionist, clinic owner or abortion activist who was won over by intimidation or bloody fetus photos. Many “converts,” however, have pointed to the love, prayers and kindness of pro-life individuals as the cause of their conversion.
And, sometimes, God mysteriously awakens their consciences, perhaps in answer to the prayers of pro-lifers. Some in our office pray daily for the conversion and salvation of prominent abortion-ists and activists. Really, who's in greater need of prayer than they? And it doesn't have to be an entire rosary — a Hail Mary every time you open the fridge or get into your car could make a huge difference.
You wanted to mention Regnum Christi. Tell me about that.
Since my discernment retreat last September, Regnum Christi has been the greatest motivating force for holiness in my life. This includes the words of Father Maciel and the examples of Le -gionary of Christ priests and Regnum Christi members. Before then, I've often held back a little out of fear, complained about the little crosses even when I had the sense to value the big ones. Now I cherish them all.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: Susan Wills seems to be a perfect face and voice for the culture of life. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: 'Living Stones' will pay for half your house... ...but, yes, there is a catch! DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:An ambitious project is uniting Catholics from around the world to rebuild the broken lives of children while providing the opportunity for families to, at last, permanently lift themselves out of poverty. Fundamental to the project is a matching program to enable poor families to afford a dignified home in a community that offers a new parish church, a school, a clinic, job training, water and sewage treatment, basics that have been unavailable in rural areas. “We are applying a proven model, based on two other communities we have built in the aftermath of natural disasters,” said Fr. Pedro Pablo Elizondo, LC, President of
The disaster
— In January and February 2001, three large earthquakes in just 40 days devastated El Salvador, the largest registering 7.6 on the Richter Scale. Ten thousand aftershocks followed. Massive landslides followed the earthquakes, destroying homes and the coffee fields that were the only source of income to so many manual laborers. Thousands of people were killed or seriously injured.
It's estimated that one million homes were destroyed in a country of only six million people. A third of the Catholic Churches were destroyed. Survivors lost everything and were left in abject poverty.
The situation today
And the world, distracted by other issues, has now turned away. Two years later, homes still lie in rubble. An El Salvadoran government official said, “We received international aid for the initial emergency two years ago, to feed and clothe survivors—but not enough to actually reconstruct. It has taken us two years to rebuild less than 25% of what was destroyed in just two minutes.”
In fact, the world has forgotten the people here – families forced to live without shelter in blistering heat, torrential rain and mosquito-filled nights. People are living in cardboard boxes, plastic bags, falling down shacks. Disease is rampant as children bathe and drink from dirty streams.
The chance for a dignified home, not a quick-fix shelter
After El Salvador's 1986 earthquakes, the government erected shelters measuring 35 square meters each and gave them free to the victims of the earthquakes…and in less than a year, these huts were overrun by gangs, drugs, and crime. Every single one of the families who had originally received the shelters had moved out to protect themselves. Following the 2001 earthquakes, similar shelters—simple one or two room huts—were built by a number of international charities, but many already lie empty and abandoned, because mere shelter does-n't really solve the problems of the impoverished earthquake victims.
Juan Jose Siman, an El Salvadoran businessman involved in the emergency relief efforts, noted, “I saw that the people we were helping weren't just survivors of the earthquakes, they were survivors of life. My experience convinced me that we required a different approach to make a permanent impact on their lives: we required Jesus Christ. I approached
The response: apply the experience from rebuilding communities following two natural disasters in Mexico. Two communities were rebuilt—one near Mexico City after an earthquake, one near Acapulco after devastating mudslides three years ago. These efforts really work, too. After 17 years, the community near Mexico City is vibrant and still growing— a proven model for long-term transformation of a community.
‘Living Stones’
A complete community
On a private donation of 17 acres, groundbreaking for the ‘Living Stones’ community took place in November 2002 after months of ground preparation to make it able to resist both earthquakes and hurricanes. Located in the municipality of Santiago Nonualco, the worst hit by the earthquakes, ‘Living Stones’ is minutes from the International Airport and near the government's industrial magnet zone. With these jobs nearby, new homeowners can also become new employees with good-paying jobs.
Real Homes for the poor…
The Living Stones community is attacking the family housing shortage by constructing 232 cement and tile roof homes at a cost of $7,000 per home ($1.624 million dollars total). Rebuilding El Salvador will take years and cost billions, but these 232 homes will be a strong beginning.
These are not only shelters, but dignified homes. Twice the size of the typical house built with charitable aid, the ‘Living Stones’ homes are 70 square meters, with separate rooms for living, sleeping, and cooking—plus running water, toilet facilities, electricity, and telephone. Instead of cramming the entire family into one immodest sleeping area, they have three bedrooms: one for the parents, one for the girl children, and one for the boys.
Plus what is needed for a healthy Catholic community…
Construction began Feb 4th on a “Mano Amiga” (“Helping Hand”) school—the 17th one Catholic World Mission will support—so area children will receive a top-notch Catholic education, offering them a bright future overflowing with opportunity. In March, work will begin on a clinic to care for the families, job training facilities to improve the skills of the breadwinners, recreation center and parks for all to enjoy, and a new Catholic church to serve all those in the parish.
Half-price homes…with a catch
The El Salvadoran government has guaranteed low-interest 20 year mortgages covering half the cost of the house— $3,500. The residents will be expected to make payments on these mortgages and will eventually own a home for the first time in their lives!
The catch? To obtain these mortgages,
“We are offering generous donors from North America the chance to ‘buy a home for half price,’ explained Fr. Elizondo. “With a gift of $3,500 to build one home for one family, a beautiful bronze plaque with your name inscribed on it will be placed in a place of honor inside the home. Parishes and other groups of Catholics are pooling their funds to make this down payment, which will be matched by the El Salvadoran government—and more than matched by the gratitude and prayers of a new homeowner in the Body of Christ.”
----- EXCERPT: Catholic World Mission ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Supporters of 'Living Stones' DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:“Living Stones is a new concept for our country.
Other reconstruction projects are only houses, just shelters…but what you are building provides health, education, job training and access to good jobs. I believe ‘Living Stones’ will launch people into a new life. Our hope is that you will be very successful, so we can have a lot of ‘Living Stones’ communities, not just for earthquake survivors but for all those who need a new beginning.”
— Patricia Fortín, General Manager FISDL
El Salvador Federal Aid Distribution Office
“Living Stones is a model city. We know that there is not one like it in the entire country. Our town feels so blessed to have the first of these towns.” “I would like to assure all of those who are making the “Living Stones” project bloom in Santiago Nonualco that you are truly helping our municipality to get back on its feet again after the earthquakes. As a municipality, we thank you very much, and we ask that God multiplies all the generous help that you are sending to us.”
— Marvin Morena de Canales, Mayor of Santiago Nonualco
“Living Stones will build for us not just 232 houses, but a vision for a new atmosphere and environment for the family, which has become so weakened in our country. With the help of Catholic World Mission, we will restore the dignity of the family, create marriages where there are now only parents of children, and rescue the children from lives of ignorance, disease, and despair. I wish all God's blessings on these works.”
— Monseñor Elias Bolaños, Bishop of Zacatecoluca ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Celebrating Sex Abuse DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:
One aspect of the sex-abuse crisis that rocked the Church last year seemed very suspicious. The children seemed to be forgotten. Yes, there was long overdue concern for the victims of priests. And yes, there was well-deserved anger about the 0.5% to 1.8% of priests accused of sex abuse of minors.
But shouldn't the scandals have sparked outrage over the massive sex-abuse problem outside Church doors? Where is the clamor to go after the estimated hundreds of thousands of abusers who don't happen to be priests?
Planned Parenthood's deliberate cover-up of statutory rape (see our Page One story in this issue) caused barely a ripple. Ditto the case of Samantha Geimer. She was the 13-year-old who was excited about becoming an actress when the famous director Roman Polanski drugged and raped her. He has been avoiding U.S. authorities for years as a result. But in mid-March, Hollywood gave him an Oscar.
Imagine the outrage if former priest pedophile John Goeghan were given an award by the Catholic Church. Where is the outrage now?
The entertainment industry seems downright fondof sex abusers. Remember the movie The People v. Larry Flynt?It portrayed the Hustlerpublisher, accused child molester and creator of simulated child-pornography as a principled hero of the First Amendment. Now Liam Neeson has agreed to play the starring role in a film by Francis Ford Coppola about the “genius” sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. The film's hero once wrote, “It is difficult to understand why a child, except for its cultural conditioning, should be disturbed at having its genitalia touched, or disturbed at seeing the genitalia of other persons, or disturbed at even more specific sexual contacts.”
The April 17, 2002, issue of USA Today featured an article titled “Sex Between Adults and Children,” which is a euphemism for abuse. Under the headline was a ballot-like box suggesting possible opinions that one might hold on the subject: “always harmful, usually harmful, sometimes harmful, rarely harmful.” The newspaper's answer: “Child's age and maturity make for gray areas.”
In two Weekly Standardmagazine articles, Mary Eberstadt exposed several examples of what she called “Pedophilia Chic” — from Calvin Klein underwear ads to mainstream defenses of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. Many in the media have welcomed Judith Levine's new book on The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex. Its foreword is by Joycelyn Elders, the former surgeon general who thought masturbation should be taught in elementary school.
It was into this brave new world last spring that the Supreme Court, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition,struck down a Clinton-era law banning “virtual child pornography.” That means it's legal to sell images of children having sex as long as pornographers assure us it is really just doctored films and photographs.
No wonder that when rock superstar Pete Townsend was caught with child pornography so many in the entertainment community came to his defense.
Common sense tells us that lowering our guard against child pornography will lead to more sex abuse of children. It's no surprise that more than 80% of convicted child molesters admit to being fans of child pornography.
Abuse of children is already at frightening levels. The National Victim Center in 1992 estimated that 29% of all forcible rapes in America were against children under the age of 11. Ten years later, an estimated one in four girls and one in seven boys likely are victims of unwanted sexual acts.
In such a climate, the deep evil of sex abuse by priests is even worse. The Catholic Church should be one of society's great defenders against this new assault on children. But our own problem priests have given the world the opportunity to neutralize the opposition.
We shouldn't let them. The Catholic Church should show how seriously it takes the protection of children by leading the charge against a culture that really is deeply stained by sex abuse, from the Academy of Motion Pictures to the Supreme Court.
We have learned a principle that the rest of the world has yet to imitate: zero tolerance for sexual abuse of minors.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary & Opinion -------- TITLE: Murderers vs. Killers DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Regarding “Working to Stop the War” (editorial, March 16-22):
I believe the correct translation (according to Dennis Prager, a Jewish talk-show host who has taught Judaism and the Torah for more than 20 years) is “Thou Shalt Not Murder.”
According to Mr. Prager, God's admonition of murder is the only law mentioned in each of the five books of the Pentateuch. Murder is always immoral. However, murder is much different than killing, which may be justified and, therefore, not necessarily immoral. Although you didn't make this distinction when discussing the Fifth Commandment, you later referred to Cardinal [Joseph] Ratzinger's analogy of the man defending his family by “killing” (justified) a potential “murderer” (unjustified).
Wars may or may not be moral. But, contrary to your statement that “war does bring evil,” wars do not always bring evil. While wars invariably bring devastation and suffering, they can be a force for good. Our war against Japan and Germany in World War II stopped evil and brought peace to Europe and the Far East. Our war against North Korea brought peace to the people in South Korea.
Since 12 years of diplomacy have not worked, your “working to stop the war” position means (1) we place ourselves at risk of being attacked with weapons of mass destruction by either Saddam himself (or someone he sells them to), and (2) we ensure that millions of fellow human beings will continue to be tortured and maltreated by the Hitler of the Middle East.
If I were you, I wouldn't want to be asking Our Lord at the Last Judgment, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, naked and oppressed?”
MIKE MCGLONE
Laguna Hills, California
Abortion in the Aftermath
Saddam Hussein's defeat will open the door for the pro-abortion, pro-condom United States Agency for International Development (USAID). For months, the State Department has been planning the reconstruction of Iraq, which includes an assault by this agency. This organization has helped “liberate” nations such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Albania by helping legalize abortion. They will provide stocks of condoms and contraceptives. USAID programs will subject Iraqi children, especially girls, to graphic sex education. They will further insist that family planning (population control) programs be in place, warning that the penalty for noncompliance will be a denial of additional aid.
I pray Iraqis will resist these assaults on life and family. The million or so Christians in Iraq will be just as unhappy about this turn of events as their Muslim neighbors. Perhaps we Americans need to look at ourselves and ask, “Are we the ones who need ‘liberation’ from our sinful lives?” We are imprisoned by sex on demand, pornography, the slaughter in the womb, epidemics of sexually transmitted disease and HIV. How can we honestly call ourselves a progressive nation?
THOMAS MESSE, M.D.
Groton, Connecticut
The War is Just
Did the Catholic newspapers and cardinals forget why the leaders of the United States decided to go to war? Saddam's an evil man, he is connected with terrorists, he has chemical weapons and dirty bombs. He is an enemy of the United States. He is evil like the leaders of Germany and the Soviet Union in the past.
[Your] Catholic paper is following what movie stars believe and the media says. If the media had its way, the United States would be stuck with pro-choice Al Gore as president. He believes in the same things as Clinton. The ministers who speak in television programs are on President's Bush's side. They say this is a just war. I agree.
J.T. COOK
Phoenix, Arizona
Lay Homilists Stay Home
Regarding “Columnist Calls for Lay Preachers in Church” (Media Watch, March 2-8):
We do not worship the golden calf of the Exodus, but many Catholics have laid down their Bibles and catechisms, obviated the magisterial teachings and accepted the impinging heresies of television and the Internet, a stream of salacious literature, the hedonism of Hollywood and the permeation of our schools and libraries by society's pagan element. They have embraced contraception, abortion and a redefinition of the family.
Is this the laity we want more involved and mounting our pulpits as a viable solution to scandals in the Church? Do we want chaotic rule by committee, ending the oneness of the Church? What we really need is a more vibrant, fearless leadership from bishops, priests and deacons even if it results in a remnant called to holiness and faithfulness to the commands of the Old and New Testaments, as pronounced by the magisterium.
JOHN F. O' BRIEN
Ocala, Florida
Umbert Aficionado
I am 9 years old and home-schooled. My favorite part of the Register is Umbert the Unborn. I think he is very funny. Every week I cut out the Umbert strip and glue it on construction paper. I have made my own Umbert comic book. I enjoy reading [the strips] over and over again.
PETER GUTOWSKI
Phoenix, Maryland
Catholic Pride Day
It seems to me that, in recent years, Catholics have become very shy and reluctant to profess their religious affiliation publicly. Almost every group has a “pride day” once a year. Perhaps we Catholics could plan a national pride day to pray and assemble in stadiums, arenas and schools.
Even though we are experiencing a tough time from the media, most Catholics remain strongly in support and proud of our Catholicity. A Catholic Pride Day could bolster our enthusiasm and show those detractors that we are still united and strong — in our faith as well as our religion.
Continue to speak the truth. Bless you.
RALPH MACIOCE
Fair Haven, Michigan
Amend the Courts
I am writing in response to “Appeals Court Upholds ‘Under God’ Decision in Pledge of Allegiance” (March 16-22).
I believe one should not seek simply to define and protect the words “Under God” in our pledge with an amendment as some have suggested because there are many decisions that need to be changed. What about prayer in schools, the words “In God We Trust,” the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places, defining and restricting pornography, and outlawing abortion and mercy killing? Will we need an amendment for each of those things? Is it realistic to think that many of those amendments could survive the long amendment process?
I believe there is only one solution to protect the rights of American people and to make sure that the “government of the people, by the people and for the people” is not eliminated by “activist” judges. What we need is a constitutional amendment that states bills passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the president cannot be overturned or declared unconstitutional by any court.
Nowhere in the Constitution are judges given the power to declare void Congress’ laws. Their job is to judge people under the laws — not judge the laws. In the beginning of the country this was so. Then the court usurped more and more power as no one questioned its right to do so. A constitutional amendment limiting judges is the only hope for Christians and other people of this country.
JOE HEFFRON
Tekoa, Washington
Babied Brides
Regarding “Philippines Bishop Bans Visibly Pregnant Brides” (Media Watch, March 16-22):
She is not pregnant with sin, she is pregnant with a child.
It was so sad to read the news that Philippine Bishop Sorra has relegated the weddings of pregnant brides to private ceremonies. This ruling would appear to foster feelings of shame and embarrassment in these pregnant brides. These feelings often drive Catholic women to choose abortion for their child for fear of offending anyone or dishonoring their families. “Pregnancy outside of marriage” is not a sin; sex outside of marriage is. With the statistics of rising abortion rates among all women, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, even in countries where it is illegal, we must tread carefully when discussing pregnancy.
The sin that the pregnant bride should confess is unchastity. But she should be encouraged and embraced lovingly in her pregnancy. A white dress and a visible pregnancy indicating a loss of virginity might be a “contradiction of symbols” — but behind these symbols is an innocent, vulnerable and precious baby made in the image of God.
ASTRID BENNETT
Downey, California
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Bullfighter Poet Who Saw God In the Ocean DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Still less often is such a book sent to me by an orthodox cloistered nun of impeccable taste.
But both these things hold true for Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell(HarperCollins, UK), by Joseph Pearce, the current monopolist of Catholic literary biography who has also put together a much-needed collection of Campbell's verse: Roy Campbell: Selected Poems (The Saint Austin Press, London).
Roy Campbell was a South African poet who went to Oxford (earning the nickname Zulu for being a broad-shouldered man of action) and converted to Catholicism while living in Spain just before the Spanish Civil War. The priest who received Campbell and his wife was murdered by the socialists, as were the Carmelite monks of Toledo, whom Campbell had befriended.
After his and his wife's conversion, their bohemian private lives ended. His wife — who read straight through Aquinas — was a daily communicant and took on the prayerful obligations of a Third Order Carmelite. Campbell's conversion was as thorough, though less structured. As his wife noted, he took his theology from the great Catholic mystic poets (he translated the poems of St. John of the Cross) rather than from theologians as such.
But really, Campbell's attraction to the Church went even deeper than that; one could see it as an organic fruition. In England, Campbell had fallen in with the Bloomsbury group — a left-wing, atheistic, literary clique. Virginia Woolf was one of its most famous members. Though he never shared the group's opinions — and in fact came to despise them — he was led into its circle by imbibing many of the same intellectual influences: Nietzsche, Freud and other moderns who, in Campbell's later thinking, played upon the willing credulity of poseurs looking to justify their own perversity.
If his wife converted because she had always had a streak of the mystic about her, Campbell was saved by his ineradicable connection to reality. He loved the company of fishermen, peasants, sportsmen and men (like Dylan Thomas) who were intoxicated as much by nature and the world as they were by words (or intoxicating liquors).
He had no time at all for the pansy pantywaist school of Bloomsbury, of writers who “hate like gigolos and fight like women” or of left-wing poets who railed against fascism and then ran away to America when World War II began. Campbell believed in fights settled by fists and resolved by beer and bonhomie and of men who put their guts behind a bayonet (he served in the British army in World War II, despite being over-aged and hobbled by injuries) rather than behind a dining table at socialist dinner parties.
His put-downs of the Bloomsburyites are spot-on. Here he is on Lytton Strachey: “You are about as detached morally, physically and intellectually as the animal you most resemble… a tapeworm.” And on Aldous Huxley: “This pedant who leeringly gloated over his knowledge of how crayfish copulated … but could never have caught or cooked one.”
Campbell's first memory was of being pushed in his pram by a Zulu nanny to a point overlooking the ocean and seeing the roaring sea between the legs of a rearing horse: That is Roy Campbell, both in his poetry and in his person. His verse, in Lawrence Durrell's apt description, “booms and roars like the ocean breaking on the long empty beaches of his native Africa.”
And, like so many converts, it was in the Catholic faith that he found that same reality of sea-spray, horseflesh and life as it really is. To him the faith was as real as the roaring ocean, as real as a bucking bronco, as real as the bulls he tried to fight, as real as comradeship and soldiering. As real as Bloomsbury was contrived, artificial and perverted.
Though his poetic tone was usually ebullient, it was his faith that helped him write such lines as these:
The world is pitiless and lewdly jeers
All tragedy. Anticipate your loss.
Weep silently, in secret. Hide your tears,
So to become accustomed to your cross.
His politics — which have doomed his reputation, given the left-wing cliques that dominate literature now more than ever — were, in a phrase I love to promote, Tory Anarchist.
Campbell believed in tradition and in a carapace of order provided by the Church (or, secularly, by the light hand of the British Empire) that otherwise left families, communities, free associations, regions and every other “subsidiary institution” (the Catholic term for buffers between the individual and the state) total liberty. Thus he could be pro-Zulu, anti-Bolshevik, anti-Nazi, anti-democratic (because it unnecessarily politicized life) and against the bureaucratic welfare state.
Pearce, in his biography, is blunt about Campbell's many flaws — his talent for hyperbolic storytelling about his life, his bullish belligerence in satirical verse, his hopelessness with money — but it is still impossible, for this reviewer anyway, not to warm to Campbell. He wrote his wife that they were (and their lives together proved it):
Free as the air, responsible to none, Soldiers of chance, and troopers of the Sun.
Luck on our side, we play at pitch and toss.
Christ for our king and Mithras for our boss!
If you, like me, take your poets stout, I encourage you to raise a glass with Roy Campbell. He is a good company.
H. W. Crocker III is author most recently ofTriumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. His comic novel,The Old Limey, has recently been reissued in paperback.
----- EXCERPT: It's not often I can recommend a book featuring a lesbian affair (or two). ----- EXTENDED BODY: H.W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary & Opinion -------- TITLE: Into the Gnostic Wonderland DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Morpheus, a man with circular mirrored glasses, approaches Neo Anderson, a young man who feels something is wrong with the world.
“You are a slave, Neo,” the man continues. “You, like everyone else, were born into bondage — kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste or touch. A prison for your mind.”
Morpheus holds two pills in his hands — one blue, one red.
“This is your last chance; after this, there is no going back,” he says. “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” Neo takes the red pill.
Sounds familiar? It is a memorable scene of the hit movie The Matrix.
Morpheus’ offer visualizes what our culture often offers. The blue pill stands for materialistic relativism — believing there is no truth nor right and wrong, or, as Morpheus put it, “You believe whatever you want to believe.”
Consequently, “You wake in bed” — you enjoy yourself in comfort, money, hedonistic pleasures, social success. We often see the blue pill available over the counter in books, colleges, courts, institutions, the media.
The red pill stands for Gnosticism — believing reality is ultimately divine and can be manipulated by whoever has “secret knowledge.” This is “Wonderland,” and it, too, can now be bought over the counter like the blue pill.
Thank God there is a third option Morpheus didn't take into account — something neither blue nor red but transparent: Call it water. Water stands for our Christian faith. Christ, the water of life (see John 7:37-39), came to bring us the “living water” of “eternal life” (see John 4:7-13) through the water of baptism.
The blue and red pills counter the effects of water in different ways. Materialistic relativism tries to destroy all objective truths and values. Gnosticism, instead, proposes alternative truths and values. Moreover, it interprets Christianity as esoteric knowledge, not to destroy it but to distort it.
Neo, Vader and Voldemort
First, where is Gnosticism in today's culture? You might bump into it in successful films and novels, such as Harry Potter, Star Wars and The Matrix, or face it in “religious” and “philosophical” movements, such as the New Age, the Raelian cult and Freemasonry.
Note the difference between the three media products and the three movements: The movies and the books do not instill a credo you must believe in if you want to watch, read and enjoy them. In fact, they are commendable in many ways — they provide us with elevated entertainment, valuable lessons and admirable heroes.
The movements, instead, are credos one must embrace in order to be an authentic New Ager, Raelian or Mason. As Catholics, we might be inspired by the noble ideals of these movements but not by their philosophy. Their philosophy is “Wonderland.” And “Wonderland” is not “Christianland.”
What is the Gnostic “Wonderland”?
The story of The Matrix shows it.
Morpheus reveals to Neo that human beings are trapped in a false “reality.” Why? Some time ago men created the Matrix, an artificially intelligent entity. Needing man's energy to survive, the Matrix became a computer-generated dreamworld — the world we think we live in — to enslave men in a huge lab and suck their energy with the help of “agents.”
However, a man succeeded in freeing the first human beings and teaching them the truth before he died.
The Oracle (a prophet) predicted this man will return to liberate all people and bring them to Zion, the last human city. Thus, a few freed men and women free others, looking for this man. Morpheus believes Neo to be the One and tries to free his mind so Neo can operate as the savior he is.
Here is the story's translation into the Gnostic worldview:
Two supreme powers or gods fight one another for supremacy. One is the pleroma (“fullness” in Greek) — the good unknowable godhead, from whom many spiritual entities called aeons emanated. The other is an evil, deformed god, called the demiurge (“craftsman”) that fashioned the flawed universe, along with archons, or demons.
Reality is dualistic. Everything is spiritual, particularly — but not solely — man's spirit. This is man's own true self, and it is good, for it is a portion of the pleroma's divine essence. Everything material, like man's body, is foul and evil, because it was produced by the demiurge and his demons to keep man's spirit a slave in the material prison of creation. Thus, every human being, knowingly or unknowingly, serves this false god and lives ignorant of his divine condition. His fate is reincarnation.
How does one free oneself from matter and join the divine pleroma? Through secret, esoteric knowledge called gnosis — the visionary or mystical awareness of one's own divinity. One becomes a Gnostic by following spiritual guides or masters, historical figures of the “Christ,” such as Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Moses, Mohammed and Rael.
Review the story of The Matrix and our introductory scene and you will understand the philosophy.
Zion and mankind stand for the pleroma. The Matrix and its “agents” are the demiurge and his archons, who created the illusory world to enslave man and hinder him from realizing their spiritual powers. Morpheus and his crew are the Gnostic. Morpheus is also Neo's guide. Neo will become the ultimate “Christ,” the One who will offer redeeming gnosis to the rest of the mortals.
Consider the Star Wars series. “The force” is the good godhead opposed by “the dark side of the force,” which the emperor (the demiurge) and his siths (the archons) employ to enslave all peoples. Only the Jedis (the Gnostic) are capable of transcending the physical laws of nature and join “the force” to use it for the salvation of all. Each Jedi acquires gnosis with the help of a master. Yoda, for instance, trained Ben Kenobi, and Ben Kenobi trained Anakin and Luke Skywalker. In the last scene of The Return of the Jedi, you see Yoda, Ben Kenobi and Anakin “saved” — “energized” with “the force.”
Harry Potter follows a similar pattern. It portrays the clash between the “white” magic (the pleroma) practiced by the witches and wizards (the Gnostic) and the dark arts exploited by the Dark Lord Voldemort (the demiurge) and his followers in the Slytherin House (the demons). Every professor at Hogwarts is, of course, a master, with Albus Dumbledore as the school headmaster. The nonGnostic are called the Muggles, ignorant human beings who, like the Dursley family, are subject to the laws of the material world.
We expect Harry Potter to finally become the “Christ,” the savior. Note the boy never becomes a wizard and never acquires magic powers. He only becomes aware, through training, that he is a wizard and has these powers from birth. That's gnosis.
Most people who enjoy these three popular sagas might be inspired by their positive values but do not take their Gnostic wonderland seriously. But to leave fiction and enter the New Age movement, the Raelian religion or Freemasonry requires a “conversion” of the initiated. To join, you must swallow the red pill.
The pleroma is the Mason's inaccessible great architect and his divinities, the New Agers’ impersonal “energy” or the Raelians’ community of wise extraterrestrial scientists called Elohim who created all life on earth 25,000 years ago. The three groups identify the demiurge with all “dogmatic” churches and religions but especially with the Catholic Church — with her archons (the Church leaders and particularly the Pope) she traps men in the false “reality” of Christian revelation, hindering them from the self-consciousness of their own divinity.
The Gnostic are the Masons, the New Agers, the Raelians. Many historical figures have incarnated the “Christ,” known as Maitreya in Masonic and New Age circles and as Rael (“the messenger”) among Raelians.
Water or the Red Pill?
On the surface Gnostic wonderlands might look Christian — they promote religiosity, spiritual values, concern for others, respect for nature, the sense of mission, rejection of materialistic relativism. How can we discern if a movie, a novel, a movement or an organization is rooted in a Gnostic or in a Christian worldview?
We need to examine its underlying concept of God, man and the world. First, God: Is God the only supreme good power or there is another evil force of the same rank? Is God somebody with whom we have a personal relationship of love or something like a force to be used? Is Jesus of Nazareth the only savior or are there many “Christs”?
Second, check the notion of man: Is he a loved creature or a portion of divinity to be freed? Is man a unity of body and soul or just a spirit imprisoned in a body? Does man's salvation come from a gratuitous gift of God (grace) or from “secret knowledge” acquired by training (gnosis)?
Third, think of the world: Is creation good and real or evil and illusory — a sort of prison?
The answers unveil the pervading philosophy. A fictional story, of course, does not need to present the Christian truths. The question is whether or not there is room for a Christian worldview in the story.
Mark this substantial difference: A red pill is a man-made drug that may fail to cure; water, instead, is a God-made basic element for life. Gnosticism is a man-made self-centered philosophy — a “monologue” in which man divinizes himself and fails in the attempt. The Christian revelation is a God-made gift — “dialogue” of love that God establishes with man for eternal life.
The Christian revelation is Christ. To definitively discern what is Christian from what is not use what I call “St. John's criterion": “By this you know the spirit of God: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world” (2 John 4:2-3).
At the beginning of the third millennium three worldviews compete to conquer the minds and hearts of peoples and cultures, the world's soul: materialistic relativism, Gnosticism and Christianity. The blue pill is easy to recognize. But the red pill is often dissolved in apparent water.
The New Evangelization demands a clear-cut separation between Gnosticism and Christianity if we want to bring every thirsty person to the Water of Life.
Legionary Father Alfonso Aguilar teaches philosophy in Thornwood, New York, and can be reached at: aaguilar@legionaries.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alfonso Aguilar, Lc ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Reality Television Isn't Real DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Just ask G.K. Chesterton. He once said, “A dead thing goes with the stream; only a living thing goes against it.”
Continuing the voyeuristic trend started by programs such as MTV's “Real World” and CBS’ “Survivor” are shows such as “Extreme Makeover,” “Are You Hot?” “Joe Millionaire,” “Celebrity Boot Camp” and on and on. To date, more than 50 “reality-based” television shows have either been produced or are in production.
Reality television is an oxymoron, and reality television has very little to do with real life.
For starters, the contestants on these programs are hardly “realistic.” They're more like celebrity wannabes. Past contestants have included ex-soft-porn stars and ex-cons.
One “American Idol” contestant was recently arrested. That was real. But the star of the new “Bachelor” is the great-grandson of tire entrepreneur Harvey Firestone. How real is that?
Typically absent from these programs — or any television program, for that matter — are the less-than-beautiful, the less-than-svelte and the less-than-immoral.
Furthermore, the contestants are placed in unrealistic situations with the cameras rolling.
Take NBC's “Fear Factor,” for example, where individuals compete with one another by doing stomach-churning stunts such as being buried in a container filled with centipedes or consuming slugs and cow bile.
On Fox's “Joe Millionaire,” a bevy of women competed for the affections of a man who they thought was a millionaire. In fact, Joe was a heavy-equipment operator. The entire premise of the program was based on a lie.
The prurient programming amounts to a kind of national peep show.
Take ABC's popular “Bachelor” or “Bachelorette” programs. Each sets a member of the opposite sex searching for a mate among a cast of potential mates. As the programs progressed, the couples were shown showering and sleeping with one another.
Then there was “Temptation Island,” where couples were placed on islands with members of the opposite sex.
The appeal for viewers relies not only upon seeing which contestants keep progressing but also in secretly relishing the reaction of the ones that get dumped, thereby capturing the embarrassment, humiliation, misfortune and sin of others on nationwide TV.
According to a February Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted during the 2001-2002 television season, two-thirds of all shows contain some sexual content. Furthermore, the number of programs depicting sexual intercourse was 14% — double the figure in 1997-1998.
As far as entertainment goes, such programs seem little different from the kind of entertainment Romans used to enjoy nearly 2,000 years ago.
Naturally, as each network ups the ante to compete for viewers, one wonders what direction the trend will take next.
News pundit Matt Drudge reported last fall that FX Cable's Rupert Murdoch is developing “America's Candidate” — a television show that will allow the public to vote on a “people's candidate” to run for president of the United States in 2004.
Reportedly, 100 candidates will begin the series, squaring off in debates and other competitions as the semifinalists are whittled down to three. Think of it as a political version of “Survivor.”
“The series will be seeking the Jesse Venturas of the world,” said Kevin Reilly, FX's president of entertainment. “Hopefully, we'll find some very qualified civil servant who lacks a power base and maybe also a plumber from Detroit who tells it like it is.”
Do we want a political candidate that appeals to viewers’ lowest common denominator? Hailing from Minnesota myself, where we suffered through a so-called “people's candidate” who won only 37% of the vote, I'm not so certain I would want such a candidate leading our country during a time of potential international conflict.
Reality-based programming even received attention in Congress recently. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., interrupted the debate over the judicial nomination of Miguel Estrada to warn his colleagues of the bigotry of CBS’ planned “The Real Beverly Hillbillies” — a program that intends to give a wad of money to a family of hillbillies and bring them to Beverly Hills. “CBS has become just another money-grubber,” said Miller, a self-described hillbilly.
Miller raises an excellent point: Has good taste given way to big profits?
We might do well to remember the story that is told about the beginning of the end of spectator atrocities in the ancient Roman Coliseum. The story is told of a gladiator who one day defiantly refused to kill his opponent. In response, the spectators left the stands, with fewer and fewer of them returning each day.
One North Carolina television station just did the equivalent. WRAZ — a Raleigh-Durham station — decided to go against the stream rather than along with it. After previewing the Fox program “Married by America,” the station objected to the program's encouragement of cohabitation and the management pulled the program from its lineup.
Let's pray it's the beginning of the end to such television rubbish.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Contrary to what advertisers might tell you, 40 million viewers can be wrong. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: John Paul Announces New Encyclical on the Eucharist DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II will sign a new encyclical letter on the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, April 17, during the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.
The Holy Father himself made the announcement during his Angelus address March 30.
“The sacrament of the Eucharist is the perennial memorial of this supreme testimony of love,” the Holy Father said, referring to the sacrifice of Calvary. “In it Jesus, bread of life and true 'manna,’ sustains believers in their journey across the ‘dsert’ of history toward the ‘promised land’ of heaven.”
“I wanted to dedicate to the Eucharist the encyclical which, on the occasion of next Holy Thursday, God willing, I will sign during the Mass of the Lord's Supper,” John Paul said. “I will deliver it symbolically to the priests in place of the letter which I usually address to them on that occasion, and by means of them, to the whole people of God.”
For his first Holy Thursday as Pope in 1979, John Paul wrote two letters, the first addressed to all the bishops of the world and the second to all the priests. The following Holy Thursday, 1980, he addressed a lengthy letter to all the bishops titled “On the Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist.” That 1980 letter remains, until now, John Paul's fullest treatment of the Eucharist.
In 1981, the Holy Father wrote again to all the bishops and beginning in 1982 wrote every year to all his brother priests. So much has the annual letter become a hallmark of John Paul's papacy that during his March 2000 visit to the Holy Land, he signed that year's Holy Thursday letter in the Cenacle in Jerusalem.
The encyclical on the Eucharist will be John Paul's 14th and the first since Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) was released on the occasion of his 20th anniversary as pope in October 1998. The Eucharist encyclical will be his first dedicated to a sacramental topic.
Early reports of the forthcoming encyclical raised expectations that the new document could fill a gap in the vast papal magisterium of John Paul.
Addressing the Liturgy?
Despite comprehensively treating almost every aspect of Church life and her relationship with the world, the Holy Father has not devoted a solemn document to the liturgy, one of the most contested areas of post-conciliar Catholic life. It has been reported that directives related to the celebration and worship of the Eucharist will be released by curial departments, either together with the new encyclical or soon afterward.
But the encyclical will not be primarily a disciplinary or reforming document. Vatican officials speaking off the record have indicated it will be theological and devotional in character.
“From the very first years of my priesthood, the celebration of the Eucharist has been not only my most sacred duty but [also] above all my soul's deepest need,” John Paul wrote on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of priestly ordination in 1996.
The last two of John Paul's major documents — at the end of the Great Jubilee and at the beginning of the Year of the Rosary — have contained deeply personal reflections, and the new Eucharist encyclical is expected to do the same.
Traditionally, an encyclical letter has been the most solemn exercise of the papal magisterium. Nevertheless, a hierarchy of documents cannot be applied too strictly, as John Paul and his recent predecessors have also used other types of papal documents — apostolic constitutions, exhortations and letters — for significant teachings.
Besides his 14 encyclicals, John Paul has written 13 apostolic exhortations, 11 apostolic constitutions and 42 apostolic letters, the most recent of which was last October's letter on the rosary, Rosarium Virginis Mariae(On the Rosary of the Virgin Mary).
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Holy Thursday Encyclical ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Eucharist, In Brief DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Here follows the Catechism of the Catholic Church's “In Brief” section on the Eucharist:
1406 Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; … he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and … abides in me, and I in him” (John 6:51, 54, 56).
1407 The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church's life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his body, which is the Church.
1408 The eucharistic celebration always includes: the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine; and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood. These elements constitute one single act of worship.
1409 The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover; that is, of the work of salvation accomplished by the life, death and resurrection of Christ, a work made present by the liturgical action.
1410 It is Christ himself, the eternal high priest of the new covenant who, acting through the ministry of the priests, offers the eucharistic sacrifice. And it is the same Christ, really present under the species of bread and wine, who is the offering of the eucharistic sacrifice.
1411 Only validly ordained priests can preside at the Eucharist and consecrate the bread and the wine so that they become the Body and Blood of the Lord.
1412 The essential signs of the eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: “This is my body which will be given up for you. … This is the cup of my blood. …”
1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real and substantial manner: his body and his blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).
1414 As sacrifice, the Eucharist is also offered in reparation for the sins of the living and the dead and to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God.
1415 Anyone who desires to receive Christ in eucharistic communion must be in the state of grace. Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive Communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance.
1416 Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ increases the communicant's union with the Lord, forgives his venial sins and preserves him from grave sins. Since receiving this sacrament strengthens the bonds of charity between the communicant and Christ, it also reinforces the unity of the Church as the mystical body of Christ.
1417 The Church warmly recommends that the faithful receive holy Communion when they participate in the celebration of the Eucharist; she obliges them to do so at least once a year.
1418 Because Christ himself is present in the sacrament of the altar, he is to be honored with the worship of adoration. “To visit the Blessed Sacrament is … a proof of gratitude, an expression of love and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord” (Paul VI, MF66).
1419 Having passed from this world to the Father, Christ gives us in the Eucharist the pledge of glory with him. Participation in the holy sacrifice identifies us with his heart, sustains our strength along the pilgrimage of this life, makes us long for eternal life and unites us even now to the Church in heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Rosary of Light in Mary's Land DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Some parishes pray a living rosary with giant beads, others with tableaux. The one at Holy Angels has a different twist.
It was the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, at the mainland Maryland parish that includes St. Clement's Island.
Those of us who were there for the first time watched curiously as the Knights of Columbus laid a rope of light bulbs the length of the aisle and back again, starting from a large cross in front of the altar.
As the western stained-glass window flamed with the sunset and then darkened, the people were asked to move into the center aisle.
“One person to a light bulb,” the reader told us. “Pick up your light bulb carefully, and after the rosary, when you put your bulb down, do it very carefully.”
We recited the Creed together. Then the Knights moved from bead to bead, tightening a bulb in its socket for each prayer — blue ones for the mysteries, white ones for the Hail Marys.
With each white light, the reader named a state; with each blue light, a continent. The person holding the newly lit bulb began the prayer, and the congregation gave the response. One after another the lights came on, until we had formed a glowing wreath.
The living rosary is a rosary for life. For each mystery, there is a prayer: for expectant fathers and mothers, for doctors, for those who have had an abortion. We prayed for healing, repentance and a deeper recognition of the sanctity of life.
After the rosary came the Mass of the feast of the Annunciation. And then the Knights entered in procession, carrying a plain heavy cross of logs and raising it before the altar. We knelt and prayed the litany.
“Foundation of the Church …”
“Save us, O Holy Cross!”
The living rosary we prayed at Holy Angels was devised by parishioner Millie Huseman; the prayers for life are by the Father Andrew White Assembly of the Knights of Columbus. For years, the living rosary has been prayed in October, at the blessing of the fleet, either at St. Clement's Island or at a Marian shrine on the mainland — perhaps the same place where Father White began his evangelization of Native Americans. For the past eight years, the rosary has also been part of the Annunciation Mass at Holy Angels, the International Day of the Unborn.
In January, a delegation from Holy Angels went to Zambales, Philippines, to attend the World Marian Congress. There they helped adapt the living rosary for the Philippines, with its more than 70 provinces.
The hope at Holy Angels is that the living rosary will become a truly global prayer of repentance, hope and love.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Nancy Levine: Pavel Chichikov ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Not on Drug
Q My son, age 16, often resists my rules with an attitude of, “You say I'm a good kid, but it doesn't get me anywhere. I still don't have the freedom my friends have, and they give their parents a lot more trouble than I give you.”
A Pick one: A) After all I've done for you, Mother, this is the thanks I get. B) You should be grateful I'm not as bad as all those other kids. C) What do you want from me? At least I'm not on drugs. D) All the chances I've had to do bad things, and I still haven't done them. You could at least ease up on me.
All of the above are variants of a common adolescent theme: “I'm playing by the rules and you're still not willing to relax the rules.” Let's analyze your son's attitude piece by piece.
“You say I'm a good kid, but it doesn't get me anywhere.” Of course it does. It gets you good character, morals and a more safe and stable adolescence. If the prime goal of being a good kid is to get more freedom, more perks and more goodies, then you're not yet being good for the right reasons. Besides, why give you more chances to make bad decisions and maybe lose some of that goodness?
“I still don't have the freedom my friends have.” That is true. If I wanted my son to do and have what most kids have, I'd raise him that way. No matter how wonderful you are, my decisions are based upon your continuing welfare. I won't relax my standards simply because you've kept them. That's not good for you.
“They give their parents a lot more trouble than I give you.” I can't know that for sure, but I'll take your word for it. And that just proves my point. You are who you are in part because we are who we are as parents. Therefore, why would I want to change the very ways that helped me raise a son like you? I'm proud of you and I want to stay that way.
Son, your character is not measured by how you stack up to others with less character. It's measured by how you yourself act, independent of your friends’ actions.
Your son is echoing a modern attitude. Coming from teens, it's the “I'm not on drugs” claim. Across all ages, it's the “Well, I could be a lot worse; at least I'm not as bad as that kid” pronouncement.
As cultural morals decline, it becomes easier to feel self-satisfied over the fact that one is comparatively moral.
Continue in your high standards and your son will most likely mature past his moral relativity and judge character by more absolute standards of right and wrong. After all, he is still a kid — and a pretty good one. He has time to become more clear-eyed morally.
A final thought. Next time your son implies that you “should be grateful,” respond: “You're right. I am grateful. It could be a lot worse. After all, I don't neglect you or mistreat you. And I'm not on drugs.”
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author. He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:HYPERATIVE OR JUST TIRED?
Researchers have found that some children diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder may be suffering, instead, from sleep apnea — a snoring disorder that makes a good night's rest hard to come by. “If you have a kid who is hyperactive and snores, think about the possibility that the two may be connected,” said lead investigator David Gozal of the University of Louisville.
Source: Pediatrics, March 2003. Register Illustration by Tim Rauch.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Vocations Victory DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:For a religious community, rapid growth is a good problem to have. These days, it's an unusual one, too. But make no mistake: It is a problem.
Just ask the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Mother Assumpta Long founded the order with three other Dominican nuns in 1997. Today their community numbers 37.
Ideally, in monastic life, each woman has her own room (traditionally called a cell because of the bare-bones accommodations). But the Ann Arbor Dominicans have to share cells in order to save space. Even rooms once used for storage are now storing sisters. The dining room and chapel are packed when used by the whole community at the same time.
The problem appears to be on its way to getting worse — or better, depending on your point of view.
“In August, we will have a good number of women coming to join us,” says Sister Joseph Andrew, the director of vocations and one of the foundresses. “The vocations are pouring in. Women today want a prayer life, a common apostolate, a family in which they find out who they are and who they are called to be. And they desire the wearing of an identifiable habit. The interest, dedication and sacrifice of the ‘John Paul II generation’ are sky high — like nothing we have seen in decades.”
That was part of Mother Assumpta's original vision. “When we started, I could see us reaching 100 sisters,” she says, “then sending some of them out to start a motherhouse elsewhere, have it reach 100, and eventually pepper the United States with houses.”
Fortunately, the building in Ann Arbor is on 20 acres of land, so there is room to expand. The immediate need is finances. Originally supported largely by Catholic philanthropist Tom Monaghan, the sisters are now in need of more benefactors. Though still a benefactor, Monaghan is allocating heavy resources to the launch of Ave Maria University near Naples, Fla.
Mother Assumpta says the need is $8-10 million for the motherhouse expansion and operating expenses, such as food, utilities, medical coverage and, especially, education.
“Being a Dominican order means education,” she says. “Our mission is to teach and to do that we need education degrees and teaching certificates. You know the cost of sending someone to college. Imagine sending 15 to 20 at once.”
Eventually, she adds, as more sisters get their degrees and begin teaching, they will be able to return support to the community. “In the meantime, we are in a unique position,” says Mother Assumpta. “Because we are so new, we have only three who are earning a stipend. Our hope is that, when people see a vibrant, thriving community of religious, they will want to support it. We are trusting that if God brings the young women, he will also take care of them.”
Peace Unveiled
The Sisters of Mary order was started under Cardinal John O' Connor in New York, but soon the sisters were asked to go to the Diocese of Lansing, Mich., to administer and teach in the Spiritus Sanctus Academies begun by Monaghan. Some of the sisters serve as teachers or principals in these four schools, each with 80 to 100 students in multi-age classes, and an emphasis on integrating the Catholic faith with the curriculum. The sisters also do outreach at the local colleges and universities.
As for specific educational aims, Mother Assumpta says that “we are open to the Holy Spirit as to where we go and what areas of education we will be in.”
The women joining the order currently range in age from 17 to 40. Their backgrounds are as diverse as their ages; they hail from 27 states plus Canada and Taiwan.
Sister Dana Becker, from Lynbrook, N.Y., left her job of five years at a Park Avenue law firm in New York City. “My work as a commercial real estate lawyer was interesting, but the time pressure was unreal,” she says. “I was working 80 hours per week. I had lots of money and friends, was near my family, had access to cultural events in the city, and had a good Catholic life. But there was no peace.”
Sister Dana had always assumed she would get married and home school her kids, but when that wasn't happening, and when work hit a wall in July 2001, she decided to go on a 10-day Ignatian retreat. “During the retreat, I felt a call to live an undivided life for God in a religious community,” she recalls. “For the first time I felt a deep peace. I began looking for a convent and, when I came here to visit, I knew it was the right place. To me, nothing else was worth doing — and, at 38 years old, I had lived a lot. My parents were sad at my leaving, and surprised, but not really surprised.”
Her parents, Bob and Peggy Becker, both supported her decision. “She had been searching several years for the road God wanted for her, and this was the nudge she had been waiting for,” her father says. “Our firstborn was leaving. She gave up a six-figure income for a vow of poverty, but she was finding God's call.”
Her mother adds that “even if during the discernment period she finds that the life is not for her, the worst part will be that she had a couple years of prayer under her belt. It's a win-win situation.”
‘Huge Capacity’
Sister Maximilian Marie Garretson from Bend, Ore., who worked as a youth coordinator in a nearby parish after college, says she was waiting to become a wife and mother. That began to change at World Youth Day 2000 in Rome when, in answer to her question about the requirements for a vocation, the group's chaplain said, in so many words: You need to have a huge capacity in your heart to be a mother or father, too.
Soon she began her search for a community and, once she came to Ann Arbor, knew that it was the place for her to become a saint — the path God clearly wanted her to take, but as a sister.
“My parents were clueless about religious life but happy for me,” she says. “Being a nun has been a blessing for my family. Now when I hear of needs that they have, I am in a situation where I can pray for them. And the fact that I am here is a challenge to them to go deeper in their faith.”
Sisters Dana and Maximilian Marie, like the others, were attracted to the devotion to Mary and to the Eucharist, and to community life, which combines challenge, fullness and, yes, fun. The sisters get up weekday mornings at five O' clock and begin with the Liturgy of the Hours and Mass. The day is interspersed with community and individual prayer, classes, recreation and time for study, work and reading.
To afford others a taste of this life, the sisters put on three weekend retreats a year. Recent offerings have drawn an average of 60 participants.
Few leave untouched by God's grace.
“I am a firm believer that God would not place a holy desire in a person's heart unless he had every intention of fulfilling it,” writes Sister May Bernadette on the community's Web site, sistersof mary .org. “So, my dear sisters and brothers in Christ, my vocation first presented itself as a lust for souls and has led to things far more glorious than I could have ever imagined.”
Small wonder the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist are faced with such a good problem as cramped living space.
Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: From Compact Community to Capacity Crowd ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Horning ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Running for an Everlasting Crown DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:As a University of Virginia graduate, Father Ed Hathaway was once a Cavalier. Yet his decision to become a priest was anything but. His discernment was forged in painful circumstances that caused him to ask serious questions about the meaning of life.
When Hathaway was a junior at the school, his father, Capt. Charles Hathaway, a decorated Navy pilot who had flown more than 300 missions in Vietnam, suffered a fatal heart attack while playing squash at the Pentagon Athletic Center. A graduate of the Naval Academy and recipient of the prestigious Tailhook Award, he was only 56.
The turn of events thrust the military man's son into a tailspin. “My father's sudden death brought about a big change in my life,” says Father Hathaway, now pastor of St. John parish in McLean, Va. “Almost immediately, I experienced a mid-life crisis.” He was all of 21. He had trouble keeping up with his studies and, by his account, withdrew. “It was an awful semester,” he adds.
If there was a silver lining in the dark cloud that had moved over Ed Hathaway, it was the grace God sent to draw him deeper into his Catholic faith. He began attending daily Mass, receiving Communion and praying the rosary. “Grace forced me to do a lot of soul-searching,” he says.
Two uncles and a grandfather had been doctors, so, at the time of his father's death, he was leaning toward a medical career. After graduating in 1983, he headed to Europe and enrolled in a graduate program at England's Cambridge University. All the while he continued to ask himself the big questions about life, death and what, ultimately, matters.
In England, he became deeply intrigued with the heroic lives of the English Catholic martyrs, including saints such as Thomas More (1478-1535) and Bishop John Fisher (1469-1535). His home church was Our Lady and the English Martyrs. There he experienced the richness of the Latin Mass and Gregorian chant. And, through discussions with friends, some of whom were Episcopalians who believed in the real presence, he came to cherish the Eucharist.
Once, while backpacking around Europe, he spent an unforgettable Holy Week in Rome. What he saw and experienced there must have left quite an impression. For, when he returned to the United States, he was more aware than ever of a growing restlessness. “There was a longing deep inside of me,” he recalls. This, despite the fact that he had enjoyed a couple of years of fairly easy success in the banking and high-tech industries.
Gradually, the vague sense of restlessness became a pointed hunger for something very specific: a life committed to the service of Jesus Christ.
At first, the calling was faint but undeniable — just strong enough to make him pause, pray and reflect. Then, with the assistance of priests such as Father James Gould, at the time vocations director for the Diocese of Arlington, Va., Hathaway found the courage to test a potential calling to the priest-hood.
He entered St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynne -wood, Pa., in autumn 1986. And, on May 18, 1991 — Pope John Paul II's 71st birthday — he was ordained a diocesan priest for the Diocese of Arlington by Bishop John Keating. Where? At the Cathedral of St. Thomas More.
Political Parishioners
In June 2000, Father Hathaway became administrator of St. John parish in McLean, Va., and, on Jan. 5, 2002, his 41st birthday, he was installed as pastor.
Government is never far from the minds of people who live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. — a fact that figures into Father Hathaway's pastoral approach.
“Our people are very much pro-America,” he explains. “The No. 1 industry of the area is politics.”
Indeed. His parishioners include not only politicians and employees of the federal government but also lobbyists, diplomats and even foreign dignitaries, who give the parish an international flavor.
Nearly 5,000 souls call St. John their spiritual home. Many are highly educated and continuing adult education, including Bible study, is one of the staples that contributes to the parish's vitality. “A dry intellect will not be able to engage the culture,” says Father Hathaway.
At St. John, piety, ongoing formation and a spirit of collegiality give the parish its identity. In between the two weekday Masses, at 6:30 and 9 a.m., adoration of the Blessed Sacrament attracts large crowds every day.
Father Hathaway says the parish family draws its spiritual strength from “devotion to Our Lord in the Eucharist and devotion to Mother Mary.”
Weekly novenas, daily recitation of the rosary and frequent opportunities for the sacrament of reconciliation enhance the spiritual treasury of the parish.
There is also a parish school for children from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade. And St. John has a mothers club, a book club and its own bookstore. After morning Mass, many go to a nearby coffee shop, sit together as a group and say grace before having a cup of coffee and a bagel.
Mary Beth Riordan runs The Word bookstore at St. John. She and her husband, Dan, an insurance business executive, have four children. Like many parishioners, she grew up in an area far away from the Arlington Diocese. A native of Batavia, N.Y., just outside Buffalo, she says the parish is “thriving.” That's due in no small part, she says, to the fact that Catholic doctrine is taught without compromise here.
“We get the full loaf,” she says, “not just part of it. Being a Catholic and growing with others in your love of the Lord can be fun.”
She adds that Father Hathway, through his spirituality and youthful vitality, is a force “who brings everything and everyone together.”
Running to Win
Father James Gould, pastor of St. Raymond of Penafort parish in Fairfax Station, chairman of the board of Human Life International and spiritual director of the Catholic Medical Association, says Father Hathaway is “a terrific example of priesthood who reflects the model of a man who is prayerful, hardworking, generous and sacrificing. … He is a leader of the diocese whose opinions the bishop would trust.”
In college, Father Hathaway was a member of the University of Virginia swim team. Today, he works out and runs regularly. He received a medal for successfully completing the U.S. Marine Corps Marathon and was a competitor in the Seagull Century 100-mile bike marathon.
In going about his pastoral duties with all the vigor with which he approaches his athletic pursuits, Father Hathaway is a living testament to the wisdom behind St. Paul's exhortation in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
“Run in such a way as to get the prize,” the apostle urged. “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
Wally Carew, author ofMen of Spirit, Men of Sports, writes from Medford, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 04/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 06-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Adult Stem Cells vs. Diabetes
BBC NEWS, March 15 — Re -searchers have reported that stem cells drawn from bone marrow can be converted into insulin-producing beta cells, then transplanted to the pancreas. While preliminary, the finding holds out exciting prospects for insulin-injecting diabetics.
“Transplantation of bone-marrow stem cells already is a routine procedure for treating cancer and other diseases, and we could build on that experience,” lead investigator Mehboob Hussain of the New York University School of Medicine told the British Broadcasting Corp. The re searchers’ full report was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Did Concert Cure Coma?
REUTERS, March 12 — A young German woman, left comatose for six years after she collapsed at school, has begun to respond to the world around her. The awakening occurred while she was at a concert in Regensburg featuring pop singer Bryan Adams, of whom she has been a fan.
Christiane Kittel, now 24, was left in a vegetative state after her collapse on June 12, 1997. Doctors believe her condition was caused by a combination of hot weather, a hereditary hemophilia condition and side effects of a contraceptive pill.
Karl-Gunther and Adelheide Kittel, Christiane's parents, said that, during the concert, Chris tiane started to move in her wheelchair and seemed fascinated by the music and the singer, saying the word “Mama” quite clearly. Chris -tiane's doctor says she has taken the first steps toward recovery.
Nebraska Abortions Drop
Gov. Mike Johanns was quoted in the Omaha daily newspaper saying that the 5.2% decline in 2002 — the fourth consecutive year the state has seen abortion decline — demonstrates the public's growing opposition to abortion. He noted that, since 1998, the number of abortions performed in the state has dropped by 27%.
Nebraska recorded 3,775 abortions last year, compared with 3,982 in 2001, according to figures from the Nebraska Health and Human Services System.
Have a Baby, Halve a Debt
The legislation would be aimed at reversing the rapid evaporation of Quebec's workforce. It would cost about $50 million annually, reported the national Canadian newspaper based in Toronto.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Season Opener For Pro-Life Major League Baseball Players DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:STAFFORD, Va. — Former Oakland A's and Milwaukee Brewers’ all-star third baseman Sal Bando might have retired as a player in 1981, but he's still hitting home runs with his pro-life work.
Bando and 90 other former and current baseball players, managers, coaches and executives recently endorsed Battin’ 1000, a new pro-life educational fund-raising venture by the Stafford, Va.-based American Life League.
Through 30 regional teams, the initiative hopes to raise $1 million during the 2003 baseball season to support the league's Campus for Life project.
American Life League's proposed Campus for Life, expected to be open in three years, will be an educational center offering pro-life media training, bioethics workshops, resources and transferable for-credit coursework. The group has already purchased the land for the campus and is currently going through the zoning process.
The Battin’ 1000 initiative hopes to promote a culture of life through the endorsements and engagement of major league personalities. Those who have joined the effort so far include six Hall of Fame players, including Tommy Lasorda, Robin Yount, Sparky Anderson, Jim Bunning and Gary Carter; 25 all stars; current players such as St. Louis’ Woody Williams; executives such as Arizona Diamondbacks chief executive officer Jerry Colangelo; managers such as Lou Piniella of Tampa Bay and Bob Boone of Cincinnati; and former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Ap prox -imately 75 of the 90 endorsers are retired.
The individual commitment varies by player.
“At the very least the players are allowing us to use their names and are signing memorabilia that will be used to help us raise funds,” said Erik Whittington, assistant director of media relations for American Life League. “Others are speaking with the media, making public appearances and helping us to recruit other members.”
Local teams have already been organized in Arizona, Baltimore, San Francisco and Cleveland with representation from teams in 28 of the 30 regions.
The idea is the brainchild of Jim Berlucchi, president of C Results, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based consulting firm. American Life League contacted Berlucchi about a year ago.
“They wanted help with their Campus for Life project,” Berlucchi said. “Originally, I had the idea to recruit 1,000 people to each give $1,000 for the campus.”
At some point the idea transitioned to baseball — setting up a league with competing teams. Berlucchi said there was also an interest in using high-profile personalities to more effectively propagate the pro-life message.
“We're not asking them to protest at a clinic,” Berlucchi added. “We're simply asking them to lend their name to a baseball-themed campaign.”
With the help of Sal Bando, Berlucchi began assembling a list of endorsers.
“We worked with people from organizations that minister to baseball players and personal contacts such as Unlimited Potential to get letters out to former and active players,” Bando said.
Bando serves as the Battin’ 1000 chairman. He sees his efforts as an extension of the work he and his wife, Sandy, have done with Wisconsin Right to Life since the late 1970s.
“We have spoken at some of their functions, helped them raise money and have served on the board,” said Bando, who attends St. Clare's Catholic Church in North Lake, Wis.
“What most of us see are the liberal media and celebrities standing out on this issue,” Bando said. “It's time for those of us who are the silent majority to say, ‘Hey, we're pro-life!'"
The Boys of Summer
Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan serves as chaplain of Battin’ 1000. But it's an ecumenical project that has garnered the endorsement of many non-Catholics.
Among them is Gene Walter, former left-handed relief pitcher with the San Diego Padres, New York Mets and Seattle Mariners.
“Life is sacred and the sanctity of life needs to be preserved,” said Walter, an evangelical Christian.
“Every abortion cheapens life and sends a bad message to kids. There are so many better choices that people can make.”
As one example Walter cited the work of St. Joseph's Orphanage in his town of Louisville, Ky.
For former all-star Chicago Cubs pitcher Scott Sanderson and his wife, the pain of a number of miscarriages impressed upon him the value of life.
“It's always seemed to me that the unborn are defenseless in this fight,” said Sanderson, who currently represents baseball players as an agent. “I believe very strongly in the sanctity of life. I've never been a political activist, but I'm glad to lend my position and support.”
Eight players were on hand for Battin’ 1000's first press conference Feb. 21 at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix. Naturally, the project has already received some criticism.
“[Arizona Diamondbacks Chief Executive Officer Jerry] Colangelo and his testosterone-charged ballplayers can do anything they want with their time and money,” Marge Mead, legislative coordinator for the pro-abortion group Arizona National Organization for Women, told the Arizona Republic. “The players will try to use what little moral authority their ball-playing fame has purchased to fund raise for an organization that seeks to dictate women's reproductive choices.”
The players said the negative press did not concern them. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell, a Methodist, said he expects it.
“I imagine any time you take a stand you're going to get criticized,” he said. “That's all right.”
After the money has been raised and the season is over, many are hopeful the groups’ efforts will continue.
“It doesn't have to end with the baseball season,” Walter said. “I anticipate that the campaign could go in many different directions, such as golf scrambles and silent auctions.”
In addition, many are hopeful others will jump on board.
“There are a lot of Christian athletes that I played with who are very pro-life,” said Gary Wayne, former left-handed relief pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers. “If other players see us stepping forward, they will come forward as well.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Church Helps Troops Feed Iraqi Millions DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:AMMAN, Jordan — While the battle for Baghdad steals the headlines, another story is unfolding in Iraq. It is the story of civilians who need aid and of soldiers doubling as relief workers. It is a story that, according to Catholic relief agencies, needs more attention.
“Civilian areas in Iraq nowadays are under heavy bombardment, many houses have been destroyed, survivors are displaced,” said Faiq Bourachi on April 3 in an e-mail from his office in Amman, Jordan, where he serves as liaison officer for Caritas Iraq. “They need shelters, food supplements for the malnourished [and] medicines for patients suffering chronic diseases.”
The scale of the human tragedy has affected even battle-hardened Marines. Father Timothy Hogan, a Catholic chaplain moving with the U.S. Marines in Iraq, said he was doing a great deal of counseling for Marines who had to deal with not only the “shock of witnessing dead bodies on the side of the road” but also with children and adults begging for food.
While several Catholic charitable organizations are sending assistance to war-torn Iraq, some, including Caritas, fear they will be politicized. They say they would prefer that the United Nations have a greater role, and they publicly worry the humanitarian efforts by the troops are and will continue to be insufficient — a fear shared by at least some troops.
“It is best if the U.N. agencies are allowed into Iraq to do their work as soon as is feasible,” explained Duncan MacLaren, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis, from his office in Rome on April 4.
Caritas Internationalis is the umbrella organization for Catholic relief agencies in a variety of countries.
Maintaining obvious neutrality “is also of vital importance for the safety of our Caritas people who are trying to help the victims of the war within those parts of Iraq not held by the coalition,” MacLaren said.
Nevertheless, even if the United Nations does take over immediately, Caritas will continue to provide humanitarian assistance.
“The humanitarian imperative is prime,” MacLaren said. “Caritas will find a way of helping the Iraqi people even when it is the military directing aid operations. We have guidelines for such circumstances and they try to ensure that our neutrality and our impartiality are clearly seen.”
Some of that work is already under way.
“Caritas Iraq was founded by [Iraq's] Catholic Bishops Assembly in 1992 and has been working since that time, providing assistance to the vulnerable. ... We have 140 staff members and over 150 volunteers,” explained liason officer Bourachi.
“Our partner [Caritas Iraq] has been distributing first-aid kits and medicine” to people in need in Iraq, said Lilliam Messih, regional representative for the Middle East and North Africa at Catholic Relief Services, a relief organization founded by the Catholic bishops of the United States in 1943 to provide assistance to those in need outside the United States. Catholic Relief Service is the U.S. affiliate of Caritas.
Recently, Messih said, a shipment of water purification tablets was sent from Amman to Basra via Baghdad. Much of Basra — a city in southern Iraq with a population of more than a million — has experienced a disruption in water delivery. Messih expressed hope that a second shipment would soon follow.
She said more than half the population of Basra was without drinkable water and portions of Baghdad faced the same problem — a situation that could increase the likelihood of disease, she said.
Though Messih said that in general, outside relief agencies “aren't able to get in there” because of the ongoing hostilities, she added that within Iraq itself, Caritas Iraq — which is supported by Catholic Relief Services — was operating 14 relief centers around the country.
Michael LaCivita, spokesman for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association in New York — a pontifical organization founded in 1926 that coordinates aid to people in need throughout the Middle East — said his group, too, was supporting relief efforts within Iraq.
According to LaCivita, of the 19 emergency centers supported by the Catholic Near East Welfare Association in Iraq, at least three in the city of Mosul are already open and all 19 have enough supplies to hold out for 40 days. Information has been hard to come by since telephone exchanges were bombed, he said. The only communication comes from the papal nuncio via satellite phone.
“The emergency centers are places of refuge principally for the Christian community,” he said but added that no one who needs aid is turned away.
“We use our office in Amman to work with bishops and clergy in Iraq and with the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena [in Iraq],” he said.
Millions For Aid
While private charities do what they can, the American government announced April 2 it would give $200 million to the U.N. World Food Program to aid with relief efforts in Iraq until the Oil for Food program can be restarted. The government said the money would buy enough food to feed “23 million people in Iraq for one month.” Iraq has a total population of approximately 24 million.
“This new contribution reinforces the U.S. government's commitment to meeting the humanitarian needs of the people of Iraq through our assistance program,” said Andrew Natsios, administrator for the U.S. Agency for In -ternational Development, in a statement. “We intend to work hard to continue to increase the Iraqi people's access to food and health services.”
The government also announced it sent more than 56,000 tons of food to Iraq last week.
Hard for Troops
But with the current situation allowing for only limited outside help, coalition troops have sometimes had to serve both as warriors and caregivers. This worries MacLaren — and some of the troops as well.
U.N. officials and others have argued that most of the food being distributed seems to be going to men, not to women and children, who may need it more.
Citing television coverage of seemingly haphazard relief efforts by the coalition, he told Catholic News Service that the troops “quite clearly haven't a clue about distribution of humanitarian aid.”
U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, did not respond to Register requests for comment on the situation, but according to an April 4 Washington Post article, both British and American soldiers are also worried about their dual role.
Mounting a humanitarian relief effort while fighting a war “has never been done before and it's tricky,” U.S. Army Major Douglas Stelmach told the Post. A British soldier who was quoted was even more blunt: “We shouldn't be doing this,” said Sergeant Mac McGuin -ness. He said that soldiers should only undertake such actions after the area was better secured.
Until the situation stabilizes, charitable organizations like Ca -tholic Near East Welfare As -sociation and Caritas will continue to do what they can to help the right people on the ground in Iraq.
“We work with local religious and nuns,” said Catholic Near East Welfare Association's LaCivita, “so we know every ounce goes to the right people.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Shroud's 2 Crowns of Thorns Show Crucifixion's Brutality DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:DURHAM, N.C. — Two researchers at Duke University Medical Center say they have perceived signs of a second object in the head area of the image of the Shroud of Turin.
Dr. Alan Whanger, professor emeritus of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and director of the Council for Study of the Shroud of Turin (www.shroudcouncil.org), together with his wife, Mary, published their finding that high-grade enhanced photographs of the shroud reveal the image of a band of woven straw.
It perfectly matches the size and shape of the well-known Crown of Thorns now housed in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. This circlet would have rested on the back of Jesus’ head, reaching down to the upper part of the neck.
The shroud, a sheet of fine linen some 14 feet long and 3.5 feet wide, contains the life-sized negative image, front and back, of a crucified man complete with nail prints and bloodstains. Even Pope John Paul II has venerated it as the shroud that Christ was buried in.
According to the Whangers, the newly perceived object is actually a second crown of thorns. And although Scripture has never been interpreted as mentioning two crowns, Whanger argues his discovery of a second crown is yet more proof that the man represented on the shroud is Jesus.
“Two crowns would be entirely consistent with what we know about the period,” he said. “If the shroud were actually a medieval forgery based only upon the Gospel accounts, as some scientists have claimed, they'd never have thought to include two separate crowns.”
Whanger, who is a Methodist, suggests that when Pilate sent Jesus to be flogged, the soldiers naturally decided to mock the supposed King of the Jews as a Roman emperor, complete with purple robe (which is mentioned in the Gospels) and an encircling crown on the back of the head. It would have been the work of a moment, he says, to twist a few bands of straw together, stick a few thorns and thistles through the band and then jam it on Christ's head.
Later, the soldiers must have been inspired to mock Jesus as a Jewish high priest, which led to construction of the larger, bonnetlike crown made from the Gundelia tournefortii thorn tree, as confirmed on the shroud by Avinoam Danin, professor of botany at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a world authority on the flora of the Near East.
The Gundelia tree possesses thorns so sharp and strong the maker would have been forced to wear leather gloves. The larger crown, first identified on the shroud by the Whangers several years ago, effectively mocked the multitiered crown worn by the Jewish high priest.
“The high priest's crown would have been well known to the soldiers,” Whanger said, “since it was kept locked in the Antonia Fortress and only released to the high priest for his use during official festivals.”
Finding a second crown on the shroud helps explain why the Crown of Thorns in Paris has no thorns. Because the thorns had merely been stuck through the straw bands to begin with, they either remained embedded in the crucified man's neck when the crown was removed, or they fell out later.
It also explains why the shroud image displays about 40 puncture wounds extending from the mid-forehead to the low back of the neck. The wounds on top would have come from the bonnetlike high priest's crown, while those on the neck would have come from the emperor's circlet.
Though impossible to authenticate to date, the shroud has been venerated since at least the 14th century but possibly as early as the second century as the actual winding sheet used at Jesus’ burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
But it has only been in the last 30 years that modern science has been able to uncover a number of clues, including pollen spores and microscopic grains of soils unique to Jerusalem and Palestine, that increase the probability the shroud once wrapped the Messiah's body.
Abiding Mystery
But the abiding mystery is how the images of a crucified man and crucifixion-related objects became imprinted on the shroud at all.
Canadian physicist Thaddeus Trenn, director of the science and religion program at the University of Toronto, has hypothesized that a massive influx of energy similar to a controlled nuclear event actually overcame the strong force that bound together the protons and neutrons in the body of the man lying in the shroud.
Such an instantaneous event would have released massive amounts of X-rays, leading to a rapid, but cool, dehydration of the cellulose fibers in the fabric that resulted in a negative image of the man and, due to the enormous amounts of energy present, a coronal discharge that led to imprints of other items buried with the body.
Trenn has noted that the dematerialization theory is supported by distortions in the shroud image that indicate it was collapsing in upon itself at the precise moment the image was being produced. And only dematerialization explains how the body could have been lifted away from the blood that had soaked into the fabric while leaving no trace of pulled fibrils on the fabric's surface.
Barrie Schwortz, the official documenting photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, the team that conducted the first in-depth scientific examination of the shroud in 1978, reports that he has been unable to confirm the images Whanger has discovered — including the two crowns, Roman coins over the eyes, the board upon which Pilate wrote “King of the Jews,” 24 varieties of flowers (all with geographical ranges known to only overlap within the vicinity of Jerusalem), the Roman spear that pierced Jesus’ side, the hammer that drove the nails and the dice with which the soldiers gambled for his robe.
But as an imaging consultant whose expertise has been sought by U.S. government agencies and both houses of Congress, Schwortz is equally certain the image of the bloody, crucified man is neither a painting nor a result of any other process known to man.
“As a Jew,” he said, “I don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah, but I believe the shroud wrapped Jesus.”
Donald DeMarco, professor of philosophy at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo, Ontario, (and a Register columnist), suggests that in a backhanded way the shroud serves to underline the importance of the Old Testament prohibition against graven images.
“Any image of God created by mankind would have been false,” he said. “But the shroud gives us the true image of God come in flesh.”
Thus the shroud became the basis for the early Church's interest in iconography. Many icons from earliest centuries, and even some Byzantine coins, provide facial images of Jesus that strongly resemble the face on the shroud. DeMarco believes the shroud helps to promote the Church's worldwide missionary mandate.
“Because our evangelism depends upon persuasion,” he said, “our truth claims have to be open to verification. After some of the most rigorous scientific studies imaginable, the shroud continues to confirm the Easter message that God's Son died and rose again.”
“Exactly,” said the Rev. Albert Dreisbach Jr., an Episcopal priest who from 1981 to 1987 managed the Turin Shroud Exhibit in Atlanta. “In a scientific age like ours the shroud provides intellectual respectability to the Christian message. Its message can create doubt in the doubter, a crack through which faith can enter.”
Dreisbach remembers watching a man who sobbed as he filled out a comment form after viewing the Atlanta shroud exhibit. Retrieving the form, Dreisbach read, “Till today I had never questioned my unbelief. But this is profoundly moving. My knees are still weak.”
Shafer Parker Jr. writes from Edmonton, Alberta.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Shafer Parker Jr. ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: She Found Her Faith in Her Songs DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Erin Berghouse, singer and songwriter, has performed with secular artists such as Sarah McLachlan and Natalie Merchant, but she would much rather sing about her relationship with God.
Her first album, Self Surrender, was released in December 2001. Her new album, In the Silence, is due out this month.
She spoke to Register features correspondent Tim Drake from her home in North Lake, Wis.
Where did you grow up? Tell me about your family.
I grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich. I was raised by my father and grew up with one older sister and a younger brother. My father owned a computer company. Although my mother was a part of my life early on, from the time I was 4 or 5 I never saw her again, until later in life.
Did you grow up Catholic?
No, I was raised Methodist. When my husband, Brad, and I were first married we attended a Presbyterian church.
What led you to the Catholic faith?
In high school I used to enjoy attending the Catholic church with my best friend, Mary Beth. But I came to the Church through my children. It was about the time we first investigated sending our three children to Catholic schools that my aunt first told me my mother had baptized me Catholic. My birth mother and her family were Catholic.
After learning this, I went on a search to find out if this was true and to find out where I was baptized.
This was the beginning of Catholicism for my family. My husband, who was also raised Protestant, said if we were sending our children to Catholic schools we should learn about the faith and consider becoming Catholic.
Looking back on it all I can see God was calling me back to the Church. I giggle thinking about how creative God was in getting me there. Am I convert or am I revert? It's hard to describe. All my life I was Catholic without really knowing it but sensing it in my soul.
What was it like seeing your mother again after so many years?
Last year my sister and I went to Arizona to spend some time with her. It was awesome. The void of her presence plays a tremendous part of who I have become. There is a part of you that comes from each parent. That plays a part in our search for ourselves.
The most beautiful part of our time together was going with her to Mass at this tiny Catholic church. There is no sin that can take away from the fact that my mother gave me life and chose life. One of my songs, “Peace My Child,” is about the importance of choosing life. I love her for all of the beautiful things she is.
Has music always been a part of your life?
I recognize that one of the things God created me to do was to write music that will bring glory to him. I denied that for quite some time.
In high school my Dad gave me a guitar for Christmas and I started to write a little music. I remember it made my friends cry ... and so I stopped. A few years later, a close friend of mine was struggling through a very difficult time in her life, [so] I wrote her a song. It was the first song I wrote for a specific purpose.
After writing that song, I realized I had a passion for writing music. It was like a treasure chest hidden deep in my heart ... a gift that God had given to me. When I had finally cracked it open, I could have never guessed the journey that was about to begin. God has used the gift of music to draw me closer to him.
After attending Central Michigan University for marketing and accounting, I married Brad Berghouse. I became a homemaker and a mother of three. Then one Sunday afternoon, a man from our Protestant church asked if I would make a recording. I was extremely flattered, though forced to decline. We had no money to cover the expense; we were very young and just out of college.
He insisted on proceeding with the recording endeavor. He and my father wanted to forward the funds to cover all the expenses. I only agreed to do it if they were guaranteed to sell enough tapes to get all of their money back after the project was completed. They got enough orders and I completed my first recording of non-original music.
Things progressed from there. I wanted to become the best song-writer I could. I read every book and article I could find on the art itself. I joined composer groups across the country and I started to enter song-writing competitions. For six years I studied the art of song-writing. Then I progressed to writing and recording music for NBC and Fox Sports productions.
Just as my song-writing career was starting to develop, my oldest son, Zachary, asked if I would join him in reading a book by St. Louis de Montfort. His class at Trinity Academy was making a consecration to Jesus. That consecration to Jesus through the most beautiful heart of Mary played an immense role in the life-changing direction that followed. I began to realize the gift of my music and I started to understand the real purpose and responsibility that goes along with it. My first Christian CD took several years to complete, but it came out in December 2001.
Has there been a career highlight so far?
The biggest highlight would have been participating in the World Youth Day pilgrimage of the Holy Father in Toronto last year. We did between five and seven performances and so many of the things that occurred during the pilgrimage were symbolic of life.
During the pilgrimage it was incredibly hot, we experienced a bit of famine and there was Sunday morning's storm. Yet, when the Holy Father spoke and Mass began, the sun came out.
How does your faith inform your music?
My faith is the foundation of my life. My greatest responsibility is raising my three children and channeling them toward Christ.
As far as music goes, I have heard from people how a simple song can change the life of an individual, and that's a little bit scary. I'll never forget a letter I received from a 14-year-old girl. She wrote to tell me she had never given the religious thing a try. Yet, after hearing a certain song I had sung, she wanted to learn more about God.
There is no amount of money or anything that can form my heart like those words from that young girl. God is in control of the gift of music. If music can impact a soul, then my faith must be the foundation of my life. I love the holy Catholic Church.
Is there a song that is closest to your heart?
My songs are all about my relationship with God. Therefore, they are very personal and are all a part of my heart.
Not really having my mother in my life, there is a certain beauty in trying to emulate Mary. I am thankful for the example of Mary and the spiritual parenting she offers each one of us. My song “Beautiful Mary” is about that relationship.
On my next album there is a song called “Confession” that is about as personal as you can get. I have also come to see the beauty in suffering, and there is a song called “Sacrifice.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Congressman Reintroduces Bill Regarding Free Speech for All Churches DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The contrast has always struck some people as a particularly unfair one: In the runup to Election Day, reverends in some churches — often with large black congregations — speak favorably of certain candidates, while priests in Catholic churches are muzzled by fears of losing tax-exempt status.
Now Congressman Walter Jones, R-N.C., is trying again with a new version of his Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act. The bill, HR 235, would allow priests, ministers and other clergymen to speak freely about political issues and legislation from the pulpit, and even to endorse political candidates.
Under current law, churches risk losing their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status if their leaders engage in political activity, as defined by the IRS, during church services and events. Priests and others are currently free to discuss the substance of political issues such as abortion.
Last October another version of the bill was defeated in the U.S. House 178 to 239. Opponents included influential House leaders such as Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax legislation. This year, Jones, a convert to the Catholic faith, hopes for a better result.
“We had hearings last year so we may not have hearings again this year. But I think we will have a floor vote,” Jones said. “The leadership is supportive of the bill.”
The most influential House leader, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is an original cosponsor of the bill.
The bill differs from last year's version in order to eliminate what critics called ambiguities that might have allowed churches to raise money for political candidates.
Colby May, director of the Amer ican Center for Law and Jus -tice's Washington, office and a consultant to Jones’ office, said the bill's language has a new section.
The main section of the bill says the IRS cannot withdraw taxexempt status from a church “because of the content, preparation or presentation of any homily, sermon, teaching, dialectic or other presentation made during religious services or gatherings.”
“We're simply saying that what is said from the pulpit or the altar of the Mass is sacrosanct,” May said.
“I think it's a great idea,” said Father Peter West, priest associate at Priests for Life, of Jones’ proposal. “I think that churches should be free to be involved in political issues.”
He said many priests refrain from saying anything about political issues because they believe, falsely, they could land themselves in legal trouble.
“This will lift the psychological veil,” he said. Asked if he himself would endorse political candidates if Jones’ bill passes, he replied, “Probably not. But I think I should be legally allowed to do so.”
Priests for Life's Father Frank Pavone sent a fax to priests and pastors on Feb. 27 asking for support for Jones’ bill. In it, he quoted the Second Vatican Council constitution Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), which states: “At all times and in all places, the Church should have the true freedom to teach the faith, to proclaim its teaching about society, to carry out its task among men without hindrance and to pass moral judgment, even in matters relating to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.”
Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and also a member of President Bush's U.S. Commission on International Religious Free -dom, said he favors the bill.
“We [southern Baptists] do not think that pastors should endorse candidates. We would discourage our churches from doing so,” he said. “But we believe that this is a church matter, not a state matter.”
Was Not Always So
When Lyndon B. Johnson was in the Senate in 1954, according to Jones, he slipped the prohibition into law without debate. “He wanted to silence some of his critics in Texas,” Jones said. “Before 1954, pastors were free to say what they wanted.”
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State opposes the bill. Rob Boston, assistant director of communications, said only one church has ever lost its tax-exempt status because of political activity.
“Tax exemption is not a constitutional right,” he said, adding that Jones’ bill could be unconstitutional from Americans United's perspective. “Exempting only houses of worship is a form of preferential treatment.”
He rejected arguments made by some of the bill's supporters that Democratic-leaning churches, such as those in black inner-city areas, already violate the law with im -punity because the IRS winks at them and Jones’ bill will grant freedom to more conservative churches.
“No one knows exactly what's going on,” he said. “The IRS investigates these things confidentially.”
He noted that in 2000, the IRS reprimanded former Congressman Floyd Flake, D-N.Y., now a black church pastor in New York City, for endorsing Al Gore from the pulpit, demonstrating the IRS sometimes pursues black churches. Flake has endorsed Jones’ bill. Boston said Americans United reports both politically liberal and conservative churches to the IRS for political activity.
Americans United has sent letters to religious leaders during election seasons in order to discourage them from engaging in political activity. One dated October 2000 says, “Federal tax law, which governs the activities of houses of worship, prohibits churches from engaging in partisan politics on behalf of or in opposition to candidates. The IRS has already revoked the tax-exempt status of one church that violated this provision.”
May of the American Center for Law and Justice claimed Americans United targets churches that disagree with its ideological views.
“Partisan groups are using the regulations as a mechanism to silence certain churches,” he said, adding that policing pastors’ speech does not decrease but increases government's involvement in churches.
Though tax exemption may not be a constitutional right, he noted the tax code says it is granted because “churches uniquely and charities generally provide services that the government could not provide. Government should not be entangled in the affairs of the church.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to take a position on the first Jones bill, said Bill Ryan, deputy director of communications at the bishops’ conference.
“We haven't said anything or done anything about it yet,” he said. “If it comes closer to achieving action [in Congress], we will examine it more.”
Joseph D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Lieberman Vows to Push Domestic-Partner Bill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 31 — Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., a presidential contender, announced March 31 he will promote a bill in the Senate that would extend “domestic partner” benefits for the consorts of homosexual federal employees, according to the Associated Press.
Such domestic partners could file an affidavit that they are living in a committed, intimate relationship to receive the same benefits as spouses — including life and health insurance, retirement pay and worker's compensation. The bill is not likely to fare well in the Republican-controlled Congress.
“If it doesn't get done in the next two years, I intend to introduce and sign it as president of the United States,” Lieberman told the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
One of Lieberman's rivals for the nomination, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a Catholic, co-sponsored the same legislation. Another, Howard Dean, signed a similar bill while he was governor of Vermont.
“Conservative politicians — and indeed conservative political leaders, with all due respect,” Lieberman said, “have no monopoly on moral values.”
San Fernando Cathedral Resplendent
The oldest church in the city hosted 700 visitors for its official reopening, including bishops, a papal legate, local politicians, wealthy donors and parishioners.
Amid clouds of incense and ringing music, a dark blue curtain was pulled down at a climactic moment to reveal the church's 24-foot-tall retablo. Arranged around the theme “Jesus Christ, Word and Sacrament,” the hand-carved Mexican altar screen is gilded in 24-karat gold and features a six-foot-tall statue of Christ on a cross, surrounded by the four Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
“We wanted it to be the crowning moment,” explained the cathedral's rector, Father David Garcia. “The retablo symbolizes a moment of faith, the height of human talent.”
The festivity marked the end of a $5.8 million project that preserved and restored the oldest cathedral sanctuary in the United States.
Catholic Church Burned for Safety
Flames rose 100 feet above the wooden church, which was abandoned long ago because it was structurally unstable. St. Joseph's was built to serve a missionary congregation of Lakota Indians. Heated only by one wooden stove, the church once catered to more than 50 families.
“It was one of those icons on the prairie,” said Jim Durham of Longhorn Enterprises, the company that owns the town of Scenic, including the former church. He said the building was a safety hazard.
The company plans to demolish many other buildings in Scenic to make room for new constructions that will serve summer tourist business. The site of the former church will house a nondenominational chapel.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Arizona Informed-Consent Bill Becomes Tangled Up in Abortion Politics DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:PHOENIX — From a courtroom last May, the horrors of abortion became common knowledge throughout Arizona.
Abortionist John Biskind of the A-Z Women's Clinic was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison. His victim, 32-year-old Lou Anne Herron, had pleaded for help as she bled to death in the clinic while Biskind ignored her so he could finish a sandwich and catch a plane.
Despite public outrage over Biskind, Arizona pro-lifers failed for the seventh year in a row to get an informed-consent law that would establish a 24-hour waiting period for abortions and require abortion-ists to fully inform their patients about potential risks.
This year's defeat — in a legislature dominated by Republicans — could be the work of newly elected Gov. Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona attorney general who is known nationally as an aggressive supporter of abortion.
The latest informed-consent bill died in the state Senate Judiciary Committee on April 2 after a turbulent but successful trip through the House of Representatives. Sup -porters of the bill place the blame squarely on Napolitano, a Demo -crat who campaigned on a “pro-choice” platform. An Internet blog site for Napolitano calls her “the strongest abortion-rights proponent in the entire country.”
“The governor has worked incredibly hard, behind the scenes, to defeat this bill,” said Cathi Herrod, director of policy for the Center for Arizona Policy, which lobbies for legislation to protect the traditional family. “She has worked hard enough to somehow get three pro-life Senate Democrats to say they would vote against informed consent.”
One of them was Sen. Jack Brown, a self-proclaimed pro-life member of the Mormon Church. Brown did not return calls from the Register but stated publicly on the Senate floor he would oppose the bill at the request of Napolitano because she had convinced him the state's budget crisis is too severe for the Legislature to get bogged in an abortion controversy.
Untimely Meeting?
The bill was first introduced in the House on March 12, where it received only 29 of the 31 votes it needed to pass. One key Dem -ocratic supporter of the bill, Rep. Cheryl Chase, was not present for the vote because Napolitano's staff had summoned her to the office for a meeting that afternoon.
“They wanted to discuss issues specific to my community,” said Chase, who hails from the village of Kearny, Ariz., and represents a rural district between Phoenix and Tucson.
Chase, as explained in a memorandum from the Center for Arizona Policy, “left the floor at the request of the governor's office to avoid providing HB 2493 the margin of victory. ... There she sat while the bill failed by one vote, as security personnel and pages scurried throughout the Capitol searching for her.”
That's not exactly what happened, however, said Brian Lawson, media coordinator for the House of Representatives.
Lawson said the whereabouts of Chase were no mystery in the Legislature that day. He said Chase had planned to be at the governor's office and to vote on the bill later that afternoon. Lawson explained that the bill was about 34th in line for consideration that afternoon, and Chase's meeting in the governor's office took place first thing in the afternoon.
“Then, for whatever reason, House Speaker Jake Flake [a Republican from Snowflake, Ariz.] moved the bill to the front of the agenda,” Lawson said. “As a result, the vote was taken hours before Rep. Chase expected it to occur.”
Was it a conspiracy between the governor and the speaker of the house? Not likely, according to sources close to both.
“[Center for Arizona Policy] claims that we were holding her in our office so she would miss the vote,” said Chris Mayes, spokes-woman for Napolitano. “That simply isn't the case. It's an absurd allegation and it hardly merits comment.”
Mayes said the governor's staff routinely asks to see legislators, and it was merely coincidence that her meeting took place during a controversial vote.
Jake Logan, director of external affairs for Flake, said the order of bills is frequently rearranged spontaneously for a variety of reasons. Flake, in fact, has been a major supporter of the informed-consent bill and voted in favor of it. Logan said Flake's office takes no stand on the allegation that Napolitano's office intentionally tried to make Chase miss the vote.
Logan, however, said nobody's ruling it out.
“The governor has certainly worked hard against this bill,” he said. “She has lobbyists on her staff who have been assigned specifically to try to kill this bill. From the speaker's point of view, just because we have a pro-choice governor doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get pro-life legislation passed.”
Chase also takes no position in the controversy, saying she has no idea whether Napolitano and her staff conspired to keep her away from the House floor long enough to miss the vote.
“I have a long history of being a pro-life Democrat, and it's a well-known fact that I'm pro-life,” said Chase, a nurse who attends a Baptist church. “They called me in for the meeting, but I could-n't honestly say what their intentions were. There's just no way to know that.”
Vote Reconsidered
The bill passed the House 33-27 on a second vote taken March 18. It received a reconsideration vote only because Rep. Gary Pearce, a pro-life Republican, voted against the bill initially and demanded it be voted on again. Pearce voted against it in its first round because he realized Chase and two other supporters were absent. By Arizona law, a member who votes on the winning side of a bill has the right to call it up for reconsideration.
Herrod of the Center for Arizona Policy said despite Napolitano's overt support of abortion rights, she seems emphatic about not having pro-life bills come across her desk.
“She could just let them go through the normal channels and then veto them, but we suspect she's afraid that would create bad feelings in the Legislature and make problems for her,” Herrod said.
Mayes, the governor's spokes-woman, said it's real simple why the governor doesn't want pro-life legislation to move forward: “The governor supports a woman's right to choose.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Delegate Discusses Military Intervention and International Law DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — Amid the debates over the legality, or lack thereof, of the U.S.-British military intervention in Iraq, Zenit news service interviewed Ronald Rychlak, Vatican delegate to the International Criminal Court.
Rychlak is also associate dean for academic affairs of the University of Mississippi.
Does it make sense to talk of a system of international laws or, in a world still dominated by nation-states, does a lot still depend on a mutual consensus reached at the political level?
I think you are right in your implication. Treaties, agreements and even U.N. resolutions all depend to a significant degree on mutual consensus.
If one party to a treaty decides to violate it, the options for the other party, beyond unilateral retaliation — which may range from a very minimal economic retaliation to war — really depends on the willingness of the offending party to assent to something like the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.
There are a number of institutions intervening in legal matters at the international level: the International Court of Justice, the World Trade Organization in trade disputes, etc. Yet often their decisions are ignored. In terms of enforcement of international laws, how do you see the future?
For these organizations to be effective, they must present themselves in such a way that all parties recognize their validity and the importance of cooperation with them.
Unfortunately, political decisions sometimes affect these institutions, giving nations a reason — at least facially valid — for questioning the legitimacy of the institution or its ruling. Unless we are willing to give these institutions real police power — and I do not think we are anywhere near willing to do that — they will remain occasionally helpful but limited in real authority.
Many countries have said military action, apart from strict self-defense, must be authorized by the U.N. Security Council. The United States and Britain defend the action against Iraq as being justified by previous Security Council resolutions. Others point out the difficulty of establishing clear legal principles governing war. Who is right?
Two military actions in all of history have been authorized by the Security Council — Korea and the Gulf War.
Some people think we are moving into an era of when the Security Council should more often, if not al ways, be the entity to decide these matters. I think that is a bit unrealistic.
Whether it is due to its own unwillingness to enforce its resolutions or the U.S.-British decision to move ahead without U.N. approval, it seems the Security Council's authority in this area has been seriously weakened.
All Americans would feel better if the U.N. backed this war, but I do not think that most nations are willing to cede the authority to declare war to any international agency.
International humanitarian law is a rapidly growing area. Now that the International Cri -minal Court is set to commence its activities, what developments do you see in the near future? What effects will the refusal by the United States to adhere to this institution have?
The International Criminal Court is a tool. Handled properly, it can help bring justice to the world — primarily by bringing tyrants to justice.
At the same time, the court could be the cause of great mischief. I think we can anticipate many efforts to use the court to shape the policies of independent nations.
All institutions need to be managed by caring and competent humans. The court tries to assure justice by creating a mathematical formula that minimizes human discretion. National amnesties will not be recognized; all wrongdoers will be prosecuted. In some cases — South Africa and Chile come to mind — such an approach, by which human discretion is eliminated, may lead to more bloodshed, not less.
I am also doubtful that true evil-doers will be deterred by the threat of a prosecution in the International Criminal Court. Such a prosecution would come with lawyers, due process and no threat of a death penalty.
I am not advocating the court adopt a death penalty, but deterrence is usually measured based upon certainty of punishment and severity of punishment. The International Criminal Court seems to increase neither, compared to what a tyrant like Mussolini faced.
Do you think the Muslim world can make any significant contributions to international law?
Absolutely. We cannot know what the future will hold, but there is at least the hope that following the current war, nations in the Mideast will flourish, and we will all enjoy peace and prosperity.
At such time, those nations could make important contributions, as they have in past times. When it comes to protecting unborn life, for instance, the Arab nations are often closely allied with the Holy See.
In a historical perspective, how does the behavior of the United States vis-‡-vis Iraq compare with the behavior of other countries in pursuing their own military strategies?
Being isolated as it is, compared with Europe, America has not often fought wars to defend its borders. More often, at least in the past 100 years, America has fought for ideas, principles or to come to the aid of others around the globe.
Because our national interests are not always obvious, there is a significant movement within the nation toward isolationism. In other words, since these bad things are happening “over there,” why should we get involved? There is, of course, something to be said for that.
Usually, however, Americans have decided to get involved because it is seen as “the right thing to do” and because if we do not act, things can grow and eventually become a threat to our nations — Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 are the most notable examples.
Americans have not fought these wars for conquest; we have most often been seen as liberators. Certainly we have made mistakes. Perhaps we will look back on the current war as a blunder. Most Americans, however, think our forces are trying to do the right thing. We shall know in a matter of months.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Vatican: Homosexuality Has No 'Social Value'
In it, the Vatican debunked such euphemisms as “safe sex” and “reproductive health” and insisted the condition of homosexuality has no “social value” — to the predictable outrage of gay activists.
The Guardian called the 900-page Lexicon On Ambiguous and Colloquial Terms About Family Life and Ethical Questions“one of the Vatican's most scathing attacks yet on what it considers deteriorating social values.”
The newspaper quoted the book as saying “Leaders who encourage the use of condoms for safe sex are running a commercially motivated ‘exercise in self-justification.'"
It added that the book accused pro-condom forces of “concealing the fact that tests show condoms don't work 10% of the time.”
Pagan Games Return
REUTERS, March 31 — Some 40 Italians gathered in Rome's Colosseum on March 31 wearing breastplates and plumed helmets to stage a gladiatorial combat in defiance of police, according to Reuters.
“After 2,000 years, Rome is reliving the revolt of the centurions,” read the banner they held.
The gladiators generally make a living posing with tourists for photographs and staged the games as a protest against Italian authorities, who banned them from the historic ruin.
“How dare they say that we disfigure the Colosseum?” asked Franco Magni, a.k.a. “Brutus,” a swordsman dressed in sandals and armor.
The barelegged centurions and gladiators waved swords, raised fists and chanted “we want to work” to the smiles and flashbulbs of passing tourists with cameras.
Roman authorities have criticized the gladiators for wearing “tacky uniforms” and using cheap plastic swords, and proposed regulations that would require more authentic outfits.
Hang-Glider Tries Protest at St. Peter's
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 28 — An Austrian peace activist landed his hang glider in a deserted St. Peter's Square early March 28 and tried to post an anti-war sign only to be arrested, Associated Press reported.
The 26-year-old flyboy was awaited by some seven supporters who held video cameras and banners and were likewise held by Italian authorities.
The man landed at about 6:30 a.m. local time, when the square was virtually empty, police said.
Vatican airspace — which, the AP noted, does not include an airport — is closed to aviators.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Dialogue Between Holy See and Greek Orthodox Church Makes Progress DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Father Johan Bonny, a member of the Vatican delegation that visited the Greek Orthodox Church Feb. 10-14, is optimistic about ties with the East.
In the following interview with Zenit news service, he highlights the significance of the meetings between the Vatican and the Greek Orthodox Church and foresees ever greater cooperation in the cultural, social, ecological and academic level.
Father Bonny, a Belgian diocesan priest and official of the Eastern section of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, thinks the openness of Archbishop Christ -odoulos of Athens is crucial in this process of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue.
What was the effect of the Pope's visit to Athens?
It was a very important moment for the Church in Greece, a human and spiritual meeting of great significance. This event was followed by the visit of the Greek Orthodox Church to the Vatican in March 2002, and now this Vatican visit of ours to Athens in February has taken place.
Thanks to this openness, the Pope's visit to Greece was able to take place in May 2001. It was the first time a pope was re ceived on Hellenic land. A new direct relation has been established, and we hope it will continue in this way.
These exchanges will continue; it is very important that contact has been established and that the process not stop.
What issues were discussed on this Vatican visit to Athens?
Above all, there was talk of Europe, as well as of cultural, social, economic and environmental challenges. There was also discussion on the way to stimulate exchanges between Catholic and Greek Orthodox students.
Bioethics was a topic at the center of discussions. In this connection, it is interesting to know that a high-level bioethics center has been created in Athens; in fact, it is among the best in Europe. There is a desire to cooperate with other cen ters of this type, and they are looking for new channels of cooperation.
Does the fact of cooperation in social, cultural and environmental issues mean the doctrinal aspect on the ecumenical road is blocked?
They are parallel roads: the “dialogue of charity” and “the dialogue of truth.”
The “dialogue of truth” has been entrusted to the international commission for theological dialogue be -tween the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Therefore, the the ological dialogue is not taking place with the particular Orthodox churches, as the Greek Orthodox Church would be in this case, but with all the Orthodox churches as a whole.
The “dialogue of charity,” however, is open to the particular Orthodox churches. Lately, various initiatives have been undertaken in this field.
I am thinking, for example, of the visits of Cardinal Walter Kasper to the Orthodox churches of Ro -mania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Serbia. To the degree that these initiatives help to create a new climate of trust and fraternity, they will have a positive effect on the theological dialogue.
In fact, we are conscious that the pastoral dialogue with the particular churches can have a positive effect on the theological dialogue.
Who are that 1% of Greek Catholics?
The Catholic Church in Greece is made up primarily of Catholics who have come from other continents. If before the majority were French, English and Italian, today the face [of the Church] is above all Asian and African.
The greater part of these Catholics are workers or refugees. There is also a small community of the Byzantine rite, without forgetting, of course, the Catholic Greeks, such as the archbishop of Athens, Nikolaos Foscolos. The social problems that must be faced by this heterogeneous population is also a motive for joint pastoral work with the Orthodox.
Archbishop Christodoulos is seen as a traitor by some members of his church who do not accept the talks with Rome. Has this opposition delayed fluid relations between Rome and Athens?
Archbishop Christodoulos is a prudent and courageous archbishop who must seek a middle way be -tween those who are very at tached to tradition or are wounded by some historical events and those who are open to the ecumenical movement or to the Catholic Church.
It is important to emphasize that Archbishop Christodoulos is not the only one who is open to dialogue: Many faithful, also of the monastic world, are by his side, as well as many members of the Holy Synod.
What can Catholics learn from the Greek Orthodox?
We have much to learn, both the Westerners from the East as well as the Easterners from the West. On one hand, at the level of the Church as institution, the West can learn from the Easterners their synodal system.
On the other hand, the East can learn from the West the way in which the Catholic Church has been able to develop a communion at the world level.
Is the Orthodox Church in Greece as concerned as Catholics are about the neglect, for the time being, in the drafts of the Euro -pean Constitution of the Christ -ian heritage of the continent?
The Greek Orthodox Church is not an isolated church. It is in the same boat together with the churches of Europe. It must address the same challenges at the level of the sacramental life, of catechesis and of pastoral care. At the same time, it is concerned about human and Christian values on which a common future should be constructed.
Are Greece and Christianity inseparable ?
“Inseparable” would be exaggerated, although Greece is full of references to the first centuries of Christianity. St. Paul preached in the Areopagus of Athens and some of his letters were addressed to Greek communities, such as the Corinthians and the Thessalonians.
How many Greek monasteries go back to the early times of Christian monasticism? The Greek Orthodox Church is conscious of this wonderful patrimony of Christian faith and culture. It wants to transmit it to future generations with a great sense of fidelity.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Loves Us Even in Times of Trial DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with more than 12,000 people in St. Peter's Square for his general audience on April 2 and reflected on a canticle from Isaiah 42. It was part of his ongoing catechesis on the canticles and psalms of the Liturgy of the Hours.
Isaiah's canticle, he pointed out, calls for a “new song” of praise to God, who liberates his people and brings them salvation. Composed at the time of Israel's return from exile in Babylon, it invites all creation to sing the triumph of God's justice and saving power.
The Holy Father reminded his listeners that God is always present among his people and is at work in the course of history. If, at times, God appears to be silent amid oppression, injustice and evil in the world, he never ceases to love his people and always comes to their assistance. This “silence” is a prelude to his decisive intervention on behalf of his faithful ones.
“In fact,” he noted, “ the Lord raises up a new world, an era of freedom and salvation. The eyes of the blind are opened, so they can enjoy the shining light. The road is made straight and hope flourishes, thereby making it possible to continue trusting in God and in his future of peace and happiness.”
The Pope urged those present to reaffirm their faith in the fact that God is the Lord over history, to discern the signs of his presence in our world and to trust in the fulfillment of his saving promises.
Within the book that bears the name of the prophet Isaiah, scholars have identified the presence of various voices, all of which are attributed to this great prophet who lived in the eighth century B.C. This is the case of this powerful hymn of joy and victory that we just heard, which is part of morning prayer during the fourth week of the Liturgy of the Hours. Exegetes attribute this hymn to the so-called Deutero Isaiah, a prophet who lived in the sixth century B.C., when the Israelites were returning from their exile in Babylon. The hymn begins with a call to “sing to the Lord a new song” (see Isaiah 42:10), a call that also occurs in other psalms (see Psalm 96:1 and Psalm 98:1).
The “newness” of the song the prophet invites us to sing certainly refers to the prospect of freedom, which was a radical turning point in the history of a people who had experienced oppression and sojourn in a foreign land (see Psalm 137).
In the Bible, “newness” often has the ring of a reality that is perfect and definitive. It is almost like a sign of the beginning of an era in which the fullness of salvation seals the troubled history of mankind. The canticle of Isaiah has this ring to it and is easily adapted to Christian prayer.
A New Song
The world in its totality, including the earth, sea, coastlands, steppes and cities, is invited to raise a “new song” to the Lord (see Isaiah 42:10-12). Every bit of space is involved, from its farthest horizontal limits, which even includes the unknown, to its vertical dimension, which begins in the desert plain where the nomadic tribes of Kedar are found (see Isaiah 21:16-17) and rises up into the mountains. The city of Sela is located there, which many identify as Petra, in the territory of the Edomites, a city situated among rocky peaks.
All the inhabitants of the earth are invited to form a sort of im -mense choir and acclaim the Lord in exultation and give him glory.
Every day the believer must know how to discern the signs of God's action.
A Mighty Warrior
After the solemn invitation to song (see verses 10-12), the prophet has the Lord appear on the scene. He is portrayed as the God of the Exodus, who has freed his people from slavery in Egypt: “The Lord goes forth like a hero, like a warrior ...” (verse 13). He sows terror among his adversaries, who oppress others and carry out injustice.
The canticle of Moses also de -picts the Lord during the crossing of the Red Sea as a “warrior” who is ready to extend his powerful right hand to shatter the enemy (see Exodus 15:3-8). Upon the return of the Israelites from their deportation to Babylon, a new exodus is about to take place and the faithful must be certain the course of history is not left up to fate, chaos or op -pressive powers: The last word be -longs to God, who is just and strong. As the psalmist already sang: “Give us aid against the foe; worthless is human help” (Psalm 60:13).
God's Silence
Once he has appeared on the scene, the Lord speaks and his angry words (see Isaiah 42:14-16) are laced with judgment and salvation. He begins by recalling that for a long time he “kept silence” and did not intervene. God's silence is often a reason for the just man to be perplexed and even scandalized, as Job's lenghty lament attests (see Job 3:1-26). However, it is not a silence that indicates an absence — almost as if the course of history were left in the hands of the perverse while the Lord remained indifferent and unfeeling. In reality, such a silence results in a reaction that is similar to the pain of a woman in labor who is anxious, panting and crying out. It is, rather, God's judgment on evil, represented in images of dryness, destruction and desert (see verse 15), which has as its goal an outcome that is life-giving and fruitful.
A New World
In fact, the Lord raises up a new world, an era of freedom and salvation. The eyes of the blind are opened, so they can enjoy the shining light. The road is made straight and hope flourishes (see verse 16), thereby making it possible to continue trusting in God and in his future of peace and happiness.
Every day the believer must know how to discern the signs of God's action, even when it is hidden by the apparently monotonous and pointless passing of time. As an esteemed modern Christian author wrote, “The earth is permeated by a cosmic ecstasy. There is in it an eternal reality and presence that, however, normally is asleep under the veil of habit. The eternal reality must now reveal itself, as in an epiphany of God, through everything that exists” (R. Guardini, Sapi enza dei Salmi, Brescia, 1976, p. 52).
Discovering through eyes of faith God's presence in space and time — and also in ourselves — is a source of hope and trust, even when our hearts are troubled and upset “as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). In fact, the Lord appears on the scene to rule and judge “the world with justice and the peoples with faithfulness” (Psalm 96:13).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Philippine Catholics Concerned About War Against Terrorism DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:DAVAO, Philippines — An explosion that killed at least 15 people at a ferry terminal April 2 was the second suspected terrorist bombing in a month in this largely Christian enclave in the southernPhilippines.
The United States and the Phi -lip pines are both interested in pursuing terrorists in this Southeast Asia island nation. A number of groups have been a thorn in the side of successive governments here, and some are suspected of ties to Osa ma bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.
One of Al Qaeda's top lieutenants, Khalid Sheikh Moham -med, who was recently apprehended in Pakistan, spent time in the Philippines in the mid-1990s. He is considered the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and has been accused of plotting to assassinate Pope John Paul II during a 1995 visit to Manila.
But Church leaders here are concerned the war against Philippine terrorists is catching innocent civilians in the cross fire. Some quietly suggest corrupt government officials are using the terrorist problem for personal gain.
U.S. forces earlier this year were on the verge of participating in anti-terrorism raids on the southern Philippine island of Sulu. The island is the enclave of the dreaded terrorist Abu Sayyaf group, which the military has been trying to paralyze for years.
But the Tausug, a Muslim group on the island, reminded the government of a 1906 battle against American troops where hundreds of their forefathers were massacred. The presence of U.S. troops on the island would inflame their long desire for vengeance.
Then, after a Pentagon spokes -man made a vague statement saying U.S. troops will “actively participate” on the island, members of the Philippine Senate noted such participation would be against the nation's constitution.
The government canceled the operation, known in Tagalog as Balikatan (bearing the load on the shoulder together).
Target: Marsh
Abu Sayyaf is one of several rebel factions in the Philippines. An Islamic separatist group founded in the 1990s on Basilan Island, Abu Sayyaf has conducted kidnap-for-ransom activities, bombings, assassinations and extortion on the southern island of Mindanao. Among its hostages were pupils and teachers of a Catholic school run by the Claretians as well as a Claretian missionary who died in the process.
Mindanao has long been plagued by wars, starting with the martial law years in the 1970s when the Moro National Liberation Front fought government forces with the intention of establishing an independent “Bansang Moro” (Muslim Mindanao Republic).
After numerous negotiations, the Moro National Liberation Front finally laid down its arms and signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996, much to the disappointment of some of its members, who in reaction established the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to further pursue independence from Manila.
Integrated into villages in Cen -tral Mindanao, Moro Islamic Liberation Front camps became the constant targets of government forces. Former President Joseph Estrada declared an “all out war” against them in 2000, bringing about their collapse. Except for minor skirmishes, peace reigned in Mindanao — for a while.
Early in the morning of Feb. 11, as Muslims prepared for the feast of Eid'l Adha (the Day of Sacrifice), the first aerial bombs and mortars fell on the Liguasan Marsh, said to be the enclave of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The military said they were after the kidnap-for-ransom gang that calls itself the Pentagon.
“The war had started one day be fore the meeting of the joint cease-fire committee that was supposed to peacefully resolve whatever issues the military had against the [Moro Islamic Liberation Front],” said Oblate of Mary Im -maculate Father Roberto Layson of Pik it, a town overlooking the marsh. He was assigned there five years ago to handle the interreligious dialogue ministry of the Ob -late Province in the Philippines and has experienced four wars against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
But it is the civilians — Muslims, Christians and indigenous peoples — who have suffered most, Father Layson and other Catholic leaders say. Not wanting to be caught in the cross fire, thousands fled to evacuation centers in towns, leaving their homes and valuables behind them.
A week passed after the marsh operation began with none of the Pentagon gang captured. Power transmitters were destroyed, plunging huge portions of Mindanao into darkness. The war raged further into other neighboring provinces, the military guns always aimed at Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels, though this was repeatedly denied by the Armed Forces.
The Church has a vital role in Mindanao, particularly in times like these, said Father Geremia, who has been working with indigenous peoples here since 1980 and, despite the threats he has received, believes his work here is not finished.
The Church, he said, “is the promoter for peace, reconciliation and sign of compassion for the victims, in sharing and helping the evacuees.”
Sonny Evangelista writes from Manila, Philippines.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sonny Evangelista ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:The report cited “the influence of the powerful church” as the reason the Philippine government does “little to curb population growth.”
The New York daily noted the Philippines doubled in population in the last 50 years, reaching some 80 million souls, and might well double again in the next 50. The news service criticized the government for failing to promote artificial birth control as other developing countries have done — under heavy pressure from international aid agencies. It noted with surprise the “miniscule” level of AIDS infections in the country but warned of an “explosion to come.”
The Times cited with approval the work of Terry Scott of DKT Philippines, “a local nonprofit organization that advocates condom use” by showing villagers American television programs such as “Sex and the City” and “Friends.”
Christians Afraid After Kashmir Massacre
FIDES, March 28 — The Christian communities of India and Pakistan braced themselves for a new wave of violence, according to Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency, after a massacre on March 24 in which 24 Indians — including women and children — died at the hands of terrorists in the Valley of Kashmir.
A coalition of Christian organizations wrote an official communiquÈ deploring the attack and demanding action “against the perpetrators of these crimes which try to intimidate the population and sabotage the process of peace in the region.”
Population Problem Past Point of No Return
The continent will still be depopulated for decades — or forced to replenish itself by accepting millions of non-Western immigrants, many of them of the Muslim faith.
The paper cited researchers who pointed out there are so few women now of child-bearing age in Europe that even a 1950s-style baby boom would take a long time to have any demographic impact.
“The year 2000 marked a turning point,” the paper noted. “There will be fewer parents in the next generation than in this one.”
The current birth rate in the European Union is only 1.5 per woman compared with the 2.1 or so required simply to replace the existing population.
The studies cited in the paper pointed out that if current trends continue, the population of the European Union will decline by as much as 88 million people, down from its current peak of 375 million. This would make the top-heavy retirement systems of Western Europe completely unsustainable.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Two-Pronged War Strategy DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II took the opportunity of the 40th anniversary of Blessed John XXIII's encyclical on peace, Pacem in Terris, to once again pray for “peace in Iraq and in all other parts of the world.”
“Even today the encyclical has an extraordinary currency,” said the Holy Father during his Angelus address on April 6.
“Peacemaking is a ‘permanent duty.’ The reality of these days has demonstrated that in a dramatic way.”
“My thoughts go, in particular, to Iraq and to those involved in the war which rages there,” he continued, praying for a quick end to the conflict. “I think in a special way of the helpless civilian population which in various cities has been put under a hard trial.”
Blessed John XXIII published Pacem in Terris on April 11, 1963, only a few months before his death and in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. That makes the encyclical relevant to the current crisis — commentators on both sides of the Iraq war have invoked the example of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
War supporters point out that, after discovering Soviet missiles in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy essentially launched a war that was both pre-emptory and defensive. The American naval blockade of Cuba — an act of war — was implemented to prevent the capability of attack, even though no attack was imminent.
Critics of the war counter that the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrates just the opposite, namely that diplomacy backed by the threat of force can in fact settle disputes without resort to armed conflict. Applying this to Iraq, the lesson would be that the inspections process backed by the threat of invasion could have produced a nonviolent resolution.
The latter approach is what was advocated before the war began by senior officials of the Holy See.
But the Holy Father does not, in the end, put all of his hopes on diplomacy. What he has in mind is a two-pronged approach.
In October, John Paul read the signs of the times and, seeing conflicts escalating in the Holy Land, in the land of Abraham, and throughout the world, he declared this year the “Year of the Rosary.”
It's in that year's spirit that he ended his April 6 angelus address. “With great trust we continue to turn to Our Lady,” he said, “praying for peace in Iraq and in other parts of the world.”
It may seem odd to have such trust in our prayers for peace, even in the face of war. But there's no doubt the Pope really has that level of confidence:
“God willing, may this conflict end soon and open the way to a new era of forgiveness, love and peace,” the Pope added.
Many have commented on photographs from Iraq that the Register has used on its front page in the weeks since the war began.
In the first issue after fighting began, two rosaries graced Page One. Above the fold, a Baghdad girl, one of Iraq's 3 million Christians, prayed the rosary with her mother, anxious looks on their faces. Below the fold, a marine prayed the rosary after Mass, closing his eyes in meditation.
These photos remind us of the terrible cost of war — and the nobility of those who fight them. But they also show that the Holy Father's hopes are not absurd. Catholic Marines and many of the Iraqis they hope to liberate are united in the same prayer to Our Lady for peace.
Catholics on both sides are already united in prayer. Isn't that in itself a sign of the peace that the Pope is asking for us to pray for?
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Voice of Christ in a Time of War DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:I have to thank you for the “universal” coverage of the terrible war in Iraq. So many American religious institutions have “sold out” on their responsibility to God's law, the teachings of Jesus and the Church with regard to our attack of Iraq. The events are covered as if American life is all that is important. Thank you for showing us the face of the people in Iraq — especially our own Church. It gives a human face to the sufferings of so many innocent people.
From the Holy Father and other teachers of the Church, we have been urged to not follow this plan of aggression without first exhausting all other avenues of diplomacy and collaboration with the world community. Our “just-war theory” in no way supports what we are doing.
Please do not waver in being a voice for Christ and his Church in these times. So many Americans cannot see that they have a moral responsibility to God before their own president and nation when it comes to acts that have the potential of being against the law of God. Our parish has been united in prayer since Sept. 11, 2001, and we have a large sign that has hung over the main entrance of the church: Pray for Peace. But this prayer is for all people of the world — especially the poor and oppressed. As a pastor, I thank you for your support in this teaching mission in these desperate times.
Our own diocesan paper this week headlined the front page with “Vatican Says Bush Will Answer to God on Iraq War.” I am proud of them as well! May we become stronger witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus and pray for each other, that we might have the courage to speak truth and work passionately for peace and justice.
FATHER WAYNE CAMPBELL
San Leandro, California
Looking for a Few Good Priests
The article “U.S. Troops Returning to Church in Droves” (March 30-April 5) contained some incorrect information.
The article stated that there was only one Catholic chaplain in Kuwait. The U.S. Air Force has two Catholic chaplains assigned to two different bases in Kuwait. One priest is assigned to Al Jaber for a one-year, remote assignment. The other priest is assigned to Ali Ali Salem. He is there on a deployment. Also, the Australians have a priest who is serving at the airport.
The Air Force has only 103 priests. Twenty-two Air Force priests are presently deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are looking for a few more priests to serve in the Air Force. If you are interested, please call Father Mike Biewend at (210) 652-4700.
MSGR. CARLO F. MONTECALVO
Bolling Air Force Base,
District of Columbia
The writer is chief of the Personnel and Readiness Division in the Office of the Chief of the U.S. Air Force Chaplain Service.
Getting Senators Straight
Regarding “How Catholic Senators Voted” (March 23-29):
Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky also voted Yea on the partial-birth abortion ban. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski represents Alaska, not Arkansas.
CHRISTOPHER J. MATTIA
West Bloomfield, Michigan
Sneaky Senators
Your March 23-29 listing of “How Catholic Senators Voted” on the partial-birth abortion ban is factually correct but misleading because of the duplicity of some of the senators.
For example, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), ubiquitous speaker at Catholic events and darling of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, voted for the ban once he knew it would pass even without his vote, but prior to that he voted for an amendment that would have gutted the ban if it had passed. He also voted to support the horrendous Roe v. Wade decision to permit abortion for all nine months of gestation.
In the future, I urge you to show all votes, including amendments, on pro-life legislation so your readers can see which senators truly support pro-life legislation and those who are trying to hide their support for the evil of abortion.
WILLIAM LUKSIC
Rockville, Maryland
Bringing Up the Movies
I recently saw the film Bringing Down The House, which was featured in your “Take Five” movie-review section by Steven Greydanus (March 30-April 5). I went based on your review of this movie and, after seeing it, I firmly believe you need a new Catholic movie critic who upholds the moral standards of our Church. The violence portrayed in the movie, which you rated as -1 (questionable) was unnecessary and displayed no consequences which would result from such a fight; there was no blood, broken bones, cuts, bruises or pain showed except for one of the characters later who had a black eye. The violence of this fight between two women was hailed with applause and laughing by the other movie patrons. What about the dignity of these women? Where was that shown?
Then your critic had a rating of -1 (questionable) for sexual content. Did he not see the part where Steve Martin and Queen Latifah are on a sofa simulating a sexual act? Did he not see the same people dancing erotically again as if having sexual intercourse? This should have been rated a -3 (reprehensible)!
The critic did mention that this film was a step back in race relations for Americans — that is drastically understated. I am surprised that Queen Latifah would even want to mock her fellow African-Americans by the stereotyping that flowed through the entire movie. I also was ashamed that Steve Martin would do the same at the negative portrayals of white Americans and how they are afraid of black people. I was up for a night of laughter and found myself more depressed after watching this movie because it just served to drag all of us, black and white, further apart. It was also depressing to see the reaction of the audience, many of whom were between 8 and 15 years old, watching this movie with a PG-13 rating.
And then we wonder why everyone has no moral values! As a Catholic, I always imagine myself to be watching a movie with the Blessed Mother and Christ at my side. I had to close my eyes several times due to the content of this one. I am sure Mary and Jesus were not amused and were weeping a mountain of tears.
I hope you get a more orthodox movie critic and also let us know every week whom we can write to in Hollywood so they will bring us good, wholesome movies.
KATHY SPAGNOLA
York, Pennsylvania
Steven Greydanus responds: I, too, found Bringing Down the House quite objectionable. Indeed, it was my intention to discourage readers from seeing it. Honestly, the only reason I sit through films like this is to be able to steer other people away from them. One of my great satisfactions as a Catholic film critic is to get e-mails saying, “Thanks for saving me eight bucks on that horrible movie.” In the case of Bringing Down the House, in my Register “Take Five” capsule, I tried to describe, within the space limitations, precisely the two scenes that most bothered you. I'm sorry that my language wasn't strong enough to communicate to you my strong distaste for this movie. As for the ratings: In retrospect, I should have given both the sex and the violence in this film a -2 (objectionable) rather than a -1 (questionable). I'm new to the Register and still getting acclimated to the ratings system here. If you have any further questions about me or my commitment to honor Christ and his Church in my work, I invite you to check out my Web site, www.decentfilms.com. Thank you for writing!
Greydanus a Good Catch
I have been a subscriber to your paper for a few years. The paper gets better with each issue.
Thank you for including Steve Greydanus in the Arts and Culture section. Having enjoyed his reviews posted at his Web site, I was glad to see that he is now writing for the Register.
I hope Mr. Greydanus will become a regular contributor to the paper.
MARTIN P. BROWNE
Forest Hills, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Persuasive Peace DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Your article “From Rome, No Awe — Just Shock” (March 30-April 5) really caused me to think more deeply about the war in Iraq and to change my attitude about it.
In the days leading up to the war, I simply prayed that the Lord would bring peace to the situation because I didn't see a solution outside of going to war. However, I could not truthfully say I supported Pope John Paul II's insistence that the war with Iraq is not justified. However, after reading the article, I am convinced that the Holy Father has a greater understanding of the situation than anyone else on the planet.
It occurs to me that praying for peace in one breath and justifying the war in the next is a bit like praying for good health and then intentionally walking into oncoming traffic.
If we really are serious about our prayers of petition, our actions will mirror our requests. We can't just give God 48-hour notice and then act on our own when we don't get an answer we like. If we are praying for peace while justifying the war, we're really just paying God lip service. No wonder we didn't get peace — we got what we were really looking for.
We absolutely need to support our troops now that the war has begun. We need to pray for our president so he can make the right decisions in a difficult situation. We also need to support our Pope, not abandon him, because his position is based on God's law, not man's. And I think he knows something about this that we don't.
LISA HEFFRON
Foothill Ranch, California
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Ben Hur In Pajamas DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:No, Ben Hur wasn't in PJs, but I was. I first saw the movie Ben Hur when my family and I all piled into our 1961 Ford Country Squire station wagon and went off to the local drive-in. This was the Paleolithic Age when if you wanted to see a movie, you actually had to go to the movies. And certain “big” movies that had experienced equally big success were periodically rereleased to movie theaters.
When one of the movies had a particular theme to it, as Ben Hur did, the movie studios would time the release accordingly. So the Holy Week theme that permeates this film always seemed to find the rerelease scheduled around March or April every couple of years.
I was excited, older brothers and sisters who saw the movie on the previous rerelease told amazing stories of sea battles and a rather cool chariot race where guys got run over by horses. I couldn't wait.
But the catch was my mother made me wear my pajamas as I hunkered down on the folded-down seat in the back of the station wagon among sleeping bags, pillows and homemade popcorn. They thought I couldn't stay awake for a measly three-hour movie. They thought I was a baby. They thought right.
I didn't make it to the chariot race, I didn't make it to the sea battle, I didn't even last long enough to witness the first bit of misfortune befall poor Ben Hur. Disappointed but not undaunted, I vowed, pajamas or not, to stay awake the next year when Ben Hur came out to the theaters. It was a rite of passage out of my childhood when I finally succeeded in watching this movie in its entirety.
Just as my father was able to complain that I had no clue how difficult his childhood was compared to mine, I now can follow that grand tradition and scold my own children on their cream-puff existences. Granted, my dad was talking about living through the Great Depression and World War II, and all I had to complain about was the lack of video technology that made it necessary to go out in a 1961 Ford Country Squire station wagon in less-than-fashionable sleepwear just to see a movie.
A Tale of the Christ
Our response as a nation to serious juvenile crime is to treat them like adult offenders. For example, my native state, North Carolina, has lowered the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults to 13. Oklahoma has done the same. Tennessee has gone a step further by removing entirely the age limit for juveniles accused of serious crimes. When it comes to executing juveniles, Texas leads the way.
Through the marvels of modern technology, Ben Hur is no longer an elusive piece of movie magic that comes and goes through the mists of time and the whim of the marketing guy at MGM. There used to be an old saying that the making of religious epics like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandmentsconsisted of Jewish studio moguls making movies based on Catholic theology for Protestant audiences. Hey, they didn't call it the Golden Age for nothing.
Although Ben Hur fits that category to a tee, it would be a rush to judgment to dismiss it as a piece of overproduced, heavy-handed filmmaking.
First and foremost, Ben Hur is a great story, the proof of which is found in the fact that Ben Hur has never been out of print since its first publication in 1880. Three movie versions have been made, with the 1959 version being one that has held sway over me ever since I fought off those heavy eyelids in the back of the station wagon.
The subtitle to Ben Hur is “A Tale of the Christ” and, of course, as anyone who has read the book or seen the movie knows, Jesus is the fulcrum upon whom the entire story hinges. But because Ben Hur doesn't end with the victory of Easter but rather the “defeat” of Cavalry, I have always found it to be especially moving during Holy Week.
Good Friday itself has had a special, for lack of a better word, allure to me.
I come to this honestly as I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that took the faith to heart and subsequently all of the beautiful road maps the Church laid out to guide us through this vale of tears.
At the risk of sounding even more like my father, things just aren't the way they used to be and unfortunately this includes the way we worship as Catholics. Good Friday used to be a lot more solemn than it is now. We weren't allowed to go out and play, to watch television or have any fun at all. Of course we complained, but it certainly made an impression on me and the paschal memory of those long-ago days echoes in my mind as I witness the cacophony of nonobservance Good Friday is heir to today.
So in my own feeble attempt to reclaim some sense of ritual and solemnity, and with the help of Charleton Heston, I initiated a Good Friday custom I hope will continue for some time to come. It starts with noon Stations of the Cross. The drama plays out, station by station, to a plaintive lament. This must be the Irish in me, but there is something so appealing in the “defeat” that is Good Friday — I would like to hope it's a feeling born out of the knowledge of what is to come on Easter.
After stations, my family and I return home.
We try to keep things quiet. No television, no music — just quiet. Then, at 3 o'clock we disconnect the phone. The television goes on and the DVD of Ben Hur goes in.
We have our one meal of the day of clam chowder and sourdough bread in front of the television and watch the “Tale of the Christ” unfold, again, before us. The movie still works. It has plenty of Roman soldiers for my 10-year-old and a satisfactory body count during the epic sea battle. For my 12-year-old it has Jesus being crucified in an artistic style that remains gripping, powerful and not a little painful to watch. The 6-year-old falls asleep on the couch, so we'll have to wait for her input in another couple of years.
Good Friday DVD
The use of art to tell a story about God is as old as art itself. Pope John Paul II, has seen the potential for great good that can be achieved through art.
In my own little way, and via the notso-highbrow method of a Hollywood epic, I would like to think I am building some sense of solemnity for Good Friday. In his 1999 letter to artists, John Paul stated, “But for everyone, believers or not, the works of art inspired by Scripture remain a reflection of the unfathomable mystery which engulfs and inhabits the world.”
As I have watched my children watch Ben Hur, I think I understand what the Holy Father was saying. The truth will out. Ben Hur, in its own Hollywood epic way, shows how Christ pierces through the hardest of hearts and how death on a cross equals victory, not defeat.
It's a message I hope with all my heart my 21st-century, DVD-watching children embrace as much as that pajama-wearing little boy in the back of a 1961 Ford Country Squire station wagon did.
Robert Brennan is a television writer in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Brennan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Executing Kids? The Lonesome Death DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:How did a small farming town in South Carolina earn a permanent place in American history?
Not because of Peggy Parish, a famous author of children's books. No. Not because of Althea Gibson, the first black woman to play tennis at Wimbledon. And the five governors of South Carolina who were born and raised in Alcolu? It's scarier than that.
On the morning of June 16, 1944, George Stinney, a 14-year-old boy from Alcolu, walked slowly, escorted by prison guards of the Central Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C., toward his final destiny on Earth: the electric chair.
Stinney, convicted of killing two girls, clutched a Bible under his arm as he made his way toward death. The guards had a hard time strapping the 90-pound boy in the large electric chair made for adults. When firmly secured, the guards placed an oversized mask on his face. Then the executioner pulled the switch. Wit nesses said the sheer force of the electricity knock ed the mask from the boy's head.
All stared as his agonized face sizzled. Four minutes later, he became the youngest person ever legally executed in the electric chair.
No one was there that morning to claim the boy's body. The locals of Alcolu ran Stinney's family out of town prior to his execution. As an act of kindness, the state claimed the boy's body and buried it in an unknown location. Thanks to this gesture, Stinney's parents never recovered their son's body. This is how the picturesque town of Alcolu made history.
Executing juveniles in the United States is nothing new. We have been doing it since 1642. The practice is perfectly legal. With juveniles such as the accused sniper John Lee Malvo around, the death penalty for minors will probably remain legal.
Despite the legal support for executing juveniles, it's extremely difficult to justify the practice morally.
Our response as a nation to serious juvenile crime is to treat them like adult offenders. For example, my native state, North Carolina, has lowered the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults to 13. Oklahoma has done the same. Tennessee has gone a step further by removing entirely the age limit for juveniles accused of serious crimes. When it comes to executing juveniles, Texas leads the way.
Two-thirds of U.S. juvenile offenders put to death in the past 10 years were from Texas. This “get tough” attitude underlines the fact that juvenile crime is real. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice offers information that supports this claim: EThe number of juvenile murderers tripled between 1984 and 1994.
E The nationwide arrest rate for violent crimes jumped 50% between 1988 and 1994.
E Juvenile arrests for violent crimes will double by the year 2010 if recent national trends continue, according to the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Despite the legal support for executing juveniles, it's extremely difficult to justify the practice morally. Christians are in no rush to emulate what South Carolina did to Stinney in 1944. Here's why: Clinical studies indicate that juveniles don't posses the same level of maturity as adults. Juveniles need time to develop mentally and psychologically to make responsible decisions. Adults can make responsible decisions because their maturing process is over. This means the moral culpability of a juvenile who commits a criminal act is less than that of an adult. Consequently, the punishment given to a juvenile should not be the same as an adult.
Even our laws reflect this reasoning. For instance, teen-agers under the age of 18 can't vote, drink or sit on a jury because they are considered immature. Yet when a juvenile commits a serious crime this reasoning no longer applies. Why? Can anyone explain how a grave offense transforms a juvenile into what he is not physically or mentally — an adult?
Moreover, the death penalty policy for juveniles overlooks the fact that adolescents who commit horrendous crimes are sick kids. To many this assumption would seem naÔve. Let's take a look at some facts. Researchers conducted a comprehensive psychiatric examination of 14 of 37 juvenile offenders on death row. Here's what they found: ENine had major neuropsychological disorders. ESeven had psychotic disorders since early childhood. ESeven had serious psychiatric disturbances.
E 12 had been brutally abused physically, sexually or both.
All of this raises a serious moral question: Is it right to execute sick kids rather than treat them? It would be hard to find a decent person who says Yes.
I'm not saying, however, that juvenile offenders shouldn't be punished. They should. Morally speaking, we should keep in mind that the purpose of punishment is not only reparation but also correction. The death penalty, however, deprives juveniles of the possibility of rehabilitation.
The “let's kill them” approach is not the solution to juvenile crime. What we need is a culture of life as opposed to our culture of violence and death. God, traditional family values, cleaning up neighborhoods, out-reach programs for the youth and the like are our best solutions.
As a nation, we should not be eager to take what only God can give — human life.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair writes from Wakefield, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: How Would Homo Economicus Spend Holy Week? DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:During this holiest of weeks, we are asked to do penance for our sins.
As an economist, I have been trained to think of people as rational actors. What does it mean for a purely rational person to be repentant? Could homo economicus ever go to confession?
Why ask this question at all? There's an economist's reason and an apologist's. The economist's definition of rational economic man is one who always acts so as to maximize his own personal happiness, taking into account all the relevant costs and benefits of his actions, and using fully all the available information. By examining this mythical person — homo economicus — we can see some of the things economics misses. For an apologist, the question might be a way to grapple with the meaning of repentance. What would it mean for rational economic man to ever be truly repentant?
We can easily imagine homo economicus (HE for short) feeling some regret about something. For instance, he regrets he didn't sell all his shares of JDSU in 2000 when it was selling for $150 instead of holding on to it until now when it is trading at $3 per share. But he isn't irrational because things might have turned out otherwise, and he isn't really repentant because he didn't do anything morally blameworthy. He just made a mistake.
The situation is quite different if we do something hurtful to another person. One person says, “You hurt me. I want you to apologize.”
What are the possible responses of HE, the “rational” person? One is, “I didn't know that I hurt you. I didn't know in advance that what I was about to do would be hurtful to you.” HE pleads imperfect information. HE is not truly sorry, because he was only ignorant, not actually wrong or guilty of anything.
Another possible response from homo economicus is, “I wanted to hurt you. I knew it would hurt you. I am entitled to hurt you if I feel sufficiently aggrieved with you or with life in general. I did what I wanted to do. I don't owe anything to anyone. I didn't expect you to like it. I knew you'd probably yell at me. But I am willing to pay the price of your displeasure.” This is homo economicus all right, rational and calculating. But you would not want to be married to him.
There is an intermediate response. “I didn't particularly want to hurt you. I hurt you as a byproduct of something else that I wanted to do. I do not plead ignorance or having imperfect information. I simply pleaded that what I wanted to do was more important to me than your feelings about it.” In this case, homo economicus’ rationality doesn't make his spouse feel any better. In fact, this explanation (rationalization is more like it) might make her feel like smacking him.
This intermediate case is the most interesting, because it could sometimes be an appropriate response to a situation. We can imagine situations where it was acceptable to do this and situations where we would feel fairly treated if someone said this to us. Context is everything.
Suppose a husband refused to accompany his wife to a dinner that was important to her. He knows she wants it and that she will feel badly if he doesn't go. He chooses to do something else instead. We can't judge this situation in the absence of further information.
Suppose the dinner is an event honoring the wife for winning the Nobel prize in economics. The husband refuses to go because he doesn't want to miss his card club, which will be meeting during the trip. His plea of rationality would probably not gain much sympathy either from us, the impartial spectators, or from his wife. We would probably conclude that there was something skewed about his preferences.
Suppose instead the dinner is at her mother's house. Her mother is a shrew who can't shut up and continually criticizes everyone in sight, including and especially her son-in-law, whom her daughter never should have married in the first place. He says he would prefer to do just about anything rather than go and endure his mother-in-law's behavior. His wife is sly homo economica (SHE for short). SHE proclaims she is hurt, demands that he always act to avoid hurting her and pronounces him an inconsiderate lout. We might conclude SHE is using her pain to manipulate him.
But one thing is for sure: The fact that you have made a “rational choice” to hurt another person is not a stand-alone argument. You have to supplement your cost-benefit calculus with a justification for the preferences themselves. The wife in the first case doesn't think traveling to Sweden should count as a cost. The husband in the second case doesn't think visiting his mother-in-law should count as a benefit. The argument is over their preferences, not over whether anybody calculated accurately.
And that is the heart of repentance, too. When we ask someone to apologize, we don't want to say they made a mistake. When somebody hurts us as a byproduct of something else they want to do, we want to be more important to them than whatever it is they wanted. That is what their apology means to us: We have moved up the ladder of importance to them. When somebody is manipulating us with their pain, we want them to be sorry — sorry for wanting their own way so much that they will distort the presentation of their feelings to get it. Sorry for not trusting us enough to make a straightforward request for what they want without a lot of emotional freight.
We want them to admit there was something wrong with their preferences in the first place. And this is just what is so difficult about offering an apology. We have to admit we were wrong in what we wanted, as well as in how well we pursued our own interests. That is why homo economicus and his mate, sly homo economica, need to go to confession, just like everybody else.
Jennifer Roback Morse is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Love & Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work (Spence, 2001).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jennifer Roback ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Two Towers on the Danube DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Basilica of Our Lady of Sorrows, Maria Taferl, Austria
The faithful have been climbing 800 feet above the Danube River for more than 300 years.
Their destination: a two-towered basilica dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows.
Blessed are they who are called to this place during Holy Week.
The Basilica of Maria Taferl — Mary of the Tablet, located about 70 miles west of Vienna, Austria, in the mountain hamlet of Maria Taferl (population: 872) — is known throughout Europe as a place of prayer, praise and peace. Here many illnesses have been cured, not a few injuries healed and countless prayers answered.
The site on which the edifice sits once saw rituals of pagan sacrifice. Today, the original Celtic taferlstein (pagan-altar block) rests just outside the church. The two towers, visible from miles around, loom over this pagan stone, dramatically attesting to the victory of Christianity over paganism.
The history of this shrine is a long and beautiful story of trust in God and the intercessions of Our Lady. In 1633, a cattle herder from a local village tried to chop down an oak on a nearby hillside. The ax slipped twice, severely cutting the man's legs. As he writhed in pain, he noticed that the tree had a crucifix mounted on a taferl (flat block of wood). Realizing the sacrilege he had almost committed, he prayed to God for forgiveness and asked for the healing of his legs. The wounds ceased bleeding and he was able to get home unassisted — on healed legs. As word spread, pilgrimages to this seemingly miraculous place began. They continue to this day.
In 1641, a local magistrate had a dream. The Blessed Mother appeared to him and asked that he replace the decayed crucifix with a small statue of Our Lady of Sorrows. He readily complied. A great sufferer of deep bouts of depression, he was cured immediately of this psychological ailment.
Another 10 years passed and the faithful continued to come to Maria Taferl. In 1658, sightings of lights and white-garbed angelic figures were reported. These apparitions were often linked to accounts of miraculous healings. Finally, the bishops of Passau and Regensburg authorized an official inquiry into the cures and the reports of apparitions. In 1659, 51 witnesses were examined on oath at the nearby Pochlarn Castle. One of the witnesses to the apparitions — which seemed to be of angels descending toward the tree — was the daughter of the Protestant minister who lived across the Danube from the tree.
No official verdict came from the Church leaders, but in consequence of this investigation, building of a pilgrimage church began at the site. On March 19, 1660, eight Masses were celebrated for a crowd of more than 1,000 pilgrims. One month later, the foundation stone was laid for the “Church to Our Lady of Sorrows” — a building that is still standing, a landmark to faith and trust in Mary's intercessory powers. The high altar was built around the original tree and statue.
Pilgrims’ Perseverance
Through the years, Maria Taferl continued to attract pilgrims, even in the face of adversity. In 1755, a fire burned the original tree and statue of Our Lady, but a replica was soon installed and pilgrims continued to stream in. In 1760, the centenary year, more than 700 processions were held and 19,000 Masses were said in honor of Our Lady of Maria Taferl.
In the Josephine era (mid-1700s to mid-1800s), the era when Emperor Josef decreed anti-Church laws in Austria, pilgrimages were officially banned. Yet pilgrims continued to pray to Maria Taferl. In the 1800s, the church's silver, in clu -d ing the precious vessels and many lovingly crafted ornaments, had to be given over to the government. Yet pilgrims continued to give thanksgiving offerings to Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows. During the two world wars of the 20th century, the church continued to incur setbacks. Yet pilgrims continued to journey up the hill from the river to pray to Our Lady.
In 1947, the pilgrims’ faith in Maria Taferl was richly rewarded when Pope Pius XII raised the church to the status of minor basil-ica. The Vatican has not defined it as a “miracle site” such as Lourdes or Fatima; it has, however, commended the site as one at which hearts are blessed with deeper faith and minds converted to Christ through Mary. Pius XII mentioned the many miracles and signs in the papal brief that elevated Maria Taferl to a minor basilica.
Since that time, the shrine has welcomed more than 200,000 pilgrims each year. Some come to pray to the miraculous image, some come in personal thanksgiving, some come to admire the glorious edifice's Baroque ornamentation. Many priests were required to attend to the needs of these faithful; at one point, 25 were in residence. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate continue to attend to the shrine and the throngs of faithful it draws.
A spot not to miss is the schatzkammer (treasury). This is located behind the high altar on a floor above the main sanctuary. Here are the records of the faithful, housed in cabinets from the 1600s. The walls are covered with paintings illustrating the cures and the stories of favors received — written in longhand.
Here are the precious possessions gifted to Our Lady of Sorrows in thanksgiving for favors bestowed.
In one spot is an ancient pocket watch alongside a picture of a young priest. Seems this man was cured of a hand disease and was
thus able to fulfill his priestly vocation. The man's father, who had been making pilgrimages to Maria Taferl for his son, gave his confirmation watch as a thank-you gift for this blessing bestowed on his son.
Not far from there is a an amateur painting depicting the healing of a woman who impaled her hand on a butcher's knife. The knife is attached to the frame for further illustration. The stories of the faithful abound in this room, where the ceiling is frescoed with the history of the shrine.
What a glorious history it is. And what a beautiful place for prayer, praise and peace this is — especially during Holy Week, as we remember the darkest hours Our Lady of Sorrows ever saw.
Mary C. Gildersleeve writes from Gaming, Austria.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary C. Gildersleeve ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Palms in the Heart DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:What will you be doing this Sunday, palm fronds by your side?
If you're like me, you'll be huddling in your pew, feeling uncomfortable about having to shout “crucify him” during the Gospel recounting of our Lord's passion.
I honestly hate pretending to be among the multitudes who initially welcomed the Messiah into Jerusalem with great fanfare and then, soon after, turned on him and demanded his brutal execution. It
doesn't matter that I know it's a dramatization. It doesn't matter that I've attended more Palm Sunday services than I'd like to count. I still have a hard time bringing myself to say those words.
Why? Because I observe an awful lot of “palm-waving” in my daily life and it saddens me. Palm-waving is my term for those who profess the Catholic faith and yet act in ways that blatantly contradict it. Just like the throngs who initially honored Jesus as a king but ended up shaming and killing him because he wasn't the king they expected.
Too many times have I been told, often by a friend or relative, “I'm Catholic but ...” What follows the “but” can be any variety of interesting claims. “But I still use artificial contraception. I mean, what does the Pope know about having kids anyway?” ... “But I never go to confession. Why should I have to tell my sins to a priest? It's none of his business.” ... “But I still believe women should have a right to choose.” ...
Do you know the worst thing about palm-wavers? It's when I find myself acting just like them. It's when I claim to be fervent about the Blessed Sacrament then make excuses not to go to eucharistic adoration. It's when I pretend to believe that all human beings are temples of the Holy Spirit then judge someone because of his or her outward appearance. It's when I'm too preoccupied with myself to help someone in need. It's when I preach about the importance of the holy rosary then I say my daily prayers apathetically. It's when I give my allegiance to the Catholic Church then do nothing to defend her when those around me criticize her.
Palm Sunday is a stark reminder for me of my own palm-waving. When it's time to say “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the Highest!” I'm reminded of the times I praised Jesus and then hurt one of the members of his Mystical Body. When it's time to say, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” I think of the times I denied knowing him by my thoughts and actions. The feel of the palms in my hand brings forth the reality that he is my King and I so often fail to love him.
Are there ever any times when I deserve to embrace the palms in sincerity? Yes, when I admit my weakness and helplessness. That's when I can courageously ask for the Heavenly Father's mercy and forgiveness. Because I am his cherished child no matter what I think, do or say, he will give me the graces to pick myself up and try again. My own smallness will draw down his mercy upon me.
Consider Psalm 136: “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his mercy endures forever.” Because of God's mercy, I can put aside my past palm-waving and take up my palms on Palm Sunday, holding them with steady and contrite hands. When I recite “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest,” I can acknowledge the fact that his greatness is what makes me worthy of his mercy. When I mutter, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” I acknowledge the fact that it is his suffering that has redeemed me from my sins — the very sins that helped put him on that cross in the first place.
When I process with the palms this Sunday, I'll do so with gratitude to my Lord and Savior — and with the firm resolve to never wave them meaninglessly again.
Marge Fenelon writes from Cudahy, Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: Spirit & Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marge Fenelon ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Meanwhile, Down on the Blog ... DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:As new information technologies continue to transform the way people communicate, will the Catholic Church be a “player"?
That was the question of the day for a panel I served on at the recent New Evangelization of America Con ference in Dallas. Each of us gave a short presentation and then welcomed questions from the audience.
A youthful-looking panelist named Brian Barcaro, senior partner of Acolyte, LLC, a Pittsburgh-based Internet software company, talked about “blogging.” I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. He went on to say that Web pages were now outdated. Blogging had moved in. So much for my Web site!
It seems the term “blog” is short for Web log (or “weblog"). The definition from NetLingo's Internet Dictionary sounds simple enough: “a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.” Sort of an online diary, the typical “blog” consists of the blogger's own thoughts on whatever strikes his or her fancy, along with related links to Web sites and other people's blogs.
Blogs are really nothing new. People posted online journals long before the term was coined. But the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated publishing systems, most notably Blogger (at www.blogger.com). These publishing systems make it easy to maintain an online diary and update it frequently.
The Catholic Blog Reviewer at catholic-blog-re view er. blogs -pot.com is an example of someone using blogger.com's publishing system to produce his own blog. The author's first blog was posted on Jan. 16, 2003, at 9:18 a.m. It is a comment about the look of Mark Shea's blog at www.marks hea. blogs -pot.com. Although the author likes Shea's blog, he says of its layout, “Am I the only one who has noticed that the words in the left-hand column are aligned on the right? I know that this may seem like something trivial to most of you, but it is driving me NUTS!!!!!!!"
Great writing it's not, but few blogs fail to attract at least some site traffic. In fact, most blogs offer surfers to post comments of their own — and there are many takers. The above entry, for example, generated two replies from Web surfers on the same day the post went up.
To respond to a post at Catholic Blog Reviewer, you just press the “shout out” link at the bottom of each journal entry. A small window pops up showing previous responses along with the responder's contact information and the posting date and time. Below this is a form to fill out to post your own response.
Blogging seems to use the message-board technology that has been around for some time. However, the diary format, which lends itself to a breezy, conversational presentation, has proved very appealing — to bloggers and their visitors alike. For that reason, the quality of blogs runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous. Among the best and most popular Catholic blogs are Shea's, author Amy Welborn's (www.amywelborn.blogspot.com), former Register staff writer Eve Tushnet's (eve-tushnet.blogs pot -.com), screenwriting instructor Bar -bara Nicolosi's (www.churchofthemasses. blogspot -.com) and Envoy magazine's (www.en voy mag a zine.com/ envoy encore).
'Blegging’ for Dollars
Opinions on blogs vary. To some, they facilitate important debate and dialogue. Others fear they are a quick way to spread false information and uncharitable judgment.
Journalist Andrew Sullivan, who maintains a very polished and professional-looking blog, believes blogs will play an important role in shaping the future of journalism. Why? Because blogging bypasses established magazines, newspapers and editors and allows for direct peer-to-peer communications to flourish. He started his blog, www. andre wsul livan .com, in October 2000, publishing small tidbits of opinion and observation about various happenings at least twice a day. Sullivan started with a few hundred readers, some of whom began to respond. They took an interest and began sending their own suggestions, links, ideas and material to him. In talk ing about the Florida presidential election night -mare, Sul livan re ceived input from a Florida politics professor on every possible angle on the vote. Soon Sullivan was way ahead of major news outlets on obscure electoral details about chads and voting machines.
Within six months of launching his blog, Sullivan found he had close to 5,000 individual visits a day and the numbers kept growing each month after. What began as fun now was becoming work — and he wasn't getting paid for it! He began posting click-through advertising on his blog to bring in some income. Whenever someone bought anything at the advertiser's site by going through his, he received a small commission. Much better for Sullivan, and other bloggers, was soliciting donations from frequent visitors to his blog — “blegging,” in the clever language of bloggers. In 2001, Sullivan received $27,000 through online donations.
(Sullivan's site is a good example of success in the blog arena, but Register readers should be aware that he is a Catholic who loudly dissents from the Church's teachings on marriage and sexuality.)
Not everyone agrees with Sul -livan that blogs are important to jour -na lism. Elizabeth Osder, a visiting professor at the University of South -ern California's School of Jour -nalism, had this to say: “They're about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrapbooks.” She sees too much of a fascination with self-expression and opinion without expertise, resources and reporting.
The Register's Tim Drake stopped blogging, saying, “Perhaps it's just me, but isn't it a prideful thing?” He said bloggers were “talking only to themselves.” Now he uses his site as an online portfolio.
So will I be abandoning this column to start up my own blog? Probably not. But I will be watching to see what develops in the burgeoning world of “blogdom” — where anyone, including the Church, can be a player.
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration, writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:There's no time like Holy Week to look at the Stations of the Cross online.
Jerusalem – The Way of the Cross at 198.62.75.5/www 1/ofm/ TVCmain.html, posted by the Franciscans and Michael Olteanu, director of Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi, shows those Holy Places Jesus walked on the way to his cross. Definitely a good place to start.
To use the Stations of the Cross written by Cardinal John Newman in 1860, go to landru.i-link-2.net/shnyves/The_Way_of_the_C ross.html.
A Salesian Way of the Cross, based on the writings of St. Francis de Sales, can be found at webdesk.com/catholic/prayers/salesia nwayofthecross.html.
The Stations of the Cross for the Victims of Abortion, written by Jesuit Father Cletus Healy, is at www.nd.edu/~mary/Stations.html; it's certainly apt for today.
The Way of the Cross of a Migrant at cjd.org/stories/ cross. html was posted by Casa Juan Diego, a Catholic Worker house for immigrants and refugees.
The Monks of Adoration's Stabat Mater Stations at monksofadoration.org/stabmats.html contain the Stations of the Cross with pictures, text and audio to pray along with. The Stabat Mater Stations are unique in that they combine the traditional Stabat Mater hymn melody with meditations on each station in poetic form.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Daughter From Danang (2003)
Wars don't end when the troops lay down their arms and the bombing stops. They can have unexpected consequences on the personal lev -el; it can take years for the wounds to heal. This hour-long Oscar-nominated PBS documentary shows how, as it looks at the fallout from the Vietnam War.
Heidi, an Amerasian woman whose father was an American Navy officer, is adopted and raised in Tennessee. After 22 years, she decides to visit her birth mother in Vietnam.
Both women have longed for this moment, but they haven't seen each other since Heidi was 7. They find that cultural differences and the decades of separation have created obstacles and their one-week reunion is filled with sadness and conflict more than joy. The film poses hard questions about identity, family and culture, revealing how the Vietnam War continues to haunt those who survived it. (To order, call Interfaze Productions at (510) 548-3699 or go to www.shop. pbs.org on the Internet.)
From a Far Country: Pope John Paul II (1981)
As the citizens of 20th-century Poland learned after successive conquests by the Nazis and the communists, history can be hard to live through. This film explores that truth by following a small group of people whose lives intersect with Karol Wojtyla (Cezary Morawski) during those difficult times.
The central character is Marian (Sam Neill), the brother of an actress (Lisa Harrow) in a theater group to which the young Wojtyla belongs. Marian is arrested by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp because his friend, Tadek (Christopher Cazenove), helps Jews escape and joins the resistance.
After the war, Marian is freed and becomes a priest. The communists imprison him because he refuses to spy on the Church. Tadek, who's now a writer favored by the regime, gets him out of jail. Marian is made pastor of a parish threatened by the authorities. But his bishop is Wojtyla, and the future pope is shown to have been an inspiring figure with a powerful influence on those around him even before he ascended to the seat of St. Peter.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Oxford University Comes to Texas DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:FORT WORTH, Texas — Some jokingly call it “Oxford on Lubbock Avenue,” an ambitious nickname for the Catholic liberal arts college in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.
But partly by design and partly by happenstance, the school of just 55 full-time students has more than one thing in common with its better-known counterpart.
The College of St. Thomas More was the brainchild of a group of parishioners at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Fort Worth who identified the need for adult education opportunities more than 20 years ago.
In 1981, the college started as the St. Thomas More Institute and held classes in living rooms and hospital corridors. By 1985 it had purchased its first property — a 50-foot plot of land across from Texas Christian University — that formed the backbone of the Oxford-style campus. Subsequent years marked the acquisition of adjacent lots that eventually morphed into a quadrangle of mismatched buildings.
“There's no real unity of buildings,” said senior Travis Cooper, “but there is a unity and intimate connection with the whole community.”
Finally the institute was ready for full-time students, although accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools was still several years away.
“In 1987, we decided it was time to have a convocation and announce that we would have classes,” said Dr. James Patrick, an original founder, later the college provost and currently its chancellor. Just eight students attended the college in its early years compared with 55 today. Administrators hope to have up to 120 students in the future.
But the mission of the four-year college remains the same: “The teaching of liberal arts in a way that makes the lives of the fellows [teachers and administrators] and students an adventure in the best of learning that lifts up the heart to truth, makes possible a genuinely good life in this time and place that God has given.”
The college has a single curriculum in liberal arts leading to a bachelor of arts degree. All students take classes in literature, philosophy, theology and classical languages.
During the school year the college has special events such as the Thomas More Lecture on Learning, the Louise Cowan Lecture in Literature and the Cardinal Newman Lecture. Also offered are three overseas programs to Rome, Oxford and Greece.
“The inspiration was to create a place like Oxford in the early 19th century,” said Dean Cassella, the college's provost.
To that end, the college is purposely small and community-centered, with a miniscule teacher-to-student ratio, and classes, called seminars and tutorials, no larger than 16 students. Teachers are called “tutors” or “fellows,” and matriculated (full-time) students must wear Oxford-style scholar's gowns to classes, the chapel and refectory — otherwise known as the dining hall. At other times, students follow a dress code of coats and ties for men and blouses and skirts for women.
The college is also faithful to its original goal of providing adult education to the local community.
Father John Gremmels, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fort Worth, said the school provides a very good education.
“They're very loyal to the magisterium,” he said. “When I have somebody who needs an education on our parish staff, that's where I send [him].”
Father Allen Hawkins takes up an annual collection to benefit the college at his parish, St. Mary the Virgin in Arlington, Texas.
“Their attempt to maintain a great tradition of Catholic scholarship is important,” said Father Hawkins, a former Episcopal priest who converted — with his entire parish — to the Catholic faith 10 years ago. The College of St. Thomas More was a great asset for education, he said, and administrators were unfailingly encouraging and prayerful.
Father Hawkins is also a member of the provost council and an honorary fellow, which lands him in the company of literary luminary Walker Percy.
Literature is the basis for much of the college's curriculum. The college publishes a list of “great books” — different from the “great books” list followed by so many Catholic colleges — that students will read during their four years at the school. It strays from the official great books list by the addition of some works other Catholic colleges would never consider, such as Henri De Lubac's The Drama of Atheist Humanism, an interpretation of the anti-theist philosophical movement. Examining such books from a Catholic perspective in an environment where all fellows pledge to follow Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic colleges and universities, Ex Corde Ec -clesiae, encourages critical thinking, Cassella said.
Besides, Patrick said, “you can't re move people from the world in which they live.”
But you can infuse faith. Ca -tholicism is at the center of the school, even though not all students are Catholic. The brochure describes the Chapel of Christ the Teacher as “the heart of the college.” Students attend daily Mass and frequent perpetual adoration. Mealtime prayers are said in Latin and English, and each night the community gathers for compline (night prayer).
“It's amazing because there's still a sense of unity when it comes to religion,” Cooper said. “Even a lot of the Protestants come to prayer.”
And while the college doesn't have any sports teams or many college-sanctioned clubs, the Fort Worth area has plenty of museums and theaters to keep students occupied on weekends.
And what's keeping administrators occupied is the future growth of the college.
In 10 years they hope to double the student body to 120 and build “an Oxford-style neo-Gothic quadrangle,” Cassella said. Also on the to-do list is adding a graduate institute for the study of history and an expansion of the overseas program in Rome.
Housing on campus is limited, but that doesn't alter the small-community atmosphere.
“It's not just an academic but a personally intensive living environment. Everybody knows everybody else,” Cassella said. “All students and faculty are rather heavily entwined both personally and academically.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A Father Who Longs to Forgive DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:LORD, HAVE MERCY: THE HEALING POWER OF CONFESSION
by Scott Hahn
Doubleday, 2003
208 pages, $19.95
Available in retail and online bookstores
Like many Catholics, I approach the confessional with about the same degree of enthusiasm as I generally muster for the dentist's chair.
It's not that I think I don't need the sacrament. But who enjoys sitting one-on-one with another person and listing all the grievous acts they've recently committed?
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” you might say. “You're only human. Everyone screws up.” That might be true, but, while sin may be inevitable, it is not the way God intended things to be. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) — separation from God. It is out of the desire to repair this rupture that we should allow ourselves to be drawn to the sacrament of reconciliation — even when we feel like staying away. After all, our emotions have been compromised by original, as well as actual, sin.
In Lord, Have Mercy, popular speaker and author Scott Hahn hammers this point home in a warmly personal yet theologically rich way that should have many running for the nearest confessor.
Hahn begins by recounting how, as a teen-ager, he got caught shoplifting. With considerable wile, he managed to convince everyone — including the store detectives, the police and even his own mother — that he'd been coerced into committing the crime. Then his father came home. Faced down by the one person he couldn't fool, Hahn thought he was about to find himself on the receiving end of a rampage. Instead, his father quietly expressed his shame and disappointment. The young Hahn realized that he'd not only grieved his father. He'd also broken his heart.
With that vivid anecdote, Hahn introduces an in-depth discussion of God as a loving Father whose heart breaks every time our sin rends our relationship with him — yet who, through the confessional, always provides us with a gentle way back.
Following the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Hahn outlines the basic elements of confession: We must be sorry for our sins, we must confess our sins and we must complete the work of penance or restitution.
“To confess our sins is to accept responsibility for our actions and their consequences,” Hahn writes, “to take the blame squarely on our own shoulders, to admit that the decision to sin was ours alone, and to do all this — as best we can — without excuses, disclaimers or euphemisms.”
Tracing the ways in which the Church's confessional practices have changed through the ages, Hahn takes pains to show that its basic understanding of the sacrament has remained the same. He urges readers to begin the practice of regular penance if they haven't already. And, in three appendices, he gives the rite for reconciliation of individual penitents, acts of contrition and prayers to say before and after the sacrament. Then follows an excellent, thorough examination-of-conscience guide.
“Through confession, we begin to heal,” Hahn writes. “We begin to get our stories straight. We come home through the open door, to resume our place in God's family. We begin to know peace.”
No, confession isn't easy. But let's get over it. The chance to restore our relationship with God, our eternal Father, is well worth a short bout of the squirms. If you're not convinced of that, read Lord, Have Mercy.
Christina Kirsh is the Register's copy and associate news editor.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Christina Kirsh ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Teaching Corps
The program, LU-Choice, is designed to help Catholic schools deal with a shortage of teachers while providing a graduate education and a unique experience of service to students.
Participants must be willing to live in community, share daily chores, meals and prayer, and they must be willing to share the Catholic faith with their students. The teachers will receive a small stipend, but the bulk of their salaries will go to offset tuition.
Publicity's Sake?
Sacred Heart officials called Brady's lawsuit “un found ed” and promised to fight it.
The university also rebutted Brady's insinuation that it punished her for completing her pregnancy, saying the claim had been made for the “sake of publicity.”
New Chief
UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO, March 31 — Mary Lyons, president of the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., has been named San Diego's new president, the university an noun ced. She will replace Alice Hayes, who is retiring after eight years on July 1.
Lyons is a former professor of rhetoric and homiletics at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Flag's Fabric
The editorial agrees with Smith about the war but not with “directing her anger at the American flag” because the flag “represents much more” than the government. It is the emblem of “the sturdy fabric of this country — those [people] who have always been willing to fight for all kinds of freedoms.”
The newspaper also faults the school's administration for making “no attempt to thwart Smith's actions” and for passing up an opportunity to better form students’ understanding of their “right to freedom of expression.”
Woes Mount
The problems for the Jesuits’ Jersey City, N.J., college include an enrollment decline, the unexpected loss of promised state funding and an endowment that has, been depleted by the sagging economy and a need for funds.
Finally, flaws in the college's 20-year-old computer system became too great to ignore when it was realized the system had been inadequately tracking the amount of scholarships and grants the inner-city college had given to its students.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Working Too Much DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Q We have several kids. I stay at home and home school. My husband is very successful but works very long days — and I resent it. Am I wrong to feel this way?
A It begins innocently enough. The newly married couple wants to buy their first home, and then the babies start coming. Res ponsibilities and bills accumulate. The husband says, “I'll work like a dog just for a few years to make ends meet. Then we will be happy and financially secure.” The wife responds, “Okay. You go nuts with the job. I'll pour all my energy and appreciation into the kids.”
Sounds like a win-win situation. But, as time goes on, she pours her heart and soul into the children, while he spends the best part of his energy at work. Anger and hurt ensue. He says: “She doesn't give me credit for how much I bust my chops for this family. At least I'm appreciated at work.” She says: “He doesn't seem to realize that I need adult interaction and that I can't raise these kids all alone. For the little quality time he spends with me — and them — I might as well be a single parent.” The more resentment builds, the harder it gets for either to express heartfelt appreciation for the other's contributions.
So there's the nub of this problem. What's the solution? Here are some tips for turning things around.
Question long work hours.
Be aware that a home is a place of human interactions — a place of self-giving and communion, as Pope John Paul II reminds us. That means it's not enough to be aware of each other's needs; we need to persuasively show our concern.
Don't let your attitude be dictated by your emotions. If you are feeling tired, frustrated or unappreciated, that's no reason to mope or sulk. Even if the other is not giving you want you want, you can prayerfully give them what they need.
Talk about these kinds of problems early and often. Develop the desire to motivate both of you to be attentive to one another's needs and to show appreciation for one another's sacrifices and contributions. Then model those attributes. Ask your husband or wife what would make him or her feel loved and appreciated.
Husbands, schedule family activities right on your palm pilot or your Covey planner. Wives, keep track of the big issues at work, the ones he's clearly excited (or worried) about.
Dad, ask about her day, Robbie's spelling test and Janey's fight with her best friend. Mom, ask him how the important meeting went. Both of you: Commit to mutual acceptance even if you haven't yet come to agreement on some specific matter. Go out of your way to be a part of the “other” world he or she inhabits, no matter how uninteresting you find the details. You can work on the issues that divide you over time; you must begin every exchange by showing honor, respect, acceptance and appreciation.
I take it as an act of faith that God wants us to use our talents to do excellent work. I'm equally certain he wants us to do a great job with our family.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Spend Holy Week With Christ DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Perhaps Lent 2003 went well for us, a profound time of confronting weaknesses out of love for the Lord. Or may be it went rather poorly, and in fact was kind of forgotten in all the news of the war and the busyness of life. Either way, there is still time to intensify the experience, to take advantage of the opportunity the Church gives us to grow closer to Christ.
The liturgies of the Church throughout Holy Week are the pre-eminent way to do so. They will provide the “meat” of the week's spiritual experience. Here are some ways to enhance what we'll be hearing.
Palm Sunday
“Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, or ‘Passion Sunday,’ which unites the royal splen dor of Christ with the proclamation of his pa ssion,” says the Vati can's Directory on Pop ular Piety and the Liturgy (No. 138).“Palms and olive branches are kept in the home as a witness to faith in Jesus Christ, the messianic king, and in his paschal victory.”
One nice custom is to weave those palms into a basket — on Easter Sunday it will hold painted eggs for your table's centerpiece.
Holy Thursday
Lent ends officially with the beginning of the “Easter Triduum” at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday.
Some like to have a special dinner that night to ease the transition to the fast and abstinence of Good Friday, a sort of modified Passover dinner: lamb, rice pilaf, a raw vegetable plate, matzo bread and haroset salad (9 tart apples, peeled and chopped, 3/4 cup chopped walnuts. 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 3 tablespoons honey, 1/3 cup sweet red wine. Mix well, serves six). Appropriate psalms for the occasion: Psalm 113, 114, 118.
Two things are important to note: This should be considered a way of introducing one's family to the customs of Jesus’ time in a very general way, not as a Seder meal per se, since the Seder meal is an important and sa cred Jewish ritual that we should not make light of. Second, in the Catholic Church, such a meal should not in ter fere with our availability for Holy Thursday Mass, which is far more important.
Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament — available until midnight in many churches — is the best way to end Holy Thursday. “Be cause of a long historical process, whose origins are not entirely clear,” says the Directory of Popular Piety (No. 141), “the place of repose has traditionally been referred to as a ‘a holy sepulcher.’ The faithful go there to venerate Jesus who was placed in a tomb following the crucifixion and in which he remained for some 40 hours.”
Good Friday
The “Easter Fast” that many begin after Holy Thursday Mass is obligatory on Good Friday.
Regulations for Fast and Abstinence: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are days of both fast and abstinence from meat. Fast binds all over the age of 21 and under the age of 59. On days of fast, one full meal is allowed. Two other meals sufficient to maintain strength may be taken according to each one's needs, but together they should not equal another full meal. Eating in between meals is not permitted, but liquids, including milk and juices, are allowed. When health or ability to work would be seriously affected, the law does not oblige.
The making and eating of hot cross buns on this day of mourning is a very old tradition, dating from before 1225. The superstitions surrounding the practice aren't helpful (like the one that causes some people to save one hot cross bun on their mantelpiece for a year's worth of good baking), but there are some very nice legends and stories to share on this day:
Robin Redbreast
Legend has it that the robin tried to remove the bloody thorns from Christ's head at the crucifixion. Christ's blood fell on the bird and he has worn a red breast as a badge of honor since.
The Dogwood Legend
An old legend has that at the time of the crucifixion, the dogwood was comparable in size to the oak tree. Because of its firmness and strength it was selected for the cross. The crucified Jesus in his gentle pity for the sorrow and suffering of all said to it, “Because of your sorrow and pity for my sufferings, never again will the dogwood tree grow large enough to be used as a cross. Henceforth it will be slender, bent and twisted, and its blossoms will be in the form of a cross, two long and two short petals. In the center of the outer edge of each petal there will be nail prints, brown with rust and stained with red, and in the center of the flower will be a crown of thorns, and all who see this will remember.”
Mass isn't offered on Good Friday; but a Communion service and veneration of the cross is. When possible, Catholics take a break from work between the hours of noon and 3 p.m., the time Christ spent on the cross. This is also prime time to participate in the Stations of the Cross.
Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday is an empty time of waiting. No Mass is offered, not even a Communion service like Good Friday's. It isn't an official fasting day, but many Ca -tholics eat modestly this day as we wait to celebrate the Resurrection.
The Office of Readings offers an ancient homily called “The Lord Descends Into Hell” this day. Here is an excerpt:
“Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
“He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep.
Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ Christ answered him: ‘And with your spirit.’ He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'"
The entire reading can be found at: www.petersnet. net/browse/119 .htm
It's a lovely way to prepare for Easter ... the greatest feast of the Church, which we'll write about next week.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Register Staff ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Other Half in Unplanned Pregnancy: Dad DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:When 17-year-old Ashley Tomlinson learned she was pregnant, she found little support among family and friends.
“My mother didn't want me to follow in her footsteps. She wanted me to get an abortion and told me I was ruining my life,” says Tomlinson. “My father, on the other hand, told me he would disown me if I had an abortion.”
And then there was Ashley's boyfriend — the father of her baby. He already had other children and didn't want another. He, too, urged her to abort the child.
“At first I wanted to have an abortion in order to keep my boyfriend,” says Tomlinson. “Later, I realized that this was my baby and that my boyfriend wouldn't be there for the long run. I knew that, if I had an abortion, he wouldn't be there to comfort me afterward.”
Family members’ responses to news of an unplanned pregnancy are always hard to predict, but most unwed young fathers can be counted on to respond just as Tom -linson's boyfriend did. It's guys like them that the Men of Birthline have in mind.
The new program, an initiative of Birthline, a central Minnesota crisis-pregnancy center, reaches out to men facing the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy.
Birthline views its men's outreach program as a natural progression of its work with women. “We have been assisting women facing unplanned pregnancies for 30 years,” explains executive director Linda Allen, who adds that assistance to men has traditionally been limited to offering written information about conception, abstinence and a father's legal rights and responsibilities. “Typically, the men have either stayed in their cars outside,” says Allen, “or waited in the waiting room alone as women are being tested and counseled.”
Through the Men of Birthline program, trained male volunteers offer to meet with any male who comes into Birthline's office or calls the center's 24-hour information line.
The volunteer counselors say they get as much out of the program as the men who seek out its services. For mortgage broker Greg Medvec, the program was an answer to prayer. “I had been praying for volunteer work along these lines and I received a call from my brother's wife telling me about the program at Birthline,” recalls Medvec.
To date, Medvec has met with seven male clients. He admits that he spends the majority of his time just listening. “Each of the men has needed male leadership,” he says. “They frequently seek information regarding assistance programs for their girlfriends. My most recent client inquired about adoption.”
Allen says the program grew out of a growing awareness that young men in crisis-pregnancy situations often seemed as open to assistance as their girlfriends. “The vast [majority] of people we serve come from fatherless homes,” says Allen. “It's probably been an injustice that we haven't served men in the past. The program grew out of our desire to serve that population.”
Last spring, with that desire in mind, Birthline brought together a group of approximately 20 interested male volunteers for a brainstorming session. The pieces fell into place quickly from there, says Allen. Training sessions were conducted in June; a dozen men became volunteer counselors.
Deacon Mike Medley of St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Maple Lake, Minn., is among them.
“A couple of years ago a student in town became pregnant and it was brought to my attention,” he says. “She ended up having an abortion. Because of that, I felt compelled to do some pro-life work.” Last spring, Deacon Medley accepted an invitation from Birthline to join the program.
So far, Medley has counseled eight men — every one of them, he says, committed to welcoming the birth of their child.
“At first they are a little puzzled when we invite them to meet with us,” says Deacon Medley. “Once they get comfortable, they talk about everything from sports to work to their lifestyle. We do a lot of listening.” Once the session is complete, the male counselor shares his telephone number in case the young man wants to meet again.
Deacon Medley put an ad in his church bulletin and recruited another gentleman to go through volunteer training.
And so it has gone for a full year now since that first brainstorming session: The more people hear about the Men of Birthline, the more interest translates into action.
Man Talk
The Men of Birthline program flies in the face of the myth that men don't like to talk.
“Oftentimes, when a couple is going through a difficult decision, the man's tendency will be to withdraw from the situation and not talk about it,” explains Allen. “On the other hand, the woman wants to know what he's thinking and she becomes more smothering. It makes the relationship a challenge. The man is trying to come to terms with the situation but isn't ready to verbalize his feelings.”
Getting men to express their thoughts and feelings about their crisis pregnancy — that's the primary goal of the Men of Birthline. “When you can open men up to the idea that it's fine for them to have these feelings and that it's okay to express them, the couples will share,” adds Allen.
“On many occasions, the men have come right out and said, 'This was great. I had a good time talking with you,'” says Deacon Medley. “In one case there were even some tears of tenderness.”
High school senior Brandon Porter is one recent appreciative client. Last spring, he and his girlfriend, Sarah, learned they were pregnant. Brandon wanted to be involved in the life of the child, but Sarah broke off the relationship. This left Porter uncertain about what to do and where to turn.
Brandon and his father, Don, visited Birthline to speak with one of its male counselors.
“The counselor went out of his way, in the middle of the day, to meet with us on the spur of the moment,” says Don. “The counselor gave us information on a father's rights, steered us in the right direction and set my son up with a mentor to whom he could relate.”
Of the counseling, Don says, “It was very helpful. The counselor has called us back at least three times to check on how we're doing.”
To date the Men of Birthline has counseled more than 30 men.
“The guys who are coming here are saying, ‘I didn't realize that there was someone who cared about me, too,'” says Allen.
Medvec recalls one of his clients giving him a hug. “Thanks,” the young man told him, “for being the dad I never had.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 04/13/2003 12.00.00 P.M. CATEGORY: April 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Aussies for Adult Stem Cells
ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY, March 25 — The Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia, has awarded a $50,000 research grant to Griffith University, which is to use the funds to study adult stem cells.
Specifically, Prof. Alan MackaySim's research team is looking into therapies using stem cells extracted from patients’ nasal lining to replace those lost to Parkinson's disease.
The archdiocese says on its Web site that it selected Mackay-Sim's team from among several applicants because its project “is of first-class scientific merit, markedly original and has good long-term therapeutic possibilities.”
Arkansas Bans All Cloning
The statewide measure passed the Democrat-controlled House by an 88-5 vote and the Democrat-controlled Senate by a vote of 34-0, according to the Times. The bill was patterned after national legislation sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
Source for Adult Stem Cells
Twenty-five scientists in Ottawa and seven other Canadian cities hope to train stem cells from diverse parts of the body to travel to the brain's injured area, form themselves into brain cells, connect with other neurons — and actually think, reports the Ottawa daily.
At the University of Calgary, the progress has already begun. Rats have grown back working brain cells — and regained the ability to move their legs — after suffering brain damage similar to that caused by a stroke.
No to Taiwanese Euthanasia
In a public hearing before that country's legislature, the physicians suggested that hospice care be provided for terminally ill patients until death occurs naturally.
The hearing, convened to explore the feasibility of assisted death, was held by the Judiciary Committee of the Legislative Yuan. It came about in response to a leukemia patient, Chang Chien-chih, who appealed earlier to the legislature for the legalization of euthanasia.
Liao Yi-lin, a member of the Taiwan Medical Association, said that euthanasia runs against the principles of “self-determination, no-harm and good deeds.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culyure of Life -------- TITLE: Abortion Push Starts in Postwar Iraq DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — As attention in Iraq begins to shift from war to rebuilding, some Catholic leaders wonder what kind of society the United States and United Nations want to create there.
In the past, institutions such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.N. Population Fund have promoted family planning, including abortion. Such promotion could result in a backlash among the traditional Christians and Muslims of Iraq, some observers say.
“I know that wherever [the U.N. Population Fund] goes, contraception and abortion follow,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, an organization that lobbies the United Nations full time regarding pro-life issues.
In fact, Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has already issued a statement saying, “If we are fighting for freedom in Iraq, then most surely that freedom should extend to women globally and in the United States. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom of reproductive self-determination … Reproductive health care is an essential part of any health care package — to address sexual violence, HIV prevention, maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, and to provide basic reproductive health services,” meaning abortion.
If aid workers do not promote contraception and abortion in Iraq, said Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, “[I]t will be the exception to the rule. We were in the face of the Iranians in the '70s trying to force family planning on the shah, and that was one of the things that gave support to the ayatollah.”
Right now, Mosher said, family planning materials — contraception, abortion devices or sex education — are not being sent into Iraq.
However, “it's early,” Mosher said.
USAID official Alfonso Aguilar confirmed that so far, his organization is not promoting family planning in Iraq.
“Right now, we are working to restore basic health services,” he said.
But as for the future, he said, “I wouldn't venture to say.”
USAID's Request for Programs for Iraq, an application provided to groups that want U.S. funding to aid Iraqis, includes a section for “Family Planning and Population Assistance Activities.”
Since the Bush administration came into office, political appointees at USAID have reoriented the agency.
“USAID's HIV/AIDS programs now focus on promoting abstinence and delaying the onset of sexual activity and, when appropriate, the use of condoms,” wrote Dr. Anne Peterson, USAID assistant administrator for global health, in the Washington Times on April 6. “In Uganda, where HIV prevalence rates have gone from 15% to 5%, USAID's analysis has shown that abstinence education and the involvement of faith-based organizations have been among the keys to reducing infection levels.”
“It's called ABC,” Aguilar said. “Abstinence, behavioral change, condoms if and when necessary.”
He said USAID is committed to the Mexico City policy reinstituted by Bush, which forbids foreign aid money for abortion, but admitted groups that promote abortion could get American money for their other programs.
The Population Research Institute reported Aug. 14 that Afghan women its associates interviewed told some disturbing stories.
“Many of the women interviewed had just returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan,” it said. “They reported abortion campaigns led by United Nations-funded aid organizations operating inside refugee camps. … A high percentage of the women returning from Pakistan — 25% — reported that they had been subjected to abortion or sterilization procedures while in refugee camps there. … Not one woman stated that abortion or contraception services were wanted or needed, indicating a strong likelihood that abortions performed in Pakistan refugee camps were done without adequate informed consent.”
Mosher said the U.N. Population Fund has “mobile obstetrics units in Iraq.”
Ruse noted the organization's refugee kits contain the “morning-after pill,” which can cause abortions, as well as an abortion device, the manual vacuum aspirator. U.N. Population Fund officials have long claimed the aspirators are used to complete botched abortions only.
Geraldine Hemmings, director of communications for Aid to the Church in Need, said her organization is helping Iraqis regardless of religion.
“We think it's very important to support and uphold organizations that conform to the Church's teachings,” she said.
She said promotion of activities “destructive of society itself” such as family planning would anger both Christians and Muslims in the country.
“People on all sides are going to be very upset,” she said. Aid groups active in Bosnia promoted family planning there, she said, “a year or two after the conflict.”
Walten Mirza, president of the Assyrian Church of St. George in Chicago who left Iraq 25 years ago, said many Christians and Muslims in Iraq would accept contraception but not abortion. But “Muslims in rural areas might be very angry over contraception,” he said.
Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Chaldean Diocese of St. Thomas the Apostle in Southfield, Mich., said the Iraqi people would not accept abortion. “Christians are against these things and the Muslims are against them, too,” he said.
Beyond family planning and abortion, some Catholics worry other negative attitudes now so prominent in the West with the decline of Christianity could be foisted on Iraq. Pope John Paul II in his World Day of Peace Message on Jan. 1, 2001, said Western models “detached from their Christian origins” and are “often inspired by an approach to life marked by secularism and practical atheism and by patterns of radical individualism.”
Though the State Department had been handling a “Future of Iraq” project, on Jan. 20, Bush issued an executive order establishing an Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance headed by retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner at the Pentagon. This office could set policies on large cultural issues.
“We would like to see the Pentagon handle the reconstruction and not the State Department,” Ruse said approvingly.
The Pentagon did not respond to the Register's request to learn about the office's Iraq plans.
Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, on Feb. 11 outlined the administration's priorities in reconstructing Iraq before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“First, we will demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to the world that the United States wants to liberate Iraq, not to occupy,” he said. “Second, we must eliminate Iraq's chemical and biological weapons [and] its nuclear program. … Third, we must also eliminate Iraq's terrorist infrastructure and its ties to terrorism. Fourth, [we must] support and safeguard the territorial integrity of Iraq. … [The] United States does not support Iraq's disintegration. And fifth, to begin the process of economic and political reconstruction, working to put Iraq on a path to become prosperous and free.”
Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Hopes For Peace In City of Easter DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM — Many Israelis and Palestinians believe that, after the ousting of Saddam Hussein's regime from Iraq, world attention will shift to solving their conflict.
Christians here also find hope in Easter.
Peace promoter Rev. Andrew White says that during the darker moments, when death seems to hover over the Middle East like the stifling sharav winds that stir up the sand until it chokes and blinds, he relies on his Christian faith for comfort.
“From a Christian point of view the very concept of death and resurrection means that no situation is hopeless and out of death can always come life and new birth,” White said. “Jerusalem is the city of resurrection and therefore the city of hope.”
Palestinians, including local Christians, are particularly eager for negotiations to begin on the “road map,” the peace plan drafted almost one year ago by the “Quartet” — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.
Among other things, the initiative calls for a cessation of violence as well as an end to the expansion of existing Jewish settlements or the creation of new ones. Stalled several times, the plan is still in its initial stages.
The Bush administration is expected to publish details of the road map once the Palestinian legislature confirms a new government under the leadership of Abu Mazen, the newly appointed Palestinian prime minister. The international community views Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, as a corrupt and ineffective leader who lacks the will to make peace.
The peace plan is already encountering fierce opposition from the right-wing Likud Party in Israel, which officially opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and Palestinian demands for repatriation of refugees.
Even many dovish Israelis who support Palestinian statehood dismiss the notion of a Palestinian “right of return” to Israel, believing it will undermine Israel's Jewish majority. Why create a Palestinian state, they argue, if it is not prepared to accept the refugees?
On numerous occasions Pope John Paul II has called on Israel and its Arab neighbors to end their disputes through negotiations, not violence.
In his annual Peace Day message last December, the Holy Father noted “day after day, year after year, the cumulative effect of bitter mutual rejection and an unending chain of violence and retaliation have shattered every effort so far to engage in serious dialogue.”
Without specifically referring to the “road map,” the Pope called for a “revolution” in political thinking by leaders in the region.
Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and a Palestinian nationalist, has been particularly vocal in his support of a negotiated end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In an April 11 speech celebrating the 40th anniversary of Pope John XXIII's encyclical on peace, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), Patriarch Sabbah called for “the legitimate use of political authority” to solve the Palestinian-Israeli deadlock.
Rabbi David Rosen, an expert in Israeli-Church relations at the American Jewish Committee in Jerusalem, predicted the United States and Great Britain will pressure Palestinians and Israelis to return to the negotiating table “in order to demonstrate positive dividends” to an Arab world that has been hostile to the war in Iraq.
“Britain and the United States will conclude that it is in their essential strategic interests to move the Israeli-Palestinian track ahead,” even if the conditions are not to either side's liking, Rosen said.
Gerald Steinberg, director of the Conflict Resolution Program at BarIlan University, said it will take much more than a piece of paper to convince Israel the Palestinians truly want peace.
“The peace process has been dead for three years, murdered by Palestinian terrorists, and the road map will not change the situation in the foreseeable future,” Steinberg said.
In order to restore even minimal Israeli confidence, Steinberg continued, “there must be a total change of Palestinian regime. As long as Arafat is in any kind of control and the Arabs cling to the 1947 myths calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, then there is no real peace process.”
Even the appointment of a Palestinian prime minister means very little, Steinberg asserted.
“There is no evidence yet that Abu Mazen and a new Palestinian government can move away from the rhetoric of hatred and the support of terrorism,” he said.
Rosen charged that while the Holy See has repeatedly and unequivocally denounced terrorism, local Catholic leaders sometimes justify terrorism by blaming the Israeli occupation.
Patriarch Sabbah said in his April 11 speech, “the evil of our times is terrorism, and indeed terrorism must be condemned and fought. However, all our efforts in this struggle will not end terrorism if we do not address its root causes …”
Rosen believes the Vatican can play a role in getting the peace process back on track.
“It can do so by taking an even more proactive role against terrorism, which is the source of the vicious cycle of violence,” he said.
Doing so, Rosen said, “might bring it into conflict with the local Church, which is Palestinian and therefore under great pressure to prove its ‘loyalty’ to the Palestinian national cause.”
“It was terrorism that torpedoed the peace process and the peace process can only get back on course if we can curb terrorism,” Rosen said.
Britain's Canon Andrew White, the man who is spearheading the Alexandria Process — a parallel peace initiative led by religious leaders of various faiths — provided a somewhat more upbeat assessment of the prospects for peace.
“This is a three-year plan that, had it stayed on schedule, would be completed in May 2005,” he said.
As it is, White said, “the Palestinians have already met some of the demands. They appointed a prime minister with real power; they have introduced the draft of a new constitution.”
White said neither side has done enough to curb violence or meet their obligations under previous peace treaties.
“The Palestinians must do everything in their power to stop terrorism and the Israelis must stop incursions [into Palestinian territory] and house demolitions,” he said. “They must do everything in their power to end the humanitarian crisis.”
White believes religious leaders, including Catholic clergy, can and should play a vital role in ending the Israeli-Arab conflict once and for all.
“Religious leaders can contribute the spiritual dimension,” he said. “They have to show unity in what they do. They must show that they understand the pain of the others. They have to be willing to defend the others against attack.”
The Oslo accord that was supposed to bring the two sides together “failed in part because it was a secular process led by secular leaders in a land that is called holy,” White said. “The reality is that in Israel-Palestine there is no real separation between church and state. We need to bring a religious dimension back in and to ensure that religion is never a justification for violence.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Military Families' Prayer: May They Rise Again DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:An Easter card in the mail from a father who died after he sent it.
A fallen Marine who once told his mother that her prayers allowed him to become a Marine.
The image of a family praying the rosary at the family altar for the soul of a son who died for America before gaining U.S. citizenship.
These are just some of the mementos Catholic families have to remember their sons and daughters killed in Iraq.
To date, there have been at least 133 confirmed coalition deaths in the U.S.-led war with Iraq. To the families of the lost soldiers, however, they are far more than a number. Crystal and Gabriel Garibay lost a brother. Mark and Nicole Beaupre and Nancy Chamberlain lost their sons. Amanda Jordan lost her husband, and 6-year-old Tyler lost his father.
We take the opportunity of this Easter issue of the Register to remember some of those who died for the United States in Iraq.
Pope John Paul II once prayed for soldiers' souls in a prayer appropriate for Easter:
“I would like to raise my prayer to the Lord for your many colleagues who have died in these years during various missions of peace and in the defense of law and order. May their sacrifice not have been in vain! May their hidden and silent witness be an encouragement to everyone not to be resigned to injustice but to conquer evil with good! May God welcome them into his Kingdom of peace and grant serenity and comfort to their families and to all their loved ones.”
The Faithful Fallen
Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin: ‘It Was Like One of Your Prayers Had Jumped in my Eye’
Nancy Chamberlain lost her son, Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, in Kuwait in an accidental helicopter crash March 21.
Aubin was assigned to the Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing based in Yuma, Ariz. Aubin was 36. He is survived by his wife, Rhonda, and two children, Alicia, 11, and Nathan, 8.
“We didn't have the money to send him to college, so Jay decided to enter the Marines right after high school,” his mother said. “There, he met his wife, and it was the beginning of his career.”
Although he had grown up Catholic and was an altar server, Chamberlain said her son had fallen away from the practice of his faith after high school.
“He married outside of the Church,” she said.
The power of prayer, however, brought him back.
After the military, Aubin put himself through college and then re-entered the Marines.
“He loved the military life and always wanted to fly,” Chamberlain said. “Yet he had failed a critical eye exam three or four times. That's when he asked for my prayers and all of our prayers.”
“When he eventually passed the eye exam it was a real turning point for him spiritually,” Chamberlain said. “He told me, ‘It was like one of your prayers had jumped in my eye that morning.’ The exam was critical for his becoming a pilot.”
After that, Jay and Rhonda had their marriage blessed, their children baptized, their daughter received first Communion and they enrolled the children in their local Catholic school. Aubin was also a member of the Knights of Columbus.
“The officer that accompanied Jay home told me that Jay had seen a posting for Mass and was able to receive Communion three days before he died,” Chamberlain said.
“Jay didn't tell us a lot about his achievements,” she recalled, “but since his death we've learned a lot more about him.”
Chamberlain said when the base held Marine Corps balls Jay would sign out a vehicle to bring his friends home.
“He wanted them to have a good time but didn't want them to get into trouble,” Chamberlain said.
One of Aubin's friends told her, “We have to be careful around Jay. If we told him we were going to do something on Saturday, he would be there to help us. He scrubbed floors with the rest of the troops.”
“Jay refused to have drinking parties,” Chamberlain added. “He was willing to go against the crowd.”
A memorial Mass for Aubin was held at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Winslow, Maine, followed by a funeral in San Diego on April 2.
Chamberlain said the thing she will miss most about her son is that “he was a colleague and shared my faith. He was my son, but he was also my friend,” she said.
Chamberlain has a photograph of her son that is precious to her. The photo shows Aubin's helicopter in Timor in front of a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with his arms open in invitation.
“To see my son's helicopter in front of that statue,” she said, “is just amazing.”
Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay's Sister: ‘His Country Was Mexico; Also the U.S.’
U.S. Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, 21, fought and died for the United States despite the fact that he was not yet a U.S. citizen. Born in Los Tecomates, Jalisco, Mexico, his family moved to Costa Mesa, Calif., when he was still a baby.
Garibay played football and graduated from Newport Harbor High School. He enjoyed both American rock ‘n’ roll and Mexican ranchera music. In his last letter, which arrived March 11, he asked his mother, Simona, for a package of his favorite Mexican candies and a CD of popular ranchera singer Vicente Fernandez. He received neither.
A mortar man stationed at Camp Shoup with the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, Garibay was one of several Marines killed in action near An Nasiriyah on March 23 when they were ambushed by Iraqis pretending to surrender. Simona and her other two children received the news from three uniformed Marine officials at 7 a.m. March 24. That evening the family gathered around a small altar in the living room of her modest ranch home to pray the rosary. Jose's picture sits atop the home altar surrounded by roses and four candles, beneath an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The family is planning a service at St. Joachim Catholic Church, where Garibay made his first Communion in 1994.
“He was just a Mexican,” said Urbano Garibay, Jose's uncle. “But he did something for this country, which is now my country, too.” “For him, his country was Mexico but also the United States,” said Crystal Garibay, Jose's sister. “He grew up here, and he said this country had given him everything.”
On April 2, the United States gave him one last thing. With the help of family and fellow Marines, Garibay became an American citizen. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services posthumously honored Garibay with U.S. citizenship.
“[He] died fighting for this country,” Marine Maj. Brian Dolan told the Orange County Register, “so I certainly think it is warranted that [he] gain citizenship and is buried as an American citizen.”
— Tim Drake
Marine Capt. Ryan Beaupre's Father: ‘He Was Very Worried About Iraqi Civilians’
Mark and Nicole Beaupre lost one of their two sons, Marine Capt. Ryan Beaupre, on March 21, the second day of fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“He was an all-American boy,” Mark Beaupre told the Register.
After graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University, Ryan worked for State Farm Insurance for a year.
“He felt that there was more that he could do with his life and for his country. He has always wanted to fly,” Mark recalled.
So Ryan joined the Marines in 1995 and earned his pilot's wings in 1999. Beaupre was assigned to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Ryan was to have been the best man at his younger brother's wedding in November.
Ryan was killed along with 11 other soldiers when his CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed in the Kuwaiti desert amid a fierce sandstorm. He was 30.
Ryan's faith, his father said, was very important to him. Ryan was baptized, received first Communion and was confirmed at the family's church, St. Anne's Catholic Church in St. Anne, Ill., where Mark serves on the parish council.
“Ryan attended church weekly,” Mark said. “He was very ecumenical. He had friends who were rabbis and Protestant ministers.”
“Whenever we would visit Ryan at Camp Pendleton, he would take us to an old mission church in San Bernardino that he attended with one of his friends,” Mark recalled.
Ryan's father painted a picture of a selfless son who loved his family. One of his sisters gave birth to twin girls on March 3.
“We sent a picture to Ryan right away,” Mark said. “The Marine who escorted Ryan's body back home said that Ryan had been going all around the base encampment showing everyone the picture of his new nieces.”
Since Ryan's deployment, his parents had received several letters, including three following Ryan's death.
“He was very worried about the Iraqi civilians,” Mark said, “because our weapons are so strong.”
“Ryan was an extremely joyful person,” said Father James Fanale, pastor at St. Anne's. “He was the kind of kid that when he came home, he would visit every single relative and friend. People loved to see him. He was just a kind of ray of light, a ray of sunshine.”
His parents had not spoken with Ryan via telephone prior to his death.
“He would always let the guys with wives and children use the telephone first,” Mark said.
The majority of the small town's 1,300 residents attended the April 3 funeral. The parish's Sodality of St. Anne held a potluck luncheon and the Knights of Columbus purchased chicken. The parish has six members serving in the Gulf.
“He was their son, too,” said Mark, choking back tears. “I'm going to miss his smile.”
— Tim Drake
Staff Sgt. Phillip Jordan: ‘What Will I Tell My Son?’
Amanda Jordan lost her husband of nine years on March 23.
Marine Staff Sgt. Phillip Jordan had fought in Operation Desert Storm, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Jordan, a member of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, perished in Iraq when he was ambushed by soldiers pretending to surrender. He was 42. He is survived by his wife, Amanda, and their 6- year-old son, Tyler.
“They're saying he was killed in action,” Amanda Jordan told ABC News, “but for me, it's really murder.”
Originally from Houston, Phillip Jordan joined the Marines 15 years ago as a private and worked his way through the ranks to become a gunnery sergeant. Just prior to being shipped out, he had been promoted to staff sergeant.
Amanda met Phillip while he was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Phillip moonlighted as a bouncer, and Amanda used to flirt with him so he would let her into the club. The couple moved to Enfield, Conn., before he deployed so Amanda could be closer to her family.
The couple had just celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary on March 19.
“He always remembered our anniversaries — flowers and everything,” Amanda said. Phillip called his wife on March 13 to wish her a happy anniversary because he knew that he would be in combat on the 19th.
A funeral was held at Holy Family Catholic Church in Enfield on April 2.
Amanda said she had received an Easter card in the mail. She knows that an anniversary card is also on the way.
“I want to get the mail,” she said, “but I don't want to get the mail.”
She said that Tyler and his father were the best of friends. Since learning of his father's death, Tyler has been wearing his favorite green and brown camouflage shirt.
Amanda said she was still trying to decide what to tell Tyler when the last letter arrives.
“What am I going to tell my son?” she asked. “That the letter came from heaven?”
— Tim Drake
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican, Relieved As War Ends, Asks What Now? DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — When Baghdad fell — most spectacularly in the statue of Saddam Hussein — on April 9 the attention of the Holy See shifted immediately to the work of reconstruction, with one leading cardinal giving thanks that the war went well.
“It's a relief; naturally we are all happy,” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said. “It could have gone badly, and it was never possible to foresee what would happen, given that with chemical weapons, everything was possible. We thank the Lord; it seems that all went well.”
At his general audience on April 9, Pope John Paul II referred to the Iraq war only in passing and focused instead on recent massacres and summary executions in Congo and central Africa. Developments were moving too fast for the papal speechwriters to keep pace.
The volume of statements about the war — a veritable prewar flood from many sources, even including retired bishops — slowed to a trickle during the three-week military campaign. As soon as the war began, the Secretariat of State issued an order that no one was to speak on the war without prior approval and applied the silencing order even to heads of Vatican departments — an unusual move. Vatican Radio was also told not to interview curial figures.
Off-the-record sources told the Register there was concern the carefully crafted papal statements were being over-whelmed by a torrent of commentary from other officials taking much more strident positions.
So it was the case that the only statements on April 9 were from Cardinal Ratzinger speaking at a long-planned conference on political ethics at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
“We thank God that everything went as it did; it could have been different,” he added, referring to the relatively low number of casualties. “Today's weapons are able to destroy many innocents, as often happens. We hope that everything can be limited.”
In fact, that very same morning, the Holy See's “foreign minister,” Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, received John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control — the highest-ranking American official to visit the Vatican since the war began.
“Regarding the Iraq crisis, Mr. Bolton repeated the duty of his government to respect the ius in bello,” said papal spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls, referring to the just-war requirement that wars be prosecuted with maximum care to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants.
Yet even as that meeting was going on, attention was turning
from the prosecution of the war to post-Saddam questions. Given the bitterness of some of the prewar rhetoric, there was a clear desire not to revisit those debates but to focus on the future.
“It is important that the reconstruction of Iraq not be the work of one power but of nations; it is a common responsibility of us all for this tormented country,” Cardinal Ratzinger said.
The following day the official Holy See position was communicated in a brief unsigned statement from the Secretariat of State, which considered the events in Baghdad to be a “turning point in the Iraq conflict.”
Taking a slightly different line than before war, the Secretariat of State spoke of the current moment as “a significant opportunity for the future of the [Iraqi] people” — a suggestion the Holy See welcomed the fall of Saddam.
A quick end to the fighting in other parts of Iraq was hoped for, followed by an offer that the Catholic Church is ready to assist with the “material, political and social reconstruction of the country … through her social and charitable institutions.” In particular, the Vatican indicated that “the dioceses of Iraq are likewise available to offer their structures to contribute to an equitable distribution of humanitarian aid.”
Notable, given that the statement was issued the day before the Russian-German-French summit in Moscow, no mention was made of who should be responsible for the reconstruction of Iraq. While the general foreign policy approach of the Holy See would favor a U.N. solution as opposed to an American-British solution, the decision not to enter that debate possibly indicated a greater reserve on the part of the Holy See in the postwar debates. For now, only a general exhortation for cooperation was issued.
“The Secretariat of State hopes once again that, with the silencing of weapons,” the statement said, “the Iraqis and the international community will know how to meet the compelling present challenge which is to definitively bring an era of peace to the Middle East.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Laid-Back Buddhist to Catholic on a Mission DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Today, Davison is executive director of Catholic World Mission, an apostolate designed to transform Third World poverty, particularly in Latin America, through long-term, Gospel-based assistance rather than quick-fix approaches. The former Air Force officer and marketing executive spoke with Register correspondent Ellen Rossini about his personal transformation.
What were the spiritual influences in your early life?
I grew up in a Methodist family in North Dakota and it was always a very happy family. We went to church every Sunday, and my mother would read Bible stories to us as bedtime stories. We didn't miss church for any reason, always prayed before the meals and ate as a family together at least two times a day.
When I was 6 years old, my mother's mother died. I remember praying and just wondering how this all fit, what really happens when you die and knowing you're supposed to go to heaven. From that time on it was just the basics of Christianity, and I didn't really confront them or think about them too much. It was just a given in my life.
You lost your faith in college. How did you regain it?
I still felt Christianity was important until my senior year, when I took a “Great Religions of the World” course. The professor was very good at presenting the various religions as kind of historical time periods. So first you have all these Eastern religions that he would present as philosophies. He would always present them very sympathetically and then at the end point out all the problems and difficulties. When it came time for Christianity, he began by saying, “Here are the inconsistencies.” For example, this idea of one God. Let's go back to the beginning in Genesis: “Let us make man in our image.” So, the professor said, this whole idea of one God at the beginning is just a misunderstanding, a misreading. He would show various things in the Bible that were inconsistent with the Christian idea — human sacrifices, this sort of thing.
At that point I was “cured” of my Christianity. I went off to grad school at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and I carried with me this new Eastern religion.
How did this new belief system work out for you?
Now that I look back, what is so attractive about [Eastern philosophy] is there is no moral demand made upon you. You can create your own religion, your own personal path to God, whatever fits your personality. It was nice, because I didn't really have to do anything. There isn't any life after death, there's just this great spiritual consciousness that we're either more or less in touch with.
There were a number of my friends [at Oxford] that were studying to be priests, and other friends who were Catholic, and we'd have discussions.
One time a friend said, “So if this is all there is, and you’re telling me that Buddha tells us that life is suffering, and we need to minimize suffering, you're saying we need to minimize life. That doesn't make any sense.” As he was leaving, he said, “The thing I don't understand is how you could possibly live really believing this.” Both of those phrases really stuck in my mind.
Yet that wasn't enough to bring you back to Christianity. What led you back?
When I got married, my wife was Catholic, but she was not really practicing. Every once in awhile she'd go to Mass. We had discussions — and they were not good discussions — about religion, but we could always just drop it. When our first child was born, we got her baptized, and I had a little difficulty with that. But again I just rationalized — it's just a ritual, it's meaningless. My wife didn't really understand [baptism], but she felt she should [do it]. I said fine, there's no harm done.
Then when it reached the point that we had to decide how to educate our daughter, we came under the influence of some Baptist home schoolers nearby. My wife became more and more friends with these people, and they of course wanted to evangelize us.
They were very nice, very sincere and very open with their beliefs and their faith in a very friendly, attractive manner. So one evening they invited us to their church to a presentation being made by a scientist, a biologist.
This man, as an atheist and anti-Christian, had set out to prove that the whole basis of Christianity is false — you have no real sources, the sources don't make sense, they're contradictory, it's all based on an illusion. So he basically started from a historical perspective — you take a look at the number of sources you have, how close they are to the time of the events they're recording, do they contradict each other, how consistent are they, the error rate, and then you can determine whether they're reliable or not.
What did he find out about the historicity of the Bible?
What he discovered was that of all the ancient documents that we have, we have more copies — many, many more copies of the New Testament and the Gospels — than any other ancient writing. The copies we have are closer to the time the originals were written than anything you've ever seen. And the internal consistency is supernatural.
There were marginal percent differences that you could obviously have a scribe missing a letter or missing a word, but not like you'd find in Julius Caesar's war diaries, where entire chapters are missing. In the Iliad or the Odyssey or the Bhagavad Gita, where you have conflicting texts, and the experts say this must be the real one and this is some corruption that says something completely different from this text, and we'll just choose one. In the Gospels it's less than half a percent; they're all absolutely consistent.
From this I have to conclude that this is history. I have to conclude that this man Jesus Christ is a historical figure. He claimed he was God. He did things that God would do. He must be God.
What was it about this presentation that won you over?
I have a history degree. I had never had this religion presented to me as anything other than a philosophy in which it apparently fell short. It was not treated as the historical reality of this man Jesus but as a “Christ-consciousness.” But this is not somebody that you can equate with Confucius or Buddha. I was convinced. I got his book; I read his book. And I said, Okay, I guess I have to be Christian because Christ actually lived, he was God, nobody else did these things, nobody else claimed to be God. I guess I better do what he says.
So quite quickly, my wife reverts, and it looks at this point that we're going to become evangelical Baptists because the people that brought the intellectual conversion are now leading us through Bible studies.
How then did you come into the Catholic Church?
My wife, with these Catholic sensibilities, said, “I think I'm going to have to be Baptist and evangelical. But from an aesthetic perspective, having been in Europe with these beautiful churches, beautiful art, I can't believe that that's bad, and I have to go to these plain churches.” So before we actually did that, she went to a Catholic bookstore, walked in and said, “Listen, I need one book, a short book, that explains the difference between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism. We don't have time; we're not going to read anything long. I need something I know my husband will read.“
And the woman said, “Here's your book, Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, right here, by David Currie.” My wife took it home, she read it, she kept it in the car, and she said, “We're leaving Virginia with a baby sitter, you're coming with me, and we're going to a restaurant. You have to read this book.” Again it was a purely intellectual approach, explaining the teachings from the Bible and misunderstandings, etc. So I read the book, and again, probably in another hour and a half or two hours, we're Catholic.
What about your evangelical friends?
For the next few months we're finishing up Bible studies with the group that included a number of ex-Catholics. And after these Bible studies we'd call them on the phone and say, “I know it's 10 o'clock at night and you have to go to work, but come over here, I've got to correct some misinformation they gave you.”
By this time we're back to the Catholic bookstore buying a lot more books, and we have all the books out and we're saying, What they told you here wasn't true, this is inconsistent, this says that, that says the other thing.
At the end of that Bible study I'm accepted into the Church, my wife reverts back. With another couple, the wife becomes a fervent Catholic, her husband who was never confirmed is back in RCIA, and he gets confirmed. There was another couple where the wife was Catholic, the husband wasn't. Although it was unclear, suddenly they have another child when they were never going to have a child again.
How long have you been Catholic?
I've been Catholic now for five years. There are human beings alive in our family that would not be alive if we weren't Catholic, because we'd had the children we were going to have. Our oldest is 10, and the others are 6, 4, 2 and 1.
It's been obviously very fast. We were set up. God just said, “I don't want to waste a whole lot of time with you.”
How did this conversion lead to a career change?
I had started the master's in theology program through Ave Maria's Institute for Pastoral Theology; I just finished that in May. As I went through that program after the second year I started thinking, I have these business skills, too. I'm selling payroll services; I'm selling Internet types of capabilities. Is this really what I'm supposed to do? I decided it wasn't.
I ended up doing business strategy, marketing-consulting kinds of things just as the Internet bubble burst. When no other consultant can find work I can find work, because I'm going to Catholic apostolates and Catholic organizations and saying, “You need marketing help, you need business strategy help.”
How did you arrive at Catholic World Mission?
I'm living in Northern California, where it's very expensive. I'm now flying all over the place doing little contracts with Catholic organizations that don't have a lot of money but love the expertise. It's not real stable. I have four children, a fifth on the way, and we decide I really can't be doing this consulting type of thing.
My wife and I are praying, “Just give me a job.” I'm too busy trying to make money. If I'm supposed to have some sort of consistent, stable, full-time job, make it very obvious to me. I don't know what my wife was praying, but I just prayed, “I want it to be this obvious: Have someone make me an offer for a full-time job.”
I end up at Catholic World Mission, what I thought was another consulting opportunity. They said, “Could you come up and just talk to us?” I said, “Do you have a job?” And they said, “No, but we could always use some marketing help.” It's very small. My wife and I said, “There's no way there is a consulting job here.” But it's good to meet people; it's a networking opportunity. I said, “I'll just do it. I can take a day.”
It's the end of the day, and they say, “Have you ever heard of Catholic World Mission?” I said, “No. That's your first problem.” That's when they said they were looking for an executive director.
How do your work and faith life now intersect?
It's perfect because [at Catholic World Mission], we evangelize. We teach people to be Catholic. We are dealing with poverty from a Catholic perspective: We have a human body, we have a mind, and we have a spirit. We approach it from all the dimensions.
There is no other job, I think, that would have been as attractive to me. We wanted to learn more and more about the faith, learn more about the universal Church and the body of Christ, to not just be dealing with middle-class people but going down to El Salvador, going down to Mexico, going on the medical missions.
It's been great for me spiritually because I've been let out to see the rest of the Church and put face-to-face with the Catholic spirituality that is not purely intellectual, like my whole story has been, but that's felt in the heart, despite an ignorance of the faith.
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
------- EXCERPT: Ken Davison was raised a Methodist, rejected Christianity for Buddhism, married a nonpracticing Catholic and almost became a Baptist. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Is It 'Just a Game'? What Parents Should Know About Video Games DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Eugene Provenzo Jr. is a professor of education at the University of Miami and the author of the groundbreaking 1991 book Video Kids: Making Sense of Nintendo (Harvard) and the forthcoming Children and Hyperreality: The Loss of the Real in Contemporary Childhood and Adolescence.
His work has appeared in numerous professional and popular journals, and in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, he provided testimony to Congress on the links between violence and video games.
He spoke with Register correspondent Francis X. Maier about simulated reality and its effect on culture.
In
The technology's much more developed. Today's games run on massively powerful graphic systems that are essentially reality simulators. Rather than looking in at a game from above and outside, today we're actually part of the program. We participate in it. That means a much more intense, interactive, realistic game environment where we almost live inside the box or on the screen rather than in the real world.
I think that's part of a shift throughout the culture toward substituting the simulacra, the simulation, for the real. We take saccharine instead of sugar. We have cyber-sex instead of real sex. Instead of visiting St. Mark's Square in Venice, we visit the Disney World interpretation of it in Florida.
In a sense, we live less and less with real people and real things, and our technologies, including our games, serve as a kind of insulation.
How big a problem has that become during the past decade — the confusion of the real and unreal?
One of the curious things about contemporary Internet use is that people rarely need to step out into their neighborhoods anymore. More and more of daily life is being mediated by our tools, but reality is reality — it's direct.
When we put our experiences through machines, we filter them, and we get a skewed view. We see things in a way that's obscured by the simulacra we've created.
Why would we want that — because it's safer than the messiness of real life?
Sure; we think it's simpler, cleaner and safer. But of course, some serious deceptions creep into that approach, because simulated reality allows us to experiment with things we really shouldn't be toying with. We've created very realistic games where it's acceptable to go out and murder people. And that can encourage a taste for other forbidden fruit. The average person would probably never engage in a violent sexual act. But he or she might try it in a simulation, just to see what it feels like.
For example, in the video game Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City, the player drives into town, picks up a prostitute, throws her in the back of the car, has sex with her, then beats her up and steals her money. I find that objectionable, and it's very dangerous behavior even in a “game.”
I also don't know many women in the real world who look or act like video game females — the stereotyping is pretty extreme.
That goes back to my point about simulation filtering reality. A character like Lara Croft in the game Tomb Raider is a hyperinflation, a distortion, of the female form. Her body and her sexuality are completely unreal.
By the way, not all violence is bad. I don't have a problem with the violence in films like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down. That kind of violence strikes me as profoundly moral because we get a sense of real people suffering the real consequences of violence. But in a movie like Natural Born Killers and in a lot of violent video games, we're seeing a hyper-reality, a hyper-violence that distorts the pain and tragedy that always come with violence.
What effect do video games have on children's social and learning skills?
Well ironically, from the research I've seen, video games can enhance social development when they involve players interacting with other players. That's the direction games should be taking, especially online games, instead of games where kids play against the computer alone, in isolation.
Video games can actually extend social discourse and logical skills, so I'm not opposed to them in principle. I just think we've got a lot of bad ones. The problem with “first person shooters,” aside from their violence, is that they all have basically the same content — shoot the bad guys or the monsters.
What do you think of massively multi-player, online role-playing games — those persistent alternate realities like Lineage, Ultima Online or EverQuest, where if you log off the game, the fantasy world continues without you?
When they're running really well, like EverQuest, they can be remarkable. Who wouldn't want to live in an alternate universe and avoid the messy one we're in right now?
We have the real possibility in the next couple of decades —- and by the way, I'm looking forward to this when I'm 80 years old and my eyesight and hearing are gone — of living in a very nice simulation, going out to a simulated dinner in a beautiful simulated restaurant with my wife.
What's your advice to parents in guiding their kids about video games?
Most parents wouldn't dream of handing their kids the money to buy a copy of Hustler. But they'll do that with a video game and say, “Well, it's just a game.” It's not just a game. Every video game is a cultural artifact that has specific lessons built into it, and it's also intended to serve a very specific audience level.
As much as possible, parents need to be involved in the purchase and the playing of these games with their kids. That doesn't mean they have to be present every time their children want to play. But they do need to review each game with their kids and talk to them about the values the game represents. They need to be exactly aware of what their kids are buying — and most parents aren't.
Francis X. Maier is chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver and special assistant to Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. He served as editor of the Register from 1977-1993.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Francis X. Maier ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishops Propose Mixed Meetings
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 3 — A panel of Catholic and Episcopal church delegates on April 1 presented a proposal that bishops of each group attend the other's meetings in order to promote ecumenism.
The AP said this notion was a response to the 1999 report issued by the ecumenical panel that brings together Catholic and Anglican representatives.
Anglican bishops would be brought along with Catholic bishops during official visits and synods at the Vatican and take part — though not vote — in U.S. bishops' conferences. Conversely, Catholic bishops would join meetings of Anglican bishops.
The report mentioned that many issues stand in the way of unity between the two communions — principally the role of papal authority. Other seemingly insuperable obstacles include the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy in the Anglican church, which Pope John Paul II has authoritatively taught is impossible for the Catholic Church.
If the proposal is approved, it could mean women Episcopal bishops attending Vatican synods and American bishops' conventions.
‘Voice of the Faithful' Meets With Cardinal George
CATHOLIC CITIZENS.ORG, April 4 — Voice of the Faithful, an activist group that seeks to democratize Church governance, has been banned from using parish property in many dioceses. But Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has agreed to meet with the group, explaining through a spokesman that the group's agenda is still in formation and it ought not to be dismissed as dissenting, according to an April 4 report by Catholic Citizens of Illinois.
In his invitation to meet with the group, however, Cardinal George indicated he thought the group's motto, “keep the faith, change the Church,” was “problematical.” The cardinal also said he thought the best way to increase lay participation was to strengthen the structures put in place after Vatican II and that any renewal in the Church must begin with “the renewal of Christian discipleship.”
Voice of the Faithful members held a rally on March 30 at Dominican University on Chicago's west side after announcements appeared in several local parish bulletins. At last year's bishops' meeting, Cardinal George was one of 10 only U.S. bishops to meet with the group.
Catholic Citizens of Illinois noted that Voice of the Faithful seeks major changes in the Church, including lay-run parishes and what it calls “equality for women,” and frequently speaks of using economic pressure — through withholding of donations to parishes and dioceses — to pressure Church authorities to comply.
Its report cited Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., who called the group “anti-Church and, ultimately, anti-Catholic … a cover for dissent.”
Peggy Noonan to Write Book on John Paul
OPINIONJOURNAL.COM, April 7 — Former Ronald Reagan speechwriter and longtime columnist Peggy Noonan announced April 7 she will be taking a leave of absence from writing op-eds for The Wall Street Journal to pen a book on Pope John Paul II, which should appear in 2004.
Noonan is also author of What I Saw at the Revolution, a history of her work in the Reagan administration.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Activists Say Bush Has No Policy on Avoiding Fetal-Source Vaccines DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:PITTSBURGH — Being pro-life can be costly — quite literally, in Lina Bird's case.
The 18-year-old Catholic from Mason Town, Va., was willing to sacrifice a $21,000 scholarship to Duquesne University, which the university threatened to revoke for her refusal to get a shot for measles, mumps and rubella.
Part of the vaccine in question, like many others commonly used in the United States, was produced using the tissue of an aborted baby. Bird refused to have anything to do with it and began looking at other schools.
Fortunately, Duquesne relented. But the ethical problem faced by pro-lifers like Bird might only increase in years to come. The U.S. government is about to develop or purchase a host of new vaccines to protect against bio-terrorism, but the administration has no policy to avoid vaccines produced using fetal tissue.
President George W. Bush announced Project BioShield in his State of the Union address Jan. 28. The $6 billion initiative is intended to overhaul the nation's supply of vaccines and drugs during the next 10 years. It will include a safer smallpox vaccine as well as new vaccines or drugs for anthrax, botulism, ebola and plague.
Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Clearwater, Fla.-based Children of God for Life, said the administration has no policy to avoid vaccines produced using tissue from aborted babies or to provide alternatives. Children of God for Life is a pro-life organization working to make alternative vaccines available for those Americans who refuse to accept vaccines connected to abortion.
Vinnedge said the government's recent purchase of a patent for a new ebola vaccine, which uses tissue from abortion, shows there is no policy to avoid such vaccines.
The Register asked an official at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is re sponsible for implementing Project BioShield, and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson's spokesman for the project whether the administration has a policy on the matter. The institute did not follow through on repeated promises to respond, and the Health and Human Services representative said he was unsure whether there was a policy.
Vinnedge has asked Thompson to develop a policy. She has also sent a letter, signed by more than 300 doctors, scientists and Cath olic organizations, to the president, noting that more than 475,000 Americans have signed a petition for ethical vaccines. The Catholic Medical Association is supporting Vinnedge's efforts.
It is not known what Bush's position is. While he is pro-life, he cited the precedent of vaccines produced using fetal tissue as a justification for his decision in 2001 to provide funding for embryonic stem cell research, which had caused the destruction of embryos.
However, the president's stem cell decision limited funding to projects which would use existing stem cell lines so the government would not be complicit in any future unethical practices. Following this logic to its conclusion, it would be preferable to avoid new vaccines produced using fetal tissue.
In late 2001 the government announced it would purchase two new smallpox vaccines to quickly stockpile enough for every American. One of those vaccines is made using animal tissue. Vinnedge said this decision is evidence pressure from pro-lifers has been effective.
In 2000, the Register covered the debate among Catholics on ethically questionable vaccines. The largest number of authorities, including philosopher Janet Smith, ethicist Edward Furton of the National Catholic Bioethics Center and pro-life convert Bernard Nathanson, said Catholics are not obliged to refuse vaccines produced using fetal tissue.
However, most authorities also said no new vaccines should be produced in this way, and alternatives can and should be pursued.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis' Pro-Life Office said using a hepatitis vaccine produced using the tissue of an aborted baby was morally ac ceptable since no other vaccine was available.
In the archdiocesan newspaper, St. Louis Review, moral theologian Father Edward Richard said, “There's no alternative if we want to prevent the spread of disease. … The use of the vaccine itself is not intrinsically evil. Certainly the origins are, but the person who uses it wants to do something positive.”
“The Church wants to do all it can to promote life and the respect for life,” he added, and people who refuse vaccines for pro-life reasons “have very legitimate feelings about their re spect for life, and that is to be commended.”
The Archdiocese of Chica go Respect Life Office has given its “official endorsement” to Vinnedge's efforts.
“We're blessed to cooperate with their wonderful work,” said director Mary Louise Kurey. The archdiocese is helping distribute pamphlets from Children of God for Life, among other things.
Vinnedge said only the chickenpox vaccine currently has no ethical alternative available anywhere in the world. In every other case, her organization can help parents obtain ethical vaccines or to locate a pro-life doctor who will assist.
David Curtin writes from Toronto.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Church Official Emphasizes Christian Unity
Several attendees at an April 4 conference of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churchmen at Université Laval expressed a concern, according to the paper, that many Christians in Canada were more committed to pan-religious efforts at promoting world peace than concrete attempts to bring Christian churches closer together.
While dialogue with non-Christians remains important, Cardinal Kasper said, ecumenism itself must be firmly based on fundamental Christian doctrines.
The 70-year-old bishop and theologian warned that any talk of a “macro-ecumenism” that included non-Christian faiths could only lead to confusion.
Letter From bin Laden Found in Italian Mosque
XINHUA.NET, April 5 — A 1996 letter from Osama bin Laden was found in the local mosque in Cremona, northern Italy, reported Xinhua.net, a Chinese news service.
Italian police found the letter inviting young Saudis to enlist in a jihad against the United States during a recent raid aimed at turning up terrorist conspirators. The letter called for spectacular attacks on America and on American symbols throughout the world.
The imam of that mosque was arrested earlier in the week along with the one-time head of a Florence mosque and five other Muslims. All were charged with conspiring to help Ansar Al Islam, an Islamic group recently expelled from northern Iraq by American troops.
Pope Meets French Minister Regarding Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 5 — Pope John Paul II met with French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin on April 4 to discuss the U.S. war against Iraq, which was opposed by the Holy See and the French government, the Associated Press reported.
Their joint statement reflected their shared view that decisions about postwar reconstruction should rest with the Iraqi people, not just the coalition.
The Holy Father and the foreign minister agreed on “the need to abbreviate the suffering of the civilian population as well as the hope that the international community will help the Iraqis to themselves be the architects of the reconstruction.”
“We are concerned about the increasing risk of confrontation,” de Villepin said later at a news conference, “[and about] divisions and fractures between our world and the Arab world.”
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Vatican II, 40 Years Later: George Weigel on Gaudium et Spes DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, Zenit news service is asking Church leaders and prominent laity to reflect on some of the main documents of the council.
George Weigel, a senior fellow who holds the John M. Olin Chair in Religion and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., regularly comments on issues of religion and public life. The papal biographer's most recent book is The Courage to Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform and the Future of the Church (Basic Books).
In the following interview, Weigel shares his thoughts about Gaudium et Spes, the pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world.
What were the most important contributions to
Gaudium et Spes opened new conversations between the Church and democracy, the Church and science, and the Church and nonbelievers. Its description of the free society as having three parts — democratic political community, free economy and vibrant public moral culture, the last being the most important — was picked up and developed brilliantly by Pope John Paul II in [his 1991 encyclical] Centesimus Annus.
It's also striking that Gaudium et Spes 22 and 24 are the two most cited conciliar references in the voluminous magisterium of the present Pope. Gaudium et Spes 22 — which teaches that Jesus reveals both the face of the merciful Father and the true meaning of our humanity — is the charter of an authentic Christian humanism.
Gaudium et Spes 24 — which teaches that the fulfillment of our lives is found in self-giving, not self-assertion — is the Church's response to the selfishness and solipsism of so much of modern culture.
What was the most misunderstood part of the constitution?
It's not so much a question of misunderstanding the text as the context. Gaudium et Spes was taken to be the document in which the Church “opened its windows to the modern world.” Fair enough.
But there's another side to this: Gaudium et Spes also challenged the modern world to open its windows to the world of transcendent truth and love. A real dialogue is a two-way street. Some people forgot that in the aftermath of Gaudium et Spes.
In light of the current plague of postmodernism and deconstruction, and the demolition of any notion of “truth” with public traction, one might also ask whether Gaudium et Spes was a bit too sanguine about the main currents of late 20th-century intellectual life.
The Church is growing in the Third World but stumbling, it seems, in the West. What must the Church do in the decades ahead to win the world for Christ?
Be the Church — that is, be an evangelical movement that tells the world of God's passionate love for humanity. That, not institutional maintenance, is what the Church is for. When the Church is that, and does that, it flourishes, even in the West.
Have the scandals in the United States affected the Church's credibility?
They certainly haven't helped. But the overwhelming majority of Catholics know that the overwhelming majority of priests are good men and good servants of the Church and society.
In the post-Sept. 11 era, what particular parts of
Gaudium et Spes correctly intuited that religious conviction would shape the 21th-century world. But it could not have anticipated the rise of a radical form of Islam, better styled “Islamism,” that is not interested in dialogue but in conquest — first cultural, then political.
The most comprehensive, religiously grounded counterproposal to Islamicist totalitarianism is the three-part free society mapped out by Gaudium et Spes and amplified by Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: 'All Men Should Constitute One Family' DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:God, who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, Who “from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God himself.
For this reason, love for God and neighbor is the first and greatest commandment. Sacred Scrip ture, however, teaches us that the love of God cannot be separated from love of neighbor: “If there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. … Love therefore is the fulfillment of the Law” (Romans 13:9-10; cf. 1 John 4:20). To men growing daily more dependent on one another, and to a world becoming more unified every day, this truth proves to be of paramount importance.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when he prayed to the Father, “that all may be one … as we are one” (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for he implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Person and the unity of God's sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.
— Gaudium et Spes, No. 24
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: A God Who Does Marvelous Things DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with more than 15,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on April 9 for his weekly general audience. He offered his reflections on Psalm 135, which is a joyful invitation to praise the Lord.
“Jewish tradition combines this psalm with the following psalm, Psalm 136, calling the two together ‘The Great Hallel’ — a solemn and festive hymn of praise to sing to the Lord on Passover,” he pointed out. This initial invitation to praise is followed, he said, by a kind of profession of faith that recalls God's saving action in freeing his people from slavery in Egypt and bringing them to the Promised Land.
The Holy Father encouraged those present to make this profession of faith their own by raising their voices in praise of God through Jesus Christ the Redeemer. “The bond that exists between us and the Lord is characterized by love, intimacy and joyful commitment,” he said.
He ended his meditation with a quote from Pope St. Clement I: “The Creator and Lord of the universe has arranged it so all these things will be a benefit for all in peace and harmony, particularly for us who appeal to his mercy through our Lord, Jesus Christ. To him be glory and majesty forever. Amen.”
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: A God Who Does Marvelous Things DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, whose development we have been following in the course of our catechesis, includes the first part of Psalm 135, which the choir just sang. The text displays a closely-woven series of allusions to other passages in the Bible, and it seems to take place during the time of Passover. Jewish tradition combines this psalm with the following psalm, Psalm 136, calling the two together “The Great Hallel” — a solemn and festive hymn of praise to sing to the Lord on Passover.
Indeed, this psalm highlights the Exodus by mentioning the “plagues” of Egypt and recalling the entrance into the Promised Land. But let us now follow the subsequent stages that Psalm 135 reveals in the development of its first 12 verses: It is a meditation that we wish to transform into a prayer.
We Are Servants of the Lord
At the beginning, we find the characteristic invitation to praise, which is a typical element of the hymns that are addressed to the Lord in the Book of Psalms. The call to sing the “alleluia” is directed to the “servants of the Lord” (see verse 1), who are depicted in the Hebrew original as those “standing upright” in the sacred area of the Temple (see verse 2) in a ritual attitude of prayer (see Psalm 134:1-2).
The ministers of worship — the priests and Levites who live and work “in the courts of the house of our God” (see Psalm 135:2) — are the ones who are primarily in volved in this praise. Nevertheless, ideally all the faithful are united with these “servants of the Lord.”In fact, immediately afterward, reference is made to the fact that all of Israel has been chosen to be an ally and a witness of the Lord's love: “For the Lord has chosen Jacob, Israel as a treasured possession” (verse 4). Within this perspective, two fundamental qualities of God are celebrated: He is “good” and he is “gracious” (see verse 3). The bond that exists between us and the Lord is characterized by love, intimacy and joyful commitment.
The Lord of the Universe
After this invitation to praise, the psalmist continues by solemnly professing his faith, beginning with the typical expression “I know,” meaning “I acknowledge” or “I believe” (see verse 5). A soloist proclaims two articles of faith on behalf of all the people who are gathered in the liturgical assembly. First of all, he exalts God's work throughout the entire universe. He is the Lord of the universe par excellence: “Whatever the Lord wishes he does in heaven and on earth” (verse 6). He even rules over the seas and the deeps, which symbolize chaos, negative energy, boundaries and nothingness.
Yet it is still the Lord who forms the clouds, the lightning, the rain and the wind by going to his “storehouse” (see verse 7). In fact, the ancient people of the Near East believed that these agents of the weather were kept in special reservoirs, which were like heavenly coffers from which God would draw in order to spread them upon the Earth.
God Is One
The other component of the profession of faith refers to the history of salvation. God the Creator is now recognized as the Lord and Redeemer by recalling the fundamental events of Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt. The psalmist mentions first of all the “plague” of the firstborn (see Exodus 12:29-30), which summarizes all the “signs and portents” that God the Deliverer performed during the time of the Exodus (see Psalm 135:8-9). Immediately after, he recalls the resounding victories that enabled Israel to overcome the obstacles and difficulties it encountered during its journey (see verses 10-11). Lastly, the Promised Land appears on the horizon, which Israel receives as “a heritage” from the Lord (see verse 12).
All these signs of the covenant, which are presented in greater detail in Psalm 136, attest to the fundamental truth that is proclaimed in the First Commandment of the Ten Commandments. God is one and is a person who acts and speaks, loves and saves: “I know that the Lord is great, our Lord is greater than all gods” (verse 5; see Exodus 20:2-3; Psalm 95:3).
Gaze Upon Jesus
In the wake of this profession of faith, we, too, raise our hymn of praise to God. Pope St. Clement I, in his Letter to the Corinthians, extends this invitation to us: “Let us gaze upon the Father and Creator of the whole universe. Let us cling to the gifts and benefits of peace, which are magnificent and sublime. Let us contemplate him in our thoughts and, with the eyes of the soul, gaze upon the greatness of his will!
“Let us consider how impartial he is toward every one of his creatures. The skies that move according to his order obey him harmoniously. Day and night complete the course that he has established and do not hinder one another. The sun, moon and chorus of stars revolve in harmony without deviating from the orbits he assigned to them. The earth, which is fruitful by his will, produces abundant nourishment for men, for wild beasts and for all the animals that live on it, without resistance and without changing his ordinances” (19:2-20:4: I Padri Apostolici, Rome, 1984, p. 62-63). Clement I concludes with the following observation: “The Creator and Lord of the universe has arranged it so that all these things will be a benefit for all in peace and harmony, particularly for us who appeal to his mercy through our Lord, Jesus Christ. To him be glory and majesty forever. Amen” (20:11-12: Ibid., p. 63).
(Register translation)
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: New Evidence Suggests 'Safe Sex' Is the Wrong Medicine for Africa DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:GUMARE, Botswana — In Botswana, almost 40% of adults are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS — a devastating statistic that sadly is close to the norm in other countries in sub-Sarahan Africa.
In early March, Western news media expressed shock at reports of a public-health nurse in the village of Gumare in northwestern Botswana using the same needle to vaccinate 83 children, apparently unconcerned or unaware about the risk of transmitting HIV in this way. But new scientific studies indicate that Botswana, too, might not be so different from the rest of Africa.
In the March issue of the International Journal of STD and AIDS, researchers claim dominant organizations such as UNAIDS (the U.N. program on HIV/AIDS) have grossly underestimated the role of unsafe vaccinations in the spread of the disease in Africa and have overestimated the role of sexual transmission.
Since 1988, AIDS organizations have held that 90% of HIV infections in Africa are caused by heterosexual transmission, but the new studies indicate the correct figure is approximately 30%.
“The finding has major ramifications for current and future HIV-control programs in Africa, whose focus has been almost exclusively on sexual risk reduction and condom use,” say the researchers, led by Pennsylvania anthropologist David Gisselquist.
The leading organizations in international AIDS prevention are heavily invested in promoting so-called safer-sex strategies, chiefly the aggressive promotion of condom use. Their assumptions about Africa are crucial, because it is home to more than 70% of HIV/AIDS cases worldwide, and nearly 30 million Africans are infected.
They were quick to dismiss the new studies and defend the status quo.
In a statement March 14, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization “reaffirmed that unsafe sexual practices are responsible for the vast majority of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa and that safer-sex promotion must remain the primary feature of prevention programs in the region.”
Distorted Picture?
Critics say these groups have a distorted picture of AIDS in Africa because they are driven by the liberal sexual ideology that dominates most wealthy nations.
“In the late 1980s, the interpretation that 90% of HIV infections among African adults was from heterosexual transmission was used in the United States and Europe to make the case that everyone was at risk, not only gay men and injection drug users,” Gisselquist said. “However, the idea that heterosexual transmission explains almost all of what happens in Africa unfortunately obscured other risks in Africa.”
Catholic author Dale O'Leary, who has written extensively on AIDS and the prejudices of the AIDS establishment, said that in responding to AIDS in Africa, “the pro-homosexual lobby's first priority was to do nothing that would stop their sexual revolution, and [they] pressured those working on the problem to see things their way.”
Gisselquist said since AIDS programs are now well established in wealthy countries, “it's no longer necessary to overemphasize the proportion [of HIV infections due to] heterosexual transmission to ensure enough attention to HIV/AIDS.”
The population-control ideology might also have been a factor.
Gisselquist's team said “there may have been an inclination to emphasize sexual transmission as an argument for condom promotion, coinciding with pre-existing programs and efforts to curb Africa's rapid population growth.”
The team suggests “preconceptions about African sexuality” — the assumption that Africans engage in a lot of sexual activity with a lot of partners — also played a role in overestimating the sexual transmission rate.
The new studies point to many facts about AIDS in Africa that are at odds with the 90% figure for sexual transmission. In Zimbabwe in the 1990s, for example, HIV infections rose by 12% while condom use increased and sexually transmitted diseases as a whole fell by 25%.
A study in Kinshasa found 40% of HIV-positive infants had mothers who did not have the virus. These infants had received an average of 44 vaccinations, while uninfected infants averaged only 23.
Another study found that some places with the highest rates of risky sexual activity, such as Yaounde, Cameroon, had relatively low and stable rates of HIV infection.
But UNAIDS and the World Health Organization say “age-specific infection rates among young women and men strongly follow patterns of sexual behavior and those of other sexually transmitted infections,” and “there is no consistent association between higher HIV rates and lower injection safety standards.”
Chastity Works
If the AIDS establishment is proved wrong on this point, it will not be the first time it has let ideology get in the way of actually fighting the disease.
Groups such as UNAIDS have consistently scorned efforts to reduce sexual transmission of HIV through chastity education. But the first country to make that strategy the centerpiece of its AIDS prevention efforts, Uganda, has also had the most outstanding success in reducing infection rates.
Uganda's approach — known as ABC, for abstinence, be faithful or use condoms — has strongly emphasized saving sex for marriage and staying faithful to marriage vows while targeting condom use primarily at prostitutes and other specific high-risk groups less likely to respond to behavior-change messages.
This approach has been widely credited for a dramatic decline in Uganda's HIV rate since the early 1990s. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the foreign aid agency of the U.S. government, says the rate peaked at 12.4% in 1995 and will reach 8.23% by 2010.
A study by Cambridge University researchers in 2001 found the infection rate in the 15-to-19 age group — an important predictor of future overall rates — declined by approximately 75% between 1990 and 1998.
Some might wonder whether the success of chastity programs in Uganda is not an argument in support of the usual 90% estimate of sexual transmission of HIV. If a change in sexual behavior can have such a dramatic effect on HIV rates, it stands to reason that a large number of infections are due to sexual transmission.
But researchers note it is possible Uganda has had a relatively low rate of transmission from unsterile vaccinations and sexual transmission might play a larger role in that country.
“From the late 1980s,” Gisselquist said, “Ugandan health authorities and the general public have been very aware and concerned about health care transmission. The government provided special training in infection control for health care workers. Private radio talk programs raised public consciousness about injection risks.”
David Curtin writes from Toronto.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:SARS Fears Shorten Asian Holy Week
FIDES, April 4 — The rites of Holy Week in Hong Kong were scheduled to be modified and simplified, reported Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency, because of the deadly new form of pneumonia called SARS.
The Hong Kong Diocese told all 53 of its parishes that they should not distribute palm fronds on Palm Sunday, wash parishioners' feet on Holy Thursday or baptize catechumens by immersion during the Easter Vigil. The sign of peace was forbidden during Mass, as was Communion on the tongue.
The diocese instructed parishes not to allow holy water, booklets and missals in church for fear of transmitting the new virus, which kills 4% of those who catch it.
For holy Communion and confession, priests were instructed to wear face masks, Fides reported.
In neighboring Singapore, the archdiocese cancelled catechism classes, children's liturgies and most parish functions.
Most English Priests Dissent
Msgr. Stephen Loudon, former military chaplain, and Professor Leslie Francis of the University of Wales conducted a survey of 1,482 Roman Catholic priests — almost half the total number in England and Wales.
They found that 43% of those priests actively oppose the Church's teaching on contraception and 19% were unsure, leaving only 38% in support of the orthodox position, according to the paper.
Smaller percentages — between one-fourth and one-fifth — favored the ordination of married men and practicing homosexuals, while some 10% thought an inclination to pedophilia should not be an obstacle to active ministry. A full 61% of the priests said priests should not be removed from ministry for having sex with a married woman.
“This contains potentially explosive information for the Catholic Church,” Francis commented to the conservative British paper.
In September, the results will appear in the book The Naked Parish Priest.
Francis noted that the younger priests in England and Wales had the most liberal attitudes, presaging an ongoing shift away from traditional moral teachings, he concluded.
A representative of the Catholic bishops' conference criticized the methodology of the survey, calling the questions “very general and, on occasions, confused and confusing to the respondents.”
Church Decries Condom Gimmick
EXPATICA.COM, April 3 — In the eastern German city of Erfurt, local tourism officials have decided to promote the city by distributing souvenir condoms emblazoned with an image of the city's historic cathedral, reported Expatica.com, an English-language news site for Germany, France, Holland and the Netherlands.
Church officials consider the condoms “a profane misuse of a sacred symbol,” said Father Reinhard Hauke, a priest of St. Mary's Cathedral in Erfurt.
“We still think it's a great promotional gimmick,” said Carmen Hildebrandt of the Erfurt tourist board.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Statues of Saddam Hussein were destroyed in Baghdad, and Iraqis kissed American Marines and soldiers in the streets. Yes, the celebrations hide the darker reality of chaos and looting. And yes, fighting still goes on all over Iraq (as indeed it does in Afghanistan).
But if these things are real, so is the larger victory. A tyrant has been ousted in Iraq, and the people danced in the streets for joy that he was gone. Whatever your position on the decision to go to war, this is a cause for great rejoicing.
It is precisely such moments that show the nobility of the military's purpose — which is, as the Pope once put it, to be “an encouragement to everyone not to be resigned to injustice but to conquer evil with good.”
Another reason to cheer: The conduct of this war has been as careful as any military offensive in memory. Our troops went to great lengths to keep civilian casualties at an absolute minimum. We can be proud of America, a nation that values the lives of innocents in war.
So, in the wake of this new victory, what do we say of Pope John Paul II? What now of his now-famous assertion that “no problem is solved by war”? Has he been proved wrong?
We mustn't forget — he certainly doesn't — that the Pope was a seminarian in Poland on its own National Liberation Day, July 22, 1944. As George Weigel wrote in Witness to Hope, “The young seminarians, having survived the Occupation, might have imagined that a return to normality in a free and independent Poland was at hand. If they did, they were quickly disabused of the notion.”
No other nation suffered as much at the hands of the Nazis as Poland did. But the defeat of the Nazis only brought Soviet-inflicted suffering. Decades later, the celebration of National Liberation Day was quietly taken off many Polish calendars when real freedom was won there, peacefully, by the Pope and his allies.
Certainly, the United States can't be compared to the occupying army of Soviets in Poland. Our plan is to liberate the people, help them on their first fledgling hops to freedom, then depart. But that's exactly why the next step for Iraq is so dangerous.
For decades, Hussein's government favored Sunni Muslims, who account for only 20% of the nation's inhabitants, while suppressing Shi'ite Muslims, Kurds and Christians. What comes now is anyone's guess — and the 4% of the population who are Christians are particularly wary.
We hope that democracy comes next, but democracy is an elusive thing, particularly in a nation sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines.
And, sadly, despite unprecedented military efforts to avoid civilian casualties, there are horrors that have scarred Iraqi families deeply.
Thank God there weren't the sheer numbers of civilian casualties we saw in 20th-century warfare, but there were still many. Pictures of an Iraqi boy have become symbolic of them. His body burnt and his arms blown off, he cried out, “Can you help me get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?”
Also, consider the blurring of lines between civilian and soldier that occurred in Iraq. Men and, just as often, boys were forced to fight for Saddam and were told that their families would suffer if they didn't. Many of them are now dead.
And one last sign of the struggle ahead: There are already moves afoot in Planned Parenthood, aid agencies and the U.S. Senate to start “Operation Iraqi Freedom to Choose” and bring abortion to Baghdad.
Don't get us wrong. April 9 is a truly historic day for Iraq. Saddam, it seems, is gone. War eliminated a major source of Iraq's woes, and that's a very good thing indeed.
But war didn't solve Iraq's problems. Let us pray for the kind of peace that will.
------- EXCERPT: Liberation Day ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:TO: The Register
FROM: A Reader
I was shocked to hear from the American Life League that this newspaper and 11 Catholic diocesan newspapers refused to run the “Deadly Dozen” ad.
I am ashamed that your paper would do such a thing and not give an explanation for your decision to refuse this very important message. Are you starting to be politically correct at the expense of truth? We as Catholics need to hold those who call themselves Catholic accountable for the public acts of immorality and sinfulness against the gospel of life.
It is clear to me that the Register has at this particular instance more respect for political power of fraudulent Catholics. I hope and pray that the morals that this paper holds are not slipping. Because I will not support any paper that will do that.
Please reconsider this decision. God bless!
STEPHEN KREKLOW
Vancouver, Washington
Editor's Note: We also were shocked when we got the news that shocked you but for a different reason. The following exchange of letters shows the source of the error and both the Register's and American Life League's desire to rise above human mistakes, correct them and push forward investing our energies in the things that really matter.
TO: American Life League
FROM: The Register
Your letter of Jan. 24 acknowledged my written explanation of why the Register would not run the “Deadly Dozen” ad. I also note that the text of the original ad was modified to reflect suggestions from the Register.
Now, however, your signature is on a direct-mail piece received in late March that says: “Speaking of Catholic newspapers, … we were shocked when our ‘Deadly Dozen’ ad was rejected by the National Catholic Register, The (sic) Sunday Visitor and eight of 11 diocesan newspapers!! … And not one of them was willing or able to give us a written explanation for their decisions to refuse to run our message!”
Rather than believe you capable of telling a deliberate lie, I am willing to surmise that there has been some miscommunication between you and your direct-mail department by which you authorized and signed, perhaps inadvertently, a flagrant untruth. It is injurious and extremely unprofessional but, as the Spanish saying goes, these things happen even in the best of families.
American Life League's direct-mail piece continues: “But it's clear they have more respect for the political power of fraudulent Catholics like ‘The Deadly Dozen’ than they do for the spiritual power of Holy Mother Church and the Vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul II!”
I find it hard to accept that you would knowingly approve such a crass and untrue characterization of the Register. And so, also in this case, I am willing to suppose that there was another miscommunication that ended in another unfortunate slur.
It puts American Life League in the ridiculous position of equating an ad with the magisterium of the Church. This position is rendered even sillier by the fact that the very reason the Register rejected the ad was that the language in the ad is not in accord with Vatican guidelines, as I explained in my Jan. 16 letter to you [which said: “To quote from your letter from the Pontifical Council for the Family, there are ‘necessary distinctions … between those who have fallen under the sentence of excommunication and the others who, although they may not have fallen under the sentence, are public defenders of the crime of abortion to whom holy Communion must be denied if they do not make a retraction.’ These distinctions were not made.”]
This has all the elements of a news story and, of course, news is what the Register covers. However, being a Catholic newspaper, we are a part of the Church, which is a communion. The Register's policy is, therefore, to build communion, which is what this letter is trying to do.
We have been contacted by Register readers who have received American Life League's direct-mail piece. Naturally, they have concerns. The Register is placed in the situation of having to give a response. It is not our policy to undermine the good that American Life League does. The Register welcomes American Life League's suggestions as to how we should respond to such inquiries. Out of respect for the life of the unborn, a good that transcends both our organizations and one we both serve, your suggestions will be well received.
As I said, I am willing to trust that your libelous defamation of the Register was inadvertent. Even so, there remain the fact of the defamation, the harm done to the Register's reputation and well-being, and the consequent moral duty of restitution. How this may best be achieved is up to you, and I do not wish to dictate the means. So, I offer the following as suggestions: You may wish to choose these and/or others.
▸ In any future mailing to recipients of the libel, retract the false allegations regarding the Register.
▸ The Register is willing to offer American Life League free space in the paper, including its Web site, within the next two weeks to make appropriate restitution.
▸ In any communication from American Life League that mentions that the Register refused to run the “Deadly Dozen” ad, you include the explanation that was given in my letter to you.
There is, however, another matter: We are aware that American Life League is in the course of preparing a substantial direct-mail drop using the texts under discussion. We expect that American Life League will not deliberately (and from receipt of this letter on, it can only be “deliberately”) defame and libel us with these false claims again.
I look forward to your confirmation that you will refrain from this defamatory and libelous action and expect to receive such confirmation, at the latest, by noon on Thursday, April 3.
As you asked in your letter to me, I do remember your work in my prayers. And my prayer now is that we can together bear witness to the power of Christ, whose grace makes us able to seek the truth in charity.
FATHER OWEN KEARNS
Publisher, National Catholic Register
North Haven, Connecticut
TO: The Register
FROM: American Life League
Since 1979, when I founded American Life League, one of my guiding principles has been to tell the truth, even if it hurts.
That's why, when I received your most recent letter, I put the brakes on this place and made it clear that everyone's No. 1 priority was to find out what the truth of this matter really was.
Several staff members spent virtually the entire day re-creating the paper trail and personnel trail that allowed this misstatement to bypass our usually reliable proofing system. Our two governing mottos are: “When in doubt, don't” and “Double-check and triple-check before we ask for a single check.”
After nearly an entire day of file-searching, phone-calling and fact-checking, the staff investigators had puzzled together the unique set of circumstances that has conspired against our best and most honorable intentions. Here's what they discovered:
The acquisition letter in question was approved and signed by me the first week of January, prior to my receipt of your original letter. The original mailing date of the acquisition letter was to have been in the early part of January.
What I did not know was that the letter's mailing date was postponed, due to a lack of postage. In fact, the entire batch of acquisition letters sat at our printer's for nearly two months. Until yesterday, I had been completely unaware that this delay had taken place. In other words, I had no idea that the opportunity existed to correct the letter because I was under the assumption the letter had been mailed prior to the receipt of your letter.
I must tell you, Father Kearns, that this revelation of our in advertent error has had me on the verge of tears most of the day and I only wish you were here so I could personally deliver my most heartfelt apology.
Furthermore, you may be sure that my staff has been directed to construct a fail-safe plan that will never allow such an event to transpire again. Further, I believe I have no doubt with anyone on our staff that this is the one and only time such a miscue will be tolerated.
Please be sure that the offending text has been completely removed from the referenced letter and will not appear in any future mailings.
Our aim here is to tell the world the truth about the sanctity of innocent human life and in order to do that effectively, we must be doubly careful in ensuring that everything we say is truthful. So, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to write your corrective letter — otherwise we may never have had the opportunity to expunge this erroneous statement from our files.
Sincerely yours in the Lord Who is Life,
JUDIE BROWN,
President, American Life League
Stafford, Virginia
Wanted: Stories and Pictures
The Register is planning a special issue that will be a tribute to Pope John Paul II, and we want you to help. Two features in the special issue will need reader input.
Tell us what he said. We'd like to hear your stories of significant meetings with Pope John Paul II. In telling the story of Pope John Paul II, it's easy to find the big, significant meetings he's had with heads of state and public figures. What gets overlooked, however, is the profound effect he had on ordinary Catholics. Tell us your story, in 500 words or less, as long as it meets these criteria: There was an exchange of words, and they had a significant impact on your life.
Send a picture of your John Paul. In John Paul's many years as Pope, there have been many children named for him. We're interested in publishing pictures of children named after the Pope. Please send yours with baby-mugs style information (see the bottom-right corner of this page for details) and, if your John Paul is old enough, include a quote from him on what he thinks of the Holy Father.
Age of Fasting
In “Spend Holy Week With Christ” (April 13-19), the staff writer states that “Fast binds all over the age of 21…” This is not correct in the United States.
In 1984, the U.S. bishops changed the age of fasting to “the completion of the 18th year.”
For full details, please consult www.usccb.org/norms/12521253.htm.
JOHN DESMOND
Pepperell, Massachusetts
Popetown Pot
Frankly, I was not surprised to see that the BBC was producing a cartoon-comedy called “Popetown” that would mock the Pope and the Catholic Church (“British Catholics Angry About Papal Parody,” Media Watch, April 6-12).
I deem this an after-effect to the promotion of “respecting” the belief of others. As Catholics, we have downgraded the Church that Christ himself established. We no longer hold out the Catholic Church to be the true, most sacred, only holy body of Christ to the world. We neither defend her nor do we promote her. Our own Pope does not elevate her to her proper place among other “beliefs” and, therefore, plunges her into the pot of religious relativism. It is our own fault.
We (inclusive of the laity, priests and our bishops) do not treat the Church with the respect and awe she deserves. And it begs the question: If we do not respect ourselves as Catholics, why would others respect us? Just a thought.
GINALYNNE MIELKO
Woodstock, Georgia
------- EXCERPT: The Rise and Fall of the 'Deadly Dozen' Debacle ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Death in the Family: Michael Kelly Was One Of Us, Too DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:The Humvee he was in flipped into a canal when the driver, a soldier from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, swerved to avoid incoming fire.
Both men apparently drowned. You might not know his name. I never met him, but to me and many others, his death hit hard.
Kelly was a reporter who worked in and around newspapers and magazines whose positions on the life issue are notoriously hostile. But he was on our side, he was one of our best, and now he is gone.
At the time of his death, Kelly was the editor at large of The Atlantic Monthly and chief editorial adviser of National Journal. He had previously been editor of The New Republic, a left-leaning political magazine, but was fired by the magazine's owner apparently for Kelly's recurrent criticism of the Clinton administration. After this he began a syndicated weekly column for the Washington Post.
It was here where I first came to notice Michael Kelly. I was a counsel to the House Judiciary Committee at the time, and Kelly's articles on the Monica Lewinsky scandal were forceful and true. When my colleagues and I would pause from the arduous work on impeachment, reading Kelly on Clinton was like breathing fresh air.
But Kelly's keen journalistic eye was not only trained on the moral bankruptcy of those current events.
Near the beginning of the partial-birth abortion debate, Kelly credited pro-lifers with achieving the historic feat of changing the terms of the abortion debate fundamentally. That we did. And with irony, he wrote of the “sadly radical” position of the American Medical Association that, except for rare circumstances, “all third-trimester pregnancies should end in birth, not abortion.”
“The ground has shifted,” he concluded.
He took to task the New York Times for treating as a legitimate argument the “monstrous” position of some academics that mothers who kill their newborn infants should not be judged as harshly as people who take human life in its later stages because newborn infants are not persons in the full sense of the word and therefore do not enjoy a right to life. He suggested this barbaric position might be a result of the widespread acceptance of abortion and the great devaluing of human life that flows from it.
Not only would he take up the subject himself but also as editor of the New Republic Kelly published others' articles on topics such as partial-birth abortion, abortion clinic protests and Jack Kevorkian. This no doubt raised eyebrows among longtime New Republic subscribers. Let's hope it opened minds, too.
Articles on his death say things like “fiery columnist” and “iconoclastic.” This rings true. But you got the sense that his fire and brimstone were not for the joy of it. Kelly had a knack for wrenching the truth from his subject and presenting it with the vigor of a true believer. He had a strong moral compass.
In the talks I give on abortion I often quote from a column he wrote in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the inability of people to make a moral judgment.
“Not to be judgmental about it, but two cheers for Alison Hornstein,” it begins.
Ms. Hornstein had written a column for Newsweek about the struggle she observed among her fellow Yale students and professors in discussing the terrorist attack. Why the struggle? Kelly wrote, “Because to address it would be to make a moral judgment, and to judge others is, for Ms. Hornstein's generation of properly educated young elites, the great taboo.”
When he finds that Ms. Hornstein demurs from a strong judgment — opting for the out that it doesn't matter where you draw the line as long as you draw it somewhere — he offers her some free advice.
“Ms. Hornstein,” he wrote, “push on. Go the last mile. Go out on the limb of judgment. Mass murder is indeed objectively bad — and not just in your opinion. Others may disagree — but they are wrong.”
“Ms. Hornstein, it is not less important where people choose to draw the line,” he concluded. “Draw the line, Ms. Hornstein. Draw it where you know it belongs. Dare to judge.”
This was what Michael Kelly could do with a column — bring it to life and cheer its subject on to the truth.
I learned of Michael Kelly's death while driving and listening to Sam Donaldson's morning talk show on AM radio. He had died just hours earlier. Donaldson was clearly shaken by the news. When I tuned in he was apologizing for not taking a caller who wanted to criticize the attention he was paying to this reporter's death, saying that every day military families lose loved ones in the war without the same attention. Donaldson acknowledged the truth of this but asked his listeners to try to understand and give him a moment.
“Kelly was a journalist,” he said. “He was one of our family.”
Michael Kelly was one of our family, too: a Catholic and a pro-lifer. He was a welcome voice for life in the most unexpected places, and he will be greatly missed. Let us pray for his wife and two young sons, the family that will miss him most.
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq. is director of Planning and Information for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
------- EXCERPT: Michael Kelly died in a ditch near the Baghdad Airport. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cathy Cleaver ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Rising Up From Flanders Fields DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Easter is the season of empty tombs and lilies, but the war-torn Lent of 2003 has kept my thoughts on full cemeteries and poppies.
Here in continental Europe, the preponderance of public opinion and public argument has been strongly against the morality of this war, with the Holy See taking a leading role.
For this Canadian in Europe, though, the shape of the debate has indicated that we, like our fellow North Americans in the United States, think rather differently about war than do most Europeans. Different moral lessons were learned on opposite sides of the Atlantic from the wars of the past century. It is not so much a question of this war but of war in general; not so much the morality of war but the moral of the war story.
North Americans learned from the First and Second World Wars that noble causes could be fought for nobly. It is historical commonplace in Canada to say it was on the battlefields of World War I that we grew to maturity as a sovereign nation, having paid the price in our soldiers' blood.
Where Poppies Grow
Like most Canadian schoolboys, my first introduction to public thinking about war was during the annual commemorations of Remembrance Day, Nov. 11. An indispensable part of the day was the reading of the poem, In Flanders Fields. In fact, I doubt there is another piece of literature that is so universally taught in Canada — every Canadian knows it.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The image of the passing torch is so deeply ingrained in the national psyche that those words from the final stanza were inscribed on the walls of the Montreal Canadiens' dressing room in the old Montreal Forum — the most important shrine of our national sport.
The poem was written by Major John McCrae during the second battle of Ypres in May 1915, where he fought as part of the First Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery. Canada suffered 6,000 casualties at Second Ypres, which was only a prelude to the horrors of World War I — a war the Canadian prime minister of the day, Robert Borden, privately called “the suicide of civilization.”
Amid all that, McCrae was able to write of flowers and birds and crosses, and of bravery and love and fidelity. It not a poem about the horrors of war; it is a paean to the heroism of warriors.
That is not the common European experience. While Canadians visit Juno Beach at Normandy with pride and Americans visit Omaha and Utah Beach, there are no such places of unalloyed national pride associated with the Second World War for the French, the Germans, the Austrians or the Italians.
George Weigel, the papal biographer, once asked his subject what he learned from the Second World War. Pope John Paul II answered instantly: “I learned the experience of my contemporaries: humiliation at the hands of evil.”
The moral of the war story for so much of Europe is just that: humiliation and evil.
When a German thinks about World War II, he does not think about the “finest hour” but of national shame. A Frenchman does not think of triumph in a noble cause but of defeat and collaboration. Austrians bought their safety at the price of their honor; Italians needed, as it is wickedly observed, to “be liberated from their allies.” The low countries were crushed; the Iberians and the Swiss declined to participate. Russia suffered terribly to win the war and then inflicted further suffering on her own people and throughout her empire during the peace.
The Holy See, too, felt the pain of humiliation, with the tiny Vatican City State surrounded. The Church felt compelled to moderate her voice to preserve the neutrality upon which her freedom depended. It was a defensible policy but there was no glory in it — there was only humiliation in the face of evil.
Indeed, with the exception of Poland — which fought bravely and lost — and Britain — which fought bravely and won — the moral of the war story for Europe was that, as John Paul is fond of saying, “nothing is solved by war.” The subsequent Cold War only reinforced the view that war brings more evils in its wake and further underscored the impotence of free Europe to combat evil in its own neighborhood.
Americans used to talk about a “Vietnam Syndrome.” Long before Vietnam, Europe was stricken with doubt that it was possible to fight well, to fight nobly and to win. Europeans do not speak, as Americans do, of the veterans of World War II as “The Greatest Generation.”
Facing Iraq
All of this is important to understand the deep divisions that exist over war in Iraq.
It would be a mistake to dismiss Europe's dark memories as the irrelevant fears of “Old Europe.” Europe is old enough to have learned some important lessons in thinking about war and peace, the first of which is that war is often just that: humiliating, shameful, degrading and evil.
But Europe also needs to recover the North American sense that evil can be fought, that it is shameful to appease aggressors and that wars can be won with pride and decency.
Both are necessary elements in the Christian moral tradition on war and peace.
In the light of the current war, the lessons of the past do not determine current political positions, but they do give a sense of how the debate is framed.
The Canadian government opted not to join its historical allies — Britain, United States and Australia — for the first time, but the leading opposition party is in favor of the war, and the premier of the largest province has endorsed it in defiance of the national government. Canada is perhaps the only anti-war country where leading voices are criticizing the government for not joining the coalition. The arguments one hears emphasize duty, loyalty to allies and the demands of a just cause — not unlike the themes of In Flanders Fields.
Here in Italy the opposite is the case. The government has joined the coalition, but public opinion is against it. The ordinary Italians I speak to seem completely convinced that only base motives exist for this war — money, power, oil. The torch of Flanders Fields does not figure in the public imagination — the hands of war grasp only after gain.
So the Iraq war has produced an odd situation. President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are men of deep Christian faith, explicitly motivated by the morality of their policy and committed to the role of religion in public life. Yet the Holy See has opposed them every step of the way.
That happens sometimes in the practical application of moral principles. Disagreements are to be expected in those situations where the starting points for moral reflection are so different. Where you stand depends in part on where your soldiers lie — in Flanders fields, in Normandy or somewhere else.
Flanders fields are in Europe. But its legacy is elsewhere.
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Do Anti-American Europeans Have a Point? DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:I was handing out charity leaflets at the door after Mass when an angry-looking woman wearing a “don't attack Iraq” badge shook her finger in my face and said, “Get out of Iraq.” She marched off, not leaving me enough time to point out that I wasn't in Iraq but in Devon in the heart of England.
Anti-Americanism disturbs me because I remember my uncle and the other men of my parents' generation who paid a great price to liberate Europe 50 years ago. When English anti-Americanism rears its head I'm inclined to agree with the American joker who said about the French, “The nice thing about the French is that they're always there when they need us.” It is easy enough to be dismayed at European lack of gratitude, but a more mature response is to ask why they harbor such anti-American attitudes.
Could they be justified even just a little?
When I first moved to England I brought with me the typical American idea that we had rescued Europe from Hitler. That summer I came across an old man who wasn't a fervent lover of America. When I replied, “I don't know why you dislike America; didn't we come over and save you from the Nazis?”
The old soldier nearly exploded with anger and said, “Sure you did, but only after you sat out for most of the war happily selling arms to both sides.”
I had to admit he had a point. But during the last few weeks I have come to ask whether his point was valid after all. What made me wonder was realizing that exactly the opposite argument is now being used to beat America.
According to the old soldier, America was wrong for not confronting Hitler soon enough. Now (after allowing 12 years for sanctions to work) America is criticized for invading Iraq too soon.
Most anti-American attitudes are similarly two-faced. Some people tell me America is wrong for being isolationist while others criticize America for interfering in other countries all over the world. America is criticized for not helping the poor, then it is criticized because it uses massive aid programs to further its political agenda.
It seems Americans are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
In addition to revolving-door arguments, the critics are blind to the fact that all the things they criticize in America can be found on their own doorsteps.
Europeans like to look down their noses at what they perceive as American vulgarity, vice and violence while conveniently overlooking the decadence in their own countries. Otherwise intelligent people ignore facts, resort to slogans, circulate gossip and entertain any myth that makes America seem big, evil, stupid and dangerous.
Whenever the anti-American generalizations are challenged, they crumble. This leads me to question where the real root of anti-American attitudes lies.
I believe it lies in the universal human instinct to take potshots at the person in charge. In other words, Europeans dislike America because they resent her overwhelming wealth and strength. They hate the idea that any one country should be so invincible. They dislike the way America uses her power, and they fear the way that power might be used in the future.
This resentment is natural and America has to have big enough shoulders to take it.
When this human instinct descends to petty jealousy, bigotry and discrimination, it becomes destructive. When it leads people to be closed-minded and aggressive, it can become dangerous. However, this same basic instinct can be used as a right and proper check to unlimited wealth and power.
There's nothing wrong with being suspicious of those who wield enormous power. Rich and powerful people should be criticized. When anti-American attitudes are thought through and expressed rightly, they are a good balance to the invincible power of America. Not all the criticism is shallow, ignorant and immature jealousy. If America is to exercise her enormous power for good she has to be big enough not only to shrug off criticism but also to listen to criticism.
This is why the international diplomacy of Pope John Paul II is so important. The Holy Father actually loves America, so his criticism is all the more potent. Furthermore, he speaks from a worldwide perspective and with more than 25 years’ experience on the international stage. Most importantly, he speaks without an ulterior political or economic agenda. The Pope is not jealous of American power and wealth. He doesn't need to win an election. He has no plans to exploit the oil wealth of Iraq.
Neither is the Pope a simplistic pacifist. He is not in favor of appeasement. How could a man who resisted the Nazis and the communists be an appeaser? He wants to confront and solve the terrible situation in Iraq, but he insists the use of military force causes more problems than it solves.
He has experience in seeing harsh regimes fall without resort to war. The Polish regime fell. The Russian Empire crumbled. Marcos was deposed in the Philippines. The Czechoslovakian, Romanian and Albanian regimes crumbled from within. The Pope knows from personal experience that evil regimes can be defeated by peaceful means.
When anti-Americanism rears its head, Americans are right to shrug off the witless attacks.
But Americans must also listen and learn. Not all the attacks are witless. Americans must have the courage to listen to their critics. With intelligence and clear vision, they must question their motives and their means, remembering that the only people who are always wrong are those who think they are never wrong.
Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican priest, is author of The Path to Rome and More Christianity.
------- EXCERPT: My mistake was telling the congregation that I was an American. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dwight Longenecker ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Just before Easter last year, when my daughter Kateri made her first confession, I behaved like a typical, hovering mother.
“You've got your list, right?” I pestered her as she stood waiting outside the confessional. “If you forget what to say, just ask Father … Wait till he tells you to say your Act of Contrition … Listen to the penance he gives you …”
To her credit, Kateri didn't roll her eyes or shoo me away. She smiled nervously and nodded at all my last-minute reminders. Finally, when it was her turn, she slipped inside the confessional and closed the door.
Of course, I had never consciously planned to follow her inside. Yet I found myself feeling startled at being shut out of this important experience in my daughter's development.
There I stood, alone in the quiet, dimly lit church with nothing to do but wait. I had done my part by helping Kateri learn her catechism and prayers, but now not only didn't she need me, but my presence also was inappropriate. To a protective parent, this is no small revelation. Inside the confessional, my daughter was alone with God. What was transpiring between them was, quite frankly, none of my business.
Afterward, as she and I knelt together in the church, I thanked our Lord for his forgiveness as I always do after confession, but this time was different. I was thanking him not for the mercy he had shown me but for the gift of forgiveness he had given my daughter. As I gazed upon the crucifix, I understood clearly, maybe for the first time, that Christ had suffered the pains of the crucifixion for the sake of my child. Although intellectually I had always known that God loves my children more perfectly than I do, I had never really appreciated it in this way before.
When it comes to material gifts, I appreciate things people give to my children far more than I appreciate gifts for myself. As parents, we are always touched by the love others show for our children. Because we love them so much, when another person recognizes their worth and shows kindness to them, their actions are precious to us. Now that Kateri was old enough to receive the sacraments, God was preparing to shower her with gifts far more valuable than any she had ever received before. This made me recognize all the more clearly that my children belong to God. We may think we love our children limitlessly, but ultimately we are only earthly parents. All children are God's children first. He knows them best, gives them what they need most and loves them even more than we do.
During this first Lent since Kateri's first confession, I have been particularly grateful that it is not only for the love of me that Christ suffered but also for the love of all his children, including the ones he has lent to me. He endured the scourging at the pillar to gain forgiveness of sins my children have yet to commit. He suffered the crown of thorns so that my little ones might see heaven. Even as the nails were driven into his hands and feet, he saw my children's faces and loved them. He accepted death on the cross so that they might enjoy new life.
At Mass on Easter Sunday, as our children fill our arms and spill into the pew around us, I will thank the Lord for the blessing of our family. As we celebrate the miracles of his triumph over death and his victory over sin, I will appreciate these gifts more fully than before. Most importantly, I will thank God for loving my children so well. Through his passion, death and resurrection, our Lord grants them mercy, forgiveness and the promise of heaven — gifts so precious that not even an anxious, overattentive mother could give them.
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
------- EXCERPT: Easter Victory ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: All This and That 'Easter Relic,' Too DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:A visit to the Royal Basilica of Superga on the outskirts of Turin, Italy — home of the famed shroud many accept as a first-class relic of the Easter miracle — is a chance to gaze upon a vista Pope Pius XI called “the most beautiful view in Europe.”
A tram from downtown Turin crosses the River Po to the Sassi railway station. The sparkling building and well-landscaped grounds include a small museum of Turin public transport and a great view of the basilica atop Superga Hill — 2,194 feet up.
The journey begins aboard a historic funicular railway that began running in 1884. The 1934 carriage models climb more than 1,000 feet and afford stunning views of the entire city and snow-capped mountains that encircle it.
A shrine to the Blessed Mother has long stood on Superga Hill; later came a chapel built by the Turin City Council. The latter fell into disrepair by 1461; it was razed and replaced with a church with a bell tower. In 1624, the city erected a wooden statue of Our Lady. It would soon prove miraculous. The present basilica, which took 14 years to build, was completed in 1731.
The yellow circular building, with its central blue dome and flanking spires, is reached by stairs leading to a columned portico. Behind the church is an attached monastery originally built in 1736 for a congregation that had been founded by Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy. Today it's home to a community of Servite priests and brothers.
Though the city is always busy with tourists, the tranquility of the basilica invites prayer — or at least a brief expression of thanks to God for creating such natural beauty and inspiring such a magnificent structure.
Inside, my eye was drawn to the main altar and wooden altar railing underneath the grand cupola. Ringing the church are ornate side chapels whose seclusion heightens the sanctuary's mystery and grandeur.
A sign before the altar points to the Chapel of the Vow, which holds the ancient statue Victor Amadeus prayed before. In a room left of the main altar, the statue stands behind glass in a baroque altarpiece. Our Lady stands in a gorgeous red and gold imprinted gown with a lovely floral mantle spread to either side. One hand holds the baby Jesus, while her other is outstretched in a queenly, yet pleading, manner. A portrait of the duke vowing to build a great shrine to Mary if she would aid him in protecting the city rests above the entrance on the opposite wall. (Obviously, the Blessed Mother came through for the duke.)
Coming out of the chapel, my breath was taken away at the main altar's historic, marble bas-relief showing the liberation of Turin. Two tiny cherubs bear a golden wreath over Our Lady's head as she looks down on Amadeus of Savoy. Cherubs encircle them, while at his feet the angels of France and Piedmont fend for the royal crown. The battle scene — Turin's final siege — is depicted below.
Side chapels are dedicated to such notables as St. Charles Borromeo and Blessed Margherita of Savoy, with paintings by Turin artist Claudio Beaumont. My favorite was the chapel of Our Lady's Nativity, after which the church is officially named. It contains a lavishly detailed, lovingly rendered re-creation of the familiar Christmas events in Bethlehem, carved in Cararra marble by Agostino Cornacchini.
The view from Superga's dome is nothing less than entrancing. Jean-Jacque Rousseau described it this way: “I have before me the most beautiful spectacle given to human eye to see.” To each side, the city stretches out flat and relatively featureless — up to the point where the streets and buildings top and the hills begin. These rise higher and higher until they're finally overshadowed by soaring white peaks of the Alps.
A Royal Clan's Crypt
Directly below, the hills of Sassi stretch out to the Po, which curves its way through the closer edge of town. The visible funicular winds its way up the track then disappears again among the pines.
Along a shady path behind the basilica is a memorial dedicated to the 31 locals who died in a plane crash here just after 5 p.m. on May 4, 1949. The Turin soccer team was returning home in dense fog after an amicable match in Lisbon. The plane crashed into the backside of the mountain, into a supporting wall of the basilica garden. An oval stone monument marks the spot, listing the departed under a marble cross. Annually on the anniversary, a Mass is said in the basilica and absolution given at the crash site.
A visit to Superga would not be complete without seeing the Royal Crypt, which houses tombs of the Savoy family, the dynasty that reigned here for generations. Lined with colored marble floors, exquisite ceilings, intricate sepulchers, statues and a splendid bas-relief by famous artistans, the Royal Crypt is a treat for history buffs, pilgrims and vacationers alike.
Charles Emanuel I, great-grandfather of Victor Amadeus II, conceived the idea of a family crypt fabricated beneath the basilica but died before seeing his vision realized. Victor Amadeus II planned the crypt, yet it was only completed by his grandson, Victor Amadeus III. Amadeus III officially opened the crypt in 1778, then started moving the remains of his relatives to this one location. (They were interred in churches and monasteries throughout Italy and France.)
How I wished to linger after the tour, examining the monuments, statues and bas-relief in more detail. Learning about Italian history and architecture in the crypt, and seeing the unforgettable view from Superga dome, put Turin into perspective: Had the beloved shroud never been so closely associated with this city, it would be just as wonderful a place of prayer and pilgrimage.
Mary Soltis writes from Parma, Ohio.
------- EXCERPT: Royal Basilica of Superga, Turin, Italy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Soltis ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Guys, Scaling Sept. 11 Down to Human Proportions DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Set less than two weeks after that fateful day, it relates an encounter between a New York fire captain named Nick and a writer named Joan as they meet to discuss the eulogies Nick has been called on to deliver for a number of his fallen brothers.
The film is based on a stage play of the same name that was commissioned in the weeks after Sept. 11 by the Flea Theater, located a few blocks away from Ground Zero. The play was written by journalist and first-time playwright Anne Nelson, based on her own experiences writing eulogies with a real fire captain.
Sigourney Weaver (who, in real life, is married to Flea founder Jim Simpson) played Joan in the Flea's first stagings of The Guys, some-times opposite Anthony LaPaglia as Nick. Weaver and LaPaglia reprise their roles for this film version, directed by Simpson from Nelson's own adapted screenplay.
Unsurprisingly, the film is true to its theatrical roots: low-key, set mostly within the confines of an upper West Side apartment, centered on the conversation between the fire captain and the writer. In keeping with the minimal production values of the stage play, the film was shot in nine days on a limited budget. Dramatic Sept. 11 footage, flashbacks of the missing firefighters, even a romance between Nick and Joan were all proposed by Hollywood producers, but the filmmakers rightly sensed that anything along those lines would have been disastrous.
The Guys is not an entertainment, or even a story, but a simple, direct portrait of grief amid overwhelming circumstances. There's a transparent honesty to this film, an immediacy and insistence of emotion, that makes clear this is not a product of a calculated decision about the topicality of Sept. 11 stories. The deliberate lack of artifice makes for a quietly moving experience; given another approach, the presentation could easily have come off as crassly opportunistic or sensational.
The Guys is about its two main characters, but it's also about four or five men who never appear onscreen: Bill, Jimmy, Patrick, Bernie (and Dave, Bernie's partner in crime). By the end of the film's 88 minutes, we know more about these absent men than we do about the main characters in many another film. The Guys is about remembering the dead and is itself a sort of eulogy — though we learn more about these fallen firefighters than we would have from the eulogies alone and also more about the living who remember them.
Nick is clearly uncomfortable coming to Joan's apartment. He isn't really ready to talk about his men. He's still in shock, distracted by details: Eight families, he says, want services for their loved ones, though no bodies have been found; if and when the bodies are found, they may want funerals as well. But 350 firefighters have been lost. “If they all want funerals and services,” he frets inconsequentially, “that'll be 700.”
Like many surviving firefighters, police officers and rescue workers, Nick is uncomfortable with all the “hero” language being bandied about regarding him and his men. He doesn't feel like much of a hero himself and doesn't think of his friends that way either. “All this hero stuff, like they were guys in a movie,” he says. “But Bill wasn't like that at all.” Bill, Nick tells us, was the kind of guy that no one would even notice when he came into the room. “You can't say that in a eulogy,” he mutters.
Slowly, with gentle questions, Joan elicits comments from Nick about each of the four men. These provide the substance of the eulogies. The process proves cathartic for both of them, as Nick confronts his grief and survivor guilt and Joan gets to contribute in some small way to the comfort and support of those who lost so much more than she did.
A number of poignant observations are made about grief and tragedy. The ever-expanding meaning of the words, “Are you okay?” — so ubiquitous on and after Sept. 11 — is explored, as is the sheer fact of interactions between people like Nick and Joan who, in a sense, should never have met. A scene in which Joan looks with new eyes at a small group of firemen standing in front of their firehouse, then asks them a few semi-knowledgeable questions based on things she's learned from Nick, is especially touching.
In a shop, a clerk surprises Joan by saying “God bless America” as he makes change. She's used to hearing God invoked in her native Oklahoma, but not here in New York: “Here, you can't be sure if people have a God — or, if they do, if it's the same God who wants the same things.”
What God wants and how we can relate to him is the underlying question in an extended monologue toward the end of the film. Joan has told us how she used to make “deals” with God; now, confronted with such enormity, she asks, “How can you cut deals with God under these conditions?” She knows what she would want to bargain for: “I want them back, all of them. That's the only thing I'll settle for.” There's just one problem: She has “nothing to bring to the table.”
The Guys doesn't probe beyond these observations to deeper issues of faith, trust and redemption, yet it succeeds in taking false options off the table. Realizing that neither cutting such “deals” with God nor “settling” for tragedy and evil is a viable option can be a first step toward a genuine relationship with God on his own terms. Or, at least, that realization can be a step away from superstition and despair.
Some viewers may find The Guys difficult to watch, either because of its frank treatment of painful subject matter or because of its stark conversational format. Those who aren't put off by the film's austerity will find it more than capable of rewarding them.
Steven D. Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from Bloomfield, New Jersey.
------- EXCERPT: The Guys is a small, intimate meditation on grief and loss in the days after Sept. 11, 2001. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:The Miracle Maker (2000)
Here's a small miracle in its own right: a simple, modest retelling of the ministry and passion of Christ that does little more than present the bare events of the Gospel narratives, without adornment or invention. Created by a team of meticulous Russian puppeteers working with the BBC, The Miracle Maker is a groundbreaking work of astoundingly lifelike stop-motion animation against authentic-looking Middle-Eastern miniature sets, aided with occasional digital effects. The result is a world of breathtaking authenticity, supplemented with traditional hand-drawn animation for certain sequences.
A stellar cast provides vocal talent, including Ralph Fiennes (Jesus), Miranda Richardson, Richard E. Grant and William Hurt. Fiennes' Jesus is attractive, composed, commanding and compassionate; he can rise to righteous anger but has an acute sense of humor (especially in satirical parables such as the log in the eye).
While it's possible to quarrel with what the film doesn't do (e.g., not depicting the feeding of the 5,000), what it does do is virtually beyond reproach. This is quite simply one of the best dramatizations of the Gospel in any medium. An instant classic, bound to become an enduring Easter favorite.
The Fugitive (1993)
Taut, effective serial-chase story, based on the TV series, of Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), who is wrongly accused of the murder of his own wife. Kimble spends most of the movie on the run from a crack team of U.S. Marshals commanded by Sam Girard (Tommy Lee Jones, in an Oscar-winning supporting role) and pursuing the one-armed murderer who robbed him of his wife and his life. Ford exudes decency in the role of the innocent man wrongly accused. Kimble repeatedly puts other people ahead of himself, regularly risking capture and even death in order to help others.
Jones plays Girard as a hardboiled, ultra-competent officer whose initial concern is simply to recapture a fugitive but whose canny instincts gradually lead him to put the pieces together. What makes the chase especially thrilling is that both pursuer and pursued are smart, capable and brave; the story doesn't resort either to making the policeman bumbling and inept or the fugitive merely lucky. You admire and root for them both and want them to be allies rather than opponents.
Casablanca (1942)
Bogey is at his best as Rick, an American opportunist in 1940 French Morocco with a gruffly cynical exterior that belies his wary idealism and wounded heart. Ingrid Bergman is luminous as Ilsa, who arrives in Casablanca with resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Heinrich) but clearly has a history with Rick. Cynicism and self-interest contend with idealism and self-sacrifice as Rick and Ilsa's past weighs against the world's future.
When was the last time you saw a love story in which the hero's rival is admirable and heroic, a melodrama in which the outcome seems genuinely in doubt (because it was, even as the film was shot), a noir-like tale of corruption and cynicism in which every major character, however shady, redeems himself in some way? The problems of three little people may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but they can sure make for a great film.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Maine School's Catholic Identity Success Story DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:STANDISH, Maine — Stephanie Bisol is grateful she chose to attend a school that emphasizes its Catholic faith.
“I've learned to follow in the footsteps of Jesus,” said Bisol, a junior at St. Joseph's College of Maine.
St. Joseph's has grown 54% since 1990, and many are attributing the increase to a renewed emphasis on its Catholic identity.
The Washington Post recently rated St. Joseph's as one of the top 100 “hidden gems, schools who deserve bigger reputations.”
Founded in the Portland Diocese in 1912 by the Sisters of Mercy, St. Joseph's is a Catholic liberal arts college for men and women with approximately 1,000 full-time students.
“We've reformed our curriculum, changed our hiring policy, and the whole question of our mission and Catholic identity is very important,” said Dr. David House, president of the college since 1995.
Some say House is the reason behind the college's success.
“One thing he has done very well is to place a high priority on hiring individuals to administrative and staff positions, including and especially student affairs positions, who have a clear commitment to Catholic identity.”
“I think the clearest lesson that one can draw from the situation at St. Joe's is that although renewal of Catholic identity doesn't rely entirely on those at the administrative level, a strong-minded president who has the charisma and the patience that Dr. House has can have a huge impact on the direction of the college,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a Falls Church, Va.-based organization that seeks to restore Catholic faith to Catholic colleges and universities.
“[House] has a very healthy perspective,” Reilly added. “He's not at all insisting that every person who works at St. Joe's be Catholic, but his focus is mission-based, and he insists that those he hires share the mission of the institution.”
St. Joseph's, the only Catholic college in Maine, is open to students of all faiths. Currently, 65% of the student population identify themselves as Catholics, and 30 students are participating in the college's RCIA program.
Although not all students are Catholic, the college's mission statement clearly professes “fidelity to the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines and heritage of the Roman Catholic Church.”
“First and foremost we do nothing to hide our Catholic identity,” House said. “Our mission is posted around campus, and all new students get a copy of our mission statement on a laminated business-sized card. It's hard for students to come here and not know it's a Catholic college. In the admissions process we make sure people understand we are a Catholic college, and we are not apologetic about it.”
The governing board at St. Joe's is overwhelmingly Catholic. In fact, 25% of the board is made up of religious, priests, brothers or sisters.
“It's more important for the board to be Catholic than the president,” House said, “because ultimately they are the ones who have the responsibility.”
Numerous outward symbols assert the college's Catholic identity around campus. Crucifixes hang prominently in the classrooms. Daily Mass is celebrated. All three of the college's theologians have the mandatum. (“They wouldn't be here otherwise,” according to House.)
Sister Sylvia Comer, a Sister of Mercy who serves as head of campus ministry, believes the college's growth spurt stems from the fact that “people are looking for strong values and an opportunity for in-depth knowledge of life along with learning.”
“First of all, we hope to impart the core Christian values of faith, excellence, integrity, community, respect, compassion and justice,” Sister Comer said. “Each one of these values is spelled out and given to the students.”
Fields of undergraduate study include nursing, communications, English, science, environmental studies and biology. Yet, as part of a liberal arts core curriculum, all students regardless of their discipline are required to receive eight credits in theology and eight credits in philosophy.
At St. Joseph's, even science students learn the importance faith plays in their lives.
“We have one of the best small nursing programs in New England,” House said. “All of the students pass the nursing licensure. You don't necessarily think of nursing as tying into a Catholic orientation. But nursing students are the only students who come in contact with life and death, pain and suffering. There is a great opportunity for their faith to be developed.”
According to Bisol, who is majoring in sociology, “It's ingrained in every sociology major that we're doing good for others and not expecting a pat on the back. We are doing what we love to do. I think that's what Jesus did. The Catholic identity definitely shows at this college.”
Students also participate in service projects throughout the diocese that help them put their faith into action.
Father John Skehan works in parish planning at the chancery of the Portland Diocese. He said St. Joseph's College has many students who participate in service projects in the diocese during the school year.
“[It] gives them an opportunity to take what they're learning academically and spiritually and put them together,” he said, adding that the students also go to places such as Appalachia and to inner-city Philadelphia to work in soup kitchens.
Father Skehan has noticed a growing number of youth in the diocese are interested in attending St. Joseph's.
“There seems to be an increasing Catholic presence and atmosphere on the campus,” he said. “I think Dr. House has brought a lot of that. He very much helps add to that Catholic identity.”
A number of students on the campus recite the chaplet of Divine Mercy, and students pray the rosary on special occasions. For example, students recently recited the rosary for all the victims of war.
But the college isn't all prayer and study.
“Students do have fun here,” House said. “There are events and dances, and we have some party animals. But this is not a free-forall.”
“It's really a great community atmosphere,” Bisol said. “Everyone is accepting and understanding. It's fun to be on this campus.”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A Mother's Love Unbounded DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:PRECIOUS TREASURE: THE STORY OF PATRICK
by Elizabeth Matthews
Emmaus Road, 2002
138 pages, $11.95
To order: (800) 398-5470
or www.emmausroad.org
This is not merely a book about a mother's love for her autistic son and her nine other children — although it attests to that seemingly limitless well of maternal care and affection. Nor is it a book about autism — although it sheds light on how this complex developmental disability is lived out in the 1.5 million American homes affected by the incurable neurological disorder. It is not even about the beauty of a devout Catholic family — although it provides satisfying glimpses into the Matthews' lively household and their warm relationships with their extended family, the Mystical Body of Christ.
Instead, this is about how a loving God can use suffering as a channel of grace in the lives of Christians. It shows how he gently kneads and molds a docile spirit in the details of day-to-day life — smoothing here, trimming there — until the mature believer is transformed into Christ.
While Elizabeth Matthews' examples derive naturally from her unique vantage point as wife, nurse and “triage” mother, they are also instructive to readers whose experiences are not even remotely similar to those encountered in the topsy-turvy world of an autistic child's home. Matthews puts it simply: “God always gives me a chance to learn a good lesson when I need one.” And, as she recognizes those lessons in mundane activities such as washing laundry, changing diapers, scrubbing bathrooms and embracing her lot in life, she shows others how to discern what God might be trying to teach them. (In the book's foreword, Kimberly Hahn includes a checklist for identifying these holy nudges.)
Each chapter begins with a heart-rending letter written by Matthews to Patrick during his first year at a special-needs school about two hours from the Matthews' home. Since Patrick cannot read, the letters were never mailed. But writing to Patrick seems to have proved cathartic for Elizabeth. These tender expressions, written to a child who will never understand their meaning, reveal the role of the author's faith, courage and devotion in making the best of a difficult situation.
Each letter is followed by a vignette about life with Patrick at home, intended, Matthews writes, “… to open the eyes of those who do not recognize the priceless gift of children in their lives, and to encourage those who do recognize the worth of children,” as well as to demonstrate “the many ways … God has used Patrick's special needs to draw our family closer to him.” The chapter titles form a litany of the lessons Patrick has enabled his mother to learn; the Bible references correspond to these in ways that shed new light on Scripture.
There are a few instances when Matthews arouses the reader's curiosity by mentioning an incident, then fails to tell how things turned out. The other minor flaw is that her writing is sometimes uneven — an easily forgivable shortcoming, considering that this supremely busy woman does 10 loads of laundry each day. It's a wonder she finds time to write at all.
How blessed we are that she did. Atheists have often cited the mystery of suffering as the main reason for their unbelief. Precious Treasure shows the great Christian paradox that suffering, when embraced with Christlike acceptance of God's will, can be a source of great joy, love and goodness.
Not a bad lesson to contemplate as we once again recall how the temporal pains of Good Friday gave way to the eternal glories of Easter Sunday.
Ann Applegarth writes from Eugene, Oregon.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ann Applegarth ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Innovative Tradition
Initiatives at other schools have included a longer school day, supervised homework at the school or low enrollment to keep costs down.
John Convey, provost of Catholic University of America and a national expert on Catholic schooling, said these efforts continue a tradition of “clear goals and high expectations concerning student performance, attitudes and behaviors.”
He said they “aggressively socialize the students to the school's norms and expectations” in a structure that produces “a caring and supportive environment.”
Suit Settled
CHRONICLE.COM, April 3 — New Jersey's Rutgers University has approved the constitution of InterVarsity Multiethnic Christian Fellowship, including a provision that allows the religious beliefs of candidates seeking leadership roles in the group to be taken into account as part of their selection.
The group filed a lawsuit in December after Rutgers decided to end the group's eligibility for student-activity funds because of alleged discrimination due to the group's requirement that its leaders affirm the Christian faith.
For its part, InterVarsity recognized the right of any student to seek a leadership position in the organization while preserving its right to choose leaders based on their religious beliefs.
Founder's Award
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY, March 28 — Jesuit Father Joseph O'Hare, who will retire as president of Fordham University in New York on June 30, is the first recipient of the Founder's Award, a new annual award established by the university last year.
Cardinal Edward Egan of New York said Father O'Hare's most important contribution as president was arranging for “four of Fordham's most distinguished Jesuit scholars,” including Cardinal Avery Dulles, to teach courses at the archdiocesan seminary.
Father O'Hare served 19 years as Fordham's 31st president, the longest tenure of any Fordham president.
War Resignation
Joseph Fusco, the principal of the 850-student boys school, said the student dress code bars slogans on clothing and that the rules generally apply to faculty as well. He had no objection to Tankard's views, but said, “I just feel a button is not a vehicle to teach.”
The school is administered by the Irish Christian Brothers.
Laetare Couple
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME, March 28 — Catholic commentators Peter and Margaret O'Brien Steinfels will receive the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal at this year's graduation ceremony.
Peter Steinfels covers religion for The New York Times while Margaret Steinfels is the editor of Commonweal, a liberal Catholic magazine.
The award, which Notre Dame hypes as “the oldest and most prestigious honor given to American Catholics,” was announced March 28, two days before Lent's Laetare Sunday, for which it is named.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Pay Cut? Don't Worry
Q I just had a job change that resulted in a substantially lower salary than my previous position. My wife and I are finding it difficult to adjust our expectations. Do you have any suggestions?
A While I'm sure there are some very practical steps you should be taking to bring your budget into balance, my guess is that your biggest difficulty is accepting the change with a good attitude. Maybe the story of another young couple who found themselves in similar circumstances will help.
Mike and Debbie (not their real names) called after a series of events had wreaked havoc with their finances. Mike had left his employer after being offered a generous severance package, thinking he could easily find a comparable position elsewhere. Unfortunately, a new job didn't materialize as quickly as anticipated. Pretty soon, they had spent all of his severance pay. Their credit-card debts began increasing rapidly. Mike finally received a job offer, but the salary was much lower than his previous position. Plenty of damage had already been done.
Debbie shared how difficult they found it, for the longest time, to let go of things. Pride continued to get in the way of making the financial adjustments. Things continued to get worse (foreclosure proceedings were even started on the house), when they finally decided to offer the situation to God. They began tithing, reduced expenses where they could and prayed for God's will to be done. Interestingly, within a month, matters had improved sufficiently to stop the foreclo-sure proceedings. In my view, even more important than the change in housing circumstances was the change in attitude, illustrated by the following story:
The defroster fan in the front of their van broke. They needed the defroster for the drive to school during the winter months, but they didn't have the necessary funds to make the repair. Their son came to the rescue when he remembered that the fan in the back was working. He creatively taped a number of toilet-paper tubes together and attached them to the back fan, making it long enough to reach the front window. The invention worked! They celebrated their son as a hero; the whole family got a great laugh out of the whole episode. Do you see how they were now humbly accepting their changed circumstances?
When faced with a financial setback, certainly we need to make prudent reductions to our spending and continue seeking employment that will meet the needs of our family. Yet at least as important is accepting our situation with a humble heart. The Cure d'Ars, St. John Vianney, is quoted as having said, “Humility is to the various virtues what the chain is in a rosary: Take away the chain and the beads are scattered; remove humility, and all virtues vanish.”
If you'll persevere and maintain a contented spirit when your cross is extra heavy (1 Timothy 6:6-11), you will be sure to grow in grace.
God love you!
Phil Lenahan is director of finance for Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:A large majority of people who participated in an online poll conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics of Marina del Ray, Calif. — some 78% — believe that honest people can finish first:
These days, one has to lie or cheat occasionally in order to succeed.
I strongly disagree. (449 votes) 59%
I disagree. (147) 19%
I agree. (97) 13%
I strongly agree. (68) 9%
Total votes: 761
Source: www.charactercounts.org
------- EXCERPT: Liars Lose ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Eggs in a Basket and an Empty Tomb DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Not so long ago, Easter Sunday would find many — if not most — American families breaking out their best clothes and perhaps posing for a picture before heading off to church.
Sure, there were colored eggs to find, overstuffed baskets to unwrap and chocolate bunnies to bite into. But it was fairly uniform throughout the society for families to keep the emphasis on renewing the hope we have in Christ, thanks to his world-changing resurrection from the dead.
Today, it seems, the goodies have ascended in lots of homes while the Resurrection has receded.
It doesn't have to be so. And, for not a few Catholic families, the times have never been better for holding fast to certain family traditions — the ones that remind young and old that Easter is the most glorious holy day on the Christian calendar.
In Boise, Idaho, for Erik and Deborah Oaas and their son and daughter, attending the Easter Triduum at Sacred Heart Church has become “the heart of our Easter … particularly the Easter Vigil,” says Deborah. She explains that early excuses, like, “It's Saturday night and we'd rather be with our friends,” turned to the joy of the Easter Vigil as the children became older.
In Seattle's suburbs, Mark and Janet Shea and their four sons, age 7 to 16, have peers of the two older teens join them for the Easter Vigil at Sacred Heart Parish. The boys' friends want to know what goes on at Mass since suddenly it's “exotic and cool” to be Catholic in the highly secular Seattle area, says Mark. “At least the last couple of years we've taken a gaggle of their friends,” he explains. “Many had not been to church, let alone to the most solemn Mass on the Church calendar. And anytime I can expose people to the Eucharist is good. If there's any tradition I'd like to continue, it's this one.”
What about new Easter outfits? “We try to look more respectable than usual and dress nice for Easter,” Mark says. “Peter, 7, loves to put on his clip-on tie and look snazzy.” And the Sheas say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy over Easter Week. “It's easy to follow and it moves quickly,” notes Mark, “which is helpful for kids who happen to have a short attention span.”
In Clearwater, Fla., James and Janetze Hart and their children, Mary, 14, Max, 11, and Angela, 9, attend the outdoor daybreak Mass their parish of Espiritu Santo begins before dawn. As the Harts do every Sunday, they'll sing together in the family choir. James recalls the sight of the sun rising over the water last year, right at the moment of consecration.
Later, the Hart children will enjoy the “flour finger-footprints,” left by a “bunny,” leading to a basket — a fun tradition even though everyone knows who made them, says Janetze.
“You don't have to go the traditional secular route of Peter Cottontail,” James notes. “We put things in plastic eggs like stickers and puzzle books with a religious theme. The ‘Easter bunny’ brings things to our house, but the main things are Christ-centered.”
“It's evident when you look in the basket,” Janetze explains, “that the Easter bunny is Catholic.”
The best part of Easter for the Hart children? All chime in at once: “Jesus rising from the dead!”
In Dunedin, Fla., Timothy and Linda Smith's children — Eric, 23, Rebecca, 21, Nick, 16, Samantha, 14, and Robert, 13 — are sending letters to loved ones and even distant acquaintances serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They're also praying daily for the troops and all affected by the war.
Traditionally, on Holy Saturday night the Smiths make Scripture cookies together. “With each ingredient,” explains Linda, “you read a Scripture and explain to the children the symbolism and how it relates to the Passion and Easter story.” Although the ingredients purposely aren't that appetizing alone, together they make a sweet cookie baked overnight for Easter morning when “they look like a tomb, but an empty tomb split open” with a sweet message. “The kids thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Linda says.
The family carries on another significant Easter tradition as parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes Church. Linda is active with the Christian Mothers, who have their kids make cards and bring donations such as coloring books and stuffed animals to fill an Easter basket for the children in local abuse shelters.
At St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester, Mass., Mark and Grace Cheffers and their 10 children, age 17 to 22 months, celebrate the entire Triduum. Grace finds the traditional visit to seven churches after Holy Thursday Mass “a powerful way to begin” the Easter observances, especially with the older children in tow. She sees the prayer tour as a response to Jesus' request to watch and pray with him from after the Last Supper to his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. “It's those hours he was in his agony when we try to accompany him,” she says.
Husband Mark takes off from work on Good Friday to worship with the family. “That sends a big message to the children,” says Grace. The family walks the parish's outdoor Stations of the Cross, traveling a three-church route. “It's very good to combine some things with the community,” she says, pointing out that, for balance, parents also need quiet times for prayer and meditation.
It's important to live quietly with a different tone in the house and not start the Easter Sunday celebration prematurely, adds Grace. “We think what it must have been like for our Blessed Mother and the apostles waiting on that Saturday. We accompany her.”
After Easter Mass, the Cheffers family shares in a big Easter basket. Everybody gets a special treat — a chocolate cross. “We don't say the ‘Easter bunny,'” Grace says. “The children know Dad got the basket and hides the eggs. And we always spend Easter Sunday after Mass with the family.”
Over in Athens, Ohio, David and Sherry Curp have started a new family tradition. Three-year-old Miriam started it when she drew an “Alleluja picture” on Fat Tuesday. The family ceremoniously rolled it up, put it on the family altar and explained that “Alleluja” is on vacation for Lent. On Easter morning they'll unroll the picture and sing “Alleluja” again.
It's a song children of all ages, together with the whole family, will sing Easter Sunday upon hearing the three sweetest words ever spoken: “He is risen!”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
What's a Bunny Got to Do With It?
Where did colored eggs, rabbits and other popular Easter traditions come from? According to The Easter Book by Francis X. Weiser, many started in pre-Christian nature and fertility rites.
Coloring eggs, or staining them in vegetable dyes, traces to many countries and started as a symbol of new life. Christians see the symbol as a rebirth of man in Christ's resurrection. Some places use only crimson as a reminder of Jesus' blood shed for us. New plants and flowers were given special powers. Christians from early times connected the lily with Jesus and Mary. Its purity, brilliant blossoms and fragrance symbolized the life of the Risen Lord.
Because newly baptized on Easter wore white garments, other Christians started wearing new Easter clothes to symbolize the new life in Jesus all believers got from his resurrection. The custom took off in medieval times.
The secular Easter parade evolved from Europeans who took an Easter walk, or procession, through the town and country after Mass in their new clothes behind a crucifix or Easter candle. All along the way, they would pray and sing Easter hymns. The Easter bunny was born in pre-Christian fertility lore, another tie to new life in the spring. But the Church never linked the Easter bunny or rabbit to any spiritual meaning. The first mention of the rabbit laying Easter eggs and hiding them for the kids seems to have originated in Germany. By the 17th century, a German book had already called it an old fable.
— Joseph Pronechen
------- EXCERPT: Modern Catholic families celebrate the holiest of all holy days ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Parish Priest Par Excellence DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Cliff Auth says he never wants to be anything but a parish priest. You don't have to look far to substantiate the claim. All you have to do is ask any of the 1,900 families at St. James Parish in Johnson City, N.Y., to whom he ministers as parochial vicar.
Since June 1999, Father Auth has baptized, married, laid to rest, absolved, consoled, cajoled and inspired those whom God has put in his care. Most will tell you that he's done so not only with tremendous love and concern but also with irresistible energy and ambition.
“If I had to describe his charism in one word, I'd say ‘enthusiasm,’” says Kathy Colligan, who's been a parishioner of St. James for 25 years. “He's the most enthusiastic person I've met in a long, long time. We've met a lot of priests in our lives and I can tell you that he is truly a rare one.”
So rare, in fact, that Kathy and her husband, John, asked Father Auth to be their personal confessor even though they're in their 60s and Father Auth is 32. That didn't surprise St. James' pastor, Father Thomas Ryan, who says his young colleague has a maturity well beyond his years. Father Ryan notes that Father Auth has been elected to the Diocese of Syracuse's Presbyterial Council, the bishop's advisory committee. Recently, he was asked by the bishop to pursue an advanced degree in canon law.
“He's infectious,” says John Colligan. “His general presence is consistently uplifting and hopeful. He's everything you would ever want in a young priest — a man of faith, a man of prayer and a man who is at the same time visible to the people of God.”
Renowned throughout the parish for his gripping homilies, Father Auth seems to connect with people of all ages. Using funny stories, everyday occurrences and thought-provoking anecdotes, the priest puts complex principles into simple, positive, logical terms that even children can understand.
Kathy Colligan relates one of her favorites. Father Auth, she explains, was telling how he and some fellow seminarians once dared each other to go sky diving. They were all ready for the challenge — until the time came to do the actual jump. At that point, Father Auth discovered that he wasn't ready at all.
“He started the sermon by shouting ‘Are you ready?’ and having us answer back ‘Yes, we're ready!’” Kathy recalls.
“That really got our attention. Then he told the story, which was very funny, and tied it into Advent, getting us to think about whether we were ready to do the internal work it takes to prepare for the coming of Christ.”
Servant of the Servants
Nor is it hard to track Father Auth's appeal to the young people of the parish. Saturday nights, he's in the gym playing basketball with the guys. On school days, he's hamming it up with the kids in the playground. He works with the parish altar servers. He has an intuitive sense for suffering and, when he finds a young person going through a difficult time, he'll find ways to involve him in parish activities and monitor his progress.
Father Auth, who describes himself as “a servant,” finds his greatest fulfillment leading God's people in the celebration of the Eucharist. This, he says, is “the apex” of our faith. “When we recognize the Real Presence,” says Father Auth, “it makes it so much more comprehensible that we are and become the Body of Christ. That forms a solidarity among all of us and, through that, seeing the dignity of the individual becomes easier.”
Father Auth clearly considers it a great honor to be able to serve others as Christ served his apostles.
“Serving — that's exactly what Christ did at the Last Supper,” says Father Auth. “He washed the feet of the apostles. As priests, that's what we do. After we celebrate the Eucharist, it's our job to be with the people and struggle with them, suffer with them, rejoice with them and walk with them through the daily challenges they face.”
Usually up by 5 a.m., Father Auth starts every day with prayer. After that, there are e-mails to answer. He celebrates either the 6:45 or 8:30 a.m. Mass. Then it's on to appointments for sacramental preparation, visits to homes, hospitals, nursing homes and schools. There's always a meeting for this or that parish activity. He makes time in his hectic day for a run, which he considers “very therapeutic,” the Liturgy of the Hours and an hour of Eucharistic adoration.
Father Auth is present for others because he's had people in his life who were present for him. He recounts how his parents, Clifford and Patricia, taught their four boys and two girls to love the Church and honor its traditions.
Fast-Track Family
“There were things that we learned [when] we didn't realize we were learning,” says Father Auth. “Mom was a full-time mom and Dad worked at the telephone company for 45 years. It was a command performance to be home for dinner. Meal prayers and daily prayers were a given. The rosary was a big part of our lives. And of course, attending Mass on Sundays was nonnegotiable.”
More important than the traditions themselves was the atmosphere they fostered. The Auths are an exceptionally close family, and Father Auth has enjoyed a tremendous amount of support and inspiration from his parents and siblings, who range in age from 40 to 53: David, Diane, Anna Mae, Patrick and Peter. Most of the Auths live in the Syracuse area.
Msgr. Eugene Yennock has been another source of inspiration for Father Auth. His boyhood pastor at St. Daniel's Church in Syracuse, Msgr. Yennock always knew that young Cliff Auth had a vocation to the priesthood. As a student at St. Daniel's Elementary School, Father Auth was a reliable, responsible and active member of the parish who always had a positive and cheerful attitude, says Msgr. Yen nock.
It was Msgr. Yennock who encouraged him, upon graduation from college, to attend St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore. Father Auth took the advice and has never regretted the decision.
“Father Auth is a priest 100% of the time,” says Msgr. Yennock. “No sacrifice has ever been too great for him to make in building up God's Kingdom. He's always had a strong desire to work for the salvation of souls and now he's carrying that through in the priesthood.”
Marge Fenelon writes from Cudahy, Wisconsin.
------- EXCERPT: Priest Profile ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marge Fenelon ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 04/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Young People More Pro-Life
A major feature in the nation's unofficial “newspaper of record,” The New York Times, spotlighted the growing gap between pro-choice parents and their largely pro-life children. The headline read: “Surprise, Mom: I'm Anti-Abortion.”
Britni Hoffbeck, a high-school student in Red Wing, Minn., put the persuasive pro-life argument succinctly: “It's more about the baby's rights than the woman's rights.”
The feature was written in the wake of a New York Times/CBS News poll, released in January, which found that, among people age 18 to 29, only 39% agree that abortion should be generally available to those who want it — down from 48% in 1993.
Court Halts Forced Abortion
WLBT (Jackson, Miss.), April 1 — A pregnant Jackson-area teen-ager, whose parents want her to have an abortion, has received a temporary restraining order to stop the procedure.
Attorney Michael DePrimo with the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy in Tupelo says the 16-year-old was scheduled to have an abortion when she contacted the center, asking them to stop her parents because she wanted to keep the child.
Judge William Barbour issued a temporary restraining order to halt the abortion.
Stem-Cell Bank for Russia
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, March 31 — Russia's first stem-cell bank has opened, offering parents the opportunity to preserve their children's genetic material for possible future use in fighting diseases, said the bank's chief executive.
The company “functions like a Swiss bank for stem cells, where parents have an account number and access to the equivalent of a locker, or box” where the material can be preserved for up to 15 years, Paul Backer, a Russia-born U.S. businessman, told AFP.
Backer stressed that the techniques used in his clinic are non-controversial because the cells are obtained from umbilical cord blood, obtained after the mother has safely given birth.
No Cloning in North Dakota
KXMC, March 27 — North Dakota's Senate has voted 46-0 in favor of a bill that would ban cloning for human reproduction and research purposes.
Bismarck Sen. Dick Dever says some medical advancements aren't ethical — and it's lawmakers responsibility to put restrictions on them.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: New Blessed Is Father to Paul's Daughters DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — New forms of media are powerfully shaping the world in the 21st century. But then Father James Alberione, who was born in 1884, knew that would happen.
The priest, who is scheduled to be beatified April 27, created the Daughters of St. Paul and nine other religious communities founded on spreading Christ's message as fast and effectively as other messages are spread through any modern form of communications.
Father Alberione's foresight of the power of the media is to be celebrated in St. Peter's Square, a ceremony that will come as a war-torn world of round-the-clock television coverage gathers around the electronic hearth.
Today, the communities Father Alberione founded have 17,744 members in dozens of countries and every region of the world. There are communities for priests, brothers and sisters, and both single and married lay people. Together, they put out hundreds of books, periodicals, CDs, videos, computer programs and Web sites — all designed to bring God's message in ways suitable to specific audiences.
“What we try to use is exactly what means of consumption [audiences are] using in terms of communication as means of reaching them with the Gospel,” said Sister Bernadette Reis, a Boston-based member of the Daughters of St. Paul, one of Father Alberione's orders.
The Pauline Family, as the groups collectively call themselves, began with the founding of the Society of St. Paul for priests and brothers on Aug. 14, 1910.
Eventually it grew to include room for nuns in the Daughters of St. Paul, the Pious Disciples of the Divine Master, the Sisters of Jesus Good Shepherd and the Institute of Mary, Queen of Apostles. The Institute of Jesus Priest (for diocesan clergy), the Institute of St. Gabriel the Archangel (for consecrated male seculars), the Institute of Mary of the Annunciation (for consecrated female seculars) and the Association of Pauline Cooperators (for lay people) rounded out the mix.
The final segment of the Pauline Family — the Institute of the Holy Family for married couples — was established in 1960.
“Although individually these institutes have their own organizational setups, they are bound together by one spirituality and one underlying mission,” said Society of St. Paul Father Andres Arboleda Jr., who is on the Central Commission for the Beatification of Father Alberione in Rome.
That mission, “to be lights of the Good News,” is carried from Staten Island to Seoul and from Chile to Congo. And it is done in a variety of ways.
Each year, the Pauline family publishes books covering spiritual enlightenment on everything from alcoholism to premarital sex. Its periodicals are still wide-reaching (the Society of St. Paul alone counts 87 published in 20 countries, including Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's largest weekly). They run radio and television stations, distribute Bibles and open schools.
And all of this work was inspired by one man.
Pline spirituality puts special emphasis on Mary, the Mother of Apostles. Says the order's American Web site:
Mary plays a notable role in Pauline spirituality.
The Pauline Family has the mission of making Jesus Christ known, imitated and lived as the master. It will carry out this privileged mission in a holy manner by making Mary, Teacher, known, loved and invoked. She gave the world Jesus Master, who is the blessed fruit of her womb. Pauline teaching will be immensely more effective if it is inspired, guided and comforted by Mary: “With her help you will not grow tired,” we sing in one of the Marian hymns. No one would want to deprive him or herself of such a great help. Pauline discipleship is to be wholly grafted onto Mary, who will form Jesus Christ in everyone. This means becoming Christians, apostles, saints (Alberione, CISP, p. 1338).
Devotion to Mary, which is a part of the Pauline spirit, has two ends for us: our religious sanctification and the pastoral apostolate; that is, reaching out to all men and women, “To Jesus through Mary.” Write well of Mary because she is the way to go to Jesus, the easiest way (Alberione, Ariccia, meditation notes, 1936).
The Pauline Family aspires to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Way, Truth and Life, totally in the spirit of St. Paul, under the gaze of the Queen of the Apostles (Alberione, AD 93).
The first devotion we find in the Church is devotion to the Queen of Apostles, as expressed in the Cenacle. It lessened a bit and became obscure with the passing of the centuries. You have the sweet mission of gathering the faithful around Mary, Queen of the Apostles. You are to reawaken this devotion. You are to fulfill this most delightful mission in the Church. It means reawakening all apostolates and arousing vocations.
Let us return to the sources. At the sources we find Mary, Queen of the Apostles, and if it was so at the beginning of the Church, there is nothing more certain than to draw from the ancient faith. The water is purer when it is taken from its sources (Alberione, HM VIII, 1947-1948, p. 80).
Early Vocation
Father Alberione was born on April 4, 1884, to a family of poor farmers in northern Italy. His devotion was evident early. When his first-grade teacher asked him his career aspirations, he decidedly answered, “I want to become a priest!”
During the course of his ministry, Father Alberione wrote books and established periodicals, all the while firming up his mission: to evangelize through modern means.
It was a philosophy ahead of its time. It was not until Vatican II that the Church recognized the media of social communications as a means of evangelization.
“He was not only ahead of his time, [but] he was [also] ahead of his ministry in the Church,” Sister Reis said. “The Church looked dis-favorably at the media and yet he saw it a positive means.”
‘All must consider St. Paul the Apostle as the father, master, example and founder. In actual fact he is. Through him the congregation was born, by him it was nourished and raised, from him it received its spirit.’
— Venerable James Alberione
Father Alberione died on Nov. 26, 1971, at age 85. Fifteen years later, he was declared venerable.
“He sensed that the 20th century would be marked by progress in the media of communications,” Father Arboleda said of his order's founder. “He saw in the media a new frontier for evangelization and felt that it was there that the Lord was calling him to serve.”
His beatification, his devotees say, is important because Father Alberione is an example to society's core demographic today.
“There was no one for the average Joe Blow,” Sister Reis said. Father Alberione shows “you can become holy with the 9-to-5, highly technical work that most people do.”
His beatification also sends a message about the Church.
“His person suggests that the Church is not an institution belonging to the past, preoccupied with the past,” Father Arboleda said. “He represents the Church's capability to embrace new means to continue her mission of evangelization.”
Matt Sedensky is
based in Honolulu.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Matt Sedensky ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Iraqi Catholics Uncertain Of Future DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:SAN DIEGO — Ghassan Hanna is fortunate to be alive. But, he says, he wonders how fortunate the people he left behind are.
He fled Iraq in 1979 after being beaten by members of Saddam Hussein's regime less than a month after Saddam came to power.
His crime: “I did not believe in their political ideas,” Hanna said.
For not joining Saddam's Ba’ath Party, Hanna said he became a wanted man and fled first to Britain, then after several years, he continued on to the United States.
Now Hanna serves as general secretary of the Chaldean National Congress — a group that seeks to protect the rights of Chaldeans inside and outside Iraq. He is also editor in chief of the Chaldean News Agency. Most ethnic Chaldeans are Catholic and form by far the largest Christian group in Iraq.
With Saddam gone, Iraqi Catholics living in the United States say they are overjoyed to see an end to Saddam's regime, but fears and uncertainty about the political future of Iraq remain.
“Iraq is experiencing happiness with uncertainty,” Hanna said. “The looting has tempered the happiness.”
Hanna said he has monitored the situation in Iraq primarily via Iraqi Web sites, since phone service in Baghdad and other parts of the country is still down.
“People in different cities have reacted differently,” Hanna said. In Basra, he said, people are generally happy the British brought the looting under control quickly, while in Baghdad many are upset at what some see as a failure of the U.S. military to do more to stop it.
The most important thing for now, Hanna said, is that “electricity and water are needed.”
“When these two essentials are taken care of,” he said, “then the intellectual work can begin.”
Not everyone sees the looting as terribly harmful.
“That's a normal reaction,” said Hilal Malakha, who was born in Northern Iraq and is now the California representative to the Chaldean National Congress. He fled Iraq in 1979 by car because he feared being recognized and arrested at the airport for not being satisfied with the regime's policies.
Malakha said he has been in touch with family members via phone — a cousin in Basra and a sister in Northern Iraq.
According to Malakha, who attended a large post-Saddam celebration near San Diego that brought together Iraqi expatriates — Christians, Shiites and Kurds — “many [Iraqis in the United States] are planning to go back to Iraq.”
Like Hanna, Malakha said he hopes for a stable, democratic Iraq.
Christian Persecution
One thing everyone hopes for is less persecution of Christians. While many in the Western press held up Iraq as a model of a secular Islamic country, Iraqi Catholics say they were repressed religiously and culturally.
While Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, is often cited by the West as evidence of the tolerance of Saddam's secular regime, Iraqi Catholics seem to have a universal loathing for him.
“His name was Michael Hanna, but he changed it to take a more acceptable Arab name,” Ghassan Hanna explained. “He remained Chaldean, but no priest has ever seen him.”
“He sold out and didn't support the Christians,” Malakha said in agreement. “He's ruthless; don't blame him on us.”
With Saddam's program of “Arabization,” other ethnic groups like the Chaldeans — who make up only 3 to 5% of Iraq's population — were frequent targets.
Fifty Chaldean villages were bombed under Saddam's regime, Koran was forcibly taught in schools and Christians could rarely be officers in the military, according to Malakha.
Father Michael Bazzi, pastor of St. Peter's Cathedral near San Diego, agreed that Catholics had been suppressed in a variety of ways.
“No teacher could teach religion in a Catholic school unless he had a Ph.D.,” Father Bazzi said. “Our Church there cannot open [its] mouth,” he said, for fear of reprisals, but he wishes they would so more people would know the plight of Iraqi Christians.
No one could even name a child after a saint. Only Arab, Islamic or Iraqi names could be used by order of Saddam, and all Chaldean Church property was given over to the Ministry of Islamic En dowment, with all priests having to report to that ministry, according to Hanna.
Human Rights Watch World Report 2001, citing the U.S. State Department, noted that Saddam's government “has sought to undermine the identity of minority Christian [Assyrian and Chaldean] and Yazidi groups.”
U.S. Role
Malakha said the U.S. role will be key in creating a new government in Iraq because of the many ethnic groups there and the hatreds caused by Saddam's divisive rule. In addition to the Arabs, Kurds, Chaldeans and Turkmen, there are also tensions between the Arab Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Hanna also hopes the United States will work behind the scenes for the long term to create a democratic state in Iraq.
He said he hopes for a “Marshall plan” type of effort, which he said would give people economic success and undo many of the fears and stereotypes about America and its motives.
But he worries the United States might lack the will to stay long enough to make things work. “Americans tend to lose interest quickly,” he said.
“All over the Arab world, the war in Iraq has proved the failure of the nationalist dictatorial model; now a democratic model is needed,” Hanna said, adding that the United States must “play the godfather to all the different political groups to train them in the democratic [system].”
Hanna said he holds out hope that a continued U.S. political presence in Iraq and serious attempt at education “can change this generation of Iraqi Arab Muslims.”
“We hope it will be better [after Saddam],” Father Bazzi said, but success would require a great deal of prayer.
“The United States and Britain never mention one word about the Christians [in Iraq],” he said.
He said he also worried Muslim resentment for the Christian minority would continue, saying that Britain stood by while Christians were slaughtered after World War I.
President Bush has committed to a restructuring plan. Speaking at the Washington Hilton on Feb. 26, he said: “Rebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before — in the peace that followed a world war. After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments.”
The stakes could not be higher, Hanna said.
“A change that will impact the entire world is in the hands of the [American] administration,” he said, “Iraq could be the tool the U.S. can use to democratize the region and the fear in the United States after Sept. 11 could be solved.”
What it will require, he said, is short military occupation and a long-term, discrete political commitment.
Andrew Walther writes
from Los Angeles
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Homosexuality and the Courage to be Chaste DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:He founded and directs Courage, the first Church-sanctioned organization that helps Catholic homosexuals live chastely according to the Church's moral teaching. As he prepares to retire and devote more time to writing, he spoke to Register correspondent Connie Pilsner in his New York office about his ministry's future.
Tell me a little about what homosexual Catholics who are trying to live faithful, moral lives, go through.
To face up to the temptations a homosexual person has, one needs an interior life of prayer. I call this “interior chastity.” One begins with the imperfect virtue, which I call “white-knuckled chastity.” People are fighting temptations and they are knocking their white knuckles against the wall. They are terribly afraid of sin. If they die overnight they are afraid they will go to hell — that type of thinking.
In white-knuckled chastity, while they are afraid to commit the sin, they still have affection for the act, which results in a lot of vacillating. With interior chastity, they have purified their affection for the sin and avoid it for love of Christ. Courage helps them to get away from the negative and try to be chaste because they love Christ. In fact, that's what the second of Courage's goals is all about: to develop a life of prayer with Christ.
What are those goals?
The first is to live in accord with Roman Catholic teaching on homosexuality. The second is prayer and dedication.
The third goal — to foster a spirit of fellowship — is why we have a group meeting to discuss our life experiences so none of us will have to bear the burdens of homosexuality alone. We talk about the most common characteristics of people of same-sex attractions. Ordinary heterosexual men and women can choose priesthood, religious life, celibate life in the world, understood as consecrated celibacy or the single vocation.
Homosexuals, on the other hand, have limited choices unless they come out of the condition, which only happens in three out of 10 cases. By getting together, people with same-sex attractions share an ideal of chastity. We have many members, particularly older members, who have never told their relatives, and they get the support from the group. I'm not saying they shouldn't tell their relatives, but they are hurting. We have the opposite extreme now, which says that it's perfectly all right to be openly gay.
The fourth goal is to be mindful of the truth that chaste friendships are not only possible but also necessary in a celibate Christian life. Married people who have fallen into sin as a result of their homosexual tendencies come to us for help. Everybody needs chaste friendships, whether you are heterosexual or homosexual.
The fifth goal is to live as good examples to other homosexuals.
Are there differences between what men and women experience?
The men's difficulty with chastity is usually of a schizophrenic nature. They see only the physical satisfaction. That's why homosexual men are more promiscuous than the women.
As with heterosexual women, the women tend to see the relationship as more emotional than physical.
They have a much more unified sexual understanding. Men would mainly be concerned with temptations to a quick fix or with masturbation.
Tell me about the nature of the work.
The nature of the work has expanded. The original intention of Courage was to take care of the members at the meetings and help them to lead a chaste life.
After 1990, we were getting calls from parents whose sons and daughters were living a gay lifestyle or of parents of teen-agers who were inclined to be homosexual. So we formed a new part of our group called Encourage. Encourage has meetings with parents who have adult sons and daughters who subsequently tell the parents, “If you love me, you will love my behavior and my way of life.”
They're our sister group. Forty percent of the calls I get in this office are from parents. Since I am the only priest working out of the Courage office, we refer them to other priests located in their part of the country.
It is also the mission of Courage to counsel people individually and of course to act as spiritual directors and as confessors. This involves the deeply spiritual realities of the sacrament of reconciliation and the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Here in New York we have about five priests. We have annual meetings and days of recollection.
Do you try to help homosexuals become heterosexual?
Some people have tried to get us to have a sixth goal — to help the members move toward heterosexuality. I turned that one down in 1990, and I've turned it down many times since.
People come to a Courage meeting for the spiritual advantage and the support they are getting. They go also to a therapist outside of the meeting to get help. There are psychiatrists who have groups of people who are trying to come out of the condition. Good. We have sent people to them. But we are not going to do it. Even the attempt to do it would cause division among our members.
We have the purpose of teaching people about chastity. All of our members are bound to chastity.
What plans does Courage have for the future?
We will have a sports camp/retreat center in New Jersey. The purpose is to develop masculinity, just as women may need to develop their femininity. It's well known that young men can develop their masculinity through competitive sports activities.
An effeminate boy doesn't like competition and spends most of his time talking with girls. By identifying with heterosexual men, he reduces the power of temptation.
In addition to attending the collective retreats at the sports camp in the spring, men also make individual retreats. We are also about to have our fourth women's retreat. The women also engage in sports activities, such as softball.
Anyone interested can contact Courage for further information.
What are your personal plans?
I want to retire because I am in my 80s. I want to write another practical book in my last years for priests and professionals, teachers, psychologists and psychiatrists on how to approach or try to help persons with same-sex attractions to live chastely.
Are you looking for a successor?
I'm looking for someone, and I understand the shortage of diocesan priests. But I am hoping that a religious order might have a man willing to come in and work three or perhaps four days a week. I would be there at the beginning to give him counsel. There are other priests working with groups in the city who would also help him.
Must it be a priest?
I personally believe a priest is necessary as a director of Courage because of the many spiritual needs he fulfills, not only to members but also for parents and teen agers who come to seek counsel. Concretely he gives people spiritual direction and often hears confessions.
He responds to large numbers of e-mails and some snail mail in which people are asking to help them through spiritual difficulties.
In the event that we cannot find a priest, we will have to find a deacon, lay brother or nun. Whether a priest or deacon, I want someone with knowledge of moral theology — someone who understands that these acts are seriously wrong. I want someone who has the ability to listen to people.
The Church's teaching is so clear: These acts are of an intrinsic disorder and can never be justified. They must agree with that Catholic teaching and be able to give people some spiritual direction. We give spiritual direction through the five goals — that's the only way to keep people on track.
We need someone with an ordinary knowledge of psychology, a recognition that people with same-sex attractions have a wound — something happened when they were young. I never met a person yet with these tendencies that wanted to be that way. Homosexuality begins early in life with a trauma in childhood experiences that he no longer remembers.
Connie Pilsner writes from The
Bronx, New York.
----- EXCERPT: Father John Harvey, Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, has been a leader in the Church's outreach to persons with same-sex tendencies for almost 50 years. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father John Harvey ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: The Holocaust, Animal Rights and Abortion: PETA's Latest Display Angers Many DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:NORFOLK, Va. — Jewish children are compared to pigs. An emaciated concentration camp victim is likened to a scrawny cow. A heap of Holocaust victims' corpses is compared to a pile of pig carcasses.
Nazi propaganda? No. It's animal-rights propaganda. The latest shock campaign from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA for short) compares animals in slaughterhouses to Jews mass murdered in Nazi concentration camps.
And it indicates that in PETA's view, human beings are no more important than farm animals in the order of creation. Ironically, though, while the PETA campaign rejects the Christian understanding of the special dignity of human life, it closely resembles a controversial pro-life campaign that compares the Holocaust to legalized abortion.
PETA's “Holocaust on Your Plate” project — eight giant billboards juxtaposing photos of barn animals and Jewish genocide victims — was launched at the Uni -versity of California at Berkeley in late February and toured other western U.S. campuses. In the first week of April it moved east, appearing on the steps of the state capitols in Harrisburg, Pa., and Trenton, N.J.
“Twelve million people perished in the Holocaust,” says PETA's campaign Web site at mass -killing.com. “That same number of animals is killed every four hours for food in the U.S. alone.”
A slideshow at the site features a black-and-white photo of Jewish men crammed on concentration-camp bunks next to a picture of chickens in cages with the caption: “To animals, all people are Nazis.”
‘Outrageous’
Holocaust survivor Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has described PETA's project as “outrageous á offensive, and taking chutzpah to new heights.”
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., from which PETA bought the historical pictures, called PETA's use of the material “exploitation á which not only trivializes the Holocaust but is also a gross insult to its victims and survivors.”
The museum's legal counsel, Stuart Bender, issued a letter to PETA president Ingrid Newkirk demanding the group immediately “cease and desist this reprehensible misuse of Holocaust material.”
But Matt Prescott, PETA's youth outreach coordinator and the director of the project, said PETA does not intend to stop using the material.
“We're not out to offend anyone,” said Prescott, adding that his own distant Jewish relatives were murdered in the Holocaust and noting that PETA quotes deceased Yiddish writer and vegetarian Isaac Bashevis Singer for inspiration.
“We're not trivializing the Holocaust,” Prescott insisted. “We're widening the circle of compassion. We're saying neither injustice is okay.”
Are they not saying also that people who eat meat — Jews included — are equivalent to Nazis?
“We're comparing the mind-set that makes it possible for pain and suffering to occur á the mind-set that might makes right. á We're saying people who eat meat are like the non-Nazi Europeans in the Ho l o caust who knew generally what was going on but chose to turn their back,” Prescott said. “We are asking people to al low understanding into their hearts and compassion onto their tables by em -bracing a nonviolent, vegan diet that respects other forms of life.”
“Abusive treatment of animals should be opposed but cannot and must not be compared to the Holocaust,” Foxman countered in a public statement. “The uniqueness of human life is the moral underpinning for those who resisted the hatred of Nazis and others ready to commit genocide even today.”
The uniqueness of human life, however, is not a concept PETA members subscribe to. They refer to it as “speciesism” — humans' unjustified sense of superiority over animals. As PETA's president Newkirk has declared: “When it comes to feelings, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.”
PETA and Abortion
PETA also has an ongoing campaign telling abortion opponents if they're really pro-life they ought to stop eating meat.
Though PETA says animals' sentience — or ability to feel pain — is the basis for pro-lifers' duty to “go veg,” they are not moved by the pain experienced by aborted babies.
Recent studies suggest unborn babies feel unimaginable pain during second- and third-trimester abortions — more even than an adult would feel, because their nervous systems have developed but their pain inhibitory responses have not.
PETA's Prescott is unmoved by this argument. “PETA does not have a stand on abortion,” he said. “We are only concerned about non-human animals.”
Ironically, the Holocaust on Your Plate campaign is strikingly similar to the Genocide Awareness Project, a campaign of the pro-life Center for Bioethical Reform. The Genocide Awareness Project display, (online at abortionno.org), compares photographs of aborted babies to the Holocaust, lynching, massacres and other human-rights atrocities.
The Genocide Awareness Project has been to dozens of universities in North America — and banned from others such as Harvard — setting off fiery free- speech debates violent protests by abortion advocates and encouraging many pregnant students not to abort.
Gregg Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Bioethical Reform, said animal-rights activists have proved to be the most vociferous combatants to the Genocide Awareness Project display on campuses. They've taken a keen interest in the display, too, asking organizers where they got their material and photographing it.
“If imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Cunningham said. “Then this is adulation from PETA.”
Genocide Awareness Project has billboards targeting the animal-rights crowd. In one, a photograph of a tortured Rhesus lab monkey has the caption: “If this is wrong,” next to a photograph of an unborn baby's decapitated head in forceps, and the question: “How can this be right?”
That billboard compares humans to animals, too, but it raises the human being above the animal — the key difference between the Genocide Awareness Project and PETA displays, according to Father Thomas Lynch, a theology professor at St. Augustine's Seminary in Scarborough, Ontario.
“Humans, like it or not, will always have a unique place in creation,” he said. “[Genocide Awareness Project] is trying to have other members of our own species recognized as such.”
And, he added, by making that argument, animal-rights activists are actually edging morally toward the dehumanization that the Nazis inflicted on millions of innocent Jews.
“Trying to make human victims and animals moral equivalents,” Father Lynch said, “necessarily lowers the status of the Jewish victims to the level of animals.”
Celeste McGovern writes
from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Celeste Mcgovern ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Archdiocese Fires Official Who Criticized Bush
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 11 — Frank Fromherz, peace and justice director for the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., for the past 12 years, was laid off shortly after he sent an e-mail to hundreds of Catholics encouraging anti-war protests and calling on “the international criminal court to indict and prosecute our own President [bush] as a war criminal,” the AP reported.
Fromherz had received repeated warnings about the compatibility of his personal activism and his role as official spokesman for Archbishop John Vlazny.
Archbishop Vlazny told his flock of 350,000 Catholics that they should focus on praying for peace, noting that “divisiveness is not at all helpful.”
Rochester Diocese Hopes to Expand Cathedral
But the plan has hit opposition from neighborhood activists. They object to the planned demolition of 11 houses on the land, which they say will impair the area's residential character, and have taken their complaints to Rochester's city planning office.
The two sides met at Rochester City Hall on April 8 to discuss the creation of an environmental impact statement. The renovation would include the interior of the cathedral, which diocesan officials call outdated.
“It needs to be more welcoming than it has been,” explained diocesan spokesman Michael Tedesco.
Some local Catholics strongly oppose the proposed changes. Parishioner Michael Brennan predicted the renovation would cost vastly more than the $6 million to $8 million the diocese is projecting and total some $15 million to $20 million.
“It's going to bankrupt the parish,” Brennan warned.
Diocesan officials said they were unaware of any lay opposition to the project.
Homosexual Speaker Banned From Catholic Pulpit
That message includes White's personal story as an ordained Protestant minister who tried unsuccessfully through prayer to be cured of his same-sex attractions.
White had been invited to give the homily at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis, but the invitation was withdrawn, thanks in part to the work of Catholic Parents Online, a lay movement in the archdiocese, according to the paper.
The Star-Tribune noted that White, 63, had helped found a national organization, Soulforce, which attempts “to break through homo-phobia in Christian churches.”
Homophobia? While condemning homosexual acts, the Cate chism of the Catholic Church says homosexuals “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (No. 2358).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: School-Voucher Supporters Score Victory With New Colorado Legislation DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:DENVER — It was a nightmare come true for public-education unions everywhere: scores of minority youth hugged a conservative Catholic governor outside the Colorado state capitol, seeking his autograph and thanking him for a law that will pay their way through private schools.
With a swipe of Gov. Bill Owens' pen on the capitol steps April 16, Colorado became the first state to enact a statewide school voucher program since the U.S. Supreme Court voted last summer to uphold citywide vouchers in Cleveland. Opponents of the Colorado law fear it will set a trend for other states; supporters hope they're right.
“What just happened in Colorado may open the floodgates nationwide for a school finance system that favors the interests of children, not just the desires of an education union with a content-deprived educational philosophy that's a proven failure,” said G. Daniel Harden, a Catholic lecturer and professor of education law at Washburn University in Kansas.
Minority parents and guardians of inner-city children expressed similar sentiments about the new law.
“I myself came from a migrant family, with low income,” said parent Lawrence Luna. “We as parents want our children to have better opportunities. I'm just thankful, and grateful that this passed.”
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput said he is pleased with the new law, saying that it honors the parental role in education.
“In the long run,” he said, “I think all schools will benefit from this kind of common sense — public, religious and private — and I hope it sets the stage for similar action in other states.”
After signing the bill, Owens told the Register that Catholic legislators and business leaders are largely responsible for passage of the bill, which cleared the Colorado Senate 36-28 on April 10 with bipartisan support.
“Catholics have been a crucial part of a coalition that made this happen,” said Owens, who is Catholic. “The Catholic Church and Catholic business people have worked well with many other groups to make this happen.”
Opportunities
More than 600 mostly black and Hispanic children from low-income neighborhoods were bused to the Capitol to celebrate the new law, which took effect the moment Owens signed it.
Those who weren't swarming Owens for autographs clustered around businessman John Saeman, a Catholic philanthropist and retired cable executive who spent decades of time and piles of money fighting for the new law.
Saeman argues that vouchers will give opportunities to children who are stuck in public schools with test results that show “unsatisfactory” or “poor” performance as defined by the state.
As future beneficiaries and other supporters of the bill waved American flags, sang, danced and cheered, leaders of the Colorado Education Association — a local union affiliate of the National Education Association — bemoaned the law as a defeat for public schools and Colorado children.
Colorado Education Association president Ron Brady said the voucher law violates the Colorado Constitution. Association spokes-woman Deborah Fallin accused voucher supporters of race baiting.
“Why weren't those children in school, instead of on the capitol steps?” Fallin asked. “Thousands and thousands of Colorado children, of all colors and from all backgrounds, are succeeding in public schools. The voucher and tuition tax credit people have been using minorities to further their cause.”
The crowd was primarily comprised of minorities, said organizers of the support rally, only because they'll be the first to benefit from vouchers.
“Of course they [opponents of vouchers] are upset,” Harden said. “Almost anyone gets upset when the legally protected, publicly financed monopoly they've enjoyed starts to crumble. Monop olies are wonderful things if you happen to own one. The National Education Association, along with all of its state affiliates, is watching the breakup of its education monopoly.”
The Colorado program initially applies only to districts with eight or more schools that have received low or unsatisfactory academic ratings. Most of those 11 districts serve impoverished inner-city neighborhoods with high minority populations. Any of the state's other 167 school districts can opt into the voucher program at any time at the respective school board's discretion.
Education union officials argue that the new law violates a state constitutional provision that says no state funds shall be appropriated to “any denominational or sectarian institution or association.” The state constitution also forbids appropriation of funds to “support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatsoever.” The union is considering a lawsuit.
Owens and other backers of the bill — including former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer and Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar — argue that state funds won't be allocated to private schools. Under Colorado's school finance formula, the money belongs to the kids. The so-called “voucher” is a check for $5,000 — equal to about 75% of the cost of one child's public education — to each qualifying pupil, issued in the name of the child's parent or guardian.
“They're laundering the money,” Fallin said. “Each school district will literally have to write checks, in the names of parents, and send them to the private schools those parents tell them to. Then the parents will endorse the checks over to the private schools. It's a thinly veiled move to get around the constitution.”
Voucher supporters take issue with complaints that the program will diminish public school funds. Schaffer argues that because public schools will keep up to 25% of the tax money for each pupil who leaves for a private education, the affected districts will retain a projected $32 million each year for students they will no longer be burdened with teaching.
“They say we'll be better off, because we'll keep some of the money and we won't have to educate as many kids,” Fallin said. “But it doesn't work that way. Our overhead doesn't drop just because a few kids leave for private schools. We still have to keep the entire school open and staffed.”
Harden encourages backers of the voucher movement to keep a vigilant eye on the inevitable efforts of opponents to publicly regulate private schools.
“The statist opponents of vouchers believe that the money belongs to the state, rather than the kids,” he said. “But the legal doctrine here, as established in Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, is that the money belongs to the child.”
Wayne Laugesen writes
from Boulder, Colorado
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Volume Chronicles Communion and Liberation's Years of Rebirth DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — The ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation, which began in Italy in 1954 to educate its followers toward Christian maturity and to collaborate in the Church's mission in all walks of life, recently published in Italian the second volume of its history.
La Ripresa (The Revival, St. Paul Editions), which covers the years 1969-76, will soon appear in other languages.
The author, Msgr. Massimo Camisasca, is former vice president of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Rome and founder and general superior of the St. Charles Borromeo Priestly Fraternity of Missionaries.
In the following Zenit interview, Msgr. Camisasca describes the latest volume and the path of the movement's rebirth under the guidance of its founder, Msgr. Luigi Giussani, and its definitive affirmation in the Church in an Italian society marked by upheaval and shaken by bombs and attacks.
If you were to use an image to describe this second stage of the history of the Communion and Liberation movement, which would you choose?
If I were to express with one image the path described in this volume, I would choose the wandering in the desert.
We think of the people of Israel: The years spent between Egypt and the Promised Land, under the guidance of Moses, allowed its formation and represented also the definitive discovery of its vocation in the world. Years marked by adversity but also by many gifts. And by no few rebellions against their leader.
At times the Jewish people had the impression that it would all end there; then the journey resumed as if a miracle. The years 1969-76, only seven, represent under the guidance of Don Gius -sani the path of the movement's rebirth after a period of crisis in which its numbers were reduced to the minimum.
What were the most interesting and demanding challenges posed by those terrible years? And how did the Communion and Liberation position fit in with the Church and the world?
First of all, one question shook the Church in those years: From whom will salvation come? Much of Italian Catholicism, although necessarily without denying in theory that Christ is the Savior, trusted concretely in the Marxist analysis as a path to liberation, when not in the revolutionary praxis.
Here lies the center of the teaching of Don Giussani — the reply to the question: Who is the Savior, who can free us from evil?
In those years there was confrontation on the one hand between human wisdom and human morality, intensely and at times violently proposed by those who preached salvation through revolution, and on the other, Christian communion lived as an absolutely original way of understanding human existence, which comes from on high, is born of faith and from faith draws its vision of men and the world, constituting a unique rule of life.
For Giussani it remains supremely true that “God is everything and is within the human” because the eternal has become the modality of life for the human. “The great Christian word is the Incarnation, but what this God, who is within all things, brings to the surface is not human wisdom, it is lived communion.”
In these years he struggles for “a new city which must be born.” But the city is an absolute gift, a gift born of conversion. These are the terms of the tremendous question, a question of life or death for Christianity, which poses itself in those years.
For Don Gi us sani the decision is absolutely not ideological or partisan. Again in those years he said: “The decision we must make is to be within the one Christian tension we know, tension between cross and resurrection.” Immanence in the world, then, but immanence of Christian communion, presence of man conscious of the novelty he carries.
In that period, what answer does Don Giussani suggest for the question of evil, violence and injustice in the world?
The problem of evil and how to face it was the central problem of those years. It is also today. Here lies, in fact, the profound present-day importance of this volume.
Today, as 30 years ago, men, in the face of injustice, poverty, discrimination, ask themselves: Is war and violence all we have left? In March 1969, Don Giussani said: “We are vexed, inevitably wounded by evil, in its most clamorous version, the social, which is injustice. But we must not forget another type of evil, which is structural to our life, such as, for example, death, disease, betrayal. How is the problem of evil usually faced? With analysis and historical action. We feel the need to analyze situations and structures and then to act, we come together because alone we can do little or nothing, and what we cannot do together will be done by history and posterity.”
But Don Gi us sani adds: “I see that all the positions as sumed by man with the will to eliminate evil in the world start out from the presupposition that evil is in the structures, they are unilateral, they are forced to affirm themselves to forget or renounce something, and one violence is followed by another.”
Evil is in the man of today and alone he cannot free himself: This was the cry of Don Giussani in those times and the heart of his educational method. Evil has its roots in human liberty. [He says:] “The concept of original sin is at the basis of all this and clarifies it. Evil in me can be won only by another, by another who is like me but greater than me, by God made man, who died and is risen.”
Only when Jesus comes again will evil be completely taken away. But the life of the Church, at the same time, is an anticipation of this liberation from evil. In this life, continuity of the Risen Christ, man is granted to live in time the experience of life finally and definitively liberated.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Collectors Fight for Vatican Euros
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, April 14 — The city-state of the Vatican is a sovereign nation, which entitles it to print money and mint coins; since few are minted, they are frequently gobbled up by collectors. But rarely if ever have these people fallen to blows.
But that's what happened April 10 as more than 4,000 people lined up at the Vatican's mint to purchase specially minted euro coin sets. These sets are already worth more than seven times their face value, according to Agence France-Presse.
Profit-seeking and curious collectors lined up in the rain in Rome to buy the 13,000 boxed coin sets, which bear the image of Pope John Paul II and mark the 25th anniversary of his election as pope.
Fights broke out when the line moved too slowly, drawing blood in several cases. All the euro sets were sold — and many were immediately resold on eBay, the news service noted.
Vatican Radio Goes Back to Court
BBC, April 10 — A long-standing legal case filed by residents of a Roman suburb against Vatican Radio will now return to court, reported British Broadcasting Corp.
The suburbanites complained that the radio service, which beams the Church's message and Catholic news around the world, damages their health with its radio transmitter, exceeding Italian limits on electromagnetic emissions.
On April 9, the Supreme Court of Italy ruled that the Vatican transmissions fell under Italian jurisdiction and that three officials of Vatican Radio would have to stand trial.
Father Federico Lombardi, the stations' program director, said in a radio statement, “Vatican Radio hopes that a new trial will finally dispel unjustified and unfounded allegations against it,” denying charges that a higher number of cases of leukemia in the outlying Roman district of Santa Maria di Galeria were connected with the transmissions that originate there.
Scottish Church Tries to Save Roman Seminary
SCOTLAND.COM, April 13 — The Scottish Catholic bishops have embarked on a 1-million-pound ($1.5 million) fund-raising campaign to preserve their Roman seminary, the historic Pontifical Scots College, which has been underpopulated and underfunded for years, reported the news site Scotland.com.
Leaflets will be distributed in every parish in Scotland asking for donations, which will be used to endow the college in perpetuity. It is currently funded by annual gifts from each of the eight dioceses throughout the Celtic region, which are expected to decline in the near future, as the number of churchgoers in Scotland continues to decline.
The seminary was founded in 1600 at the height of the Protestant Reformation as Mary, queen of Scots, battled for her throne against Protestant challengers.
There are currently only 11 undergraduates and five graduate students at the seminary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Christ Has the Final Victory DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with more than 8,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on April 16 and urged them join with the Church around the world in prayer and meditation on the Lord's passion, death and resurrection during the days leading up to Easter.
He told the pilgrims the Easter Triduum is the very heart of the liturgical year. “By participating in the rites of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, we retrace the last hours of Jesus' life on Earth, and at the end of them the light of the Resurrection shines brightly,” the Holy Father pointed out.
He also told those present he would sign his new encyclical on the Eucharist during the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday. “Through this text, I wish to offer every believer an organic reflection on the Eu -charistic sacrifice, which en -compasses the Church's entire spiritual heritage,” he said.
The mystery of the cross and resurrection assures us Christ is victorious over violence and death, John Paul noted, and in him we can build a future of authentic peace, justice and solidarity.
But he told the pilgrims it also involves a commitment on our part in our daily life. “It means recognizing that the passion of Christ continues in the dramatic events that, unfortunately, also afflict so many men and women in every part of the world at this time,” he said.
Tomorrow evening the Easter Triduum, which is the heart of the entire liturgical year, begins with the Mass of the Lord's Supper. During the next few days, the Church silently reflects, prays and meditates on the mystery of the Lord's passion, death and resurrection.
By participating in the rites of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, we retrace the last hours of Jesus' life on Earth, and at the end of them the light of the Resurrection shines brightly.
In the canticle that was just proclaimed, we heard that Christ became “obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him” (Philippians 2:8-9). These words sum up God's mysterious plan that we will relive in the coming days, a mystery that gives meaning and fulfillment to the history of mankind.
The Eucharist
While the Chrism Mass, which we generally celebrate Holy Thursday in the morning, particularly highlights the ministry of the priesthood, the Mass of the Lord's Supper is an urgent invitation to contemplate the Eucharist, which is the central mystery of our Christian faith and life. Indeed, in order to emphasize the importance of this sacrament, I have written an encyclical letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which I will have the joy of signing during the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Through this text, I wish to offer every believer an organic reflection on the Eucharistic sacrifice, which encompasses the Church's entire spiritual heritage.
Along with the Eucharist, the Lord instituted the ministry of the priesthood in the Upper Room so that his sacrifice would continue throughout the centuries: “Do this in memory of me” (Luke 22:19). He then left us a new commandment of brotherly love. Through the washing of the feet, he taught his disciples that love must be translated in humble and unselfish service toward our neighbor.
The Cross
On Good Friday, a day of penance and fasting, we will recall the passion and death of Jesus as we remain absorbed in adoration of the cross. “Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pependit — This is the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world.” On Calvary, the Son of God took on the burden of our sins, offering himself as the victim in atonement to the Father. Our new life as children of God flows from the cross, the source of our salvation.
The drama of Friday is followed by the silence of Holy Saturday, a day of hoping and waiting. Along with Mary, the Christian community keeps vigil in prayer next to the tomb, waiting for the glorious event of the Resurrection to be fulfilled.
The Resurrection
On the holy night of Easter, everything is renewed in the Risen Christ. From every corner of the earth the singing of the Gloria and the Alleluia will rise up to heaven and light will shatter the darkness of night. On Easter Sunday we will exult with the Risen One as we receive from him his greeting of peace.
Let us prepare ourselves, dear brothers and sisters, to celebrate these holy days in a worthy way and to contemplate the wonderful work that God accomplished by humbling and exalting Christ (see Philippians 2:6-11).
Remembering this central mystery of faith also involves a commitment to live it in the concrete reality of our life. It means recognizing that the passion of Christ continues in the dramatic events that, unfortunately, also afflict so many men and women in every part of the world at this time.
Christ Has the Victory
The mystery of the cross and Resurrection assures us, however, that hatred, violence, bloodshed and death do not have the last word in the life of mankind. The final victory belongs to Christ, and we must be rooted in him if we wish to build a future of authentic peace, justice and solidarity for all.
May the Virgin, who intimately shared in the plan of salvation, accompany us on the path from the passion and cross to the empty tomb to meet her divine Son, who has risen. Let us enter into the spiritual climate of the holy Triduum, allowing ourselves to be led by her.
With these sentiments, I express my heartfelt wishes to all for a peaceful and holy Easter.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Is the Vatican Afraid of Muslims? DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Is the Vatican afraid of Muslims? The question was put to me recently in a conversation with a politician deeply involved in the controversies occasioned by the current war in Iraq.
As a devout Catholic, he was trying to understand what principles tied together the recent “foreign policy” positions of the Holy See. He correctly observed the Holy See was against the 1991 Gulf War, as it is now against the current Iraq war, but favored the military interventions in Somalia, Kosovo and Afghanistan.
He also correctly dismissed the possibility that U.N. approval means anything important to the Holy See—current protestations to the contrary —given that the United Nations approved Gulf War I and was bypassed entirely in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
He suspected the one issue that united all the positions was that it mostly corresponded to the feeling on the fabled “Islamic Street”; namely, that the Holy See's position was calculated with a view to putting the Church on the side of the mass of Islamic opinion.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano gave credence to this suspicion when he posed his famous rhetorical question: “Whom does it suit to confront a billion Muslims and run the risk of decades of hostility from the Muslim world?”
Other elements of the Vatican's “foreign policy” also give credence to the placate-Islam strategy. The No. 1 issue for the Islamic Street is the Palestinian cause, and so, too, the Holy See devotes disproportionate attention to it. Even a few killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will bring forth a papal locution, while other issues of religiously-related violence are left ignored. This reached its lowest level last spring when, during the Palestinian occupation of the Nativity Basilica in Bethlehem, a papal envoy embraced Yasser Arafat.
Meanwhile, the “other issues” left ignored relate to the persecution of Christians throughout the Islamic world. Hardly a peep is heard from the Holy See regarding the hundreds of thousands of Christians who have been killed or sold into slavery in the Sudan. Until he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his attempts to liberate Catholic East Timor from decades of occupation by Muslim Indonesia, Bishop Carlos Belo received far less public support for his cause from the Holy See than was offered to, say, the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
So, is the Vatican afraid of Muslims?
The answer is obviously Yes. But that needs some explanation.
There are a billion Muslims in the world, and most are not interested in persecuting Christians. But it is hard to make distinctions between Islam and Islamism, and perceptions can get out of hand, so the Holy See is careful to distance itself from anything that might look like a Christian-Muslim war.
More important, being afraid is not the same as being paranoid or cowardly. Paranoia means being afraid when you should not be. Cow ardice is not doing the right thing for fear of the consequences. I am afraid my interlocutor may have suspected just that on the part of the Vatican — paranoia or cowardice.
Yet it is only the foolish man who is not afraid when there is something to be afraid of. The danger that Christians face in regimes from West Africa to the Arabian Peninsula to South Asia is not to be underplayed. There is legitimate fear that taking a strong, public stand against what will be perceived as “Islam” can only make things worse.
This is not a new problem. Pope Pius XII faced it during World War II, having learned the Dutch bishops' strong criticism of the Nazi regime led to the deportation of Catholics of Jewish heritage to the death camps—including St. Edith Stein. Pope Paul VI faced it the length of his pontificate, avoiding overt criticism of communist regimes in the hopes of gaining more breathing room for Catholics behind the Iron Curtain; salvare il salvabile it was called — saving what could be saved. Paul VI himself confessed it was not a “policy of glory.”
It is also a problem of which I have personal experience. Over the course of my reporting I have come to specific knowledge of Catholics who have been persecuted by Islamist regimes. Their stories need to be told, and a journalist should tell them. I have not written a word on the specifics. Why? Because of the fear that further reprisals may be taken against those same people and those whom they serve.
Does that make me afraid of Muslims? Does it make the Vatican afraid of Muslims?
It does. But there are good reasons to be afraid, and perhaps the best that can be done is just to say so honestly.
Father Raymond J. de Souza is the
Register's Rome correspondent.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Persecution, Then and Now: Putting Names on Russia's Catholic Holocaust DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:VANCOUVER, British Columbia — For years Father Bronislaw Czaplicki worked in Russia, documenting the virtual annihilation of the Church in the Soviet Union.
The Polish priest helped compile a 600-page book of memories on Russian Catholics who were tortured, exiled and executed during a Soviet reign of terror on the Church that lasted decades. Old KGB files that were briefly opened to public scrutiny after the fall of communism helped him in his work.
The files are now closed, and so, it would seem to Father Czaplicki, is Russia.
The Polish priest has been ordered out of the country after 11 years as a parish priest and more recently as program coordinator of the Catholic Newmartyrs of Russia Program, created last year by the Russian Conference of Catholic Bishops to compile data on Catholics who might be considered for beatification as a result of their deaths at the hands of Soviet authorities.
Father Czaplicki is the latest Catholic priest kicked out of Russia, which suggests that while the 20th-century pogrom against Catholics might have ended, the persecution has ways of continuing.
The same world that is so enlightened about the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust remains largely oblivious to the crimes of the communists, the Soviet war on religion being a case study.
From 1917, when the Bol -sheviks rose to power, to 1939, when only two functioning Cath olic churches remained in Russia (largely showpieces to the existence of religious freedom for Moscow's diplomatic corps), Catholic priests, religious and laity were rounded up, tortured and sentenced to death after show trials that made no secret of the Soviets' contempt for religion and human rights.
In recent years, the extent of the terror has been documented by initiatives such as Newmartyrs as well as by Memorial, Russia's foremost human-rights organization. Me -mori al has been detailing the persecution extensively, making much of its research available, mostly in Russia, on its Web site at www.memorial.ru.
A Tragic Story Told
Irina Osopova worked for five years on Memorial's research into repression of the clergy from 1918 to 1953. Seven years ago, she released a landmark Russian book based on long-sealed, newly released police and other files.
With its depressing and gruesome details, the book attaches names to the mind-numbing statistics that fail to tell the tragic story of life and death in a country that regarded religion as the enemy.
Now an English version of the book, Hide Me Within Thy Wounds (Germans From Russia Heritage Collection, 2003), has been re -leased, and the people responsible for it hope it will disturb the West in the same way the original upset Russian authorities.
Ted Gerk, one of Canada's leading Christian pro-life activists, has long been troubled by the fact that Western society “has no idea what went on” under the communist re gime. Hide Me Within Thy Wounds, for which he helped find a North American publisher, might open eyes about that period of history.
“It's very embarrassing, the material in these files,” Gerk said. The book, he said, sheds light on “the bravery and courage of a lot of these people that ministered to their flocks.”
Father Alois Kappes, for example, figures both in Osopova's book as well as in the life of Gerk's own family. Gerk grew up hearing stories about the Russian-German priest who pastored the Catholics of Russia's Volga region in the 1920s and '30s. Gerk's grandmother shared stories about the family's friendship with Father Kappes (pronounced KOP-iss), whose warm personality endeared him to his people.
Unexpectedly, it was Gerk's fascination with Father Kappes that eventually led to his involvement with Osopova's book and its English translation.
While compiling a history of his own Russian-German family, Gerk became absorbed in the life of Father Kappes. He knew from his grandmother that Father Kappes had managed to flee Russia, but that he had also later returned covertly to continue his work. His eventual fate was unknown.
Not every priest was able to withstand the Chekisty (the notorious Russian secret police)-administered “severe interrogation,” and some gave up information that in criminated their fellow priests. “They were beaten to a pulp,” Gerk said.
The Vatican's efforts to establish a top-secret band of undercover missionary priests is another of the fascinating revelations in the book, which despite its methodical and sometimes uneven style is rich with accounts of intrigue amid its raw data. There is an ongoing theme of priests' attempts to elude authorities, often to be betrayed by secret police posing as sympathetic parishioners.
Equally disturbing is the book's chronicling of the ongoing hostile relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, heavily infiltrated and compromised by the KGB.
The material in the book “personalizes” the persecution, Gerk said, but “it's only the tip of the iceberg.” Nearly 20,000 priests were arrested in 1931-32 alone.
Seminarians were instructed to memorize the Mass and Scriptures, knowing that upon ordination, most would be arrested and many would be killed or die in prison. Indeed, many were executed and Father Casimir Vasilauskas was consigned to the Gulag prison camp system, working for 10 years in the mine shafts followed by years of exile.
Clearly impressive was the spiritual life the Russian priest was able to bring to his prison existence. Father Vasilauskas celebrated clandestine Mass nearly every day, out of view of the camp police, with a piece of bread and a teaspoon with a few drops of wine as the chalice.
Future Uncertain
Father Myron Effing, an American priest who arrived in Vladivostok in 1992, said the fathers and brothers of many of his current parishioners were shot.
He told the Register that those who lived through the persecution are now very elderly, but they remember the persecution they underwent.
Father Effing expects Rome will eventually canonize large groups of Russian martyrs, but the status of the Church in Russia remains a huge question mark.
“Their children's suffering lies more in the fact that they've been denied the knowledge and practice of the faith,” he said. While 40% of Russians are baptized, only 1% go to church.
Then there are the continuing tensions between Rome and the Russian Orthodox Church, which “lived in isolation for a long time and was heavily infiltrated by the KGB,” Father Effing said. “It's a dismal state.”
Paul Schratz writes from
Vancouver, British Columbia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Paul Schratz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Americans Capture Saddam's Adopted Monastery
He paid for the reconstruction of the medieval complex and created for himself a lavish two-story private suite, which he'd intended to use as a private retreat.
Saddam, who built dozens of palaces for himself, never actually returned to St. Matthew's Monastery, which was founded in the fourth century. A vibrant Christian minority — both Greek Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic — still exists in Iraq.
U.S. special forces and American-backed Kurdish troops arrived at the monastery on Maqlub Mountain near Mosul on April 10, according to the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, and captured it without damaging any of buildings or causing much disturbance to the three Orthodox monks and Bishop Loqa Shaya, who reside there, according to Brother Polus, 71, a blind monk who has been at St. Matthew's for 42 years.
“We were living in the same way before the war, during the war,” he said, “and we will remain the same after the war á praying for peace.
Officers Seize Nativity Scene Made of Cocaine
ANANOVA.COM, April 4 — Someone's dreaming of a white Christmas.
The news site Ananova.com reported that customs officials at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport had seized a nativity scene shipped from Peru — and found it was made of pure cocaine.
The set, which its intended recipient, a 50-year-old native of Rome, called “a unique artwork from South America,” contained 3 kilograms of the drug worth more than $2 million.
According to police, the manger, ox, donkey and all human figures in the set were made of the illegal stimulant.
Iranian Woman to Travel Around World for Peace
FIDES, April 11 — Poupeh Mahdvinader, a 29-year-old woman from Iran, is about to cycle around the world on a pilgrimage from St. Peter's in Rome to the Mecca in Saudi Arabia, reported Fides, the Vatican missionary agency.
The cyclist will pedal up Italy across France to Britain, then fly to the United States, cycle across America, fly to Japan and on to New Zealand, China, India, Oman and finally to Saudi Arabia and the Muslim holy place of Mecca — along the way trying to spread a message of peace and friendship among peoples and collect money to help orphaned children.
The young social worker, who is a Muslim, visited the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on April 11, where she was welcomed by its president, Archbishop Renato Martino.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Rosary, Register-Style DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Some gifts are priceless. The Guide to the Rosary, the Register's gift to the Archdiocese of Military Services, is a treasure of Catholic wisdom and devotion making its way to service members on the front lines of Operation Iraqi Freedom and military personnel around the globe. It takes a warrior's strength and resolve to hold on to God when hell is in session.
This book is one of those spiritual weapons of combat. Its poignant reflections on Christ's life, enhanced with vivid classical art images, elevate the mind and heart to God, who is everywhere — and can be found everywhere — even amid chaos and war.
Thank you for making it available to our military and their families. Through its faithful recitation, may justice and peace be served well and may loved ones return safely home.
JUDY MCCLOSKEY
Front Royal, Virginia
The writer is a director of Catholics in the Military, an apostolate serving Catholic military families in cooperation with the Military Archdiocese.
St. Vincent de Paul's Daughters
Thank you for the informative article about St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home in Hyattsville, Md., and the profile of its director, Sister Josephine Murphy, D.C.
I need to point out one error that you consistently made throughout the article. This was to refer to Sr. Josephine as a Paulist nun and to her religious community as Paulists.
Actually, she is a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. We in the Archdiocese of Washington have been very blessed to have the Daughters of Charity ministering in various elementary schools, [along with] Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg, Md., Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., and, of course, at St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home.
Thank you for allowing me to bring this matter to your attention.
FATHER JOHN DILLON
Hollywood, Maryland
The writer is associate pastor at St. John Francis Regis Church.
Mother Teresa on Tape
In “Missionary of Faith, Hope and Charity” (Feb. 16-22), it was mentioned that “live audio and video tapes of Mother Teresa are relatively hard to come by, as the Missionary of Charity was in the business of serving the poorest of the poor — not making recordings!” True, very true, Mother Teresa's biggest penance was talking to the public and being nationally recognized. Not because she didn't love to witness to the Truth, but because, in her humility, she didn't want to be personally recognized and she didn't want to be taken away from her first love, serving the poorest of the poor.
But, oh my goodness! The Apostolate for Family Consecration has at least eight hours of live footage of Mother Teresa meeting with its founders, Jerry and Gwen Coniker, and teaching the world the truths of the Catholic Faith in her simple way. This footage is available in audio-tape and videotape sets called Encounters with Mother Teresa. It is an awesome treasure of the Catholic Church!
If any of your readers are interested, they can call (800) 77-FAMILY or visit www.familyland.org.
ANNA THOMPSON
Bloomingdale, Ohio
The writer is director of public relations for the Apostolate for Family Consecration
Our Pope and Our President
I just finished reading the commentary titled “Rising Up From Flanders Fields” (April 20-26). I am proud that it was authored by a Catholic priest in Rome. The article articulates so well how honorable and caring people can differ on the justification for this war. I think the article gives a reasonable explanation of why the war is perceived so differently on each side of the Atlantic. It is so ironic that the Holy Father and George Bush are on opposite sides of this issue. On many other issues, such as the rights of the unborn, no modern American president has held views so consistent with that of the Holy See.
We are all truly blessed to have the Holy Father. I understand his position and I am proud that he is a man of peace. I would not expect him to espouse violence or war. Yet I am also proud of President Bush. I truly believe he is a good Christian man, and has only pursued this course after hours of prayer. Would that all our leaders pray to God before they act.
RICHARD A. BIERLY
New Albany, Indiana..
Catholic-American Pride
We are proud to be American Catholics. We are proud of our cardinals, bishops and priests, whom we see as Jesus on the altar. We are proud of our priests who minister to people in nursing homes, hospitals and prisons, teach in our schools and serve as Military Chaplains in our armed forces. We are proud of our missionaries all over the world.
We are proud of Bishop Richard (John), who criticizes the government in the Middle East denying visa's to Catholic clergy. We are proud of Bishop William Weigand of California.
We are proud of our pro-life priests — we must be 100% Catholic. We are proud of Archbishop John Myers for changing the rules on eulogies at funeral Masses.
We are extremely proud of Pope John Paul II and our Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
IDA AND GEORGE ZAMBETTI
New York City
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Special Solemnity for Life DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Permit me to add a bit more information to the story “The Day of the Unborn” (March 23-29).
As the article correctly pointed out, the Catholic world has, for some years now, expressed the conviction that the Feast of the Annunciation should be celebrated with greater solemnity, and its pro-life dimensions highlighted. This theme was emphasized in a special statement signed by about 75 national Catholic leaders a few years ago. The statement was issued by Priests for Life, Human Life International and the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It states, in part:
“As Catholic leaders at a time when our society is beset with the evil of abortion, and when the human embryo is treated as a mere object for scientific research, we believe that the celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation is more important than ever. By celebrating this Feast with special solemnity, and by spending more time meditating on its doctrinal and spiritual lessons, the faithful can be even more solidly rooted in their pro-life convictions, and spurred on to effective action in defense of life.”
The full text and signers can be found at www.priestsforlife.org/annunciation.htm. The statement was reissued again this year and accompanied with a national celebration on March 25 at the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
I am grateful to the Register for playing an important role in drawing attention to this current trend within the Church.
FATHER FRANK PAVONE
Staten Island, New York
The writer is national
director of Priests for Life.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: If C.S. Lewis Went to Purgatory, He Wasn't Surprised DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:In some ways they are very close to Catholicism, closer than anyone except the Orthodox, but in other ways they are more hostile to the Catholic faith than anyone else. (Save, perhaps, dissenting Catholics.)
They love the Lord, accept the Scriptures at face value and try to live in accord with the moral law. They may even admire the Pope and practice some of the Catholic spiritual disciplines.
You see this and you think they will be open to learning more about the Catholic Church, but when you bring up anything distinctively Catholic, they often react in a peculiar way. Bring up purgatory or prayers for the dead, for example, and the nicest people will start snarling like junkyard dogs. This reaction would bear some analysis, but here I want to suggest one way to break through the evangelical's reaction and win at least a hearing for Catholicism.
Use C.S. Lewis. Or rather, use those places in his writings where he broke with Protestantism and sided with the Catholic faith, in fact with two of the Catholic beliefs evangelicals react to most strongly. When an evangelical friend rejects the Catholic Church because she believes in purgatory and prayers of the dead, just say, “But C.S. Lewis believed in them.”
Evangelicals love Lewis. And for good reason, of course. He was a great apologist, a great teacher of theology and literature both, a great writer of children's stories and science fiction, and a very helpful guide to the spiritual life as well. They love him enough that finding out he believed in these Catholic doctrines may stop them from snarling just long enough so they can hear what can be said for them.
You hope the evangelical will think like this: Lewis believed in purgatory and prayers for the dead. If he believed in them, firm Protestant that he was, there must be something to them. If there is something to them, there might be something to Catholicism. All you hope for is a hearing. You want them to take their hands off their ears and listen to the case to be made for Catholic belief.
Lewis expressed his belief in prayers for the dead in one of his last books, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (chapter 20). He said it quite bluntly: “Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me.” Indeed, he went on to reject “the traditional Protestant view.”
He not only affirmed this in theory but also practiced it himself. In Letters to an American Lady, he asked her to pray for him when he died. In a letter he wrote to an Italian monk, published in The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis, he asked the monk to pray for his wife Joy, who had just died of cancer. In another letter, he wrote that although he had thought the monk had died, “never in the least did I cease from my prayers for you; for not even the river of death ought to abolish the sweet intercourse of love and meditations.”
Lewis expressed his belief in purgatory in the same chapter of Letters to Malcolm, and just as bluntly. “I believe in purgatory,” he wrote. He argued that “our souls demand purgatory” (the emphasis is his) and clearly thought that in this case our souls demanded what God wanted them to demand.
Our souls demand purgatory because we do not want to be let into heaven in such rotten shape, he wrote. We want to be cleaned up, even if it hurts. “Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’?” We would naturally reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.”
Even if God warns us that it may hurt, we will still say Yes.
Now, using Lewis will not always work. Some evangelicals who love him will just shrug off his views — no one is perfect, after all. I have even met some extreme evangelicals who thought Lewis a sinister figure because he had these Catholic beliefs. Fortunately, the writers they put in his place wrote such spectacularly boring books that I suspect many people went back to reading Lewis in desperation.
As I said, in invoking C.S. Lewis you are only hoping to win a hearing. You are hoping to stop your evangelical friends from reacting as they usually do when such things as purgatory and prayers for the dead are mentioned. But if, because they love C.S. Lewis, they do stop to listen, they may stay still long enough to begin to understand the Catholic faith. And understanding, sometimes, turns into love.
David Mills is the author of Knowing the
Real Jesus (Servant/Charis) and a senior editor of
Touchstone (www.touchstonemag.com).
----- EXCERPT: Evangelical Protestants offer Catholics an unusual evangelistic challenge. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Logic of Torture DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a terrorist. U.S. intelligence considers him the “mastermind” of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the October 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia; CIA director George Tenet referred to him as the intelligence “motherlode” of the war on terrorism. Mohammed is also a captive: He was nabbed in Pakistan in early March. And, in a development that could help the United States gather information about future terrorist attacks, Mo -hammed turns out to be something else: a father.
His two sons, ages 7 and 9, were captured in 2002 and are being held by the Central Intelligence Agency. A CIA official told London's Sunday Tele -graph, “We fully intend to use the fact that his two young sons are now in U.S. custody as leverage. We think the prospect of their freedom will be enormous leverage.”
Mohammed and his sons are lucky enough to be under U.S. supervision, where the boys are being seen by child psychologists and even the terrorist father is legally protected from torture. Other suspected terrorists have not been so fortunate. The United States has turned captives over to countries whose sense of human dignity is perhaps not as refined as America's — countries such as Afghanistan, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco, which have no qualms about pulling out fingernails, using electric shock or any of the panoply of techniques in the torturer's arsenal.
Backdoor Torture?
In March 2002, the Washington Post reported, “Since Sept. 11, the U.S. government has secretly transported dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities, according to Western diplomats and intelligence sources. The suspects have been taken to countries, including Egypt and Jordan, whose intelligence services have close ties to the CIA and where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics — including torture and threats to families — that are illegal in the United States, the sources said. In some cases, U.S. intelligence agents remain closely involved in the interrogation, the sources said.”
In other words, the United States relies on repressive Arab states' willingness to torture suspects, even as it claims to press for liberalization in those same states. And after the deaths of two Al Qaeda members at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, former detainees have alleged the United States was more directly involved in torture: Examinations of the prisoners' corpses showed they had been beaten, and former detainees signed statements claiming they were hung from ceilings, kicked, deprived of sleep and beaten. The deaths at Bagram have been classified as homicides.
Is that a problem? Many CIA officials don't think so: One told Canada's National Post, “After all, if you don't violate a prisoner's human rights some of the time, then you aren't doing your job.” And many Americans shocked by the Sept. 11 attacks don't think so. Even some prominent political thinkers, such as controversial law professor Alan Dershowitz and pundit Pat Buchanan, have no problem with torturing terrorists.
Buchanan, a Catholic, placed national security above the catechism (and U.S. law) in his syndicated column when he argued that a “higher law” allowed for torture in extraordinary circumstances. Buchanan argued, “[I]f doctors can cut off limbs and open up hearts to save lives, cops may shoot criminals to save lives and the state may execute criminals, why cannot we commit a lesser evil — squeezing the truth out of Mohammed — for a far greater good: preventing the murder of innocents[?]”
Buchanan spoke for many Americans — people such as Ray Downing, whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center. Downing told the National Post: “They should cut off their fingers one by one until they talk.”
Downing deserves our deepest sympathy, of course, but the ethic he espoused in his grief eats away at values we must be committed to preserve as Catholics and as Americans. “By any means necessary” is an ethic that warps our character and goes against our religion.
In discussing the Fifth Commandment (“You shall not kill”), the catechism declares, “Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity” (No. 2297). The U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States has signed and ratified (giving the treaty the force of American law), prohibits deliberately causing “severe” pain and suffering. The treaty adds, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture,” and prohibits extradition “to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The treaty does allow “discomfort”; many standard American interrogation techniques are still allowable. For example, interrogation sessions lasting almost a full day, good cop/bad cop routines, using female interrogators (which often upsets Muslim terrorists), making captives wear black hoods to disorient them and even forcing captives to stand in painful positions are all considered unpleasant but not torture.
But as Catholics and as engaged citizens, it's not enough to just quote the rules. We have an obligation to seek to understand why both God's law and man's law forbid torture.
How would accepting torture — whether done in the United States or by other countries at our tacit request — change our society? Raymond Chandler described his noir detective Philip Marlowe by saying, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean.” That might sound sentimental, but the alternatives are far worse: the belief that those who protect society stand outside the law; the belief that America must be protected by any means necessary. Marlowe was a tough guy, and it's tough to say we will not fight dirty. Down these mean streets a country must go that is not itself mean — a country that does not believe in useful cruelty.
Liberty and Mercy
A torturing nation accepts a mind-set that is inhospitable to liberty and mercy, a mind-set that places self-preservation above everything. But one of the basic components of a liberal society such as America is the willingness to accept danger in order to preserve certain inalienable rights. Even if it would make society safer, liberalism rejects bans on political ideology (radical Islam, say, or communism during the Cold War). Even if it made society safer, liberalism condemns the Japanese- and Italian-American internments.
We can argue about whence our rights derive, but if they are not favors bestowed by society then they must be based on truths about the human person. One of those basic truths is human dignity — an inescapable degree of responsibility and worth that we can't throw away even if we try to. And it's precisely this dignity that torture assaults; it's this dignity that torture conditions the torturer to ignore.
The underlying justification for torture is the utilitarian calculus: the denial of human dignity in the interest of physical safety. It is the logic of all “ends justify the means” projects today, from targeting civilians to embryo-destructive research. And it is utterly opposed to the logic of the cross.
Eve Tushnet, a former Register staff
writer, is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Is Malcolm in the Middle of a Pro-Life Story? DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:I have a confession to make.
Call it a guilty pleasure or chalk it up to the consequences of a fallen nature, but I like the Fox television show “Malcolm in the Middle.”
It is sometimes coarse, sometimes an affront to good taste and sometimes even profane, but it is most times very funny, and since the one true barometer for any comedy show is its ability to make one laugh, then at least to me, “Malcolm” is a success.
However, what I was not prepared to see on “Malcolm in the Middle” recently was a remarkably strong pro-life story.
For the uninitiated, “Malcolm in the Middle” is a sitcom about a family that puts the “fun” in dys-functional. There are the harried parents, Hal and Lois, and their four sons. It's a family that would be painted by Norman Rockwell if Norman Rockwell was addicted to pain medication.
The stories are usually told through the prism of middle-school-age Malcolm, a boy genius who is filled with doubts and anxiety. The other sons are, at times, hoodlums, malcontents, bullies and pretty much the kind of boys that would cause any parent to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
And to top it all off, this is a show that can be found on the Fox television network, the same proud broadcaster that has given us such wholesome staples as “Temptation Island,” “Joe Millionaire” and “Celebrity Boxing.”
In other words, it is the very last place one would expect to find a pro-life message. But that's exactly what I found in one of the more recent episodes of “Malcolm in the Middle.”
Obviously, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Let's face it: If he can work the salvation of mankind through
Judas Iscariot, he can certainly work a little magic through a Fox network executive.
The storyline of the show in question found Hal and Lois being sued by Lois' mother af ter she has a fall at their house.
The mother is brilliantly portrayed by ac tress Cloris Leach man with all of the charm and warmth of a women's prison matron. The pending lawsuit would signify a pending financial disaster if it weren't for the fact that Hal and Lois live continually on the razor's edge of fiscal catastrophe anyway. Money management is not their forte. Nor is raising children, as all four of their sons seem to be going in every direction but the right one on a weekly basis.
I have a little hobby. It really isn't a very healthy one, but on the rare occasion I am watching a network sitcom, I check my watch and tick off the seconds, from the moment I begin watching to the time something offensive transpires. I usually never get past 10 seconds and when this particular episode of “Malcolm in the Middle” unveiled the plot complication of the week, my eyes instantly scanned the second hand on my Timex.
In the midst of the chaos that is the life of Hal and Lois, parents of the irresponsible Francis, parents of the thug Reese, parents of the brilliant but broken Malcolm and parents of the rather odd Dewey, comes an unexpected surprise: Lois is going to have a baby.
With remote control at the ready, I anticipated some extremely offensive use of the pregnancy. After all, this was Fox television. But there was no offensive manipulation of this plot device. Instead, it was used to present a rather refreshing — dare I say it — Catholic view of the family.
The characters of Hal and Lois are not emotionally, financially or in any other way prepared to have a child. Who is? If there was a joke about some failed form of birth control, I missed it. But regardless, the way the characters dealt with the impending arrival was as startling as it was refreshing.
The baby is “unplanned.” The humor generated by the premise of the baby's arrival was almost a retro version of what you would have seen on “I Love Lucy.” The baby may have been a “surprise,” but Hal and Lois are going to love this baby and by the end of the episode each of the four sons comes to the same conclusion. The baby is treated, pardon the pun, as a “fact of life.”
Whether some poor writer locked up in a room put his or her heart and soul into this episode in order to strike a blow for the pro-life movement may be hard to substantiate. My hunch is that through a series of happy “accidents” a little bit of the truth snuck by the internal sensors that most writers, producers and directors working on either coast seem to be born with.
Little victories. I'll take them where I can find them.
Hal and Lois are basket cases — they already have four sons they cannot control; they have financial difficulties even before the lawsuit from dear old mom that would sink most average families. Their lives are a chaotic mess — and baby makes seven.
Big families these days are a husband and wife and maybe three kids. The family in “Malcolm in the Middle” is about to explode to include seven, plus the wife of Francis, the oldest boy. Television hasn't seen this many children since “The Waltons” — and the family in “Malcolm in the Middle” would only be like the Waltons if the Waltons all got addicted to moonshine.
Robert Brennan is a
television writer in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: 'When I think of the Eucharist and Look at My Life . . .' DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II begins his new encyclical, Ecclesia Eucharistia, with a personal reflection on the Eucharist in his own life. Nos. 7-10 of the encyclical follow.
From the time I began my ministry as the Successor of Peter, I have always marked Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, by sending a letter to all the priests of the world. This year, the 25th of my pontificate, I wish to involve the whole Church more fully in this Eucharistic reflection, also as a way of thanking the Lord for the gift of the Eucharist and the priest-hood: “Gift and Mystery.” By proclaiming the Year of the Rosary, I wish to put this, my 25th anniversary, under the aegis of the contemplation of Christ at the school of Mary. Consequently, I cannot let this Holy Thursday 2003 pass without halting before the “Eucharistic face” of Christ and pointing out with new force to the Church the centrality of the Eucharist.
From it the Church draws her life. From this “living bread” she draws her nourishment. How could I not feel the need to urge everyone to experience it ever anew?
When I think of the Eucharist and look at my life as a priest, as a bishop and as the Successor of Peter, I naturally recall the many times and places in which I was able to celebrate it. I remember the parish church of Niegowic, where I had my first pastoral assignment, the collegiate church of St. Florian in Krakow, Wawel Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica and so many basil-icas and churches in Rome and throughout the world. I have been able to celebrate Holy Mass in chapels built along mountain paths, on lakeshores and seacoasts; I have celebrated it on altars built in stadiums and in city squares … This varied scenario of celebrations of the Eucharist has given me a powerful experience of its universal and, so to speak, cosmic character. Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the mysterium fidei which is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to him redeemed by Christ.
The Eucharist, as Christ's saving presence in the community of the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most precious possession which the Church can have in her journey through history. This explains the lively concern which she has always shown for the Eucharistic mystery, a concern which finds authoritative expression in the work of the councils and the popes. How can we not admire the doctrinal expositions of the decrees on the most holy Eucharist and on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass promulgated by the Council of Trent? For centuries those decrees guided theology and catechesis, and they are still a dogmatic reference-point for the continual renewal and growth of God's people in faith and in love for the Eucharist. In times closer to our own, three encyclical letters should be mentioned: the encyclical Mirae Caritatis of Leo XIII (May 28, 1902), the En cyclical Mediator Dei of Pius XII (Nov. 20, 1947) and the Encyclical Mysterium Fidei of Paul VI (Sept. 3, 1965).
The Second Vatican Council, while not issuing a specific document on the Eucharistic mystery, considered its various aspects throughout its documents, especially the dogmatic constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium and the constitution on the sacred liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium.
I myself, in the first years of my apostolic ministry in the chair of Peter, wrote the apostolic letter Dominicae Cenae (Feb. 24, 1980), in which I discussed some aspects of the Eucharistic mystery and its importance for the life of those who are its ministers. Today I take up anew the thread of that argument, with even greater emotion and gratitude in my heart, echoing as it were the word of the psalmist: “What shall I render to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:12-13).
The magisterium's commitment to proclaiming the Eucharistic mystery has been matched by interior growth within the Christian community. Certainly the liturgical reform inaugurated by the council has greatly contributed to a more conscious, active and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the faithful. In many places, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is also an important daily practice and becomes an inexhaustible source of holiness. The devout participation of the faithful in the Eucharistic procession on the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is a grace from the Lord which yearly brings joy to those who take part in it.
Other positive signs of Eucharistic faith and love might also be mentioned.
Unfortunately, alongside these lights, there are also shadows. In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the Church abuses have occurred, leading to confusion with regard to sound faith and Catholic doctrine concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery.
Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet. Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation. This has led here and there to ecumenical initiatives which, albeit well-intentioned, indulge in Eucharistic practices contrary to the discipline by which the Church expresses her faith. How can we not express profound grief at all this? The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation.
It is my hope that the present encyclical letter will effectively help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant mystery.
(Vatican translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Listen to His Voice DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Tuesday April 29 Gospel: John 3:7-15
“Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can this happen?” Jesus an swered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel and you do not understand this? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
Introductory Prayer: Holy Spirit, I offer myself to you today to be your messenger and your spokesman. Bring me your many gifts and make me a more faithful witness to your truth.
Petition: Help me Lord to be faithful to all the promptings of your Spirit
The Spirit of Wisdom. All wisdom comes from the Holy Spirit to whom it belongs. How else could St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast we celebrate today, have convinced Pope Gregory XI to return the papa-cy to Rome?
The Holy Spirit told her what to say. “Remember your promise,” she whispered into his ear. Pope Gregory knew what she was referring to, a secret promise he had made to God to return the papacy to Rome.
Within less than a year the papal court returned to the tu multuous and dangerous city ending its 70 year exile in southern France.
Morning Meditation
The wind blows where it wills and we hear the sound it makes. The secret to understanding that sound is listening to it. “Lis tening” to the ancient peoples of the Bible meant not only “hearing” but “acting.” Every time we hear the sound of the Spirit stirring in our hearts we should act on it. Failure to act means failure to listen. This leads to spiritual deafness. We no longer hear his voice and we start to ask why God doesn't inspire us or work through us.
“Why am I not as inspired as someone like St. Catherine?” God gives us the same opportunity to hear and understand as he gives the saints. If I listen — that is, act — each time I hear his voice, then I will hear more and more.
How will you believe? “If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” It's so easy to do our own will, but listening also means being attentive to what God thinks is important.
There are so many cares that fill our lives; many of them are legitimate, and God wants us to attend to them. Yet without the guidance of his Spirit, these cares are doomed to our faulty administration.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). Without the Holy Spirit acting in our spiritual, family, and even professional lives, we accomplish very little, if anything at all.
Dialogue with Christ. Lord Jesus, you did not want to abandon us so you promised us the gift of your Spirit to give us counsel, wisdom and strength. I know that I have not always made good use of this gift.
I promise to come closer to you through this gift and to remain with you forever.
Resolution. Today I will not be deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit. I will seek to follow up on every inspiration he gives me.
This meditation was taken from
the daily meditations available
at www.regnumchristi.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Timothy M Ulcahey, LC ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Doing the Lord's Foster Father Proud DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:What's a priceless church like you doing in a town like this?
If walls could talk, I might have asked that question of St. Joseph's Church in Winsted, Conn. No of fense to Winsted — the rural New Eng land village is charming enough. Quaint, even. But that's just it. The northeastern woods of the Nutmeg State were the last place I expected to find a cathedral-like sanctuary this grand.
On a slight hillside overlooking the town's main street, St. Joseph's stands as the highest point in town. Its single-offset steeple practically catches low clouds. The Gothic church has been an honored landmark since 1916, but the parish began its monumental presence be fore the Civil War. In fact, this year marks the parish's 150th anniversary.
Four years ago, the stately 87-year-old church was carefully renovated to today's pristine appearance. Sunlight even seems to glisten off the granite exterior. It must have looked just about exactly like this, I thought, the day it was consecrated.
Shortly after the parish was instituted, it was put in the care of the Order of Friars Minor. They had arrived from Italy in 1855. On our visit, my wife and I discovered why the Italian-born Father Leo da Saracena, St. Joseph's first Franciscan pastor, was called the Lion of Winsted.
He was chaplain of the 9th Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers in the Civil War, in which he was wounded. Then on Jan. 1, 1865, he became St. Joseph's pastor. By Aug. 15, 1865, he started the parochial school that, at 138 years old, remains the longest-running school in the Archdiocese of Hartford. Franciscan sisters ran it then; today Franciscan nuns are still on the staff.
In 1886, Father da Saracena built the monastery-rectory. You can imagine the priest striding out of the front door to ride his white horse at the head of parades or round up truant schoolchildren.
After he died in 1897, newspapers as far away as New York recalled how even New England Protestants honored him and how he was first to fly the U.S. flag above a school in Winsted. (The church still flies the U.S. and Vatican flags near the faáade.) The governor of Connecticut publicly praised Father da Saracena's patriotism and his love for people of other denominations as well as his own. Today's pastor, Franciscan Father Bruce Czapla, explains how Father da Saracena “stood up very much for the immigrant population being as American as anyone else.”
Being so highly visible, the church, no doubt, was an important part of his witness. Its workmanship is so impressive, its details so lovingly crafted, that I thought the timing of our visit was especially fitting: May 1 is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
Franciscan Flavor
Since St. Joseph's has been in the care of the Order of Friars Minor for nearly 140 years now, the church shows abundant Franciscan in fluence, especially in the plentiful murals of the life of St. Francis. These large, colorful depictions unfold around the entire interior just below the clerestory level, beginning and ending next to the sanctuary.
But the sanctuary draws first attention. Thankfully, it retains its tall Gothic altar of Milan marble with central tabernacle, canopies and adoring angel statues. The tabernacle door, along with the old crucifix above it and the candlesticks to either side, has recently been renewed in gleaming gold. In the apse, a newer mural of the Risen Jesus rises above older mu rals of the apostles.
Marble statues of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph grace the original Gothic shrine altars on both sides. On projecting pe destals between the sanctuary and these shrines, polychrome statues of the Sa cred Heart and St. Patrick greet visitors.
The Innsbruck stained-glass windows are more positive proofs of wondrous early 20th-century Austrian-German artistry. Three enormous windows—18 feet wide by 24 feet high—stretch like giant murals in brilliant colors and fine details to inspire us to meditate on the deaths of Sts. Joseph and Francis in the transepts, and the life of St. Cecelia above the choir loft.
The magnificent original Austin organ is in beautiful condition. We had the chance to hear it during a weekday concert of sacred music before a Lenten noon Mass.
The small windows in the nave's clerestory all come from the original edifice. St. Joseph holding a happy Child Jesus naturally heads them on one side. Directly across is the Im maculate Conception, again a natural because the friars are from the Immaculate Conception Custody.
Between these windows and the larger nave ones of the Joyful and Glorious Mysteries, the murals of the Life of St. Francis unfold frame after frame in a reverent storybook. “We look to Francis as nearly perfect an example of Christ on earth as one could get,” says Father Czapla, explaining how the amazing murals tell the story of the life of Francis.
Warmth and Light
The stunning, old Stations of the Cross in St. Joseph's, enclosed in very ornate Gothic frames with towers and a cross, have been gloriously restored recently by one of the parishioners.
The church also envelops us in the warmth of soft maize walls and columns, and the softness of golden woods. Bright gold Corinthian capitals highlight these walls and columns. Matching gold rosettes line the five arches on either side of the nave.
The muted colors nicely frame luminous Innsbruck windows with the glorious mysteries in radiant color on one side of the nave, from the Resurrection to Mary's Coronation, with stunning portraits of Jesus as King and God as Father. In the Pentecost and Assumption windows, Mary wears a brilliant blue robe and appears with a serene, docile facial expression.
In the equally luminous Joyful Mysteries on the other side, St. Joseph becomes a prominent figure in each mystery after the Annunciation. Yet he's still humble.
St. Joseph's is filled with beautiful liturgical art and architecture and is as stately and noble as a cathedral—but it's right at home in a modest New England working town. In this way it imitates its patron, a perfect model of humility for all generations.
Joseph Pronechen writes from
Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: St. Joseph's Church, Winsted, Conn. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Pro-Life Rosary: Just Press 'Play' DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:LIVING THE PRO-LIFE MY STERIES hosted by Barbarea McGuigan EWIN Home Video 240 minutes. $30 To order: (800) 854-6316 or www.ewtn.com
The truth about the sacredness of life is under constant assault in our world. Who better to show Christians — we who are “in the world, but not of the world” (John 17:16) — a way through the morass of the culture of death than Mary, Mother of the Author of Life?
So asks pro-life educator Barbara McGuigan in Living the Pro-Life Mysteries, a three-part video series from EWTN featuring a presentation of the rosary as “a catechism of pro-life truths.”
“Join me on a journey through the mysteries of the rosary,” McGuigan says, “where we will learn to value the sacredness of human life as we learn to see humanity through the eyes of our Blessed Mother.”
McGuigan, a singularly cheerful and vibrant speaker, begins her pro-life rosary journey at the Annunciation and Mary's assent to God's will. “Saying ‘Thy will be done’ with your whole heart is the primary cause of happiness and peace,” she says before re counting her own “Yes” to life and its defense.
Her story is remarkable in its ordinariness. She was teaching a confirmation class in her parish when the director of religious education asked her to give a talk to the candidates, parents and sponsors about the sacredness of life. With six weeks to prepare, McGuigan began studying abortion, something she'd never done before. She found the subject so depressing that she thought about giving up. Then she came across a magazine article on the subject of fetal pain. These facts — the horrific reality of the unborn baby's agony during abortion — gave her the courage to stand up for life. “God does not call the qualified,” she says, “but he qualifies the called.”
The easy familiarity of McGuigan's story can encourage other “ordinary people” that they, too, can study the facts of abortion, give a presentation, defend life in a discussion with a co-worker and pray for an end to abortion. “Anyone who prays or offers up their suffering to try to bring about the culture of life, I consider you to be an activist, too,” she says.
Relating the rosary's sorrowful mysteries to the difficulties inherent in living one's pro-life convictions, McGuigan points out: “These mysteries are a philosophy of suffering. They encompass the five deepest causes of all of suffering, for Christ shared in all our suffering: fear, pain, rejection, exhaustion and dying.” Here she shares how painful she's found it to see women she's counseled go ahead and have abortions anyway, and to hear fellow pro-lifers deny the abortifacient nature of some contraceptives.
McGuigan arrives at the glorious mysteries like a runner approaching a prize. Life triumphs. Resurrection is restoration. She urges us never to give up on anyone, including ourselves. “How often do we hear people say, ‘Don't waste your time teaching chastity to those teen-agers — they're going to do it anyway’ or ‘There's no hope for her, her life's a mess’? People who say such things are believing in a dead Jesus. But he is risen to restore us so we can continue to carry out our mission in life.”
Despite a couple of minor annoyances — the sound quality is uneven and McGuigan wanders from her point every now and again — Living the Pro-life Mysteries is a triumph in its own right.
With Barbara McGuigan as teacher, anyone with an open heart and a clear mind can learn from Mary's prayer, the rosary, how to live for life — which is the only truly human way to survive and thrive in a culture that often seems to love death more than its alternative.
Una McManus writes from
Alexandria, Virginia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Una Mcmanus ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Monthly Catholic Tape Picks DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:In a video titled
Dr. Dolores Grier, former vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York and president of the Association of Black Catholics, is a veteran pro-life activist. In
According to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, “Shocking pictures have traditionally been used to dramatize injustices sought to be reformed. Until abortion is seen, it will never be understood.” The center's seven-minute video
St. Augustine said that, to have “the mind of Christ,” we should think with the Church. The best way to form one's conscience vis-è-vis the life issues is to study the pro-life writings of Pope John Paul II. In the audiotape set
For excellent individual audio-tapes of inspiring pro-life testimonies — Sister Helen Prejean on the death penalty, former New Ager Nancy Grubbs on her “pro-life conversion,” Yvonne Huitron on forgiving her brother's killer, Donna Lee on healing from abortion — contact the New Catholic Evangelist at www.newce. com/ nce or by calling (800) 257-9425.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Una Mcmanus ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Tuck Everlasting (2002)
This handsome adaptation of Natalie Babbitt's same-titled 1975 novel for young readers is not without missteps, but the strength of the story and its timeless meditation on life and death remain worthwhile.
Set in 1914, the film stars Alexis Bledel as Winnie Foster, a sheltered young girl from a well-to-do family who discovers an awesome secret previously known only to a curious family of rustic country people, the Tucks.
Winnie's discovery raises questions about the nature of life and why we die. Like Babbitt's book, the film challenges us to imagine how freedom from suffering and death could possibly be fitted into this life.
All-too-plausible scenarios are suggested by the Tucks' tragic experiences and isolated existence, and by the alarming plans made by the mysterious Man in the Yellow Suit (a scene-stealing Ben Kingsley).
The film benefits from fine performances by Sissy Spacek and William Hurt but fritters too much time with the cute romance between Winnie and Jesse Tuck
(Jonathan Jackson). Of the film's departures from the book, perhaps the most welcome, is a fleeting liturgical mention of “sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.”
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
Tyrone Powers is Zorro in this enjoyable remake of the 1920 silent classic starring Douglas Fair banks Sr. Powers can't match the original Zorro's astonishing acrobatics and doesn't try — but the rousing climactic duel against Basil Rathbone's villainous Captain Esteban, one of the best swordfights ever filmed, almost makes up for it. Powers also brings more romantic feeling to his scenes with the heroine (Linda Darnell) who prefers Zorro to Don Diego.
The 1940 film further benefits from a more coherent story in which we see Zorro's origin, as Diego returns from Spain to a California beset by injustice. The well-written script shows an angrily bewildered Diego shrewdly analyzing this new situation, instinctively adopting a dandyish persona to hide behind even before deciding what to do. Zorro's Catholic milieu is again positively portrayed, though with less depth than in the original. Eugene Pallette — Friar Tuck in the 1938 Robin Hood — plays a similarly pugnacious, stalwart clergyman, and Diego casually displays a flash of Marian sentiment. (“Thank you, Mother,” he says as he retrieves stolen tax money hidden behind a statue.) The social-justice themes, too, play out with feeling, culminating in a popular uprising against the tyrannical alcalde.
Mighty (1993)
Based on the children's book Freak the Mighty, this film tells the story of a remarkable friendship be tween two young boys, both outcasts. Max (Elden Ratliff) is dull-witted but intimidating; Kevin (Kieran Culkin) is bright but crippled by Morquio's Syndrome.
At first Max, a loner, is dubious about the relationship, but Kevin puts it this way: “Don't think of it as a friendship; think of it as a business proposition. You need a brain, and I need legs — and the Wizard of Oz doesn't live in South Cincinnati.” Kevin expands Max's horizons by tutoring him in reading and writing and introducing him to imaginative literature. Max carries Kevin around on his shoulders and helps him face down bullies.
This sensitive, sometimes rousing story about the value of friendship, imagination, reading and courage benefits from a strong supporting cast that includes Sharon Stone, James Gandolfini and Gillian Anderson. Here's a family film that's more nuanced and complex than much supposedly more mature movie fare.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D.Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Fun and Faith: Colleges Offer Summer Youth Programs DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Following her sophomore year at a public high school, Britany Smith, a Catholic, felt distanced from her faith.
“My parents encouraged me toward the faith,” she said, “but I was not receptive to it.”
Her life changed considerably, however, after she attended a summer program at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.
“Midway through the two-week summer program, I felt I was inspired by God,” Smith explained. “In some manner, the Catholic faith was made manifest to me through the lives of the faculty and staff at the college. This was the element that had been missing in my life up to that point. I decided that I needed to be at Christendom College and as soon as possible.”
Smith is not alone. When the heat of summer rolls in, high school students across the nation pack their bags and board buses, trains, planes and cars and head to Catholic summer youth programs, hoping for a taste of college campus life, a new look at their faith and, of course, summer fun.
Students invariably return home energized and enthusiastic.
Michelle Bowe, a youth minister at a parish in Polver, Wis., who trekked to Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, last year with three busloads of students, tells a tale of the return trip home. To her amazement, students infused with enthusiasm about what they had learned pleaded for an opportunity to lead a retreat for their parents.
“Summer conferences, if they are good ones, will show students how very much their faith is an answer to difficulties they are having and that their faith is a way for them to shine and really be who they are as kids,” said Father Joseph O'Hara, a chaplain for Pacelli High School in the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wis.
Father O'Hara attended the Steubenville program last year. “The highlight of Steubenville youth programs is the Eucharistic procession,” he said. “When the Lord comes out in that procession, he's got [the students'] attention.”
Several Catholic colleges offer ways for students to grow closer to God during the summer while experiencing a balanced life of study, play and prayer.
Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., offers a great books summer program for high school students from July 27 to Aug. 8. Students who have completed at least three years of high school by the summer of 2003 will join members of the faculty on the campus for two weeks. They will discuss works selected from the masters of the Western intellectual tradition such as Plato, Euclid, Sophocles, Shakespeare, St. Thomas Aquinas and Pascal, to name a few.
John Boyer, a senior at San Joaquin Memorial High School in Fresno, Calif., applied for admission to Thomas Aquinas after attending this summer program last year. He enjoyed the organized recreation and off-campus outings, but most of all, he relished the lively classroom discussions that occurred daily.
“It wasn't just the teacher asking questions and then waiting with awkward silence for someone to speak up,” Boyer said. ”Everybody jumped right in. It got me interested in philosophy.”
Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, will host 13 conferences from June 20 to Aug. 3. The theme of this year's youth conferences is “Just Live It.” They are scheduled to be in Arizona, Cali fornia, Colorado, Georgia, Louis iana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and South Carolina.
Those interested are encouraged to sign up soon — several conferences are already sold out. And it's no wonder — among the presenters are Catholic rap artist Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Father Stan Fortuna, Christian vaudeville act ApeX, regional Life Teen director Caroline Gambale, comedians Bob Rice and Bob Lesnefsky, and Matt Smith, former cast member of MTV's “Real World New Orleans.”
Magdalen College in Warner, N.H., provides youth between the ages of 14 and 18 a two-week experience of living on a Catholic college campus for study, prayer, sports and recreation. Session I is from June 22 to July 5; Session II is from July 12 to July 19 (for returning students only, see below); and Session III is from July 27 to Aug. 9.
Participants attend Mass each day in the chapel, eat meals in the dining room, study catechism, ethics, music and enjoy daily sports, drama classes and sing-alongs.
Several day trips are planned for hiking in the White Mountains, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, canoeing on the Merrimack River and touring historical sites in Boston.
Its second session, the St. John the Apostle Program, is a one-week program for those who have previously attended a summer youth program at Magdalen College and wish to return.
“Magdalen Colelge is like a family, and the spiritual life is incredible,” said Tahsia Garcia of the Galveston-Houston Diocese, who attended the program last year. “After I attended the summer program I was stronger in my faith and definitely closer to Christ.”
Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., offers a program where high school juniors and seniors can participate in courses taught by full-time faculty. Session I is from June 22 to July 4 and Session II is from July 13-25.
Courses include Faith and Reason, Ethics, The Moral Imagination in Literature and American Political Thought. Students also paddle down the Shenandoah River and explore the Blue Ridge Mountain trails. They visit the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the John Paul II Cultural Center and other national museums, such as the Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C.
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, N.H., has offered its Collegiate Summer Program for high school students for 28 years. This year, Session I runs from July 13-26 and Session II from July 27 to Aug. 9.
Each session includes about 30 students from across the nation and a handful from Italy and Israel. They experience college life and the liberal arts, becoming familiar with literature, philosophy, American political tradition and apologetics. Students also go on trips to Boston, visit beaches, climb a mountain, participate in a decathlon and swim daily in a nearby lake.
Joanne Geiger, assistant director of admission at Thomas More, attended a summer program in 1994 and became hooked. She admitted that, like herself, many high school students who spend time on the campus during the summer apply for admission to the college in the following months.
The school offers scholarships and financial aid for its summer program.
“If a student wants to come, we'll try to make it possible,” Geiger said.
There's also another perk — if a student decides to enroll at the college after attending a summer program, Geiger said, the school will give him a $4,000 scholarship.
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from
New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Resent This
Bloom deliberately avoided making his gift to the larger and more prestigious colleges because they have fostered a “school of resentment,” including “Marxist, feminist, Afrocentric and deconstructionist” scholars who dominate modern academic life.
Bloom, a self-described Gnostic, said his gift was also a way to honor his friend John Reiss, an emeritus professor of English at St. Michael's. Even though the two sometimes argue about religion, Reiss said, “he likes it that I am Catholic.”
Catholic Precedent
That was part of the written opinion of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago as it ruled in favor of the constitutionality of a Wisconsin program that allows probation and parole agents to refer offenders to faith-based alternatives to prison.
Atheist Lockout
The meeting was sponsored by the St. Catherine Secular Committee, a group of faculty and staff members that is not sanctioned by the college.
“The college has its roots, its identity, its essence in its religious values,” said Sister Andrea Lee, St. Catherine's president. “The [Secular Committee] group essentially calls those fundamental values into question.”
Sister Andrea also objected to the group's use of St. Catherine's name.
Scrooge Reversed
TOWNHALL.COM, April 14 — Rebecca Hagelin of the Hoover Institute dedicated a column on the Web site to the “many attempts by public-school officials around the country to silence” even the most benign religious expression by students that are routinely reported on by groups dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights.
One case involves students of Westfield High School outside of Springfield, Mass., who recently brought a suit in federal court after school officials refused to allow them to distribute candy canes last December because the sweets came with a folded card that contained a religious message that “might offend” other students.
The message contained two words: “Merry Christmas.” The court ruled in the students' favor earlier this month.
Pro-Life?
In letters of protest to the board, Millard included a copy of Holy Cross' pro-life “College Position on Abortion” and a copy of the current Jesuit publication “Standing for the Unborn.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Darwin's Dilemma DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:WHERE D ARWIN M EETS THE BIBLE: C REATIONISTS AND EVOLUTIONISTS IN A MERICA
Oxford University Press, 2002 352 pages, $30 Available in retail and online bookstores
A longtime religion reporter for the Washington Times, Larry Witham has here written a beefy primer mapping out the state of a heated and complicated debate. Since it's an ongoing one, we ought to be familiar with the players — and what the arguments are actually about. Setting out to introduce us to the key players and their thoughts, he succeeds in getting us to appreciate why any of this discussion should matter to non-scientists.
Since the infamous Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925 between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, Witham writes, “the evolution-creation debate has become America's IQ test. Where you stand can be an instant pass or fail on being modern or backward, faithful or apostate.”
Some people haven't moved much beyond the stereotypes coming from that trial; on the 75th anniversary of the Scopes trial in the summer of 2000, the People for the American Way held a mock Scopes trial making Bryan look the fool.
The debate, of course, is more complex than simply being “for” or “against” evolution. People of faith, like Roman Catholic biochemist Michael Behe, a tenured professor at Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box, have helped challenge both the Darwinists and believers in a divine hand. Thus, Witham writes, “the debate has switched from defending religious scripture to making scientists explain the holes in evolutionary theory. The debate has switched, what is more, to asking why, if Darwinian science is not a philosophy, does it so often lead to disbelief?”
Where Darwin Meets the Bible could easily be adapted in classrooms, public as well as religious. It's a definitive introduction for parents, teachers, even reporters. In fact, don't we all have a stake in this debate?
Witham's successful execution of Where Darwin Meets the Bible bodes well for his more-recently released By Design: Science and the Search for God (Encounter Books). Neither book is likely to settle the controversy over evolution once and for all, but Witham's reporting and analysis opens a door into what is really being discussed, discovered and debated — beyond the usual monkey business. Those for whom Darwinism is a kind of religion will have to reckon with his rationale, which in many points is unassailable.
Christians should come away from Where Darwin Meets the Bible with some peace of mind. Witham, who must have interviewed every last expert on evolution, creationism and intelligent design, tells us: “Slowly, almost imperceptibly, science may be giving believers more ways to argue that God's existence is a better explanation of the cosmos than atheistic materialism.”
Don't expect his forceful, well-thought-out primer to end the debate. But it just might reframe its parameters.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of
National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Ground Zero for Divine Mercy Devotion DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:“Trust in me and my mercy will know no bounds.”
That was the simple message Christ began conveying to a 26-year-old nun in 1931.
At first, Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska was startled. Then, over the next seven years, as the visits continued, she grew accustomed to the extraordinary appearances. Christ even followed the nun after she moved from Our Lady of Mercy Convent in Plock, Poland, to the convent at Krakow.
It's understandable that Sister Faustina was perplexed over Jesus' selection of her as his special messenger. She had only three years of education and, in the convent, was responsible for the most menial of tasks. Yet here the Lord was, asking her to bring his message of divine mercy and love to mankind to the world.
He chose well: Sister Faustina got the word out — and became a canonized saint.
Meanwhile, the Krakow convent has become the Divine Mercy Shrine. And a popular pilgrimage site it is. Thousands come to honor St. Faustina and to pray before the original, now-famous image of Jesus with red and white rays streaming from his torso.
Standing adjacent to the original brick convent, the sleek new shrine building seems to proclaim that Jesus' message of mercy is as important today, in our present time of war, as it was in 1930s Poland when World War II loomed.
In the old convent, visitors can see the precise places St. Faustina walked, worked and talked to Jesus. The original basilica, in which the saint's remains are interred, is still used for daily Masses and other services.
A young Karol Wojtyla passed this same convent daily as he walked to his job in the Solvay Plant during the Nazi occupation. We can only imagine his delight when, six decades later, as Pope John Paul II, he canonized his fellow Pole on April 30, 2000.
‘Jesus, I Trust in You'
The girl who would one day become known to the world as St. Faustina was born Helena Kowalska, the third of 10 children, into a very poor family in a small Polish village. After less than three years of schooling, she went to work as a charwoman to help her growing family. On Aug. 1, 1925, at the age of 20, she joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, taking the name Mary Faustina. In her 13 years as a nun, she lived in various houses of the order — Vilnius, Warsaw, Plock and finally, Krakow.
When Jesus appeared to Sister Faustina, he asked her to do three things: remind the world of God's merciful love, demonstrate new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy, and start an apostolic movement that would renew Christian life according to the spirit of trust and mercy.
In his first apparition, Jesus asked Sister Faustina to have an image made of him. This image would become renowned as the “Divine Mercy Image.” The Lord asked that it first be venerated within Sister Faustina's chapel and then propagated to the world. The image shows Jesus with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand held to his heart. Two rays emanate from the center of his chest — a red one, reminiscent of the holy blood he shed out of love for souls, and a white one, recalling the water that gushed from his side when the soldier pierced him on the cross. Water, of course, is the instrumental element in baptism and, thus, indispensable in cleansing souls of their sin. At the bottom of the image are the words, “Jesus, I Trust in You.”
Jesus then asked that a Divine Mercy Sunday be honored annually, celebrated the first Sunday after Easter. As many as Sunday be honored annually, celebrated the first Sunday after Easter. As many as 14 different times, Jesus appeared and asked this of Sister Faustina. In her diary, she tells how Jesus explained the need for this feast. “Souls perish in spite of my bitter passion,” he told her. “I am giving them the last hope of salvation, that is, the Feast of Mercy. If they will not adore my mercy, they will perish for eternity.” During another apparition, Jesus said that “on that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are open.”
Also to come out of St. Faustina's encounters with the Lord: the prayer cycle known as the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Using rosary beads, the petitioner asks God to, “for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Additionally, the prayer offers God “the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”
A Mercy Hour, recognized every day at 3 p.m. (the hour Jesus expired on the cross), can also be prayed for divine favors. Jesus recommended to Sister Faustina the parts to make a Mercy Hour — praying the chaplet, meditating on Jesus' passion and death, making the Stations of the Cross and spending time before the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus said: “In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of me in virtue of my passion.”
Before St. Faustina's visions started in the 1930s, the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy was closed to the public; gates guarded both the nuns and the young women who were residents of their ministry. Afterward, however, the charism of the order changed to encompass the job Jesus had petitioned the saint to do.
The gates opened and Sister Faustina and the other members of her convent began sharing the image and Jesus' messages immediately. After her death, during World War II, the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy distributed the Divine Mercy message and image around the area, including smuggling it to the prisoners in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Later, many Poles attributed their survival amid the atrocities of that war to the Divine Mercy message.
St. Faustina suffered the pains of tuberculosis without complaint, offering her sufferings for the reparation of sinners. In addition to multiple discussions with Jesus, she received extraordinary graces. She had the gifts of contemplation, prophecy, being able to read human souls and of mystical nuptial union with God. She also had the concealed stigmata and the ability of bilocation.
When St. Faustina died in 1938 at the age of 33, she left her diaries for the world. Detailing her conversations with Jesus, these have been translated into many languages and spread throughout the world.
And why not? The central message the Lord conveyed through St. Faustina is timeless as well as understandable in every tongue: “Jesus, I trust in you!”
Mary C. Gildersleeve writes
from Gaming, Austria.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary C. Gildersleeve ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Shelter, Support and Something More: St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:So peaceful and happy is this big building, you'd never guess that 50 abused, abandoned and neglected infants and young children live here.
There are also 21 pregnant adolescents and young mothers, with their babies, who find shelter and support in this Hyattsville, Md., address.
St. Ann's Infant & Maternity Home is a true refuge in a world that too often treats its helpless young as problems to be dealt with.
A social ministry of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., St. Ann's has been rescuing children and young women in need since the 1860s. Sister Josephine Murphy, a Paulist nun and director of St. Ann's for the past 15 years, describes how desperate this need can be.
“I've seen so many kids come in here burned, beaten,” she says. “I've never forgotten one little baby we took in one night. The police had picked her up on the street in the middle of the night. It was winter. All she had on was a diaper — and it wasn't even a real diaper; it was an old pair of men's shorts. When they brought her here they had wrapped a blanket around her.”
Sister Josephine, whom the Paulists initially rejected because of poor eyesight 56 years ago, reflects for a moment as she sits at her desk under a portrait of a smiling St. Vincent de Paul.
“Sometimes I consider the young moms who have spent so many years walking the streets and being abused,” she says, “and I think they've had a much tougher time than most of the babies, who've only gone through it a year or two.”
As Sister Josephine speaks, St. Ann's nursery staff cuddles and plays with the toddlers who have found sanctuary here. One of these maternally gifted women embraces a small child, who clings to her.
“I don't want to let him go, and he doesn't want to let me go,” she laughs.
Down the hall, the mothers of some of the babies sit at computers, studying for their high school degrees. One of them is Nicole Harris, 17, the mother of 2-year-old Damonia.
Later, I talk with her as she stands beneath a stained-glass window in the chapel, Damonia sitting quietly in one of the pews. She tells me how important St. Ann's has been in her life.
“The most important thing about St. Ann's is the support you get from everybody,” explains the cheerful and confident mother, who plans to graduate from high school next year. “When babies are first born they can have colic, and people will step in and watch the baby for you so you can get some rest. They also teach you how to take care of your baby. Or if the mother is sick they'll watch the baby for that day until the mother gets well. Here, you get family support, and everybody is united as one.”
Hyattsville, MD 20782 (301) 559-5500 www.saint-anns.com/about/mission.htm
A Way Up
St. Ann's operates an accredited high school, serving as many as 50 girls working toward their diplomas. It also offers medical care, parenting classes, life-skills training, day care, individual and family counseling, and social and cultural activities.
St. Ann's also administers Faith House, a separate operation located just across the way from the home. It offers housing for eight young mothers, 18 to 25 years old, and their children. Residents there work toward self-sufficiency and receive help with job placement, day care and parenting skills.
One young mother, an energetic lady who works there full time as a medical assistant, said St. Ann's has helped her to achieve a sense of responsibility and control over her own life.
“I found out that, if I don't do the shopping, feed the kids, make sure they get their baths and get to bed on time, nobody is going to do it for me,” she said. “It seems tough at first, because your mom has always done everything for you, but once you get used to it you realize how good it makes you feel to meet that responsibility. This is a place where they encourage you to focus on the kids, not on yourself.”
“Children need stability, and children today do not have stability in their lives,” Sister Josephine observes. “St. Ann's offers a chance to give the young ones back their lives.”
She sums up her long, unassuming and yet distinguished career in child care this way: “St. Vincent de Paul told us to serve the poor in such a way that they forgive us the bread we give them. I have always loved my work and still do. It's a great life. I just wish more kids and young people saw that.”
Anyone who visits St. Ann's will see that for himself — young, old or somewhere in between.
Pavel Chichikov writes
from Washington, D.C
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pavel Chichikov ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Hark! The Herald Daddy Sings! DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Q My husband never sings at Mass. Come to think of it, my dad never used to sing in church. Do you sing in church? Tell my husband how!
A I'lll tell your husband that I sympathize! To sing at Mass can be frustrating for a man. It makes you feel like a lone voice in a sea of silent men.
But as the father of two young, impressionable boys (ages 3 and 5), I want nothing more for them than to experience the reality of the Lord in their lives. In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul II says parents are, “through the witness of their lives, the first heralds of the Gospel for their children.”
That's a tall order, and there are countless ways parents have of instructing their children in the faith by the witness of their lives. Mass, though, is where it all begins. Just physically going each week doesn't cut it. Sure, we're there, fulfilling the obligation, but what good does it do our kids if our body language is one of utter disinterest?
Our kids need to know that the Mass is the central event of our lives — an event that's a joyous celebration, not simply a mundane weekly obligation. I was obligated to get weekly allergy shots throughout childhood and, let me assure you, that was no “joyous celebration” just because we did it every week.
Dads, we must take the lead in fully participating in the celebration of the Mass. Most of us are adequate at muttering prayers and responses, but for some reason we get frogs in our throats when it comes to singing. Don't try to use the excuse that you can't sing or that singing makes you self-conscious. Most men of my generation have no trouble belting out the theme to “Gilligan's Island,” or even yelling and doing obnoxious victory dances when our favorite team wins in the final seconds.
Allow me a little armchair psychoanalysis: I think most of us carry a phobia we've had since junior high. Somewhere around adolescence, the fun we had singing disappeared. It suddenly became “uncool” to sing in church. I really believe that many men are still hanging on to this childish reason for not singing as adults. Newsflash: We're not in seventh grade anymore. Let's grow up and start singing.
Very simply, here's why singing at Mass is so important for dads of young children. Young boys are at an age where three things are converging. First, they think the stuff that Dad does is neat, and they want to be like him.
Second, most other models of faith they have are women: school teachers, Mom, CCD teachers, etc. This is fine, but if they are to be men of faith, they need to see that role modeled.
Third, kids naturally love to sing. If we don't join them, we send the message to our boys that Mass is something to be endured, not a celebration of faith to be cherished. Hymn time at church is a tremendous opportunity to be “the first heralds of the Gospel for (our) children.”
Tom and Caroline McDonald are
family-life directors for the
Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
Reach Family Matters at
familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom And Caroline Mcdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 04/27/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: April 27-May 3, 2003 ----- BODY:Teen Coma Awakening
CNN, April 7 — A California teen has awakened from a coma despite doctors' grim prognosis for her recovery.
Last Jan. 13, at age 17, Jessica Diaz gave birth to a son, Julio. The next day, doctors removed a fast-growing tumor from her brain. Within 10 minutes of surgery, Diaz became comatose.
Doctors said she probably emerged from the coma because her brain became accustomed to the pressure inside her skull and developed new neurological pathways to make up for ones she lost when half her brain was surgically removed. Diaz was briefly interviewed by Los Angeles television station KCBS on April 6. Asked if she had been aware of her mother at her bedside, she rolled her eyes to answer: “Yes.”
Russian Abortions Fall
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, April 2 — The number of abortions in Russia fell “dramatically” over the last five years, that country's minister of health has revealed.
In 1997, Olga Sharapova said, there were three abortions registered for every birth in Russia, compared with 1.3 abortions for every birth last year.
The infant mortality rate also fell during the same period, and the number of miscarriages dropped from 21,000 in 1997 to 12,000 in 2002. Sharapova linked the impressive improvements to Russia's gradual economic recovery.
Ultrasounds in Arkansas
ARKANSAS NEWS BUREAU, April 8 — The Arkansas House has approved legislation requiring abortionists to offer women a view of their unborn child's ultrasound image before performing an abortion.
The bill would require the abortionist to note in writing that the mother was offered a chance to see the ultrasound and what she decided. Pro-life groups know the power of an ultrasound and hope it will help change women's minds about abortion.
New Life in El Salvador
EL DIARIO DE HOY, April 4 — A nine-year old El Salvadoran girl has given birth to a healthy baby boy, and is doing well after the Caesarian section birth.
The young mother says she was repeatedly abused by her stepfather, but says the birth of her son has made her happier than she has been in a very long time. The El Salvador pro-life group Yes to Life is taking care of the young mother and her baby at a home for unwed mothers.
Julia Regina de Cardenal, president of the pro-life group said, “The healthy and happy birth of the baby is in stark contrast to the situation in Nicaragua where another
9-year-old rape victim had her baby aborted after relentless pressure by feminist groups who wished to use her case to advance the cause for legal abortion.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Confession Seal Comes Under Attack in Several State Legislatures DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky is considering two bills in its legislature, both of which could have far-reaching, even dangerous, consequences for Catholics.
One bill, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Susan Westron, would completely eliminate the priest-penitent privilege. Another, sponsored by state Sen. R.J. Palmer, also a Democrat, would leave the priest-penitent privilege intact except in the case of priest-to-priest confession. In that case, Palmer's bill would require the confessor to report the penitent to government authorities.
There are also two mandated reporter bills being debated that would put clergy on the list of reporters for the state along with the other usual occupations such as doctors and teachers.
However, said Father Patrick Delahanty of the Kentucky Catholic Conference, both of these bills would have priests violate the seal of confession.
This kind of legislation is being lobbied for by Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota-based lawyer who has been suing churches on sexual-abuse issues for 22 years, as well as the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and Link-Up, another victims’ advocacy group.
Anderson has represented hundreds clients who said they were victimized by clergy members. In March, he sued the Catholic Church under the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He successfully pushed to put a moratorium on statute of limitations laws in California.
The Associated Press reported in May that Anderson had estimated he'd won $60 million in settlements from Catholic dioceses.
Anderson said the priest-penitent privilege has been “used as a shield to protect” perpetrators. He called it “a loophole that has to be closed.”
Susan Archibald, president of Link-Up, said she is ambivalent on this kind of legislation. “Having the seal is an important thing” because of the need for people to clear their consciences, she said. But, “there's such widespread abuse going on and it's not been addressed. With one priest going to another for confession, it gets hidden.”
She alleges that confession is a “convenient” way to remove the burden of conscience from the perpetrator and one that would not be allowed “among people of other professions.”
But Father John Beal, professor of canon law at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., said he does not expect this kind of law to pass. “It would be thrown out on First Amendment grounds,” he said. “It is a clear violation of the free exercise clause,” in which the Constitution protects the free exercise of religion.
He said it is ironic the seal of confession is being attacked when “you don't find legislators asking that the attorney-client privilege be lifted,” and the priest-penitent privilege is definitely older, he said.
He also said he doesn't think it would help the situation at all because of practical issues. “I've been hearing confessions for 29 years,” he said, “and this has not turned up once that I can recall.”
He added that there are problems of the penitent's identity — “if they avail themselves of anonymity, there's not a lot a priest can report” — and if an alleged victim reports it in confession and even if the priest is reasonably sure of the penitent's identity, “what you've got at best is hearsay.”
Confession's Roots
The secrecy of confession can be traced back to the fifth century, when Pope Leo the Great warned confessors not to divulge penitents’ sins, according to William Jurgens’ 1979 book The Faith of the Early Fathers.
The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 codified the practice and provided that any priest who broke the seal of confession would lose his priestly office “and be sent into the confinement of a monastery to do perpetual penance.”
The current penalty for priests who violate the seal of confession is automatic excommunication (Canon 1388 in the Code of Canon Law), which can be lifted only by the Apostolic See.
Over the centuries, some priests have backed up the teaching with blood.
Tradition has it that St. John Nepomucene was burned with a torch, trussed up and thrown into the River Moldau in 1393 by the Emperor Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia at least in part because he refused to reveal the queen's confessions.
But many governments have sought to protect confessors from having to testify in court about what penitents tell them. Scholars have found some evidence that Anglo-Saxon and Norman kings respected the secrecy of confession in England about 1,000 years ago, as Michael Mazza notes in a 1998 article in the Marquette Law Review.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “[T]he Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives. This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the 'sacramental seal’ because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains 'sealed’ by the sacrament” (No. 1467).
Canon law is very strict on the matter. “The sacramental seal is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other fashion,” says Canon 983). “An interpreter, if there is one, is also obliged to observe this secret, as are all others who in any way whatever have come to a knowledge of sins from a confession.
Says Canon 984: “The confessor is wholly forbidden to use knowledge acquired in confession to the detriment of the penitent, even when all danger of disclosure is excluded. A person who is in authority may not in any way, for the purpose of external governance, use knowledge about sins which has at any time come to him from the hearing of confession.”
Connecticut Confessions
The state of Connecticut tried the legislation avenue as well, according to Dr. Marie Hilliard, director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. When a pedophilia bill was being debated, a state representative brought an amendment to the floor after midnight that would suspend the priest-penitent privilege, she said. Because of the time it was brought forward and because there was no public debate on the matter, the House passed the amendment 144-2.
Hilliard got home at 4 a.m. that Saturday. During the day, she sent faxes to parishes throughout the state so priests could let their people know about it at Saturday evening and Sunday Masses. That quick action got the legislature's attention.
So many people called, Hilliard said, that one legislator called her and said, “I got the message, Marie. You can tell them to stop calling.”
The Senate killed the amendment.
Organizations such as the Catholic League hope Catholics nationwide will be as vigilant.
“If it had been established that in Kentucky, and elsewhere, Catholic priests had learned of cases of child sexual molestation in the confessional and did not report them, then at least the motivation behind the legislation would make sense,” said Catholic League president William Donohue in a statement. “But no one is making this charge.”
He said the cases of child sexual abuse that have come to light have had nothing to do with information learned in the confessional.
“Now when this reality is acknowledged, and when it is coupled with the fact that the attorney-client privilege is to remain intact, it gives off a foul stench,” he said. “Catholics and Protestants have pledged to fight this bill and we look forward to their success.”
Thomas Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Suffering Of North Korean Christians DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korean Catholics are suffering — from starvation and from harsh persecution.
Reliable reports exist of Christians being executed in barbaric fashion, say human rights watchdog organizations.
“We have had reports from people in prisons of Christians having hot lead droppings placed on their bodies, killing them,” Robert Seiple, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for religious freedom.
While Seiple , who is now president of the Institute for Global Engagement, said it is unclear if those executed in that way also had political affiliations that might have gotten them in trouble, experts point out that religion alone can sometimes be enough to get North Koreans executed.
The U.S. State Department's Lorne Craner told the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in April 2002 that “religious activity is severely restricted and credible reports of executions of practicing Christians, particularly those in unauthorized Christian groups, continue to surface. In addition, there continue to be reports that Christians are singled out for particularly cruel treatment in the regime's penal institutions. Some religious practices are punished as political crimes.”
Craner concluded that “the collective weight of anecdotal evidence of harsh treatment of unauthorized religious activity lends credence to such reports.”
The United States is reportedly setting talks with North Korea over the communist regime's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. It has also put long-range bombers on alert in the event that North Korea tries to take advantage of the United States’ preoccupation with Iraq.
But the persecution of religious believers, particularly Christians, is getting less attention.
In addition to keeping his people isolated and starving, Kim Jong-Il — who succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung, as dictator in 1994 — has continued the country's vicious persecution of Christians.
Although North Korea has a population of approximately 24 million, estimates place the number of Catholics at a paltry 3,000 to 4,000, down from 50,000 in the 1940s. There are no priests, and Christians are regularly persecuted, experts say.
“In terms of Christian persecution, North Korea is at the top of the list [of persecuting countries],” said Todd Nettleton, associate director of news services for Voice of the Martyrs, an interdenominational group that seeks to focus attention on religious persecution. The group was founded by Richard Wurmbrand, a Protestant minister who was tortured for his faith by the communist regime in Romania.
A senior Bush administration official who asked not to be named agreed with Nettleton's analysis of the situation for Christians in North Korea. “Persecution is the right word, not intolerance,” he said.
Since North Korea is so isolated, there are no hard statistics on what goes on inside that country, but according to current and former members of the U.S. government and human rights groups, all the evidence points to harsh repression.
Last year Secretary of State Colin Powell designated North Korea “a country of particular concern” — the category reserved for countries that are the worst offenders of human rights. The reason: “particularly serious violations of religious freedom.”
According to Seiple, in a dictatorship there is always fear of having points of view such as religion that are different in any way from those of the dictator. “North Korea is that situation in the extreme,” he said.
Nettleton said he is still receiving such reports. When China recently repatriated 24 refugees to North Korea, “one of these 24 admitted that he had been to a Bible study. Instantly 21 of the group were shot.”
With widespread starvation and a shattered economy, “the situation in North Korea is desperate for everyone, but even worse for Christians,” he said.
At least part of the reason the situation is so desperate is that the North Korean leadership has been brutally effective in repressing its people.
“North Korea is the only country that I know of that has the will and the capacity to repress its entire population,” said Jack Rendler, the North Korea Country Specialist for Amnesty International. “There is no religious freedom as we understand it.”
‘Show’ Churches
Three churches, two Protestant and one Catholic, do exist in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. But according to a statement provided to the Register by Kathi Zellweger, director of international cooperation for Caritas Hong Kong, while there is a church, “there is, however, no Catholic priest resident in the country to serve the community. The statement added that “visiting priests occasionally say Mass at Pyongyang's Changchun Church.”
Caritas is a Catholic charity with worldwide reach, which helps North Korea with food aid.
According to the information provided by Zellweger, there is a Korean Catholic Association set up by the North Korean government, but it has no official ties to the Vatican. And in 2000 a government invitation for Pope John Paul II to visit North Korea was turned down because of that country's refusal to recognize “the Church's presence.”
Nevertheless, Caritas does what it can to reduce the plight of the people and holds out hope for normalized relations between the Korean Catholic Association and the Vatican.
But according to some familiar with the situation in North Korea, including Nettleton, the churches in Pyongyang are purely for show.
“Some of the same people have been seen at both the Protestant and Catholic churches,” he said, adding that the congregations were certainly monitored and were possibly government-selected.
Missing Priests, Hidden Churches
Many priests were expelled from North Korea when Kim Il Sung took over in the 1940s. The nearly 50 priests who remained have never been accounted for, according to the State Department's Craner, who cited a statement from Seoul Archbishop Nicholas Jin-Suk Cheong, apostolic administrator of Pyongyang.
According to the Bush administration official who spoke anonymously with the Register, these priests were presumed to have been killed. But there are “tantalizing suggestions” of some sort of underground Catholic network, he said.
He explained he had received credible reports from a priest who celebrated a Mass in China at which several North Korean refugees were present. Their actions at the Mass indicated a great deal of familiarity with the prayers, he said. He said he thought the report was credible.
In the meantime, he said, “Religious persecution remains severe,” but he added that the U.S. government will continue to do what it can to move the North Korean regime away from “its fear and loathing of religion.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sheep's Clothing? New Jersey Cloning Bill Causes Alarm DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey is poised to become the most permissive state in the union for human cloning. Ironically, it's all the fault of a cloning ban.
The Garden State's Senate passed a supposed cloning ban in December. With the enthusiastic support of Democratic Gov. James McGreevey, the bill at press time is in the state Assembly and expected to pass.
Unprecedented legislation, the bill manages to endorse both cloning and infanticide — paving the way for fully legal human embryo harvesting — under the guise of a ban on human cloning.
Unlike bills that have been proposed on a national level, the New Jersey bill does not simply prohibit so-called “reproductive cloning” while allowing for “therapeutic” or “research cloning” — which would be bad enough; it redefines cloning so that it would be legal to clone so long as the child is killed before it advances past the (somewhat nebulous) “newborn stage.”
The bill reads: “A person who knowingly engages or assists, directly or indirectly, in the cloning of a human being is guilty of a crime of the first degree. As used in this act, ‘cloning of a human being’ means the replication of a human individual by cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, fetal and newborn stages into a new human individual.”
The New Jersey legislation “constitutes the moral madness of killing in the cause of healing — with a possible profit motive that would encourage the grisly practice,” according to a letter to McGreevey by four members of President Bush's Council on Bioethics. (The four professors who signed the Stanford's William Hurlbut, Georgetown's Alfonso Gomez-Lobo and Gilbert Meilaender of Valparaiso University.) The legislation, the letter warns, “threatens to make New Jersey a haven for unethical medical practices, including the macabre practice of human fetal farming.”
As New Jersey Right to Life's Marie Tasy notes: “This legislation opens a Pandora's box where human embryo and human fetal farms, human experimentation and reproductive human cloning will be allowed to flourish.”
Gerard Bradley, a constitutional law professor at the University of Notre Dame, warns that if passed the effects of the bill would be “breathtaking, unprecedented and widely regarded as morally disastrous. These effects include, most notably, a commercial market in the body parts of fetuses and the birth of an unlimited number of ‘cloned’ babies.”
The professors’ letter argues: “The pending legislation expressly authorizes the creation of new human beings by cloning and, perhaps unintentionally, their cultivation from the zygote stage through the newborn stage for the purpose of harvesting what the bills themselves refer to as ‘cadaveric’ fetal tissue.”
It continues, “Please pause to consider whose cadaver the tissue is to be derived from. It is the cadaver of a distinct member of the species homo sapiens — a human being — who would be brought into being by cloning and, presumably, implanted and permitted to develop to the desired stage of physical maturation for the purpose of being killed for the harvesting of his or her tissues.”
Media Blindness?
Aside from the “moral madness” of the bill, as William Bolan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference points out, frustrating is “the failure of the media to grasp the dangers in this legislation.”
Readers of the Bergen (County, N.J.) Record, for example, may not even realize the state has a cloning bill in the Statehouse: When the health committee in the state Assembly voted to send the legislation into the full Assembly on Feb. 3, the Record's headline read: “Panel clears stem cell bill for vote by full Assembly.”
The Associated Press dispatch that followed framed the debate as abortion foes vs. sick people: “A bill that would authorize stem-cell research continued to raise objections from religious and anti-abortion groups Monday as it moved a step closer to becoming law.”
The Feb. 4 wire story continued, “After four hours of testimony, an Assembly committee approved the bill, praising it as a cutting-edge tool that will allow research on cells to find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.”
The misleading and slanted press coverage of the bill has been aided by the activism of actor Christopher Reeve. Reeve, best known as “Superman,” was paralyzed in a 1995 riding accident. Since then he has started a foundation and taken to lobbying for money for controversial research on embryonic stem cells and in favor of cloning for research. He testified in the New Jersey Statehouse in November in favor of the legislation.
In the bill's context, lawmakers are easily able to claim they are answering the president's call to ban cloning, issued in his State of the Union Address last month.
Of course, the president also made clear he would not accept the New Jersey option. He said on Jan. 28: “And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.”
After the New Jersey Senate approved the supposed cloning ban in December, Democratic state Sen. Richard Codey, co-sponsor of the bill, insisted, “Our state has the rare opportunity to serve as a beacon of hope for those suffering from a variety of life-threatening illnesses and debilitating conditions. It is our responsibility as legislators to ensure that this hope is not stifled.”
Republicans are not much better. When the assembly's health committee voted on the bill Feb. 3, rather than voting against sending the bill onto the full Assembly for a vote — opponents were imploring them to at least hold the bill for further debate — the Republicans abstained. The state Republican Party chairman, who is also a state senator, has been quoted as saying, “we can't vote against Christopher Reeve” behind closed doors. Of course, their position also puts them against their president and national party leader.
Moot Point?
Federal legislation in both the House and Senate may make the New Jersey law a moot point in the coming months. But even in Congress, lawmakers have to overcome the “clone and kill” option first — particularly in the U.S. Senate.
A bill sponsored by self-described pro-life Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California creates a false distinction between cloning embryos and cloning human beings, allowing cloning for research but not for “reproduction.” (When Reeve testified before the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee he invoked the words of “pro-life” Hatch to support the New Jersey bill.)
A bill sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) would fully ban all human cloning. The companion bill in the U.S. House is the Dave Weldon (R-Fla.)/Bart Stupak (DMich.) bill; it passed the house once already, in 2001, and is expected to again this year.
“It is remarkable,” said Wesley Smith, author of The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, “that in less then two years, we have gone from ‘only’ wanting to harvest the stem cells from embryos left over from IVF procedures to a state senate passing legislation that would permit the implantation and gestation of cloned fetuses to the ninth month before requiring their destruction. This is not just a slide down a slippery slope, it is a headfirst plunge into the abyss.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Warns of New Age Dangers DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — The Vatican's new document is right, says Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa, who says he once “dabbled in” New Age practices.
People who get involved with New Age activities do run serious risks, said host of “EWTN Live” and author of a book on New Age beliefs and practices.
The Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue on Feb. 3 released a document titled “Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian reflection on the New Age.”
It warned Catholics to exercise caution and discernment in dealing with a variety of fairly common practices involving yoga, crystals and the Enneagram personality type indicators because these activities can be in conflict with Catholic doctrine.
“First, you can lose money, not just your faith,” Father Pacwa said of the practices, explaining that the New Age seminars that teach them are very costly. “Don't pay to make yourself dumb.”
The patchwork of beliefs that make up the New Age are full of old heresies and could be dangerous to one's faith, the Vatican warned in the document, which reiterated previous warnings about the dangers of occultism and provided a detailed lexicon of New Age terms.
The work is targeted to “those engaged in pastoral work so that they might be able to explain how the New Age movement differs from the Christian faith.”
“I was really pleased to see the Vatican speak on this issue,” said Johnette Benkovic, author of The New Age Counterfeit and founder and president of Living His Life Abundantly, a Catholic media ministry in Florida.
Benkovic, who said she has been monitoring the New Age movement since 1988, is worried the New Age mentality has become so mainstream that “it is almost imperceptible to millions of Catholics.”
She agreed with the document's identification of the major sources of New Age thinking: “Eastern oriental mysticism, Western occultism — especially gnosticism — and the ‘human potential movement.’”
What Is New Age?
One problem with New Age thinking is that it is constantly changing, experts say. While it is easy to point to the roots of New Age thinking, it is more difficult to keep up with its constantly changing manifestations.
“What the movement is now is not what it will be in six months,” said Benkovic, who interviewed for her book many people involved in New Age and the fight against it.
The Vatican document referred to New Age as a “very complex and elusive phenomenon.”
Yet there are some common trends, according to the document. These include the following ideas: E“The cosmos as an organic whole.” An “energy, which is also identified as the divine soul or spirit.” EThe “mediation of various spiritual entities.” E“Humans … ascending to invisible higher spheres, and … controlling their own lives beyond death.” E“‘Perennial knowledge, which predates and is superior to all religions and cultures.” E“People follow[ing] enlightened masters.”
Some within the Church, however, do not find such practices worrisome.
Dominican Father Cletus Wessels, author of The Holy Web: Church and the New Universe Story, said although he had not read the new document, he is not worried about New Age ideas.
“I've been accused of being New Age. Lots of people are,” said Father Wessels, who taught theology for 18 years at the Aquinas Institute, a graduate school of theology in St. Louis. “The Vatican is swiping at these and other little things that are bothering them,” he said, “but we are coming into contact with new things and there is a desire to explore them.”
The document warned, however, that “even if it can be admitted that New Age religiosity in some way responds to the legitimate spiritual longing of human nature, it must be acknowledged that its attempts to do so run counter to Christian revelation.”
The document warns those teaching New Age ideas within the Church should stop doing so because of conflicts with Catholicism.
It stated: “There are too many cases where Catholic centers of spirituality are actively involved in diffusing New Age religiosity in the Church. This would of course have to be corrected, to stop the spread of confusion and error … [and] so that they might be effective in promoting true Christian spirituality.”
Risky Practices
Father Pacwa , whose book Catholics and the New Age: How Good People are being drawn into Jungian Psychology, the Enneagram and the New Age of Aquarius was recommended by the Vatican document, has four warnings for those interested in New Age.
He warned that the variety of alternative medicines New Age proponents focus on have as little chance of success as typical treatments, and some, he said, are downright dangerous.
New Age activities can lead people to “dabble in the occult and become obsessed with occult power,” he said.
Worst of all, he warned that practitioners of New Age activity can lose their sense of good and evil by becoming “caught up in pantheism — the idea that everything is god, so everything is good.”
“Not being judgmental” becomes all-important, the priest said.
Father Pacwa cited the example of two abortion doctors who justified their activity with the New Age mentality that “abortions help the babies go to a better place because [the babies] had bad karma.”
All sorts of sins then become justifiable, he said, noting that some have used New Age ideas to justify the actions of Hitler and Stalin.
Benkovic warned that dabbling in New Age activities “can begin to dilute our Catholic faith.” In the worst cases those involved can run the risk of experiences with the demonic, she said.
Retired Bishop Donald Montrose, who wrote a pastoral letter on the New Age and the occult when he was bishop of Stockton, Calif., from 1986-1999, also advised Catholics to stay away from such practices and ideas “because it makes allowance for another power.”
It's “deeper” than superstition, he added.
What the new Vatican document suggests is that “you have to [look at your] understanding and world-view to see if it is in concert with the Catholic faith,” Benkovic said.
And Father Pacwa noted wryly that the reason the New Age is constantly changing from one “fad” to another is simple: It doesn't work.
G.K. Chesterton was right, he said, noting: “When somebody doesn't believe in God, they don't believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mary Jo Copeland, Minneapolis Mom, Aids 1,000 DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Mary Jo Copeland began serving the poor from the trunk of her car in the early 1980s.
Today her Minneapolis ministry provides meals and other assistance to 1,000 people a day at Sharing and Caring Hands, transitional housing to 500 people at Mary's Place Shelter and is raising funds to build a home for children awaiting adoption or reunion with families.
Copeland has raised $50 million in private donations since 1985 to accomplish her work. She spoke with Register correspondent Barb Ernster about spreading God's Kingdom to America's homeless.
Your biography,
I grew up in South Minneapolis in a totally dysfunctional home where my dad did a lot of beating on my mother. My mother spent a lot of time trying to make peace and placate him. She went to bingo halls and gambled money for food because he didn't give her a lot of money, and she paid a lot of bills with that.
I never got good grades in school because I was always up at night scared. I spent a lot of time in my room and prayed a lot. We lived in a really dirty house. The kids at school made fun of me, and I didn't have a lot of friends, so I played in the backyard with the bumblebees and prayed to the Blessed Mother.
How did your prayer life develop in the midst of all this?
My mother and father were both Catholic, and my grandmother was Catholic, and they raised me Catholic. I think the prayer life developed when I was very small because I went to Catholic grade schools, and I always saw the statues of the saints and the Blessed Mother.
I didn't know the meaning of prayer when I was little, but I had a little 10-cent stations book that I prayed with, and I always got the best grades in my Baltimore Catechism because I knew all the answers.
I just always wanted to please God. I was very devoted to Mary at a very young age.
After raising 12 children, you started to volunteer for Catholic Charities. How did you get the idea for Sharing and Caring Hands and how has it grown in the last two decades?
While I was at Catholic Charities, I spent some time just talking to the poor and I tried to raise donations on my own for them. Finally I started to give them stuff from my car because [Catholic Charities] food shelf had all these rules.
Eventually I brought in 28 local churches to help start a lunch line down there. But I got very disen-chanted with the paperwork and bureaucracy because I thought, “God wouldn't do it this way.” So I prayed to the Blessed Mother and promised that if I could find a building, I'd bring the Kingdom of God to the world. About that time I won an award [KARE-11 news station's Eleven Who Care award], and after I got the award money, I found a little store on Glenwood Avenue.
After three years there, I bought the new building. At first I would see a lot of single men come in, but over the last 10 years more and more mothers and children are coming in. You've got more and more poverty, more and more people who are on drugs and have crack babies — a lot of dysfunction.
Kids that I used to take care of when they were little are now grown up, and they never went to school and none of them are functioning. The whole pattern continues.
Because I've grown to what I am today and well known for what I do, all the counties [surrounding the Twin Cities], are sending people here because they don't have the resources to help these people.
One of your trademark practices is to wash the feet of the homeless every morning and afternoon. Often you are joined by visiting priests or nuns. Can you talk about that experience?
It's one of the greatest acts of humility. In the Gospel, Jesus said “do what I do.”
There are a lot of blisters on the feet that poor people walk on. Some can hardly walk because of poor circulation, their feet are torn up, they have frostbite, they don't take care of their feet. It's unbelievable. To get down on my knees and soothe those feet and clean those wounds is a great act of service to the Lord, a humble way to serve him.
You grew up in an abusive home, rose above it and now serve people who come from similar backgrounds. Do you have any insights on why God works in people's lives so differently?
One of the most powerful tools any of us can ever get is prayer. During all those years [growing up] I always prayed. I would say the Hail Mary, the stations and I had a statue of Mary in my room. It was always in my heart that other kids out there suffered like I did, and if they could just be taught to pray. That's where I found my peace. There's a time in your life when you'll go back to where prayer is really needed. That's why I taught my kids to pray, and why we pray here.
I'm a Catholic, but I've never tried to preach a religion here. It's not about religion, it's about showing these people that God loves them. We have crucifixes on the walls in every room because we all need to be reminded daily about God's love for us.
You've demonstrated an incredible ability to raise money from the private sector. How has little Mary Jo, who was told she would amount to nothing, approach some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Minnesota and get them to donate?
I trusted that God would work on the hearts of those people, and I had to be a beggar for the poor. I saw the need and nothing was going to stop me from whomever I had to go to.
Sometimes it was very hard and I got put down many times, but I had to be a voice for those who don't have a voice. What I saw, the suffering of so many people, if I didn't go out and beg for money so I could build this place, they would have nothing.
I remember knocking on the door of Irwin Jacobs [a local businessman], and when I sat down in his office, I thought, “He's no different than any one of us. He's on a journey too, and I need to remind him of what that journey is about. It's about sharing his wealth with others.”
In God's infinite wisdom, he gave me the strength to do it. I knew God was calling me to be that voice.
Do you have an opinion on President Bush's faith-based support program?
It's a wonderful thing if what he's doing will not cause a lot of paperwork and a lot of restraints and conditions. I would take it for the children's home if they won't tell me what I can and can't do, because that place is going to be in the Catholic tradition. So if anything crosses that, then we just don't take the money.
As far as what he wants to do — take the government out of it and support faith-based organizations — that's all good.
You've been criticized for doing things your own way and that what you're doing may be enabling people. The book quotes you saying, “You have to take people as they come to you, not as we want them to be.” Can you comment on that?
Love is not an enabler. We enable people to do what they have to do in their life. People have to keep the curfews, keep the smoking out of the rooms, keep their rooms clean and work on their productive lives. If they don't, then they're not going to be here.
But if you don't stop a person from bleeding; if there's a sore here, you're going to concentrate your whole self on getting that sore well, and then we can decide what we're going to do after that. Love enables people to find their alcoholism or other problems. And that's what's so beautiful.
There's an obvious difference in how you operate compared with Catholic Charities, where you started out as a volunteer.
Well, the thing with Catholic Charities, when I was there in ‘82 or ‘83 — there was so much paperwork. They see more papers than people. And God didn't do that.
I remember when they had a form that they had to ask the person's religion for the food shelf. Would God really ask anybody what religion they are, what address they are, what color they were if they were hungry?
God loved people and healed them one by one, wherever they were, whatever they were. If healing is the same as feeding and loving and giving what they needed, then that's what we're going here; it's not asking why people are here.
A lot of people who want to help the poor might be a little intimidated or don't know what to do. What advice can you give?
Sharing and Caring Hands is all over. It's in your living room. You can bring God and his mother to many people by serving God in your own way, which is just as beautiful as what I'm doing. I am just a simple, humble woman who has listened to the call of God.
He's calling all of us. Sit down and ask yourself, what is keeping me from a constant commitment to God's will? Am I too involved with golfing, am I too involved with lunches with my friends? What can I eliminate to give a portion of my life to God?
Find out in your local community, whatever city you're in, what is lacking and what you can do to help. If we could just stop looking at the world as an overwhelming problem and look at what's in front of us, one by one we can change the world. I wish I could go to everyone and say, “You can do it; you can make a difference.”
You've been called the Mother Teresa of America. Any comment on that?
Mother Teresa is Mother Teresa and Mary Jo Copeland is Mary Jo Copeland. I'm very honored that someone would put me on that level, but she's still a separate person.
I do think a lot like Mother Teresa. I don't belong to the world, and neither did Mother, so I'm pretty free to say what God wants me to say, and I have a great trust in serving God.
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Marriage Battle in Connecticut Could Have Repercussions Nationwide DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:HARTFORD, Conn. — In an escalating war over the definition of marriage, hundreds of people advocating the traditional concept of the institution recently delivered 70,000 petition signatures to the Connecticut legislature. The petition was led by the Knights of Columbus and had the full support of the three Catholic dioceses in the state.
But not far from the state capitol, advocates for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage had their own pep rally Jan. 29. The face-off is being played out in legislative lobbies and courtrooms around the country.
Connecticut state Sen. Win Smith, a Republican, spoke to the traditional marriage advocates’ rally about his Defense of Marriage Bill, which would provide that “only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”
“I believe in the institution of marriage, and that definition of marriage should not be changed,” said Smith, who co-sponsored the bill with state Rep. T.R. Rowe, also a Republican.
Joining the legislators and the activists were clergy from many different religions, including Rabbi Daniel Greer of Yeshiva of New Haven. He told a cheering crowd at the demonstration to support Smith's legislation because allowing same-sex marriage would lead to other couplings, like polygamy and incest.
“Two men or two women, no matter how loving and caring of each other and of the youngster in their charge they may be, do not, cannot and never will a family be,” Greer insisted. “To go down this road is fraught with peril.”
But the Defense of Marriage Bill isn't the only bill in the Con necticut Legislature that deals with marriage.
Another bill would establish civil unions for couples of the same sex. A similar one would make Connecticut the first state to allow “any two persons to enter into marriage, regardless of sex.”
State Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat, spoke to the Hartford rally organized by supporters of same-sex marriage Jan. 29.
“I understand there are people who have strong religious objections to sexuality,” said Lawlor after receiving a standing ovation from the crowd. “The legislature doesn't want to get into whose religion is right and whose is wrong. We will be making a decision about civil law.”
Anne Stanback, head of the homosexual advocacy group Love Makes a Family, said that while her organization would accept civil unions, her group would continue fighting until same-sex marriage became law.
Homosexuals who advocate same-sex marriage “want to use the same terminology,” she said. “We don't want a 'separate-but-equal‘-type system.”
One reason her organization favors same-sex marriage over civil unions has to do with mobility: Civil unions would not necessarily be recognized by another state that has no such classification.
“It probably isn't portable,” Stanback said. “If you move into another state, you become legal strangers.”
Vermont became the first state to legalize civil unions in 2000 after the state's Supreme Court declared Vermont's matrimony laws discriminated against homosexuals. So far no other state has civil unions and no state has a same-sex marriage law.
But Stanback said legal benefits are not the main reason same-sex couples want to have marriage classification.
“People don't sing songs about civil unions,” she said. “It's just the language that we understand. We want to be a part of that institution.”
Taking It to the Courts
Advocates for same-sex marriage in other states are using the courts rather than the legislatures to push their agenda.
Sean Lemieux, director of the Equal Rights Project for the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, said one reason homosexuals there decided to file a lawsuit seeking the right to marry is that it could take years to amend the state's constitution.
But such a lawsuit can backfire. After lawsuits were filed in Hawaii and Alaska, both states passed constitutional amendments that prohibit same-sex marriages.
In Massachusetts, Mary Bonau -to, civil rights project director at the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, is more optimistic about the chances of a court victory. Her organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven same-sex “couples” in 2001, and the Supreme Judicial Court will decide their case this summer.
“We wouldn't have filed the case unless we thought the court would be fair to us,” she said. “In some ways, we couldn't be in a better place.”
Marriage advocates say the legalization of same-sex marriage in one state, by court decision in Massa -chusetts or by law in Connecticut, would create a national firestorm over the issue. Other states would be sued to recognize same-sex marriages, said Matt Daniels of Alliance for Marriage. His organization is pushing a Federal Marriage Amendment to define marriage as the union of a male and female.
What Lemieux and Bonauto said “amply confirm — in the words of gay activists themselves — the national scope of the strategy for overcoming public opinion with respect to the definition of marriage under American law,” Daniels said. “At the same time, [they] also confirm the need for the Federal Marriage Amendment if the American people are going to be allowed to protect the legal status of marriage for our children and grandchildren.”
Love and Marriage?
Brian Brown, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, said advocates for same-sex marriage fail to understand the nature of marriage.
“Love is not only what makes a family,” he said. “If that were the case, then our courts would have recognized polygamy in the 19th century.”
Brown worked with the Knights of Columbus and Archbishop Daniel Cronin of Hartford on the Connecticut petition drive, which began last November.
“Marriage isn't just a name to confer to whatever relationship you want,” he said.
“Marriage is something. It's the one-flesh union of male and female,” Brown said.
He cautioned that if Connecticut were to legalize same-sex marriage, it would “reverberate nationwide.”
“What's going on in Connecticut could have a greater impact than Vermont,” he said.
State Rep. Rowe said defense-of-marriage legislation has strong bipartisan support from all across the country. He noted that former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the federal Defense of Marr -iage Act in 1996 and that 35 states have similar laws on the books.
“What we're doing with this Defense of Marriage Act is nothing outrageous,” Rowe said. “It's simply putting into statute that which has been the case all along.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Jennifer Lopez Shot Down by Canon Law
IAFRICA.COM, Feb. 3 — All Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck wanted was a huge Catholic wedding. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was, since Lopez was previously married in the Church.
The news site Iafrica.com reported the singer and actress is heart-broken at the fact that she can't get a quick annulment from her sacramental marriage to Miami waiter Ojani Noa. Noa married Lopez before she hit it big, and they divorced in less than a year. She contracted a second, civil marriage, now also dissolved.
Noa has decided to fight his annulment in a Church tribunal. He admits his motive is payback: “Jennifer has done me no favors. She [cheated] me out of a decent divorce settlement [and] then fired me as the manager of her restaurant. I owe her nothing,” he told a magazine.
The proceedings in a contested annulment case could take up to two years and turn out either way, according to Iafrica.com, which quoted a Lopez friend as saying, “Jennifer is crushed that her dream of a huge Catholic wedding may have gone up in smoke. A month ago she was telling people that she'd be able to get the Church to agree to a hurry-up annulment. Now every time she thinks about it she gets weepy.”
Judge Dismisses Homosexual Activists ‘in Peace’
The judge, Mildred Edwards, a Catholic, apologized to the three on behalf of the Church.
The protestors had engaged in a sit-in protest at the hotel housing U.S. bishops last fall and demanded the Eucharist from passing bishops. It seems the three had been denied holy Communion at a local parish for wearing homosexual-activist ribbons on their lapels.
“Tremendous violence was done to you … when the Body of Christ was denied to you,” Edwards said. “As a member of your Church, I ask you to forgive the Church.” She concluded her sentence, “Go in peace.”
Bush Appointee to High Court Not Pro-Life?
However, Chertoff is not pro-life, reported the American Life League, which has denounced the impending nomination.
Chertoff, the son of a rabbi, once clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He is now a leading figure in the U.S. Justice Department's “war on terror.”
His nomination, according to The Star-Ledger, has the support of both of New Jersey's liberal Democratic senators.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spare Some Change?: Catholics Ponder What to Do About Beggars DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:BOULDER, Colo. — In this city, Catholics who drive often find themselves in an uncomfortable situation. They end up at a stoplight, confronted eyeball-to-eyeball with someone holding a sign asking for food, work or cash.
Catholic guilt sets in. Then the questions: Is this person really in need? What would Jesus do? Am I required to give money now?
Boulder is overrun by beggars, mostly because nearby Denver and other communities in the metropolitan area have in recent years outlawed begging from street medians and in specified commercial areas.
In January, the Boulder City Council finally took action against beggars, succumbing to pressure from business owners, pedestrians and drivers who were complaining about the onslaught of panhandlers asking for handouts.
Every week, cities throughout the United States are making similar rules against begging, carving out laws that narrowly dodge constitutional rights of free speech and free association.
Anti-begging laws have confounded many Catholics, bringing to the forefront debates about Catholic responsibility to the poor.
“Everyone's suddenly anti-homeless again,” said Father Joe Carroll, president of St. Vincent De Paul Villages, a massive homeless shelter in San Diego that houses more than 1,000 people each night. “It goes in cycles, and right now the sociopolitical climate has us in another anti-homeless phase.”
The cycle has played itself plenty, as the homeless and poor have been with us throughout recorded history.
In Rome during the first century B.C., Caesar would open the Roman food warehouses and distribute food to as many as 150,000 people in an effort to pacify the poor. Disabled beggars were common in the public square of early Rome. European history is replete with failed efforts to regulate or eliminate beggars.
“Throughout the Bible, the Gospel directs us to give to the poor,” said Jim Ruybal, director of communications for Catholic Charities of Denver, where city government has made intense efforts for the past two years to regulate the homeless and poor in response to public complaints.
“As for laws that seek to regulate begging, we feel that legislation only moves this problem from visibility,” he said. “It does nothing to solve it or to help with the needs of the poor.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “God blesses those who come to the aid of the poor and rebukes those who turn away from them: ‘Give to him who begs from you, do not refuse him who would borrow from you’; ‘you received without pay, give without pay.’“
But it adds, “When 'the poor have the good news preached to them,’ it is the sign of Christ's presence” (No. 2443).
Class Wars?
Like Father Carroll, Ruybal believes the United States is going through the latest phase in which the middle and upper classes are expressing open animosity toward the homeless and poor. Thus, both men say, the increase of anti-begging laws.
Although both men devote their lives to the needs of the homeless and poor, neither argue that Catholics are obligated to give to beggars or to fight their local governments when anti-begging laws are proposed.
Father Carroll said he used to give to beggars, believing it was a good act of Catholic charity. That was before he spent 20 years working directly with the homeless.
“I began to think that 99% of these beggars were fake and not really needy,” Father Carroll said. “Now I think 100% of them are fake. People who beg are in an entrepreneurial enterprise and they're an embarrassment to the homeless who are using programs such as ours in an effort to improve their lives by using the gifts God gave them.”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus regards giving to the poor as an act of righteousness (cf. Mat -thew 5). However, 2 Thessalonians 3:10 says, “… if a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
“The preferred goal thus is not simply meeting the human needs of the poor but meeting them by helping them to become productive, self-sustaining members of the community,” said Jimmy Akin, director of apologetics and evangelization for Catholic Answers in San Diego. “When this can be achieved, it promotes human dignity by freeing the poor from the degradation of begging and dependency and by helping them contribute to the good of society.”
Sobering Reality
Father Carroll said the United States is so full of social agencies that many people feel justified in passing beggars by.
“If you feel Catholic or Jewish guilt when you encounter beggars, that's great,” Father Carroll said. “Deal with your guilt by sending a check to your local St. Vincent De Paul center or by giving to some other agency. Then pray that the person you saw begging will go to that agency.”
Ruybal, whose agency runs two Denver-area homeless shelters and an array of transitional housing facilities for the poor, agrees that one has not neglected a Christian duty to give merely by refusing the requests of beggars. He said Catholics must give, but it's up to each to decide how to direct the money.
Some people will beg on the streets no matter how many shelters are built and no matter how many agencies reach out to them, Ruybal said. Others simply can't abide by the restrictions agencies must impose upon the needy in order to serve them.
In Boulder, for example, one must be sober to spend a night at the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless. A chronic alcoholic who's homeless, Ruybal explained, will end up on the streets in need of handouts.
Jordan McCaffrey, however, takes issue with people who say only lazy people beg. McCaffrey begs from Boulder road medians with her teen-age son, whom she said she would have lost to social services had she sought the assistance of an agency.
“The money from holding a sign is the only thing that keeps my son and I together,” McCaffrey said, explaining her fear that social workers try to separate poor children from troubled parents.
So does a good Catholic formally oppose anti-begging laws?
“Catholic theology would not prevent a person from supporting an anti-begging law if the basic human needs of those who are genuinely unable to care for themselves are guaranteed through another means,” Akin said. “Would the anti-begging law place the genuinely needy in a position where their basic human needs would go unmet? The answer to [such] questions determines whether the law could be supported.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: U.S. Religious Criticize Embassy's Use of Theologian to Defend War DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — A group of American religious superiors and theologians wrote to U.S. Ambassador to the Vati can Jim Nicholson to protest his enlistment of a U.S. theologian to defend the idea of “preventive war” to Vatican officials.
In a letter delivered to Nicholson Feb. 4, the group said the theologian, Michael Novak, has departed from the “almost unanimous” Church condemnation of a new war on Iraq and said his “appointment” by the embassy seemed to violate the principle of separation of church and state.
The group chided the ambassador for not consulting with U.S. Church leaders in his choice of Novak and urged Nicholson to “represent the full voice of the [U.S.] Catholic community” by opening up his meetings with Vatican officials “to others beyond your appointed theologian.”
The letter was sent by the Justice and Peace Office of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, based in Silver Spring, Md., and bore nearly 60 names of superiors of men's and women's religious orders, officials of the peace organization Pax Christi USA and various theologians.
In a statement, Nicholson said it appeared the letter was “based on a misunderstanding of the nature” of Novak's visit.
“Mr. Novak is coming to Rome as a private citizen to present his own views on the relation of the current crisis to traditional notions of just-war theory,” he said.
“He is not coming here to represent Catholic teaching or the conference of U.S. bishops; he is also not representing the U.S. government,” the ambassador said.
Novak, director of social and political studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, was to be the featured speaker Feb. 10 in Rome at a just-war symposium and debate. The U.S. Embassy to the Vatican, which is sponsoring the gathering, also was lining up private meetings between Novak and Vatican officials.
A growing chorus of Vatican officials in recent months has warned against resolving the Iraqi disarmament problem through military means and has explicitly rejected the notion of a “preventive war.”
In its letter to Nicholson, the U.S. Catholic group said it was very concerned he had “selected one theologian to represent the U.S. Catholic community's position on the morality of this war without any consultation with the recognized Catholic leaders in the United States,” who have consistently rejected moral justification for war on Iraq.
“In a country where we have a time-honored and legally protected right to the separation of church and state, the appointment of a theologian seems to us to violate that separation,” it said.
“In addition, we are concerned that this action could actually lead to a misrepresentation of the teachings of our bishops, religious leaders and theologians, who have worked in concert to educate the entire Cath-olic community in the United States,” it said.
Novak is one of several American Catholic lay intellectuals who have supported the preventive war concept, formulated by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The group said it recognized that Catholic thought on just war was not monolithic, “but it seems that with our bishops and others in so close agreement, a pro-war voice does not represent the voice of U.S. Catholics on this issue.”
Nicholson said Novak was participating in the State Department's international speaker program, “which seeks to bring leading American scholars and experts from many walks of life to address foreign audiences on issues of priority concern to the United States.”
“It is our hope that Mr. Novak's presentations and meetings will broaden the debate and clarify the just nature of U.S. policy in Iraq. We expect his presentations will help stimulate thinking about the very complex political, legal and moral issues involved in responding to the continuing threat from Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Norton ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Patron Saint for the Internet?
A Catholic group in northern Italy is conducting a survey of Catholic computer users, seeking a saint to watch over the faithful on the Web. The site sponsoring the search, www.santie beati.it, hopes to have a choice prepared so the Vatican can proclaim a patron for the Internet by Easter.
The leading candidate, with 29% of the votes so far, is St. Giacomo Alberione, founder of the Brothers and Daughters of St. Paul.
Other strong candidates are St. Gabriel, the messenger to Mary; St. John Bosco, youth educator; St. Alphonsus Liguori, a pro-life writer; St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Auschwitz martyr who used the advanced technology of his day to preach; and St. Clare of Assisi, who used to see visions on a wall and is already the patron of television. Not mentioned was St. Isidore of Seville, who has also been widely invoked by Internet users.
Vatican Steps Up Defense of Pope Pius XII
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 2 — Vatican officials have begun a new campaign to combat the widespread distortions that have emerged about Pope Pius XII before and during World War II, according to the news service.
Even as new books and a film — Amen, which opened Jan. 19 — have come out accusing the beloved wartime Pope of failing to denounce or resist the Nazis, the Church is releasing documents it hopes will clear his good name.
La Civilta Cattolica, a magazine that hews close to Vatican policy, is publishing a series that details Pope Pius’ involvement with the German resistance to Hitler, including those who sought to assassinate him in 1944 and end the war.
On Feb. 15 the Vatican will open its archives on relations between Germany and the Holy See from 1922-1939. The documents should show historians “the great works of charity and assistance” Pius undertook, La Civilta Cattolica wrote, even before he became Pope.
Priest at Vatican Okays Harry Potter
NEWS24.COM, Feb. 4 — While many conservative Christians have found the Harry Potter books offensive, that's not the view of one priest at the Vatican, reported the South African Web site News24.com.
During a Vatican press conference, Father Don Peter Fleetwood was asked what he thought of the J.K. Rowling books. He replied that the books’ central focus on the struggle between good and evil suggested the presence of Christian morality.
“I don't see any, any problems in the Harry Potter series,” said Father Fleetwood, a former member of the Pontifical Council for Culture. “I don't think there's anyone in this room who grew up without fairies, magic and angels in their imaginary world.”
“They aren't serving as a banner for an anti-Christian ideology,” he continued. “[The books] help children to see the difference between good and evil, and [Rowling] is very clear on this.”
He said Potter creator Rowling was “Christian by conviction, is Christian in her mode of living, even in her way of writing.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: For World Day of the Sick, Pope Urges Defense of Life in Health Care DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Catholic health care workers “have the urgent task of doing all they can to defend life,” Pope John Paul II said Feb. 2 in a message for the 11th World Day of the Sick.
“Through the celebration of this World Day of the Sick, may the Gospel of life and love resound loudly, especially in the Americas, where more than half the world's Catholics live,” he said.
His message was released in Washington, where Vatican-sponsored observances Feb. 9-11 were expected to draw participants from around the world.
The annual World Day of the Sick is sponsored by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.
Events scheduled in Washington included a dialogue among bishops from the Americas at the headquarters of the U.S. bishops Feb. 9, a study day for all registered participants at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center on Feb. 10 and a Mass with anointing of the sick at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Con -ception on Feb. 11.
The Holy Father has named Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, president of the pontifical council, as his special envoy for the Washington observances. Also named to the papal mission for the events were Msgr. Michael Bransfield, rector of the national shrine, and Father Michael Place, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association in the United States.
In his message John Paul reiterated his warnings against what he has called a “culture of death.”
He quoted from his 1999 apostolic exhortation, Ecclesia in America (The Church in America), the warning that in the Americas “a model of society appears to be emerging in which the powerful predominate, setting aside and even eliminating the powerless.”
Still quoting from the exhortation, he went on to say, “I am thinking here of unborn children, helpless victims of abortion; the elderly and incurable ill, subjected at times to euthanasia; and the many other people relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism. Nor can I fail to mention the unnecessary recourse to the death penalty. … This model of society bears the stamp of the culture of death and is therefore in opposition to the Gospel message.”
Drawing from that theme, in his message the Pope urged putting “the defense of the culture of life among our pastoral priorities.”
Speaking of the “witness of faith, charity and hope” that the Church brings to the health care field, the Holy Father said, “In order to make this witness of love practical, those involved in the pastoral care of the sick must act in full communion among themselves and with their bishops.”
He said Catholic hospitals “are called upon to reflect ever more clearly in their policies the values of the Gospel, as the … [Church's] social and moral guidelines insist.”
“Catholic hospitals should be centers of life and hope which promote — together with chaplaincies — ethics committees, training programs for lay health workers, personal and compassionate care of the sick, attention to the needs of their families, and a particular sensitivity to the poor and the marginalized,” he wrote.
In the use of biotechnology he warned particularly of the need to observe ethical norms and avoid “discriminating between one life and another and ignoring the dignity which belongs to every human being.”
Authentic service to the sick involves “respecting their inviolable dignity,” he said. He added, “Every therapeutic procedure, all experimentation and every transplant must take into account this fundamental truth. Thus it is never licit to kill one human being in order to save another.”
He encouraged “palliative treatment in the final stage of life” to ease pain and suffering when curative treatment is no longer possible, but he warned that “it will never be permissible to resort to actions or omissions which by their nature or in the intention of the person acting are designed to bring about death.”
With the increasing use of home care for the terminally ill, the Pope called on priests and pastoral workers to pay proper attention to the needs of the sick who remain at home, saying, “Be vigilant and ensure that the sick never lack the consoling presence of the Lord through the word of God and the sacraments.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jerry Filteau ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II met with more than 3,500 pilgrims during his general audience on Feb. 5 and offered his reflections on Psalm 117, the shortest psalm in the Book of Psalms. He noted that this was his second teaching on Psalm 117. He also spoke about it during his general audience on Nov. 28, 2001.
He pointed out that the message of Psalm 117 is summarized in two words: love and faithfulness. These words “illustrate in a nutshell the covenant between God and Israel,” he said. “Psalm 117 captures the heart of prayer,” he noted, “which consists of an encounter with God and a deep personal dialogue with him. Here the mystery of God is revealed as faithfulness and love.”
However, prayer eventually becomes a witness to others, he noted, even to those who do not share the Christian faith. All nations and all peoples are invited to praise God and experience the joy of faith.
“In a technological world undermined by an eclipse of the sacred, in a society that takes pleasure in a certain degree of self-sufficiency,” the Holy Father observed, “the psalmist's witness is like a ray of light in the darkness.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prayer Is a Ray of Light in a Technological World DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:As we continue our meditation on the texts found in morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, we will reflect once again on a psalm that is the shortest composition in the Book of Psalms. It is Psalm 117, which is like a brief hymn or prayer that expands into a universal hymn of praise to the Lord. Its message is expressed in two fundamental words: love and faithfulness (see verse 2).
Covenant Relationship
The psalmist uses these terms to illustrate in a nutshell the covenant between God and Israel, emphasizing the deep relationship of loyalty and trust that exists between the Lord and his people. Here we hear an echo of the words that God himself spoke to Moses when he appeared to him on Sinai: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Exodus 34:6).
Even though it is brief and to the point, Psalm 117 captures the heart of prayer, which consists of an encounter with God and a deep personal dialogue with him. Here the mystery of God is revealed as faithfulness and love.
Prayer Is a Witness
The psalmist highlights one particular aspect of prayer. The experience of prayer should spread throughout the world and become a witness to those who do not share our faith. In fact, at the beginning of the psalm, he expands his horizon to include “all you nations” and “all you peoples” (see verse 1), so that they too, when they see the beauty and joy of faith, will be overwhelmed by a desire to know God and to find him and praise him.
In a technological world undermined by a eclipse of the sacred, in a society that takes pleasure in a certain degree of self-sufficiency, the psalmist's witness is like a ray of light in the darkness. At first it might only arouse curiosity. Later it might lead a thoughtful person to wonder about the meaning of prayer. Finally, it might lead to a growing desire to experience it. For this reason, prayer is never a solitary event but tends to expand until it involves the whole world.
Pray Unceasingly
Let us now look at Psalm 117 alongside the words of a great Father of the Eastern Church, St. Ephrem the Syrian, who lived in the fourth century. In one of his Hymns on the Faith, the 14th, he expresses his desire to never cease praising God and to also involve “all those who understand the divine truth.” Here is his testimony:
“Lord, how can my harp cease to praise you? / How could I teach my tongue infidelity? / Your love has given me confidence amidst my confusion, / but my will is still ungrateful (stanza 9).
“It is right that man should recognize your divinity, / and it is right for the heavenly beings to praise your humanity; / the heavenly beings were astonished to see how much you humbled yourself, / and earthly beings to see how much you were exalted” (stanza 10: L'Arpa dello Spirito, Rome, 1999, p. 26-28).
In another hymn (Nisibian Hymns, 50), St. Ephrem confirms his commitment to unceasing praise and explains that it is motivated by God's love and compassion for us, just as the psalm suggests.
“In you, Lord, may my mouth praise you in silence. / May our mouths not cease to praise you, / may our lips not be wanting in confessing you; / may your praise vibrate in us! (stanza 2).
“Because the root of our faith is grafted in Our Lord; / although far away, he is still near in the fusion of love. / May the roots of our love be united to him, / and may the full measure of his compassion be poured out upon us” (stanza 6 p. 77, 80).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Split Within the Church of England?
As that church prepares to ordain woman bishops some time during the next 10 years, the leading conservative group in its Protestant communion, Forward in Faith, is expected to present Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, with a plan for creating a separate province within the Anglican Church.
In this separate province, Anglicans who reject women's ordinations could continue to worship as they are accustomed without being forced to accept female bishops and priests.
Williams has expressed support for the idea, saying it might prevent the kind of ugly divisions that erupted when women were first ordained to the Anglican priesthood 10 years ago.
Church Supports Needy Workers in Indonesia
FIDES NEWS, Feb. 2 — More than 800 impoverished Catholic working people in Jakarta have turned to the Church for help, according to Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency.
The workers gathered at the end of January in the Jakarta cathedral to meet with Cardinal Julius Daarmaatmadja, archbishop of Jakarta, and ask him to pressure the government to social reforms.
The workers complained about long hours, low pay and not enough money for school or time to spend with their families.
The Oct. 12 terrorist bombing in Bali has savaged the country's economy, Fides reported, which still had not recovered from the 1997 Asian-wide fiscal crisis.
Healing and Hope in Australia
Dr. Peter Rudegeair considers homosexuality a treatable psychological disorder and encourages other therapists to provide treatment to those who wish to escape the condition, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Archbishop George Pell has joined other Australian bishops in inviting Rudegeair to tour the country and address clergy and laity. The Australian psychological establishment and liberal press are up in arms and have tried to have the speaking engagements cancelled.
Among Rudegeair's theories, he suggests that boys with dysfunctional father relationships, poor coordination and poor sporting skills are often driven to experiment with homosexuality and then feel trapped in the lifestyle.
The tour was sparked by the Church-approved apostolate Courage, which promotes chastity among those with same-sex attraction.
Archbishop Pell defended Rudegeair's right to be heard, saying, “Australian society values diversity and the free exchange of ideas. Courage provides an alternative that should be made available to the community and openly discussed.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Sitting President DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Richard Nixon proclaimed Presidents Day to replace celebrations of George Washington's and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays. Thus, the focus was taken off of the virtues of Washington and Lincoln and the day became an occasion to celebrate no one and, if anything, to rue the shortcomings of the sitting president.
That's unfortunate. The virtues of Washington and Lincoln are worth celebrating (see “Washington, Lincoln and You” on Page 18). And by first seeing what made them great, we can evaluate the sitting president much more truly.
What they reveal, first of all, is that upholding the moral principles of the Declaration of Independence — America's self-definition — is what makes presidents great.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” said the declaration, but, as each new generation of Americans has shown, they are not so self-evident after all. Rather, they have stayed in the red-hot center of political debate. Uncannily, however much a generation may convince itself otherwise, a president's success in staying close to these principles is what makes later generations call a president great.
Thus, Washington's legacy is that he won the struggle for independence itself and then minimized his own power, sticking to the principle that “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The issue of Lincoln's day was the declaration's insistence that “all men are created equal.” If his prudent, slow and steady fight against slavery had been unsuccessful, his presidency would not be remembered the way it is.
If there's one declaration principle most at issue today, it's the principle “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these [is] life.”
We asked several pro-life leaders what they thought of Bush's performance on the fundamental moral test his presidency is confronted with: abortion. Their comments follow.
Steve Mosher of the Population Research Institute said: “President Bush's many public pro-life initiatives — along with others that are occurring out of the public eye — make him a fitting successor to President Ronald Reagan. He is the second most pro-life president we've had since the infamous Roe v. Wade decision of Jan. 22, 1973. Since Reagan was the first, he's in good company.”
John-Henry Westen, editor of LifeSiteNews.com in Canada: “What a joy it must be to have a president who cherishes the pro-life movement. George W. Bush is a Christian man. Love for God and for God's children, including the most helpless unborn, is evident in President Bush's talks, his actions and his quiet maneuvers behind the scenes.”
Camille De Blasi, director of the Center for Life Principles, said: “I believe that, in terms of pro-life objectives, God looked with mercy upon our nation when he blessed us with George Bush as our president.”
The enthusiasm of all three is infectious. But we would sound one note of caution: Watch the next two years very carefully. Bush should be able to do a lot to further his pro-life convictions with a Republican House, Senate and executive branch in his corner.
A ban on partial-birth abortion should happen first, but then Washington should look at other abortion procedures — and expose them for what they are. One after another, Bush and Congress can present the American people with the forms of abortion and ask them, “So, do you like this one?”
Another big test will be the next Supreme Court nomination. Will Bush do all that's necessary to appoint a pro-lifer?
What he does on this issue will determine how he'll be remembered. He could become one of those great presidents who renewed America's commitment to its founding principles.
Or he could be one of those forgotten presidents who knew exactly what the great issue of his time was and was unequal to it.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Affirmative Discrimination? DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:I think Father Andrew McNair got off to a bad start in his Jan. 19-25 column, “‘Not By the Color Of Their Skin’: Is Affirmative Action Moral?” (Jan. 19-25).
He portrayed President Lyndon Johnson as “like many Texans … a practical man.” According to Robert Caro's biography of LBJ (three volumes so far), Father McNair might have added or substituted the adjectives “corrupt, immoral and unethical.” With those character traits on the table, Father McNair may not have speculated, in the same fashion, about Johnson's reasons for signing executive order 11246 creating affirmative action.
While I was impressed with Father McNair's presentation about the morality of laws, especially his example of legalized abortion, I wasn't persuaded that affirmative action, by his definition — “giving a helping hand to minorities based on many factors, not just race” — would be morally acceptable and connected to the moral principle of solidarity, as mentioned in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The plain truth of the matter is that affirmative action, no matter how you describe it, results in reverse discrimination.
Plus, when you examine Johnson's “Great Society” legacy, generally, I'm even more convinced that government, at any level, can't effectively legislate social engineering. Thus, each one of us is personally left with, as the catechism puts it, a “grave moral responsibility toward those who are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves or have been prevented from doing so by tragic historical events.”
K. DALE ANDERSON
Randallstown, Maryland
We've Got Something to Say
I've decided it's time you hear from me. I'm 29, female, a musician (classical singer) and newly married. (We can't wait to have some baby mugs to send you!) Your publication is read cover-to-cover in our home and we prayerfully support your work.
The recent news about our governor, Gray Davis, was pathetic enough to get me to write you (“Calif. Bishop to Gov. Davis: Pick Abortion or Communion,” Feb. 2-8). Pro-choice Catholic politicians do not speak for me or my generation — a generation they have systematically helped to destroy. In my experience as a youth-ministry intern in high school and a campus minister at San Diego State University, [I saw firsthand that] Catholic youth are committed to building the culture of life. We've grown up in the broken promises of abortion “rights.”
Our sisters and brothers have been eliminated. Many of our young women are wounded. Now we want change in our society and government. Our voice is growing stronger, and our love and action will reach farther than the violent choice clung to by Davis.
If the governor and his administration paid attention to the winds of change happening now, they'd listen to us. As wisdom, courage and authentic freedom all come from God, I pray that Davis will not resist them any longer.
MARY ANN CARR WILSON
San Diego
Silent Too Long
I am proud to hear that a bishop has finally singled out a politician and told him you can't be both pro-choice and [a communicant] in the Catholic Church (“Calif. Bishop to Gov. Davis: Pick Abortion or Communion,” Feb. 2-8). It has been a long time coming.
Although I am no theologian, it has been clear to me that, for years, Catholic lay people have been getting civil law and canon law totally mixed up. I do think that part of the problem has been silence from the pulpit. Perhaps we have been silent too long. Stronger preaching in line with the Church is needed. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, is not just for the universities. [From the Heart of the Church, the Pope's 1990 Apostolic Con -stitution for Catholic universities]
To quote from James Hitchcock's 1979 book Catholicism and Modernity: Con -frontation or Capitulation?: “We should not get our Catholic teaching from the morning newspaper. … I am afraid that even some of our priests have done that.”
We need to support Bishop William Weigand — and pray for Gov. Gray Davis and his spokesman, Russ Lopez.
JACK BARRETT
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Bravo to the Bishop!
Regarding “Calif. Bishop to Gov. Davis: Pick Abortion or Communion” (Feb. 2-8):
I was wondering if Gov. Gray Davis was planning on starting his own church, a la King Henry VIII? Fortunately, decapitation is not an option in the California Capitol! Contrary to his spokesperson's spin, many of us Californians don't see it his way.
The bishop is to be commended.
DEBORAH KNEFEL, ESQ.
Sacramento, California
You Mislead on Mental Illness
Your Feb. 2-8 editorial, titled “Spiritual Schizophrenia,” shows a deep insensitivity to those wonderful people enduring a mental illness and an abysmal ignorance on your part of what schizophrenia is. Though I believe your intentions were to be neither insensitive nor misleading, you seem to have done both.
As a subscriber to your newspaper and a practicing Catholic from the cradle proud of the value we place on compassion, I am hoping to see a greater display of Christian compassion and more accurate characterization of the mentally ill in your future editions.
To quote the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill:
“Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disorder that affects approximately 2.2 million American adults, or 1.1% of the population age 18 and older. Schizophrenia interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. The first signs of schizophrenia typically emerge in the teen-age years or 20s. Most people with schizophrenia suffer chronically or episodically throughout their lives and are often stigmatized by lack of public understanding about the disease. Schizophrenia is not caused by bad parenting or personal weakness. A person with schizophrenia does not have a 'split personality,’ and almost all people with schizophrenia are not dangerous or violent toward others when they are receiving treatment.”
HONORE J. LARTIGUE
Memphis, Tennessee
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Do Some Catholic Colleges Need Schooling? DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Mandatum Makers
Regarding “Pushing Abortion?” (Letters, Jan. 19-25):
I'm curious as to Melissa Di Leonardo's understanding of the word “committed.” As director of communications for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, she states, “Our institutions are committed to meeting the challenges of Ex Corde Ecclesiae [From the Heart of the Church, the Pope's 1990 Apostolic Constitution for Catholic universities] to foster their Catholic identity …”
In an article on the association's Web site titled “What is Ex Corde Ecclesiae?” you will find a definite lack of commitment. One example is their stance on the mandatum, a requirement of Ex Corde: “Of major concern is how it [the mandatum] would violate commonly understood academic freedom and how it would likely marginalize the theologian and theology in our schools.” How can a Catholic theologian be marginalized by promising to be in communion with the Catholic Church and her teachings?
How unfortunate that universities proclaiming they are Catholic no longer guarantees parents and students that they will teach Catholic truth. If Jesuit institutions are truly committed to implementing Ex Corde, I think they would enthusiastically embrace it, as have Ave Maria College, Campion College, Christendom College, Franciscan University, Magdalen College, Our Lady of Corpus Christi and Thomas Aquinas College. The above institutions do not seem to have the concerns of marginalizing their Catholic theologians or theology.
But there is hope. With God, all things are possible. May we all rise to the challenge of “radical fidelity to the fullness of Catholic faith.”
ROSEY LEBOLD
Kansas City, Missouri
Catholic Campuses
I was totally shocked to read articles about Catholic universities supporting abortion for their students (“Catholic Universities Push Abortions to Students,” Dec. 22-28).
How on earth does this go on and no one says anything? Not only that, but your paper also reported this past year about the Catholic colleges that have coed dorms — one floor is male students and another floor is female. What are the Catholic administrators thinking when they allow these two situations on their campuses? I have not been out of college very long and know that the coed housing situation would have been a terrible spiritual situation for me. It looks to me like the latter situation feeds the former!
Luckily, I attended a small, private, nondenominational college that had dorms that did not allow females in the male dorms at all. We were also privileged to have Mass on campus every Sunday afternoon and on holy days. I do wish I had been able to go to a Catholic college and applaud those that are faithful to the teachings of the Church — not only in the classroom but also in all aspects of campus life.
All bishops, priests, religious and lay people (myself included) must be willing to stand up for what is right in every situation, regardless of the cost to each of them personally. I pray that the Lord will give each of us the grace to know his will and do it each day.
GREGG LUEBBERING
Green Forest, Arkansas
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Why No One's Telling The New Story In American Politics DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Politics, it has been said, is the preoccupation of the quarter-educated.
But in the interval between the Superbowl and opening day at Yankee Stadium, no other spectator sport really interests me, so here I go with a rare political column.
Recently, The Public Interest, a quarterly of the social sciences, published an article that asserted the media were missing an important political story. As we all know, The New York Times and the major networks are very preoccupied with the emergence of Christian fundamentalism as a political force.
In fact, they explain the cultural conflicts since the 1970s almost exclusively as the result of the rise of “right-wing” Christians. The subtext of their coverage is that the Republican Party has fallen into the hands of extremists whose views are particularly offensive to Catholics.
A prime example was the Times’ coverage of one of the big stories of the 2000 campaign: The Bob Jones University controversy. By the time of the Republican convention in July, the Times had run more than 125 articles and editorials about the incident, wherein George W. Bush spoke at a fundamentalist college whose founder was very anti-Catholic. The clear message of these stories was that Christian evangelicals have an implacable hostility toward Catholics and the visit would set back recent Republican gains among Catholics.
The trouble with this narrative, according to the Public Interest authors, Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio, is that it is wrong. It projects into the present the denominational antagonisms of 50 years ago and fails to recognize important shifts under way in our political life.
Here is the old story, which still dominates the media: The Democrats are the traditional home of Jews and Catholics, while the Republicans cater to mainline Protestants and (more recently) to Protestant fundamentalists hostile to Catholics. The old story is basically ethnic and denominational.
The new story, however, runs like this: The most significant political division in the country is now between believers and nonbelievers, between voters who hold a Judeo-Christian ethic and those whose outlook is strongly secularist. As a result, a major political realignment is taking place, not just because of the rise of Christian evangelism but because of the increasingly secularist agenda of the Democratic Party and its antagonism toward faith-based values.
This dynamic started at the 1972 Democratic National Convention, when secularism first emerged as a political force. Prior to that date, the elites governing both parties — both the pro-Democrat labor unions and the Republican business establishment — were in tacit agreement about core values relating to authority, sexual morality and the family. This consensus was shattered when the Democrats were taken over by groups whose cultural agenda is at odds with traditional morality. As a result, liberal Episcopalians began to vote Democrat, while Catholic union workers went for Ronald Reagan.
A traditional Judeo-Christian outlook, rather than religious affiliation, became the new predictor of voting patterns. Studies now show that Protestant fundamentalists are more friendly to Catholics than they once were, while Catholics are more willing to unite with them in the voting booth against the perceived threat of secularism.
The political realignment is far from complete. It is obvious, for example, that the Republican Party has two wings: One is dominated by the older “country club Republicans” like the senior George Bush, the other by conservative populists like his son.
In 1988, a lot of Catholics voted for Bush senior, thinking they were going to get a third Reagan (i.e., conservative populist) term. When it did not turn out that way, they had no problem switching to Clinton. In 2000, however, many of them swung back to George W. Bush.
In fact, it was the first time ever that white Catholics, still regarded by pundits as the mainstay of the Democratic Party, gave a larger share of their votes to the Republican candidate than did white mainline Protestants.
Many Catholics, of course, remain in the Democratic fold. The last political act of my Irish grandmother was to vote for George McGovern, whose views she must have found antipathetic, and if she were alive today I am not sure that she could bring herself to vote Republican. At the same time, the official apparatus of the Catholic Church tilts strongly Democratic. Many of our bishops, after all, come from working-class Democrat backgrounds. But it will be interesting to see how long the Democratic Party can hold these allegiances if it continues to push a radically secular agenda.
The spectacle of all six Democratic presidential hopefuls kneeling before an audience of abortion rights supporters on the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade was not encouraging. The elites who control the party do not allow the slightest deviation from the views of Planned Parenthood. If you are a Democrat and you want to be president, you distance yourself from the culture of life.
What's a Catholic Democrat to do? The answer may be given in 2004, when the new political alignments could solidify further. Maybe then even the media will notice.
George Sim Johnston, author of Did Darwin Get it Right?, writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Abraham Lincoln and the Courage to Be Unpopular DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Courage is the most theatrical of all the virtues.
It is, therefore, virtue in its most instantly recognizable form. At one time courage was believed to tower so majestically over all other candidates for the name “virtue” that it was deemed to be the only virtue. Hence, men (vir) and only men could show courage, and then only on the battlefield.
While we now recognize that there are many virtues other than courage, we are still saddled to a limited understanding of it. There is a less theatrical but no less important species of courage that we may identify as “intellectual courage.”
This aspect of courage, also referred to as the “courage of one's convictions,” has been, unfortunately, eclipsed by political correctness.
According to the canons of politically correct, one must be forever open-minded. Having any conviction at all is now considered an instance of closed-mindedness. It takes a great deal of character nowadays to show intellectual courage since society popularly regards it as a vice. Yet intellectual courage always needed strength of character to oppose popular conventions.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered a historical address now known as the “house divided” speech. On the issue of slavery, Lincoln was convinced that it was inherently wrong. His chief adversary on the subject, particularly in debates, was Stephen A. Douglas, who took the “open-minded” or “pro-choice” view on slavery. “Let the voters decide,” was his rallying cry. The Illinois’ senator's position, in effect, may be encapsulated as follows: “Let us not decide whether slavery is right or wrong, but let us decide that not deciding is right.”
Lincoln could not abide moral neutrality on an issue so explosive that it was already threatening to tear the nation apart. In denouncing Douglas’ indifference to the immoral essence of slavery, he said that “his avowed mission is impressing the ‘public heart’ to care nothing about it.” For Lincoln, it was inconceivable that a human being could advocate passion about not caring and apathy about caring.
Douglas was passionate about politics but unmoved by morality.
Yet this curious indifference to the moral order had been enshrined in 1858 within the Nebraska bill: “It being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery in any Territory or state, not to exclude it therefrom; but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their institutions.” This, for Douglas and his followers, constituted the “sacred right of self-government.”
Lincoln understood only too well that the reference to being “perfectly free” was a caricature of freedom. There would be freedom neither for the slave nor for anyone to object to his enslavement. Lincoln's masterfully succinct phrase exposed this duplicity: “That if any one man, chose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.” Here “freedom” is transparently a mockery of itself, merely the prerogative of those in power.
Lincoln wanted people to be free, not politics to be free to deny people freedom. The rift between moral realism and the politics of convenience was clearly evident, and Lincoln decided to stand firmly by the former.
Lincoln fully realized the power of his opponents.
His biographer, William Herndon, reports how he had said to the future president after hearing the first paragraph of the “house divided” speech: “It is true, but is it wise or politic to say?” In response to this comment, Lincoln said: “That expression is a truth of all human experience … ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’ … The proposition also is true, and has been for 6,000 years … I do not believe I would be right in changing or omitting it. I would rather be defeated with this expression in the speech, and uphold and discuss it before the people, than be victorious without it.”
The man who spent his early years reading the Bible in log cabins in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois was on the side of the angels. We read in Matthew 12:25, “No city or house divided against itself will stand”; in Mark 3:24, “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand”; and in Luke 11:17, “A divided household falls.”
Before delivering his speech, Lincoln read it to a dozen or so of his friends. Herndon tells us that “some condemned it and not one endorsed it … Each man attacked it in his criticism.”
Lincoln was open to criticism. Indeed, he went out of his way to invite it. Yet the courage of his convictions prevailed. He turned to his friends and said: “The time has come where these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth — let me die in advocacy of what is just and right.”
It is not the moment but history that fully vindicates the virtuous.
Lincoln's intellectual courage is a legacy that we must honor by its imitation. Rescuing a child from a burning building is indeed a courageous act. Yet it presupposes the intellectual conviction that a live child is better than a dead one. Behind the theatrical display of courage is the courage of the heart and mind that stands firm in the face of fierce opposition, committing itself, quietly and unreservedly, to what is right.
Donald DeMarco teaches philosophy at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: `A House Divided' DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:On June 16, 1858, more than 1,000 Republican delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. At 5 p.m. they chose Lincoln their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas.
At 8 p.m., Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. Friends blamed it for his campaign's defeat. The opening portion follows.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease, until crisis shall have been reached, and passed.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new—North as well as South.
Have we no tendency to the latter condition?
Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination—piece of machinery so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also, let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidence of design and concert of action, among its chief architects, from the beginning.
But, so far, Congress only, had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save the point already gained, and give chance for more.
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State Constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition.
Four days later, commenced the struggle, which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition.
This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained.
This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of “squatter sovereignty,” otherwise called “sacred right of self government,” which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man, choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Bold Words Unnoticed in Bush's Speech: `AIDS Can Be Prevented' DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Courage is the most theatrical of all the virtues.
It promises to be a lightening rod of controversy.
For now, President Bush's commitment, announced with passion during his State of the Union Address on Jan. 28, to send $10 billion to African nations to help fight AIDS has been almost universally well-received.
The controversial part was only hinted at during his speech. “AIDS can be prevented,” he said. In other words, solving the devastating pandemic of AIDS in Africa requires much more than money and drugs. It requires a willingness to support the real, deep solution: behavior change.
The president also sent a clear and daring message by seating Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, a Uganda doctor, in a prized chair next to Laura Bush when he delivered his address. His country is the model for where AIDS prevention-efforts in Africa (and the rest of the planet) should be.
In Uganda, thanks to a nationwide abstinence effort headed by the nation's president and first lady — and carried out by faith-based groups — HIV-infection rates dropped by half in Uganda between the years 1992 and 2000.
All the same, the Bush administration will need lots of encouragement to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money goes to the effective approach: abstinence. The effective approach doesn't have a large following in the West.
Summing up the conventional wisdom, Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, in a mid-January op-ed titled “The Secret War on Condoms,” railed against the religious right (Catholics especially) for caring more about their “weird” views on condoms than on people's lives.
Kristof wrote, in part: “Over the last few years conservative groups in President Bush's support base have declared war on condoms in a campaign that is downright weird — but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world.”
Expect a lot more of that in coming weeks and months if the White House does the right thing.
Kristof represents the depressingly widespread view that passing out condoms should be top priority in any and all AIDS-prevention measures.
This is exactly the view of most Western and U.N. policymakers when it comes to AIDS, in the Third World, especially.
Practice safe sex. Use condoms. There's no other way.
Shortly before World AIDS Day in December, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft — whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated millions to AIDS-education programs targeting the Third World — was presented a huge inflatable condom as a symbolic “thank you” for his commitment to the cause. He must have been proud.
At any rate, that's the secular message on AIDS: Condoms are the heroes; Christians, Catholics and conservatives are the enemy.
Ironically, the many of the most convincing advocates of an “abstain and be faithful” approach are often not Catholic, religious or conservative.
One of the leading advocates of the effectiveness of abstinence and fidelity is a liberal, secular researcher at Harvard University's School of Public Health: Edward Green. He was co-author of a report for the U.S. Agency for International Development, “What Happened in Uganda?”
According to the report, the experience of Uganda and others “suggests that a comprehensive behavior change-based strategy, ideally involving high-level political commitment and a diverse spectrum of community-based participation, may be the most effective prevention approach.”
According to Green, “There have been few resources allocated to … risk avoidance interventions such as promotion of abstinence including delay of sexual debut or promotion of mutual fidelity to one partner.”
Tellingly, he found that in a survey of abstracts coming out of the international AIDS conference in Barcelona last summer, “‘Condoms’ came up 777 times, compared to 16 for ‘faithfulness’ or ‘fidelity’ and 74 for ‘abstinence.’”
And even the latter is not as encouraging as it might sound: Green reports that “many or most of the ‘abstinence’ abstracts proved to be about abstaining from drugs, and many others just used the word in passing without evidence of any intervention related to promoting sexual abstinence.”
On the ground the life-saving work continues, even if it is not a top priority for the West yet. “Ugandans are open and receptive of abstinence programs,” Franciscan Missionary Sister Miriam Duggan says. Others are, too.
“We have been working on a program called ‘Education for Life,’ a behavior-change process, and have had a very good response,” reports Sister Duggan. “It is a program that with the participants you look at the root causes for the spread of HIV/AIDS and try to address them. At the end of the process you help people to make responsible choices. We also establish Youth Alive clubs, which are positive peer groups who help other youth.”
The work of people like Sister Duggan should be embraced by the taxpayer money destined for Africa rather than the same old, deadly messages represented by Gates’ inflatable condom.
Independent secular authorities are now seeing what religious types have long contended: that safe sex is sex within marriage.
There are some hopeful signs that even some of the most ardent condom advocates may be slowly waking up. In the final days of 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development instructed its missions to balance the scales when it comes to AIDS awareness and to promote the ABCs of AIDS prevention: “Abstain, Be faithful, and (if all else fails) wear Condoms.” It's an encouraging start, for those still alive. It's tragically too little and tragically too late for the millions who have died or are already infected or orphaned.
The United States should be encouraged to put its resources behind what works — and to encourage the rest of the world's relief agencies to do likewise.
AIDS can be prevented — not by condoms (they haven't slowed AIDS at all) but by abstinence. America should lead the way in a no-nonsense response to the AIDS crisis. A nation committed to life would do nothing less.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of
National Review Online.
(www.nationalreview.com).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Alaskan Catholics Plea for Donations Following Priest's Death in Tragic Plane Crash While En Route to Mass DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:(ANCHORAGE) — On Palm Sunday last year, Father James Kelley of the Archdiocese of Anchorage died when the small plane he was piloting crashed into Tuklung Mountain in heavy fog, fierce winds, and blowing snow. The loss has left Alaskan faithful not only heartbroken, but in dire need of another plane and priests who are willing to reach them. Archbishop Roger Schweitz of Anchorage has turned to Catholic Extension, the largest supporter of missionary work in America, to help raise nearly $250,000 desperately needed to get the “last frontier” back on its feet.
Father Kelley was on his way to the remote mission parishes scattered along the 1,600-mile Aleutian Island chain that Palm Sunday. Many of his parishioners were eagerly awaiting Mass, as their churches are so remote it often takes a month for a priest to make it to their villages. Sadly, Mass was not celebrated that day.
In Alaska, Catholic priests truly understand the sacrifice that their priestly vocation requires of them. They face isolation, frigid temperatures,and the lack of money and the daily challenges of trying to minister to a diverse Catholic population spread out over 150,000 square miles.
With more than 11 years of flying time in this treacherous region of Alaska, Father Kelley knew the personal risks of piloting in and out of these small villages. But he never wavered. The call to share the Catholic faith and administer the Sacraments to God's people came before his own personal safety.
“The priests of Alaska are true heroes. They put their lives on the line every day to bring God's love to some of the most isolated Catholic communities in the U.S.,” said Bishop William Houck, president of Catholic Extension. “The difficult conditions in Alaska are truly unique. The Archdiocese of Anchorage is the nation's, and perhaps the world's, largest diocese based on square miles.”
Just 21 priests serve in the Archdiocese's missions and parishes. That's only one priest for every 7,000 square miles.
Ten parishes and missions exist in the more remote areas of western Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to help maintain a strong Catholic presence among the native villagers.
These 10 parishes are without a resident priest and must make do with a traveling priest who stops by whenever he can — hopefully at least once a month. Four of the parishes — Dillingham, Unalaska, Cordova and Kodiak — are accessible only by plane.
Although the Archdiocese has made every effort to get a priest to the 21 villages that Father Kelley served, there are many Catholics who have endured long waits between visits from a priest during the nine months since his death. That's nine months without a priest to perform weddings, baptisms or funerals. Nine months without Mass or the sacrament of reconciliation.
The Archbishop of Anchorage, Most Rev. Roger Schwietz, has asked Catholic Extension to help supply desperately-needed funds to subsidize these isolated rural missions, some of which are so poor they can hardly even afford wine for Mass. He also needs stipends and traveling expenses for the dedicated priests who are willing to risk their lives to bring Catholicism to isolated Alaska.
Travel to these remote faith communities is very expensive, averaging about $1 a mile. Round trip to some areas is over $800. Providing for the stipends, salaries and expenses of the priests who travel is a significant expense. Archbishop Schweitz urgently needs $160,000 annually to ensure these outlying parishes have a supply priest visit them once a month.
“Because of their unique need, I would also like to send a special Catholic Extension grant to be used to purchase a new plane for the Archdiocese of Anchorage. The cost to replace the plane is $85,000,” said Houck. “A plane is no extravagance — it's the only way a priest can reach most of these Alaskan villages. And with the loss of Father Kelley's plane, the diocese is in tremendous need of another one.”
The cost of the plane, plus the stipend and subsidy request brings the Archbishop's request to $245,000 total. Catholic Extension and the Archdiocese of Anchorage are asking American Catholics to consider a donation to help with the fund raising effort. Foundations are also encouraged to consider grants to this mission appeal. Donations can be made on-line at www.catholic-extension.org. Be sure to designate your gift to the Alaskan Project in the space provided. Donations can also be sent by mailing in the coupon below to Catholic Extension, Alaskan Project, 150 S. Wacker Dr., 20th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606. For more information, please contact Catholic Extension's Director of Current Giving, JoAnn Marciszewski, at 888-473-2484 or by email at marciszewskim@catholic-extension.org. p
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sheltered From the Storm DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:I am standing among several chatting mothers, waiting for my daughter's Brownie meeting to end, when I hear it again. It's a question I have heard many times, yet I always feel unprepared to answer it.
A fellow Brownie mom, after overhearing that I home school my children, suddenly focuses her attention on me and asks: “Aren't you afraid you might be sheltering your children?”
Her forehead is wrinkled in an expression of genuine concern. The other mothers grow quiet and also await my response. “Yes,” I can feel them silently agreeing, “Home-schooled children are sheltered, aren't they?”
What puzzles me most is that, in the minds of my questioners, “sheltering” is understood to be a bad thing — something you wouldn't want to do to your children. To me, however, sheltering my children means protecting them from some ugly realities and evil parts of the world until they are properly prepared to deal with them. As their parent, isn't that my job?
For example, my children, the oldest of whom is nearly 8, have no idea what a divorce is. In their world, couples that get married stay married. I have no secret intentions of locking them away in a closet, so of course I know that they will one day learn otherwise. Isn't it best, however, if they first learn about the institution of marriage as it exists ideally?
Once they accept and understand the ideal of marriage as a lifelong commitment, then they will be properly prepared to recognize the sadness of the fact that some people reject this ideal and denigrate marriage.
There is something to be said for preserving a child's right to innocence. While some might insist upon exposing children to less-pleasant parts of our society for the sake of preparing them to live in the “real world,” I would suggest that they do so at the expense of their children's innocence.
And that's a heavy price to pay.
All children grow up and live in the “real world” eventually. Shouldn't we show them a “best world” first? Shouldn't they know about beauty and goodness and perfection before we show them all the ways in which human beings, in their weakness, have managed to mess things up? Shouldn't we nurture their natural hopefulness and idealism instead of introducing them to various forms of imperfection before they are prepared to recognize a better way of doing things?
So far, my children are blissfully ignorant of the unpleasant realities of drug abuse, racism and domestic violence. Additionally, we have successfully sheltered them from foul language, immoderate materialism, peer pressure and a host of other serious and not-so-serious modernday evils.
Of course they will one day live in the “real world” with the rest of us. One day, they will know that some marriages end in divorce, that some people hate others because of what they look like and that others abuse their bodies with drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex.
Before they join us, however, I hope they will have learned that there exist more perfect ways of living their lives. I hope that they will know what joys others are forfeiting when they make sinful choices.
In the meantime, it's okay with me if their eyes still grow wide with scandal when they overhear someone use the word “stupid.” They know a better world. They appreciate and enjoy all the beauty and perfection of our world as God intended it, without the burden of excessive awareness of evil.
So, to answer my fellow Brownie moms: Am I sheltering my children? I certainly hope so.
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor,
New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Spirit & Life -------- TITLE: Motor City Motherhouse DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:When Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arrived in the New World in July 1701 he was thrilled just to have reached his destination in one piece.
The colonial governor had journeyed with a band of 200 soldiers and settlers to the eastern shore of what is now Michigan, determined to found a permanent settlement.
Cadillac never dreamed that Detroit, the settlement he founded, would become one of the largest cities in the most powerful nation in the world. He probably also never dreamed that Ste. Anne de Detroit, the church founded upon his arrival, would still be around 300 years later and have the distinction of being the nation's second-oldest permanent parish. (It was preceded by St. Augustine, Fla., founded in 1565.)
During Cadillac's day, Ste. Anne's was probably in a prime riverfront location. Today the church — the eighth edition — sits in a well-worn industrial area in southwestern Detroit known as Mexicantown. The institution has survived transitions from wealth into great poverty and has segued between ethnic groups with ease. It's a shrine of sorts to a priest, Sulpician Father Gabriel Richard, but most of all it tells the story of Detroit and its Catholics.
I visited the Gothic-styled red brick church last fall on a damp, gray day. Despite the gloomy weather, the church looked stunning. Two massive cross-tipped spires flank the main entrance, which features a deeply inset door. Above the door is the requisite rose window; comical gargoyles guard the front side door-posts. I also spied faux flying buttresses, ornate grape-leaf carvings and all manner of intriguing nooks and crannies. Then I headed into the rectory for a tour.
Father and the Fire
Father Leo Reilly, parish archivist, was my tour guide. For its first 100 years, he told me, the church lived a quiet life. In 1802, things changed. That year Father Richard (the French pronunciation: ree-sharr) became pastor. Father Richard won people's hearts after the Great Fire of 1805 decimated the city, including Ste. Anne's; his leadership in rebuilding destroyed sections earned him the moniker “the second founder of Detroit.” Father Richard also won the people's admiration for helping found the University of Michigan, starting the first newspaper and being the first priest elected to Congress. By the time he died in 1832, Father Richard was considered a saint, so his body was entombed under the main altar of the seventh Ste. Anne's (the previous churches were all destroyed by fighting or fires).
By 1886 the economic value of Ste. Anne's downtown plot had grown substantially; it had also become a source of considerable tension between the parish's east-and west-side French parishioners. So the bishop tore down the church, sold the prime real estate and built two new churches: the eighth and present Ste. Anne's on the west side and St. Joachim's (husband of Ste. Anne) on the east side. Ste. Anne's valuables were split between the two churches, with the new Ste. Anne's getting the center altar, a statue of Ste. Anne and Mary, and Father Richard's tomb, again installed under the main altar.
Father Richard's tomb was moved the following year, however, when the Basilian Fathers of Toronto took over the parish. They felt the people's devotion should be focused on Ste. Anne. But Father Richard eventually had his day, Father Reilly explained as he ushered me into the Gabriel Richard Chapel behind Ste. Anne's main sanctuary. Father Richard's body was moved here in 1976 as a bicentennial project. His plain wooden tomb sits to the left of the white wooden altar that once graced his church. A glass panel on one side allows people to see Father Richard's actual casket inside; his bronze bust sits on top. To the right of the altar is a simple yet beautiful statue of Ste. Anne, St. Joachim and their pregnant daughter, Mary.
Latino Love
For 200 years Ste. Anne's was a French parish, Father Reilly continued. But by the early 20th century, the relatively affluent French parishioners had left the city. The parish then became largely Irish, although Masses were still said in French until 1942. The 1940s and ‘50s saw large in fluxes of Latino parishioners, and the church prospered.
But by the 1960s the neighborhood crumbed as droves of people fled the downtown, leaving poverty and crime in their wake.
In 1965, the Archdiocese of Detroit ordered Ste. Anne's to close. That edict spurred the few remaining parishioners into action. Money was raised to restore the church and the Latino community adopted Ste. Anne's as its home. Attendance spiked. Ste. Anne's was alive again.
“If the Latinos hadn't come in, the church would have died,” said Father Reilly. Today the church has 850 mostly Hispanic families, and 300 new homes are being built in the once-derelict neighborhood — a strong testament to the strength and faith of the people of Ste. Anne's.
Splendor in the Nave
Father Reilly finally led me into the spectacular main church. Laid out in the shape of a cross, the church is 85 feet high and accommodates about 1,400 worshippers. There were so many interesting sights to take in, I didn't know where to look first. Up at the ceiling, with its star-studded blue sky? At the intricately hand-carved wooden Communion rail, removed from Father Richard's church and reinstalled here? At the stainedglass windows, some of which are the oldest in the city?
My eyes were drawn to the worn linoleum floor, accented with the French fleur-de-lis pattern in deference to the parish's roots. And to the Ste. Anne side altar, which features a statue of St. Anne, her hands placed gently on Mary's shoulders. I noted three small wicker baskets near the side altar, gently cradling slips of paper with scribbled petitions for loved ones. And several abandoned crutches and braces, testaments to miracles performed in years past, gathering dust nearby.
Our tour was cut short as small knots of children began arriving for religious-education classes. Outside, Father Reilly praised the Latino parishioners for not just saving the church years ago but keeping it alive today. The former parish school was recently refurbished and reopened as Casa Richard Academy, a charter high school serving at-risk children; parishioners are currently trying to raise $10 million to restore the church, chapel, rectory, social hall and former convent.
As I took a long last look at Ste. Anne's, I thought how delighted Cadillac, Father Richard and all the thousands of faithful who have called this parish “home” would be today, knowing God still works wonders here.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Melanie Radzicki ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Missionary of Faith, Hope and Charity DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:In an age of great cruelty, Mother Teresa stands as an icon of compassion.
This new video, produced by David Aikman, former senior correspondent for Time magazine, highlights the soon-to-be Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta as one of six contemporary “great souls” who have influenced our world for the better (the others being John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Billy Graham, Alexsander Solzhenitsyn and Elie Wiesel). Presented as a set of six videos, each of which can be purchased separately, the series is based on Aikman's book Great Souls: Six Who Changed a Century.
Aikman is a seasoned journalist — he spent 21 years with Time — and it shows. Here he chronicles Mother Teresa's history, giving us an insightful study of the life of one of the 20th century's most widely admired individuals.
Born in Skopje, Yugoslavia (now Macedonia), in 1910, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was the youngest of three children. She first learned Christian compassion from her parents. Her father, a successful businessman, gave generously to the poor. Her mother cared for the sick, often with young Agnes in tow. In a fateful turn of events, Agnes's family became poor when her father died suddenly. She was 9 years old.
As a teen-ager, Agnes was deeply influenced by stories she read about Jesuit missionaries in India. These accounts captured her imagination and she began longing to be a missionary herself. A photograph from that period shows her serious gaze and the determined set of her jaw. At age 18, she left her family and country to join the Loreto Sisters community in India.
Aikman traces the nun's long journey from the breathtakingly beautiful Balkan Mountains to Paris, where she was accepted into the order, to Dublin, where she learned English and, finally, to the Loreto mother house in Darjeeling, India. There she completed her novitiate and took the name Maria Teresa of the Child Jesus. At the Loreto convent in Calcutta, she taught schoolgirls, mostly daughters of the wealthy. From her classroom window, she could see the slums. Her mother wrote from home, “My dearest daughter, do not forget that you went out there to help the poor.”
Aikman uses newsreel footage to place Mother Teresa's development against the background of India's political turmoil before, during and just after World War II. Included are bracing glimpses of rampant starvation in Calcutta and slaughterous clashes between Hindus and Muslims.
In 1946, when she was 36, the nun was journeying by train to her annual retreat at the Loreto mother-house in Darjeeling when she received what she would later term her “call within a call”: She was to leave her order and follow Christ into the slums, where she would serve him by serving the poorest of the poor. Sure of the call, but always docile to the Church, Mother Teresa awaited official permission. It came in 1949.
In order to found the Missionaries of Charity, she had to leave the Loreto convent, her home in India for 20 years. This leaving, she said, was her greatest sacrifice. Many years later, the Stalinist regime of Albania refused her permission to visit her family. Thus the selfless nun who comforted so many of the destitute and dying was unable to comfort her own dy ing mother.
The Mission aries of Charity spread throughout the world. With more than 4,500 nuns, 500 brothers and thousands of lay helpers, the order today has a presence on every continent except Antarctica. The scope of their work is wide: food centers, orphanages, homes for lepers, homes for the dying, AIDS hospices, workshops for the unemployed, caring for the sick and elderly living in poverty. They give charity and they are supported by charity.
Aikman, clearly inspired by the wo man and her work, here weaves anecdotes, in -terviews, biographical information and historical perspective so skillfully that we come to know Mother Teresa in a way we haven't before. Born and raised in England and educated during his undergraduate years at Oxford, Aikman's reportorial refinement comes through as he steers well clear of celebrity worship: Here is a gentle yet penetrating look at a soul as transparent as glass in its single-minded focus on loving God.
Sen. Samuel Brownback, papal biographer George Wiegel, News -week religion editor Kenneth Woodward and various scholars share stories of personal encounters with Mother Teresa and their thoughts about her work. “I think of her as a steel lily, fragile in appearance,” says Dan Rather. “But there was a steel there.” On her motherly relationship with Princess Diana, franciscan Father Benedict Groeschel recounts that Mother Teresa had only three words to say: “That poor child.”
Missing from the video is any mention of Mother Teresa's great devotion to the Eucharist. The omission is curious since Aikman made note of it in his book. This was my one quibble with the video.
Still, this is a remarkable documentary about a remarkable life. Great Souls: Mother Teresa can help rouse us from the tendency toward self-centeredness and apathy, which Mother Teresa considered two of the most unfortunate handicaps of the affluent. To watch it is to have an awakening.
Una McManus writes from
Alexandria, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Una Mcmanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Monthly Catholic Tape Picks DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Great Souls: Mother Teresa is the latest addition to a growing video library about this saint for our times (who, incidentally, is scheduled to be beatified in Rome on Mission Sunday, Oct. 19 — the closest Sunday to the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's pontificate and the end of the Year of the Rosary). A Life of Devotion, produced by the Arts and Entertainment Network, focuses on interviews with those who knew her best, from archbishops to unwanted orphans. In the Name of God's Poor is an inspiring Hallmark Hall of Fame drama starring Geraldine Chaplin. Mother Teresa is an award-winning documentary that follows Mother Teresa into the world's most troubled spots. All these titles are available from Vision Video at (800) 476-2492 or www.CatholicVideo.com.
Live audio and video tapes of Mother Teresa are relatively hard to come by, as the Missionary of Charity was in the business of serving the poorest of the poor — not of making recordings! In St. Joseph Communications’ audiotape titled Mary and the Eucharist/Understanding Love, Mother Teresa's small but strong voice asks us to examine our consciences: “Do we have the eyes of Mary to see the needs of others?” she asks. “It is beautiful compassion … to feel the hurt of others and to do something, as she did.” This tape can be ordered at (800) 526-2151 or at www.SaintJoe.com.
— U.M.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:The American Experience: The Rockefellers (2000)
The Rockefeller family has tried for four generations to live up to the maxim “Great wealth brings great responsibilities.”
But the savage, criminal greed of John D., who amassed the family fortune, raises questions about whether, in this case, the ends could ever justify the means. Do the billions the family has given away to worthy causes compensate for the terrible harm done to the workers and competing businessmen that John D. destroyed?
This two-part PBS documentary explores this fascinating family's saga in an intelligent, fair-minded way. John D. became the nation's first billionaire by creating the Standard Oil Trust that encompassed refineries, marketing organizations and oil wells. His public-spirited descendants include two state governors, a U.S. senator, the country's premier banker and several distinguished philanthropists and patrons of the arts. Many members of the younger generation (“the cousins”) have embraced left-wing politics. The show combines revealing home movies and archival footage with interviews with historians, biographers and family members.
The Journey of August King (1995)
A simple act of charity can have unanticipated consequences, transforming the life of the donor and pushing him to make sacrifices he didn't originally intend. This adaptation of the John Ehle novel, directed by John Duigan (Romero), is a moving drama about a widowed farmer and a runaway slave. The action takes place in North Carolina in 1815. August King (Jason Patric) has finally acquired the deed to his land. On the way back from market, he comes across a desperate 17-year-old slave, Annalees (Thandie Newton), who's fleeing from her hotheaded master, Olaf Singletary (Larry Drake), the “wealthiest man in the mountains.”
As it's against the law to aid a runaway, August only points her north. But when the next day she shows up starving at his farm, he feeds her. Then, touched by her plight, he throws caution to the winds and leads her to freedom. The tone is simple and dignified, and the scenery is gorgeous.
The Captive Heart (1946)
Most prisoner-of-war films focus on the conflicts between those interned (Stalag 17) or a planned escape (The Great Escape). This classic entry takes a different approach, giving equal dramatic weight to those waiting for the POWs back home. Set during World War II over a five-year period, the story chronicles the lives of several soldiers interned at Marlag Milag Nord camp in Germany and their loved ones in England.
The most unusual episode centers on Capt. Karel Hasek (Michael Redgrave), a Czech officer on the run from the Gestapo. To survive, he uses the papers of a dead British officer. But he's soon captured and thrown into a stalag of British prisoners. The Germans doubt his identity and, to prove himself, he begins a correspondence with the wife (Rachel Kempson) of the dead man he's impersonating. Upon his release, he decides to meet the woman and explain his situation.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, FEB. 16
EWTN Spring Preview
EWTN, 4 p.m.
Doug Keck previews the Eternal Word Television Network's upcoming new shows.
SUNDAY, FEB. 16
Homes of the Underground Railroad Home & Garden TV, 9 p.m.
Slavery was legal in much of the North, and escaped slaves could be sent back to the South. So abolitionists turned their homes into secret way stations for the Underground Railroad escape network. This show visits sites such as the Levi Coffin home (Indiana), the Owen Lovejoy homestead (Illinois) and the William Seward house (New York).
MONDAY, FEB. 17
The Pilgrim Virgin Ministry Program
EWTN, 6 p.m.
The Blue Army brings Our Lady of Fatima's ever-open invitation to conversion, prayer and penance to convicts — and, with the help of God's grace, they turn to him.
MONDAY, FEB. 17
The White House: In Tune With History PBS, 10 p.m.
Premiering on Presidents’ Day, this special describes musical performances at the Executive Mansion since the Marine Band played there on Jan. 1, 1801. Musicians recall their appearances at the White House and historians add their comments.
TUESDAY, FEB. 18
The Three Stooges 75th Anniversary Special NBC, 8 p.m.
Was there ever a more original comedian than the Stooges’ Curly Howard? This special reprises his inventive, hilarious antics, and those of his brothers Moe and Shemp, plus Larry Fine, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita. Far from being mindless slapstick, the Stooges’ routines were polished and practiced comedy. Advisory: The Stooges’ stock-in-trade was cartoonish violence.
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 19
EWTN Live
EWTN, 8 p.m.
Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis explains the Divine Mercy devotion.
FRIDAY, FEB. 21
Mount Vernon: Home of George Washington History Channel, 6 a.m.
Set your VCR to record this tour of the estate of the father of our country.
SATURDAY, FEB. 22
Lives of Crime
Biography Channel, 8 p.m.
Mass murder, torture and a huge slave-labor camp system were inherent elements of atheistic Soviet communism under Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and their successors, including Gorbachev. Using declassified Soviet files, “Lenin: Voice of Revolution” at 8 p.m. and “Stalin: Red Terror” at 9 p.m. spell out the horror of Marxist state terror.
SATURDAY, FEB. 22
Sudan: And You Do Not Cry With Us EWTN, 8 p.m.
Produced by Aid to the Church in Need, this video seeks to prompt Westerners to help Sudan's largely Catholic and animist victims of religious persecution, war and slavery.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Washington's Catholic Rules DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:George Washington copied “The Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation” as a boy, and they guided his formation into a man of virtue. The original list of rules was written by French Jesuits for schoolboys. Here are some excerpts taken from www.nationalcenter.org/Washingto nCivility.html
1. Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.
2. When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered.
3. Show nothing to your friend that may affright him.
4. In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming voice, or drum with your fingers or feet.
5. If you cough, sneeze, sigh, or yawn, do it not loud but privately, and speak not in your yawning, but put your handkerchief or hand before your face and turn aside.
6. Sleep not when others speak; sit not when others stand; speak not when you should hold your peace; walk not on when others stop.
7. Put not off your clothes in the presence of others, nor go out your chamber half dressed.
8. At play and attire, it's good manners to give place to the last comer, and affect not to speak louder than ordinary.
9. Spit not into the fire, nor stoop low before it; neither put your hands into the flames to warm them, nor set your feet upon the fire, especially if there be meat before it.
10. When you sit down, keep your feet firm and even; without putting one on the other or crossing them.
11. Shift not yourself in the sight of others, nor gnaw your nails.
12. Shake not the head, feet, or legs; roll not the eyes; lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth, and bedew no man's face with your spittle by [approaching too near] him [when] you speak.
13. Kill no vermin, or fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of others; if you see any filth or thick spittle put your foot dexterously upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately, and if it be upon your own clothes, return thanks to him who puts it off behavior or saluting, ought also to be observed in taking of place and sitting down for ceremonies without bounds are troublesome.
14. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not upon anyone.
15. Keep your nails clean and short, also your hands and teeth clean, yet without showing any great concern for them.
16. Do not puff up the cheeks, loll not out the tongue with the hands, or beard, thrust out the lips, or bite them, or keep the lips too open or too close.
17. Be no flatterer, neither play with any that delight not to be played withal.
18. Read no letter, books, or papers in company, but when there is a necessity for the doing of it, you must ask leave; come not near the books or writtings of another so as to read them unless desired, or give your opinion of them unasked.
19. Let your countenance be pleasant but in serious matters somewhat grave.
20. The gestures of the body must be suited to the discourse you are upon.
21. Reproach none for the infirmities of nature, nor delight to put them that have in mind of thereof.
22. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.
23. When you see a crime punished, you may be inwardly pleased; but [damaged manuscript] show pity to the suffering offender.
24. Superfluous compliments and all affectation of ceremonies are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be neglected.
25. In putting off your hat to persons of distinction, as noblemen, justices, churchmen, etc., make a reverence, bowing more or less according to the custom of the better bred, and quality of the persons; among your equals expect not always that they should begin with you first; but to pull off the hat when there is no need is affectation, in the manner of saluting and resaluting in word keep to the most usual custom.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Take Time to Make Time DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:T IME MANAGEMENT FOR CATHOLICS
by Dave Durand Sophia Institute Press, 2002 202 pages, $19.95 To order: (800) 888-9344 or www.sophiainstitute.com
In Christ's parable, the foolish steward who stashes away his master's “talent” (coin) is reprimanded. Are we sometimes similarly foolish stewards of the time God gives us each day? Dave Durand thinks so.
A Catholic husband and father of five, and an award-winning salesman and public speaker (who incidentally holds a black belt in judo), Durand has managed to find the time to write out his proven time-management techniques. In a series of short chapters, he combines practical tips from the secular business world with the sort of sage advice found in St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life.
The author wastes no time in spelling out the benefits of his product. “Decide right now to set aside a few minutes each day to read this book and work through it,” he writes. “It may seem strange to add to your commitments in order to lessen their demands on your life, but it's the only way to build a lasting solution to your time-management problems.
”Throughout this book, you will encounter exercises designed to help you put into practice different pieces of the strategy. Each assignment will help you manage your time better immediately, while also providing a building block for other skills you will develop later.”
Durand delivers. Readers of his book will learn: how to cut down on wasted time by re-examining priorities; how to improve communications and deal with interruptions (without opening the door to gale-force distractions); how to make time for spiritual reading, meditation, even daily Mass; and how to defuse “time-bombs” — situations that can wreak havoc with the best-planned schedule.
What makes this book Catholic is its holistic view of the human person. Durand explains why things like rest, fresh air and proper exercise are, paradoxically, crucial to efficiency and productivity. The cure for procrastination is not a gimmick but the virtue of fortitude. Since we learn good habits and practical skills only by practice, the author assigns a number of exercises to introduce his methods or drive home the need for them. He testifies from his own experience that prayer is not an optional feature but rather the very life-breath of any Catholic plan of action.
”Consider this: if your computer goes haywire or your car breaks down, you can try to figure out the problem yourself, but you'd be better off consulting the manufacturer,” he writes. “In the same way, if you have a problem managing your time, your best bet is to consult the manufacturer of time, God himself. Only by discovering the plan that the Maker of time has for you can you truly and fully master the use of your time.”
Not enough hours in the day to work through your to-do list? Make time for Time Management for Catholics.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sponsor a Child at a Catholic Mission. It's Affordable! DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Your opportunity to help a very poor child is much too important to miss. And Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA), an international Catholic sponsorship program, can show you the affordable way.
For $20 a month, just 66 cents a day, you can help provide a poor child at a Catholic mission with food, medical care, and the chance to go to school. (Sponsorship benefits may vary depending on needs.) You can literally change a life!
As a sponsor, you'll feel confident knowing CFCA programs are run by Catholic lay and religious missionaries deeply committed to the poor. And you're assured that more than 85 percent of your contribution is sent directly to your sponsored child's mission program.
When you sponsor, you'll receive a photo of your child, information about your child's family and country, letters from your child, and the CFCA newsletter. But, most of all, you'll receive the satisfaction of helping a poor child have a better life!
And sponsoring is easy! Just fill out the convenient form below or call us toll free at (800) 875-6564. Or visit us at www.cfcausa.org. Become a sponsor today. You'll be so glad you did!
”CFCA is a dedicated organization working on behalf of the poor.”
Archbishop James P. Keleher,
Kansas City, Kansas - sponsors Jose Anaul Arita Munos of Honduras.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Results Oriented
QI am a results-oriented kind of guy. I want to make sure that I am successful in many areas and in many realms. But I don't want to drive myself nuts in reaching my goals.
We want to shoot high — in fact, very high. You might have noticed, if you've thumbed through the Gospels, that Christ's love was very demanding. He wasn't satisfied, for example, that Andrew, Peter, John and James were happy-go-lucky fishermen. He had a much more demanding task for them: to be fishers of men and to expand God's Kingdom.
The desire to excel and transform is in our blood because Christ is in our hearts. But this desire should not be a drive to rule, control or to win at all costs.
To see the results of this principle in action, take a look at college basketball. The most successful coaches do not place a priority on winning. This is one of the ironies of basketball and a lesson for life.
If you've ever heard an extended interview with Dean Smith of North Carolina, John Wooden of UCLA or Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, you might have been amazed that all three seem to go out of their way to emphasize how little winning had to do with their vocation. Now all three are winners by any standard. All three would be at the top of most fans’ all-time list. Their teams were dominant year after year.
And yet, as Krzyzewski said, “If my goal had to be only winning games, I wouldn't be a coach.” How could this be?
The common denominator for all three men was the desire to have their players prepared to do their best . They figured that, if their teams were properly motivated and prepared, winning and losing would take care of itself. As Krzyzewski says in his book Leading with the Heart: “My hunger is not for success; it is for excellence. … [W]hen mere winning is our only goal, we are doomed to disappointment and failure. But when our goal is to try to do our best, when our focus in on preparation and sacrifice and effort — instead of on numbers on the scoreboard — we will never lose.”
Shifting from the natural realm to the supernatural, the principle seems to be the same. Doing our best and not worrying about the consequences takes a lot of discipline and a lot of faith. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we ask God to deliver us from evil. When we attend Mass, the priest asks that we be freed from all anxiety.If we truly trust that God will keep us safe from all harm, we will find ourselves less anxious and will learn to abandon our will to the will of God. Such abandonment is not childish immaturity; it is closer to the childlike disposition Christ advocates as a prerequisite for his Kingdom.
We have to do the best we can in concert with God and realize that he controls the results and his will shall be done.
This perspective presupposes faith, hope and love. Trust in God and his infinite wisdom and love, not in yourself and your abilities. We Christians are not afraid of running the race and fighting the good fight, as St. Paul says. We want heaven, which is shooting very high indeed.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennet ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: TV Affects Babies DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:If a television is on in a room, infants pay attention to it — and are affected by it. So say psychological researchers at Tufts University in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development.
”Children as young as 12 months are making decisions based on the emotional reactions of adults around them,” including adults on TV, said lead investigator Donna Mumme.
Drawing by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Facts of Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Signs Okay on Overpass
PACIFIC JUSTICE INSTITUTE, Jan. 29 — The California 3rd District Court of Appeals has ruled that the California Highway Patrol wrongfully interfered with the rights of pro-lifers to display signs from an overpass.
On Jan. 22, 1997, activists displayed hand-held signs to commemorate the unborn babies killed since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The California Highway Patrol took their signs and ordered them to leave. One year later, the same event occurred. In reversing the trial court's decision, the appellate court ruled that the police had mis-applied a vehicle code that “applies only to traffic signs and was never intended to do more.”
Tiny Tributes to Pro-Life Cardinal
The youngest mother helped last year was 14 years old, though girls of 12 and 13 were aided in earlier years. The oldest mother was 46. Most get about £500 worth of help, including cash, clothing and short breaks, the Mail reported. Only four children have been given up for adoption or taken into care.
Unborn Grandson Campaigns
REUTERS, Jan. 22 — Mexican President Vicente Fox has released a sonogram of his unborn grandson apparently flashing a “V for Victory” sign.
Fox's office released the image of the sonogram, which shows the outline of a tiny hand flashing the two-fingered salute that Fox made his trademark in his 2000 presidential campaign. Fox's son, Vicente Jr., and his wife are expecting their first child in a few months, reported Reuters news service.
Bibles Where Abortions Were
WLOX-TV, (Biloxi, Miss.) Jan. 22 — When Dr. Joseph Booker Jr. stopped performing abortions at his Gulfport office in 1998, Temple Baptist Church bought the property.
Now the building is the headquarters of The Bible, Education and Missionary Service, which ships Bibles to missionaries in 80 countries, Biloxi's ABC-TV affiliate in Biloxi reported. As Teresa Forrester, a pro-lifer who used to picket outside the abortion clinic, walked toward the office, she said, “There is no more death here. Praise God!”
Database Aids Family Forces
C-FAM, Feb. 7 — The Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation has launched a new “Family and Society Database” on its Web site, heritage.org, to provide research that highlights the social, cultural and economic importance of traditional family-life and morality.
Patrick F. Fagan, editor of the database, told Friday Fax, the e-mail newsletter of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, that the inspiration for the endeavor came from “the growing mountain of evidence from the social sciences confirming the value of family, and that this evidence rarely earns mention in the mainstream media.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Washington, Lincoln and You DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Every third Monday in February, citizens throughout the United States reflect, however briefly, on the office of the presidency and the great men who have held it.
It's a worthwhile exercise. For, although Christ and the saints are the major means by which Catholics learn to imitate virtue, our noblest governmental leaders can be important role models for us as well.
In ways both subtle and overt, we find ourselves imitating their behavior and incorporating their perspectives into our own. They give us an ideal to aim for as we live out our unique historical calling — to live as distinctly American Christians.
That's why “the most important thing a sitting president can do is teach by example, in terms of how they conduct themselves in the office of the president,” according to Matthew Spalding, director of the Center for American Studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, a think tank that promotes traditional American values. “I also think the sitting president can use his bully pulpit to teach the most important principles about the country, which have implications for citizenship.
”What we want to see in a president,” adds Spalding, “is a combination of personal responsibility and moral rectitude and the great virtue of upholding constitutional principles.”
Spalding is quick to point out that the holiday popularly known as Presidents Day is still recognized, by federal law, as George Washington's Birthday.
He's right, of course. And the holiday has an interesting history.
Washington's birthday is actually Feb. 22, a date Americans honored for decades. But U.S. citizens long celebrated the Feb. 12 birthday of Abraham Lincoln, too. In 1968, the federal government decided to streamline the nation's days off and switched Washington's birthday celebration to the third Monday of February. It almost seemed that Lincoln would slip by the wayside.
In 1971, however, President Richard Nixon proclaimed that Washington's birthday would henceforth be called “Presidents Day.” Nixon wanted the day to honor not only Washington and Lincoln — but also all past presidents.
Because a presidential proclamation holds no sway over federal law, Spalding believes we should hold the line and call the day by its legal appellation, George Washington's Birthday.
Nevertheless, he agrees that honoring more than one president can help teach children varying core values. “There's Washington's honesty,” Spalding notes. “And you have Lincoln's teaching about standing for principle in the face of great adversity.”
Laudable Leaders
Washington's words “I cannot tell a lie” — whether or not he expressed himself in those precise words after allegedly chopping down his father's favorite cherry tree — are as American as baseball and apple pie.
Mari McAlister, the director of Policy and Procedure for Mother of Divine Grace, an independent study program for home-schooling families, believes such stories are an excellent way to teach children.
”Children love stories. Good stories fill the imagination with images of noble characters and heroic deeds,” says McAlister. “Jesus himself used stories in the form of parables. I think one of the best ways to teach children about virtues generally, and presidents’ virtues particularly, is through stories.”
Stories about George Washington fit the bill because he manifested to the public a deep sense of authentic piety. At the very first inauguration ceremony, it was not required that Washington swear the presidential oath with his left hand on the Bible and his right hand raised toward heaven. This gesture of humility and service to God was his own choice.
Washington was also the one who added the words “so help me God” to the end of the presidential oath. His reverence stirred such admiration that each succeeding president has respectfully imitated his example while being sworn in.
The Library of Congress holds a famous painting of Washington praying before leading his soldiers into the famous battle at Valley Forge. In a scene reminiscent of the Garden of Gethsemane, the president kneels by a tree, hands folded, looking toward heaven.
Our first president was a model of fidelity in marriage as well. While he served as commander in chief, he continually wore a miniature portrait of his wife, Martha, around his neck.
As president, Washington always stressed that he was a servant of democracy, not an elected monarch. He repeatedly eschewed temptations to use his office for personal gain. And he imposed an eight-year limit on the term of his own presidency.
If silence is a virtue. Washington had it. His vice president, John Adams, said he had “the gift of silence.” Yet few realize that silence did not come easily to Washington, for, in fact, he had a terrible temper. Over the years, he practiced the virtue of silence and developed it with prayer and willpower.
In the final analysis, perhaps what we admire most about George Washington is his witness to the Christian virtues of courage and perseverance. He led the nation to secure independence not by overpowering its militarily superior oppressor but by inspiring dogged determination and unwavering faith that the cause was right, the means morally justified.
Summoned to Serve
Thus did Washington motivate a ragtag colonial militia to stay the course against the most formidable military force in the world. They rallied behind him, followed his example — and won America's sovereignty and freedom.
As Washington's virtuous leadership was instrumental in founding the nation against long odds, so was Abraham Lincoln's in holding it together.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who frequently cited Lincoln in teaching about the need for reparation among and between individuals and nations, discussed the 16th president's second inaugural address.
“Lincoln clearly taught that the awful calamity of civil war was the punishment that God permitted us to have because of our national sins,” he said on a 1950s broadcast of his popular TV program. “Would it not be well to let ring through America today a voice like Lincoln's summoning us to fall prostrate before God and ask God for pardon and forgiveness?”
Archbishop Sheen was referring to these words by Lincoln about slavery: “If God wills … until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
Also, like Washington, Lincoln made it clear in his words and actions that he took God seriously. Father Donald Noiseux, pastor of St. Thomas Parish in Huntington, Mass., a self-described history buff, notes that Lincoln proclaimed public days of fast and prayer at least three times during his presidency. He recommended that Americans go to houses of worship and confess their sins to God and ask for God's blessing.
Father Noiseux also points out that Lincoln and Washington were not the only presidents who did not shy away from expressing their trust in almighty God from the Oval Office (or its historical equivalent).
For example, President Dwight Eisenhower issued a proclamation on June 23, 1953, declaring that July 4, 1953, would be a national day of penance and prayer. In doing so, he said: “I request all of our people to turn to him in humble supplication on that day, in their homes or in their respective places of worship with contrite hearts. Let us pray for God's help in solving the grave problems and render thanks to him for watching over our nation throughout its history.”
Indeed, there has been some notable virtue, worthy of emulation, in most of the men who have ascended to America's highest governmental post. A few examples come to mind off the cuff — Franklin D. Roosevelt's acceptance of heavy responsibility despite persistent health problems, Harry S. Truman's simplicity and thrift, George W. Bush's unapologetic naming of Jesus Christ as the man he admires most.
For Catholics, then, Presidents Day can be a time to thank God for those presidents who in word and deed have not only demonstrated the best human qualities — but have roused us to practice them as well.
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic - and Reverence DATE: 02/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:When Keith and Marta Laser moved their family across state lines, they were overjoyed to find a school specially suited for their 4-year-old son, Michael. The Lasers are Catholic. Michael is a special-needs child.
”The public schools in the area are superb,” says Keith, himself principal of a Catholic elementary school, “but they can't take care of the spiritual dimension of the students.”
The school they found is the John Paul II Center for Special Learning in Reading, Pa., where students go to daily religion classes, attend Mass and prepare to receive the sacraments.
One of three special-learning centers sponsored by the Catholic Social Agency of the Diocese of Allentown, Pa., this center is the only private one in its county. Last September, the center's 32 students and their staff moved into a new $1.5 million facility in Shillington, next to Precious Blood Convent. The location is perfect because Sister Francis Bisland of the Precious Blood Sisters founded the school in Reading in 1982.
In age, the students spread about evenly from 3 to 21. Half have Down syndrome; others have degrees of mental retardation and developmental disabilities. A few are autistic. Not all are Catholics. “A lot of non-Catholics feel we have a safe, nurturing environment,” explains Mary Adams, the center's principal.
During the daily 45 minutes of religious instruction, students learn everything from what forgiveness is to how to make sign of the cross. “Basically,” says Adams, “we're trying to get across the presence of Jesus — who he is and what he represents.”
Religion classes also prepare the Catholic children to receive first holy Communion or confirmation and participate fully in the life of the Church. Once they're ready, the children can opt to receive their sacraments at a school Mass or in their home parish. “By far,” says Adams, “they choose their own parish.”
”They're very excited when they receive Communion,” the principal says, “but they're also very aware of the reverence Jesus deserves. Some students may not be able to say the word ‘Jesus’ in speech, but they know what it means.”
Amazing Awe
Michael Laser already has an amazing understanding. He loves Mass and kneels in front of the Blessed Sacrament, says Keith. “He knows there's something special up there.”
Marta Laser applauds the center because it nurtures her son's natural love for God. She describes how, in the large metropolitan area where the family previously lived, Michael attended a public school. Once, when he bowed his head to say his grace before lunch, the teacher told him he was doing something that wasn't allowed.
”Children with special needs have this absolute reverence for Our Lord,” adds Marta. For this reason, she laments her out-of-state friends whose special-needs children have no Catholic school available to them.
In January, Michael and his fellow students counted more blessings when the center received permission to have the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the chapel.
”John Paul II Center is unlike most of our elementary schools insofar as it is not located geographically next to a parish church,” explained Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen in a recent statement. “In light of this reality, permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in their chapel was granted. It is my hope both staff and children will reap the unique blessings associated with prayer to and of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
Students can now visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on a daily basis. Each class visits the chapel at least once a week, and they attend Mass as often. Every month the entire school attends Mass together.
There's always plenty of material for reflection in the chapel. “We try to gear things toward the season,” says Adams.
Every week a liturgical coordinator works with the students on music and liturgy, such as choosing readings for the Masses. Seminarians from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia help with religious instruction and prepare some students to become altar servers here and in their home parishes. Keith Laser says he knows Michael will want to be an altar server.
At nearby St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, Msgr. James Treston speaks of two John Paul II Center graduates, 22 and 24 years old, who are altar servers at his parish. On occasion he has “some of the children come to our school's children's liturgy,” he says, explaining how students are paired up in a supportive “buddy system” for Mass.
Richard and Mary Deemer's 16-year-old son, Matthew, has been a student at the John Paul II Center since he was 5. The Deemers’ two older sons attended Catholic schools. “Having Matthew have that same opportunity is wonderful,” says his mother. “He deserves a Catholic education like his brothers had. Everybody here treats the students as people, and they know they're cared about.”
Matthew now reads at the third-grade level and can solve basic addition and subtraction equations. “He has confidence in that he speaks to other people and feels he has a part in things and puts his two cents into conversations,” Mary says.
Matthew was confirmed this past fall. “He was very excited about it,” says his happy mother. “He grasped that this is very important. He goes to Communion every time he goes to Mass, with reverence. He has that understanding. And that continues to be reinforced at the school.”
Special Witness
As a parent, a volunteer and now also the office secretary, Mary Deemer points out that the love of God is contagious among the student body. Seeing one another's example, “the children ‘get’ that [loving God] is important,” she says.
”And the students truly care about each other,” Mary adds. “The more capable help those less capable.” They'll even vie to see who pushes someone's wheelchair. “Even though they themselves have problems,” she says, “they're learning a lesson that others have worse problems than they do, and that they can help someone else. They're taught to treat each other as Christians.”
The Christian kindness now extends into a new program. Because of the new facility's size, the center could add a day program for young adults over 21 who can't work in the community to help them maintain abilities and skills they do have.
One beneficiary is Patrick Close, son of Dr. Richard and Virginia Close. He's been at the center the longest. Now 26, he started when he was 11. He has Down syndrome and is profoundly retarded, walking with assistance.
”It's been a wonderful place for Patrick,” says Virginia. “The philosophy of the school is always to let children reach their highest potential. There aren't a lot of children with Patrick's level of physical and mental retardation. So, with the smaller classes, he received a lot of attention.”
Patrick was confirmed at the Closes’ parish several years ago. At first Virginia hesitated because she understood confirmation meant being a “soldier of Christ,” proclaiming the faith. But she's ever grateful to a seminarian volunteer who told her and her husband: “Just Patrick being who he is — that's a wonderful example to others.”
At John Paul II Center, rewards cut both ways. Mary Deemer counts her special blessings. “It's neat to me being a parent and a staff member,” she says. “I get to see the kids every day.”
”We get so much out of the kids,” says Adams. “The kids remind you what's important and what the priorities are in life. They're an inspiration. You come in here glum and sad, but the kids make you smile.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Prolife Profile ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Suspicious Characters? Some Want Special Rules for Priests DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:LEXINGTON, Ky. — The sex-abuse scandal in the Church throughout 2002 has moved into a second and perhaps more damaging phase. Government is stepping in.
In many states around the country, legislatures have either passed laws or are considering bills to address the issue — at least, the issue as state lawmakers see it.
The new and proposed laws fall into two areas. Statutes of limitation law changes would remove limits on how many years back an accuser can go in bringing charges against clergy. Changes in mandated-reporting requirements would make the Church responsible for telling, or not telling, the state about child sexual-abuse accusations.
Last year the California legislature took only 10 weeks to fully pass a bill that put a one-year moratorium on the statute of limitations in that state for the filing of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse of children. The change ushered in a rush of new cases.
The Kentucky legislature wants to take away the statute of limitations on these kinds of lawsuits, but it would be permanent and retroactive, according to Father Patrick Delahanty of the Kentucky Catholic Conference.
According to Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota-based lawyer who has been suing churches on sexual-abuse issues for 22 years, this is a good thing. Anderson is looking for ways that make it easier for victims to make claims against their abusers.
Anyone can make a claim, he said, “but the burden falls on the survivor to prove it.” And the rules of the court are there to give both accuser and accused rights and protections, he said.
But they don't prevent people from making frivolous claims, according to Carol Hogan of the California Catholic Conference.
She cited one case that has been filed where “all the parties are dead except the claimant.” The priest who allegedly abused the plaintiff and his bishop have both been dead for about 11 years, she said.
Anderson does not believe this is a hindrance to the claim going forward, though, because of the Church's record-keeping practices.
The Connecticut legislature passed a law extending the statute of limitations on civil suits to reach 30 years from the date of the incident or 30 years after reaching age 18. Like California, this was made retroactive.
Other states that are having this sort of debate include Washington, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
In Washington state, the legislature is debating a measure similar to Kentucky's statute of limitations. Dominican Sister Sharon Park, the executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, is not too happy with the effort since the current law is “very, very flexible.”
That law allows for a claim to be made three years from what is called the time of discovery (the time a person comes to the realization that he or she had been abused) and does not set an age limit on it, as other states do.
She is working with the author of the bill to make the law prospective, meaning it would be in effect only for those who are abused after the law is passed, rather than retroactive.
“We won't oppose it if it remains a prospective law,” she added.
The difficulty with the statutes of limitation changes, observers say, is that the longer it goes, the more difficult it is to produce evidence to support the claims. According to Father Raymond O'Brien, a law professor at Catholic University of America, these statutes “protect the rights of the accused and the accuser to bring claims that can be verified.”
“The way I like to relate it to reporters,” said Bill Bolan of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, “is by asking them, ‘Can you tell me where you were on Jan. 28, 20 years ago?'”
He said his state is considering legislation that “would obliterate the statute of limitations.”
Wisconsin is dealing with a unique situation. That state's Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that the Catholic Church is immune from certain lawsuits. The problem, according to Kathy Markeland, associate director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, is that the ruling has been interpreted incorrectly.
The perception many people have of the Pritzloff ruling, as it is known, is that the Church is immune from all lawsuits. This even includes attorneys such as Anderson.
But, Markeland said, the attorney for the state legislature “has stated that the ruling didn't necessarily bar claims” that would hold the Church responsible when priests who were known to abuse were not removed from their positions.
Instead, she pointed out, the ruling said the Church could not be held liable for things like the formation of her priests, the fact that they're celibate or other aspects of her life and governance that are clearly protected by the First Amendment free exercise clause.
What Markeland is hoping is that the legislature doesn't put the Church on a different standard from what is common in law for other employers.
Other aspects of the bill would mandate clergy report abuse claims and extend the statute of limitations.
New York does not have a comprehensive mandatory reporting law. It's not that the legislature hasn't tried, according to Dennis Poust, communications director for the New York Catholic Conference. It's that Planned Parenthood has blocked any efforts in that direction.
Current law, Poust said, only requires reporting if a family member suspects sexual abuse by another family member. The Senate and Assembly passed separate bills in each house, he said, that would have greatly expanded the number of mandated reporters.
However, that list included nurses and physicians. Planned Parenthood officials realized this would require them to report the many statutory rape cases they see, he said, which would have cut into their income.
In the end, Poust said, “Planned Parenthood torpedoed it … Planned Parenthood almost always gets its way in New York state.”
Anderson said he is working on proposals to extend the statute of limitations to age 48, like in Connecticut, and eliminate the seal of the confessional in his home state of Minnesota, though no legislator has yet picked up his draft legislation.
The Minnesota Religious Coalition is a group formed in 1992 to lobby the legislature on these types of issues, according to Rich Forschler, an attorney and lobbyist at the law firm of Faegre and Benson in Minneapolis. Current Minnesota law allows for claims to be filed six years from the time of the incident or from age 18. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against another part of the law that allowed for claims six years from the time of discovery, and Forschler is working to keep it that way.
“This covers all kinds of other folks,” Forschler said, including teachers and their school districts, and day care providers.
When victims’ advocates decry the Church's efforts to block this type of legislation, Forschler said, they assume the Church is insensitive to their needs. But he said that is not the case.
“No member who is involved in this [coalition] is in it to protect perpetrators,” he pointed out.
One thing is clear in all of this, said Hogan of the California Catholic Conference: “This is a time of trial for the Church. We're not out of the woods yet.”
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New to 'Net: A Way to Report Obscene E-Mails DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:KATONAH, N.Y. — It seemed like such an innocent quest: find a Spider-Man photo for his 10-year-old son's Cub Scout project.
But still, David Petrillo was careful. After logging onto the Internet with his son looking on, he accessed the Google search engine, clicked on “images” and selected “strict filtering.” Several minutes later, he noticed a thumbnail image that looked like Spider-Man but was definitely not acting like any Spider-Man he had ever seen.
His son didn't seem to notice the image and soon found a photo to his liking on another page. Petrillo later clicked back to the page where he had seen the thumbnail to see if the filtering system was as strict as he had hoped.
The image, which was like a cartoon and extremely artistic, showed Spider-Man having sex with a woman, said Petrillo, headmaster of the Montfort Academy, a private Catholic high school for boys in Katonah, N.Y. There were other thumbnails that he didn't open, but a quick glance showed other Superheroes also having sex.
Seeing the images concerned and dismayed Petrillo, not only because they were pornographic but also because he, as a father, couldn't trust the Internet and its “filtering” system to protect his son's innocence.
If the Internet can be looked at as the 21st century's version of the Wild West, its vastness and anonymity and the lure of easy money breeds a ruthless kind of outlaw — the pornographer.
And like the days of the Gold Rush, business is booming. Forrester Research, a technology research group, estimates that the online porn industry, with its low labor and advertising costs, generates more than $1 billion in income for pornographers.
“I feel there are demons lurking out there on the Internet, and I have limited control over keeping them out of my house through that portal,” Petrillo said. “Even with strict filtering on, I was very conscious of paging through those thumb-nail images on Google. You want access to the Internet in your home for all the good it can do, but it's a portal for evil to enter the house.”
Realizing many Internet users often feel defenseless and outraged by these outlaws, Morality in Media, a New York-based organization that fights to uphold media decency standards and combat obscenity, created a Web site called ObscenityCrimes.org.
The organization hopes the site will turn the concerned citizen into a member of a posse. The site provides a report form that requests an attorney from the U.S. Attorney General's office to investigate possible violations of Internet obscenity laws, either in their adult hard-core sites or spam (unsolicited e-mail sent in bulk).
Accessible from Morality in Media's main Web page, Ob scenityCrimes.org was inspired by Cybertipline.com, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site, which allows citizens to report the sexual exploitation of children, said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media.
“We've always believed that obscenity laws will not be enforced unless citizens complain,” Peters said. “On one level, that shouldn't be necessary. But for various reasons, many prosecutors choose not to enforce obscenity laws, whether at the federal or state level. One way to change that is to give citizens a convenient means online to make a report of a possible violation of Internet obscenity laws to their federal prosecutor.”
The U.S. Supreme Court defines obscenity this way: When judged by contemporary community standards, the material appeals to a prurient interest; describes or depicts sexual conduct in an offensive way; and has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2354) states that pornography “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act. … [It] immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.”
U.S. law prohibits the distribution of obscene materials over the In ternet or any other medium. In addition, any illegal distribution of obscene material is also in violation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. If convicted under this statute, pornographers could receive a jail sentence and have all the assets of their illegal site seized by the government.
What Peters hopes for is that by receiving the reports, law-enforcement officials are motivated to take the Internet obscenity problem seriously.
Here's how ObscenityCrimes .org works: If a person comes across a site he considers obscene or receives spam promoting such a site, he can file a report by noting the Web site address, also known as the URL.
It's important not to type the e-mail address of the spammer because almost all porn spammers provide fake e-mail addresses, said Patrick McGrath, Morality in Media's director of media relations. Providing the URL, however, is a solid lead since it's an easy way to track down who registered the site, he added.
Morality in Media then submits the reports to the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity unit and also to the 93 U.S. attorneys throughout the country. Since last June, more than 10,000 reports have been filed through the site, and “the hits keep on coming,” McGrath said.
Law enforcement officials say they appreciate the input by vigilant citizens, but a Justice Department spokeswoman was vague when asked what the department does with the reports submitted by Morality in Media.
“The Justice Department has been receiving referrals from this Web site, and it has proved helpful to our investigators,” said Monica Goodling, the spokeswoman. “The information provided is reviewed and used, as appropriate, by the child exploitation and obscenity section of our criminal division.”
Still, parents seem to appreciate the site for encouraging moral people to take positive action. And Petrillo, who stumbled across the pornographic Spider-Man image, is grateful for his Catholic roots, which he is passing on to his children.
“The only reason I remain hopeful in a world gone mad is because my faith tells me the bad guys can't win in the end,” said the father of four young children. “And yet it's scary going through it.”
Another parent, Karen Hanley from White Plains, N.Y., automatically deletes any spam she receives almost out of habit now. But one spam in particular incensed her.
It was sent to her son's America Online e-mail address. To have control over the 11-year-old's access, she doesn't allow him to know the password to his account. One day he wanted to check his e-mail, so she logged on and there on the subject line was an ad with an inappropriate reference to anatomy.
“The concept … isn't even something I want his mind to be poisoned with,” she said. “People say, ‘What's the big deal? He didn't see anything.’ No. You're introducing a concept to him that his innocent mind never would have dreamed of before, so you're feeding this poison into his childlike mind and you're stealing his childhood, and you're taking away a little small piece of his innocence that I feel you have no right to do.”
Her faith plays the “No. 1 part” in the way she views the Internet and in what her children have access to.
“My faith is ultimately about eternal truth — all that is true, good and eternally beautiful,” she said. “That is what the Catholic faith is all about, and that's what we should turn our faces toward. We're weak, and we forget that that's how we need to orient our life. We need to orient every single thing we do toward that goodness, toward that light.”
Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The New Romans DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — It is Friday. You can see devout Muslims across the city traveling to the nearest prayer center or mosque as they do every week. Nothing new here except that we are not in the Middle East.
We are in Rome, home to Europe's largest mosque, where a couple of thousand Muslims congregate on a weekly basis. During the month of fasting called Ramadan up to 35,000 Muslims participate in prayer services here.
Nowadays, every capital city in Europe has a mosque to accommodate its growing Muslim population. Is this, as some alarmists call it, the third Muslim invasion? Is it the breeding ground for sleeper cells that might carry out terrorist maneuvers if U.S. and European forces invade Iraq? Or is it simply a fact of modern life — one more group that has been integrating into European society?
According to a recent issue of The Economist, there are 15 million Muslims living in Europe. Four million to five million live in France. Three million live in Germany. Britain has 1.3 million. The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Spain have a couple hundred thousand.
Massive growth of Muslims in Europe raises concerns — about how to coexist.
In reality, these numbers are difficult to calculate because not all Muslims choose to reveal their religious affiliation, not all countries ask for it and not all Muslims living in Europe are legal citizens.
“The ex-colonial powers have typically been the countries to which Muslims have migrated,” said Aziz Sheikh, head of documentation for the Muslim Council of Britain.
When asked which European countries were noting an increase in religiosity among its Muslims, Sheikh defined such an increase as a “reassertion of an Islamic identity.”
”I can only really speak about Britain with any authority,” he said. “Here we are witnessing something of a divergent trend with some younger people trying to realize what a Muslim identity means in a largely secular West, while others seem to be drifting from their Islamic roots into a materialistic-centered existence.”
Ahmad Rafat, an Italian/Iranian journalist considered to be an expert on Muslims in Europe, also noticed a trend.
“In countries where people are recently converted, they are looking for a ‘European Islam,’” he said. “For example, in Spain, many of the Muslims are Spanish. People now speak about an Islam which is closer to the West.”
It is difficult to find hard data on whether immigration is speeding up or slowing down. As Sheikh put it, “My impression is that many countries in Europe are of late trying to resist immigration from new Commonwealth countries [largely nonwhite] in response to the ascendancy of far-right movements throughout Europe. This trend has of course been accelerated by the Sept. 11 disaster.”
The Muslim community in Europe is heterogeneous at best. The only common denominator is religion because cultural and ethnic traditions vary depending on the country of origin. There is even a great diversity in how people practice, from the casual to the orthodox. This has caused many problems in terms of government relations.
“In Italy, the government has never been able to deal with the Muslim community,” Rafat said. “This is because there is no representative. There are too many groups. In contrast, the Jewish community is very united and does have a representative. This is a problem because Muslims cannot get benefits. The government wanted to give them tax deductions, which are normally given to religious groups, but there was never any consensus on whom the government should dialogue with.” The same problem exists in France, he said.
In his book Islam in Europe, professor Tariq Ramadan of the University of Fribourg, an expert on European Islam, says the first Muslims to arrive in Europe chose to protect their religious identity by being as discreet and “invisible” as possible.
Today's Muslims are much more secure in their rights as European citizens. They live their faith more publicly and without reserve. They choose to integrate within Western society without abandoning their religious and cultural identity. This is particularly true for the children and grandchildren of Muslim immigrants who are born in Europe.
“I think the majority of second- and third-generation Muslim migrants are integrating pretty well on the whole,” Sheikh said. “This is in part because of the removal of language barriers that affected many first-generation Muslims.”
“For the third and fourth generation it is much easier to integrate,” said Mario Scialoja, an Italian convert to Islam who is part of the board of administration for Rome's mosque. “The kids go to public school. They tend to assimilate well. But integration takes a long time. It is just like the Italian immigrants who went to America in the late 1800s.”
“With regards to the question of integration,” said Father Justo Lacunza, president of the Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Rome, “the process is painful in itself. You have to go slowly. There is a history, a culture of values in Europe that are based on Christianity. In spite of mistakes, it produced a great civilization.”
Though the cultures might be different between the West and Middle Eastern countries, according to Father Lacunza, Muslims choose to move to Western Europe, the United States and Canada if given the opportunity.
Among the ongoing problems Muslims face in Europe, Sheikh cited “racism and religious discrimination, social exclusion and negative stereotyping in the media, which do not help matters.
“We do of course have some fringe groups who continue to receive a disproportionate amount of media coverage,” he said. “Of course, Muslims have been deeply hurt by 9/11 and the subsequent diatribe that has been launched against the teachings of Islam.”
There has been some concern that Muslim immigrants will somehow imperil Europe's Christian identity. Some people do convert to Islam, but it is a very small minority. The concern is, rather, how to learn to live with a new group.
“The question is alarmist,” said a Vatican official, who asked not to be identified. “One must photograph reality and look at the real problems.”
Though Italians worry that in 50 years Muslims will outnumber Catholics in the country (Catholic Italians have few children and Muslims seem to have more), the Vatican official said the decreasing birthrate and unemployment have other causes.
“The question of Muslim immigrants should not be used for political ends,” he said. Muslims, in other words, are only deemed a problem when used as the scapegoat for real social issues in Europe.
“People who fear Muslims are above all people who do not know them,” said Rafat, the Italian/Iranian journalist. “If 1% of Muslims in Italy are radical, it gets pushed to all of them. The ignorance factor plays a great part.”
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Advising His Flock DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento directed pointed criticism at Davis in a homily during a homily at a pro-life Mass on Jan. 22, garnering the attention of both local and national news media.
Ordained the Bishop of Salt Lake City in 1980, Bishop Weigand was installed as bishop of Sacramento in 1994. He currently serves on the U.S. Bishops’ Latin American and Pro-Life Committees.
He spoke recently with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about his decision.
How does a bishop like you begin?
I was born in Bend, Ore., and raised in the Spokane, Wash., area as the third of four boys. My father was the manager of J.C. Penney stores in small towns around Spokane. He died rather prematurely from cancer when I was 18 years old. My mother stayed at home but went back to work after my father's death, working in the county auditor's office. She served two or three terms as the elected county auditor until she retired.
My mother had been a Presbyterian and converted prior to her marriage. She made a wonderful Catholic. My father was the strong element in the faith. He was very active and had a great love for the Church. He always spoke positively of priests and our own parish priest, and that influenced me. We would never have thought of missing Mass on Sunday. He set the tone. Even if we were on vacation, he would find out in advance where Mass was and the times. It was a very intentional sort of thing, and that stayed with me all my life.
What led to your vocation?
I attended Catholic schools growing up. My elementary years through seventh grade were spent at Mt. St. Joseph's Academy in Tekoa, Washi. During fifth and sixth grade I was an altar server, and I would say this is when I first felt called to the priesthood. During sixth or seventh grade it came to me that I should serve Mass every day during Lent, and so I did so at the Sisters’ convent every morning at 6:30. That is probably when my vocation was clarified. After seventh grade my family moved to St. Maries, Idaho. In August 1951, after eighth grade, I entered Mt. Angel's Seminary in Oregon. I was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Boise, Idaho.
What led you to make your much-publicized comments of Jan. 22?
Locally, prior to Christmas there had been a very public exchange between Gov. Gray Davis and Msgr. Edward Kavanagh [head of St. Patrick's Home]. At the spur of the moment, the governor intended to visit St. Patrick's Home for Children, which was originally an orphanage and is now a home for troubled youth, to hand out gifts.
Msgr. Kavanagh told the governor not to come onto the property because of his aggressive abortion stance. Msgr. Kavanagh felt that it wouldn't be authentic for the governor to give the impression that he was pro-children. The controversy was played out in the media. The governor invited some of the children to the Capitol and handed out gifts anyway, essentially outmaneuvering the monsignor in the media.
Davis made widely quoted comments that many Catholics hold his pro-abortion views, leaving the impression that such is acceptable. Because of the real possibility of confusion in the minds of some about what is the authentic Catholic teaching on the Gospel of life, I felt obligated to set the record straight.
I used the opportunity of Jan. 22 to do so. As diocesan bishop, I was speaking to our Catholic people, doing so in our Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament from my “cathedra,” or teaching chair. No media were known to be present.
When the media contacted me later that day, I assured them that it was not my intention to “take on” the governor but to teach and clarify the faith. That is an important part of my charge as bishop of the diocese. I mentioned the governor specifically only because he has chosen to make his Catholic credentials a public matter on a number of occasions in the context of the abortion issue.
Among other things, I said:
“As your bishop, I have to say clearly that anyone — politician or otherwise — who thinks it acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk and is not in good standing with the Church. Such a person should have the integrity to acknowledge this and choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving holy Communion until he has a change of heart.”
The Holy Spirit was present and my message touched hearts. There were people crying in the pews.
How have people reacted?
The Catholic response has been overwhelmingly positive. We have received many hundreds of supportive letters, e-mails, faxes and telephone calls at my office, the cathedral and to our Catholic newspaper. They appreciate the clarity.
There have been a few negative responses, but most seem to be based on misinformation about what I actually said on Jan. 22. I clarified my remarks in my Feb. 8 “Feed My Lambs” column.
What has been your message to those who disagree?
To those who hold views similar to those of Davis and seem confused about what the Church teaches or about what is required of one who is Catholic, I would urge them to study, consult and pray.
In our Catholic understanding, we are to receive Communion worthily and be properly disposed. We are also to be free of serious sin — going to confession first, if need be.
For somebody who takes a very public stance that is contrary to the teaching of the Church on some matter of great importance, there is the additional obstacle of giving public scandal. This would certainly be the case of a public official who makes a public point of being Catholic and also pro-abortion or speaks against Church teachings in other important matters. They have a duty as disciples not to use their public office to confuse their brothers and sisters in Christ. Davis left confusion.
Also, for Catholics, receiving Communion is not simply a private act. It is not something merely “between God and me.” We are members of the Body of Christ, the Church. When we receive Communion, while we believe that we truly receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, we also publicly express by our action that we are in union with [in communion with] the Body of Christ, the Church.
If one is not, in fact, in union with the Church on an important matter, such as the Gospel of life, then one is proclaiming a fundamental contradiction by the very act of receiving holy Communion. This principle is also applied in ecumenical relations. We do not admit non-Catholics to holy Communion in major part because they are not in full communion with the Catholic Church. In our Catholic understanding, it would not be authentic and fitting to receive Communion without being in union with the Church on all important matters.
Do you plan to take any further action?
No. Some people thought I was “considering formally forbidding the [governor] from receiving Communion.” I did not intimate that I had any such thing in mind or that we would refuse Communion to someone that approaches.
Some people thought that there must inevitably follow a further step, namely to excommunicate Davis. But there are no inevitable consequences to my action.
After instructing people, we respect them and strive to treat them as adults. We prefer to trust in their sincerity and good will. That is why I stated that a person of integrity should “choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving holy Communion until he has a change of heart.”
You have tried unsuccessfully to meet with the governor, have you not?
Yes. Right after the homily, the governor's spokesperson said that the governor was not going to back down and that I should not be telling people how to live their faith. I sent the governor's office a copy of the homily, as well as a polite cover letter requesting an appointment. His office has replied that he is very busy with budget issues.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: California Gov. Gray Davis' bishop made headlines recently. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: In Washington, Pope Gathers Witnesses to Christ's Suffering DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The Vatican's three-day observance of the annual World Day of the Sick was held in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 9-11. Conferences and meetings culminated on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes on Feb. 11 with a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Concep tion in Washington. Sick people and their caregivers filled the shrine and the sick received a special anointing.
This 11th annual World Day of the Sick was the first to be held in the United States.
“Through the celebration of this World Day of the Sick, may the Gospel of life and love resound loudly, especially in the Americas, where more than half the world's Catholics live,” Pope John Paul II said in a message sent to the event.
In the following photo story are pictures from the event and excerpts from the Holy Father's message.
Power and Weakness
“A model of society appears to be emerging in which the powerful predominate, setting aside and even eliminating the powerless: I am thinking here of unborn children, helpless victims of abortion; the elderly and incurable ill, subjected at times to euthanasia; and the many other people relegated to the margins of society by consumerism and materialism.”
'Catholic Hospitals…
… should be centers of life and hope which promote — together with chaplaincies — ethics committees, training programs for lay health workers, personal and compassionate care of the sick, attention to the needs of their families and a particular sensitivity to the poor and the marginalized.”
Handmaids of the Lord
“I hope that a fresh flourishing of vocations will enable religious institutes to continue their meritorious work and indeed to expand it with the support of many lay volunteers, for the good of suffering humanity in the Americas.”
Gospel of Suffering
“Dear Brothers and Sisters who suffer in body or spirit, to you I express my heartfelt hope that you will learn to recognize and welcome the Lord who calls you to be witnesses to the Gospel of suffering by looking with trust and love upon the face of Christ crucified and by uniting your sufferings to his.”
Defend Life
“Catholics working in the field of health care have the urgent task of doing all they can to defend life when it is most seriously threatened and to act with a conscience correctly formed according to the teaching of the Church.”
'It is never licit …
… to kill one human being in order to save another.”
Face of Sorrow
“Be aware of your identity and learn to recognize in those who suffer the face of the sorrowful and glorious Lord. Be ready to bring help and hope especially to those afflicted with new diseases, such as AIDS, and with older diseases, such as tuberculosis, malaria and leprosy.”
Mary's Basilica
“The choice of place and day invites the faithful to turn their hearts and minds to the Mother of the Lord. … I entrust you all to the Immaculate Virgin, our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas and Health of the Sick. May she hear the prayers that rise from the world of suffering, may she dry the tears of those in pain, may she stand beside those who are alone in their illness and by her motherly intercession may she help believers who work in the field of health care to be credible witnesses to Christ's love.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Rev. Al Sharpton Speaks During Mass
One of his first campaign stops was the annual dinner for the National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League. There he pledged full support for abortion on demand.
One of his next stops was the Chicago church St. Sabina's, according to the Chicago Tribune, a mostly black parish overseen by the controversial Father Michael Pfleger, a white priest who emulates a “black” gospel speaking style in his sermons.
Sharpton spoke during a Mass at the parish, denouncing the Bush administration on a wide variety of issues.
Chicago's Cardinal Francis George opposed the speaking engagement. Archdiocesan spokesman Jim Dwyer said Sharpton's endorsement of abortion upset Cardinal George.
“It's only logical that the leader of the Catholic Church in Chicago wouldn't want people in the churches speaking against the beliefs of the Church,” Dwyer said.
According to the Tribune, Sharpton's speech began as a talk but developed into a fiery sermon, “with the church's band at one point emphasizing Sharpton's points with impromptu riffs.”
Ohio Catholics Mourn Bishop
As the sixth bishop of Toledo, he served for longer than his predecessors, according to the Toledo Blade.
The son of a shoe-store owner, Bishop Hoffman had previously served as chancellor of the diocese.
He was renowned as an advocate of lay activism in the Church, appointing laymen to top administrative roles in the diocese and encouraging lay involvement at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
President Bush Speaks at National Prayer Breakfast
CNN, Feb. 6 — President Bush attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast in mid-February, as is traditional for chief executives, according to CNN.
“It is fitting that we have a National Prayer Breakfast,” the president said. “It is the right thing to do because this is a nation of prayer.
… The thing I hear the most … from our fellow citizens regardless of their political party or philosophy is, ‘Mr. President, I pray for you and your family and so does my family.’ That's what I hear. I turn to them without hesitation and say, ‘It is the greatest gift you can give anybody … to pray on their behalf.’ I especially feel that because I believe in prayer. I pray. I pray for strength. I pray for guidance. I pray for forgiveness. And I pray to offer my thanks for a kind and generous almighty God.”
Bush asked attendees to pray for the astronauts who died on the space shuttle Columbia and for America's men and women in uniform.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Oregon Judge's Order Risks State Interference in Running Church DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:BEND, Ore. — If a Portland lawyer gets his way, the Diocese of Baker, Ore., will be ordered to pay some $80 million to 21 people who claim they were sexually abused between 20 and 40 years ago.
To make sure Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker would be able to pay such a sum, attorney David Slader convinced a judge on Feb. 3 to preclude the diocese from distributing the deeds of 50 Church properties to the parish communities that use them.
Diocesan officials said Slader is asking for so much money that if every diocesan asset were sold — every church, cemetery, building, chalice and pew — the diocese would still be tens of millions short of paying an $80 million judgment.
Moreover, diocese officials said the judge's order is precluding Bishop Vasa from obeying Church law regarding asset ownership, raising an issue of state interference with his ability to freely exercise his religious obligations and beliefs.
“My motive is to bring justice to this situation,” Slader said of his success in keeping Bishop Vasa from transferring titles. “When we get a judgment and the bishop is faced with the prospect of the sheriff padlocking churches and selling them at auction on the courthouse steps, that's leverage.
“We don't think it will get to that. Each diocese has a network of ways to borrow money — they can borrow it from another diocese or from the Vatican. If the assets are at stake, the bishop will find the money. If he has no assets, he'll have no motivation to find the money.”
Slader said he sought the court order because Bishop Vasa was working to transfer titles to parish property that has been held by the diocese since it was established 100 years ago. He charges the bishop with transferring ti tles in direct response to a possible judgment.
“It's blatantly ob vious that Bishop Vasa is transferring ownership to the parishes so that when we get a judgment against the diocese the diocese will own nothing,” Slader said. “It's calculated, transparent, unlawful and devious.”
Not true, said Fa ther James Logan, chancellor of the Diocese of Baker.
Father Logan, who is a canon lawyer, said it's a documented fact that Bishop Vasa ex pressed interest in transferring property deeds to individual parishes three years ago, when he was first assigned to the diocese. That was about two years before any lawsuits were filed or spoken of in connection with sexual-abuse allegations from the past.
'Juridical Person’
Bishop Vasa came to the Baker Diocese from the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., where parish property be longs to the parish. It's typical in the western United States for parish properties to be titled to the diocese, while in the Midwest and the eastern United States, most Church property is titled to the parishes that use it.
Early in the 20th century, the Holy See expressed to American bishops its disapproval of the “corporation sole” model of property organization — the model used by Baker — in which bishops hold title to parish property.
The Vatican's objections were grounded in a canon that dictates proper ownership of Church property.
“Under the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, ownership of goods belongs to that juridical person which has lawfully acquired them legitimately,” the canon said.
“The juridical person in this case is the individual parish that uses the property,” Father Logan said. “The bishop is not engaged in the shell game [Slader is] alleging. He is trying to bring legal clarity to the ownership of the properties, and the bishop is under a religious obligation to carry out the laws of the Church. He came here from a diocese that was following canon law regarding Church assets, and it was one of his first orders of business to incorporate the same system here.”
Nonsense, Slader countered. He said most dioceses that use the corporation sole structure of asset ownership have kept it in place for 100 years, despite the Holy See's turn-of-the-century objection.
“This system has been maintained in the Baker Diocese and about 50 other dioceses in the United States because it gives the bishop full control,” Slader said. “Now bishops are conveniently abandoning the corporation sole because it exposes the assets to the claims of creditors, such as my clients.”
Assets owned by a parish — rather than a diocese — are only in danger if a lawsuit is initiated against the parish. Most lawsuits in volving alleged sexual abuse by priests are filed against the diocese, be cause civil law views priests as employees of the diocese they work in.
‘Church-State Conflicts’
The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, published by the Canon Law Society of America, warns that the corporation sole model of asset ownership gives rise to “church-state conflicts.” It explains that the civil law structure of a community might be incompatible with canon law.
The Baker Diocese dilemma exemplifies the conflict because the judge's order, while in force, will preclude the bishop from obeying canon law.
“I don't give a [expletive] about canon law,” Slader said. “Oregon is not a canon law jurisdiction.”
None of the allegations Slader is suing for involve priests who remain in public ministry, and the most recent allegations are more than 20 years old. In Oregon, a sexual abuse victim can sue within three years of coming to a realization that past abuse was harmful.
Slader, who is Jewish, said he has no ax to grind with the Catholic Church.
“My motive is to bring justice to this situation and to change this institution, one diocese at a time,” he said. “While I have no animosity toward the Catholic Church, I have absolutely no respect for the way the institution has dealt with the pedophile issue.”
Father Logan declined to comment on what he believes might be Slader's true motive for filing a lawsuit that seeks more money than the entire diocese is worth.
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Parish Housekeeper Honored by Pope
In front of 200 other lay people at Our Lady Help of Christians, the priest announced that rectory housekeeper Joan Cooney had been granted a medal by Pope John Paul II.
The award, the Bene Merenti, was issued to recognize her 46 years of service to the parish, including work for the homeless.
Cooney was flabbergasted. She told The Hampstead and Highgate Express: “I was so shocked. I couldn't believe I was worthy of such an award. … I was totally, absolutely gob smacked. I don't know how I walked up to receive it; I'm still shaking now just thinking about it. … I love this parish and I have always said it is my heaven on earth. I will continue do the best I can for the parish until they decide to get rid of me.”
Insult the Pope, Go to Jail
REUTERS, Feb. 7 — A former press agent for Poland's old Soviet-bloc government, Jerzy Urban, has reinvented himself as a caustic critic of Pope John Paul II, who is still wildly popular in his native land.
Now Urban faces legal trouble for insulting the Holy Father in print, calling him “senile” and suggested he should “go to bed, or gobble caviar” instead of visiting Poland.
Under that nation's laws, offending the head of a sovereign foreign government — such as Vatican City — is punishable by up to three years in jail.
“His article abused the legally admissible rules for freedom of speech,” prosecutor Maciej Kujawski told Reuters. “It used offending, ridiculing words aimed at humiliating the Pope.”
Vatican Seeks Common Ground With Greek Orthodox
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 10 — The Holy See has dispatched Church leaders to Greece this month to encourage cooperation between Catholic and Orthodox churchmen on issues of peace, social justice and human rights, according to the AP.
Greek Orthodox leader Christodoulous invited this visit in return for a visit by Orthodox prelates to Rome last month and as a follow-up to Pope John Paul's historic visit to Athens in 2001.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's leader in ecumenical efforts, heads the delegation.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God Is With Us Even in Trials DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
During his general audience on Feb. 12, Pope John Paul II focused his weekly catechesis on Psalm 118, a processional song of victory and thanksgiving that was used in Jewish liturgical services at the Temple of Jerusalem. It was part of his series of teachings on the psalms and canticles from the Liturgy of the Hours.
The Holy Father pointed out that the faithful sang this psalm to exalt God's hand of protection, which protects those who are upright and trusting, even when cruel enemies confront them. “There is an awareness of never being left alone or at the mercy of the storms that the wicked have unleashed,” he said. “God truly has the last word. Although he allows his faithful to be tested, he does not deliver them over to death.”
John Paul noted that Christ applied images from this psalm — the stone that the builders rejected that then became the cornerstone — to himself when he foretold his passion and resurrection. Therefore, we can interpret this hymn of trust and thanksgiving in a Christian perspective. Various Church Fathers pointed this out, including St. Ambrose, who said that we, too, should strive to be a rock — firm in our actions, words and faith — founded on the true rock.
The sequence of psalms from Psalm 113 to Psalm 118 was sung during the most important and most joyful feasts of ancient Judaism, especially during the celebration of Passover. This series of hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God was called the “Egyptian Hallel” because one of them, Psalm 114, recalls in a very vivid and poetic way Israel's exodus from Pharaoh's Egypt, the land of oppression, and the marvelous gift of God's covenant. The last psalm in this “Egyptian Hallel” is Psalm 118, which we have just heard and upon which we have already reflected on a previous occasion.
This song was obviously used during liturgical services within the Temple of Jerusalem. As it unfolds, a procession seems to be wending its way; it begins in the “tents of the victors” (verse 15), which are the houses of the faithful. The faithful exalt the protection of God's hand, which is capable of protecting those who are upright and trusting, even when confronted by cruel adversaries. The psalmist uses a very expressive image: “They surrounded me like bees; they blazed like fire among thorns; in the Lord's name I crushed them” (verse 12).
God Has the Last Word
After this narrow escape from danger, God's people break out in a “joyful shout of deliverance” (verse 15) in honor of “the Lord's right hand” that “strikes with power” (see verse 16). Thus, there is an awareness of never being left alone or at the mercy of the storms that the wicked have unleashed. God truly has the last word. Although he allows his faithful to be tested, he does not deliver them over to death (see verse 18).
At this point, the procession apparently reaches its goal, which the psalmist depicts using the image of the “gates of victory” (verse 19), or the holy door of the Temple of Zion. The procession is accompanying the hero to whom God has given the victory. He asks that they open the gates for him so that he can “thank the Lord” (verse 19). Together with him, “the victors enter” (verse 20). In order to express the difficult test that he had overcome and the glory that he attained as a result of it, he compares himself to a “stone the builders rejected” that then “has become the cornerstone” (verse 22).
Christ Is the Cornerstone
Christ himself later used this image and this verse at the end of the parable of the murderous tenants in order to foretell his passion and glorification (see Matthew 21:42).
By applying this psalm to himself, Christ opened the way for a Christian interpretation of this hymn of trust and gratitude to the Lord for his hesed, or loving faithfulness, which resounds throughout the psalm (see Psalm 118:1, 2, 3, 4,29).
The Fathers of the Church adopted two symbols from this psalm. First of all, they adopted the symbol of the “gates of victory,” of which St. Clement of Rome made the following comment in his Letter to the Corinthians: “Many doors are open, but the door of victory is in Christ. Blessed are all those who enter through it and walk the path of holiness and righteousness, doing everything peacefully” (48, 4 in I Padri Apostolici, Rome, 1976, p. 81).
The other symbol, which is linked to the preceding one, is that of the stone or rock. We will now let ourselves be guided in our meditation by St. Ambrose in his Exposition of the Gospel Ac cording to Luke. Commenting on Peter's profession of faith at Caesarea Philippi, he recalls that “Christ is the rock” and that “Christ did not refuse this beautiful name even to his disciple, so that he, too, would be Peter (Rock) and have from the rock the strength of perseverance and the indestructibility of faith.”
Strive To Be a Rock
Then Ambrose makes the following exhortation: “You, too, must try to be a rock. But in order to do so, do not seek the rock outside of you but within you. Your rock is your actions and your rock is your thoughts. Your house is built upon this rock, so that it will not be lashed by the storms of evil spirits. If you are a rock, you will be within the Church, because the Church is on the rock. If you are within the Church, the gates of hell will not prevail against you” (VI, 97-99 in Opere Esegetiche IX/II, Saemo 12, Milan/Rome, 1978, p. 85).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Evangelization Is a 'Human Right': Indian Church Fights Anti-Conversion Laws DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India — The Catholic Church in India will continue to proclaim the Gospel in spite of calls for restrictions on evangelization.
“Proclamation is the essential activity of the Church,” the Latin-rite bishops of India declared. “We are not disciples of Christ if we do not proclaim Christ's message.”
Evangelization, they said, is a “human right,” and “difficulties, oppositions and even persecution will not deter us” from evangelizing.
Their declaration came during the Jan. 15-19 Assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India. The bishops met at Tiruchirapalli in southern Tamil Nadu state, the site of massive protests last October in which Christians protested legislation the government said was to curb conversions by fraud, force or allurement.
“The Church does not believe nor indulge in conversions by force, fraud or allurement,” the bishops said in response.
Hindu nationalist groups have carried on a vociferous campaign urging states to emulate Tamil Nadu's conversion ban.
But conversions by force, fraud or allurement are “no conversions at all,” said Bishop Thomas Dabre, the bishops’ conference's secretary-general. The campaign is being used “to target the Christian community” by Hindu nationalist forces, he added.
The bishops’ declaration noted that an “ominous rise of militant [Hindu] fundamentalism [and] resurgence of a monocultural militant nationalism” is impeding the Church's mission of evangelization. “The negative attitudes of the mono-cultural nationalists who look at religious and ethnic minorities with a hostile eye is a matter of concern,” the bishops said.
The venue and theme of the assembly (“Sharing the Good News”) had been decided much earlier — last April.
“Yet, recent developments were very much in our minds when we drafted the declaration,” Bishop Dabre said Feb 4.
Speaking from his diocesan office in Vasai near Bombay, the bishop said the convention reiterated the Church's “duty to evangelize” but added that people are “free to respond” to it.
Describing the campaign against conversion as “bitter” and “neither theological nor philosophical,” Bishop Dabre said, “there are various sociopolitical factors behind it.”
At the political level, Bishop Dabre said, Hindu nationalist groups are trying “to hoist Hindu nationalism and consolidate the votes of the [Hindu] majority by using Christians as whipping boys.”
More than 80% of India's 1 billion people are Hindus while Christians account for 2.18%.
The bishop said the powerful Hindu elites find a “strong enemy in the Church's social work” among oppressed classes such as tribals and dalits (low castes treated as untouchables.)
“We have no problem with Christianity as long as it makes Indian society more just and egalitarian,” said Swami Agnivesh, a prominent Hindu reformist leader.
“We are extremely glad to hear that the mainstream churches are opposed to dubious conversions,” added the saffron-clad activist monk, who is the working president of the World Council of Arya Samaj, a Hindu reformist group. He also serves as chairman of the U.N. Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
“I am all for conversion and it should be tolerated and promoted,” Agnivesh said, “if that would help people achieve a greater degree of self-respect and social justice.”
Controversial Conversions
But Hindu nationalist groups such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the World Hindu Council, do not share Agnivesh's reformist view.
“Christians have been all along indulging in questionable conversions,” said Vireshwar Dwivedi, Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesman. “This is clear from the fact that Christians closed thousands of their schools in Tamil Nadu to protest a law that only bans conversions by fraud, force or inducement.”
Dwivedi also claimed that Christians’ fears of the law being misused to harass them were unfounded.
However, within weeks after the new legislation came into force, two conversion cases were blamed on Christian institutions in the state. After an investigation, police dismissed both complaints against the Christian schools as “motivated” by personal interests.
Though Dwivedi said groups like Vishwa Hindu Parishad have no problem if people change religion “out of conviction,” he failed to explain why entire Muslim families in the area often are forced to flee if a Hindu girl falls in love and marries a Muslim boy.
“These are all aberrations,” Dwivedi said.
However, John Dayal, a leading Christian activist in India, said that “such aberrations have become the norm” in states and areas under the control of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the federal coalition government.
“The conversion debate is a political ploy to demonize the minorities,” said Dayal, vice president of the All India Catholic Union and secretary-general of the All India Christian Council, an ecumenical lay Christian forum. “These very people who demand a law to ban conversions in fact have no respect for the rule of law, nor do they observe the statutes.”
To prove his point, Dayal cited the example of Dilip Singh Judeo, a Bharatiya Janata Party member of parliament who has been organizing “reconversion” ceremonies for two decades after intimidating tribal Christians in remote jungle tracts in central India.
The Freedom of Religion Act in Madhya Pradesh state has never been applied to Judeo, who hails from an erstwhile Hindu royal family, Dayal pointed out. And, even after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee appointed Judeo to his federal cabinet in January, Singh has said his government job will not prevent him from holding reconversion ceremonies in his strongholds.
“It is not conversion that bothers them [Hindu nationalists]. For them, this is an emotive issue to garner the votes of the Hindu majority,” added Dayal, who took up advocacy for the beleaguered Christian community after retiring as editor of a national daily.
“We will not be intimidated or threatened by this vicious campaign,” Bishop Dabre said. “The Church in India will stand up for what it believes is its mission and duty.”
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Australian Archbishop Outlines ‘Just War’ Principles
He began by reminding them that Christ calls us to “render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” and comparing America to imperial Rome: a distant, overwhelmingly powerful nation that keeps the peace, which is easy to take for granted or resent.
Archbishop Pell noted that the pacifist strain in Christian thought was rejected by Church Fathers in favor of a doctrine acknowledging the state's duty to “repress evildoers.”
The Australian bishop noted the threat of terrorism might sometimes allow for pre-emptive strikes against those planning such actions.
He said such a “unilateral pre-emptive strike, without international sanction” would prove “a two-edged sword, a dangerous doctrine, destabilizing the international order.”
Scottish Church Rallies Catholic Voters
In response, some British observers have accused Catholic leaders of attempting to corral parishioners into voting as a bloc.
The Church will prepare for the May 1 vote by sending a letter, signed by seven bishops, to regular churchgoers reminding them that Catholic schools are in danger.
Ivan Middleton of the Humanist Society of Scotland denounced the move, saying, “I think that most Catholics will think for themselves — it reeks of being the school bully.” The letter, however, merely asks each voter to be “guided by your conscience” in the voting booth.
Gerard Depardieu Embraces God in Notre Dame
Depardieu credits his conversion to a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 2000: “He looked at me and told the cardinals around him: ‘You must talk to him about St. Augustine,’” Depardieu recalled. “I had to admit that I knew nothing about him.”
There was some talk of a film adaptation of Augustine's Confessions. The film never came off, but Depardieu bought the book and kept it by his bedside. Eventually, it won him over.
The actor planned to mark his conversion in theatrical fashion by offering a dramatic reading from Confessions at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and explaining how it drew him back to God.
Depardieu told a French paper: “Augustine's quest touched me personally because it reflected my own fragility. … I have a mystical, religious temperament, colored by a persistent temptation to ask: Why? In Augustine, I have rediscovered these questions, the quest for truth — the why of what we are.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sucker-Punched DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Something unintended has happened as a result of the U.S. Church's response to the sex-abuse scandal. While Catholics were admitting the worst about the Church, people with an ax to grind and lawyers with a buck to make were listening in.
Don't get us wrong. Catholic bishops who covered up sexual abuse are undeniably to blame for current Church woes. Looking the other way at charges of sex abuse is inexcusable. The first, and worst, victims were those children who suffered abuse. They are owed an unpayable debt.
But Catholics, shaken by the scandal, exaggerated how widespread it was. To hear many tell it, you would think that the biggest problem facing the Church today was the safety of children in parish halls.
It's easy to understand why. The sexual abuse of children is so horrifying it justifies the strongest possible condemnations — like Christ's proverbial “millstone around the neck.”
But that's all the more reason the Church should have been willing to tell the world the true scope of the problem.
At the height of the media frenzy last April, the Associated Press reported that it could find only half of 1% of priests guilty or accused. And only a tiny percentage of this tiny percentage had anything to do with pedophilia. Yet that statistic found practically no echo among Catholics.
Instead, Catholic journalists with quick-hit Web sites seized on abuse case after abuse case, bringing them to the public's attention and creating the impression that clergy sex abuse of children was rampant. If anyone dared stray from this counterintuitive orthodoxy, they were denounced as part of the cover-up. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself was ridiculed for pointing out the demographic fact that priest-abusers are few.
Last month, The New York Times did its own exhaustive study of the percentage of priests accused of sex abuse of minors (not the infinitesimal percentage accused of pedophilia) and found that — after a year of the media telegraphing that the Church was ripe for abuse claims — the number was only 1.8%. That's 1.8% accused, not convicted. And the paper had to go back decades to get the number even that high.
The Times sounded disappointed that the percentage was so low, but, by then, a year of exaggeration allowed them to say something incredible without fear of being called to task by Catholics: “[A]lthough the problem involved only a small percentage of priests, it was deeply embedded in the culture of the Catholic priesthood” (emphasis added).
Now the chickens are coming home to roost, in state after state.
Responding to the scandal, California instituted a one-year moratorium on the statute of limitations in that state for the filing of lawsuits regarding sexual abuse of children. Kentucky wants to do the same but make it permanent. This allows allegations too old to be proved or disproved to ruin priests’ reputations — often, posthumously.
Connecticut extended its statute-of-limitation laws to give more openings to accusers. Washington, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Minnesota want to follow suit.
Why is the Church's small percentage of abusers receiving so much attention from victims’ rights organizations? If they want to stop abuse, why are they ignoring places (schools, for example) where far more abusers lurk?
The Portland, Ore., case we report on in this issue might explain why: because lawyers are drawn to money. The Church has a lot of assets, and it has a real and heartfelt repentance over even its small percentage of abusers. It's a ripe target. Lawyers such as Jeffrey Anderson are making tens of millions of dollars. He's suing the Catholic Church in places far from his Minneapolis home.
Did lawyers cause the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church? Of course not. Abusers and enabling bishops did. But as horrifying as their stories are, there are fewer such stories in the Church than outside it.
The Church isn't ours, in the end. It's Christ's. He created it as his way of reaching the world. Catholics have a duty before God to not let his Church's reputation be unfairly tarnished. We have shown we can admit when we have been wrong. Let's also show we can stand up for the Church where it has been unjustly accused.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Right to Choose What? DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:It seems Gray Davis does not understand what the Catholic Church teaches about abortion (“Calif. Bishop to Gov. Davis: Pick Abortion or Communion,” Feb. 2-8).
Abortion is a sin that violates the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” As the California governor is in a state of sin and is not repentant, he should not be receiving Communion. He is, in fact, desecrating the Host by insisting that he receive it while not in the state of grace.
Davis talks of a woman's right to choose. Well, she did choose — she chose to have sex. She now must give the right to choose to the child that she is carrying. How is it she can choose but her unborn child cannot?
Abortion kills and complications follow. One that is often denied is breast cancer. I know the connection is being denied by the American Cancer Society because an acknowledgement of the connection would reduce funds for research. I know doctors deny the connection because publicizing it would mean fewer abortions. Income would be affected. But I don't know why women deny the connection between abortion and breast cancer. Learning about it could save their lives.
I hope the bishop in California will counsel the governor and then deny him Communion until the governor accepts that what he is advocating is against his Catholic faith and repents publicly.
LAURA PIATKOWSKI
Brampton, Ontario
Follow the Weigand Way
Congratulations to Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento, Calif., for having the courage to publicly defend and implement the teachings of the Church (“Calif. Bishop to Gov. Davis: Pick Abortion or Communion,” Feb. 2-8).
Bishop Weigand deserves the prayers of all who abhor the abortion holocaust in our country. We should also pray for Davis’ conversion.
It is noteworthy that Davis claims that he is a “faithful” Catholic, the same claim that Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, made for Leon Panetta, pro-abortion former Congressman and chief of staff for President Clinton, hired by Bishop Gregory as a member of the bishops’ national review board for clerical sex abuse.
Also undercutting the courageous stand of Bishop Weigand are those bishops who continue to permit the use of public figures allied to those who promote abortion to raise money.
The bishops’ conference needs to follow the lead of Bishop Weigand in upholding Church teachings and it needs to establish a consistent policy for all bishops to follow: Stand up for life in actions as well as words.
RICHARD A. RETTA
Rockville, Maryland
Fight for Peace?
Regarding Father Raymond J. de Souza's “A Vatican Signal? La Civiltà Cattolica Criticizes Bush on War,” Jan. 26-Feb. 1):
I think La Civiltà Cattolica, the Rome-based Jesuit journal, and Father de Souza have mis-represented the moral teaching of the Holy Father and the Church. In fact, there is much about the Pope John Paul II's World Peace Day message that these opinionists have overlooked.
First recall the catechism's teaching on just war, which states: “The evaluation of [the strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force] belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good” (No. 2309). John Paul has said that war can be decided upon when it is the very last option. President Bush had a personal exchange of letters with the Holy Father on Iraq (as the Register reported in the same issue), and I believe Bush has prayerfully and prudently considered the Holy Father's comments.
Further, La Civiltà Cattolica's and de Souza's intimating that a monolithic position resides in the Vatican is wrong. There are many viewpoints in Rome.
Finally, I object to La Civiltà Cattolica concluding that war against Iraq would be fought for oil supplies. Look, we could always go back to our old ways when we would look the other way from Saddam's crimes and just pay him off to get his oil. Know those days are over; it is no longer U.S. policy.
So what is the Bush policy? I offer that it can be found in his State of the Union address. Bush said: “In a single instant [9/11], we realized that this will be a decisive decade in the history of liberty, that we've been called to a unique role in human events. … We stand for a different choice, made long ago, on the day of our founding. We affirm it again. We choose freedom and the dignity of every human life.”
Afghanistan and Iraq may be the beginning of a great human rights program for the Middle East. Ambitious? Yes, very. However, is this not the essence of the Holy Father's World Peace Day message, in which he discussed our duties and responsibilities toward others in grave need?
MICHAEL A. FAULKNER
Ocean Grove, New Jersey
Kneel Away
Regarding “A College Readjusts to No-Kneeling Rule” (Jan. 26-Feb. 1): Bishop Loverde says, “any posture [other than standing] is really an act of disobedience to … the liturgical discipline.”
However, as has been pointed out, the Vatican likewise tells us through Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez and the Congregation for Divine Worship that denying Communion to those who kneel is “a serious violation of canon law and an egregious infringement upon the faithful's right to receive the sacraments.” They can't all be right.
No Catholic has the right to disobey his bishop in an area where the bishop has binding authority. Likewise, no Catholic, not even a bishop, has the right to act contrary to liturgical rubrics. Yet, if kneeling is disobedience it can be, at most, a venial sin, since the Vatican insists that Eucharist be given to a kneeling Catholic regardless of the rubric or the bishops’ directive. The act itself is not sufficient to refuse the sacrament. One might argue the communicant is saved from mortal sin only by a badly formed conscience, but finding that idea in the Congregation for Divine Worship's defense of kneeling would be difficult.
Rather, Rome's response seems to indicate this eucharistic-reception norm is essentially just a formalized preference. It cannot abrogate universal liturgical practice. It may be compared, perhaps, to the priest's right to say Mass ad orientem, or the right of every baptized and prepared Catholic to receive confirmation upon reaching the age of reason. A bishop may not like these things, but it is not within his power to forbid them.
To quote a friend of mine, “The Pope, who has ‘universal, total and immediate jurisdiction’ over every church (Canon 333), says it's okay to receive kneeling. Why argue with him?”
STEVE KELLMEYER
Peoria, Illinois
Prudential Judgment on War
For several months, hardly an issue of the Register has arrived without an article quoting Archbishop Renato Martino calling into grave moral doubt a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq. The CNS story in the Feb. 9-15 issue, “Former Vatican-U.N. Ambassador Calls for Alternatives to War With Iraq,” follows this pattern but poses its own grave problem.
There the U.S. “preventive war” policy is reported as being, according to Archbishop Martino, “unjustified under the Church's traditional just-war theory — a position he [Martino] said was the official view of the Pope and the Vatican.” The average, faithful Register reader might be forgiven for thinking “the official view of the Pope and the Vatican” means a judgment of the magisterium and thus one that must be assented to.
The same CNS story partially points the way to clarity when it says: “Archbishop Martino noted that the Vatican as a rule only points out guiding principles, not concrete courses of action.”
Please forward to CNS (and, if need be, to Arch bishop Martino) the following passage from the catechism: “The evaluation of these con ditions for moral legitimacy [of a possible war] belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good” (No. 2309).
It is worth considering whether a possible war against Iraq even is an example of “preventive war.” Let the archbishop and the rest of us prudently consider this possibility.
JOHN R. TRAFFAS
Wichita, Kansas
Trust God, Not Arms
An Iraqi friend mentioned last week that the authorities in Iraq had called on the Muslim and Christian population for a day of prayer and fasting for peace. The ordinary folk decided to put their trust in their common Father and Creator and responded.
A stark contrast to the Western leaders’ endless speeches, saber-rattling, discreet oil revenue and body-bag calculations. They put their trust in their military and economic might.
Regardless of their dubious current leadership, the Iraqi people and the Almighty go back a long way. My friend is from Nanovah (Nineveh) where the people still honor the prophet Jonah and even now have a three-day fast every year to remind themselves of their need for God's mercy.
If only we in the West did the same! Perhaps the twin towers would still be standing. Is it too late to turn the tide? Maybe if we pray and fast, too, God could take the wind out of the sails of our blustering politicians and the anger from the hearts of the fundamentalist terrorists — as only he can lead us to peace.
STEPHEN CLARK
Manchester, United Kingdom
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Pope Leo XIII, George W. Bush And Gray Davis DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:“Democrats are for the working man; Republicans are for the rich people,” quotes my father, a Polish-American working-class Catholic.
However true this distinction between the parties might have once been, Catholics need to be aware they are not required to vote for every tax or spending policy that purports to help the poor. Catholic social teaching lays down a few general principles but allows a lot of flexibility in actual policy design.
At the end of the 19th century, Pope Leo XIII carved out a moderate path on the question of income inequality. In his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor), the first of the modern Catholic social encyclicals, Leo allowed that in some cases, income inequality was morally unacceptable. At the same time, heargued that some income inequality was inevitable and that attempting to eliminate all in-equality would be disastrous. We can see the wisdom of a moderate, non-ideological course by looking at two tax plans from opposite ends of the country by opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
In Washington, President Bush introduced a massive tax cut. In California, Gov. Gray Davis introduced a massive tax hike. Catholics can, in good conscience, support or oppose either one. What are some of the prudential considerations involved in evaluating these proposals?
One of the most controversial is the impact of these proposals on the distribution of income. Will the proposals help the little guy or the rich guy? Since the Bush tax cut gives a large proportion of its cuts to the upper end of the income distribution, it gives some credence to my daddy's claim that the Republicans are for big people.
But that is not the end of the story. The rich get most of the tax cut because they pay most of the taxes. According to the Tax Foundation, the top 10% of U.S. taxpayers earned more than 46% of the adjusted gross income in 2000. These same top 10% of households paid 67% of the federal personal income taxes. Sliding down the income scale a bit, we find that the top half of those filing tax returns paid 96% of the income taxes. The bottom half of the taxpaying public pays a mere 4% of the income taxes. That doesn't even consider the fact that the very, very poor might not even file returns at all.
So, any time the government wants to cut taxes, the largest dollar amounts of those cuts will go to the upper end of the income scale simply because that is where most revenue comes from in the first place.
Can there ever be good reasons to cut taxes? After all, taxes pay for many programs, some of which are helpful to the poor. Are there reasons, on balance, why cutting taxes could be a good thing? Put it another way: What are the limits to taxing the rich to help the poor?
We can see one kind of answer to this question by looking at the opposite end of the country, both geographically and ideologically. Davis, Democratic governor of California, proposed tax increases as part of a plan to close a $35 billion budget deficit. Davis’ plan for closing the gap includes a percentage-point increase in the sales tax, two new income tax brackets for the highest income earners as well as $20 billion in budget cuts.
This plan will surely be tough on low- and middle-income families. Sales taxes hit hardest on lower-income families since there is no practical way to avoid paying sales taxes. The budget cuts will have an impact on programs that benefit lower- and middle-class people.
So how did California get itself into this situation? The state's treasury did very well during the “dot-com” boom of the ,90s precisely because that boom put so much money into the hands of the richest people. Between capital gains on stock and incentive stock options, the state of California collected an unprecedented amount of revenue in 1999. When the state was flush with cash, Davis spent it: He added some 44,000 new employees to the state payroll.
California's treasury is even more dependent on the rich than the federal. California taxpayers with incomes more than $500,000 account for less than 1% of total tax returns filed but pay about 40% of the state personal income taxes, while the top 11% paid 80% of the state's income taxes.
California's tax revenue has been volatile because the income of the very rich has been volatile. This means that the safety net for the poor is not really safe: It is dependent on the good fortune of the richest handful of Californians.
Some commentators are unimpressed by these facts. They argue that even after paying 80% of all state income taxes, the rich are still richer than everyone else. But Catholic social teaching tells us that envy of the rich is not a legitimate motivation for public policy — charity for the poor is.
California's budget crisis shows that there are limits to the benefits of “soaking the rich.” By taxing rich people, the government hitches its wagon to their star. If the rich flourish, the government can do well. If the rich flush, the government is tanked, too.
In my judgment, California has come to the end of the tax-and-spend road. Whether the U.S. treasury has reached the practical limit of income redistribution through the tax code is an open question. But Catholics can support or oppose the Bush plan without feeling that they have betrayed their obligation to serve the poor.
Jennifer Roback Morse is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Love & Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work (Spence, 2001).
----- EXCERPT: Many Catholics instinctively vote Democratic because of traditional differences between the parties on economic issues. ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. R. Morse ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The TV Made Me Do It! DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Ever since HBO's “The Sopranos” began capturing the attention — and in many cases, the outrage — of TV viewers with its coarse depiction of a contemporary New Jersey mafia don and his dysfunctional family, culture watchers have been weighing in on the meaning of “Sopranoland.”
Books — including last year's The Psychology of the Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family by Dr. Glen Gabbard (Basic Books) — magazine articles, newspaper columnists and academics have generally praised the award-winning show for its depiction of the suburban life of Prozac-popping Tony Soprano and his psychotherapeutic misadventures.
Last fall, the University of Calgary in Canada added the cult-status TV drama to its syllabus in order to help students understand how “The Sopranos” fits into the gangster film genre. The Sopranos “really do stand up to the kind of analysis I'm used to giving for a Pinter play, a Tennessee Williams play, a Hitchcock film or a Shakespeare play,” English professor Maurice Yacowar told the BBC last year.
The Soprano musings took a much more serious turn in January with the news of two southern California brothers who allegedly killed their mother and severed her head and hands in order to conceal her identity — an act inspired, allegedly, by a recent episode of “The Sopranos.”
Jason Victor Bautista, a 20-year-old hotel clerk, and his teen-age half-brother, Matthew Montejo, 15, were charged with killing their mother, Jane Marie Bautista, leaving her remains in the Santa Ana Mountains. They then told investigators their decision to cut the head and hands from the body to obscure its identity came from a November “Sopranos” episode in which Tony Soprano kills an associate, according to the older brother.
Jason Bautista, who allegedly confessed and led police to the mother's hidden head and hands, according to news reports, went to his classes at Cal State-San Bernardino the day after the murder and Montejo, a sophomore, showed up at Riverside High School. An attorney for one of the brothers alleged their mother physically and emotionally abused the youths.
‘Copycat’ Crimes?
If the allegation about the crime's motivations proves true, notes the Los Angeles Times, the horrific incident will add a new chapter to the “copycat” deaths ranging from eight killings reportedly inspired by the 1995 release of the movie Natural Born Killers to recent deaths and injuries of people involved in stunts based on the “Jackass” TV show and movie.
It also recalls the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, which resulted in the Federal Trade Commission's report, “Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A Review of Self-Regulation and Industry Practices in the Motion Picture, Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries.”
Launched in 1999 and created by Italian-American David Chase (his real name is DeCaesare), a former writer for “The Rockford Files” and “Northern Exposure,” “The Sopranos” revolves around the philandering and crude Tony, whose regular visits to a female shrink and his ongoing struggle with depression and anxiety provide some of the comic relief to the otherwise wiseguy storyline.
Soprano's fictional wife, Carmela, tries her best to keep the family grounded, sometimes with the help of the young “Father Phil,” whom Carmela nearly seduces, or is seduced by, in one episode.
Chase has insisted in interviews that the hard language, nudity and violence are not what drives the show: “Anybody who says violence, cursing and nudity are the reason this show has become the success that it is doesn't know what he's talking about. … There's plenty of violence and mayhem in network television.”
HBO, which is no friend to watchful parents, apparently gave Chase cart blanche to break the traditional TV rules in presenting a “smart” series that pokes fun at the banality of modern American life but which, it must be said, hinges on the inevitable question of “who's going to get whacked this season?”
The violence can be startling. In various episodes during the first three seasons, viewers watched a disturbing scene in which Tony Soprano's psychotherapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, is raped in the parking garage of her New Jersey office. Elsewhere, we see a Hassidic Jew who hasn't “paid his bills” beaten over the head with a concierge bell; sociopathic mafia “captain” Ralphie Cifaretto kills a dancer on the parking lot outside the Bada Bing gentlemen's cabaret. One unfortunate member of the extended family who has been courting Tony's sister is fed to the meat grinder down at Satriale's pork store.
Why is all of this worth mentioning? Because the show has an estimated 9.5 million viewers every Sunday night, not counting the overseas audience. In 2000 alone, it won four Golden Globe awards, three Screen Actors Guild awards and a Directors Guild award. It has also won at least nine Emmys since 1999.
Not Everyone Likes It
It should be pointed out that early on, the National Italian-American Foundation denounced the HBO hit, as did the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations and the anti-defamation arm of the Order of the Sons of Italy in America.
“By promoting violence and worshiping at the altar of gangsterism, ‘The Sopranos’ has produced an ugly scene,” the Washington, D.C.-based Italian-American Foundation wrote in a Jan. 28 statement following the Bautista murder. “The time has long passed for HBO to put the public interest before concern for profit. The blood of Jane Marie Bautista's family in Orange County is on their hands. The public has a right to know what HBO is going to do about it.”
Apart from Italian-Americans’ displeasure at being portrayed as mobsters (this was disturbing enough that U.S. Rep. Marge Roukema of New Jersey proposed a resolution calling upon the entertainment industry to refrain from this kind of stereotyping), there was previously little objection to the show's violence, which is often directed at women.
Dr. Joanne Cantor, a professor emerita in the department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the question is not whether media violence causes violence but whether viewing violence contributes to the likelihood that someone will commit violence or if it increases the severity of violence when committed.
Cantor spoke about the psychological effects of media violence on children and adolescents at the Colloquium on Television and Violence in Society held in Montreal last year.
“The most direct and obvious way in which viewing violence contributes to violent behavior is through imitation or social learning,” said Cantor, author of “Mommy, I'm Scared”: How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them (Harcourt 1998).
There is a wealth of psychological research demonstrating that learning often occurs through imitation and, of course, most parents know that children imitate televised words and actions from an early age, she said.
Cantor noted that at least 217 empirical studies appearing between 1957 and 1995 point toward the relationship between viewing violence and a variety of types of antisocial behavior. Parents, she said, need to receive better information about the effects of media violence, and they need more convenient and reliable means of understanding what to expect in a television program, movie or video game. She adds:
Parents also need strategies that will help them counteract the negative effects of media violence on their children.
Strategies for coping with media-induced fears need to be tailored to the age of the child. Up to the age of about 7, nonverbal coping strategies work the best.
After the age of 8, logical, empowering information helps children deal with their fears.
It is appropriate to speak out when problematic presentations are aired in contexts in which children are likely to see them and when inappropriate programming is actively marketed to young people.
The founder and chair of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Center for Media Literacy, Sister Elizabeth Thoman has since 1975 been trying to provide a process by which people come to the media “not as passive puppets but with critical questions, so we process the experience and make better sense out of it,” explained the nun, a Sister of Humility of Mary from Iowa.
Parents can spend all their energy on moral outrage, “but why not work with kids to negotiate those experiences and be more discriminating users?” she asked.
But is that enough?
Just prior to the California murder, Dr. Margaret Crastnopol, a member of the faculty of the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis and a practicing psychologist/psychoanalyst in Seattle, participated in an online discussion of “The Sopranos.” She asserted the show's writers are depicting what love, passion and desire look like in a climate of largely unfettered greed, corruption and amorality.
“Yes, this is the world of organized crime, but some theorists would say that the potential for similar urges, if not actions, exists in us all,” Crastnopol said.
Lest we forget, Dr. Crastnopol, that includes — parents take note — children, the audience most susceptible to suggestion.
Tom Tracy writes from West Palm Beach, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Tracy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Two Towers and a Ring of Power: Tolkien on Terrorism DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:The Two Towers had not yet received six Academy Awards nominations.
But war was already in the air as political leaders were already contemplating terrorism, war with Iraq and negotiations with North Korea, and activists were already resurrecting their commitment to build peace nonviolently.
On a cold evening this past De cember, I was in Manhattan with other religious writers for the national press preview of Peter Jackson's second motion picture of J.R.R. Tolkien's mythic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.
The next day we sat at a round table and interviewed members of the film's cast and crew as their handlers ushered them in and out. It was an interesting and enlightening day — especially when a giant cockroach, no doubt mystically transported from the dead marshes of Mordor, attempted a blitzkrieg on our refreshments.
Fortunately, King Theoden of Rohan (Bernard Hill), was present, and with a deft stomp of his right boot smashed the vile critter into the carpet. Thus was our introduction to one of The Two Towers pervasive themes: the presence of evil in the world and our personal and corporate effort to destroy it, albeit with violence.
The freeman of Middle-earth viewed the loom of the two towers at Isengard and Barad-dÛr (and the controlling influence of their occupants Saruman and Sauron), as responsible for bringing a great terror to Middle-earth.
The parallels with our own time are astonishing. In like manner, Al Qaeda (and other Mideast concerns) saw the loom of the two towers of the World Trade Center (and the global influence of their occupants) as responsible for bringing a cultural terror to their countries and societies.
We see the Al Qaeda terrorists as evil because of the physical violence they bring to thousands of temporal lives. But Tolkien, like some living in the Middle East, may have seen another great evil in our mechanized, greedy and power-hungry society that demands the right to export a culture that can bring spiritual violence to millions of eternal souls.
We should not need Al Qaeda, Iraq (or North Korea) however, to remind us of the physical and spiritual violence we do to ourselves — and in some in stances demand that the world adopt in the name of human rights. Tolkien, through the rich Judeo-Christian themes of his trilogy, rejects the kind of industrial mechanism and moral relativism that in the United States has fostered the legalization of gambling, abortion and pornography and has created an environment that spawns greed, immorality and a lust for power. Just check recent headlines.
The Tolkien stories and the Jackson films are hugely popular because such themes are ultimately true, and research continues to show that well-produced films that reinforce Judeo-Christian themes will be successful at the box office.
The films are also popular because of the timing of their release: just a few months after 9/11 and just before revelations about the evil practices of some political, corporate and religious leaders.
On a minor note, it is also hard to ignore the uncanny resemblance of Alan Lee's 1988 fluted design for Tolkien's doomed Orthanc Tower to the same fluted design of the doomed World Trade Center towers, both with key central staircases.
All of this suggests that the motion pictures have several messages for us. Here are two.
To conquer global evil, we must first conquer personal sin.
Each of the main characters in the stories experience significant temptation to possess the One Ring and use it to control others. The opposite, however is true — the ring controls the bearer, and some have already succumbed. But until our heroes struggle against great odds, hold onto every sliver of hope and put aside their concupiscence, they are not able to defeat evil and bring peace to the Shire.
A story is told of a saintly monk, who when he was relentlessly beset by thoughts of sexual lust threw his naked body into a patch of briars and thorns, rolling around in them. He experienced violence that day. Blood was shed. But evil was defeated and peace reigned.
Tolkien suggests that whether it's the Shire or our own country, we must first conquer the evil in our own cell — even at the peril of pain — if there's any chance at all of conquering evil elsewhere.
As Christians we must be united in suffering if there is to be hope in the resurrection.
The freemen of Middle-earth were only able to defeat the evil hordes by being of one mind and coming under one king. Aragorn says to Éomer: “Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among elves and dwarves and another among men.”
There are many fallacious debates between Catholics and Protestants. But there is one that visualizes the need for unity: Should churches display a crucifix to remind us of Christ's saving passion or an empty cross to remind us of Christ's resurrection?
The correct answer is that we need both.
Christ calls us to suffer in this world if we are to have any hope of the resurrection and eternal peace — and that suffering may be as violent as Christ's death. Divided, Middle-earth would have fallen; and divided, Christians will continue to suffer setbacks and evangelical impotency (see John 17:21, 23).
Tolkien's trilogy suggests that in our quest for peace in the Shire, the avoidance of violence at all costs has a potential consequence: that we slowly begin to tolerate evil (under the guise of religious pluralism) and become the ring bearer of moral relativism, exchanging the freedom of truth for an oppressive peace.
As we approach turning points in our personal and political histories, we have choices to make. If we make the right ones, Tolkien says that someday the shadow will pass and with Sam we will wake up at the end of the story and ask, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
Stan Williams, Ph.D., writes occasionally about Judeo-Christian themes in motion pictures between his own film projects at SWC Films, www.StanWilliams.com.
----- EXCERPT: The year 2002 was grinding to a halt. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stan Williams ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Dear Lance, I still remember the time, when you were about 5 years old, when the priest talked about abortion at Sunday Mass.
You were still innocent and had no idea what abortion means. All you knew was that the priest said it was a very bad thing. When we got home, you asked Mom what abortion means. She explained that it is when a mother decides she doesn't want her unborn baby and has a doctor destroy it.
You were very upset. We had some hugs and reassurances of how much you are loved. I was sorry that this upset you so much.
At the same time, I was glad that you realized how evil such an act is. How about that? Five years old and you already had a better moral sense than lots of lawyers, doctors, senators, representatives and several recent presidents of the United States.
So many people in our society have lost sight of right and wrong. They think it is okay for a woman to have an abortion.
In fact, they think abortion is a positive thing — something women have a right to do, part of personal freedom. Instead of calling it killing, they call it the right to “choose.”
What a pleasant-sounding, positive euphemism. At least we understand that words can be powerful.
An attorney of the female persuasion explained to me that, technically speaking, an abortion isn't murder. It's killing. She explained that murder is a legal issue and only if the killing is illegal could it correctly be termed murder.
Hmm. In Hitler's Germany, it was legal to put Jews and Catholic priests into gas chambers. Was that killing but not murder? I don't think so. But I suppose that, either way, millions of people ended up dead.
And, legal or not, millions of babies are ending up dead.
Another female legal eagle explained to me that — technically speaking, of course — a fetus and a baby are not the same thing. So, is a fetus a baby that hasn't been born or is a baby a fetus after birth? When does a fetus graduate to babyhood?
Actually, for a partial-birth abortion, a baby (or is it a fetus?) can be about 90% born before it becomes illegal to kill him or her. What if the doctor slips and the baby is fully born before he has a chance to murder (er, I mean kill) it?
What if a baby is born a couple of months premature? It couldn't survive without medical help, so is it still a fetus? Come to think about it, how many full-term, healthy babies could survive on their own?
Just when does a fetus become a baby? When does life begin? There is only one logical answer: Life starts at conception, at the time the genetic matter of mother and father come together and God breathes life into the child.
You can call it a fetus, an embryo or a baby — but it is a human life. It is growing and developing. Growing and developing are things humans continue to do after birth — at least, until they get old like me and start shrinking and wearing out.
But I'm just telling you something you already knew at a very young age. God's natural law told you right from wrong. And God continues to tell you, which I expect is why you were among the pro-life marchers in Washington the past couple years.
When our next national election occurs, you'll be old enough not only to march but to vote for life. You are one of the reasons I continue to have hope.
Jim Fair writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: Teaching a Terrible Thing ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Fair ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In the Land of the Midnight Sun DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:St. Eugenia's is the oldest Catholic church in Stockholm, but you'd never guess that.
Compared to some of the towering spires of the Lutheran landmarks in this, Sweden's capital city — like Riddersholms Kyrkan(which is no longer used as a church), Tyska Kyrkan or even the nearby Baroque Jakobskyrkan— St. Eugenia's is almost invisible.
The church is set in a line of buildings next to a Catholic bookstore that it operates. Walking down fashionable Kungsträdgårdsgatan , you might not even notice the church at No. 12 — unless you looked up and saw the gold cross suspended over the sidewalk. Hopefully, the cross draws you in.
St. Eugenia's is a church of paradoxes. Stockholm's mother church is in an ordinary building. So much of St. Eugenia's design is contemporary, but it consciously preserves so much of its past. Without thrusting itself into your face, St. Eugenia's hopes to invite by its witness of lived faith. The latter is especially important because so many of Stockholm's ecclesiastical and architectural gems are little more than organ concert halls in this highly secularized country of 9 million people.
The roots of this peripatetic parish go back to 1783, when foreign-born Catholics were once again allowed to practice their faith in Sweden. A small chapel was established in what is today the Stockholm City Museum (then it was the city hall). In 1837, the parish acquired a church of its own in what today has become the Gallerian Shopping Center. Like Christ, his Church sometimes has nowhere to lay its head.
Downtown Doxology
Stockholm's city center underwent a controversial “urban renewal” project in the 1960s, one that still draws criticism. Like some American urban “planning” of that period, residents of city center were displaced to create office, commercial and entertainment space — through which people pass but in which nobody actually lives. St. Eugenia's lost its original venue and was given its current location in exchange in 1962. Building, however, was delayed until 1979. Bishop Hubertus Brandenburg consecrated the church in 1982.
The church's current location puts St. Eugenia's right smack in the middle of some key parts of Stockholm's life. The National Opera is nearby. Just across the bridge is the Royal Palace and Gamla Stan,Stockholm's quaint Old Town. The Central Rail Station is one subway stop or a short “health walk” away. St. Eugenia's is in the center of Stockholm's life and that is where it sees its mission.
Architect Jörgen Kjaergaard admits he had no agenda in mind when designing the church. He was, however, constrained by the fact that the new St. Eugenia's lay between two landmarked buildings, limiting his options. He preserved the old building given to the church while constructing a new one in its courtyard, leaving its neighbors intact.
The new St. Eugenia's stylistically is a contemporary church, but one that has preserved many elements of its roots. Like the Scripture scholar in Christ's parable — the one who “has been instructed in the Kingdom of heaven” — this parish “is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Matthew 13:52).
The Catholic bookstore and lending library face the street. One enters a large hall with space both upstairs and downstairs for parish activities. The plan is deliberate: Many Swedes’ first contact with the Catholic Church is in a social context; St. Eugenia's invites them to come and see (and learn). In 1996, 97, 350 people took part in Catholic orientation programs. Catholics are a tiny minority in the “land of the midnight sun.”
Archduke's Tabernacle
St. Eugenia's has 8,200 parishioners, although the parish boundaries encompass half a million inhabitants. (Stockholm has three parishes). Many of St. Eugenia's parishioners are foreigners, but the church also reaches out to Swedes searching for meaning in their lives. The parish is active in outreach to Sweden's numerous tourists.
The mix of people who make up St. Eugenia's is reflected in the church itself. In addition to the 12 candles indicating the church is consecrated, St. Eugenia's has also set up 12 stones donated by various churches.
Some — like those from Cologne Cathedral in Germany, Lourdes in France or Bolton Priory in Yorkshire, England — symbolize those countries that historically played a role in shaping the Church in Sweden. Some — like those from Poland, the Philippines and Peru — symbolize some of the countries from whence parish immigrants have come. And some — like those from Loyola Castle in Spain or St. Paul's Mission in Zimbabwe (where seven religious were killed in 1977) — symbolize the Jesuit roots of the parish. The foundation stone, from Rome, was a gift from Pope Paul VI.
The tabernacle comes from old St. Eugenia's, the gift of an Austrian archduke. The cross in the sanctuary is hewn from roof-beams of the old church. The corpus on that cross seems tiny compared with the cross itself: The proportions are deliberate, symbolizing the magnitude of sin that can so destroy man and yet itself is vanquished in him who suffered on that cross.
The movable grill separating the main church from the adjacent Chapel of Our Lady (open for prayer during the day) includes metal from the old church's Communion rail. Our Lady's statue, the “Mother of Divine Hope,” dates from the 15th-century Roslagen, part of Sweden's Uppland province.
A place of quiet and retreat yet one engaging its society — that's Stockholm's St. Eugenia's, a faithful steward tending both the old and new of Catholic life in Sweden.
John M. Grondelski lives in Warsaw.
----- EXCERPT: St. Eugenia's Church, Stockholm, Sweden ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: St. Eugenia: Virgin, Martyr, Myth? DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:There definitely was a Roman martyr named Eugenia who died around 257, but, according to the abridged Dictionary of Saints (Image, 1980), not much can be verified about her life: “According to a romantic legend, she was the daughter of Duke Philip of Alexandria, governor of Egypt during the reign of Emperor Valerian. She fled her father's house dressed in men's clothing and was baptized by Helenus, bishop of Heliopolis, who sent her to an abbey, of which she later became abbot. Accused of adultery by a woman she had cured of a sickness and whose advances she had resisted, she was haled before a judge to answer the charges; the judge was her father. Exonerated when she revealed she was a woman and his daughter, she converted him to Christianity (he later became a bishop and was beheaded for his faith). Eugenia converted many others, including her mother, Claudia, and suffered martyrdom by sword for her faith in Rome.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Search the World and Never Leave Your Seat DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Its access to endless “off ramps” connected to wonderful resources remains one of its greatest benefits.
Here's an example. Brother Craig here wanted to read about St. Radegund (518-587), a saint and queen not well remembered. He typed “St. Radegund” into a search engine and, soon enough, he had printed out a long and very interesting biography written by a university scholar. Not bad for a few minutes’ work.
There are a few sites I visit to find more mundane things — like someone's zip code. At the U.S. Postal Service's Web site, usps.com/zip4, you can enter the address, city and state and out pops the zip code (along with some other information that seems useless to me). Or if you know the address and zip code, you can find the city and state.
Another thing I find useful is looking up an address online to reach an individual or business. If you are into convenience, Internet Explorer has a “Search” button at the top. A separate pane opens up in your browser window with several options. You can choose from a number of search categories. “Find a: Web Page, Person's Address, Business, Map, Word or Picture.”
For this example, I'm going to try to find myself. (No, I'm not having a midlife crisis — I mean I'm looking to see where my name is on the Web.) The more information, the better. When I tried just my last name and state, the search tool returned more than 250 matches. Adding my first name narrowed it down to 37 — but none were me. Of course, I am a hard person to track down since I live in a monastery. When I clicked on the other John Raymonds in Florida, I got their mailing addresses, telephone numbers, maps with driving directions to their houses and their e-mail addresses. Perhaps I should visit my namesakes.
If you are not satisfied with the results you get, try the “Next” button at the top of the search pane. This will look up the same information on another site. (To see what sites are used for each category look-up, press the “Customize” button. You can pick which ones you want to use.) Perhaps you only have someone's telephone number and want to find their address. Try a reverse lookup at AT&T's AnyWho.com. I tried it with our telephone number and our mailing address came up right away. There are some other useful features on AnyWho.com like the Yellow Pages, Toll-Free Number look-up and even links to international directories broken down by country.
Verizon hosts SuperPages.com. One of the features I like here is under the “People Pages” tab. All you are required to enter is a person's last name. Even better, you can do a nationwide search for him. This is helpful if someone has moved and you don't know where to look for him.
The Ultimates at the ultimates.com gives the convenience of entering your search in more than one search engine at the same time.
For instance, their White Pages lists six search engines. You type your information in the first (Whitepages.com) and it's automatically entered in the other five.
Once, I had to track down Robert Farrell, the copyright holder for a unique musical arrangement of the “Ave Maria,” one of the Marian hymns we used on our recent CD, “The Chanted Rosary.” Instead of using any of the methods already mentioned, I simply typed his name into the “Exact Phrase” search option under “Advanced Search” on Google.com. I found several sites with information about him, including biographical details, present mailing and e-mail address and telephone number. I knew I had the right Robert Farrell when the sites mentioned his Ave Maria musical composition. This search-engine technique can work well when you know almost nothing more than the name of the person you are searching for and some incidental information about him.
Public records hold tons of information that can be useful. Search Systems at search-systems.net has 11,771 free searchable public record databases broken down by state. Besides finding out about people, you can get information on businesses, doctors, dentists and lawyers. You can even find out about lawsuits brought against abortion clinics.
We were thinking of doing a one-time mailing to solicit funds for building our new monastery and wanted to target people on a particular street near there. How were we going to get those addresses? We went to the county property appaiser's Web site, typed in the street name and up came more than we needed. Besides resident names and addresses, we could even see plenty of detail about their houses and land.
Now it can make some people paralyzed with fear to realize how much information about them is floating around on the Internet. However, the same information can be used for good, like tracking down old friends with whom you've lost touch. One time I called a religious community to order something for our gift shop. Father Virgil answered. Recognizing his name, I thanked him for teaching me about the value of wearing the brown scapular and enrolling me in it more than 30 years ago. (This had taken place at a seminary that held a two-week summer camp for boys in the seventh and eighth grades. We began the day with holy Mass, then had an hour-long religion class followed by recreational games the rest of the day.) I wear the brown scapular to this day.
Given the hostile environment priests and religious are facing these days, you might consider using the Internet to seek out that priest or religious who had a profound effect on your life. Just say “thank you.” He or she could probably use the encouragement right about now.
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration, writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: In its early days, the Internet was called the "Information Superhighway." ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:For this month's picks, we will concentrate on Catholic news sites.
Zenit, the Catholic news service at zenit.org, titles its Web site “The World Seen From Rome.” Here you will find Catholic news in six different languages. Choose among the latest news, daily news dispatches, weekly news analysis and Church documents. You can search the news archive and sign up to receive news by e-mail as well.
Catholic World News at cwnews.com has the current day's news of interest to Catholics. Archived news is organized by geographical continents and categories like “family.” Archival searching is available, too. Subscribers get complete Catholic news coverage, a headline digest from major secular news sources, commentaries, resources and more. Webmasters might be interested in looking into their free “News Ticker.”
The Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples has an English-language news site at fides.org/eng. Here you can find “360° News,” meaning coverage from around the world.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a news section at usccb.org/news/index.htm. The Vatican has its news services listed at vatican.va/news_services.
The Catholic Nexus at catholicnexus.com wants to be “Your Catholic Media Portal.”
Here you will find short summaries of news stories including their sources that you can click on to find out more.
Want more Catholic news? See my “News Agencies” category at monksofadoration.org/newstext.html.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:The Painted Churches of Texas: Echoes of the Homeland (2001)
Catholic immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries wanted to preserve the culture and values of the old country as they strove to succeed in a new land. This joyful, one-hour documentary remembers how, as it presents the ornately decorated murals and designs created by Czech and German settlers in the Southwest. It aired on PBS stations.
From the outside these churches look like many other American houses of worship built during their time.
But, inside, instead of a simple wood interior is an unexpected profusion of color. Nearly every surface is covered with exuberant painting.
Elaborate imitation foliage covers the walls; the baseboards simulate polished marble. Director Tom Spencer and producer Paulist Father Alan Oakes combine the photos, letters and diaries of the original settlers with interviews with their descendants and historians to place these works in their larger social context. (To order, call (800) 218-1903 or visit www.paulistpress.com on the Internet.)
Rudy (1993)
The under-dog who makes good is a Hollywood staple. Rudy, written by Angelo Pizzo and di rected by David Anspaugh (Hoosiers), based on a true story, overcomes the genre's usual sentimental clichés. Rudy Reuttiger (Sean Astin) is a blue-collar kid who dreams of playing football at Notre Dame.
No one in his family has ever gone to college, and it's expected he will work in the steel mills like his father (Ned Beatty) and brothers.
Rudy faces formidable obstacles because of his underwhelming physical stature, undistinguished educational background and limited means.
His situation is further complicated by his father's envy and the hostility of most coaches.
After a stint in the mills and at a nearby junior college, Rudy bulls his way into Notre Dame his junior year and eventually earns a shot at his dream.
Along the way a handful of mentors appear to offer hope and guidance. Among them is a sympathetic priest, Father Cavanaugh (Robert Prosky).
The Cruel Sea (1953)
You don't hear much about the Navy these days. The buzz is all about high-tech aerial warfare and special ground operations.
But the courage displayed by uniformed sailors in combat is of a special sort. Perseverance and the determination to survive are as important as the willingness to take physical risks. This Oscar nominee dramatizes these virtues through the inventive use of documentary techniques. The action is set on British convoy escorts in the North Atlantic during World War II.
Captain Ericson (Jack Hawkins) loses his first ship to a U-boat torpedo. He and a handful of men (Donald Sinden, Denholm Elliott and others) barely survive, floating adrift on a raft. Placed in charge of another craft, Ericson is faced with a heart-rending decision necessary to save the lives of his crew after another German attack.
This haunting sequence is the most effective depiction of the loneliness of command I've ever seen.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: State to Students: No Scholarship for Theology DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:YPSILANTI, Mich. — For Teresa Becker, selecting a field of study wasn't just an academic decision. It was a financial one as well.
A few months after declaring theology as her major, Becker received a letter from the State of Michigan informing her that she lost her Michigan Competitive Scholarship.
It was a decision that cost her almost $2,000 this school year.
“Any major but theology is okay,” said Becker, now a junior at Ave Marie College, a Catholic school in Ypsilanti, Mich. “It just doesn't make sense.”
She said the decision didn't force her to quit school, but it did require additional sacrifices.
“It's definitely urgent that I get a job,” she said. “Now I'm having to write thousand-dollar checks.”
The Thomas More Law Center, a law firm dedicated to religious freedom for Christians, has sued the State of Michigan on behalf of Becker, stating that she faced religious discrimination.
“We're confident we'll win, that the statutory restraint will be found unconstitutional and the state will be enjoined from discriminating against students who enroll in a program of study that results in a degree in theology, divinity or religious education,” said Patrick Gillen, the law center's attorney handling the case.
Current Michigan law prohibits funds from its Competitive Scholarship Program to go to students who elect those three courses of study.
The Thomas More Law Center filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Ann Arbor on Feb. 4, claiming that the exclusionary clauses violate Becker's rights to free speech and free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The Michigan Attorney General's Office refused comment because it has not yet seen the lawsuit.
Michigan inaugurated the scholarship program in 1964. An amendment prohibiting religion-related majors became law in 1980.
Gillen said the change was unconstitutional.
“The First Amendment was designed to prevent government from discriminating against citizens based on their religious activity and speech,” he said. “Michigan's decision to strip students of competitive scholarship funds if they choose to major in theology turns the First Amendment on its head and makes the state the enemy of religion.”
Becker had qualified for the aid based on her high school grade point average, ACT score and her academic progress in college. The initial scholarship was worth $2,750, but budget cuts reduced this year's award to $1,850.
Gillen hopes Michigan's program will be changed, just as similar programs in Kentucky and Washington were eliminated within the last year.
Six weeks after a lawsuit from the American Center for Law and Justice, state officials in Kentucky changed their policy on Jan. 23, allowing students with religion-based majors to continue receiving their scholarships.
“We're extremely pleased that the state of Kentucky is taking corrective action and changing the policy to remove discriminatory barriers that prohibit students who want to focus on religious studies from being eligible to receive state scholarship funds,” said Francis Manion, senior counsel for the center.
“It is encouraging that the state is moving to ensure that students who study religion are treated equally when it comes to the distribution of state funds,” he added. “Unfortunately, it took a federal lawsuit to bring about this change in policy.”
The American Center for Law and Justice filed the Kentucky suit on behalf of Michael Woods Nash, who lost his $2,900 scholarship from the Kentucky Educational Ex cellence Scholarship after he declared religion/philosophy as a major last October. Nash is a junior attending Cumberland College in Williamsburg, Ky.
In November, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a ruling that struck down a policy in Washington that excluded students who studied religion-based majors.
The American Center for Law and Justice brought that suit against Washington state on behalf of Joshua Davey, a student at Northwest College in Kirkland, Wash. When Davey chose pastoral ministry as a major, he lost his Washington Promise Scholarship, worth $2,600 over two years.
“It's time for the state of Washington to bring this case to a close,” said Stuart Roth, general counsel for the center, of the case. “If the state decides to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear this case, we're convinced that the decision declaring the state scholarship policy discriminatory will be upheld. It's time for the state to accept the facts — the policy is not only unconstitutional but also grossly unfair to the people of Washington state.”
Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett said states are awakening to the constitutional dangers of these religious-based prohibitions.
“States will just lose like in Washington or they'll say, ‘It's just not worth it; let's get rid of it,’ like they did in Kentucky,” Garnett said. “I think the trajectory is positive.”
But he warned that religious-based schools could face another problem in the future.
“Wholly and apart from this case, there remains the concern that vouchers, scholarships and other state funding will be used as a vehicle for the intrusive regulation of religious schools,” he said.
It's possible, he said, religious universities or students who receive such aid could face legal problems if they receive state funding.
Father Richard John Neuhaus, publisher of First Things magazine, attributed the Bush administration with changing the tone of the debate over religion in public life.
“I think the whole set of initiatives put in place by the administration, with an accent on faith-based programs, have had an impact,” he said.
He said local and state governments had imposed on themselves a view of the separation of church and state that had “no basis in law.”
“Now the whistle has been blown. It's a powerful change,” he added. “It's belated. But much to be welcomed.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Bioethical Bombshell DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE DEFENSE OF DIGNITY: THE CHALLENGE FOR BIOETHICS
by Leon R. Kass, M.D.
Encounter Books, 2002
313 pages, $26.95
To order: (800) 786-3839 or
www.encounterbooks.com
It's 2003. Do you know where your bioethics are? We've created babies in test tubes, opened egg and sperm banks, put millions of women on birth control and as many kids on chemicals. Even the ads in college newspapers offering cash-strapped college girls thousands of dollars for their eggs are fast becoming old news. Now there is embryonic stem-cell research, organ commerce, genetic engineering, assisted suicide and euthanasia. And, of course, cloning.
Thank God for Leon Kass, the University of Chicago professor tapped by President Bush to head the Presidential Council on Bioethics — a light in these murky waters. “[H]uman nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and neuro psychic ‘enhancement,’ for wholesale design,” he writes in this, his latest book. “In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future.”
That “brave new world” Aldous Huxley saw coming down the pike in 1932 is all too real today, Kass warns in colorful metaphor: “In case you haven't noticed, the train has already left the station and is gathering speed, although there appear to be no human hands on the throttle.”
Yet Kass, a medical doctor and one of the most eloquent voices today on issues of life and death — no foe of technology and progress — does not simply stand athwart history, yelling “Stop!” On the contrary. He has been a highly visible and vocal proponent of advancement in the health sciences. It's just that he's adamant about ensuring that science works with human dignity rather than against it.
Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity is based, in part, on a number of essays he's written over the last few years. Together, the writings comprise a guide for anyone affecting, or affected by, bioethical decisions. They're also useful for regular folks concerned about some of the directions in which science wants to take us.
This book, along with the President's Council on Bioethics’ final report, now available in book form (published last October by Public Affairs as Human Cloning and Human Dignity) are both must-reads on the road to realizing the gravity of the life-and-death moment we find ourselves in. Despite the great weight of the philosophical, political, theological and medical considerations laid out in these works, the reading is readily accessible to the layperson.
For those who support the thrust of Kass’ mission, know that it is not too late to help it along — yet. “[O]ur technologies of bio-psycho-engineering are still in their infancy,” he writes, “and in ways that make all too clear what they might look like in their full maturity.”
The time to get these things right is now. Which is why having access to the thought of Leon Kass is such a blessing.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Gay and Faithful?
CHRONICLE.COM, Feb. 4 — Boston College will likely establish a gay/straight student alliance but only if it does not advocate positions contrary to the teachings of the Church, reported the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A number of Jesuit and other Catholic colleges have officially recognized homosexual student support groups while trying “to walk a fine line between offering support for gay and bisexual students and upholding the Church's view,” the Chronicle said.
The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes Catholic principles in higher education, told the newspaper that such groups almost always end up questioning Catholic teachings.
Timid Souls
FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM, Feb. 3 — In an essay on “My Failed Catholic Education,” Mark Gauvreau Judge quotes Catholic University philosopher Jude Dougherty on the growing influence of secular culture, especially the courts, on Catholic education:
“Many [Catholic institutions] have surrendered ties with ecclesiastical bodies in an attempt to qualify for state funding. Others have … advised administrators to pursue [Catholic] … objectives only insofar as they seem consonant with legal trends.
“A too-Catholic student body, an effort to maintain Catholic identity through a predominantly Catholic faculty, are regarded as invitations to hostile rulings on the part of courts.”
Conservative Mention
While the article pointed out that “local officials have welcomed Ave Maria as a source of jobs, cultural events and sports,” it also plainly worries about Monaghan's and the school's “most traditional” outlook.
The Times said Ave Maria “will be far more conservative than most of the nation's 235 Catholic colleges,” and that it is being supported by “many prominent Catholic conservatives.”
Critics — whose ideology is never mentioned — charge that “Ave Maria reflects Mr. Monaghan's conservative political agenda.”
In case you were wondering, the Times added that “Ave Maria's administrators are conservative Catholics.”
Study in Contrasts
Students quoted in the story noted Norton's pro-abortion stance, saying it was improper for her to speak on a Catholic campus. In a contrast noted by the secular Post, the newspaper said “there were no protests when Norton spoke recently at Georgetown, another Catholic university in Washington.”
Church Scholarships
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO, Jan. 21 — The university an nounced that the Archdiocese of Chicago has joined with Loyola's Institute for Pastoral Studies to provide full-tuition scholarships for members of the archdiocese's Together in God's Service, a graduate program created to help prepare lay people who wish to serve the Church full time, according to the university.
The scholarship is named for the university's president emeritus, Jesuit Father Raymond Baumhart, who now serves as a consultant to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Movin’ On Up
Q We have 13 years remaining on our mortgage and have been trying to discern whether we should add on to this home. It will cost $30,000 to make the additions we want, and the resulting payment would stretch us financially. As an alternative, we are considering buying a larger home. To do this, we would have to go back to a 30-year mortgage. By having our current home paid off in 13 years, we would be completely debt-free by the time our first child is ready for college. We like that idea. Would you recommend moving, adding on to our current house — or doing nothing?
A This is a common question for growing families. As the number of children in the family increases, the starter home that seemed so big when you first bought it begins to feel like a closet! From the information you've provided, it's difficult to know what your best option is. By considering the following issues, though, I believe you'll be able to make a wise decision for your family.
The key to your decision rests in answering why you are considering a larger home. Is your current home truly too small for your family, such that you need more space, or is the improvement really more of a want? I remember one family who had three girls in one bedroom. While they desired a larger home, they knew they couldn't afford to take on additional debt. Finally, after they had their fourth child, they knew they had to do something — but, by that time, they had saved the $30,000 they needed to make the necessary improvements to their home.
Maybe you, too, need a larger home but can sacrifice for a year or two to develop greater savings in order to minimize the debt you take on. In any event, one important step will be to complete “what if” budgets for each of the possible scenarios. In this way, you will have a greater level of confidence that all of the financial pieces will fit together. I think your goal of being debt-free when your oldest child reaches college is a good one. These budget scenarios should take that objective into account.
If you decide that you truly need to have more space, make sure you compare apples to apples when considering adding on and moving. Remember that moving will have its own costs (Realtor commissions, title, escrow, etc.). In addition, you'll probably find that you'll spend money on improvements once you move in to make the new place “feel” like your home. It might be that the cost of an addition isn't so bad in that light.
On the flip side, would you recover the cost of the addition when you eventually sell your current home? If not, it may be a better investment to move into a larger home that will better hold its value.
By considering these issues, you'll make a housing decision that honors God and will be good for your family. God love you!
Phil Lenahan is executive director of Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Children need at least nine hours of sleep each night for their health, safety and best performance in school and other activities, according to the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (of the National Institutes of Health). Inadequate sleep can lead to attention difficulties, easy frustration and difficulty controlling emotions. Sleep “is just as important as healthy eating and exercise for children's development,” says Dr. Claude Lenfant, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Drawing by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: African, Black, Catholic -- and Canonized DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:The future of the Church, some say, is in Africa. One might say that a good part of her past is there as well: Among the Church's saints are many of African descent, and blacks from elsewhere.
As Black History Month draws to a close, the Register takes a look at the lives, witness and inspiration of the Church's African and black saints. They include popes, slaves and many martyrs.
The African Popes
Not only has the Church been blessed with three African popes, but all three are saints. The first, Pope St.
Victor I, served from 189-199.
Tra di tion states that he decreed the celebration of Easter on Sunday. He also convinced Emperor Commodus to cease persecuting Christians. Victor died a martyr under Servus.
The second, Pope St. Miltiades (Melchiades) was in St.
Peter's chair from 311 to 314, during the rule of Constantine. Miltiades presided over the Lateran Council that condemned the Donatist heresy. St. Augustine praised him as “a man of moderation and peace.”
Finally, Pope St. Gelasius I headed the Church from 492-496. Gelasius decreed the Canon of Scripture and reportedly rid Rome of the last vestiges of paganism. A liturgical reformer, it is said that Gelasius ordered the reception of the Eucharist under both species.
St. Moses the Ethiopian
Known for his strength and temper, St. Moses was an Abyssinian slave born around 330. Released because of his unruly nature, he became the leader of a gang of thieves.
Later, Moses sought refuge among the monks in the Sketis desert, where he renounced violence and was converted to Christianity.
There he was ordained to the priest-hood. He died a martyr around 405 when a band of nomads raided the monastery and he refused to fight.
St. Augustine
The great sinner-turned-saint became not only the bishop of Hippo but also the most influential of all the Doctors of the Church. Born in Tagaste, northern Africa, in 354, Augustine forsook Christianity for Manichaeism and lived a life of sin before undergoing a dramatic conversion in 387.
Highly educated, Augustine maintained that his mother's humble Christian witness had greatly influenced his life and thought. He wrote in his Confessions: “Our hearts, O Lord, were made for you, and they are restless until the rest in you. ... Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved Thee!” He went on to write hundreds of books, letters, sermons and tracts still widely studied and enjoyed for leisure today.
St. Monica
Where would Augustine have ended up if not for his mother, Monica? She literally prayed him into the Church. An African laywoman, Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan North African official who was prone to a violent temper. A devout Christian and mother of three, through her prayers and patience she was able to convert her husband and mother-in-law. Her husband died only a year later. For the next 17 years, Monica persistently prayed for her brilliant but wayward son. At one point a priest consoled her, saying, “It is not possible that a son of so many tears should perish.” Monica died the same year that Augustine came into the Church, while en route from Rome to Africa.
St. Martin de Porres
Born in Lima, Peru, in 1579, St. Martin de Porres was one of the first black saints from the Americas.
When he was 11, he took a job as a servant in a Dominican priory, where he became known as “the saint of the broom.” He later became a lay brother and was placed in charge of the community's infirmary, where he became known for his tender care of the sick. In recognition of his devotion, his superiors ceased their own racist practice of not allowing a black person to receive the holy habit or profession of their order, and Martin became a Dominican brother. He later established an orphanage and children's hospital and set up a shelter for stray animals.
St. Peter Claver
A tireless friend of slaves, St. Peter Claver was born in Catalonia, Spain, in 1580. He joined the Jesuit order and was influenced by St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, who asked religious to go to the Indies “to save millions of perishing souls.”
Peter journeyed to what was then the primary slave market of the New World — modern-day Colombia. Ordained there, he devoted himself to service to slaves for the next 33 years.
He labored for the salvation of the African slaves and the abolition of the slave trade. Boarding slave ships as they entered the harbor, he would enter the ship's hold to offer refreshments to the captives and to care for the sick and dying.
He also trained catechists to instruct the slaves and followed the slaves to plantations, where he encouraged them to live as Christians and also prevailed upon their masters to treat them humanely.
St. Josephine Bakhita
One of the newest black saints, Josephine Bak hita was born into a loving and prosperous family in Sudan in 1869. She had her childhood cut short when she was kidnapped by Arabs at the age of 9 and sold into slavery. A series of slave owners humiliated, tortured and mutilated her before she was taken to Italy as a nursemaid for her mistress' child. There she learned about the Catholic faith and was eventually freed. She was baptized and later joined the Canossian Sisters in Vincenza, Italy, where she served the poor and weak. She died in 1947 at the age of 78. Sister Josephine was canonized Oct. 1, 2000.
Venerable Pierre Toussaint
Pierre Toussaint could eventually be come the United States' first black saint. Born in Haiti in 1766, Toussaint worked for a well-educated, religious Catholic family in Haiti. When the fam ily fled an an tislavery uprising, they brought him with them to New York. Living with the family as a domestic servant, Toussaint learned to read and write. He also worked as a barber and was allowed to keep some earnings. After his owner died, the widow became impoverished. Toussaint continued working as a hairdresser to help support her. The widow freed him before she died in 1807. Toussaint later married a woman from Haiti. Until his death in New York City in 1853, he worked with orphans, the poor and the sick.
St. Charles Lwanga and Companions
Under the Society of Missionaries of Africa, a community of converts grew in the late 1880s in Uganda. Many of these converts lived and taught in King Mwan ga's court. A violent ruler and pedophile, King Mwanga forced himself on the young boys and men who served him as pages and attendants. The Christians in Mwanga's court attempted to protect the pages from the tyrant's advances.
Charles Lwanga served as one of the catechists and worked to keep the young boys and men away from Mwanga. Angered by this, in May 1886, King Mwanga brought his whole court before him and separated the Christians from the others. The Christians, who included 22 Catholics ranging in age from 13 to 30, as well as 80 Anglicans, were ordered on a 37-mile trek to Namugongo. There, Lwanga and his companions were burned to death. Several died calling on the name of Jesus and proclaiming, “You can burn our bodies, but you cannot harm our souls.” Today, Uganda is a Christian country, with more than 2 million Catholics and three major seminaries.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Internet Site Tells Teens in Trouble: Stand Up, Girl DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Type in the word abortion on any Internet search engine, and scores of clinics willing to do the procedure are at your fingertips. Fortunately, there are a few bright beacons of light in this dark cyberocean. Standupgirl.com is one of them.
Sponsored by Oregon Right to Life, the site is positioned and designed to reach girls and young women where they can be found: on the Internet searching for information.
Gayle Attebury, Oregon Right to Life director, says listing the site among abortion domains was only logical. Pro-life advocates will go to pro-life sites, she points out, but there are vast numbers of girls out there who don't think of themselves as pro-life. If they find themselves with an unexpected pregnancy, they'll key in “abortion” to find help.
Standupgirl.com is intentionally neutral in its presentation, not announcing prominently that it is pro-life or Church-based. But the name itself sends an unexpected message, and a tagline announces it's a place where girls share the truth about their crisis pregnancies.
“We're not trying to hide anything,” says Attebury. “We know that kids go to the Web almost exclusively for their information. What we're trying to do is attract the attention and interest of young girls who will stay long enough to get the truth.”
Visitors to the site are introduced to Becky, a young woman who decided to keep her unplanned baby. A “Dear Becky” column allows site visitors to e-mail her about their own concerns and questions.
It also features positive testimonials from other girls who kept their babies or gave them up for adoption. Some relay the heartbreak and regret of choosing abortion. The site provides information on fetal development, ultrasound pictures and references to crisis-pregnancy resources.
Paul Harmon, who manages the Oregon Right to Life office in Corvallis, Ore., came up with the concept as a way to reach local residents and other Oregonians who would not respond to traditional pro-life material.
His foresight has proved prescient. After just two years, Standupgirl.com has exceeded all expectations. The site had a steady flow of 200 to 300 visitors a day through 2001. Then, when Oregon Right to Life was able to pay for better positioning on top search engines like Yahoo and Google, the number of visitors climbed steadily, reaching more than 1.3 million people from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and other English-speaking countries as well as a large number of military personnel.
Last October alone more than 100,000 visitors logged onto Standupgirl.com. In addition, when the Wisconsin and Michigan Right to Life offices advertised the site on billboards, online visitors from those two states increased by 75%.
The beauty of the Internet, says Attebury, is that Oregon Right to Life can reach so far beyond its borders.
When Oregon Right to Life tried to get its books and pro-life materials into public school libraries, it was consistently turned down. But data Harmon collected from Standupgirl.com shows that the Web site has allowed the group to reach into the schools in a big way.
Last year, the site had 20,000 visitors who logged on from K-12 public schools and almost 20,000 from universities and colleges. By mid-January this year, more than 1,700 visitors had already been tracked from public schools and universities. And the average duration of the visit was 15 minutes or more — an especially telling and impressive statistic for teen-agers.
Becky's Choice
Becky DeCarle, the “Dear Becky” behind the screen, was a junior in college when she and her boyfriend faced an unexpected pregnancy. The two Catholics would not have considered abortion but decided to get married at the young age of 20. Ten years later, the DeCarles reside in Combermere, Ontario, and have six children.
DeCarle says she feels lucky to have had the support of her parents and boyfriend. She has discovered, from the 25 or 30 weekly e-mails she receives, that most of the girls are not getting support from anyone — not parents, boyfriends, peers or counselors. DeCarle said the girls often write that she was the first person who told them it would be okay to have the baby.
“I find it mind-blowing that there wouldn't be somebody telling them, ‘I'll support you in this, I'll stand by you,’” says DeCarle. “The mother takes the girl to the abortion clinic or the boyfriend drives her in, and the girl says she had the abortion thinking he would stick around, but he didn't. Their own parents abandon them. They are uninformed and desperate.”
DeCarle often feels that her e-mail correspondence is a “last-ditch effort” to save the child and the mother. From the letters she receives by e-mail, most of the girls decide to keep their babies, and the families usually come around to support them. Sometimes she'll get a message from a girl who went ahead with the abortion, but DeCarle doesn't despair.
“Just when I start to get discouraged, I get another beautiful letter,” she said. “It's very fulfilling hearing from girls who have made the right choice and are so happy that they have.”
Everyone's Issue
Oregon Right to Life can directly measure the site's impact from the hundreds of letters that come in to Standupgirl.com. They have also determined from the letters that students are using the site to get information on fetal development and other facts for research papers.
In fact, says Harmon, a Virginia public school has even linked the site to one of its Web pages on teen pregnancy. Oregon Right to Life plans to study Standupgirl.com's name recognition in its next statewide survey. And an expanded plan is under way to build a Web site directed to young men.
“You're taught by the media that this is just a woman's issue,” says Harmon. “But when you read through those letters, you realize that the boyfriend does a lot of pressuring. It's an element of the problem that no one is really addressing.”
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 02/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: Feburary 23 - March 1, 2003 ----- BODY:Pro-Life Sweatshirt Stays
CLEVELAND PLAIN-DEALER, Feb. 5 — Chardon High School administrators have rescinded the punishment given to a student who refused to take off a sweatshirt declaring “Abortion Is Homicide.” Bill Noyes, 17, will also be allowed to wear the sweatshirt to class in the future.
Those decisions came the day after Bill received a Saturday detention for insubordination, his offense being that he challenged school administrators who ordered him to take off the sweatshirt or turn it inside out.
The demands followed complaints by two students in the school of 1,200 who said they were offended by the sweatshirt's message.
French Kick Cloning
CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE (CNSNEWS), Jan. 31 — The French Senate has adopted a ban on all human cloning and made reproductive cloning a crime “against the human species.” The ban, which is punishable by a 30-year prison sentence and a fine of 7.5 million euros, was approved unanimously.
Cyberbast reported that Prof. Claude Huriet, an honorary senator and a professor at the Nancy Medical Faculty, said he regretted that the ban did not go further in prohibiting all research on embryos. The proposed ban will now go to the Assembly for debate and then return to the Senate for further discussion on any changes.
‘War on Abortion’ in Nigeria
A special center to be known as “Home of Innocence,” Owie was quoted as saying in This Day newspaper, would be established in each of the state's three senatorial districts, where pregnant girls would be assisted to have their babies and to go back to their studies or training. “Our government will be opposed to abortion; Nobody has the right to take life,” Owie said.
Morning-After Pill Blamed
Donaldson reported that 12 cases of ectopic pregnancy (out of a total of 201 unintended pregnancies) have been reported to the Committee on Safety of Medicines following failure of Levonelle, a progestogen-only “emergency contraceptive.” Donaldson said the committee advises that if women do not experience a normal period after using Levonelle, the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy should be considered.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Miracle Clears Way to Mother Teresa's Beatification DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II has decided he will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his pontificate with the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, foundress of the Missionaries of Charity.
On Dec. 20, the Congregation for Sainthood Causes promulgated the two decrees necessary for beatification — one on the heroic nature of Mother Teresa's virtues, the other on a miracle attributed to her inter-cession.
The same day, Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa's successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, announced that the Holy Father has chosen to celebrate the beatification next Oct. 19, World Mission Sunday.
John Paul was elected on Oct. 16, 1978, and was solemnly installed as Pope on Oct. 22, 1978, World Mission Sunday that year. In 1997, the Holy Father chose Mission Sunday to declare St. Thérèse of Lisieux a doctor of the Church and in 1998 celebrated his 20th anniversary on that Sunday.
“There is a real connection between Mother Teresa and St. Thérèse, and not only because she took her name,” said Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Missionary of Charity priest who is the postulator for Mother Teresa's cause. “Mother was a teenager in the 1920s. Thérèse was beatified in 1923, canonized in 1925 and declared patroness of the missions in 1927. Mother left for the missions in 1928. There is a real influence of St. Thérèse on Mother, and Mother had a great love for Thérèse. Mother makes incarnate, concrete so much of what Thérèse taught. She can be considered one of Thérèse's great spiritual daughters.”
Mother Teresa died on Sept. 5, 1997, in Calcutta. The diocesan inquiry began on July 26, 1999, after the Holy Father waived the usual five-year waiting period.
“The five-year rule is to ensure that there is a genuine reputation for holiness among the people and that there is not just passing enthusiasm soon after a person dies,” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “But in Mother's case, there was no need to wait, as her holiness was a matter of worldwide belief.”
Nevertheless, the process required a specific papal decision to waive the five-year rule and then, last year, a papal intervention that ordered the work to proceed as quickly as possible.
“Some people asked why we needed a process at all, given that it would have been much more surprising if a negative decision had been given,” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “But I see the great value of having the process — and we did the whole process. We did not just do the minimum to say that we had done it — we did a well-done process, which was necessary for a major figure like Mother Teresa. And now we have the material for a much deeper understanding of Mother Teresa, which would likely not have been the case otherwise.”
50 Years of Darkness
One of the aspects of Mother Teresa&x0027;s life revealed by the process was that she lived for 50 years a spiritual darkness. (See Inperson interview.)
“The lives of certain holy men and women reveal that even when deep union with God has been reached. intense spiritual trials may be experienced.” Father Kolodiejchuk said. “[The spiritual darkness which she suffered] reveals her previously unknown depth of holiness and places her among the ranks of the great mystics of the Church.”
Father Kolodiejchuk, a Winnipeg, Monitoba, native and a priest of the men's branch of the Missionaries of Charity, headed up a small team of priests and sisters responsible for the work. The cause convened panels that investigated all of Mother Teresa's writings. took testimony from more than 100 witnesses who knew her and compiled all that was known about her spiritual life from secret correspondence, revealed only after her death.
The resulting dossier grew to more than 80 volumes of more than 450 pages each, with a summary biography of more than 6,00 pages.
In addition to the biographical work, which is necessary to show that the candidate lived the virtues in a heroic manner, one miracle is needed for beatification.
The Miracle
The miracle attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession was the healing of an Indian woman's abdominal tumor. Monica Besra, a resident of a home in West Bengal operated by the Missionaries of Charity, was in such pain from the tumor that she could not sleep.
The nuns took a Miraculous Medal that had been touched to the body of Mother Teresa and placed it on her abdomen. She went to sleep and when she awoke — on Sept. 5, 1998, the first anniversary of Mother Teresa's death — the tumor had disappeared. A Vatican board of medical consultants determined that the healing was medically inexplicable.
Some questions arose in October about the miraculous nature of the cure from the patient's husband, Seiku Murmu, and the doctors who had been treating her.
“My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle,” Murmu said, reported Time Asia. “I want to stop this jamboree, people coming with cameras every few hours or so.”
Besra admitted she saw doctors but insisted the pain from her tumor only abated when she applied the medallion and prayed to Mother Teresa.
“In one sense we have a sense of great joy, because our mother is being recognized, her holiness is being recognized, but also there is an awareness that in a new way, Mother Teresa is not just our mother but the mother of everyone, and especially the mother of the poor,” Father Kolodiejchuk said.
“One of defining characteristics of this pontificate is to show that what the Church is about is holiness,” he added. “So John Paul has canonized saints who were martyrs, from different walks of life and from different places. In a way, Mother Teresa incarnates many of the themes of this pontificate.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza filed this story from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: You Don't Have to Skip Faith To Get Money, Bush Orders DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The shrouds over statues of the Blessed Mother at some Catholic Charities USA facilities can be taken off. That's thanks to an executive order President Bush issued Dec. 12 — the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as it turns out.
Sharon Daly, vice president for social policy at Catholic Charities USA, said that would be the first effect of the Bush rule eliminating discrimination against religious organizations.
“HUD regulations will no longer require us to shroud statues of the Blessed Mother,” she said.
No longer content to wait for Congress to act, President Bush issued the order affecting programs that fund social services and in many internal federal government policies.
“The generalized effect is that faith-based groups will no longer be discriminated against in the public square,” said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. “They were discouraged from even pursuing federal grants. At HUD [Housing and Urban Development] alone, there are $8 billion in funds that faith-based organizations can now apply for. I'm not saying it is a totally new start, because some faith-based organizations formed secular counterparts to apply for the funds, but now faith-based groups will not have to hide who they are.”
Said the White House: “By eliminating discriminatory barriers to federal social service participation by faith-based and community groups, the president is empowering grass-roots groups that have a proven record of improving the lives of Americans who are hurting and suffering.”
Faith-based groups that receive federal assistance will still have to separate “inherently religious activities” from their social service efforts, however.
“[O]rganizations that engage in inherently religious activities such as worship, religious instruction and proselytization,” said Bush's order, “must offer those services separately in time or location from any programs or services supported with direct federal financial assistance, and participation in any such inherently religious activities must be voluntary for the beneficiaries of the social service program supported with such federal financial assistance.”
Towey said faith-based groups that receive federal funds will be able to run their organizations on the basis of their own religious principles so long as they offer their services to everyone and avoid using federal funds for inherently religious acitivites.
“We believe the civil-rights protection that has existed for 38 years
‘Daily Miracles'
“Faith-based charities work daily miracles because they have idealistic volunteers,” said Bush in a speech in Philadelphia announcing his order. “They're guided by moral principles. They know the problems of their own communities, and above all, they recognize the dignity of every citizen and the possibilities of every life.”
Faith-based organizations praised Bush for implementing his executive order.
“We think it's terrific that the president recognizes the importance of faith-based social service agencies,” said Daly, at Catholic Charities USA. She said 52% of Catholic Charities' funds come from government, “but mostly money from state and local governments.”
She said she doubted Catholic Charities would take advantage of Bush's order to expand its specifically religious activities, such as by providing religious education or spiritual help.
“I think in the United States we have a division of labor,” she said. “Catholic spiritual education is done by parishes. … The people we serve are mostly not Catholic. When you're talking about people from a broad range of religious traditions, they are not likely to seek Catholic spiritual education.”
Towey noted that President Bill Clinton started the move toward including faith-based initiatives in government funding in 1996 with a welfare reform bill.
That law said, according to the Christian Legal Society: “The purpose [of this bill] is to allow states to contract with religious organizations or to allow religious organizations to accept certificates, vouchers or other forms of disbursement … on the same basis as any other nongovernmental provider without impairing the religious character of such organizations and without diminishing the religious freedom of beneficiaries of assistance funded under such program.”
Towey said Bush's order is “just the beginning” — the president wants some changes only Congress can make, he said.
“Different federal agencies have some different hiring rules that only Congress can reform,” he said.
In any case, he said, “I think there are some senators who will want to see the [new] regulations made into actual law. Presidents come and go.”
Bush's faith-based legislative package had died in the Democratic-controlled Senate last year, but now Bush's fellow Republicans control both houses of Congress. Also, Towey said, Bush wants “more incentives for charitable giving.”
Bush's executive order requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist religious nonprofit groups as it does secular ones after a disaster — something previously forbidden. The president also established centers for faith-based and community initiatives at the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which dispenses foreign aid.
Many secular civil libertarians were unhappy with Bush's order.
American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders said in a statement, “[T]he president has decided to circumvent public and congressional opinion in his quest to allow religious discrimination in the workplace.”
The ACLU did not respond to a question from the Register asking if it planned to mount a legal challenge against the order.
“The days of discriminating against religious groups just because they are religious,” Bush said in his speech, “are coming to an end.”
Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cathedral Renovation Foes Turn to City for Help DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Opponents of the renovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral here are fighting their battle on two fronts these days by working with a canon lawyer and attempting to have the building declared a landmark by the city.
The Sacred Heart Preservation Committee, which has hired canon lawyer Alan Kershaw to challenge the renovation in Rome, lost its initial bid to have the cathedral designated a landmark on Oct. 7 when the city planning commission voted 5-3 against the proposal.
Now nine members of the committee have filed a petition in the Monroe County division of the New York State Supreme Court to ask that the planning commission decision be overturned.
Renovation plans call for replacing the cathedral's marble altar with a new one to be located in the nave on a raised platform. Other changes will include relocating the tabernacle to a chapel and removing the baldacchino over the high altar and the pedestal under the pulpit. The diocese also plans to restore the cathedral's stained-glass windows and restore and enhance the ceiling.
Alan Knauf, the attorney representing the group, said his clients allege the commission did not apply the proper tests to the decision. The panel, he said, should have considered only whether the building was a landmark but instead reviewed the appropriateness of the proposed changes, a question he said should have been left to the city's preservation board once landmark status was granted.
A spokesman for the Rochester Diocese, which opposes landmark status for the cathedral on grounds it would place a financial burden on the church whenever work has to be done on the structure, said the planning commission made the right decision.
“We view the church as something that's alive, ever reforming, and we want to be able to respond to changing times and reform,” spokesman Michael Tedesco said. “When you have some of the restrictions landmark status brings about, it doesn't allow for that.”
However, Michael Brennan, a member of the executive board of the Sacred Heart Preservation Committee and one of the nine petitioners, said landmark status would only apply to dramatic changes in the building. He said it would still allow for such alterations as the removal of pews and even replacement of the altar.
“What [would be] protected [is] that sense of Gothic interior,” he said. “They could not destroy the sanctuary, which they're doing.”
Brennan said his group considers the proposed changes destructive. He thinks it is important to preserve the cathedral as a landmark in part because Fulton J. Sheen, who is being considered for beatification, served there as bishop of Rochester from 1966 to 1969. Brennan's group believes this makes the cathedral a potential third-class relic.
“If Archbishop Sheen becomes a saint, the cathedral would be a pilgrimage site,” he said. “If much of what he used is decimated, it would lose its attraction.”
City planning commission members, however, agreed with the diocese that landmark status could hinder the renovation plans, which will involve a substantial investment in the Maplewood neighborhood where the cathedral is located.
Although work is not scheduled to begin until April, some scaffolding has been temporarily erected in the cathedral so one area can be redecorated, allowing the architect, renovation committee and parishioners to assess the colors and lighting.
In deciding to seek landmark status for the project, Brennan said his group considered the risks of getting the government involved in a church matter but thought the benefits outweighed the liabilities.
“Without the images and memories of the community in place in Archbishop Sheen's cathedral, we were pushed to drastic options,” he said.
Financial Burdens
However, diocesan officials in other places have sometimes discovered that landmark status for churches can be a financial burden, as the Rochester Diocese has argued.
In the San Francisco Archdiocese, for example, the Church initially cooperated with an effort to landmark its buildings, but after the 1989 earthquake when the state required all unreinforced masonry buildings to be retrofitted, preservation of the churches became cost-prohibitive.
Les McDonald, director of administrative services for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said the archdiocese discovered that once a building has landmark status it is difficult to raze, convert or even repair because changes must be approved by a local board.
For example, he said, the windows in one archdiocesan church that has been closed for a decade are currently failing.
“I have to ask permission to have them removed, and I might not be granted permission,” McDonald said. “Then what do you do? They might ask or require us to spend money to repair existing stained glass on a building we would never use again.”
After the 1989 earthquake, when local preservationists discovered the archdiocese wanted to raze or convert some of the severely damaged buildings, they mounted an effort to have the structures declared landmarks. The archdiocese responded by working for passage of a bill that now exempts buildings owned by religious congregations from being landmarked without the owner's consent.
“I don't see any kind of a win at all for the diocese to landmark buildings,” McDonald said. “It puts restrictions on the building that are sometimes impossible for the diocese to adhere to.”
Brennan said the Rochester group is continuing to pursue its options in canon law with Kershaw, who represented opponents of the Milwaukee cathedral renovation, which made changes very similar to the ones proposed in Rochester.
“We still have expectations of positive feedback coming from the canon law process,” Brennan said.
Philip Gray, a canon lawyer from Hopedale, Ohio, said the faithful of a diocese have the right to question church renovation plans if they think their bishop might be violating disciplinary law. Also, he said, parishioners who donate money for a specific memorial in a church have the right to see that their gifts are protected during renovation projects.
Gray said although bishops are the chief shepherds of their dioceses, they are still bound by universal liturgical norms when it comes to church renovations.
He said he does not necessarily consider it bad to designate a church as a landmark because canon law encourages the use of secular law to protect church properties and the rights of the faithful.
Judy Roberts is based in Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Stem Cells From Embryos Still Unproven DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Despite being touted as the source of miracles for a host of illnesses, embryonic stem cells might never have any direct therapeutic use, according to a surprising authority: one of the scientists who first extracted embryonic stem cells for research in 1998.
John Gearhart, director of research for Johns Hopkins University's Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, told a National Institutes of Health conference Nov. 14, “I am not sure these cells are going to be used in therapies, but we are going to use the information we get out of this research to get the patient's own cells and work with them to get them to do what we want. This is really where I see the future now.”
Some pro-life observers interpreted Gearhart's statements to mean he had conceded one of the central arguments of embryonic stem cell research opponents — that adult stem cells, which may be obtained from patients without the destruction of “donor” embryos, are the more promising source of future therapeutic applications.
But Gearhart said that interpretation wasn't quite what he meant. In fact, he maintains that, according to current research, embryonic stem cells are far superior to adult stem cells.
He said the goal of research using any stem cell source, however, is to understand better how cells in general work and how they can be engineered to cure diseases.
“What I'm saying is that the information we're going to get out of the embryonic stem cells and how they do their business will then be applied,” he said. “I try to be objective on the adult stem cell story, but as we sit here today and discuss this it is clear that the embryonic stem cell source is far more valuable and has proved to be far more appropriate in generating any of the cell types we would like for therapies.”
Gearhart cited as evidence recent studies indicating that embryonic stem cells can be coaxed to produce insulin or to become dopamine neurons or motor neurons.
On the contrary, however, only adult stem cells have proved useful in actually treating human patients, argues David Prentice, adjunct professor of medical and molecular genetics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
“What is clear is that as embryonic stem cells have failed to come even close to the hyped promises for potential treatments, proponents are looking for other ways to justify continued research,” he said.
It has been standard procedure for years to use adult stem cells from bone marrow to treat various blood disorders. Gearhart argues these procedures are more akin to transplants and are not indicative of the relative merits of embryonic versus adult stem cells in treating other problems.
Prentice, however, says that in addition to the now-standard uses of bone marrow stem cells in treating blood disorders, researchers in Germany have successfully used bone marrow stem cells to repair heart damage, and in Japan they grew new blood vessels to prevent gangrene in legs. There are also patients who have been successfully treated for Parkinson's disease with adult stem cells.
Apart from the debate on which stem cells are most useful in direct therapeutic applications, there remains the question of which kind is more likely to reveal how cells in general work and therefore how they may be engineered.
Gearhart argues that research on embryonic stem cells is especially necessary for that purpose.
“What we would like to know is, do we have to take [a cell of one tissue type] back … to a point where it represents a very early embryonic cell,” he asked, “and then move it forward in a different direction? Or can you take that cell and immediately, by engineering it in some fashion, convert it to the other cell that you want?”
Prentice counters that because of successful uses of adult stem cells in animals and humans, “the answer already is apparent: that these cells can change directly to other types of cells. This not only makes embryonic stem cells unnecessary for treatments but also gives a direct way to examine these types of changes.”
Human Beings?
Apart from which source of stem cells is more promising from a scientific point of view, the ethical issues in the stem cell debate ultimately boil down to the question of whether the embryo should be treated as a human being.
Pope John Paul II and the U.S. bishops have repeatedly condemned stem cell research, which destroys embryos, on the grounds that embryos are full members of the human family.
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), the Holy Father teaches that while some claim that “the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life … in fact, from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth.”
From fertilization, the embryo is either a boy or a girl, with his or her life expectancy and his or her own DNA.
In November the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued guidelines for the “donation” of “spare” embryos from in-vitro fertilization for stem cell research.
The committee reasoned that such donations are permissible because “the embryo has a lesser status than adults and children,” and is therefore only a “potential human being.”
The committee adds, however, that the embryo is “worthy of special respect,” and the proposed guidelines for donation are intended to serve this end. Gearhart says this “special respect” is justified on public policy grounds, since some Americans wish to see limits on what can be done with embryos.
Dr. Benjamin Younger, executive director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said in addition to this reason, the embryo merits “special respect” because “this is not just blood or skin or standard human tissue. … The embryo does have the potential to ultimately end up as a new life.”
Still, he says, the embryo “is not the same as a living person. It's somewhere in between.”
Pro-lifers and Catholics object to carrying out research on human subjects without their consent or when the intervention in question is of no reasonable therapeutic value to the subject in question. Some have compared embryonic stem cell research to the Nazi experiments on Jewish concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust.
Younger says the difference is that embryos are not human beings in the same sense and are not capable of feeling pain.
“The embryos that you use particularly in stem cell research are not to the point that any neurologic tissue or other specially differentiated tissue has ever occurred,” he said.
Supporters of embryonic stem cell research, including Gearhart and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, agree that the embryo is human, and some admit that it is living, but they argue that in the first 14 days, at least, an embryo cannot be considered an individual, even though, as pro-lifers point out, it has a unique genetic code from conception onward.
One reason for this distinction, Gearhart explains, is until that point the embryo is capable of “twinning” (essentially “cloning” itself, the process by which many twin siblings come into being).
Peter Cataldo, director of research at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, said this reasoning “is an example of an inadequate philosophical perspective to process the biological data.”
The possibility of twinning, Cataldo says, “is only a potential aspect of the embryo. … The moral status [of the embryo] ought to be determined on the basis of what the embryo really is.”
“I could [theoretically] take a cell from inside of my cheek and clone myself. Does that mean that right now I am not an individual? … Upon death and the disintegration of the body [the chemicals inside of us] return to their original state. Does that mean that while I am living I am not an individual because I am made up of these chemicals, which can take on an independent existence at some point?”
Cataldo also argues that the notion the embryo is merely a “potential human being” because it does not look or function like a fully developed human is based on another misunderstanding of potentiality — the failure to recognize that any potential aspect of a thing is nonetheless a real part of its nature.
“Essentially the early embryo … is a real individual with a rational human nature,” he said. “We can say of an embryo that even though it's not actually exercising rationality it really is rational, because rationality is a part of its [human] nature. The proponents of [embryonic stem cell research] assume that the real is equivalent to actual operation.”
David Curtin writes from Toronto.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: We Hardly Knew Her DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Raymond J. de Souza
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the Missionary of Charity priest who is the postulator for Mother Teresa's cause, was surprised.
Like much of the world, he thought the story of Mother Teresa was summed up by her simple faith. But the work he did — work that will see fruition Oct. 19 when the Pope plans to beatify Mother — revealed much more. He told Rome correspondent Father Raymond J. de Souza about it.
What did you learn about Mother Teresa in the course of preparing her cause?
Even though she was a public person, she managed to keep her interior life private. She hardly ever said anything about her personal life. She wasn't interested in a biography, as she did not see that as important. Her focus was always that everything she did was God's work. She would always say that to anyone who spoke of her success: “It's God's work.”
People saw her holiness — it was evident — but now we realize that her simplicity hid a real profundity. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of the more profound aspects of her soul. I think we will see that she is one of the greater saints, but time will tell as we begin to understand more of her.
What is the principal message of Mother Teresa's life?
A reminder of how much God loves human beings, expressed in those key words from the cross: I thirst. Thirst gives an idea of how intense is the desire of God for souls.
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi presented her with an award one time, and she said that Mother Teresa reminds us of the simple importance of love.
When leaders would ask Mother why she wanted to come to their country or city, she would say that she wanted to make the love of God present. Love becomes concrete in compassion. As the sisters began to expand in the West and Mother would travel, she realized that the greater poverty is to be unloved, unwanted, rejected and lonely — all of which is very common in the West. Nevertheless, Jesus loves you — he thirsts for you.
What did you learn about Mother Teresa that you did not know before?
There were three major new things.
First, how very far advanced Mother was in the spiritual life by the time of her inspiration to found the Missionaries of Charity in 1946. Evidence of this was the private vow she made in 1942 not to refuse God anything — which, if you think about it, is quite a daring thing to do. Love unites, and this vow showed how united her will was to the will of God.
Second, we learned more about what happened when she was inspired to found the Missionaries of Charity. She never spoke about what she experienced exactly, but fortunately she wrote it down in a letter to the archbishop of Calcutta. She didn't write about what happened on Sept. 10 — what we call “inspiration day,” when she received what she termed her “call within a call”—but she describes what happened in the days afterward during her retreat. She writes about her locutions in which Jesus asks her, “Wilt thou refuse?”
So we see that her vow was being put to the test.
Third, that soon after the inspiration there was a real, close, intense union with Jesus in 1946 and 1947. But then, once the work started, that sense of union goes away, and for the rest of the time she proceeds by pure faith and pure love. This “darkness” as she called it, was a classic experience of the “dark night” that the saints speak about.
Yet there was also a tremendous sense of longing for the union that she was not experiencing. This was for us a new way of understanding the “I thirst” of Jesus — and often Mother would speak of a “painful thirst.” Mother was sharing in the longing and sufferings of her beloved.
So Mother was not only sharing in the physical poverty of the poor but also the sufferings of Jesus — his longing for union, as expressed in Gethsemane and on the cross.
And at the same time as all this was going on, she used to say that she wanted to be an “apostle of joy.”
How long did this period of darkness last?
Till the end. Fifty years. This seems to me the most heroic thing of her spiritual life.
From what sources did you discover these new things? Did she keep a diary?
She did not have a diary. It was from the letters she wrote to her spiritual directors over a long period of time. I don't think she wanted those letters to be kept, but thankfully the Jesuits [who served as her spiritual directors] had enough sense to realize that those letters were going to be important.
A beatification this quick is evidence of a spontaneous sense of a person's holiness, which we haven't seen in centuries. Why did the world love Mother Teresa so much?
In our day and age, people like to see. The work the sisters do is concrete, it is visible. It is direct, immediate help. Their work is to help this person today, not to worry about changing social structures. That is very necessary, yet Mother was concerned about caring for this person in his need, right now.
There are some saints whom you admire but wouldn't try to imitate. Mother Teresa can be imitated because the work she did was so ordinary — to clean this person, to feed that person. She used to say: “Calcutta is everywhere.” Beginning in your own family, who is it that needs attention, that needs love? Like St. Thérèse's “Little Way,” what Mother did was ordinary, but as she liked to say, “Ordinary things done with extraordinary love.”
Mother Teresa's compassion was clearly evident. Yet she was also a woman of great courage. She would speak to world leaders with great frankness, authority and forcefulness.
I think that is one of the signs of holiness — that you can combine and live seemingly opposite virtues — in this case, courage and humility. Mother was extremely humble. Always, the focus was on doing everything to, with and for Jesus. At the same time, she was not afraid to speak about what she needed or on some moral issue like abortion. She spoke with confidence because she was convinced that it was not her cause, but God's work that required her to speak.
Father Raymond J. de Souza filed this story from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Computers in Schools: Do Benefits Outweigh Potential Distractions? DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:CAMAS, Wash. — Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote, “Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination and reason.”
Of course, Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), Oxford University professor and influential commentator on the nature and value of Catholic liberal education, never had to deal with computers or the Internet in the classroom.
Only eight years ago, President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were helping to install cable in classrooms. Now, interest in the wired classroom is waning, a victim of the costs involved and a growing skepticism about the value of computers and Internet-based learning.
For parochial and other Catholic schools, as well as producers of home-schooling material, the technology is viewed with caution as they seek to strike a balance between the potential benefits and its capacity to distract from the essential purpose of education.
“The balance will be critical,” said Carolyn Simms, a Catholic school administrator in the suburban Portland, Ore., community of Camas, Wash. “I have a hope that all our students will have an opportunity to use technology but to use it appropriately.”
Where to strike the balance is the question that divides supporters and critics of electronic media, especially computers and the Internet.
Valuable Technology
In 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation produced a generally favorable analysis of the value of computers in education. The report, written by Jeffrey Fouts, a professor of education at Seattle Pacific University, said, “technology can have a positive impact on student achievement if certain factors are present, including extensive teacher training and a clear purpose.”
The same year, the Alliance for Childhood published “Fool's Gold: A Critical Look at Computers in Childhood.” This report was a litany of complaints about computers in the elementary school classroom, from potential damage to growing bodies to the danger of underdeveloped social skills among children isolated from each other while sitting for hours in front of computer screens.
The report also challenged the generally accepted belief that computers can add value to education.
“Computers, which are supposed to accelerate the pace of children's cognitive development, reflect the same mechanistic approach to education as a narrow focus on raising standardized test scores,” the report said.
“If schools treat the child as an object, a kind of biological computer, then education becomes a matter of calculating how most efficiently to train children to collect, sort, store, analyze and apply information,” it stated.
“What is lost in all this is that children are human beings whose minds are not a public or corporate resource,” the report continued. “The educational imperative of our day is not to cultivate intellectual capital for the economy. It is to bring all the resources of the culture to help them experience meaning, identity, purpose and responsibility in the whole of life.”
Catholic schools, dedicated to the principle of making education serve Christianity, need to be careful to avoid “getting carried away with computers,” said Anthony Gnanarajah, assistant superintendent of schools for the 66 elementary and high schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle. “Catholic education is based on the idea that informed faith is better than uninformed.”
“What we accomplish should allow people to know the word of God, form community and be of service,” Gnanarajah said. “We design our curriculum with the outcome in mind, then look to see if there is a role for computers, videotapes or any other technology. It is appropriate only if it is relevant.”
Far from snubbing the technology, he said, the archdiocese is committed to educating all teachers to be able to be comfortable with computers as a tool.
“We have summer technology courses for all our teachers, from basic to advanced, and teachers are also encouraged to take classes at local community colleges,” he said. “Computers and the Internet have come from society into the schools. They are becoming an integral part of society. So, they have to be seen as an integral part of teaching and learning.”
Home Schooling
Catholic home-school curriculum vendors, most of whom model their syllabi on the “great books” program developed by the Ignatius Institute and based on Cardinal John Henry Newman's commentaries on education, have diverse views on the value of technology for their programs.
A few, such as the Regina Coeli Academy, make extensive use of the Internet. Others are like the Kolbe Academy in Napa, Calif., which emphasizes a classical curriculum.
“We don't feel it's the best way for children to learn,” Proctor Mary Rowles said. “We want to educate Catholics who can defend their faith and live it.”
Steve Bertucci, provost of the Angelicum Academy in Morton and Bainbridge Island, Wash., said the academy has a Web site where parents can order items and participate in discussion groups, “but we make no pretense that the online environment is superior to being in an actual classroom. What we're doing is providing an opportunity for people from all over the world to get together and discuss great ideas.”
In his message for the 36th World Communications Day on May 12, 2002, Pope John Paul II wrote that the Internet and computer information systems are “a means, not an end in itself. In such a context, how are we to cultivate that wisdom which comes not just from information, but from insight, the wisdom which understands the difference between right and wrong, and sustains the scale of values which flows from that difference?”
“For the Church the new world of cyberspace is a summons to the great adventure of using its potential to proclaim the Gospel message,” the Holy Father said. “This challenge is at the heart of what it means at the beginning of the millennium to follow the Lord's command to ‘put out into the deep.’”
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Family Sues Man Who Killed Catholic
Stachowicz, a devout Catholic, was found stabbed, strangled and left in the crawl space of Gutierrez's Chicago apartment. Now Stachowicz's family is filing a wrongful-death civil suit against Gutierrez to make sure he does not profit by writing a book or taking part in a movie about his crime, according to newspaper.
Gutierrez has been charged with first-degree murder, burglary and concealment of a homicide but so far not of a hate crime. Stachowicz's family has insisted the murder qualifies for such charges since it was inspired by her religious beliefs about homosexuality.
Her gentle questioning was part of a religious outreach, her children told the paper, and an attempt to help the troubled young man.
Post Offices Ordered to Trust in God
AFA.NET, Dec. 13 — After a lawsuit filed by the American Family Association, the U.S. Postal Service has been ordered by a judge to put up framed posters containing the official U.S. motto, “In God We Trust,” in some 38,000 post offices across the country.
Association member Frank Williamson filed the suit after he donated three framed copies of the motto to Texas post offices in a national American Family Association initiative and they were taken down.
“The U.S. Postal Service decided to design the poster after researching Williamson's complaint and discovering that the U.S. House of Representatives had adopted a resolution two years ago that supported putting the motto in every public building possible,” said Postal spokesman David Lewin.
American Family Association chairman Don Wildmon praised the decision, saying, “We have distributed over 400,000 posters since the campaign started, with tens of thousands now hanging on public classroom walls, in city halls and other public buildings because of individual citizens like Mr. Williamson.”
Man Acquitted of Shooting Alleged Abuser
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 17 — Former altar boy Dontee Stokes, 26, was acquitted of attempted murder, reckless endangerment and assault by a Baltimore jury, the wire service reported.
Stokes admitted to shooting Father Maurice Blackwell, a priest whom he said had raped him 10 years before — an act he had reported to the Church. The Archdiocese of Baltimore had sent Father Blackwell to three months of psychiatric observation and then returned him to duty under restrictions — a decision the archdiocese has said it regrets.
The jury accepted Stokes' plea of temporary insanity brought on by the psychological damage caused by the abuse. He was convicted of three gun charges, although the jury requested a lenient sentence.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore said in a statement that “one sad chapter is concluded,” and it hoped that this verdict would bring a “greater measure of reconciliation and peace.”
Of the man he shot, Stokes said: “I have no message for Maurice Blackwell; I'll pray for Maurice Blackwell.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Magazine Ad for Book on `Preventing Homosexuality' Prompts Outcry DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:ENCINO, Calif. — It wasn't an article in the December issue of Psychology Today that generated controversy, it was an advertisement for a book — A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi.
The book lays out patterns of behavior in the home that Nicolosi says often lead to future homosexual behavior.
Homosexual activists were quick to protest the inclusion of the ad — there has even been talk of a boycott against Psychology Today — but Nicolosi, a licensed psychologist, former consultant to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and founder of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, Calif., and his supporters countered that the campaign against the ad amounted to censorship.
The dispute highlighted the ongoing debate over whether homosexuality is genetic and normal or a disordered condition that can be prevented and treated, as Nicolosi argues. Both sides claim to have the scientific high ground.
According to Nicolosi, situations in which a boy has a distant relationship with his father and a close one with his mother are often a recipe for homosexuality.
“Joe [Nicolosi] is 100% correct about the scientific data,” said Philip Mango, a licensed psychotherapist and director of St. Michael's Institute for the Psychological Sciences in New York.
Mango said that like Nicolosi, he too is convinced that homosexuality and lesbianism are “disorders of gender development” and said secular, scientific literature supports such a claim.
He cited the research of, among others, Alfred Kinsey, some of whose sexual research in the mid-20th century was widely embraced by homosexuals. Kinsey found that “sexual orientation is fluid and subject to change.” In fact, Kinsey found 80 cases of formerly homosexual individuals who had made an adjustment to heterosexuality, Mango said.
Nevertheless, homosexual activists such as Wayne Besen of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group in Washington, D.C., say A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and its premise lack merit.
Nicolosi's book is “an opinion; it's mean and it's stereotypical,” Besen said, adding that he believes “people are born gay.”
Calling Nicolosi a “quack” and his methods “sick and bizarre,” Besen said the author's findings were biased and not based on research.
However, Nicolosi said a review of the literature supports his position.
“If what I am doing is so harmful, why are my opponents gay political activists and not members of my own profession?” he asked.
Besen said he believes most psychologists regard Nicolosi as “far outside themainstream” and thinks activists are the major protestors because they pay more attention to this issue than most psychologists do.
Professionals Divided
Rhea Farberman, a spokeswoman for the American Psychological Association, stopped short of endorsing Besen's allegations but said that for 30 years the association has said homosexuality should not be treated as a mental illness and thus “does not need to be cured or prevented.”
Farberman said she and the American Psychological Association are concerned about whether such therapy does harm or good because too little is known about the “long-term effects.”
Concerning the claims of therapists such as Nicolosi that scientific literature, including some of Kinsey's findings, supports the possibility of change in sexual orientation, Farberman said, “I haven't seen that literature.”
However, she refused to condemn professionals such as Nicolosi outright.
As to whether such therapists were in fact “quacks” or “snake-oil salesmen,” as some homosexual activists have claimed, Farberman said the debate over the merits of reparative therapy was “a fair debate to have.”
She added that the “mainstream of mental health professionals” have said there is no higher incidence of mental illness among homosexuals, and therapists doing reparative therapy must ask what the motivation for these people to want to change is.
“Is this something [internal], or is it something forced on [these people] externally?” she asked.
Some in the mental health field have supported Nicolosi's book, including Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, former fellow in child psychiatry at Yale University.
In a review of the book he stated, “A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality … is an inoculation for our future.”
“The prevention of homosexuality, like its treatment, is no more difficult, nor more easy, than the reshaping of any other human foible … and just as important,” he stated.
Mango and Nicolosi also dispute the contention that there is no scientific evidence that homosexuals can change their orientation, pointing to several studies since Kinsey's that have shown changes in orientation.
The American Psychological Association's stance, Mango said, is in part a result of “being bombarded with an enormous amount of political and economic [pressure].”
He pointed to the health care community's silence on such things as the link between abortion and breast cancer, abortion and mental illness, and contraception and divorce as proof that even those involved in health care are pressured to be politically correct. He also said that a recent study in Holland, where homosexuality is accepted, showed an increased degree of mental illness among homosexuals.
Mango said science is often touted inappropriately. He cited scientific pronouncements on the genetic inferiority of blacks and other races, and even the use of “bleeding patients” as therapy a century ago, as evidence of the fallibility of scientific claims.
Show Compassion
According to Nicolosi, in his own dealings with more than 1,000 homosexuals he has seen many who were able to change. One-third have become heterosexual, one-third have shown significant improvement and one-third have not changed, he said.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear the Church's teaching on homosexuality. It states: “Basing itself on sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (No. 2357).
However, the catechism also stresses compassion for homosexuals. “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity” (No. 2358).
Both Nicolosi and Mango stressed that compassion is very important.
Too many Catholics, Mango said, shun homosexuals, depriving them of positive, supportive, heterosexual role models.
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Papal Preacher Takes Note of Recent Media Trends on Virginity DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Rome Correspondent
VATICAN CITY — Preaching to the Pope doesn't mean consulting only the great saints and doctors of the Church. It means going to the newsstand, too.
Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the preacher of the papal household, discussed in a mid-December Advent sermon to Pope John Paul II and other curia officials the issues of celibacy and virginity, a theme chosen this year in response to the sexual-abuse scandals involving priests.
“The word ‘virginity’ is reappearing in the mass media and not in an ironic sense, as in the past,” Father Cantalamessa began. “[In early December] the American magazine Newsweek came out with a cover featuring two young people under the headline: ‘The New Virginity.’ Inside there were stories of young people who, for different reasons, declared their decision to remain virgins until marriage.”
The magazine reported that according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control, the number of high-school students who say they are virgins rose by almost 10% between 1991 and 2001.
Father Cantalamessa noted that a well-known Italian newspaper followed up that report with its own stories of Italian youth who are “rediscovering the joy of virginity.”
Referring to the Song of Solomon, the papal preacher said virginity before marriage and the virginity proper to priests and religious are united by the idea of preserving the “choice fruits … which I have laid up for you, O my beloved (Song 7:13).”
In both cases, the young person preserves the “inestimable gift which every person secretly desires” for his or her future spouse, or in the case of the consecrated virgin or celibate priest, to be given to God directly.
Noting that sexual abuse in society attacks the “very sources of life and nature,” Father Cantalamessa called for a renewed commitment to “rediscover the radical alternative of the Gospel.”
“This alternative does not disqualify or blame sex, as opposed to what the secular press says,” the Capuchin observed. “On the contrary, it emphasizes its human, free and rational character, impeding its degenerating into pure instinct and animality.”
He noted in particular the danger to chastity posed by suggestive images found in television, on the Internet and in other media.
“Speaking of mortification, I believe that one must insist upon that of the eyes,” Father Cantalamessa said. “The ruinous fall of David began with a look. The image, more than the written word, has become in today's society the favored vehicle of a worldly ideology saturated with sensuality, which has made human sexuality its battle cry, separating it completely from the original meaning conferred on it by God. Remember that there are 167 million Internet sites related to the word ‘sex.’ A healthy fasting from images has become, today, more important that fasting from food. Food and drink, per se, are never impure; certain images instead are impure.”
The previous day, a newspaper published a lengthy report titled “Sex: Internet Offers 167 Million Occasions. A Really Global Obsession.”
“Certainly, we must not have too many illusions,” Father Cantalamessa said.
However, Father Cantalamessa commented, “at least there are signs of a certain change of tendency, of a certain saturation.”
He also noted the duty of priests and religious to avoid temptation.
“When our struggling brothers, weak and tempted by the flesh, come to us, they expect to find a steady hand to help them up out of the quicksand of sensuality,” he said. “But what help can we give them if we ourselves are struggling, or worse, trapped in that same quicksand?”
“It is necessary to distinguish between sin and temptation,” he continued. “Choosing virginity does not save one from temptations and, in fact, if one looks at the lives of saints, it seems to increase them.”
However, he said, every temptation overcome through prayer and total reliance on God gives strength to one's commitment to celibacy.
“As the poet Rabindranath Tagore said, chastity is a richness that proceeds from the abundance of love and not from a lack of love,” Father Cantalamessa concluded, “and this happens both in the consecrated life as in marriage.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:High-Tech Food for the Poor
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 17 — For some months, officials in the African nation of Zambia have been in a standoff with the United States over food.
Even as famine threatens millions in that poor nation — reducing some people to eating grass — its leaders have refused U.S. food donations because they contain genetically modified crops such as corn, which are eaten throughout the United States by consumers but totally banned in the European Union.
Former Holy See representative to the United Nations Archbishop Renato Martino called for Zambia to accept the donations, according to the AP.
“I lived 16 years in America and I ate what came from the market,” he told reporters at a press conference. “So far I have had no ill effects.”
Pointing to the plight of Zambians, Archbishop Martino said he “wouldn't make such a big deal” about the food's origin, noting that “when you're hungry, you eat everything.”
He recalled that during World War II he ate bread that had marble powder mixed into it to stretch the scant rations.
“We ate it because that's what we had,” he explained, calling the duel between Zambian and American officials more “political than scientific.”
Love Has No Limits
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Dec. 14 — Pope John Paul II addressed attendees at the Federation of Christian Organizations for International Volunteer Service, telling them that Christians are called to bear witness to the “provident compassion of our heavenly Father.”
He explained that “love for our neighbor, which knows no bounds, needs to be nourished in the hearth of divine charity. This means dedicating much time to prayer, listening attentively and constantly to the Word of God and above all living an existence centered on the mystery of the Eucharist.”
“The secret to the efficacy of all your projects,” he reminded the volunteers, “is therefore constant reference to Christ.”
Peace Is a Most Precious Good
FIDES NEWS, Dec. 16 — Addressing seven new ambassadors to the Holy See, Pope John Paul II emphasized respect for human life and the search for world peace.
He bemoaned today's “eclipse of the sense of God,” which has “resulted in an eclipse of the sense of the transcendence of man and of the intrinsic dignity of human life.”
The Holy Father warned that “caught within the narrow confines of a materialistic outlook on reality, which easily leads to absorption with self and a utilitarian approach to living, people sometimes fail to recognize the nature of life as a gift, a gift which finds its genuine meaning and purpose in openness to the truth of its origin in God and in the exercise of wholehearted solidarity with other human beings.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: World Peace Day Message Focuses on Reconciliation in War-Torn Areas DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II said the worsening chain of violence in places such as the Middle East calls for a “revolution” in political thinking and for regional leaders committed to the respect of human dignity.
In his 15-page annual World Peace Day message, released at the Vatican on Dec. 17 — two weeks ahead of the Church's celebration of World Peace Day, Jan. 1 — John Paul focused on the four basic principles identified by Blessed Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) as essential for world peace: truth, justice, love and freedom.
The Holy Father said the bond between peace and truth means that no human activity takes place outside the sphere of moral judgment, and international politics cannot be considered a “free zone” in which moral law holds no sway.
Respect for truth also means that state and government leaders must honor their commitments, including those made in international forums, he said.
“Promises made to the poor should be considered particularly binding,” he said. In this sense, the failure to maintain aid commitments to developing countries is a “serious moral question and further highlights the injustice of the imbalances existing in the world,” he said.
“The suffering caused by poverty is compounded by the loss of trust.
The end result is hopelessness,” he said.
The Pope also said that along with increasing awareness of human rights, the international community needs to insist more on the “universal human duties” that correspond to such rights.
He also suggested the time has come to consider a new international organization capable of ensuring peace in strife-torn places such as the Holy Land.
The Pope said he was not suggesting a “global super-state” to regulate international affairs but a mechanism to help make international political decisions more participatory.
The fratricidal conflict in the Holy Land — where international interests have compounded the problems instead of resolving them — cries out for such a new approach, he said.
The Pope said Pacem in Terris had been prophetic in many ways, especially in its recognition that an emerging human rights movement marked a new phase in human history.
From the fall of dictatorships to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, global events have proved Blessed Pope John XXIII right, he said. Much of the world has become freer, channels of dialogue have been opened and the threat of nuclear war has been contained, he said.
At the same time, the global imbalance between rich and poor is taking new forms, he warned.
“We are witnessing the emergence of an alarming gap between a series of new ‘rights' being promoted in advanced societies — the result of new prosperity and new technologies — and other more basic human rights still not being met,” he said.
John Paul said he was thinking in particular of the fundamental rights to food, drinking water, housing and self-determination, rights still unmet for many people.
Thus a “serious disorder” remains in world affairs, generating tensions and conflict around the globe, he said. The United Nations has played an important role, he said, but peace and respect for human rights remain elusive in many places.
“Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples as well as their integral development?” he asked.
“But let there be no misunderstanding. This does not mean writing the constitution of a global super-state.
“Rather, it means continuing and deepening processes already in place to meet the almost universal demand for participatory ways of exercising political authority, even international political authority, and for transparency and accountability at every level of public life.”
The Holy Father said that perhaps nowhere is there a more obvious need for such political intervention than in the Middle East and the Holy Land, where “day after day, year after year, the cumulative effect of bitter mutual rejection and an unending chain of violence and retaliation have shattered every effort so far to engage in serious dialogue.”
“The volatility of the situation is compounded by the clash of interests among the members of the international community,” he said. The impasse will be broken only when leaders undergo a “veritable revolution” in the way they use their power and secure their people's welfare, he said.
The Middle East needs men and women who will implement policies based on respect for human dignity and human rights, the Pope said.
“Such policies are incomparably more advantageous to everyone than the continuation of conflict,” he said.
The papal letter did not touch upon other concrete examples of international conflict, nor did it examine the recent increase in global terrorism and U.S.-led efforts to contain it through military means.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Thavis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Advent: Watchful Waiting for Christ's Coming DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with 8,000 pilgrims during his general audience Dec. 18 — exactly one week before Christmas. Those who were present spontaneously sang traditional Christmas carols from their respective countries, thereby giving the audience a festive air.
The Pope exhorted the faithful to prepare spiritually for Christmas. He told them that Advent and Christmas are not simply a time during which we commemorate Jesus' birth. “Rather, we need to understand that our whole life must be an ‘advent’ — a time of watchful waiting for the final coming of Christ,” he pointed out.
The Holy Father offered three “guides” from Scripture who help us prepare to welcome the Messiah — Isaiah, John the Baptist and Mary. Isaiah exhorts us to be vigilant in prayer, he said, while John the Baptist calls us to repentance and conversion. Mary, he noted, teaches us to embrace God's will: “Mary is the woman who said ‘yes,’ who, unlike Eve, unconditionally made God's plan her own plan. By doing so, she became a beacon for us and is the best model to inspire us.”
John Paul encouraged the faithful to let Mary accompany them in their walk toward the Lord, “remaining vigilant in prayer and exulting in praise.”
During this season of Advent, we are guided by the invitation of the prophet Isaiah: “Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God ... he comes to save you” (Isaiah 35:4). This invitation becomes even more compelling as Christmas approaches and is given even greater importance with the exhortation to prepare our hearts to welcome the Messiah. The one for whom people are waiting will certainly come, and his salvation will be for all men.
On Christmas Eve we will once again recall his birth in Bethlehem, and, in a certain sense, we will once again experience the emotions that the shepherds felt — their wonder and their joy. We will contemplate with Mary and Joseph the glory of the Word who was made flesh for our redemption. We will pray that all men will welcome the new life that the Son of God has brought to the world by taking on our human nature.
Life Is an ‘Advent’
The liturgy of Advent, which is permeated with constant allusions to our joyful wait for the Messiah, helps us to understand fully the value and meaning of the mystery of Christmas. It is not simply a matter of commemorating a historical event that occurred some 2,000 years ago in a little village of Judea. Rather, we need to understand that our whole life must be an “advent” — a time of watchful waiting for the final coming of Christ. In order to prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord who, as we say in the Creed, will come one day to judge the living and the dead, we must learn to recognize his presence in the events of daily life. Therefore, Advent is, so to speak, an intense period of training that steers us resolutely toward the one who has already come, who will come and who is continually coming.
It is in this spirit that the Church is preparing in just one week to contemplate in rapture the mystery of the Incarnation. The Gospel recounts the conception and birth of Jesus and refers to the many providential circumstances that preceded and surrounded such a wonderful event: the angel's announcement to Mary, the birth of John the Baptist, the choir of angels in Bethlehem, the coming of the Magi from the East and St. Joseph's visions. These are all signs and testimonies of the divine nature of this Child. Emmanuel, God with us, was born in Bethlehem.
Three Guiding Lights
During this time, the Church's liturgy offers us three unique “guides,” who show us the attitude we need to adopt as we go out to meet this divine “guest” of mankind.
The first guide is Isaiah, the prophet of consolation and hope. He proclaimed a Gospel that was proper and true for the people of Israel when they were slaves in Babylon and exhorted them to be vigilant in prayer so that they would recognize the “signs” of the Messiah's coming.
Then there is John the Baptist, the Messiah's forerunner, who appeared as a “voice of one crying out in the desert,” preaching “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (see Mark 1:4). This is the one condition for recognizing the Messiah, who is now present in the world.
Finally, there is Mary, who, during this novena of preparation for Christmas, guides us toward Bethlehem. Mary is the woman who said “yes,” who, unlike Eve, unconditionally made God's plan her own plan. By doing so, she became a beacon for us and is the best model to inspire us.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow the Blessed Virgin to accompany us in our walk toward the Lord as he comes, remaining “vigilant in prayer and exulting in praise.”
I wish you all the very best as you prepare for the coming Christmas season.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Reconciliation Is Key to Peace in World Conflicts, Professor Says DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, faced off last summer over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Daniel Philpott, senior associate with the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, a nongovernmental organization focusing on peacemaking based on religious tradition, has conducted faith-based reconciliation workshops in the territory.
Philpott, assistant professor of government and international studies at Notre Dame, is a member of the Sant' Egidio Community, which has a track record in mediating international disputes. He spoke with Register correspondent Martin Mazloom about India and Pakistan's hope for peace.
When you go to a place like Kashmir, how does a “faith-based reconciliation” workshop work?
Kashmir is the centerpiece of my reconciliation work [with the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy]. We present a Cursillo-like seminar, talks and discussions for three days. We developed it as a Christian-oriented seminar. We have also brought in Muslim understandings of forgiveness from the Koran. We focus on young Muslims who will probably become leaders in their fields: students, journalists, professors, activists. We've had very good success. We've done these workshops several times with powerful effects. I went in October to help with a new initiative; we're pushing for the return of Hindu refugees living in refugee camps. They were kicked out of their homes by Muslims in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
Do you feel you have been successful?
Have we solved this problem? It's not for us to solve. There are factors beyond our control. We just make a long-term commitment to building relationships and imparting forgiveness there. Someone once asked Mother Teresa, “Do you feel successful?” She replied, “My mission is to be faithful, not successful.” We're just instruments.
What are some of the more intense encounters you have had when working with people in these workshops?
There is a man named Firdous Syed. He joined the militant uprising against the Indian government in Kashmir and became the founder of a separatist military organization. He was captured by the Indian army and spent two years in jail. After jail, he joined mainstream Indian society and became a peace activist. He decided to leave the military uprising after seeing much death, realizing that the armed solution was not the best way to work for peace.
Another man who went through our seminar was a Muslim, the son of a prominent Muslim politician. His father and brother were both killed by Muslim militants. One night the same killers came for him. They shot him more than 30 times, but he survived. He went through nine surgeries. He vowed to seek revenge, to hunt down and kill his attackers. At the seminar, though, he had a deep change of heart. He made a commitment to forgive his attackers — from the heart. It was very emotional. There were tears going down his face. He also made a commitment to work with children who have lost parents because of violence. The forgiveness is something he's living out.
In your experience, are people open to reconciling with longtime foes and to resolving perennial conflicts?
We never ask anyone to forgive. At the beginning of these seminars, people start off skeptical. A lot of contentious stuff comes out, arguments come out. We see this as success. This is not touchy-feely, cheap reconciliation we're after. You do see open disputes. But usually by the end of a seminar, a lot of people have moved some distance. We've seen a lot of people come closer to reconciliation and working toward it.
Have you seen terrorism impede the progress of these workshops?
It's sad, but violent incidents that happen between Muslim separatists and the Indian authorities are daily occurrences. … The biggest obstacle was back in June when we couldn't go to Kashmir because of the war scare. They [India and Pakistan] were threatening each other with war. … The fact that they both have nuclear weapons does make things scary. Short of war, though, the daily violence doesn't really impede our work.
What do you think of the document on forgiveness that the Vatican released two years ago, “Memory and Reconciliation?” What can we as Catholics learn from it? Have you seen any impact made by the document?
You can see how reconciliation has deeply informed and infused the Holy Father's thinking. There are three key themes Pope John Paul II has emphasized. The first is the carrying on of the practice of apology and repentance that began at Vatican II. He's carried it on and expanded it. He's practiced apology more than 100 times with 20 different people groups or incidents: the Indians, the Jews, the Crusades, the Muslims. It culminated on Ash Wednesday of the Jubilee Year.
The second is the teaching of forgiveness as a social practice. This appears in his 1980 encyclical Dives in Misercordia (Rich in Mercy). It's a very interesting discussion that is often overlooked. Forgiveness has to be integrated with justice. The Pope has repeatedly encouraged people to forgive. Earlier last year, he called for forgiveness of those who committed the attacks of 9/11.
The third is the practice of dialogue with groups estranged from the Church, be it ecumenical or interreligious. Under John Paul, reconciliation has become a major new theme in Catholic social thought. Students looking back 20 years from now should see it as a major new development. His practice of reconciliation with the Jews has been most dramatic of all. He's the Pope under whom the Vatican recognized the state of Israel. He visited a synagogue in the early ’80s. His visit to the Wailing Wall was a picture saying a thousand words.
He's received criticism for the document, but he makes the distinction between the holiness of the Church — our mother — and the sins of her children. There's that beautiful line in Lumen Gentium: The Church is always holy and at the same time in need of repentance. Some ask, how can the Church confess on behalf of dead people? Well, there are the effects of their sins. Some Catholics might feel weakened by these admissions of scandals, but from the Gospel perspective, asking for forgiveness is a great act. It strengthens and purifies.
Have Catholics learned to be better forgivers?
We'll see. It takes time. The Pope's message of reconciliation is a very prophetic message. We're living in a time of deep cultural and religious division. It's been suggested that after the Cold War religious differences would divide people, the “clash of civilizations” as author Samuel Huntington puts it. We do see a resurgence of ethnic conflict after the Cold War. And we see the depth of the culture wars in America. If cultural and religious differences are particularly deep, then the message of reconciliation is something that suits our time.
Martin Mazloom writes from Monterey Park, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Martin Mazloom ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Abortion Battle in Korea Continues
FIDES, Dec. 17—“People who are born and those about to be born have the same human dignity,” wrote Bishop Casimir Song Yul-sup, new secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, in the bishops' paper, The Catholic Times.
The Korean bishops have long struggled to change that country's extremely permissive abortion laws, which allow destruction of the unborn through all nine months of pregnancy, mirroring American law.
In Korea, some 4,000-5,000 unborn babies are killed every day, some 1.5 million a year — more than are destroyed in the United States, which has a much larger population.
In December 2000, the bishops' conference sent Korea's National Assembly a petition bearing 1.2 million signatures requesting change in the law.
The bishops intend to continue their fight, they said, because “rich or poor, born or still in the mother's womb, all human beings are equal with human dignity and created in the image of God.”
The Saintly Gaudi?
REUTERS, Dec. 11 — Artist Antoni Gaudi was neglected in his day.
The great Catalan architect and designer created some of the most interesting and innovative buildings that stand in his native Barcelona, Spain, but he died in a pauper's hospital, almost forgotten, in 1926 with his great monument, the Cathedral of the Holy Family, still unfinished.
It was ransacked and the plans for its completion destroyed by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War.
But now the cathedral is venerated as one of Barcelona's greatest landmarks, according to Reuters news service, as the Church considers Gaudi's case for beatification.
This year Barcelona has seen a variety of exhibits and conferences to mark the 150th anniversary of Gaudi's birth. His workshop has now become a shrine for religious pilgrims.
Local devotees of the master builder intend to complete what Gaudi called his “cathedral for the poor” by 2020.
Bethlehem Is Dying of Apathy
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, Dec. 17 — The city of Bethlehem is dying.
So say the Elizabethan Sisters of Padua, who operate the town's Caritas Baby Hospital. According to Independent Catholic News, a U.K.-based online news service, the sisters have issued the following appeal against Israeli occupation and the terrorism that brought it on:
“Bethlehem is dying, due to the apathy of the entire Christian world. … We are all being punished; we live like prisoners, like animals in a cage, fed by the humanitarian organizations.
“We are not a city of terrorists that deserve a continuous, brutal repression. We are a humiliated city, exhausted, reduced to a mortal cage, massacred by a never-ending revenge.
“A few days from Christmas, here in Bethlehem we do not know what celebrating means. Misery reigns on our desolate streets, covered in rubbish. … A few days before Christmas our best and profound sentiments have been blown away by the cold winds of war, as dead leaves.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Goodbye, Bad Blood? DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Michael Rose, author of the book Goodbye, Good Men, has been intensifying his drumbeat of criticism for publications that cited major flaws in the book. We considered responding in kind, on the Internet, with a detailed answer to his criticisms. But we won't.
It's difficult, though. Rose has turned several people into public opponents of the Register. The very fact that he has written a document purporting to be a “point-by-point” refutation of the Register is enough to convince some people that we're wrong.
For the record, we're not — and we can e-mail you a point-by-point response of our own, if you like. But we've decided that charity is the best response. As Steve Wood told us in an article we published in April, families “can only experience renewal to the extent that they are like the Holy Family.”
As part of the Catholic family, we will be like them: loving and (mostly) silent.
After all, we at the Register were glad when Michael Rose's book came out. We echoed its premise in a news story that cited it. We advertised it.
Then our features editor, Dave Pearson, told us about Father Marcel Taillon, a priest who has had great success with weekly adoration for vocations at the Providence diocesan seminary.
Goodbye, Good Men mentions Father Taillon but not his success with eucharistic adoration. It quotes his comments about MTV ads for vocations, then adds, “Catholics wonder if the diocese is trying to attract ‘unchurched’ men that they can mold easily into their ‘re-envisioned’ image of the priest.” Last, he quotes an anonymous source claiming his orthodoxy got him kicked out of Father Taillon's seminary.
The book would have been much stronger if Rose had faced the Providence Diocese with his concerns. Rose could have quoted Father Taillon's own admission that the MTV ads are a fair question (as we did in our article) and recorded his successes with adoration for vocations (as we did in our article). Rose would have dispelled the impression he has that Father Taillon wants to remake the priesthood. He would have learned the truth about his anonymous seminary candidate.
When we first reported on this, in a column by Pearson, the story's headline and photograph singled out Rose's book in a way we regret. In fact, Rose's book was just one among several attacks on Father Taillon mentioned in the column.
But, since then, we've been accused of all kinds of things. For one, we've been told that we lack the courage to face the problems in the seminaries that Rose has exposed. Readers of Register editorials and news stories know better.
The truth is, Goodbye, Good Men does not speak with the persuasive power of investigative journalism. Real investigative journalism requires that the writer have the courage to face those who are being accused. Goodbye, Good Men is a compilation of accusations. The Church needs these accusations to be heard — but not if some are sort of true, some not true and others very true. The reader wonders, which is which? The very people who need to be persuaded — or exposed — shrug it off.
One more thing needs to be said. As Wood put it in a story we published on Father's Day 2000, “Building our families on the rock of faith” is what is important. Or, as Wood put it in an article we published last June: “You need to equip people.”
That's what Catholics should be spending our time doing, building on the rock of faith and equipping people to stand there, both by exposing the Church's problems and promoting its strengths.
In the last several months, Catholics went through a crucial time that should have been spent working together. Instead, Rose has spent much of that time attacking those who defended the innocent.
Worse, he has turned many people against publications that are working very hard to help the Church. Worse still, he has forced those publications to waste their own valuable time defending themselves against him rather than defending the Church.
He should admit his book's faults and correct them in order to preserve its badly needed truths. Where necessary, he should apologize. Then he should get back to work.
The Church needs Michael Rose.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: A Democrat no More DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Being pro-life, Catholic, from Louisiana and a registered Democrat, I would like to respond to your article “Who's Pro-Life?” (Dec. 8-14). Your article pointed out the confusion Catholic voters had in the recent election where pro-abortion (Catholic) incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu won over her pro-life (Catholic) Republican challenger, Suzie Terrell.
How could a state that has some of the largest Catholic dioceses in the country choose abortion over life? The media reported that Landrieu carried the Catholic vote; this only confirmed my confusion and left me embarrassed as a Catholic.
In trying to understand my confusion, the message was clear: The majority of Louisiana Catholic voters are pro-abortion and Democrat. I knew how James and John felt when they wanted to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that was inhospitable, but Jesus rebuked them (See Luke 9:55). I thought they had a good idea, but obviously Jesus had a better plan.
In the meantime, I'm abandoning the Democratic ship in case Jesus changes his mind about the fire. However I'm not leaving the Catholic ship because, if he does change his mind, “I want to be in that number.” I may be embarrassed as a Catholic, but I'm not embarrassed to be a Catholic. Come Lord Jesus!
Keep up the good reporting.
DONALD C. ROMERO
Abbeville, Louisiana
Fasting Beats Fighting
The day after I heard Scott Ritter mention on TV the most horrifying thing he saw as the chief U.N. weapons inspector was the children's prison system in Iraq, I fasted and prayed for a week for their liberation. Shortly thereafter, the news came that Saddam had opened his prisons. As a result of my fasting? My faith is too weak to believe that. But I do believe Jesus taught pacifism because it works, and certainly there are as many false pacifists as there are false Christians. Yet I do believe if all these people clamoring for war were praying and fasting instead then we would have peace.
You can have your delta force and navy seals and CIA paramilitary specialists. When it comes to battle, they are no match against a pacifist in mental or physical toughness, or results.
JOHN SPIERS
Seattle
Peace: Worth Fighting For
I read with interest the letter from Brooks Erickson of El Paso, Texas, making reference to “off-beam” theology regarding just-war theory (“Different Take on Just War,” Letters, Dec. 15-21). Perhaps the author should be more concerned with revisionist history — and the twisting of the plain witness of sacred Scripture.
A good place to start is the Catholic Encyclopedia. In an article under the heading “Thundering Legion,” it describes “a detachment of the Twelfth Legion, which was regularly stationed at Melitene in Armenia and comprised many Christians, took part in the expedition against the Quadi” that existed in 174 A.D. This legion was saved in battle — and, in fact, given victory — by an apparently miraculous thunderstorm. The pagans who wrote about it claimed the intervention of pagan divinities. Tertullian (and other Christians) claimed the victory was given by God. Either way, it indicates that not all early Christians were strict pacifists. They were also known to pray for the welfare of the emperor and the republic — and for “brave armies” to secure the peace.
With regard to biblical witness in the New Testament, Paul acknowledges the right of the state to “bear the sword” in the service of God (Romans 13:4). Jesus himself admonishes tax collectors, adulterers, Pharisees, lawyers and scribes — but his words for the centurion are nothing but praise for his faith. Christ holds him up as an example (Matthew 8:10-13). There is no admonishment.
Most disturbing is the implication that, somehow, as of the fourth and fifth centuries, some sort of distortion or corruption of pure Christianity must have taken place. Something essential was lost, the Catholic Church went astray and we need to get back to that original, pure theology. Sound familiar? This is simple evangelical Protestant apologetics and nothing more. It negates all that we hold true concerning divine Revelation and its protection in the magisterium. To accept that notion is to reject the Catholic faith out of hand.
The idea that early Christians were universally strict pacifists and that this pacifism is an essential, core belief of Christianity is something of a romantic notion. It is not without a certain appeal, granted — but it is a mistaken notion nonetheless.
VINCENT BRANDOLINI
Salem, New Jersey
We Are One Confused Church
In my 74 years as a Catholic, I remember only one homily regarding the taking of innocent human life. It was delivered about 10 years ago by a priest in our parish. He received a standing ovation from the congregation. I have heard no more than an occasional passing reference to the subject since.
We have all heard that as many as 50% of Catholics approve of abortion and apparently vote regularly for pro-abortion candidates. Politicians who claim to be Catholic yet publicly support abortion are regularly elected with little or no opposition from our bishops. Your paper has covered many examples of this — Jennifer Granholm, Nancy Pelosi, Mary Landrieu and so on. There are many others. Everyone knows the famous “Catholic” politicians who are in favor of abortion, including Teddy Kennedy and Mario Cuomo.
A recent “Letters” contributor wrote Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the National Council of Catholic Bishops, asking him to remove former California Congressman and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta from the board advising the bishops regarding child sexual abuse because of Panetta's voting record in Congress. He was told in reply that all members of the board were ”faithful Catholics.” How can a former member of Congress with a 97% pro-abortion voting record be a faithful Catholic?
Since we have no pressure from the secular media on this one, the bishops can safely indulge themselves and continue to avoid offending politicians. But what does this do to the people in the pews?
With leadership like this, is it any wonder that only about 25% of us who claim to be Catholics attend church regularly? Is it any wonder we help elect pro-abortion politicians to represent us?
It seems the plenary council requested by some bishops and referenced in Wayne Laugesen's article “Bishops Fine Tune Dallas” (Nov. 24-30) is overdue. Let's pray they get together and seriously examine our mission as Christians and their responsibilities as leaders of our Church in this modern world.
JIM DORSEY
Longmont, Colorado
Pro-Abortion Priests: Say What?
I remember reading an account of the support given Michigan Gov.-elect Jennifer Granholm by some members of the clergy. If I am not mistaken, there was a follow-up story that said the priests had apologized to their parishioners after Cardinal Adam Maida intervened.
What many priests must now be wondering is: What does one have to do to be deprived of one's parish? Are pro-abortion clergy to be given the pastoral care of souls?
Dissent from the Church's teachings is found among many priests at the parish level and it is tolerated by some of the bishops. No wonder so many of our Catholic people are confused when they see that their pastors can oppose what the Church teaches and yet be allowed to remain in place after an apology.
FATHER BRENDAN ASHE
Riviera, Texas
The writer is pastor of Our Lady of Consolation Parish.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Dont't Tread on Us DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:The secular media make it seem like all Catholics are very angry at the Church over the misdeeds of a few (“Cardinal Law's Exit Might Bring Better Times,” Dec. 22-28). I believe that is a large part of the Church's problem. I am not angry at the Church, for it remains the same as always. I am very disappointed with the priests who caused this scandal and with the bishops who allowed it to continue for so long. The question is: What can Catholics do about it?
I do not believe we (all Catholics) should allow any archdiocese to be bankrupt. I propose that a central fund be created wherein Catholics can send in donations that, in turn, can be given to the archdioceses in financial trouble. We gave to 9/11 victims, so why not give to save our Church?
This in no way condones what was done by the few errant priests. It is to protect our Church and to put this problem to rest, once and for all. My heart bleeds for the victims. How grateful I am that it did not happen to my son, who was an altar boy for years. I do not believe that money, per se, will alleviate the pain; however, that is what seems to be the ongoing remedy.
I question the motives of those victims who remained silent for 10, 20, 30 or more years, are seemingly happy married and then say how devastated they are. There needs to be some sort of statute of limitations. Also, in the cases where the victims state they were abused for years, it is my opinion that they have to bear some responsibility, especially those who were of high school age or more.
We have to stop this bashing of our Church. The sooner the better.
ADELINO R. LORENZO
Tigard, Oregon
I was saddened to hear of Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation (“Cardinal Law's Exit Might Bring Better Times,” Dec. 22-28). Even though it seemed kind of inevitable in view of the impending bankruptcy, I don't know that it was really necessary for the Church in Boston. I think his fatal flaw was a poor management style and perhaps a tendency to err on the side of compassion with regard to problematic priests.
To some extent I think he is being made the fall guy for the many. After all, two-thirds of his brothers in the hierarchy were doing the same thing he did. He is a victim as well. A victim of a biased and agenda-driven jurist in Justice Constance Sweeny who has handed down unconstitutional rulings against the Church in Boston resulting in private documents being made available to the media. However, enough of the scandal!
On a more positive note, I'd like to make a personal comment on His Eminence. My mother and I will always be grateful to him, for he received my sister into the religious life. How rich beyond measure is the person called to the consecrated state and how lucky the family with such a person in it!
Cardinal Law always had a special place in his heart for the Daughters of St Paul. He has his detractors and enemies among “Voice of the (so-called) Faithful” and others in the Church but I think I can say without fear of contradiction that he will always have the love, respect and prayers of the sisters of the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Paul and their family members. Thank you Cardinal Law and Godspeed to you!
PAUL A. TROUVE
Montague, New Jersey
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Paul A. Trouve ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: SirArthur Conan Doyle And the Case of The Gullible Deist DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Authors are bad judges of their work.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is an immortal creation. But Doyle thought his greatest book was The White Company — a medieval adventure into which he had poured a cornucopia of research.
The line, however, from research-effort to literary-reward is rarely true, straight or constant, and in this case Doyle, to be frank, strayed very far into the province of the duds. To be sure, one can, if one has the stamina and the imagination, lift from the pages of The White Company insights into peasant politics, how common soldiers jostled along the emergence of democracy and whatnot. But more interesting, perhaps, is the light it casts on the attitudes of Doyle himself.
Doyle was a fallen away Catholic — fallen away, allegedly, because he could not accept the Church's claim of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (no salvation outside the Church) as taught by a zealous Jesuit. Nevertheless, Doyle fully embraced the late 19th-century English gentle-man's religion of chivalry, and in The White Company one sees plenty of heartiness, comradeship and eagerness to fight, along with pooh-poohing Church teaching that runs against “nature” (celibacy), joshing the supposed pedantry of scholasticism and so on.
In one early passage in the book, the monastery-raised Alleyne Edricson threatens violence against his villainous brother for harassing a maid. “For a moment the blood of the long line of hot-headed thanes was too strong for the soft whisperings of meekness and mercy. He was conscious of a fierce wild thrill through his nerves and a throb of mad gladness at his heart, as his real human self burst for an instant the bonds of custom and of teaching which had held it so long.”
The key phrase here is “his real human self.” Alleyne's monastic schooling is seen as having suppressed what is authentically human and real beneath inhibiting, inherited folderol.
In his autobiographical novel The Stark Munro Letters, Doyle's title character disparages the Bible as a fairy tale, and a somewhat nasty one. Stark Munro also says this: “Catholicism is the more thorough. Protestantism is the more reasonable. Protestantism adapts itself to modern civilization. Catholicism expects civilization to adapt itself to it.”
So far so interesting.
Then he adds that “the main trunk is rotten beneath them, and both must in their present forms be involved sooner or later in a common ruin. The movement of human thought, though slow, is still in the direction of truth, and the various religions which man sheds as he advances (each admirable in its day) will serve, like buoys dropped down from a sailing vessel, to give the rate and direction of his progress.”
In this Stark Munro would appear to speak for Doyle. Munro is a deist, and in a way Doyle was, too. But deism is an easy way out. It is a belief, after all, that exists only in one's mind, having no form in much-disparaged “organized religion.” As such, a deist is responsible for nothing in his religion, because it, in fact, doesn't exist. There are no scandals to disturb him, no human reality to intrude, no grappling in detail with morals and philosophy such as makes Catholicism “thorough.”
There is simply a smug confidence in oneself and one's self-designed God who is a chap remarkably like oneself.
Doyle's sense of his own sophistication in matters religious — the same sort of pseudo-sophistication adopted by many people today — is really the most childish make-believe. And this became apparent later in his life.
Doyle became the perfect case study of G.K. Chesterton's much-quoted dictum that “when men cease to believe in God they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything.” Doyle became a “spiritualist” and was fully convinced in his later years — as a man of science, a qualified medical doctor — that fairies really existed, and he stood foursquare behind crank photographs that claimed to illustrate the fact.
The man who supposedly stood on the side of reason — as modern, secularist man supposedly stands on the side of reason — had actually taken leave of reason (as has modern man). Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger can tell us why: “Meaning that is self-made is in the last analysis no meaning. Meaning, that is, the ground on which our existence as a totality can stand and live, cannot be made but only received.” That is one of the great Catholic insights into the nature of truth.
And when it comes to writing a historical novel, all the research in the world cannot make up for that lack of understanding.
One can't help but sense in reading The White Company that something is missing from the tale. Chivalry lacks purpose and meaning and ultimately cannot survive without the religion that created and shaped it. Though the novel opens in a monastery and treats of the Church, it does not have the faith, and it tells.
So when it comes to historical novels, here's a dictum to read by: Dumas on the 17th century (The Three Musketeers) is better than Doyle on the 14th century (The White Company).
And when it comes to Doyle, stick to the character that Doyle yearned to abandon as he abandoned his faith, stick to the Thomistic Sherlock Holmes.
H. W. Crocker III is the author most recently of Triumph:The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. His comic novel, The Old Limey, has recently been reissued in paperback.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: H. W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: A Tale of Two Boarding Schools DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:The primary focus of most boarding schools is the formation of character. This overtly moral purpose differs considerably from the intentions of publicly funded institutions or even most non-Catholic private day schools. Acquiring the knowledge to succeed at university and in the adult working world is supposed to be secondary, although many parents footing the bills assume otherwise.
The boarding-school universe is its own reality. Once away from home the students create for themselves a surrogate family. Friendships are formed with other students and even teachers that can last a lifetime.
Only a handful of films (Dead Poets Society, Goodbye Mr. Chips, etc.) have explored this rich subject matter. Among them are two new releases, The Emperor's Club and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, whose key dramatic conflicts spring from their schools' unique ethos.
The Emperor's Club, based on Ethan Canin's short story The Palace Thief, is set in 1976 at St. Benedict's Academy for Boys. Its Latin motto is Non Tibi, which means “not for oneself.”
Arthur Hundert (Kevin Kline) is the most popular and influential teacher. His subject is Greek and Roman history, whose values he encourages his well-born students to live as well as study. “Greatness and ambition are nothing without contribution,” he tells them.
The Class Cynic
The order of his classroom is disrupted by a cynical new student, Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch). The boy's father (Harris Yulin), a powerful U.S. senator, attacks Hundert's purposes. “Your job is not to mold character but to teach,” he asserts.
Hundert refuses to change his approach. He is determined to bring out the best in Sedgewick's character by inspiring him with the classics. The boy seems to respond, transforming himself from a slacker into a diligent scholar who's respectful of others.
Hundert, who had also wrestled with an overbearing father, sees something of himself in Sedgewick and violates his own ethical standards to help him. The boy is chosen to be a finalist in the school's Roman history competition, an honor he wouldn't have earned on the basis of his academic achievements alone.
Unfortunately, Hundert has deceived himself about the changes in his protégé's character. He catches Sedgewick cheating during the contest but finds a way to disqualify him without the other students' knowing.
Flash forward 25 years. Sedgewick is now the millionaire CEO of a successful corporation. He offers St. Benedict's a large contribution in return for a rematch of the Roman history competition during which he claims he will redeem his “intellectual honor.” Hundert is brought out of retirement to referee. There is, however, a twist that brings up the same moral issues triggered by the first contest.
Director Michael Hoffman and screen-writer Neil Tolkin depict a boarding-school community where integrity, service and civic duty are held up as virtues. But a faint whiff of relativism hovers over their otherwise well-made drama. Hundert is a decent but flawed individual who develops an understanding of his own limitations and those of his school. But even though his values are shown to be better than Sedgewick's, all points of view are presented as a matter of individual choice.
Interestingly, there's no mention of religion or religious teachings throughout, an unrealistic omission at a school called St. Benedict's, which is surely affiliated with some denomination. If the movie had explored the Christian beliefs on which the institution was founded, it would have provided a deeper perspective on the conflicts between Hundert and Sedgewick.
The main action in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is also set in a boarding school. Director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steven Kloves skillfully exploit the intramural house rivalries, sports contests and parental legacies that are the heart of that unique experience to advance their plot.
A digitally animated elf named Dobby warns Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) not to return to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry because his life will be in danger. And, sure enough, the gifted young wizard and his buddies, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), are confronted there by threatening messages in blood and fellow students being turned into stone. Working against them is the sinister prefect from a rival house Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), and his well-connected father, Lucius (Jason Isaacs).
We learn that many years ago Salazaar Slytherin, one of the school's founders, had determined to banish from Hogwarts all prospective witches and wizards who weren't of “pure” wizard blood. To achieve his racist goal, Slytherin has created a secret chamber and placed within it a Baselisk monster who tries to kill all the “mudblood” students of mixed lineage. Harry, of course, saves the day, with a little help from the kindly headmaster, Dumbledore (Richard Harris).
The filmmakers show themselves better at special effects than atmosphere. The movie has a Spielberg-lite, Indiana Jones action-adventure feel, even in scenes that would be better served by a classic horror-movie look.
A ‘Brooding’ School
Those who disliked the first film for its spiritual content will find nothing to change their minds in the second. But an examination of the boarding-school ethos may help explain why so few viewers are offended by a series of movies that glamorizes the occult.
Ironically, unlike most boarding schools, Hogwarts is presented as more of a trade school than as a builder of character. Its main focus is on the teaching of magic tricks, not the formation of values, even though Dumbledore offers wise counsel on an occasional ad hoc basis. The magic powers displayed by Harry are depicted as mere mechanical devices with no connection to a supernatural world of evil and its moral code. Thus we are able to root for him to use his “good” wizardry to defeat “the bad.”
The links between education and values formation are a hot topic in today's political climate. Both The Emperor's Club and Harry Potter provide some useful insights about their relationship even though their primary purpose is entertainment.
John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Today's Religion and Its High Priesthood DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:America's religious freedom and toleration is unique in world history. We have an agreement to live and let live.
But in most countries throughout world history, some form of religion binds the community together, giving it shared values and purpose. This raises the question: Does America have a substitute religion that attempts to address these issues? A recent book suggests that American society attempts to place economics in this role of substitute religion.
In Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond, Robert H. Nelson of the University of Maryland argues that economics offers a gospel of progress and the salvation of prosperity. Nelson's thesis is that the economics profession constitutes the new priestly class of the modern, materialistic, scientific world.
There are three distinct claims implicit in his argument.
First, the religion of the modern world is scientific materialism. The modern world trusts only what it can see through the natural senses and what it can verify scientifically. Nonmaterial explanations and indeed, even nonmaterial phenomena, are inadmissible and must be explained away or ignored. Second, the older ministerial classes of Christianity are no longer relevant to the modern world. Finally, the modern world needs some form of priestly class to give people plausible reasons to believe in its religion of materialism and to follow the tenets it prescribes.
For example, according to the modern gospel of progress, the source of evil in the world is poverty.
Properous people will not be motivated to rob, steal and cheat. Satisfied people will be able to get along with one another, be generous and avoid conflict. Therefore, we solve the problem of sin by eliminating poverty and satisfying material wants. We can redeem ourselves if we can only solve the problem of poverty. Economists become the new high priests of the modern world, because they alone can plumb the mysteries of the marketplace and help to bring about the heaven on earth of wealth and plenty.
In my judgment, Nelson's provocative book provides an accurate description of both the state of American society and the role of the economics profession within it. At no time, however, does he claim that this secular religion is in any sense, “true” or even a satisfactory substitute for traditional religions. Indeed, Nelson seems highly skeptical that this is the case.
As Catholics, we can be quite confident that material abundance does not solve the problem of sin and evil. The opening chapters of Genesis take an exactly contrary position. Adam and Eve had everything they could have wanted. Whatever else might have been the problem in the Garden of Eden, it certainly was not scarcity. The author of Genesis points us in a different direction altogether and offers an alternative explanation.
The problem of sin is profoundly related to the problem of human freedom. Adam and Eve knew what God wanted them to do. They had every reason to love him and to trust him to know what was really in their best interests. The snake appeals to their pride, and tells them, “you shall be as gods.”
If they were going to disobey God, no material cause would work, since all their material needs were satisfied effortlessly.
Nothing in the environment prompted them, compelled them or induced them to take this risk. Only some intellectual sin, such as pride or envy, could provide a sufficient motivation for recklessly risking all the material benefits that God provided them.
Genesis locates the source of sin squarely within the human psyche. The disorder in the human condition proceeds from the inside out, not from the outside in.
Now, as a good economist and empiricist, I want to look at these two competing accounts of sin to see which one has better explanatory power.
Look, for instance, at one of the reflexive responses to the Sept. 11 hijackers. Why do they hate us? It must be because of poverty. But this explanation dissolves when we realize that most of the hijackers were from affluent families. What should we do to make the Muslim world less hostile toward us? Most of the explanations revolve around some form of material resources: land from Israel, wealth from us, better (meaning more Western) education. But Muslim anger seems to stem from nonmaterial causes: indignities inflicted at Israeli checkpoints, embarrassment at being left behind by history when they were once the most vigorous empire in the world.
Addressing material conditions, however helpful it might be in a humanitarian sense, will not eliminate this source of anger. Wounded pride, not poverty, is a better explanation for “why they hate us.”
The theory behind the Great Society was that we could eliminate poverty by giving money to poor people. The theology of progress says that poverty is the root cause of violence, crime, spouse abuse, child abuse, drug use and other dysfunctions. If we give people a chance to survive in some kind of material comfort, they will no longer be as desparate and criminally inclined. But few people today believe this any longer. It seems equally likely that bad choices cause poverty rather than poverty causing bad choices.
Who are we? Why are we here and where are we going? What do we stand for? What won't we stand for?
These questions do not simply disappear, even if everyone supports a tacit agreement that it is bad manners to talk about them in public. The American religion of perpetual progress does not adequately answer these questions. We should be satisfied with a more modest economics profession that helps us solve our material problems. We would be better off letting religion do what only religion can do, which is to help us find the meaning of life and to figure out how a good person ought to live.
Economics is doing a fine job doing economics but a lousy job of doing religion.
Jennifer Roback Morse is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Love & Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work (Spence, 2001).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J.R. Morse ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Take Five DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Weekend ending Sunday, Dec. 15:
1. Maid in Manhattan
(Columbia, PG-13) Director: Wayne Wang. Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Tyler Posey.
Take One: Updated Cinderella romantic comedy stars Fiennes as a wealthy politician who mistakes single-mother Lopez for a wealthy guest at the hotel where she works as a maid.
Take Two: Fairy-tale formula gives way to modern mores when the ballroom scene gives way to a bedroom scene.
It's unclear whether Lopez was ever married to her son's worthless father.
Final Take: Agreeably diverting viewing for most of its length, though after the magic runs out at midnight the movie meanders through an autopilot resolution that lacks a glass slipper.
2. Star Trek: Nemesis
(Paramount, PG-13). Director: Stuart Baird. Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Tom Hardy.
Take One: The “Next Gen” crew returns after four years in a tightly plotted movie that includes a crew wedding, Shakespearean double sets of twins, a great starship dogfight and Romulan intrigue.
Take Two: Non-Trekkers may find the setup a little dense. And with intense sci-fi action and a brief scene of newlyweds in bed (no nudity) that takes a disturbing turn, it's not for young fans.
Final Take: Better than Generations or Insurrection, Nemesis is rivaled only by First Contact as the best “Next Gen” Trek movie and is definitely worthwhile for fans. (See Spotlight below)
3. Drumline (20th Century Fox, PG-13). Director: Charles Stone. Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones.
Take One: Rhythm and half-time showmanship drive a good-natured story about a talented but self-aggrandizing drummer who has to learn to be a team player instead of a showboater.
Take Two: The story is formulaic and cliched and, while relatively wholesome for an urban comedy, includes some ribald dialogue.
Final Take: Marching-band esprit de corps and a rousing finale make Drumline a modest crowd-pleaser despite some drawbacks.
4. Die Another Day (MGM, PG-13). Director: Lee Tamahori. Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike.
Take One: After a three-year hiatus, Agent 007 returns for his 20th official outing, with numerous homages to earlier entries, a bravura swordfight and Oscar-winner Berry as a liberated Bond girl.
Take Two: Always problematic for James Bond's cartoonish womanizing, the series has traditionally been more discreet than one bold scene here. The double-entendres are lame rather than lascivious; the stylized violence is typical.
Final Take: Neither an overall high point nor a low point for the durable franchise, Bond's 20th is part thrills, part shrugs, with some impressive set pieces and a dragging final act.
5.Treasure Plane (Disney, PG). David Hyde Pierce, Emma Thompson. Take One: Treasure Island meets Star Wars in this visually lavish reimagining of Stevenson's tale, featuring space-faring galleons and aliens in 18th-century attire.
Take Two: The action may be too intense for the youngest kids; the plot's a mite predictable for grownups. A few plot holes and an overlong denouement are also flaws.
Final Take: Literary purists may balk, but this dazzling and exciting yarn works well enough on its own terms. And, despite another absentee Disney father, the ultimate message is pro-family.
----- EXCERPT: The Register's-eye view of five top movies in America ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Spotlight: Star Trek: Nemesis DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:A widespread consensus among Star Trek aficionados holds that the odd-numbered movies, beginning with the spectacularly unpromising Star Trek: The Motion Picture, tend to be less successful than the even-numbered movies, like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.
The last “even” film was the widely embraced First Contact. This was followed by the forgettable Insurrection; which means we're due for a good one.
Do we get it? For the most part, yes. The 10th film in the franchise, Star Trek: Nemesis, may be the closest in the spirit to the well-done Next Generation TV series. Where First Contact was essentially a sci-fi action movie, Nemesis embraces the eerie Twilight Zone mood and Shakespearean resonances of its small-screen source material.
At its center is not simply a contest between heroes and villains over who will prevail but a philosophical debate over whether a person is anything more than the sum of his heritage and experiences — whether everything we are or choose is entirely due to nature and nurture or whether we have the ability to transcend the input of our DNA and experience through free will. Cathoic Trek fans will be delighted to see that the film embraces the right answer.
Trek fans should enjoy this affectionate and sometimes startling excursion with the “Next Gen” crew, which features a wedding and one of the best starship dogfights in the film series. Will Nemesis be the crew's “final voyage”? Like Wrath of Khan, Nemesis cries out for a sequel. Whether that sequel will get made depends on how well Nemesis does at the box office.
Steven Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from Bloomfield, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Like Mike (2002)
Combining elements from different genres can be tricky. If the mixture isn't right, the final product will be a muddled pastiche. Like Mike begins as a tenderhearted orphanage story (like Boys Town) that throws in aspects of a push-to-victory sports saga (like Hoosiers) with a wish-fulfillment magical device (like Dumbo's magic feather). Director John Schultz and screenwriters Michael Elliott and Jordan Moffet cleverly stir it all together, creating a nice balance between laughter and tears. Calvin Cambridge (Lil’ Bow Wow) is a 14-year-old orphan who wins a raffle to shoot hoops with a professional basketball star, Tracy Reynolds (Morris Chestnut). With the help of a pair of magic sneakers, he beats Tracy and is signed to a season's contract with Tracy's team.
The two room together while on tour. Calvin's hungry for a supportive father figure, but Tracy doesn't seem interested. Together they must learn that there's more to life than fame, winning and magic sneakers.
Ice Age (2002)
Animated features continue to provide some of Hollywood's best entertainment for both children and adults. Ice Age combines lovable characters and well-executed slapstick with a densely textured evocation of the Paleolithic era of 20,000 years ago. The story is a clever (but unacknowledged) reworking of John Ford's classic 1949 western, Three Godfathers. As the harsh winter approaches, a colorful cast of prehistoric animals begins migrating south. A lazy, misfit sloth named Sid (voice of John Leguizamo) joins up with Manny (Ray Romano), a taci-turn woolly mammoth, to rescue a human baby from a predatory gang of saber-toothed tigers.
Sid and Manny don't really like each other, but they have to learn to work together to return the baby to its migratory tribe. When this odd couple gets lost, they're forced to depend on Diego (Denis Leary), a wandering saber-toothed tiger who can't be trusted. Director Chris Wedge uses inventive computer graphics to make us experience the dangers of the frozen environment in which his characters are trying to survive.
A Walk in the Sun (1945)
Nowadays the U.S. military is focusing on “lifting the fog of war” through the application of information technology. This means minimizing the confusion of combat for commanders and foot soldiers alike so that our troops can accomplish their objectives with more efficient lethal precision. A Walk in the Sun, based on Harry Brown's World War II novel, imaginatively captures the uncertainties and dangers of battlefield chaos that the top brass wants to eliminate.
The action begins with an infantry platoon landing on a Salerno beach in Southern Italy. Their lieutenant (Robert Lowell) is immediately killed by shrapnel and the first sergeant who takes charge (Hubert Rudley) cracks under fire. Sgt. Tyne (Dana Andrews) assumes command, and the unit cautiously makes its way to its objective, a farmhouse six miles inland. The soldiers' chatty conversations and innermost thoughts are randomly interrupted by deadly skirmishes. The enemy is never seen close up.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, DEC. 29
All Praise Be Yours: Canticle of the Creatures EWTN, 7 p.m.
This hour-long special tells us all about the remarkable canticle of St. Francis of Assisi. Father Raniero Cantalamessa and actor Nardo Gazzolo visit Assisi, San Damiano, Montecasale and other places prominent in the life of the great 13th-century saint.
SUNDAY, DEC. 29
Concerto: A Musical Metaphor PBS, 10:30 p.m.
James Conlon uses Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 to illustrate the principles of accompaniment — a soloist working in unison with conductor and orchestra. Then he employs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, today popularly recognized as “the Elvira Madigan,” to demonstrate a concerto's reconciliation of various themes and styles.
MONDAY, DEC. 30
The Emperor Who Saved Rome
History Channel, 9 p.m.
Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, or Vespasian (A.D. 9-79), became emperor in 69. He committed depredations in Judea and Britain, and Domitian and Titus were his sons.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 1
William M. Carrigan, Witness and Friend of Padre Pio EWTN, 6 p.m.
The late William Carrigan was the personal friend of a saint — Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. In this riveting half-hour special, Carrigan tells many anecdotes about his good friend, whom he met while doing relief work during World War II. Carrigan made Padre Pio known in the United States by telling GIs about him and then spreading his message.
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 1
From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration PBS, 9 p.m.
This “Great Performances” features the Vienna Philharmonic playing Strauss Family waltzes and other pieces under the direction of guest conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
THURSDAY, JAN. 2
Much Ado About Something
PBS, 9 p.m.
Did William Shakespeare really write all the plays and sonnets long attributed to him? His backers call the question settled, but others argue for the 17th Earl of Oxford (Edward de Vere), Christopher Marlowe or even Sir Francis Bacon. Written, produced, directed and narrated by Michael Rubbo, this documentary spends much of its 90 minutes on Marlowe. Rubbo's Marlowe advocates include John Baker and the late Calvin Hoffman, and we hear from insistent Shakespeare and Bacon partisans as well.
FRIDAY, JAN. 3
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
PBS, 5 p.m.
On the heels of last week's wrapup of religious news for 2002 comes this panel discussion of predictions about the top stories of 2003. Bob Abernethy hosts.
SATURDAY, JAN. 4
The Fourth Wise Man
EWTN, 8 p.m.
This touching film portrays a fictional wise man's lifelong search for Jesus.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Holy Family's Home in Southern California DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:As a regular communicant at the Saturday night Mass, I long thought Holy Family Cathedral was the most beautiful church that could possibly exist.
Long stained-glass windows streamed down the walls, brick made the exterior look aged and venerable, and ivy crept up the sides of the tower from which bells chimed the hours.
After a few years of Catholic traveling, though, I recently returned to Orange County's cathedral and came to a startling realization: This church, which I have for so long considered my spiritual home, is a combination of traditional cathedral and more contemporary architecture. It's a combination I had never noticed before.
What a wonderful place to pray Jan. 5, feast of the Epiphany.
The ceiling soars, as indeed it would in more ancient cathedrals — Holy Family was dedicated in 1961 — but, rather than leading the eye to stratospheric stained glass or the graceful sculptures, the ceiling itself is the visual destination: a simple and soothing assemblage of thousands of naked strips of wood. The bottom half of the church walls is painted a dull brown, the monotony broken only by the doors of the confessionals and two niches that I now recognize as the modern counterpart to older cathedrals' multiple shrines. One is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, the other to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Diocese of Orange.
Between the unadorned ceiling and the less-than-thrilling lower walls are paired rainbows: windows depicting the community of saints. As a child, I loved to stare at the holy ones' peaceful faces and try to pronounce the tongue-twisting biblical names. As an adult, I now recognize the interesting combination of ancient and contemporary stained-glass artistry. While the saints' faces and extremities are realistically detailed, as figures in older stained-glass windows are — right down to the eyebrows and the toenails — the robes they wear are formed by very modern blocks of color.
Between each pair of windows are the Stations of the Cross, intricate mosaics that puzzled my mind when I was a child. Rather than paying attention to the homily, I often whiled away the Mass wondering where they'd found pebbles in so many different colors.
Today there are newer mosaics in the front of the church and the back — two on the walls flanking the sanctuary, one on the choir-loft balcony. These, like the stained-glass windows in the flanking walls, are more contemporary works of art. The balcony mosaic, for instance, is a collage commanding: “Be doers of the word.”
With its palm trees, bright oranges and swooping freeways, the mosaic definitely belongs here in southern California. Yet, thanks to its lovely depiction of Communion bread and wine, it also speaks to the universal Church.
Jesus Joins In
Few visitors are aware that this cathedral is older than the diocese it leads. Established in 1976, the Diocese of Orange has a history far beyond its years, starting with the 1769 Portola expedition. Two Franciscan missionaries accompanied the expedition, which cut across the land that later became Orange County. It is thought that on July 28, 1769, the first Mass was celebrated in what became the parish of Holy Family.
In 1921, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles appointed the newly established Holy Family parish its first pastor. The first Mass was celebrated in Holy Family Church, then located in downtown Orange, in 1922. The parish started the three-quarter-mile move to its current site in 1949, when the parish school opened.
Inside, the church continues to change little by little. One of the most recent developments was an addition to the Holy Family: Despite the church's name, only statues of Mary and Joseph stood near the altar in former years. Now the two parents bookend a statue of young Jesus, and the family stands together near the sanctuary.
Around the parish, too, things change. Glassell Street has become a virtual thoroughfare, connecting downtown Orange and Santa Ana, the county seat. Nearby hums a freeway that boasts one of the four worst bottlenecks in the state (where it connects with another freeway). And there is talk of a new cathedral, a bigger one that will stand in a more appropriate location: heavily Hispanic — and heavily Catholic — Santa Ana.
The trappings change, and even its position in the diocese may not be permanent, but one thing is absolutely immutable. Whether you look at it with adult eyes or the affectionate gaze of a child, Holy Family Cathedral is a beautiful church, a loving home to its parishioners and a witness to the glory of God.
Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.
----- EXCERPT: Holy Family Cathedral, Orange, Calif. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elisabeth Deffner ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: An `Epiphany' About Gifts DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Christ's birth seems to have receded into the background in popular celebrations of Christmas — which, we seem to have forgotten, ends this Jan. 5 on Epiphany Sunday.
Disgusted by all this materialism, many Christians have reacted by rejecting the notion of Christmas gifts at all. Among evangelicals, transferring gift-giving to Thanksgiving has been popularly discussed and practiced by some. This is touted as a return to the true spiritual celebration of Christmas. But is it?
The ideas behind removing gift-giving from the Christmas season to Thanksgiving fall down if we apply them elsewhere — for example, to Thanksgiving itself, as some say:
“Food has become the focus of Thanksgiving, even to the extent that many people call it ‘Turkey Day.’ Rather than giving thanks to God, which was the original intent of the holiday, the majority of Americans pour their all efforts into making a huge amount of food, which most of them eat to great excess. A return to the true meaning of the holiday demands that we reject turkey, pies and other trappings of gluttony and spend the day in an attitude of thanks unmarred by any distractions. This will be simply effected by moving the turkey dinner to Halloween.”
Such an argument clearly misses the point of the turkey dinner (and all its surrounding traditions of family togetherness): to remind the eaters in a very tangible way of what they have to be grateful for — and so to bring them to a deeper gratefulness. A dinner of frozen pizza is highly unlikely to have the same effect.
The answer to the abuse of a celebration should be to re-emphasize its meaning, not reject it or shift it to another day.
The same is true for the giving of gifts at Christmas and, as is also traditional, on the Epiphany.
Christmas gifts are meant to recall not only the gifts given by the Magi on the first Christmas, but, even more, the gift which the Father gave us in his only-begotten son.
“The Word was made flesh.” God did not hesitate to come as a man (i.e., as a physical, material gift) for fear that we might be d i s t r a c t e d by his physical presence from the meaning of that tremendous gift: the spiritual love that made God dwell among us. Rather, his wisdom perceived it as the best way to bring us, body and soul, into his life. From the very beginning, salvation was sacramental.
In giving gifts to one another with love on Christmas, we imitate (as best we can) the giving love of God — and, in a certain way, are able to make a return.
As the Irish author Dom Eugene Boylan said: “The expense, the worry, the trouble, the patience, the fatigue, the bitterness of financial limitations to one's power of gratifying a child's dream — the list is endless. Think alone of what is involved in Christmas shopping, where a large family and a small income are involved. And the thought can easily arise, especially for the ‘detached’ Christian: ‘Is it worth it all?’”
Of course it is worth it all. It is done in memory of Christ; it is done to build up an idea of Christ; it is done for Christ; it is done to Christ.
Amen, I say to you, whatsoever you did to these my least brethren, you did it to me.
Wendy-Irene Grimm writes from Ojai, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Secret Ingredient for Success: Consecrated Religious DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:SILVERADO, Calif. — Consecrated religious men and women, once the backbone of Catholic education in the United States, have declined in number dramatically in 30 years.
So have the schools they shaped: According to one recent study, about half of the U.S. Catholic high schools that existed in 1965 have closed, as have 4,000 parochial schools.
Yet among those religious orders that remain in schools, as well as new orders that are emerging, can be found the seeds of a renewal of Catholic education and the hope of more religious vocations, several educators say. The witness of the consecrated — living joyfully, serving unreservedly — can be the secret ingredient in the recipe of a successful Catholic school.
“Consecrated persons bring several special values to Catholic education,” said Norbertine Father Gabriel Stack of St. Michael Abbey Preparatory School, a boys boarding school in Orange County, Calif. St. Michael has the most consecrated religious teachers and the highest religious-per-student ratio of any school in the western United States.
Drawing from their own integrated moral and intellectual formation, religious men and women “provide young people with the opportunity to pray, to study and to work with people who have chosen Christ as their exclusive and highest good,” Father Stack said.
“Additionally, [consecrated religious] accent the communitarian dimension of the faith,” he said. “Our faith is not only preserved but also fostered by those with whom we live.”
Advantages
A mother of two sons at Cistercian Preparatory School in Irving, Texas, Brenda Lenzen cites the obvious financial advantage of having a consecrated order behind a school, with teachers who do not depend on salaries as do lay teachers. Beyond that, she said, there is a spiritual heritage that flows from the order itself that makes such a school distinctive.
“Just as a sacramental grace goes along with us as parents from the vocation of marriage, there is sacramental grace that goes along with them as teachers because of holy orders,” she said. “Our apostolate is to be parents; the Cistercian apostolate is to teach. That sacramental grace is felt at Cistercian [Prep].”
Also, a religious order's vision for education has a kind of permanence, unlike the more malleable vision possible at other kinds of Catholic schools, she said.
“Having dealt with two schools [established by Christian families], I saw there was a vision that was born by the families. As the children of those families grow, their vision might change,” Lenzen said. “[At Cistercian], with the permanence of that monastery right there, you don't have a problem of it beginning as one thing and ending as another.”
Consecrated religious who serve in schools were encouraged by a recent Vatican document titled “Consecrated Persons and Their Mission in the School: Reflections and Guidelines,” and written by the Congregation for Catholic Education, whose prefect is Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski.
“We want the document to serve as a stimulus to consecrated persons so that, in the present circumstances, given the decrease in vocations, the temptation to leave the educational service — and the complexity of the world of education and the school — they will be conscious of the loftiness of their educational mission,” he said at a November press conference.
Schoolwork is indeed tough work, said Sister Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz, a foundress of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a 6-year-old order that runs four small elementary schools, called Spiritus Sanctus Academies, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“Teaching is one of the most difficult, consuming-of-self, nonstop everyday professions,” she said. “There's no paycheck, no glory. But it's bringing in such a dimension of what really does ring true in all humanity, if [you're] after truth. It's as simple as wanting to work with each individual person to the fulfillment of their holiness.”
Women's orders that have abandoned their educational apostolates, “in reality gave up their closest link to spiritual motherhood,” she said.
By moving away from their roots, religious orders may also be decreasing their own future vocations, according to Third Order Franciscan Father Terence Henry, president of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
“That [Vatican] document mentioned many religious communities that really have the key right in front of them, and the key is the charism of their founder,” he said. “They don't have to climb Mt. Everest and consult gurus there; it's right in front of them.”
Most vocations to the Third Order of Francis are coming from Franciscan University, where students have the chance to interact daily with the friars who live and work on campus, Father Henry said.
“Whether they're teaching math or theology or working in campus ministry, the friars are visible signs of transcendent values,” he said. “It's a form of radical witness and it makes young men and women say, ‘Why would they do that?’ and then, ‘If they can live that life with joy…’”
Academics vs. Values
In a largely secular educational world, Catholic religious schools also face the challenge of balancing academic prestige with Gospel values.
“A school can have both, but it is a daily struggle,” said Dominican Sister Mary Jordan Hoover of St. Vincent de Paul School in Denver, one of 23 schools around the country now administrated by the blossoming order of the Nashville Dominicans.
“At St. Vincent's we begin each day with prayer,” she said. “Christ is present in every conversation. Teachers value the Christian formation of the students.”
Ultimately, she said, “Jesus Christ is the key to our success as a school. Academics are important, and whole-person education is important. Jesus is the heart of the equation.”
Scholarly goals, far from being sacrificed, are actually enhanced in a more religious environment, believes Sister Joseph Andrew of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
“If you expose the child to the best in the faith, the best music, the best art, such that all the senses become imbued with what is best — and then obviously the correct teachings of life in Christ — what you're doing is making future saints,” she said. “We feel very committed to giving them the best in academics, because that is truth. When you've given them truth, you've given them God.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Dallas. (Zenit contributed to this story.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Conversational Cardinal DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:GOD AND THE WORLD: BELIEVING AND LIVING IN OUR TIME: ACONVERSATION WITH PETER SEEWALD
By Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Ignatius Press, 2002 460 pages, $18.95 To order: (800) 651-1531 or www.ignatius.com
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is living proof that the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” when applied to the Catholic faith, are both meaningless and misleading. Hailed as a leading “liberal” theologian at the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger is and always has been a faithful son of the Church. The irony is that, now, four decades after the council, some critics claim he is a rigid, “right-wing” traditionalist. But those who have followed the work and thought of the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith know he is one of the finest theologians alive today — a man whose knowledge of God and the world is deep, wide and thoroughly Catholic.
And so God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time is an apt title for Cardinal Ratzinger's latest book, an interview conducted by the German journalist Peter Seewald. This is the cardinal's third such interview with Seewald and, just as in The Ratzinger Report (1987) and Salt of the Earth (1997), Cardinal Ratzinger answers questions and comments on a vast array of topics. In essence, God and the World is “The Cardinal's Catechism,” for the structure and chronology of the book has a decidedly catechetical sensibility. The prologue focuses on the theological virtues of faith, hope and love; the three parts of the book take on, in sequence, the topics of God, Jesus Christ and the Church.
Cardinal Ratzinger's brilliance shines forth through the crystalline focus and cohesiveness of his theological vision. He repeatedly returns, from varying angles, to key themes: the centrality of the Trinity, the heart of love forming the core of Christianity, the paradoxical realities of the faith. There is much discussion of the tensions and relationships between love and righteous anger, faith and reason, and the supernatural and the natural. In speaking of love, Cardinal Ratzinger states, “We must think of love as suffering,” and later notes, “Punishment is the situation in which man finds himself if he has alienated himself from his own essential being.” He concludes that God's love and wrath are not in conflict but are different sides of the same theological coin: “The wrath of God is a way of saying that I have been living in a way that is contrary to the love that is God. Anyone who begins to live and grow away from God, who lives away from what is good, is turning his life toward wrath.”
I admire how the cardinal is able to be both charitable and pointed in speaking on controversial issues. Some of the strongest statements are made about the issue of faith. “Faith,” the prefect states, “is not just a system of knowledge, things we are told; at the heart of it is a meeting with Jesus.” All those who meet Jesus will pay a cost for how they react to him. “Whoever comes close to [Christ] … must be prepared to be burned,” he exclaims. “Christianity is great because love is great. It burns, yet this is not the destructive fire but one that makes things bright and pure and free and grand. Being a Christian, then, is daring to entrust oneself to this burning fire.” The brightness of that fire burns strongly in this book. Those who encounter it will find themselves warmed, challenged and inspired.
Carl Olson, editor of Envoy magazine, writes from Heath, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:‘04 for S. Catholic
Jeremiah Ashcroft, president of the prospective college, said the institution will open at that time “if we meet critical objectives,” including finances.
The difficult part “will be turning away the numerous applicants for enrollment next fall,” said Thomas Clements, chairman of Southern Catholic's board of trustees.
Catholic Is Cool
“Money is pouring in for new buildings and parents say they see their children being accepted into colleges and becoming well-rounded people,” the newspaper said.
Headmaster William Burke of St. Sebastian's High School in Needham said the scandal has not hurt the quality or quantity of applicants. Among students already in the school, Burke said, “the faith is really, really strong.”
Accreditation Reaffirmed
The four-year Catholic college of 1,554 students never lost its accreditation but was put on warning in 2000 following a review process that raised a number of concerns related to the financial solvency of the institution and its long-range planning.
Under the leadership of Thomas More's president, E. Joseph Lee, the college has formulated a five-year strategic plan, formed a new management team, implemented new internal budget controls and increased outside funding.
New President
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
Dec. 17 — Father Joseph McShane, a former theology professor and dean at New York&x0027;s Fordham University and the current president of Scranton University, has been named Fordham&x0027;s new president, the newspaper reported. Both Scranton and Fordham are Jesuit institutions.
The Times said Father McShane replaces retiring Father Joseph O&X0027;Hare, who was "a leading voice" among those who expressed reservations about "the Vatican&x0027;s efforts to codify the relationship of Catholic colleges and the Church."
The newspaper described Father McShane as favoring that effort as a way to prompt "colleges to re-examine their missions," but said that he thinks the need for a Church mandatum for theology professors "must still be resolved."
Two More Years
The college “will be an associate/baccalaureate college, with two-year associate's degrees continuing to account for most degrees granted,” the newspaper said.
However, most Holy Cross graduates go on to four-year schools, and many might now opt to do that by staying put.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Strike the Original Match DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Q When we were dating, my future husband was very romantic and attentive to my needs. Now, after a few years of marriage and children, he seems to have put that part of his personality out to pasture. He is a wonderful father and a man of God. I just wish we could rekindle the flame we once had.
A Tom: This is a struggle even the healthiest marriages routinely face. First, let's affirm what seems to be overwhelmingly right: Your husband loves his children and lives his faith. You aren't questioning his commitment to you, so all the foundational ingredients of a Christ-centered relationship are in place. Your fundamentally sound marital engine hasn't thrown a rod; it just needs a tuneup.
To make progress in this area, let's be clear about the nature of men — myself included. For all our inventiveness and rationality, we guys can be fundamentally dim when it comes to noticing the little things that make a relationship tick. The same guy who innately knows the names of the starting quarterbacks for every NFL team may not notice that you've gotten a drastic haircut. This isn't because he doesn't care; his brain is wired to be slower on the uptake. But, if you ask if he likes your hair, rather than waiting for him to notice and moping if he doesn't, he'll snap to attention and compliment you (hopefully) on the new look.
In other words, men who love their wives will respond to clear cues. If you want your husband to be romantic the way he once was, give him clear, specific reminders about what it is that makes you feel special. If you wait for him to pick up on nonverbal signals, you may be waiting until doomsday.
Speaking on behalf of otherwise intelligent, yet romantically slow-witted men, I urge you to spell it out for him. Give him an opportunity to rise to the occasion.
Caroline: It's tempting to say, “I shouldn't have to ask for a romantic card. He should think of these things on his own!” Maybe so, but that mind-set gets you nowhere. I speak from firsthand experience. A few special occasions slipped by, and I was disappointed and hurt by the lack of fanfare. Finally I explained that anniversaries, birthdays and even Valentine's Days are important to me — I'd like him to make a big fuss about them. And did he ever, once I mentioned it. The very next special occasion I was greeted with flowers and clues for a treasure hunt to find gifts around the house. He simply needed to know.
A caution to wives: Presentation is everything. Stay positive. If you're disappointed that you didn't receive flowers after your last baby, don't gripe about it now with this pregnancy. That serves only to put him on the defensive and make him feel bad about himself. Instead, drop an obvious clue: “After 17 hours of labor, I'd love to be checked into a hospital room overflowing with roses.” Praise him to the hilt when he follows through. He'll feel great that he's made you so happy and will want to do it again.
The McDonalds are directors of family life for the Archdiocese of
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: Family Matters ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom And Caroline Mcdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Young and Negative on Abortion DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:More than one-fifth of 1,009 Americans surveyed by Zogby International say they're less in favor of abortion today than they were a decade ago. The youngest people tended to be more opposed to abortion than the baby-boomer generation.
One-third of people ages 18 to 29 said abortion should never be legal. That contrasts with about 23% for those from 30 to 64 years old and about 20% for those over age 65.
Source: The Buffalo News, Nov. 25, 2002
----- EXCERPT: Facts of Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Witness to Love DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Christine and Paul Nugent watched, wide-eyed, as the ultrasound technician pointed to the monitor. “Oh, look at the baby,” Christine remembers the sonographer saying. “How cute.”
Then, abruptly, the technician fell silent. Her expression turned serious. She stared at the image for several long seconds. She said something about cysts on the baby's brain and several times repeated her concern about the baby's hands, which were clearly clenched into tight fists. “We're just going to get the attending physician to take a look at this,” she said.
Christine squeezed her husband's hand in one of hers and clutched a rosary in the other. She was 22 weeks pregnant with what she called an “extremely wanted baby.” She and Paul, both 40, of Huntington, N.Y., had been trying for some time to have their third child, but Christine had miscarried twice in three years.
When the doctor looked at the sono-gram, she saw not only clenched fists and brain cysts but also a problem with the baby's heart — all the indications of trisomy 18, a syndrome associated with the presence of a third No. 18 chromosome. Normally, chromosomes come in 23 pairs. The doctor said the third 18th chromosome would prove fatal for the baby.
“We told her we wanted to keep the baby,” Christine says. “We asked if she would find us a doctor in this hospital who would help us do that.”
Instead, the physician referred the Nugents to a genetics counselor, who told the couple “how horrible” trisomy 18 is.
Christine asked the counselor if the hospital, on New York's Long Island, had any resources for women who want to carry babies with birth defects to term. But the only resources available were for women who wanted to abort such babies.
The young mother felt the hospital was pressuring her to undergo an amniocentesis, ostensibly to confirm the diagnosis. She was afraid the procedure would cause a miscarriage. “The window for you to make your decision is 24 weeks,” the genetics counselor said. Christine recognized the warning as a vague reference to New York State's time limit on legal abortions. “You need to get all the information you need to make your decision.”
The amniocentesis did, indeed, confirm the suspicions. Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards syndrome, affects approximately one out of 3,000 live births, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine's MEDLINEplus Web site. Multiple abnormalities are associated with the condition; these include mental retardation, bodily deformities and congenital heart disease. Unlike Down syndrome, which is also caused by a chromosomal disorder, most trisomy 18 babies live less than a year. Some, however, live much longer — into their 20s, in some cases.
But because the Nugent baby's problems were compounded by a heart defect, the baby wasn't expected to live more than a week. Part of her heart would be able to pump blood to her lungs, but the underdeveloped left side would not be able to supply the rest of her body.
The diagnosis, confirmed on Good Friday 2002, was the beginning of what Christine called her own “personal passion.” Rather than living in the joyful expectation of a new baby, she faced giving birth to a dying child.
But she was determined to give the baby a fighting chance at life, no matter how brief it might be. A science teacher at a local public middle school, she researched Edwards syndrome. She also worked out contingency plans with her doctors and Huntington Hospital in her hometown, where she scheduled a July 26 delivery by Caesarean section, and discerned whether to sign a “do not resuscitate” order.
She also had to deal with the negativity of those close to her who felt she should have an abortion and get the unfortunate chapter over with.
Fighting for Life
The opposition Christine faced because of her stand for life came not only from the medical community but even from some of her own friends and colleagues. The baby is not going to live, they seemed to be saying, so why have it? Why not end the suffering as soon as you can?
“The medical community lets you think you are the only woman to continue … with a pregnancy like this,” she wrote on an Internet bulletin board, part of a support group for mothers of Trisomy 18 babies. “The pressure to terminate is tremendous.”
“We live in a society where everything is supposed to be perfect,” Christine told the Register. “It's a disposable society. If something is not perfect, you get rid of it and try again. It's like, ‘Better luck next time.’”
“There's definitely a feeling out there that a life like this is not worth pursuing to the end of pregnancy,” says Christine's obstetrician, Dr. John Wagner of Huntington. “I don't know how we've come to this end, but we have. A large portion of the obstetrics community believes these lives are less worthy, in the sense that babies that appear to be normal are, in a sense, more worthy.”
“You can speculate on the reasons as much as I can,” Dr. Wagner adds. “Is it abortion on demand? Even the March of Dimes' healthy-baby program — the March of Dimes does a tremendous amount of good work. But the promotion is based on identifying and eliminating unhealthy babies. Somewhere, we have developed a definition of healthy and, in pursuit of ‘healthy,’ there are babies deemed unhealthy. Their moms are strongly steered toward termination.”
The physician faults his profession for not doing more to help families get through the kind of experience the Nugents had. He says he'd like to see cases like theirs serve as models for prenatal hospice programs. “There is a paucity of data on how to plan, cope and help patients get through these situations,” he says. “There's more data on how to mentally help someone cope with a termination.”
As for Christine, she researched her baby's condition and planned the delivery “to a tee,” according to Dr. Wagner. “It took tremendous dedication on her part.”
“I am looking for support to get me through what I think is going to be the hardest part — the birth and letting go,” Christine wrote on the Internet bulletin board. “There is no easy way to do this, except with God's grace.”
And that is what she and Paul named the baby — Grace. Grace Anne, to be precise.
The Nugents asked their parish priest, Father Steven Berbig, to be at the hospital for the birth so the baby could be baptized as soon as she was born.
“I was in scrubs, ready to be rushed into the delivery room,” says Father Berbig, associate pastor at St. Patrick's in Huntington.
Someone told Christine about the Sisters of Life, the religious community founded by New York's Cardinal John O'Connor to promote the dignity of human life. Sister Mary Doolittle, a former nurse, called Christine frequently and gave her emotional and spiritual support. She also put her in touch with Morning Light Ministry, a Catholic organization in Mississauga, Ontario, helping women through adverse pregnancies.
At home, the Nugents told their children that the family's new baby is sick, and “we are not sure how long we are going to have her.” But their daughters, Anne, 7, and Kathleen, 5, would have a sister, even after her death, Christine explained.
Christine prayed for the strength and grace to love the baby “for whatever time God gives us.”
Two days before the birth, she wrote on the bulletin board: “I am excited to finally meet this little baby who keeps breaking the rules. This baby is going to have a short but powerful life. I wouldn't have changed a thing.”
Every Day Counts
“Powerful” was the word that came to Father Berbig's lips in describing the witness Christine gave in the way she approached the situation. “She was tenacious,” he remembers. “She has a real firm conviction. She invited people into that. She had the support of the medical staff in a very happy and open way.”
The baby seemed to have inherited some of her mother's tenacity. “She was a fighter,” the priest says.
In the first month, Christine visited Grace in the hospital and held her for virtually the entire day. After the baby was discharged from the hospital, Christine and Paul, a New York City fireman, often took her to the park or to visit relatives. Friends and family would come to the Nugents' to hold the little redhead.
As Grace continued to defy the odds simply by surviving another day, she had occasional seizures and sometimes stopped breathing — once for 20 minutes. There was nothing Christine could do but hold her and “love her,” she said. She often “coughed” herself back after not breathing.
“The baby is just beautiful,” Christine said in an interview Sept. 23. “We prayed she'd be pretty. She's sick as hell, but she's my child.” She also prayed that, when the time came, Grace would die peacefully.
That prayer was answered Sept. 26. That day, Grace Ann Nugent died in her mother's arms. Surrounded by family, she stopped breathing and didn't cough her way back. “She looked like she was sleeping,” Christine quietly recalls.
Christine says she now considers herself fortunate for the time she had with her baby. She also says she and Paul weren't the only ones blessed by getting to know and love Grace Anne — it seemed everyone who met her realized what a beautiful and mysterious gift every human life is.
Father Berbig, offering the funeral Mass, quoted Paul Nugent: “People tell us, ‘That was a long hard road you had.’ But we took the easy way. We chose to have the baby and love the baby.”
“They'll never have to wonder ‘what if,’” Father Berbig says of Paul and Christine Nugent. “What would she look like, how would she smell, how long would she live?”
The “other” way — the choice that some felt the Nugents needed to make before the 24th week — might have led to a lifetime of regret. Instead, Paul, Christine, Anne and Kathleen have lots of memories, photographs and a little girl in heaven. And they're surrounded by a few new believers in the sacredness of life.
----- EXCERPT: The short, beautiful life of Grace Anne Nugent ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pregnant, in Crisis - and Gifted DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:The phrase “pro-life activist” usually brings to mind a toughened Saturday-morning warrior — rosary in one hand, pro-life placard in the other — pacing the sidewalk in front of an abortion clinic and praying aloud for the killing to stop.
Essential as this kind of activism is, for some people — the elderly, the infirm, the mother of small children — it is impossible.
What is a housebound pro-lifer to do? Gifts for the Unborn, based in Austin, Texas, offers some creative answers to that question.
Dick Jacobs founded Gifts for the Unborn in 1995. It began, he told the Register, with this simple thought: If you could put something tangible into the hands of a pregnant woman — something that says baby — you could help steer her away from an abortion.
With that inspiration in mind, Jacobs and his wife, Lorelle, began putting together small gift packs containing a small picture frame, a baby-care product, (such as a washcloth, bib or bottle of baby shampoo) and a pair of baby booties. They delivered the packs to a few local crisis-pregnancy centers.
For Kate Signorelli, director of Birthright in Houston, Texas, these simple gift packs were an effective tool in helping her clients understand that what they're carrying inside isn't a what but a who.
“A woman who finds herself in a crisis-pregnancy situation is feeling very ambivalent about the whole thing,” says Signorelli. “Then you give her the gift pack. You see her eyes soften. A change comes over her.”
It wasn't long before other crisis-pregnancy centers began distributing the gift packs. Today, Gifts for the Unborn distributes about 10,000 packs per year to 371 centers in the United States, Canada, Romania, Ecuador, Latvia and Belarus. And the list is growing.
And here's where the behind-the-scenes pro-life warrior comes in: Somebody's got to make those booties. Out of necessity, some gift packs include store-bought booties or baby socks, but, for the most part, the booties in the gift packs are made by hand. Jacobs provides instructions on how to sew, knit or crochet the booties, enabling anyone to contribute to this genuinely hands-on pro-life work.
“A lot of the people making booties are little old ladies,” says Louise Walters of Natrona Heights, Pa. Louise is Dick Jacobs' sister; she became involved early on as one of the first booty makers.
Walters says Gifts for the Unborn is perfect for pro-lifers who are either unable or disinclined to take their love of life to the streets. “A woman who comes into a crisis-pregnancy center needs all the encouragement she can get,” she says. “We're there for her and her baby.”
Dick Jacobs' army of booty makers includes his 99-year old father, a group of sisters at the University of Notre Dame and a housebound woman who can crochet a pair of baby booties in less than an hour. Several times a year, she donates batches of several hundred booties.
Care on Demand
Cindy Rongey of Wahiawa, Hawaii, has a little army of her own: her four children. Admitting no talent for booty making, Rongey concentrates instead on hand-making the small infant picture frames and assembling gift packs for distribution to crisis-pregnancy centers on the West Coast. Once the frames are made and the materials laid out, she and her children, including her 19-month-old, fill the bags and prepare them for shipment. They supply 54 centers with about 200 gift packs per month.
“Our charity would be nothing without the crisis-pregnancy centers,” says Rongey, and she's right. While the necessarily anonymous nature of crisis-pregnancy center work makes it difficult to assess just how many women turn away from abortion as a direct result of the gift packs, Gifts for the Unborn receives many positive calls from the centers they serve. More importantly they receive plenty of requests for more gift packs.
Small wonder. “Blobs of tissue don't wear booties,” says Rongey. “Babies wear booties.” Crisis-pregnancy centers report that their clients sometimes choose the color of the booties based on whether they are hoping for a boy or a girl.
Sharon Lozano, director of the Gabriel Project Life Center in downtown Austin, uses the gift packs because of the hope they provide. “The [simple gesture] gives the woman the sense that somebody cares about her and the child she's carrying,” she says. “It shows that somebody began caring about her baby before he even came to be.”
In Canada, Europe and Latin America, in order to avoid international customs fees for their eastern European crisis-pregnancy centers, Gifts for the Unborn has “missionary-type” volunteers who carry in batches of gift packs in their luggage.
‘Mom-and-Pop’ Appeal
Financial responsibility is another hallmark of Gifts for the Unborn. “One hundred percent of every donation, money or materials, makes it all the way to the crisis-pregnancy center and into the hands of a troubled pregnant woman,” says Jacobs. All the char-ity's incidental expenses, such as postage, phone calls, transportation and upkeep of its Web site, are out of-pocket from the founders and their associates. Donors also receive a handwritten thank-you note. “We want to keep it at the mom-and-pop level,” says Jacobs.
How does a homespun organization manage to send 10,000 gift packages a year across the country and overseas?
Rongey thinks it is by the hand of God. “Neither Dick, Louise nor I have ever had to say No to a crisis-pregnancy center,” she says. “We've never run out of money. We've never run out of materials.”
Rongey then describes one time when a request for gift packs came in — and she had no booties on hand at all.
In the same batch of that day's mail was a parcel that containing 25 pairs of booties: exactly enough to fill the order. “I wish someone with no faith would join our organization,” she says. “They'd get faith in a hurry.”
Clare Conneely writes from Winfield, Illinois.
----- EXCERPT: Gifts for the Unborn equips crisis-pregnancy centers with love ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 01/05/2003 CATEGORY: January 5-11, 2003 ----- BODY:Adult Stem-Cell Line Licensed
Athersys Inc. licensed the rights from the University of Minnesota, where the stem cell was discovered by Dr. Catherine Verfaillie and colleagues.
The cells come from the bone marrow of adults and are as versatile as stem cells from embryos in their ability to turn into different types of cells in the body. Gil Van Bokkelen, chief executive of Athersys, said that, although the company will hold the patents to the stem cells it has no desire to block others' research and hopes to collaborate and share the returns.
Due Process for the Unborn?
WORLD NET DAILY, Dec. 9 — Georgia legislators will introduce a bill in January that refers to abortion as an “execution” and will require any mother seeking an abortion to go to court to obtain a death warrant.
Once a mother files for a death warrant, a guardian would be appointed to protect the rights of the unborn child. That guardian would be authorized to demand a jury trial in which the rights of the unborn child would be balanced against the rights of the mother seeking to have the “execution” performed.
Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, said, “It's an attempt to restore the 14th Amendment due-process rights of the unborn.”
Girls Petition for Modesty
FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, Dec. 12 — Disgusted with immodest fashions, 18-year-old Amanda Smith and her friends collected 1,500 signatures and presented them to Dillard's department store in Mesa, Ariz., requesting they stock more modest clothes.
Dillard's contacted fashion designer Jody Berman and, with the girls' help, new and more modest fashions are on their way to Arizona.
Berman said, “It's very easy to do a very pretty dress, giving them the fabrics that are in fashion and just giving them a little bit more modesty.”
Dillard's has asked Smith and her friends to be fashion consultants for the store.
Smoking and Infant Deaths
BBC NEWS, Dec. 19 — Scientists may have explained why babies born to smokers are at increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS): They have discovered that exposure to tobacco smoke in the womb appears to slow down a baby's arousal response.
Previous research indicated that cigarette smoking by the mother could be implicated in up to 30% of cases of SIDS, but no one understood how it was that smoking increased the risk.
The researchers, from Queensland, Australia, told the BBC they think that tobacco smoke may act to reduce the supply of oxygen to the brain of an unborn child, leading to stunted mental development and, hence, slower reaction times during deep sleep.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Epiphany's 12 New Bishops DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—Pope John Paul II ordained 12 new bishops on Jan. 6 in St. Peter's Basilica, following his annual custom of episcopal ordinations on the solemnity of the Epiphany.
The Holy Father concludes the Christmas season every year by administering the sacraments himself—ordaining bishops on Jan. 6 and baptizing infants in the Sistine Chapel on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which falls this year on Jan. 12.
The two-and-a-half hour ordination Mass is the longest ceremony on the Holy Father's regular schedule and has been adjusted in recent years. This year the Pope remained seated for the laying on of hands and only extended his right hand. Some aspects of the ceremony were entrusted to assisting bishops, as efforts were made to reduce the strain on John Paul at the end of a Christmas season, which featured one of the shortest midnight Masses in memory—less than 90 minutes.
“Your names and your faces speak of the Church universal,” the Holy Father told the new bishops. “You come, in fact, from various nations and continents; and you are now destined for different countries.”
The newly ordained included Bishop Brian Farrell, recently appointed to be the second-in-command at the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, replacing Bishop Marc Ouellet, who has returned to his native Canada to be archbishop of Quebec.
Bishop Farrell, an Irishman with nearly two decades of service in the Vatican Secretariat of State, is the older brother of Bishop Kevin Farrell, the auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C. Both Farrell brothers were ordained priests for the Legionaries of Christ, though Kevin Farrell later became a diocesan priest.
Other notables among the new bishops were Archbishop Angelo Amato, who will serve as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's new deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who will be the Holy See's Permanent Observer (new “ambassador”) to the United Nations.
Three of the other bishops ordained will serve as papal nuncios in various countries. The remaining six are diocesan bishops in Italy, Benin, Slovakia, Iraq, Syria and the Ukraine. The candidates from the Eastern Catholic Churches, with their bishops' crowns and more ornate vestments, lent even more color to the annual ordination.
“Faith in Christ, the light of the world, has guided your steps from your youth until your offering of yourselves in priestly ordination,” John Paul said. “To the Lord you have not given gold, frankincense and myrrh, but your own lives. … You are receiving the fullness of the gift [of the priesthood], and this asks at the same time that you receive the fullness of duty.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Priest Eyewitness Describes How the Christians of Bethlehem Are Suffering DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:BETHLEHEM—Christmas was celebrated quietly here in a climate of fear and under the shadow of violence. Politics does not leave the pilgrim untouched.
Bethlehem, a Palestinian town on the West Bank only seven miles from Jerusalem, has had a brutal 2002.
The Basilica of the Nativity itself was occupied by Palestinian gunmen for 40 days in the spring. The town was reoccupied by Israeli forces in November and has been under curfew for 24 hours a day, meaning its residents live under virtual house arrest, being allowed to leave their homes only every four days for a few hours to buy food and supplies. Economic and educational life has grounded to a halt.
The Israeli policy is in response to repeated suicide bombings. The policy seemed to have limited success, as there were no more bombings after late November, and the Israeli armed forces lifted the curfew from Dec. 23-26 and withdrew their tanks from Manger Square. Yet twin bombings on Jan. 5, which killed 23 in Tel Aviv, have only added to a general sense of hopelessness.
“There is no light at the end of the tunnel,” one local employer said. “There is no tunnel.”
The heavy political situation hung over Christmas celebrations like the dark clouds and cold rain that poured down on Christmas night.
“God is crying for Bethlehem,” said a uniformed usher who led the procession to the Grotto of the Nativity.
At midnight Mass a front-row seat was reserved for Yassir Arafat. He usually attends but this year Israel would not give him permission. The local Catholics—almost all are Palestinian—draped a trademark kaffiyeh across an empty chair with a sign indicating that the missing guest was the “President of the State of Palestine.”
This year the Bethlehem civic administration banned Christmas decorations as a protest against the Israeli occupation of the city. The Israelis said the Palestinian Authority was exploiting Christmas for political purposes.
For their part, in deference to world Christian opinion, the Israeli forces took a low profile in the newly opened city during Christmas itself. Palestinian Muslims noted that Palestinian Christians were getting favorable treatment from the hated occupying power. The Christians, not wanting to seem less enthusiastic than their Muslim brothers for the Palestinian cause, gave Arafat pride of place.
In the midst of all this, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, celebrated midnight Mass and carried the statue of the Baby Jesus down to the Holy Grotto, the priests chanting prayers that can be prayed nowhere else: Hic involutus pannis … Here he was wrapped in swaddling cloths; Hic in praesepio est reclinatus … Here he was laid in the manger; Hic visus a pastoribus… Here he was seen by the shepherds.
According to the long-standing agreements that govern the Holy Places, whoever is the civil power must guarantee the patriarch's entry into Bethlehem from his residence in Jerusalem. The solemn entry is usually a festive affair, with marching bands and decorated streets. This year it was more somber.
The patriarch left Jerusalem escorted by a mounted color guard of the Israeli police force. Sabbah is the first native Palestinian patriarch, so it was an incongruous sight to see him being conducted to Christmas liturgies under the Israeli flag. At the checkpoint he was handed over to a mounted Palestinian flag-bearer. Given the Israeli destruction of the Palestinian Authority police buildings and forces in Bethlehem, there were no uniformed Palestinian police or police cars on hand. As a result, the patriarch's procession instead featured ambulances, sirens wailing.
He was greeted in Manger Square by an anti-Israeli demonstration comprised of local Palestinians, foreign pilgrims and Israeli peace activists. Sabbah steadfastly opposes the occupation, but with television cameras on hand, even his religious procession was disrupted with political slogans.
To understand how everything here is overladen with political meanings, witness the carol singers in the nearby Bethlehem Peace Center, which doubles as a sort of Palestinian tourist office. They were singing “The First NoÎl,” but the words “King of Israel” had been dropped. Was this another anti-Israeli move, echoes of what Arafat sometimes calls “the Palestinian Jesus”? Or to the contrary, were the European singers politically correct Christians not wishing to suggest that Jesus was King of the Jews, too?
Another incongruity at the Evangelical Lutheran Church on the main street: Instructions were given that Palestinians would light their candles first, others afterward. The intended symbolism was that the “light came first to Palestine.” No mention was made about Jesus being Jewish.
A reminder that Bethlehem is now a Muslim town came just as the Lutherans were starting up, as the ear-splitting broadcast of the muezzin (crier) called the Islamic faithful to prayer. Manger Square features a mosque with a loudspeaker pointed directly at the Basilica of the Nativity.
At midnight the imams were silent and Sabbah devoted about half his homily to the mystery of the Word made flesh, and the other half to the occupation and need for peace. It's a difficult balancing act to be the Catholic bishop here.
Here, as in hic. Here the light shines in the darkness. And that the darkness is in need of the light is all too evident.
Father Raymond J. de Souza recently returned from Bethlehem to Rome.
Christians Leaving Bethlehem
BETHLEHEM—Bethlehem and its neighboring towns are home to 85% of the Christians of the West Bank. Christians are only 2% of the Palestinian population, yet Bethlehem has been very much a Christian town, with more than half of its 30,000 inhabitants Christian as recently as 20 years ago.
Fifty years ago this whole area was more than three-quarters Christian. Now, while the neighboring towns still hold a Christian majority, Christians in Bethlehem are less than 20% of the population. Some estimates put the figure at less than 5%.
Two factors are pushing Christians out—the severity of Israeli anti-terror measures and the increasingly Islamic character of the Palestinian intifada (uprising). An important third factor is pulling them away: their high levels of education and Western outlook.
The intention of the Israeli curfew is twofold. First, it aims to catch the terrorists themselves and second to weaken their networks of support by using a form of collective punishment. The effect is that Bethlehem is a very unpleasant place to live and the prospects for improvement are slim as it becomes increasingly sealed off.
Christians find themselves in a peculiar position. They are being punished for the suicide bombers among them, yet the suicide bombers are not Christians. While Bethlehem is plastered with signs eulogizing the “martyrs,” Christian theology does not recognize a suicide bomber as a martyr—quite the contrary. Local Christians say their lack of “martyrs” has not gone unnoticed by their Muslim neighbors. Christians have not given their blood to the suicide phase of the intifada.
One thousand Christian families have left Bethlehem since the current intifada began two years ago. Ninety Christian families in a neighboring town left almost overnight last spring when the Israeli tanks first rolled into Bethlehem. There are currently more Christians who were born in Bethlehem living in Santiago, Chile, than there are Christians in Bethlehem. Almost every Christian has a member of his extended family abroad preparing the way for the rest of the family to follow.
Christian pilgrims will always have their eyes turned toward Bethlehem. There is a real possibility though that when they come, there will no longer be any local Christians to meet.
—Father Raymond J. de Souza
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. de Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Sting Director's Death Raises End-of-Life Questions DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—As the director of such well-known films as The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lay dying in the care of a Catholic hospice, a private-duty nurse and a pro-life advocate were fighting to make sure he was being treated with dignity.
George Roy Hill, 81, died Dec. 27. He was under the care of his doctors and the hospice program of Cabrini Medical Center, a Manhattan Catholic hospital, in mid-December in his Fifth Avenue home when his family decided to stop his artificial feeding.
The family made the decision based on Hill's living will, said Louisa Hill, his ex-wife and health care proxy.
Hill had suffered for several years from Parkinson's disease. Because the Parkinson's disease interfered with his ability to breathe normally, Louisa Hill explained, he had a tracheotomy, an opening in the trachea made through the neck. The Parkinson's disease also hampered Hill's ability to swallow, requiring him to receive his food artificially through a stomach tube.
According to Louisa Hill, the Parkinson's disease was causing Hill to suffer from a great deal of congestion in his lungs, which had to be suctioned out frequently.
After the artificial feeding stopped, Louisa Hill said Hill's lungs seemed less congested and needed to be pumped out less frequently. He was “resting peacefully,” she said in a Dec. 6 interview. Hill was expected to die any day.
Louisa Hill acknowledged that a former nurse of Hill's, Heather Ward, “disagreed with the decision to follow the living will.” Louisa Hill said she felt “harassed” because Ward had encouraged “every little agency” to look into the Hill case.
Ward, on the other hand, feared the withdrawal of nutrition was not medically or ethically justified. She fought to ensure that Hill would continue to receive food by protesting to Cabrini as well as to the Archdiocese of New York, the New York Police Department, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Adult Protective Services agency.
None of her protests succeeded.
Ward resigned as Hill's private duty nurse as an objection to the family's decision to stop artificial feeding, she said. For the past four years she had been taking care of Hill for 12 hours a day, five to seven days a week, she said. She described Hill as “very handsome,” with a “distinctive smile,” short gray hair and “beautiful gray eyes.”
“I told [the family] he's not an animal,” she said.
The case raises questions about whether a Catholic institution was unjustifiably “starving Hill to death,” said Chris Slattery, the co-founder of the Legal Center for the Defense for Life who was assisting Ward in the matter.
Medical Ethics
In resolving questions of medical ethics, Catholic hospitals are obligated to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. According to the directives, “there should be a presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration to all patients, including patients who require medically assisted nutrition and hydration, as long as this is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the burdens involved to the patient.”
“We should not assume that all or most decisions to withhold or withdraw medically assisted nutrition and hydration are attempts to cause death,” states a resource paper issued in 1992 by the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the bishops' conference.
Withdrawal of nutrition and hydration might be justified when “the patient [is] imminently dying, whether feeding takes place or not” or when the feeding procedure is “of limited usefulness to the patient or unreasonably burdensome for the patient and the patient's family or caregivers,” according to the resource paper.
However, “the harsh reality is that some who propose withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from certain patients do directly intend to bring about a patient's death,” the resource paper adds. Nutrition and hydration “are sometimes withdrawn not because a patient is dying but precisely because a patient is not dying (or not dying quickly) and someone believes it would be better if he or she did,” it cautions.
Although no one at Cabrini was willing to comment on whether the withdrawal of Hill's artificial feeding was justifiable, other ethicists at prominent Catholic hospitals indicated that it might be morally defensible to withhold nutrition from patients with Parkinson's disease who are being artificially fed, such as Hill.
“A feeding tube does not necessarily prolong life or prevent aspiration” of food into the lungs, said Franciscan Brother Daniel Sulmasy, a physician who chairs the department of ethics of St. Vincent's Hospital-Manhattan and New York Medical College. A person with advanced Parkinson's disease could suffer from as many as five episodes of aspiration pneumonia from food being aspirated into the lungs, he said.
“Nutritional intervention doesn't always improve survival,” said Dr. Christopher Comfort, chairman of the ethics committee at Calvary Hospital, a Catholic institution for the terminally ill located in the Bronx, in agreement. “Incidents of aspiration pneumonia don't fall in patients with gastrostomy [stomach] tubes.”
A diagnosis of end-stage Parkinson's disease can be “as terminal a diagnosis as a diagnosis of cancer,” Comfort added. Under those circumstances, continued nutrition and hydration “may make a difference only in terms of hours or days.”
The resource paper explains that even where “the shortening of the patient's life is one foreseeable result” of withdrawing nutrition and hydration, “this kind of decision should not be equated with a decision to kill” where the primary purpose of the withdrawal is to ease the patient.
Value of Life
According to Conventual Franciscan Father Germain Kopaczynski, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, “the Church's teaching is very much on the side of life—when in doubt, choose life.”
“The paramount consideration is that God is Lord of life and death,” and we “can't put God aside and say in this case God's will is not as the family wishes,” he added. On the other hand, “no one wants to see people suffer,” he said, so the Church must balance “pastoral and doctrinal concerns” on this issue.
According to Father Kopaczynski, the directives are “a summary of authentic Catholic teaching” and are “as good as you could get given the medical realities—there are so many situations that might arise.” Nonetheless, some Catholic medical institutions “would not be as strict as other facilities or might understand the directives in a different way.”
According to Tom Marzen, general counsel of the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, the directives of the bishops' conference do not provide clear enough guidance in specific situations. Marzen has been involved in approximately 100 lawsuits contesting the withdrawal of treatment such as nutrition and hydration.
Marzen said he thinks as a practical matter there is “no careful analysis of the legitimate burdens and benefits” to the patient with respect to continued artificial feeding.
“Some benefits are more important than others,” he said, “like staying alive.”
Marzen fears many Catholics and Catholic hospitals, like the rest of society, have lost the sense of the “absolute value of human life, the sanctity of life.”
Avenues of Protest
With respect to the Hill case, Marzen explained that from a legal standpoint it is often very difficult to protest a decision made by a health care proxy such as Louisa Hill. This does not mean that a person protesting such a decision has no recourse, however.
Catholic hospitals can and do refer patients to other doctors or transfer them to other facilities if their wishes or their family's wishes do not accord with the directives, explained Comfort of Calvary Hospital. Moreover, if patients or their families during the admitting process make requests that violate the directives, Calvary will not admit the patient, he said.
Additionally, “a physician or nurse told to participate in a course of action that he or she views as clearly immoral has a right and responsibility either to refuse to participate in this course of action or to withdraw from the case, and he or she should be given the opportunity to express the reasons for such refusal in the appropriate forum,” the bishops' conference resource paper states.
In accordance with these principles, Hill's former nurse Ward refused to participate in the withdrawal of artificial feeding from Hill. Through Slattery, she attempted to express her reasons for this refusal to Cabrini.
Cabrini has a procedure for people to protest medical decisions on ethical and religious grounds, according to Belinda Conway, vice president of missions, who has responsibility for ethical matters at Cabrini.
The hospital has “an ad hoc ethics committee that meets and reviews specific patients' situations,” Conway said. The patient's treating physician or a person directly involved in the patient's care can ask for a meeting of the ad hoc ethics committee, she said.
Mary Cooke, who is director of Cabrini Hospice and a member of Cabrini Medical Center's standing ethics committee, said anyone at the medical center would have access to the ad hoc ethics committee. She said if a private-duty nurse wished to address the ad hoc ethics committee, Cooke would ask the committee if it was possible.
Slattery said he contacted Cooke on Ward's behalf to protest the treatment of Hill but that Cooke did not inform him of a procedure that would allow someone to contest a medical decision on ethical grounds. Instead, he said, she characterized Slattery's and Ward's activities as interfering in a private decision and refused to take action.
Cooke refused to comment on why she did not mention the committee to Slattery when he called on behalf of Ward.
Slattery also contacted Margaret Kranz, senior vice president of legal services and general counsel to Cabrini, he said. According to Slattery, Kranz likewise failed to mention the ad hoc ethics committee and instead expressed the concern that Ward was revealing confidential medical information of a patient.
Kranz was unavailable for comment.
Question of Oversight
The interpretation of the directives is ultimately up to the local bishops, said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
A bishop has the authority to determine whether a medical institution in his diocese can continue to call itself Catholic. He can also keep an institution from claiming tax-exempt status in the name of the Church, Doerflinger said.
Dr. Karl Adler, Cardinal Edward Egan's delegate for health care in the Archdiocese of New York, said the archbishop would consider ordering an institution not to call itself Catholic if that institution violated the directives. To seek the aid of the archdiocese, a person would simply need to “write a letter to Cardinal Egan with a cc to myself,” he said.
Adler, who is also chairman of the archdiocese's Catholic Healthcare System of hospitals, is not aware of any such complaints. In particular, the Hill case had not come to his attention.
Ward and Slattery met twice with officials from the Archdiocese of New York's Family Life/Respect Life Office, however, and were told that Cardinal Egan was informed of the situation, Slattery said.
According to Louisa Hill, someone at the archdiocese called Hill's family; she did not say who or what the person said.
Neither Cardinal Egan's office nor archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling would comment on what action it took and whether it had an official position on the matter.
Katharine Smith Santos writes from Garden City, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Katharine Smith Santos ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Corleone, Sicily: Town of Churches, Saints ... and the Mafia DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:CORLEONE, Italy—Once known as the “town of 100 churches,” Corleone on the island of Sicily is better known today as the Mafia capital of the world. The Corleone-Mafia association has been so widely propagated that its name alone conjures up images of the brutal Capo Di Tutti, the fictional Vito Corleone of The Godfather series, or Salvatore “The Beast” Riina and Bernardo “The Tractor” Provenzano.
For generations, the people of Corleone have been unable to shed its unsavory Mafia-related reputation. But it had help in June 2001 when Pope John Paul II canonized St. Bernardo, a 17th-century Capuchin friar with a hint of Cyrano de Bergerac about him. Since then the town has been working to restore its image as a traditional-values city.
“These four or five [Mafia] people have ruined Corleone's reputation throughout the world,” said Father Vincenzo Pizzitola from his office at the Chiesa Madre Cathedral. “But the average Corleonese is devoted to his family and his work and true values of justice and religiosity. They are a people with extremely strong personalities, which makes for either great saints or brigands.”
The town's feelings manifested themselves in a big way during St. Bernardo's canonization ceremony in St. Peter's Square from the cheers and tears of more than 1,000 native Corleonese. A group of young people at the gathering held up a large banner thanking the saint for his good example.
Meanwhile, in the streets of Corleone, people cheered as they watched the ceremony on giant outdoor televisions.
“The world thinks of us as Mafia, Mafia, Mafia,” said Bernardo Garofalo, president of St. Bernardo of Corleone Fraternity, inside the newly refinished St. Bernardo Church in downtown Corleone where the saint was born and raised. “St. Bernardo's canonization was a great breath of fresh air for us being able to finally escape this ugly image.”
St. Bernardo's life unfolds as a passionate young shoemaker who used his gifted swordsmanship to defend the Corleone peasants from thieving Spanish soldiers. After nearly killing a man in a duel he sought refuge from the law in a Capuchin monastery. It was during this period of hiding that he had a conversion and traded in his sword for the cross.
But Bernardo isn't Corleone's only saint. Few towns have one saint; Corleone has two—and an anticipated third. There is the patron St. Leoluca, who lived during Saracen control of the island, and recently beatified Theresa Cantimiglia.
“Visitors usually come expecting to see a Mafia society but are always surprised to see how peaceful things are here,” said Domenico, director of the Corleone tourist office.
One of the most tranquil views of the town comes from the Franciscan monastery, which looks out over the sloping hills of central Sicily that surround Corleone's own sea of red terra cotta rooftops peeked by dozens of church bell towers. The monks living inside the walls of this former prison have abandoned all worldly possessions, devote their lives to prayer and community service.
They refuse to even touch money and eat only what people offer them. They are regularly spotted around dusk walking along the old Corleone streets in their brown habits and sandals, off to perform community services.
It is hard to imagine, but not long ago this tranquil little farming town had one of the world's highest murder rates. During just four years of Boss Luciano Liggio's rise to power there were 150 known murders in and around Corleone. But that's nothing compared to Salvatore “The Beast” Riina leaving behind a trail of 800 corpses.
But for the past nine years Corleone has been murder-free.
Riina's arrest in 1993 turned out to be the beginning of the end of the Mafia in Corleone. It was also the year that Giuseppe Cipriani was elected mayor on his firm anti-Mafia stance. This soft-spoken 31-year-old not only talked tough but also immediately began chipping away at Mafia control. He plugged up the leaks and spruced up the town by renovating public buildings and squares. He even went as far as confiscating Riina's villa, which he had converted into a school.
But perhaps the single-most recognized change came on Dec. 12, 2000, when U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited Corleone and, standing beside Mayor Cipriani, inaugurated the world's first anti-Mafia center and museum. The center provides a database of information for the study of organized crime and its opponents.
The Mafia, or Cosa Nostra (Italian for “Our Thing”), historically has its roots in the fight between peasants and the landowners who oppressed them. In order to run his farm, a landowner would employ a tough peasant called a campiere, a type of middleman who grabbed from both ends. Anyone trying to improve the peasant's stock was ruthlessly dealt with.
Some historians suggest a more noble beginning, connecting the Mafia to a peasant defense league, fighting oppression by feudal landlords. But most Corleonese will passionately disagree.
“The fact is,” said Laura Di Rosa from the mayor's office, “they have always been criminals. In reality, the Mafia has always defended nobody but herself.”
Just as long as there have been mafiosi in Corleone there have been courageous men and women who opposed them—until a bullet or bomb silenced them. These often-forgotten heroes are finally honored along the walls of the center museum.
“The media briefly mentions the victims to the Mafia and they are always quickly forgotten, but they never stop talking about their assassins,” Di Rosa explained in the museum in front of a 1992 photograph of the car bombing that killed Paolo Borsellino, one of Italy's top anti-Mafia judges.
Opposite hangs a portrait of Mafia fighter Placido Rizzotto, who was gunned down just after World War II. Also killed was a 13-year-old shepherd boy who witnessed the murder—silenced after a doctor was summoned to calm his rattled nerves. Some of the photographs on display are more graphic, like that of the shop owner who refused to pay protection. He lies face down in a pool of blood, just outside the door of his business.
One of the museum's most famous photographs is that of the present Capo Di Tutti, taken more than 40 years ago. Adjacent to his last-known photograph hangs an age-enhanced image of how he might look today. Though no one really knows what he looks like or where he is, everyone knows his name, Bernardo Provenzano.
He is another famous Bernardo from Corleone—but he's no saint.
Chuck Todaro writes from Scarsdale, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Chuck Todaro ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ave Maria University Gets a New Campus and a Fighter, Father Joseph Fessio DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Joseph Fessio, SJ
The founder of Ignatius Press and the University of San Francisco's St. Ignatius Institute is now chancellor of Ave Maria University.
The university, to be built east of Naples, Fla., was started with a $220 million commitment from Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan. Father Fessio promises the university will serve an integral role in solving what he describes as a “truth” crisis in the Church and in Catholic higher education.
He spoke about his vision and plans for the new university with Register correspondent Wayne Laugesen.
Tell me a bit about the roots of your Catholic faith. Are you a cradle Catholic and did you attend Catholic schools?
I was baptized Catholic before I came to any consciousness of it. I attended high school at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif., run by the Jesuits. Then I went to Santa Clara University, another Jesuit school, and I majored in civil engineering.
What made you pursue life in the Jesuit religious order?
I didn't pursue it. It pursued me. I was planning to get married and become a lay missionary in South America working as an engineer. And the girl I found, whom I thought might be a good companion, had already decided to enter the convent.
So you decided to pursue priesthood after she entered the convent?
First I decided to pursue her a little further, and talk her out of entering the convent. But on Holy Thursday 1961, sitting disconsolately in the civil engineering lab at the university, the inspiration came that she should become a nun and I should become a Jesuit priest. So I went to El Retiro retreat house and spoke with Father Zaccheus Maher. We had a good conversation. He thought I should wait until I graduated, because I was a junior at that time. I said, “No, I'm decided and the time is now. I want to go now.” So I applied and entered the Jesuits in the fall of '61.
Have you kept contact with the old girlfriend who became a nun?
Not too much. She ended up leaving the order, living with an ex-priest and selling real estate.
How would you best summarize your philosophy of education?
We all enter the world materially and spiritually poor. We need parents to feed us and to educate us. But we continually need to deepen our knowledge of God, the world and ourselves so we can fulfill our final end, which is to praise and worship God. The purpose of education is to transmit to younger generations the truths that we have received and discovered ourselves in order to prepare them to be good citizens of this world and good citizens of the next.
How were you chosen as chancellor for Ave Maria University in Florida? Why you?
I have to thank Charlie Rice, of Notre Dame Law School [professor emeritus, and visiting professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Mich.]. Thomas Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, had decided to establish a new Catholic university and had selected Nicholas Healy as the first president of the university itself, as an interim president. Those working to establish the university were looking for a permanent president. Rice suggested me to Monaghan and Healy. After discussion, I suggested that Nick remain as president but that I become chancellor and be part of the administrative team.
What does the role of chancellor mean at Ave Maria University?
The title chancellor was intentionally chosen for its vagueness. This is an enormous undertaking of a magnitude that's hard even to imagine. No one person can organize it all. So, my role is to be part of the administrative team made up of Chairman of the Board Monaghan, President Healy, Provost Michael Healy, the financial officer Paul Roney, and the dean of the law school, Bernard Dobranski, to make this dream a reality. Some of my roles will include establishing a nationwide network of founders, to recruit students, to develop academic programs and to help plan the new campus.
When will the new campus officially open for business?
We've applied for licensure in the state of Florida and we anticipate receiving it in time to open in the fall of 2003 as a degree site of Ave Maria College, Michigan.
You say part of your job will be to recruit founders. What are founders in this context?
Most universities, when they undertake new development, turn to their alumni or use their endowment. Ave Maria has neither alumni nor endowment. But I sense there are many Catholics across the country who recognize that the present crisis in the Church is a crisis of truth, and there is need for a new Catholic university that will help restore a culture of truth. So I have been contacting people around the country to see if they would be willing to join us as founders of Ave Maria, by paying or pledging $10 a month for a year.
You mentioned “crisis,” so let's talk a bit about the crisis in Catholic education. We had the 1990 apostolic constitution
I'll let your readers form their own opinions on that, based on their own experiences. But I can say this: We joyously and wholeheartedly wish to follow the tradition of the Catholic Church in our educational mission, as beautifully expressed by Ex Corde Ecclesiae. We plan to make Ave Maria a model of what the magisterium has in mind for a genuine Catholic university.
How will you maintain the focus? How will you keep Ave Maria focused on Catholic morality and theology and still be considered a major, serious academic university by mainstream American culture?
The Catholic Church invented universities. The University of Bologna was founded in 1088, more than 150 years before the universities of Paris and Oxford were founded. Incidentally, there was already a university in Naples in 1224, also prior to Paris and Oxford.
The universities arose out of a commitment to truth and the search for truth, which is an integral part of the Catholic faith. So there's nothing incompatible about being a genuine, full university and searching for truth.
As Bowie Kuhn [former baseball commissioner] said at our initial press conference Nov. 20 in Naples: God is truth. If universities are meant to seek truth, they cannot do so without acknowledging the sovereignty of God. God has been abandoned by many of our universities, and therefore they really can't fulfill their purpose.
We have a mission statement that clearly states that we accept the teachings of the Catholic Church wholeheartedly, eagerly and enthusiastically, and we have a board of trustees that accepts that mission. The leaders of the university, the faculty and the staff accept that mission as well.
What quality would you most hope to instill in students?
A consuming love for Jesus Christ and his Church such that they will seek the truth with their whole hearts and live it with their whole lives.
What's going to happen at Ignatius Press now that you're not at the helm full time?
Things will improve, because now I don't get in the way as much. I just help to make policy decisions and decisions on manuscripts, and then I let people get on with their work.
As chancellor of Ave Maria, will you have any kind of formal working relationship with Bishop John Nevins of Venice, Fla., in which Ave Maria will reside?
I report to the president of the university and the board, but the university itself has a very cordial relationship with Bishop Nevins.
Under
In accord with Ex Corde Ecclesiae, all of our teachers of theology will ask for the mandatum from Bishop Nevins, and I believe all our faculty and staff will make an oath of fidelity. We think Ex Corde establishes minimum requirements, and we want to be a maximum university.
Why go to southwest Florida, to a place that's on the far fringe of the continental United States?
There is no Catholic university in southwest Florida. Given the history of this region, which is Hispanic, and the future of this region, which is Hispanic—they say in 2050 there will be 100 million Hispanics in the United States—it's crucial that we help Hispanics to deepen their faith, to prepare them to take leadership roles in this society and to maintain their wonderful family values. So I think we are positioned to make a very important contribution to the Church of the 21st century. Southwest Florida gives us excellent proximity to Central America, where we already have a campus in Nicaragua, and to South America.
I understand that you're building a town as well as a university. Please tell me about that.
We're in partnership with an agricultural and land company to build an entire town called Ave Maria, Fla., to support the university. We would imagine that faculty and staff would want to move and live there, and we suspect there will be others, as well, who will want to come.
Also, my former classmate, who's the cardinal of Vienna, Archbishop [Christoph] Schˆnborn, told me they discovered that the Cathedral of St. Stephen was built facing the point where the sun rose on the day that the first stone was laid. And since our university iscalled Ave Maria, I went to the U.S. Naval Observatory Web site to determine at what point the sun rose on March 25, 2000.
So we plan to orient not only the church but also the main street and the town of Ave Maria to the point where the sun rose on the feast of the Annunciation in the year 2000. This will be a sign that we believe this is the university for the new millennium dedicated to our Lady. [On March 25, 2000, the sun rose at 87 degrees, 19 minutes and 8.6 seconds east of true north at 6:24 a.m.]
How large will the university be?
We want to make it large enough that it can be a great university, and that means about 5,000 students—placing it in a category with schools such as Dartmouth and Princeton.
Will there be NCAA football and a team that will have a chance against Notre Dame?
Mr. Monaghan is very committed to a strong sports program and he wants to reach Division 1A as soon as possible. We want Division 1A for football for sure, and I suppose basketball and baseball as well.
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Chastity Winning: Teens Reject Sexual Revolution's Empty Promises DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON—Katherine Neubecker, 20, is studying economics and pre-med at Harvard. She is a member of the campus pro-life club, she is a faithful Catholic—and she is in the majority.
Neubecker is remaining sexually abstinent until marriage, and that decision places her at the crest of a growing wave of young people choosing chastity over sexual activity.
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control shows a pronounced shift over the last decade: In 1991, 54% of high school teens had engaged in sexual intercourse and 46% had remained abstinent; in 2001 those numbers had exactly reversed. Sexual experience among teens decreased steadily each year and during the last 10 years has dropped 16%. Even in a sex-saturated popular culture, abstinence seems to be winning.
“I believe in practicing abstinence until marriage,” Neubecker said. “I came to that through my faith and the way my parents raised me. I just think that's what God intended, that sex is a privilege but it's not meant to be abused. God meant for it only to happen within marriage in God's Church.”
Having graduated in the single-largest public high school class in the country in 2000 at Plano (Texas) Senior High School, Neubecker was not sheltered from pressures to give in to premature sexual activity. At the time, she said, she thought she and her abstinent friends were in the minority.
And yet the numbers nationally were going her way. The dramatic trend has even shown up on the radar of the mainstream media, especially as it coincides with President Bush's proposal to increase funding for abstinence education and Miss America Erika Harold's public battle with pageant authorities to make abstinence her platform.
Abstinence program developers and speakers said they are pleased with—but not surprised by—the trend.
Terri McLaughlin, who coordinates abstinence presentations for both public and private schools in Dallas, has seen requests for chastity programs in the Catholic schools double since last year. She credits the increase to word-of-mouth about the program, sponsored by the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas.
Dr. Hanna Klaus, whose Teen Star abstinence course based on fertility awareness has shown measured results in reducing teen sexual activity, said her 20-year-old international program based in Washington, D.C., is growing by word-of-mouth as well.
But McLaughlin said she also sees something unique and uplifting about this generation of teens.
“They're just so different than the kids in the '80s and '90s. They're just very positive people; they want to accomplish a lot; they don't want to get stuck in what their parents got stuck in or their siblings got stuck in,” McLaughlin said.
Abstinence advocates believe there is more than a coincidence between teens' behavior and the fact that abstinence education has come of age in the past 10 years.
The first national study to gauge the effectiveness of abstinence education is due out this spring, said study team member Dr. Joe McIlhaney, president of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas.
“The efforts to encourage young people to remain abstinent didn't really start until the late 1980s,” McIlhaney said, noting that federal funding for abstinence education began in 1996. “It's reasonable to assume that an emphasis on abstinence has had some impact.”
But Mike McGee, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's vice president for education, said the economy—not abstinence education—is the reason for increased abstinence.
“Historically, as you look at teenage employment, [you see] that when kids have some hope for educational and/or economic attainment they often are engaged in things other than risky behaviors,” he said.
McIlhaney disagreed.
“You look at the '30s, and there's no evidence that there was an incredible amount of promiscuity. The black community certainly was not as well off in the '50s and '60s, but at that time only 22% of children were born out of wedlock; today over 70% are,” he said.
Sarah Brown, executive director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, said she is being asked “all the time” about the reasons for the trend. While she would credit more abstinence education, she also credits other types of sex education, economic prosperity and AIDS awareness.
“My view is that everybody should take a bow. I tell people, ‘Whatever you're doing, keep doing it,’” she said. “The notion that abstinence is an important idea and the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and disease—this has gotten out into the ether. There is [also] no question that fear of AIDS has finally penetrated the minds of young people. Boys will tell you that.”
Chastity-Minded Parents?
While teens are more pro-abstinence, their parents are not, according to other studies.
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has released a national poll of lower-income parents indicating that a vast majority want their children to receive not only abstinence education but also information on prevention of pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“This generation of parents today are the kind of people who think, ‘The kids are going to do it anyway,’” McLaughlin said.
But McIlhaney said parents would answer the questions differently if they knew that the “comprehensive” sex education programs have not been shown to actually reduce risks.
“When parents are told that they need to bring in the sex ed programs, they assume that if the kids are exposed to those programs their kids will not get pregnant, they will not get a disease, and they will not be sexually active,” he said. “There is not one of their programs that has been done in schools that has ever been measured for lowering pregnancy rates or STD rates.”
McGee of Planned Parenthood said abstinence-only education has its own risks because it does not prepare teens to protect themselves from disease if they do become sexually active.
McLaughlin argued that a “don't do it, but if you do” message to students would never be accepted with any other social concern.
“You would never, ever hear somebody say [to students], ‘Doing drugs is wrong; but since you're going to do it anyway, I'm going to provide you with a clean needle,’” she said. “Kids are not just going to ‘do it anyway.’ They need to be told that having sex is not the expected norm.”
Ellen Rossini writes from
Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishops Sue State Over Birth Control Mandate
The suit, filed Dec. 30, asks for a religious exemption to the law for institutions that do not accept the morality of contraceptive and abortifacient medication.
“In our judgment, abortion and contraception advocates have been given free reign to dictate public policy in New York state at the expense of religious freedom,” read a statement signed by Cardinal Edward Egan of New York and other local bishops. “We pray fervently for a return to religious tolerance and respect for diversity in this great state.”
Pro-Life Doctor Named to Panel on Women's Health
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 31—Dr. W. David Hager, an obstetrician/gynecologist who works at the University of Kentucky, has faced a flurry of controversy over his appointment to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel for Reproductive Health Drugs. He is one of 11 doctors appointed in late December.
Hager's appointment drew attacks from feminist and pro-abortion groups because he has publicly questioned the safety of the abortion drug RU-486, taken pro-life stands in the media and taken part in a campaign by the Christian Medical Association to reverse the 1996 federal approval of that drug, which Catholic columnist Pat Buchanan called “a human pesticide.”
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America called Hager's appointment “a frontal assault on reproductive rights.”
Canada Court Backs Gay Books for Kids
REUTERS, Dec. 20—In a ruling that has outraged pro-family groups in Canada, Canada's Supreme Court ruled that local school officials may not prevent homosexual-themed textbooks from kindergarten classrooms, according to the wire service.
One such book is called One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads. The case began when a school in British Columbia responded to parental complaints by forbidding a gay kindergarten teacher from assigning such books to his class. The court ruled that their religious objections to the material cannot be taken into account by Canadian schools.
Canada's Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing for the majority, ruled that the governing principle of secularism rules out “any attempt to use the religious views of one part of the community to exclude from consideration the values of other members of the community. … Tolerance is always age-appropriate.”
Catholic groups had joined Protestant, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh parents in demanding the removal of the books.
The Catholic Civil Rights League condemned the decision, saying it denied social conservatives any say in school policy.
Thomas Langan, president of the league, said: “The aim of the game is to shut people up.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Washington Researchers Attempt to Develop Controversial 'Pill for Men' DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:SEATTLE—Supporters herald it as a means of reducing unintended pregnancy and abortion, and a way to increase responsible sexual behavior. Critics say it will do just the opposite on all counts.
The pill for men is currently in development by a team at the University of Washington. The debate it has raised is an echo of the controversy over another more famous pill—the one for women that unleashed the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s.
The pill for men works in a way analogous to the pill for women. It contains enough testosterone to trick a man's body into thinking it doesn't need to produce its own testosterone. When the body stops producing testosterone, it also stops producing sperm. The pill also contains progestin to increase the pill's effectiveness to about the same rate as that of the pill for women.
Dr. John Amory, one of the lead researchers on the project, said the primary goal is to reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion.
“If you look at the United States, where contraception is widely available although not paid for by some insurance, there are 6 million pregnancies a year in the United States,” he said. “Three million of those … are unplanned. Half of the unplanned pregnancies end in abortion—so that's why there are a million to a million-and-a-half abortions every year in the United States.”
But pro-lifers—especially Catholic pro-lifers—say contraception is actually the root cause of abortion, not the solution to the problem. Widely available contraception, they say, creates a “contraceptive mentality” that leads to irresponsible sexual behavior.
The argument is that contraception, which is never 100% effective, causes a dramatic increase in sex outside of marriage. When pregnancy results, due to inevitable contraceptive failures or inconsistent use, the partners are inclined to feel they are not responsible for it. Abortion, therefore, is a much more tempting “solution” to the problem.
“The current contraceptives only contribute to unintended pregnancy and abortion,” said Janet Smith, visiting professor of life issues at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. “Why would one expect this new one to be different?”
“When women who are using contraceptives get pregnant, they are more likely to treat the pregnancy as an accident and not their responsibility,” she continued. “Males who generally take less personal responsibility for pregnancies are likely to be even more inclined to say that they have no responsibility if they were taking a pill.”
Amory cited statistics on the relatively small rate of abortions among teen-agers in the Netherlands, where he said contraception is promoted more thoroughly, as evidence that contraception does in fact reduce the rate of abortion.
Side Effects
The pill for men also raises medical issues comparable to those surrounding the pill for women. Supporters of the pill for women say it reduces the risk of ovarian and uterine cancers, while critics say it increases the risk of breast cancer.
Amory said that while the long-term effects of the pill for men cannot be known at this point, he has reason to hope it will reduce the risk of testicular and prostate cancer.
“Since prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men,” he said, “anything that would impact on the rate … would be a huge life-saver.”
Dr. Chris Kahlenborn, a specialist in internal medicine in Altoona, Pa., and founder of The Polycarp Research Institute, said the pill for men could actually cause problems with the prostate.
“Testosterone supplementation is not without risk,” he added. “It can inflame your liver and cause feminization of the breast—that is, gynecomastia. I do not know too many men who welcome those side effects.”
Amory said potential short-term side effects are an increase in muscle mass and a decrease in fat mass; a slight increase in acne in some men; and a 10 % decrease in high-density lipoprotein (a “good cholesterol,” which helps prevent heart disease).
The first reaction of most people to the notion of a contraceptive pill for men is to doubt whether many men would be at all interested. Amory said research indicates that many men would in fact be open to the idea.
Steve Koob, co-founder of One More Soul, a Dayton, Ohio, educational organization focused on “the blessings of children and the harms of contraception,” has mixed feelings on whether men would be interested.
“I just think it's going to be a difficult sell to the male population, to destroy their manhood,” he said. “Of course, they've kind of done that by expecting their wives or girlfriends to be infertile. The manly thing, you would think, would be to co-create children, but for some reason it's not [seen that way].”
The Catholic Church teaches that the purpose of sex is the union of the spouses and the procreation of children, and any action that deliberately destroys one of these elements is sinful. Whenever couples choose to express their love in sexual intercourse, the Church says, they must be open to the possibility of children.
In the 1968 encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), Pope Paul VI warned that contraception would lead to a decrease in reverence for women.
“A man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods,” the Pope said, “may forget the reverence due to a woman and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.”
Smith argues that men in our culture often suffer from a serious lack of sexual self-control and a contraceptive pill for them would only make the problem worse by removing sexual activity further from its inherent meanings of union and procreation.
“These pills will simply serve all the more to reduce the meaning of sexual intercourse,” she said.
“I have heard men say that there is a world of difference between contracepted acts of sexual intercourse and meaningful acts of marital lovemaking,” she continued. “Those who reserve sexual intercourse to marital lovemaking in a non-contraceptive way are remarkably more in control of their sexual desires, considerably more likely to be in stable, loving marriages, and thus happier.”
David Curtin writes from Toronto. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Lessons of Vatican's Approval of U.S. Norms Against Abuse DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:
VATICAN CITY—Vatican approval of the U.S. bishops' revised norms dealing with clergy sex abuse demonstrates the importance of the communion between the Holy See and a country's episcopate, a Curia official said.
The signature of Archbishop Francesco Monterisi, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, appears next to that of the prefect of that dicastery, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, in the recognitio decree published Dec. 9.
In virtue of this document, the “Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons” will come into force March 1.
Archbishop Monterisi analyzed for Vatican Radio in late December the implications of this historic decree, reprinted here from Zenit, a Rome-based news service.
What does the
The recognitio is a type of endorsement.
Episcopal conferences have the authority or task to issue norms on different subjects; for example, they establish the age for confirmation, transfer the celebration of certain feasts to Sunday or write their own statutes. Before these norms are valid they must receive the recognitio of the Vatican.
The Vatican examines these norms and, if it considers them to be in conformity with the general legislation of the Church, grants the recognitio.
In the case of the “Norms” of the U.S. bishops' conference, a special examination was carried out, namely, two days of meetings were held at the end of October between representatives of the Vatican and representatives of the U.S. episcopate. I participated in these and can testify that it was an experience of a great spirit of communion between the Vatican and the Church in the United States.
Why is it necessary for episcopal conferences to request the
Because every bishop can give valid norms for his own diocese. But when it is a question of groups of dioceses or of all the Church's dioceses, only the Pope can give valid and obligatory norms for all or make norms issued by these groups to become so.
In regard to the “Norms” of the U.S. episcopal conference, if the Vatican's recognitio had not taken place, they would not be compulsory for all the dioceses of the United States.
In sum, what do these “Norms” prescribe?
It is not easy to make a summary, but the essential elements are contained in the letter that Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, wrote to the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Wilton Gregory, in communicating the recognitio.
On one hand, the norms confirm the supreme gravity of the acts of pederasty, especially if they are committed by ecclesiastics: A deacon or priest who is sentenced for only one of these crimes following a regular trial would suffer very harsh punishments, including the loss of the status of ecclesiastic. The common desire of the Vatican and of U.S. bishops to protect children from these acts is forcefully underlined by these norms.
On the other hand, the rights are ensured of defense and of the reputation of priests and deacons who might be accused of these acts, prior to a final verdict. However, before arriving at the sentence, the U.S. bishops have established that precautionary measures must be taken with priests who are accused, after a previous brief investigation, if the incriminations directed to them seem credible.
Among other things, these ecclesiastics will be able to be suspended from the exercise of their ministry, be removed from certain environments, celebrations, etc. In this way, an attempt is made to impede their damaging other people.
What conclusion can be drawn from this decision of the Vatican?
The sad case of U.S. priests who have abused minors has profoundly afflicted everyone's spirit. The extent of the phenomenon has been unduly magnified, forgetting the immense majority of priests who are faithful and dedicate themselves tirelessly to the education of youth.
Our hope, nevertheless, is that these norms, which are certainly severe, but which are essentially already present in the Church's legislation, will contribute to extirpate the plague and give back to public opinion the true image of the Church, committed to transmitting Christian values to society, especially in the United States.
Our hope is that these norms, which are certainly severe, but which are essentially already present in the Church's legislation, will contribute to extirpate the plague and give back to public opinion the true image of the Church, committed to transmitting Christian values to society, especially in the United States.
—Archbishop Francesco Monterisi
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Archbishop Francesco Monterisi ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Religious Groups Denounce Cloning Report
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 29—The Holy See joined Muslim clerics and Jewish rabbis in condemning recent reports that a human baby was created by cloning.
A statement from the Vatican pointed out that the announcement had not been verified by science and “has already given rise to the skepticism and moral condemnation of a great part of the international scientific community. … The announcement in itself is an expression of a brutal mentality, devoid of any ethical and human consideration,” said papal spokesman JoaquÌn Navarro-Valls.
The Associated Press reported that Muslim clerics denounced cloning as evidence of the “chaotic” future facing mankind, while Israel's Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau said Judaism rejects the creation of life by such artificial means.
The company, Clonaid, announced it had cloned a woman and produced a new baby girl.
Its spokesman and chief executive officer, Brigitte Boisselier, is a chemist with no background in genetics. She is also a bishop in the religious sect of Rael, founded by a former race-car commentator who goes by the name Rael.
Rael reported he was abducted by aliens—including buxom, anthropomorphic feminine robots—who taught him the secret of human origins.
His sect, which claims 55,000 members around the world, teaches that extraterrestrials created mankind by cloning and that man's destiny is to reproduce in this manner.
The Raelian movement has filed appeals to the United Nations to investigate the Vatican over charges of clerical child abuse and is conducting an “apostasy campaign” aimed at Catholics.
Pope John Paul, Poet
The collection of religious meditations in verse will first appear in KrakÛw , Poland, where Karol Wojtyla long reigned as archbishop.
John Paul “wishes that the first edition be published in KrakÛw, like all his previous poetic works,” according to spokesman Father Pawel Ptasznik.
Father Adam Boniecki, a friend of the Pope, said he expected the book to be “a very personal, philosophical poem, a very intimate spiritual diary.”
Vatican to Open Files From Start of Nazi Period
DEUTSCHE WELLE, Dec. 30—In response to recent accusations leveled against Pope Pius XII suggesting he cooperated with the Nazi movement, the Vatican will throw open its secret archives to scholars, allowing them to examine all original documents from the relevant period, according to Deutsche Welle, a German news service.
Starting in January, historians will have full access to the previously sealed materials, which cover the years from 1922 to 1939, including Eugenio Pacelli's term as papal nuncio in the troubled interwar Germany.
The Vatican noted that most of the documents between 1931 and 1934 were destroyed during Allied bombings in the course of World War II.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Peace Message: John Paul Calls for New Moral Order in a Divided World DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:The following is the text of Pope John Paul II's World Day of Peace message for Jan. 1, 2003.
Almost 40 years ago, on Holy Thursday, April 11, 1963, Pope John XXIII published his epic encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). Addressing himself to “all men of good will,” my venerable predecessor, who would die just two months later, summed up his message of “peace on earth” in the first sentence of the encyclical: “Peace on earth, which all men of every era have most eagerly yearned for, can be firmly established and sustained only if the order laid down by God be dutifully observed” (Introduction: AAS, 55 [1963], 257).
A Divided World
The world to which Pope John XXIII wrote was then in a profound state of disorder. The 20th century had begun with great expectations for progress. Yet within 60 years, that same century had produced two World Wars, devastating totalitarian systems, untold human suffering and the greatest persecution of the Church in history.
Only two years before Pacem in Terris, in 1961, the Berlin Wall had been erected in order to divide and set against each other not only two parts of that city but also two ways of understanding and building the earthly city. On one side and the other of the wall, life was to follow different patterns, dictated by antithetical rules, in a climate of mutual suspicion and mistrust. Both as a world-view and in real life, that wall traversed the whole of humanity and penetrated people's hearts and minds, creating divisions that seemed destined to last indefinitely.
Moreover, just six months before the encyclical, and just as the Second Vatican Council was opening in Rome, the world had come to the brink of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. The road to a world of peace, justice and freedom seemed blocked. Humanity, many believed, was condemned to live indefinitely in that precarious condition of “cold war,” hoping against hope that neither an act of aggression nor an accident would trigger the worst war in human history. Available atomic arsenals meant that such a war would have imperiled the very future of the human race.
Four Pillars of Peace
Pope John XXIII did not agree with those who claimed that peace was impossible. With his encyclical, peace—in all its demanding truth—came knocking on both sides of the wall and of all the other dividing walls. The encyclical spoke to everyone of their belonging to the one human family and shone a light on the shared aspiration of people everywhere to live in security, justice and hope for the future.
With the profound intuition that characterized him, Pope John XXIII identified the essential conditions for peace in four precise requirements of the human spirit: truth, justice, love and freedom (cf. ibid., I: l.c., 265-266). Truth will build peace if every individual sincerely acknowledges not only his rights but also his own duties toward others. Justice will build peace if in practice everyone respects the rights of others and actually fulfills his duties toward them. Love will build peace if people feel the needs of others as their own and share what they have with others, especially the values of mind and spirit, which they possess. Freedom will build peace and make it thrive if, in the choice of the means to that end, people act according to reason and assume responsibility for their own actions.
Looking at the present and into the future with the eyes of faith and reason, Blessed Pope John XXIII discerned deeper historical currents at work. Things were not always what they seemed on the surface. Despite wars and rumors of wars, something more was at work in human affairs, something that to the Pope looked like the promising beginning of a spiritual revolution.
Human Dignity
Humanity, Pope John XXIII wrote, had entered a new stage of its journey (cf. ibid., I: l.c., 267-269). The end of colonialism and the rise of newly independent states, the protection of workers' rights, the new and welcome presence of women in public life, all testified to the fact that the human race was indeed entering a new phase of its history, one characterized by “the conviction that all men are equal by reason of their natural dignity” (ibid., I: l.c.,268). The Pope knew that that dignity was still being trampled upon in many parts of the world. Yet he was convinced that, despite the dramatic situation, the world was becoming increasingly conscious of certain spiritual values and increasingly open to the meaning of those pillars of peace—truth, justice, love and freedom (cf. ibid., I: l.c., 268-269). Seeking to bring these values into local, national and international life, men and women were becoming more aware that their relationship with God, the source of all good, must be the solid foundation and supreme criterion of their lives, as individuals and in society (cf. ibid.). This evolving spiritual intuition would, the Pope was convinced, have profound public and political consequences.
Seeing the growth of awareness of human rights that was then emerging within nations and at the international level, Pope John XXIII caught the potential of this phenomenon and understood its singular power to change history. What was later to happen in central and Eastern Europe would confirm his insight. The road to peace, he taught in the encyclical, lay in the defense and promotion of basic human rights, which every human being enjoys, not as a benefit given by a different social class or conceded by the state but simply because of our humanity: “Any human society, if it is to be well-ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. Indeed, precisely because he is a person he has rights and obligations, flowing directly and simultaneously from his very nature. And as these rights and obligations are universal and inviolable so they cannot in any way be surrendered” (ibid., 259).
As history would soon show, this was not simply an abstract idea; it was an idea with profound consequences. Inspired by the conviction that every human being is equal in dignity, and that society therefore had to adapt its form to that conviction, human rights movements soon arose and gave concrete political expression to one of the great dynamics of contemporary history: the quest for freedom as an indispensable component of work for peace. Emerging in virtually every part of the world, these movements were instrumental in replacing dictatorial forms of government with more democratic and participatory ones. They demonstrated in practice that peace and progress could only be achieved by respecting the universal moral law written on the human heart (cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to the United Nations General Assembly, Oct. 5, 1995, No. 3).
Universal Common Good
On another point, too, Pacem in Terris showed itself prophetic as it looked to the next phase of the evolution of world politics. Because the world was becoming increasingly interdependent and global, the common good of humanity had to be worked out on the international plane. It was proper, Pope John XXIII taught, to speak of a “universal common good ” (Pacem in Terris, IV: l.c., 292). One of the consequences of this evolution was the obvious need for a public authority, on the international level, with effective capacity to advance the universal common good; an authority which could not, the Pope immediately continued, be established by coercion but only by the consent of nations. Such a body would have to have as its fundamental objective the “recognition, respect, safeguarding and promotion of the rights of the human person” (ibid., IV: l.c., 294).
Not surprisingly therefore Pope John XXIII looked with hope and expectation to the United Nations organization, which had come into being on June 26, 1945. He saw that organization as a credible instrument for maintaining and strengthening world peace, and he expressed particular appreciation of its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which he considered “an approximation toward the establishment of a juridical and political organization of the world community” (ibid., IV: l.c., 295). What he was saying in fact was that the declaration set out the moral foundations on which the evolution of a world characterized by order rather than disorder, and by dialogue rather than force, could proceed. He was suggesting that the vigorous defense of human rights by the United Nations organization is the indispensable foundation for the development of that organization's capacity to promote and defend international security.
Not only is it clear that Pope John XXIII's vision of an effective international public authority at the service of human rights, freedom and peace has not yet been entirely achieved, but there is also still in fact much hesitation in the international community about the obligation to respect and implement human rights. This duty touches all fundamental rights, excluding that arbitrary picking and choosing that can lead to rationalizing forms of discrimination and injustice. Likewise, we are witnessing the emergence of an alarming gap between a series of new “rights” being promoted in advanced societies—the result of new prosperity and new technologies—and other more basic human rights still not being met, especially in situations of under-development. I am thinking here for example about the right to food and drinkable water, to housing and security, to self-determination and independence—which are still far from being guaranteed and realized. Peace demands that this tension be speedily reduced and in time eliminated.
Another observation needs to be made: the international community, which since 1948 has possessed a charter of the inalienable rights of the human person, has generally failed to insist sufficiently on corresponding duties. It is duty that establishes the limits within which rights must be contained in order not to become an exercise in arbitrariness. A greater awareness of universal human duties would greatly benefit the cause of peace, setting it on the moral basis of a shared recognition of an order in things, which is not dependent on the will of any individual or group.
New Moral Order
Nevertheless it remains true that, despite many difficulties and setbacks, significant progress has been made over the past 40 years toward the implementation of Pope John's noble vision. The fact that states throughout the world feel obliged to honor the idea of human rights shows how powerful are the tools of moral conviction and spiritual integrity, which proved so decisive in the revolution of conscience that made possible the 1989 nonviolent revolution that displaced European communism. And although distorted notions of freedom as license continue to threaten democracy and free societies, it is surely significant that, in the 40 years since Pacem in Terris, much of the world has become more free, structures of dialogue and cooperation between nations have been strengthened, and the threat of a global nuclear war, which weighed so heavily on Pope John XXIII, has been effectively contained.
Boldly, but with all humility, I would like to suggest that the Church's 1,500-year-old teaching on peace as “tranquillitas ordinis—the tranquillity of order” as St. Augustine called it (De Civitate Dei, 19, 13), which was brought to a new level of development 40 years ago by Pacem in Terris, has a deep relevance for the world today, for the leaders of nations as well as for individuals. That there is serious disorder in world affairs is obvious. Thus the question to be faced remains: What kind of order can replace this disorder, so that men and women can live in freedom, justice and security? And since the world, amid its disorder, continues nevertheless to be “ordered” and organized in various ways—economic, cultural, even political—there arises another equally urgent question: On what principles are these new forms of world order unfolding?
These far-reaching questions suggest that the problem of order in world affairs, which is the problem of peace rightly understood, cannot be separated from issues of moral principle. This is another way of saying that the question of peace cannot be separated from the question of human dignity and human rights. That is one of the enduring truths taught by Pacem in Terris, which we would do well to remember and reflect upon on this 40th anniversary.
Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples, as well as their integral development? But let there be no misunderstanding. This does not mean writing the constitution of a global super-state. Rather, it means continuing and deepening processes already in place to meet the almost universal demand for participatory ways of exercising political authority, even international political authority, and for transparency and accountability at every level of public life. With his confidence in the goodness he believed could be found in every human person, Pope John XXIII called the entire world to a nobler vision of public life and public authority, even as he boldly challenged the world to think beyond its present state of disorder to new forms of international order commensurate with human dignity.
Peace and Truth
Against those who think of politics as a realm of necessity detached from morality and subject only to partisan interests, Pope John XXIII, in Pacem in Terris, outlined a truer picture of human reality and indicated the path to a better future for all. Precisely because human beings are created with the capacity for moral choice, no human activity takes place outside the sphere of moral judgment. Politics is a human activity; therefore, it too is subject to a distinctive form of moral scrutiny. This is also true of international politics. As the Pope wrote: “The same natural law that governs the life and conduct of individuals must also regulate the relations of political communities with one another” (Pacem in Terris, III: l.c., 279). Those who imagine that international public life takes place somewhere outside the realm of moral judgment need only reflect on the impact of human rights movements on the national and international politics of the 20th century just concluded. These developments, anticipated by the teaching of the encyclical, decisively refute the claim that international politics must of necessity be a “free zone” in which the moral law holds no sway.
Perhaps nowhere today is there a more obvious need for the correct use of political authority than in the dramatic situation of the Middle East and the Holy Land. Day after day, year after year, the cumulative effect of bitter mutual rejection and an unending chain of violence and retaliation have shattered every effort so far to engage in serious dialogue on the real issues involved. The volatility of the situation is compounded by the clash of interests among the members of the international community. Until those in positions of responsibility undergo a veritable revolution in the way they use their power and go about securing their peoples' welfare, it is difficult to imagine how progress toward peace can be made. The fratricidal struggle that daily convulses the Holy Land and brings into conflict the forces shaping the immediate future of the Middle East shows clearly the need for men and women who, out of conviction, will implement policies firmly based on the principle of respect for human dignity and human rights. Such policies are incomparably more advantageous to everyone than the continuation of conflict. A start can be made on the basis of this truth, which is certainly more liberating than propaganda, especially when that propaganda serves to conceal inadmissible intentions.
Lasting Peace
There is an unbreakable bond between the work of peace and respect for truth. Honesty in the supply of information, equity in legal systems, openness in democratic procedures give citizens a sense of security, a readiness to settle controversies by peaceful means, and a desire for genuine and constructive dialogue, all of which constitute the true premises of a lasting peace. Political summits on the regional and international levels serve the cause of peace only if joint commitments are then honored by each party. Otherwise these meetings risk becoming irrelevant and useless, with the result that people believe less and less in dialogue and trust more in the use of force as a way of resolving issues. The negative repercussions on peace resulting from commitments made and then not honored must be carefully assessed by state and government leaders.
Pacta sunt servanda, says the ancient maxim. If at all times commitments ought to be kept, promises made to the poor should be considered particularly binding. Especially frustrating for them is any breach of faith regarding promises, which they see as vital to their well-being. In this respect, the failure to keep commitments in the sphere of aid to developing nations is a serious moral question and further highlights the injustice of the imbalances existing in the world. The suffering caused by poverty is compounded by the loss of trust. The end result is hopelessness. The existence of trust in international relations is a social capital of fundamental value.
A Culture of Peace
In the end, peace is not essentially about structures but about people. Certain structures and mechanisms of peace—juridical, political, economic—are of course necessary and do exist, but they have been derived from nothing other than the accumulated wisdom and experience of innumerable gestures of peace made by men and women throughout history who have kept hope and have not given in to discouragement. Gestures of peace spring from the lives of people who foster peace first of all in their own hearts. They are the work of the heart and of reason in those who are peacemakers (cf. Mt 5:9). Gestures of peace are possible when people appreciate fully the community dimension of their lives, so that they grasp the meaning and consequences of events in their own communities and in the world. Gestures of peace create a tradition and a culture of peace.
Religion has a vital role in fostering gestures of peace and in consolidating conditions for peace. It exercises this role all the more effectively if it concentrates on what is proper to it: attention to God, the fostering of universal brotherhood and the spreading of a culture of human solidarity. The Day of Prayer for Peace, which I promoted in Assisi on Jan. 24, 2002, involving representatives of many religions, had this purpose. It expressed a desire to nurture peace by spreading a spirituality and a culture of peace.
Blessed Pope John XXIII was a man unafraid of the future. He was sustained in his optimism by his deep trust in God and in man, both of which grew out of the sturdy climate of faith in which he had grown up. Moved by his trust in Providence, even in what seemed like a permanent situation of conflict, he did not hesitate to summon the leaders of his time to a new vision of the world. This is the legacy that he left us. On this World Day of Peace 2003, let us all resolve to have his same outlook: trust in the merciful and compassionate God who calls us to brotherhood, and confidence in the men and women of our time because, like those of every other time, they bear the image of God in their souls. It is on this basis that we can hope to build a world of peace on earth.
At the beginning of a new year in our human history, this is the hope that rises spontaneously from the depths of my heart: that in the spirit of every individual there may be a renewed dedication to the noble mission that Pacem in Terris proposed 40 years ago to all men and women of good will. The task, which the encyclical called “immense,” is that “of establishing new relationships in human society, under the sway and guidance of truth, justice, love and freedom.” Pope John indicated that he was referring to “relations between individual citizens, between citizens and their respective states, between states and finally between individuals, families, intermediate associations and states on the one hand and the world community on the other.” He concluded by saying that “to bring about true peace in accordance with divinely established order” was a “most noble task” (Pacem in Terris, V: l.c., 301-302).
The 40th anniversary of Pacem in Terris is an apt occasion to return to Pope John XXIII's prophetic teaching. Catholic communities will know how to celebrate this anniversary during the year with initiatives that, I hope, will have an ecumenical and interreligious character and be open to all those who have a heartfelt desire “to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another and to pardon those who have done them wrong” (l.c., 304).
I accompany this hope with a prayer to almighty God, the source of all our good. May he who calls us from oppression and conflict to freedom and cooperation for the good of all help people everywhere to build a world of peace ever more solidly established on the four pillars indicated by Blessed Pope John XXIII in his historic encyclical: truth, justice, love, freedom.
(Vatican translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Christmas Day Attack the Latest in Troubling Trend in Pakistan DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:LAHORE, Pakistan—Bishop Andrew Francis of Multan, Pakistan, spent his New Year's Day sending toys to Umid, a 2-year-old girl from Daska, Pakistan. The reason: Her Christmas was shattered when the Presbyterian church she attends was attacked on Christmas Day and she was injured.
Two young men dressed in burkas—the totally concealing garb worn by women in some Muslim countries—burst into the church on Christmas and lobbed hand grenades at the worshippers in the latest attack on Christians in Pakistan. Four people were killed on the spot and several others were wounded in the attack, which occurred in Daska, a small town in Northeast Punjab. Most of the dead and injured were girls and young women.
The service was not a Catholic Mass, as the United Nations initially reported and was reported in the Register on Jan. 5.
The attack brought the total number of Christians killed since such attacks began in 2001 to 66, with more than 150 injured.
Within days of the attack the Pakistani government had arrested several suspects including Mohammed Afzar, an area Muslim cleric who allegedly had exhorted his congregation to kill Christians. Several other suspects remained at large.
The population of Pakistan is almost entirely Muslim, and Catholics make up just 2% of the population.
“Certainly these attacks are becoming more common,” Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha said from his office in Lahore. The Archdiocese of Lahore includes Daska, and Archbishop Saldanha said Christians throughout Pakistan are experiencing such attacks at “regular intervals.”
Catholics also have been targets in the past. While a parish priest in 1998, Bishop Francis was nearly killed after being shot at point-blank range by Islamic fanatics. After the Christmas bombing, his office released a statement that “strongly condemned this act of barbaric terrorism: [the] killing of innocent Christians while they celebrated the birth of Christ, the Prince of Peace.”
The Diocese of Multan was the site of the first in the recent string of anti-Christian attacks when a Catholic church in Bahawal that was being used by a Protestant congregation was attacked.
Bishop Francis, who is the national chairman for interreligious dialogue in Pakistan, said from his office in Multan that he had just returned from a 600-mile trip to visit the wounded and bring them food and money.
“I went personally to encourage them in their faith and to help them monetarily,” he said.
He said the wounds and horror of the attack haunt him. “I still can't get them out of my mind,” he said. “Some were still bleeding.”
One of the wounded, the 2-year-old girl named Umid (her name means “hope”), asked the bishop to send her toys, and he promised he would.
All of the Christians in Pakistan are very closely united, Bishop Francis said.
But as a result of the attacks, the church in Daska that had been attacked was forced to cancel its Sunday services.
“People can't bring themselves to visit it,” the Rev. Rehmat Asim, the Protestant pastor, told the Associated Press. “They're in shock.”
Archbishop Saldhana said his diocese has taken extra precautions in light of the recent attacks. He said the government has told his office to call the police for protection whenever services are held, and he said, “the police do come.”
He also said such incidents have not generally deterred Catholics from attending Mass. “They take it in stride,” he said. “They are a little bit afraid, but all the same they come to church.”
According to Archbishop Saldanha, the government of Pakistan—a key ally in the U.S. war on terrorism—has been trying to keep Christians safe. “The government is very kind and tries to help,” he said.
Most of the Muslim population is tolerant of Christians, he said, and many even celebrated Christmas.
Bishop Francis said many Muslims have denounced the attacks. In a protest held in Multan in the aftermath of the Christmas attack, he said Christians of all denominations, as well as Muslims, protested the attack.
He added that he hopes to convince the government to pay for the hospitalization of those wounded.
The opposition to Christians, Archbishop Saldhana said, comes “especially from less-educated extremist groups that carry out these attacks.”
The cause for these attacks, according to Archbishop Saldhana, is anti-Christian sentiment and a desire to “get back at the West for what [the terrorists] see as the killing of innocents in Muslim countries.”
Both Archbishop Saldhana and Bishop Francis expressed their willingness to stay in Pakistan no matter how dire the situation becomes.
“We are generating hope against all hope,” Bishop Francis said. “The Church has a role to play and we will never let go.” He said the Church must foster “reconciliation and human dignity.”
Bishop Francis also asked American Catholics to pray for those wounded in the attack, especially for those who suffered damage to their eyes.
He added: “I believe definitely in the power of prayer.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles. (Associated Press contributed to this report)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Missionaries Lead Peace Prayers in Ivory Coast
FIDES, Dec. 21—After months of fighting between Muslim rebels and government forces, the African nation of Ivory Coast is praying for peace, reported Fides, the Vatican news agency.
A local missionary working in rebel-held Korhogo told Fides, “Since Korhogo fell into rebel hands the city has been emptied, but the churches have been filled! … In our parish we provide schooling and a meal for 2,000 children as well as recreation and sports. It is heartening to see them kicking a football or running a race while war continues. We continue to organize prayers for peace, the rosary every Saturday morning and in front of Blessed Sacrament during daily exposition. Many non-Christians—most here are animists—come to join the prayers. I think the local animists are edified to see the way Christians pray for peace, unlike Muslims who even pray for war. Recently one imam in the main mosque prayed publicly for the death of the president. We ask you … to remember the Ivory Coast in your prayers, that these long-suffering people may have a new year of peace.”
Flemish Priest Fired for Banning French
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 30—Ever since the small kingdom of Belgium was founded in the 19th century, tensions have stirred between its Flemish majority and a large minority of French-speakers.
The dispute burst into the sanctuary as Flemish Father Jos Verstraeten cancelled French-language Masses in 2001 at his parish of St. Peter's in Wezembeek-Oppem outside Brussels. That left French-speaking Catholics in his town to hold Mass in cafÈs and private homes.
The French ban made Father Verstraeten a star in the Flemish nationalist movement, which also sponsors one of the more successful socially conservative political parties in Europe, the Vlaams Blok.
In late December, Cardinal Godfried Danneels moved Father Verstraeten to another parish. In response, Flemish activists gathered at the priest's last parish Mass, waving flags and singing the nationalist anthem “The Flemish Lion.”
According to the AP disputes between Dutch and French-speakers have brought down numerous governments in Belgium.
Priests in Malawi Accused of Vampire Conspiracy
REUTERS, Dec. 23—Vigilante violence has convulsed the small African nation of Malawi thanks to strange rumors of vampire attacks that have spread across the country.
Those alleged attacks have been blamed on international aid agencies. The country is suffering political turmoil and food shortages, and now many villagers have come to believe that food aid from foreign donors is only being dispensed in return for human blood.
Three Catholic priests were injured by stoning and another man died after accusations they were part of the vampire conspiracy. Malawi President Bakili Muluzi has blamed the rumors on his political opposition, saying they are trying to undermine his government, according to the wire service.
Muluzi condemned the rumors as irresponsible and malicious and told a news conference: “No government can go about sucking blood of its own people. That's thuggery.”
Malawi is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Christmas Clone? DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Time will tell if the year 2002 will go down in history books as the year the first human clone was born. That would be a shameful thing. But it would be an added shame if 2003 doesn't go down in history as the year the door was closed on legal cloning.
The company Clonaid has claimed that a human clone was born Dec. 26, but it has not produced the evidence to prove it. In the first week of January, company spokeswoman Brigitte Boisselier backed away from her post-Christmas statements promising independent verification that a baby girl had been cloned from its 31-year-old mother. She now says the child's mother fears that Florida authorities will take the baby from her and won't cooperate in DNA testing.
Clonaid was founded by the Raelian religious group, whose white-clad, medal-bearing founder teaches that all life on Earth is the product of cloning 25,000 years ago by a race of aliens from outer space.
The science of cloning is theoretically simple—and not illegal. In the procedure, the nucleus of an egg cell is removed, and the nucleus from an ordinary cell from another person or animal is put in its place and electrically charged. That's how Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997.
In the United States, federal funding of human cloning was banned by executive order, for five years, just after the news of Dolly's cloning was announced. However, in the absence of state laws prohibiting cloning, human cloning without federal money may be legal.
Cloning supporters use tricky language that distinguishes between “reproductive” cloning, which produces a live baby, and “therapeutic” cloning, in which the baby, at its embryonic stage, is used for its tissue.
Both are immoral.
Catholics take issue with “reproductive” cloning for the same reason we take issue with in vitro fertilization: It produces human life outside the loving relationship of a man and a woman. Cloning simply adds a creepy element to this existing moral problem.
Wrong in itself, this sort of reproduction has dangerous consequences: The children it produces are more easily treated like property rather than being tied by human bonds to family relationships. Thus, embryos are killed thoughtlessly in the process, children are more easily abandoned by parents who feel no ownership of them and have drifted apart before the child is born, and any set of parents—a same-sex couple or a group of people—can “beget” children, endangering the child's future.
“Therapeutic” cloning is clearly immoral in that it creates a new, cloned person in order to use that person, without his or her consent, for experiments or to take cells or organs from that person in order to benefit a different person. To mine its resources, the cloned human being—boy or girl—must be killed.
Cloning backers use the terms “reproductive” and “therapeutic” to confuse the general public. Some legislators have promoted cloning “bans” that don't ban cloning at all—they ban the hair-raising “reproductive cloning” but not the arguably worse “therapeutic” cloning.
Other bills have sought to ban all cloning. It's this legislation that ought to be advanced in the next Congress.
We live in a country where, for instance, a 24-year-old Pennsylvania woman went to jail recently for failing to return overdue library books. Perhaps she should have: Society shows its disapproval of certain behaviors by meting out strong consequences.
A majority of Americans have said that cloning should be illegal. Common sense and morality agree. We should make it so and show we mean it by putting guilty scientists in jail, too.
----- EXCERPT: Editorial ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Rose Redux
Your editorial regarding Michael Rose and his controversial book Goodbye, Good Men makes some cogent points, although I still am inclined to side with Rose (“Goodbye, Bad Blood?” Jan. 5-11).
You rightly assert that “The Church needs Michael Rose.” The Church also needs orthodox publications like the Register, which I applaud for its sound doctrine and its defense of the saintly Pope John Paul II. But do not shy away from taking on (in a charitable fashion, of course) the dissenters—both on the left and the right—who, by their lack of faith, are only pouring salt on the wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ.
MATT C. ABBOTT
Chicago
The Food-Mood Connection
As a subscriber since 1976 or 1977, I have had the pleasure of seeing the Register become more and more excellent, tackling the toughest issues with great intelligence and realistic adherence to the magisterium. It is a paper I continued to receive while we were ambassadors from Venezuela to the Holy See and now back in my husband's Venezuela. Your paper is extraordinary.
However, I would like to draw your attention to a huge mistake you have made regarding children. It is not regarding the Catholic faith, but could really cause great harm to families.
In the Nov. 10-16 issue, two articles—“Hyperactive or Just Plain Hype?” and “Diet and Defiance”—the idea that diet can affect behavior is scoffed at and dogmatically dismissed. As the mother of a profoundly brain-injured child, whose constant seizures (in spite of every anticonvulsant available to science) were kept completely at bay by careful and intelligent allergy treatments, I have been observing for the past 25 years the discovery of the effects of food, additives and allergies in general on brain performance and following the development of this field. There are several children in our extended family who have had learning and behavioral problems solved quickly and easily with this treatment. This area is absolutely fascinating and there are wonderful people doing extraordinary work.
I would be most grateful if you would make this known to the good families who read the Register. So many “difficult” or “bad” children can be helped and distressed mothers given hope by discovering that it could be the cow's milk, tomatoes, the family cat or something else that is often causing the unexplainable tantrums and unreasonable, depressed or repetitive behavior.
CHRISTINE VOLLMER
Washington, D.C.
Guns of the Gulf War
There were a couple of [details] missing in J.P. Zmirak's essay about the Gulf War in 1991 (“Into Temptation,” Dec. 8-14). First, the fact is that, on numerous occasions, Iraqi soldiers would “surrender” only to fire on coalition troops as soon as they lowered their guard a little bit. One reason war must only be a last resort is that things get confusing and mistakes are made, resulting in the loss of innocent lives as may have been in that case. This is why certain laws of war exist: to prevent the loss of innocent lives.
During the war with Iraq, we were dealing with an enemy who had a complete disregard for innocent lives. Nobody can forget how Saddam packed a command-and-control bunker with civilians knowing that its configuration, antennae and electronic emissions would identify it as a purely military target and mislead us into attacking it. He sent his people to their deaths in an effort to gain sympathy from the rest of the world. I hope we don't have to go to war, but, more than that, I hope this madman is not allowed to get his hands on the types of weapons he is so desperately seeking.
The second point is that I have no doubt in my mind that Timothy McVeigh and John Mohammed would have committed their barbaric acts regardless of their participation in the Gulf War. Case in point: the current belief that it was not Mohammed but John Lee Malvo who pulled the trigger.
JOSE CARBONELL
Potomac, Maryland
Stop War Before It Starts
As you have pointed out, Pope John Paul II insists that war must and can be avoided in a world made fearful by terrorism. “From the cave in Bethlehem there rises today an urgent appeal to the world not to yield to war,” the Pope beseeched in his Christmas message. John Paul called the world to “extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided.”
The Pope's comments reflected the Vatican's widely known opposition to U.S. plans to attack Iraq. In contrast to last year's war in Afghanistan, where the Pope said there was a moral right to defend the common good against terrorism, the Vatican has repeatedly said that Catholic teaching does not consider “preventative” war to be justifiable.
There are several things each of us can do to stop the war: Attend the Peace March Jan. 18 in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco. Call or write President Bush and your Congressman. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Ask you parish priest to speak from the pulpit on Sunday on the Catholic concept of just war.
As much as President Bush desires this war, he is first and foremost a politician who will respond to the will of the people. Blessed be the peacemakers.
WILLIAM CLIFFORD ELLERMAN
Silver Spring, Maryland
Feisty Letter-Writer
I take exception to the front-page brief titled “Catholic Governor Barred by Priest” (Jan. 5-11). Msgr. Edward Kavanagh was referred to as a feisty administrator of St. Patrick's Children's Home in Sacramento. This description was unfairly demeaning. The monsignor should have been highly lauded for such action. How inappropriate it would be for Gov. Gray Davis, who has a long record of making a mockery of his Church's pro-life position to have had any part in the Christmas activities in a Catholic children's home.
The government is full of “Catholic” pro-choice politicians who in most cases advocate such a position only for personal gain. It is long overdue that their responsible bishops and priests take them to task. The failure to do so has cased significant damage to our Church and the pro-life movement.
VERN J. SIMON
Evans, Georgia
Editor's note: We intended “feisty” as a compliment.
2003 Prayer
Congratulations and thanks for the absolutely marvelous Dec. 29 issue of the National Catholic Register. What an effective and complete way of proclaiming the Year of the Rosary. I have read (as I do weekly) the entire issue with all the excellent insights and information, as well as suggestions in praying the rosary. It is an issue that many of us readers will save.
Thanks to your dedication to evangelism via the printed word. May your subscriptions increase week by week! Please extend my sincere admiration and thanks to your entire staff that does such an attractive and readable layout each week. May 2003 be a year of continued growth in the Register family. May the Lord Jesus reward your fidelity.
BISHOP PAUL V. DUDLEY
Northfield, Minnesota
The writer is retired bishop of Sioux Falls, S.D.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Praise for Rosary Issue DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Thank you for the recent rosary edition of the Register (Dec. 29-Jan. 4). It is the best resource I have found so far to show me how to put into practice our Holy Father's suggestions for praying the rosary and the new mysteries.
Would you please tell me how I can obtain 20 copies of this edition? I teach an introductory theology course at a local Catholic university and plan to devote one class to prayer and spirituality, focusing on the rosary and the Pope's recent letter. I would love to be able to give my students something to read and keep that will (hopefully) inspire them to pray the rosary on their own.
WENDY LAURENTO
West Chester, Pennsylvania
Thank you for the superb articles on the rosary in your special edition after Christmas. I grew up with my parents and nine siblings praying the rosary together on a regular basis. And my wife and six children have continued with this most special devotion. The many graces that have flowed from this Marian prayer are countless.
However, I was dismayed by Mr. Tim Drake's commentary, “The Prayer of Jabez vs. the Prayer of Elizabeth.” I was unaware that Catholics and evangelical Protestants were in a competition regarding their personal prayer lives. And I've always had an innate suspicion that arrogance is at work when one promotes a good cause at the expense of putting others down.
I must admit I have never read Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez. But I know many Catholics and Protestants who have, most having very favorable impressions. Like the rosary, this prayer can be abused to seek “riches” and selfish personal gain. I know one Protestant middle-aged couple who began to pray the Prayer of Jabez from the sincere desire to be used more by God. Within a few weeks, these “empty nesters” took in six children — two relatives from an abuse situation and four neighborhood children from a young widow who had a nervous breakdown. All six children would have ended up in state custody without this couple's intervention.
The Holy Father has asked that the holy rosary be used to promote ecumenism. Speaking as one who has worked diligently for over 30 years to promote ecumenism, I say: Let's do so in a dialogue of mutual love and respect as the Holy Father has taught, not with a witty “put down” or relying on tabloid headlines to tell us the truth about our Protestant brothers and sisters.
DAN ALMETER
Augusta, Georgia
I am a Protestant who is journeying toward the Catholic faith. I subscribe and look forward to the Register each week. I was so happy to see your special issue on the rosary! The rosary was always a mystery to me. I have tried different times to find a comprehensive guide to begin this discipline in my life. Your rosary issue has been such a blessing.
As soon as I saw this wonderful resource, I thought that this issue will be in shreds by the time I am done going back and forth, gleaning what I can. Have you thought of providing your guide in a booklet form?
CARLWHITE
DuBois, Pennsylvania
Editor's note: Thank you to all the readers who have sent in their compliments on the rosary edition. In response to the thousands of requests we have received, we will make available reprints of the rosary edition of the Register for $3 a copy to offset printing costs. Eventually, we hope to make a booklet version available.
Place orders for the rosary issue by calling (800)-356-9916.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: 'Not By the Color Of Their Skin': Is Affirmative Action Moral? DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Like many Texans, President Lyndon Johnson was a practical man. He knew when something wasn't working.
In spite of 1964 Civil Rights Act, he realized racism persisted in America. Blacks and other minorities continued to be barred from job opportunities and school admissions in many parts of the country.
This made social and economic mobility for them impossible.
Discrimination continued to tear the nation apart. Johnson didn't like it. He shared Martin Luther King's Jr. vision of a Just America. He decided not to dodge the problem or pretend it didn't exist, but fix it. What did Johnson do? On June 4, 1965, he told the American people his plan:
“This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek … not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.” Three months later, he signed executive order 11246 creating a policy that would become one of the most divisive issues in the United States: affirmative action.
Today affirmative action faces a decisive legal battle. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide if the University of Michigan may use race as a factor in its admission policy. The outcome will determine if affirmative action is legal.
Yet the affirmative action debate is not only legal. There's a far more important question at hand: Is affirmative action morally acceptable? This is the key question for Christians.
While the Supreme Court possesses legal power to uphold and strike down laws, it does not always exercise sound ethical and moral judgement.
For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is legal, but that decision is morally deplorable. For moral clarity, we need the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, not the U.S. Supreme Court.
To judge the morality of affirmative action, we need to consider a few questions: Why was affirmative action established in the first place? What was originally understood by affirmative action? What insight does Catholic moral teaching provided?
When President Johnson signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it dealt a fatal blow to legal segregation. The act restored the federal government's power to bar racial discrimination:
—Title II required access to restaurants, gas stations, lodging, and all public accommodations.
—Title VI prohibits discrimination in programs accepting federal funds.
—Title VII outlaws employment discrimination.
While the Civil Rights Act assured Blacks and other minorities equality in theory, it did not in practice. Johnson knew this. Johnson was not only practical but also optimistic. He believed in the American dream. On March 16, 1964, he announced to Congress that, “For the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty.” Then he declared an “unconditional war on poverty.”
Yes, Johnson was optimistic, but he wasn't naive. He initiated affirmative action as a temporary measure to “level the playing field” for all Americans. The result? Minorities enjoyed for the first time the same opportunity for career advancement, salary increases, and school admissions as everyone else.
The aim of affirmative action was simple: to permit race and class to be considered as a factor among others in education and employment. So when and why did all the controversies start?
By the late 1970s some affirmative action programs (not all) endorsed strict quota systems which unfairly discriminated against whites.
Claims of reversed discrimination fueled resentment. “Preferential treatment” and “quotas” became expressions of disdain for affirmative action policies in general.
Thus, a civil rights initiative of the 1960s came to be seen as a civil rights violation of the 1990s. Affirmative action critics argued that this policy had no place in a country that prides itself on self-reliance and merit. Everyone should learn to pull up his own bootstraps.
Nonetheless, affirmative action advocates counter, America has not always been a land of opportunity for all. Historian Roger Wilkins points out that “Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else.”
All of this brings us back to our key question: Is affirmative action morally acceptable?
If affirmative action means strict quota systems based only on race, the answer is No. It's wrong to support any policy that causes reverse discrimination.
On the other hand, if affirmative action means giving a helping help to minorities based on many factors not just race, then the answer is Yes.
Affirmative action of this type originates from the moral principle of solidarity. It implies the just sharing of material and spiritual goods. The Catechism of Catholic Church calls solidarity “an eminently Christian
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair LC ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Abortion and the Violinist DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:In 1971, Princeton University Press published, in it maiden issue of Philosophy and Public Affairs, an article by Judith Jarvis Thomson entitled “A Defense of Abortion.”
Dr. Thomson (1929- ), a professor of philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has written highly acclaimed books and articles on a variety of subjects. With her “defense of abortion,” however, she hit, so to speak, the philosophical jackpot. Her article has become the most widely reprinted essay not only on the subject of abortion, which is a remarkable phenomenon in itself, but in all of contemporary philosophy.
Because her article has been reprinted, anthologized, amplified, circulated, read, and discussed as often and as much as it has, it seems reasonably safe to assume that it has had a significant influence, particularly as an apologia for abortion. The article's broad popularity among abortion advocates suggests that it is the best argument that has been put forth as a defense of and argument for abortion. Recently, a philosopher from Tulane University wrote a book-length defense of it.
Conceding Life
Thomson feels confident that she can defend abortion, even if she concedes (although she really does not believe it) the humanity of the unborn, she states, “I propose, then, that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception.” Now the ethical dilemma is this: if both mother and uterine child are both human and both have rights to life, can abortion be ethically permitted where the woman does not want to continue her pregnancy?
In order to solve this dilemma, Thomson provides a most imaginative analogy, perhaps the best known one of its kind in all of abortion literature: “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist [who] has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment … the Society of Music Lovers … kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. … To unplug would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months.”
Thomson believes that she has constructed a similitude that perfectly parallels the case in which a pregnant woman is yoked to her unwanted child for the same length of time. Her argument rests or collapses on this presumption.
There are parallels, to be sure. But are the scenarios, from a moral point of view, in perfect parallel with each other? In both cases there are two human beings who have rights to life. In both cases the continued life of one depends on the willingness of the other to make extraordinary sacrifices. But the parallel she needs in order to make her analogy viable is contestable. Is it true that unplugging yourself from the violinist and directly aborting an unwanted child are morally equivalent acts?
Thomson is confident that virtually everyone would argue that unplugging yourself from the musician is morally permissible. Here, she seems to be on reasonably firm ground. But her firm ground is established by the fact that this image is not controversial. Abortion is controversial because it involves factors that are not present in the violinist image. Let us examine three of these factors.
The act of unplugging yourself is justified on the basis of self-defense. It is a legitimate response to assault and battery (and in the example Thomson uses, to kidnapping and unlawful confinement as well). The development of the child in the womb is not an example of assault and battery or anything close to it. Assault and battery presuppose willfulness and malice aforethought, and have always been regarded as criminal acts. It has never been regarded as a criminal act for an unborn child to develop in its mother's womb.
The act of unplugging is not the direct cause of the violinist's death. He dies as a direct result of his kidney ailment. On the other hand, direct abortion does, in fact, directly kill the child in the womb.
virtue.”
It says, “Rich nations have a grave moral responsibility toward those which are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves or have been prevented from doing so by tragic historical events. It is a duty in solidarity and charity” (No. 2439).
President Lyndon Johnson did the right thing. That takes courage. Martin Luther King Day reminds us all to do the right thing by working to make America, “One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”
Father Andrew McNair writes from Providence, Rhode Island.
The two acts are distinct and have entirely different moral implications. Self-defense against an unjust aggressor is a different act than directly killing an innocent child in the womb.
The intention present in unplugging yourself from the violinist is to be set free and not that the violinist die. It would, indeed, be immoral to intend the death of your host. This situation, where two ends follow from a single act is handled, classically, according to the principle of double effect. It is never permissible to intend an evil. Therefore, it would be morally impermissible to intend the death of the violinist. But this unfortunate consequence of freeing yourself is permitted to happen because you have a right to free yourself from an unjust aggressor. In a parallel example, doctors remove an ectopic pregnancy from a woman. The intention corresponds to good medicine, removing a pathology (the tube, for example, in which the ectopic pregnancy occurs) and not to intend the death of the fetus, although that consequence does transpire.
The intention of abortion is graphically clear. It is to kill the unborn child. This intention is made all the more salient by the expression “tragic complication,” which is used to describe the rare event of a child surviving a late term abortion. The aborting woman intends to free herself from her unwanted child, but she and her doctor directly intend the death of that child. Another term for induced abortion is “feticide,” which literally means “killing the fetus.”
The Relationship
Thomson supposes that the violinist and the victim are unrelated. She adds nothing to their relationship that would mitigate the victim's aversion to being yoked for nine months. The two are presumed to be total strangers. Such is not the case with the relationship between the mother and her child. The victim, by virtue of being yoked to the violinist, does not inherit or attain any specific kind of positive relationship. He does not become his brother, for example.
When a woman conceives a child, she is no longer merely a woman. Nor is the child merely her child. Conception confers maternity on the woman and her child is her son or daughter.
zaThere is a relationship between the two that is primordial, interpersonal, and universally recognized. A mother is expected to do things for her children that strangers are not expected to do for each other.
Morality begins when people are generous and loving, when they exercise their duties to be decent, rather than their rights not to be inconvenienced. Thomson asserts that “we are not morally required to be Good Samaritans or anyway Very Good Samaritans to one another”. Her language is always legalistic. She completely misses the point that personal love and generosity are primary and that law, rights, and obligations are secondary.
John Finnis is correct when he encapsulates the radical weakness of Thomson's argument by saying that she is trying to reduce the mother-child relationship to a “sort of social contractarianism.” It is essentially unjust to try to settle a matter of life and death, which is what abortion involves, by ignoring the ethical primacy of love and generosity, while looking to legalistic terms for guidance. Law without love is another way of defining the path to the Culture of Death.
Thomson's defense of abortion, is, in itself, a significant contribution to the Culture of Death. What is even more pernicious, however, is her facile deconstruction of motherhood and reduction of all human beings to islands of self-serving individuality. In order to rationalize the death of the unborn, she feels compelled to rationalize the death of the person as a locus of love and generosity. It is as if she is saying that we need the death of the authentic person in order to justify the death of the unborn. One form of killing necessitates a prior form of killing. If our souls are dead, we will surely be dead to the iniquity of abortion.
Donald DeMarco teaches philosophy at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald Demarco ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Judith Jarvis Thomson's ``A Defense of Abortion" DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:The reporter's question was the inevitable: “Abortion is still legal 30 years after Roe v. Wade, so when is the pro-life movement going to face reality and change its focus?”
In 1973 Roe v. Wade elevated abortion from its historical place of shame to the supreme law of the land. Roe and the case of Doe v. Bolton effectively made abortion legal in every state, at any time in pregnancy. Abortion is a hole in the heart of our great nation, and pro-life people will never stop working for the day when all human lives are protected by law.
Unlimited abortion is a social experiment, now running for 30 years. Millions of children have lost their lives, and countless women have suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually. But we don't know with certainty abortion's effect on women's health, or on the family or society, or even how many children have perished, because proponents of abortion have opposed any systematic scrutiny of their experiment.
Instead, we've had a public debate for three decades that is dominated by an utterly false dichotomy—that abortion is a contest between women and children. Pro-lifers are seen as those who fight for unborn children, pro-choicers as those who fight for women. Women and children are of course natural allies, not enemies, and pro-lifers fight for women every day—but the terms of the debate have been set, and they have held.
Because of the sustained efforts of the pro-life movement—and some marvelous developments in science and technology—fewer people now question the humanity of the unborn child. People generally accept the fact that abortion takes the life of an unborn child. Even proponents of abortion will admit it—in 1996, for example, abortion activist Naomi Wolf called upon her peers to recognize the “full humanity” of the unborn child.
Still, abortion is accepted in our culture. Why?
One reason is the profound misunderstanding about abortion that persists in our country. Most people do not understand the breadth of the Roe/Doe edict. Polls show that people think abortion is legal only in the first trimester of pregnancy, and most believe abortion should not be legal beyond that point. Abortion law is extreme, but most people don't know it.
People also misunderstand the reality of abortion practice. The fact that almost half of all abortions today are repeat abortions is inconceivable to most people. Abortions for health reasons or rape, themes that appear so often in the public debate, account for only a tiny fraction of abortions today.
Above all, abortion persists because its proponents have offered up the false assumption that abortion is good for women, and the culture has swallowed it.
It is time to challenge this assumption head-on.
Women choose abortion as a last resort, not as a free choice. Women turn to abortion because they feel alone and helpless, or abandoned, or pressured by boyfriends or family members. Abortion is not the act of empowerment it was promised to be. Even the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's research affiliate, reports that the primary reasons women have abortions are a lack of financial resources and of emotional support.
“I can't stop crying” is the type of message that appears regularly on the message boards of the Web site www.afterabortion.com, a forum for women who are having trouble coping with their abortions.
While this is not a pro-life site, the stories shared here give the lie to the pro-choice argument. Their families pressured them, their boyfriends abandoned them, they had nowhere to turn.
Some had their abortions many years ago but feel the pain as intensely as if it were yesterday. Many speak of clinical depression and medication. Women on this site share their feelings of rage and regret, and try to help each other deal with severe grief.
Their profound loneliness is palpable. You cannot visit this site and be unmoved. It should be required reading for anyone considering supporting Planned Parenthood.
No compassionate person wants a woman to suffer through the personal tragedy of abortion. No teen-age girl should have to drop out of school because she became pregnant. No young woman should have to face the prospect of a life of poverty. No one should feel abandoned by her family and friends. And no person should ever have to suffer the pain and anguish of abortion. Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae said that we are called to “a radical solidarity with the woman in need.” Each woman's struggle with an untimely pregnancy is our struggle. The problems she faces are ours to help solve.
Women deserve better than abortion. This month marks the first major public education effort of the Women Deserve Better campaign, a campaign supported by a number of pro-woman and pro-life groups to refocus the nation on the reasons why women feel pressured into abortion and to promote women-centered solutions to these problems. Advertisements will appear in Washington, D.C. subway trains, buses, and commuter trains, in newspapers and periodicals.
Their message: “Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion.” (For more information on the campaign, visit www.womendeservebetter.com.)
Roe v. Wade created the lie that abortion is moral and acceptable because it is legal. Roe must be reversed, and we will never stop working for an end to legalized abortion. While we do, we must also strive to eliminate the reasons why women turn to abortion.
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq.Is director of planning and information for the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: My answer was Churchillian-we'll never give up, never give up, never! ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cathleen A. Cleaver ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Kids Who Stay Catholic
All of us know good Catholic families in which one or more of the children have rejected the faith. It's not a new problem. Recall Jesus' parable of the prodigal son: A father who is loyal to God sees one of his two sons leave home to live a profligate life. How to hand on the faith to your children in such a way that it sticks for a lifetime? Here are some practical suggestions.
Let your children practice the faith in a context of freedom. The Christian life is fundamentally an act of love, like the response of a woman to the man who courts her. Therefore, of its nature, it has to be free, and it has no value unless it is free. As much as possible invite your children rather than command them, and leave decisions up to them, trusting that God will help them act on their good impulses.
Let your default response be Yes rather than No. Many Christian parents seem afraid of the world and of their children's natures; they will not give permission for something their child wants to do unless they have complete certainty that nothing about it can go wrong. On account of the Incarnation, Christianity fundamentally affirms all genuine human goods and honest human endeavors. Parents who are quick to say No can give the opposite impression, that their religion is one that restricts and rejects.
Teach with a light hand. The best way for parents to impart the faith is by their own example and by setting the culture of the household. If these two things are in place, relatively little explicit teaching will be necessary. Husband and wife set the culture of the household mainly by how they treat each other and by the character of their conversation, which should display charity and be directed to edifying topics. The family dinner is of crucial importance: As much as possible, at dinnertime the father should lead the family in discussions that look at current events in light of Christian principles. It is easy to do this in a natural and enjoyable way. Kids want this kind of perspective from their parents.
Make it easy for children to develop friendships with children from Catholic families. Friendship is God's natural way for Christianity to spread and to be strengthened. Therefore, it is vitally important that your children develop friendships with friends who will help them practice the faith.
Make family life pleasant. Children will love what they find attractive, but no one can like something unpleasant. Parents can do as many good things for their children as the greatest of saints—yet, if they lose their temper frequently or quarrel, they spoil the inherent attractiveness of the Christian life.
Remain youthful. Pope John Paul II attracts millions of young people to World Youth Day precisely because, even though he is physically infirm, his soul is youthful. What is it to have a youthful soul? Maintaining that, in Christ, we remain optimistic and idealistic, while rejecting that hardening of the soul that typically comes with older age—pessimism, gloominess, losing a spirit of adventure, becoming unwilling to attempt new things.
In closing, let's not forget that, as St. Augustine said, our children belong first to God, and they are merely lent to us. Let us trust, then, that God will assist us, through graces that he gives in the sacraments and because husband and wife are that “two or three gathered together” through which Christ becomes present in the household.
Michael Pakaluk is a visiting scholar and Catherine R. Pakaluk is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard University. They reside in Cambridge, Mass., with five of their children.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael and Catherine Pakaluk ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Bishop Hendricken's Hideaway DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:The construction of the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul would be one of the crowning achievements of the first bishop of the Diocese of Providence, R.I.
Sadly, he did not live to see its completion.
But, even though Bishop Thomas Hendricken died in 1886, nine years into the 11-year project, the shell of the cathedral was close enough to finished that his funeral Mass could be held here. Fittingly, it was the first liturgy in the church.
Before arriving at Sts. Peter and Paul, I knew it was the design of renowned architect Patrick C. Keely. Bishop Hendricken's great vision of building one of the finest cathedrals around led him to pick the best architect of the times to carry out the plan. That didn't stop me from being a bit surprised by this elaborate Victorian vision in Connecticut brownstone.
People approaching what once was a busy major intersection in the middle of the city surely turned their heads each time they passed the wide faÁade. Its twin, 156-foot towers are still quite commanding even though their spires were never completed. Today, you can examine this out-of-the-ordinary Keely exterior at your leisure since yesterday's streets have been replaced by today's vast, open Cathedral Square as part of the city's recent revitalization projects.
The cathedral's original design remained virtually untouched for many decades. Even after the first major renovations were completed in 1971, much of Keely's glorious detail remained. According to a Keely expert I spoke with, the inside hasn't changed much. In several instances, I did find the details to be a bit different than those in other churches designed by the fabled architect.
For one, there's the highly ornate coffered ceiling glowing in rich, dark woods. Side aisle ceilings match them. For another, there are the Venetian Gothic niches in the transept holding statues of the four evangelists carved by Keely's master sculptor, Joseph Sibbel. His plaster eagle and lion beneath them, for example, are true masterpieces.
Mysteries in Marble
Then there are the splendid Corinthian capitals atop the deep green, fluted pillars. They're unusual because each capital is different. Some are decorated with scenes from the Old Testament, like Hagar and Ishmael being sent away; some are allegorical, like the combination of cogwheel, rooster and hammer. The combination of liturgical artistry and biblical ideas will have you stopping to ponder the mysteries of the faith as you move into the sanctuary.
You'll do the same by each spectacular Old and New Testament scene captured in the stained-glass windows lining the side aisles. They also fill the nave with light to counterbalance the deep shades of the abundant wood decorations. These dazzling “pictures” are the work of Mayer of Munich—a company as fabled in its line as Keely was in his, and still very much in business.
Technicalities aside, those 19th-century parishioners must have surely appreciated not only the beauty of the windows but also their ability to transport minds and hearts back to the Bible.
These brilliant windows are set in pairs, each pair bringing to life a single scriptural scene. They're also distinctive because the scenes are outlined top and bottom by exceptionally fancy stained-glass designs that add appealing flourishes to the cathedral's Victorian Gothic plan.
On the east side the windows present the manifestation of God in the Old Testament; on the west side the manifestation of God in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. That means some biblical scenes rarely seen in stained glass get their due in this cathedral—among them Abraham and Sarah, Jacob's Dream and Isaiah's prophecy of the Virgin Mary. In the smaller round windows above are depicted the equally rarely seen figures Esau and Jacob, Lot and his wife, and the priest Melchizedek. Jesus calming the storm and healing the cripple are just two of the other New Testament scenes with plenty of detailing.
Before you examine all the windows and liturgical artistry in detail, it might be best to walk first to the front to the cathedral. There you can pray by the tabernacle at the side altar. Constructed as part of the late 20th-century renovations, this simple altar of repose under a Gothic arch has replaced the elaborate original, which was made of marble and alabaster.
Alpine Altar
The main remodeling appears in the sanctuary area, which now showcases a sea of Travertine marble. The rightful focal point is the new main altar of Vert d'Issorie marble from the French Alps. The Testa directly above the altar is especially impressive. Weighing in at 3,000 pounds, it forms a bronze circle. All the bronze, including lecterns plus the tabernacle, is the artistry of X. Caberro and Sons of Spain. The patriarch himself came to supervise the installations.
Behind the altar, the Gothic reredos, carved in delicate spires and lace-like designs, connects to the original design. I admired the way the central carved Gothic arch frames the large crucifix that appears suspended in midair behind the altar. Gold angels occupy the niches at either end.
Across the sanctuary, the other remodeled side altar, dedicated to Mary, has a newer 7-foot statue showing the Blessed Mother holding the Christ Child. I was glad to see that behind the statue the old mural of the Dormition of Mary still fills the archway.
Speaking of murals, directly up in the transept is an awe-inspiring glorious circular mural of the Ascension. It's the work of William Lamprecht, a painter with a gold medal from the Munich Academy of Art. Keely used him often. Lamprecht also painted the Four Evangelists circling the lower transept.
Just when you think you've taken in all the magnificent stained-glass windows you can handle in one visit, the great circular window in the sanctuary “paints” 12 scenes of Jesus' passion and death in the tracery openings around the center scene of Christ crucified, with Mary and John standing by.
The rose window in the west transept presents Mary's Assumption, while 12 scenes in windows below it highlight Our Lady's life from the Annunciation to that glorious moment. Of course, their dominant color is blue.
Across the way, a new—and gargantuan—organ installed in the opposite transept instead of in the choir loft allows only a peek at the top of that rose window. At 36 feet high, it blocks out the rest of the window. Built by the Cassavant Brothers of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, it has 6,330 pipes and remains a “tracker” organ, the old type of mechanical construction that dates to the Middle Ages.
The cathedral's sumptuous detail—clean and updated, yet clearly Keely-esque—conveys a holy, reverent atmosphere in this cathedral. That's fitting since Bishop Hendricken told his flock: “The cathedral is a tribute to your religious fervor … for posterity, it will serve as a continual witness to your generosity.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut. ----- EXCERPT: Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Providence, R.I. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Magnificent in Middle-Earth DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:
Great storytelling always comes to grips with the problem of evil.
J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy of novels Lord of the Rings gives the subject an epic dimension, creating a mythology that's similar to folklore that took millennia to fully develop. The challenge for director Peter Jackson has been to find visual equivalents for Tolkien's literary imagination. The good news is that the second installment of the film trilogy, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, is even better in its cinematic expression than the first.
Most of Jackson's early films were horror movies (The Frighteners and Braindead), and he has successfully adapted his love for the unreal and the grotesque to Tolkien's transcendent vision. The forces of death and destruction in The Two Towers look as if they've been vomited up from the bowels of the earth, and we get goose bumps of fear when we watch these demonic figures wreak havoc on everything around them.
Jackson and screenwriters Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair construct a visionary action spectacle that rivals George Lucas (Star Wars) and the late Akira Kurosawa (Kagemusha and Throne of Blood) at their best. The movie places more emphasis on the swashbuckling exploits of knight-like figures such as Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) than the novel, which emphasized the role of the humble hobbits in deciding the fate of Middle-earth. But the final product remains true to Tolkien's spirit in its attention to physical detail and its appreciation for grand historical sweep.
The filmmakers plunge us into the story without much exposition; those who haven't seen the first installment may have trouble keeping up. The action is set 7,000 years ago in Middle-earth, a place filled with men, hobbits, elves, dwarfs, wizards and talking trees.
Frodo (Elijah Wood), a young hobbit, has been entrusted by the wise wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) with a task that will save Middle-earth. He must return a golden ring to the volcano where it was forged to keep it from the dark lord Sauron (voice of Sala Baker) who wants to conquer the land's free creatures.
This totemic object confers on those who wear it a magic potency that always corrupts its users. It dramatically illustrates the temptations of power that can lead men to evil.
Frodo is a very different hero from those in the quest stories of the Celtic and Norse sagas Tolkien synthesized. The hobbit's goal is to renounce power rather than seize it. His humility, an inversion of the usual pagan archetype, reflects the novelist's Christian worldview, which the filmmakers preserve.
A fellowship representing the free races has been formed to escort the ring to its destruction. But when The Two Towers begins, the team has been fractured into three groups, and the movie crosscuts between their separate narratives.
Frodo and fellow hobbit Sam (Sean Astin) hook up with a clammy, grotesque, child-sized creature named Gollum (voice of Andy Serkis) who offers to lead them safely into Mordor, where Sauron dwells, and then to Mount Doom, where the ring can be destroyed. Gollum, a computer-animation figure, is the film's most haunting character. He was once in possession of the ring (“my precious”) himself, and this has made him into a personality at war with himself.
In a compelling demonstration of inner spiritual warfare, the two sides of his personality openly argue with each other. Should he become Frodo's loyal servant? Or should he betray him to repossess the ring?
Sam doesn't trust Gollum. But Frodo displays a Christian-like faith in the power of redemption. “I have to help him, Sam,” the hobbit declares, “because I have to believe he'll come back.” In a dramatic masterstroke, Frodo himself will be similarly conflicted at a later time when he's tempted to use the ring's power against the armies of darkness.
Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan), also hobbits, follow a different narrative thread. They have escaped from the savage Orcs into the mysterious Fanghorn Forest where they meet up with Treebeard (voice of John Rhys-Davies), a giant Ent who's shepherd to the other trees. “Nobody cares for the woods any more,” this leafy King Kong laments, referring to their despoliation by the evil wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee). This points up Tolkien's sympathy for an environmentalism that connects the disruption of our ecosystems with other forms of evil.
At one moment Pippin is so discouraged he considers giving up and returning to the Shire, the hobbit homeland. But Merry argues that, if evil prevails, there won't be a Shire left. This underlines one of the movie's central themes: There are times when evil must be stood up to and confronted.
In a different context and place, Sam reiterates the same idea to Frodo. “There's some good in the world,” the hobbit declares, “and it's worth fighting for.”
This anti-appeasement message carries over into the movie's third plot strand: the defense of the kingdom of Rohan against Saruman's armies of Urak-hai. Three members of the fellowship—Aragorn, the elf-archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the dwarf Gimli (also Rhys-Davies)—come to the rescue of the besieged King Theoden (Bernard Hill). The good wizard Gandalf reappears to give the wavering Theoden some succinct advice. “You must fight,” he proclaims.
Jackson stages a long battle sequence between the Viking-like Rohan soldiers and the ghoul-like Urak-hai. The weaponry and tactics are redolent of 12th- and 13th-century medieval warfare. But the imagery of massed armies is so majestic and the skirmishes are so intense that we believe cosmic forces have been unleashed. (The violence, while never gratuitous, is too intense for kids under 12.)
Jackson's sincerity and skill restore to the big-budget extravaganza an often forgotten part of the movie-going experience—a sense of wonder. Our deep enjoyment of The Two Towers springs from the sense that we're being transported on an epic journey by filmmakers who are as excited as we are about the trek. We're persuaded that the fate of the world somehow hinges on the struggle between good and evil up there on the screen.
John Prizer is currently based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: The Two Towers veers from Tolkien's vision, but triumphs in its own right ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:The Powerpuff Girls Movie (2002)
Sometimes animated films created for kids can be enjoyed by adults, too. Usually, this means the addition of some hip, comic dialogue that sails over the youngsters' heads but connects with the grown-ups. The Powerpuff Girls Movie, based on the hit TV series of the same name, just gives it to you straight, without any self-conscious winks. But director Craig McCracken's imaginative visuals and energetic pacing are original enough to have developed a cult following among animation aficionados.
Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles are a trio of kindergarten girls with supernatural powers, which were accidentally bestowed on them by their guardian, Professor Utonium, in a misguided lab experiment. After they devastate their school and part of their hometown by mistake, their peers regard them as social freaks. Their only friend is Mojo Jojo, a monkey with a weirdly large brain. But he has secret plans to destroy the world with an evil simian army, and only the three Powerpuff girls have the strength and the smarts to defeat him.
Sahara (1943)
Desert warfare has its own peculiar dangers, as the looming Iraqi conflict may teach us. Hollywood has made only a handful of films about the perils of heat, thirst and sand. Sahara is one of the best. An American tank is separated from its unit after the fall of Tobruk in North Africa during World War II. Its commander (Humphrey Bogart) and his crew are running out of water and must make their way to an oasis.
Along the way they pick up a rag-tag bag of stragglers—some British Tommies (Lloyd Bridges and others), a Frenchman, a repentant Italian prisoner, a Sudanese corpora, a South African and a downed Nazi pilot. As a small German army is also trying to capture this objective, the tank and its camp followers are forced to defend themselves.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:SUNDAY, JAN. 12
Concerto
PBS, 10:30 p.m.
Conductor James Conlon employs Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, performed here by Wang Xiaohan, as a good example of narrative in music.
MONDAY, JAN. 13
Woof! It's A Dog's Life
PBS, 9 p.m.
In this half-hour series, celebrity dog trainer Matthew Margolis demonstrates that “love, praise and affection” are the keys to making dogs obedient and happy companions. In this and successive episodes to air at 9 p.m. on Jan. 13, 21 and 27, Margolis reveals how people can learn to control their pets' barking, rivalries and aggression. He also takes on special tasks, in one case consoling a loyal dog whose beloved master has died.
TUESDAY, JAN. 14
NOVA: Spies That Fly
PBS, 9 p.m.
We've all heard of SUVs, but what about UAVs — unmanned aerial vehicles? These pilotless robot planes, some quite small, are revolutionizing aerial surveillance and attack capabilities. Recently declassified film footage shows UAVs in action.
TUE.-THU., JAN. 14-16
Henry VIII
History Channel, 9 p.m.
This new three-part documentary tells the life story of England's King Henry VIII (1491-1547). Catholic viewers will be especially interested in the king's desire for a divorce and that wish's dire results in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The consequences, felt to this day, included criticism of the papacy, dissent from Catholic doctrine, founding a rival church with himself as the head, replacing the Mass, plundering monasteries and dispersing their tenants, and martyring faithful Catholics.
THURSDAY, JAN. 16
The Women's Center: Changing Lives and Saving Lives
EWTN, 6 p.m.
This inspiring show profiles a pro-life pregnancy counseling center in Chicago whose exciting successes make it a model for local right-to-life groups everywhere.
FRIDAY, JAN. 17
The World Over
EWTN, 8 p.m.
Jesuit Father Peter Gumpel, a historian, is postulator of the cause of beatification of Pope Pius XII (1876-1958). Here he explains the Church's process of canonization.
SATURDAY, JAN. 18
Timewatch: Myth of the Spanish Inquisition
EWTN, 8 p.m.
Recent major archival discoveries by Spanish scholars have led impartial historians to begin acknowledging that most of what people think they know about the Spanish Inquisition is false. The facts show that, for centuries, biased commentators have wildly exaggerated the Inquisition's scope and activities.
SATURDAY, JAN. 18
$50,000 Pastry Challenge
Food Network, 9 p.m.
Three-chef teams in the ambrosial arts strive for sweet success and lots of dough (puns intended).
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: All times Eastern ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Free to Speak? Not if You're a Pro-Life Student in Texas DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:AUSTIN, Texas—Lawsuits at two Texas universities are reshaping the landscape for free speech on college campuses and raising the question of university bias against pro-life student activities.
At the University of Texas, the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization, filed suit on behalf of a student group that alleges students' rights to free expression were violated when an exhibit sponsored by Justice for All, a Wichita, Kan.-based pro-life organization, was first denied and then heavily censored. A similar lawsuit against the University of Houston resulted in a favorable ruling, although some say the university is still abiding by its unconstitutional limits on free speech.
At the center of the controversy is Justice for All's graphic display of images, including a 15-foot photo of an aborted fetus, which is testing the traditionally open climate of free speech on campus.
“We're trying to create opportunities for pro-life students to stand up and speak on behalf of these babies and change people's minds,” said Jim Spencer, general counsel for Justice for All.
But some university administrators think they're going too far.
UT-Austin
Justice for All and the student pro-life group of the same name first tried in December 2000 to reserve an area of the University of Texas-Austin campus often used for student expression. The exhibit was reportedly banned as “inappropriate,” although university officials say that was never the case.
That is “not accurate,” said Patricia Ohlendorf, vice president for institutional relations and legal affairs at the university. “The student group had asked to put it up in an area where we don't normally have exhibits … and we offered an alternative location.”
But refusing access of any student group to any area of a public university is still a violation of free speech, according to Spencer. The lawsuit alleges that this restriction, along with others that require prior approval of all student speech activities, denies students' First Amendment rights.
“The first problem was that the university denied students the use of Tower Hall,” Spencer said. “The second problem is that after they allowed it to be set up in another part of campus, they censored it.”
During the February 2001 exhibit officials required Justice for All to remove contact information for crisis pregnancy centers and help lines, deeming it “improper solicitation” and in violation of the university policy that prohibits any on-campus solicitation. Justice for All alleges that during this same time, other pro-abortion organizations were allowed to distribute literature with solicitation information.
During another Justice for All event, university officials did nothing to quiet a student protest or a professor with a bullhorn who attempted to disrupt the exhibit.
This past September the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the student group Justice for All against the University of Texas and its president, Larry Faulkner.
“The university has taken its policies—which already restrict peaceful expression—and used them to ban the pro-life message while encouraging opposition views. UT cannot play favorites with the First Amendment,” said Benjamin Bull, lead attorney on the case and chief counsel for Alliance Defense Fund. The lawsuit seeks policy changes and monetary damages.
Following the controversy, the university commissioned a task force to re-evaluate the freedom of expression policy. In October the task force recommended that the university stop using the term “free-speech zone” and instead institute “amplified sound zones.” The task force also said students should no longer be required to obtain written permission to hold public assemblies.
“The committee clarified that the whole campus is really a free-speech zone,” Ohlendorf said.
Houston
The University of Houston relies on a similar concept with several areas designated as “free-expression” zones for “potentially disruptive” expressive activities. No student group is allowed to hold exhibits or displays in any other area, according to university spokesman Mike Cinelli, because of the disruption it could cause to classes and students in the library.
However, that's exactly where Justice for All, invited to campus by the Pro-Life Cougars, held its exhibit in March 2001. Cinelli blamed that on a “clerical error” and said the person responsible for processing the application was not aware that Butler Plaza is a non-expressive zone.
Jeff Slade was a college student at the time and president of College Republicans, which worked with the Pro-Life Cougars. He remembers limited protesting the first year and said it was never disruptive.
“The University of Houston is a public university and is getting public funding,” he pointed out, saying that it should be open to all forms of speech. The law student also remembers university-sanctioned pro-abortion displays in the middle of the student center, which is not designated as a free-expression zone.
The following year, Justice for All was denied access to Butler Plaza but allowed to hold a smaller-scale exhibit in a free-expression zone.
“They weren't in the hinterlands. They were in the middle of campus,” Cinelli said.
Regardless, Alliance Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of the Pro-Life Cougars.
In June a judge ruled the university was in violation of students' rights. U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. said that “the unbridled discretion conferred by the university's policy upon its decision-maker … to impose a prior restraint on student expressive activity in Butler Plaza, violates the First and 14th Amendments.”
The “decision-maker” was the dean of students, who in the past had ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from the plaza.
Despite the ruling, university officials instituted a somewhat-revised freedom-of-expression policy that essentially reiterated the designation of only certain areas as “free-expression” zones. Butler Plaza is not one of them, and students still need prior approval to use the zones. The main difference is that the university issued more specific guidelines on the forms of student expression relegated to the free-expression zones.
“There's no question we believe in free speech,” Cinelli said. “We do have concerns about it interfering with our academic mission.”
The University of Houston filed an appeal that was denied in August, and Justice for All was allowed to bring its exhibit to Butler Plaza in September.
But in the latest chapter of events, Pro-Life Cougars again sued the university in October because it refused to allow a student to wear a sandwich board in Butler Plaza that said “Life is Beautiful, Choose Life.” A request to hand out pro-life fliers, however, was approved.
Elizabeth Graham, associate director of Texas Right to Life, said pro-life students will always face opposition on college campuses but must keep fighting.
“When pro-life students work within the system on their campuses, using diplomacy, respect and logic in pointing out inconsistencies in policies granted to other groups and denied to them,” she said, “the administration will have difficulty denying pro-lifers the same privileges awarded other student-interest groups.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: American Independence's Catholic Architect DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON: FAITHFUL REVOLUTIONARY
by Scott McDermott Scepter Publishers, 2002 352 pages, $24.95 To order: (800) 322-8773 www.scepterpublishers.org
He was the richest man in Maryland—probably in all 13 Colonies. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress appointed him to go on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Canada. He later became a U.S. senator and, eventually, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Not bad for the grandson of an Irish immigrant.
This new biography of Charles Carroll (1737-1832), by occasional Register columnist Scott McDermott, is a vivid and memorable portrait of America's Catholic founding father. Meticulously researched and annotated, the book relies heavily on Carroll's own correspondence and papers. The author examines historical issues—religious freedom in the colonies, the mercantile system, slavery and taxation—through the firsthand accounts of an intelligent observer.
The wealth amassed by Carroll's grandfather and father through land holdings and rents in Maryland was a mixed blessing. His father, fearing that his property might pass into another family if he died before he had a suitable male heir, did not regularize his common-law marriage to Elizabeth Brooke until their son was 20 years old. While studying with the Jesuits in Belgium, “Carrollton” constantly had to prove himself worthy during his “exile.”
The younger Carroll, though a late bloomer (he himself married at age 31), had great intellectual gifts. Upon returning to the New World, he quickly learned to be as shrewd a businessman as his father. Despite the anti-Catholic prejudices in 18th-century Maryland, he became a mover and shaker in the government of the colony.
“Carrollton's most striking contributions to American political life were the Senate and the Electoral College,” writes McDermott. “The inspiration for the Senate came from Montesquieu. A strong and independent Senate, made up of the most responsible citizens, brings the [Catholic social] principles of hierarchy and subsidiarity into a republic.” Both of these institutions would become part of the new national government as well, helping to stabilize it and to offset the potentially volatile populist forces.
Charles Carroll's role in the politics of his time was guided by principles and loyalties, not by ambition. When the Maryland Senate passed a law in 1792 prohibiting dual office-holding, Carroll resigned from his seat in the Senate so as to continue to guide the fledgling state government back home.
Though the biography is arranged chronologically, McDermott occasionally digresses to provide background information, demonstrating that Carroll and his contemporaries not only shaped the course of events—but were themselves shaped by previous history.
“At Ticonderoga [during his diplomatic mission to Canada] Carroll described the remains of a French abatis, a defensive work made of sharpened tree branches,” writes McDermott. “These ghostly reminders of [the French and Indian War] were still a hazard for the commissioners, whose boats struck against pickets the French had driven into the riverbed twenty years earlier.”
Faithful Revolutionary is a fine study in American history that also offers fascinating insights into our Catholic heritage.
Michael J. Miller writes from
Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Football Nixed
The cuts will help the university comply with Title IX of federal law, which forbids sex discrimination at institutions receiving federal funds. Following the changes, the school will have 16 teams, 10 for women.
In a further irony, the decision comes as a federal commission is set to issue recommendations that would reduce incentives for universities to get rid of male athletes as a way to comply with Title IX.
Catholic Recruiters
ABERDEENNEWS.COM, Dec. 10—The University of Mary in Bismarck, the only private college in North Dakota, is one of the region's fastest-growing universities, and much of that is due to its recruitment efforts, reported the Web site of The American News, a daily newspaper in Aberdeen, S.D.
The college provides free distance learning to Catholic high schools in the Dakotas, Montana and Minnesota, and visits those same schools to conduct its Emerging Leadership Academy, a workshop program on values and leadership.
Officials of the college, founded in 1959 by the Benedictine Sisters of the Annunciation, said the programs are designed to attract students—especially Catholic students—to the university. “We want to form partnerships with Catholic schools,” said one official, “to attract the best and the brightest in the upper Midwest.”
New President
A committed Catholic, Powell is currently president of Glenville State College in Glenville, W.Va., and this will be his first stint as teacher or administrator of a Catholic institution.
While Powell will serve as president of both the college and seminary, the day-to-day operations of the seminary are the responsibility of the rector, Father Kevin Rhoades.
Collateral Damage
It is the latest episode in which legal troubles of prominent donors have brought unwanted attention to Seton Hall, which is administered by the Archdiocese of Newark.
Scholarship Awards
THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION, Dec. 20—Theodore Cachey, a professor of romance languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame, is one of 2002's 16 recipients of awards for outstanding scholarship in English and modern languages presented by prestigious association.
Cachey was recognized for his book, Petrarch's Guide to the Holy Land, published earlier in 2002 by University of Notre Dame Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:The Shy Child
My 6-year-old son has always been shy. Should a parent push a child to be more sociable?
There is research to suggest that about 10% of children are shy by nature. In other words, they are wired that way. They are less outgoing than most kids, slow to warm up to new situations, and generally just keep a low social profile.
Furthermore, about half of this 10% become more extroverted as they move into adulthood, and about half become shy adults. Which kids do which? Only time tells.
How much parents nudge a child to be more sociable depends upon how they view shyness. In our culture, introversion is seen as more psychologically immature than extroversion. Though unbridled extro-version may be irritating or rude, it still is not considered as “backward” in development as shyness. Seldom do I her a parent lament, “My child is really outgoing with people. How can I get her to be more reserved?”
In truth, introversion and extroversion are not moral issues. In and of themselves, neither is good or bad. They are differences on a personality continuum. It is our particular society that has defined one as better than the other.
Therefore, most parents feel pressure to “do something about” a child's shyness. If they don't, they fear he'll automatically be consigned to a constricted existence. Not necessarily. Some shy people are content with who they are, while some are not.
And maybe that should be your guiding principle in dealing with your son. You know him better than anyone else does. Is he okay with being shy? Is he genuinely uninterested in certain activities? Is he overall a pretty contented kid who just doesn't like being in even a dim spotlight? If yes, yes and yes, then you might take a more hands-off approach, letting him choose most of his social options.
On the other hand, if your son seems anxious to participate, or wants to try new things, but is held back by his inhibited nature, then nudge him. If he wants to play a sport but is “afraid,” consider signing him up and monitoring his commitment. If he watches the neighbor kids playing, but won't venture over, either take him or invite them. For his own good, you might even require some new venture—say, three months of music lessons, with a reappraisal after that period. It is innate to all humans to ultimately come to enjoy much that we avoided initially due to misplaced apprehensions.
One overall principle: It is all right to be shy; it is not all right to be rude. At times, shy children can drift into a style of avoiding the most basic social courtesies, such as saying please, thank you, hello and goodbye. Their social wariness can evolve over time into an “I won't talk even if I'm talked to first.” Here, good parents require good manners. For example, without eye contact and “thank you,” a treat cannot be accepted. Refusing to greet when greeted could lead to a later time out. Requiring minimal social interaction will not hurt a shy child's psyche. It will keep him from developing some real entrenched bad habits.
So how much do you push? Like a lot of parenting questions, that depends. But remember: Shyness is not a matter of character. Nor is it necessarily a psychological issue. It is a characteristic common to the human condition that all of us experience at some times and in some places.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author. He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:PURITY
COMES
FROM MOM
Teen-age girls are less likely to start having sex when their mothers are involved in their lives, have a close relationship with them, and successfully communicate their values on sex to them, according to findings from the largest survey ever conducted with adolescents in the United States.
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health drew from two analyses of interviews with thousands of mothers and their teens. The findings were reported last September in a monograph by University of Minnesota researchers and in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Source: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy / www.teenpregnancy.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Godparents: Not Just `Kind Strangers' DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:For many Catholics, godparents are no more than kind strangers who give gifts on birthdays or special religious occasions. But they have a long and important history.
It starts, of course, with the Baptism of the Lord, which the Church celebrates on Jan. 12 this year. But the Church first introduced the role of the baptismal sponsor, or godparent, sometime between the end of the apostolic age and A.D. 150, according to Joseph Lynch, author of Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe. The godparent spoke for the infant, who was unable to cooperate actively in baptism.
In practice, however, throughout much of Church history, godparents were viewed more as social than as religious aids for their godchildren. Parents selected sponsors who could serve as lifelong benefactors for newborns.
To ensure that their children received as much help as possible, many parents gave them numerous godparents. For example, Regine Pernoud, author of Joan of Arc: Her Story, notes that trial transcripts indicate that Joan had five godparents.
In 1563, the Council of Trent limited the number of godparents to one male and one female. But debates over the proper role of sponsors continued to rage. The sumptuous ways in which some godparents upheld their social obligations resulted in legislation designed to curb their zeal.
Popular literature of the period reflects godparents' important social role. Even today, most people are familiar with the 17th-century version of “Cinderella,” in which the fairy godmother magically transforms the young woman's rags into an elegant gown, enabling her to attend the ball and attract the prince.
Not Just Gifts
Although many might still wish for a fairy godmother who would provide them with impressive material or social benefits, the Church entrusts godparents with a far more important task.
In a homily he delivered on Jan. 10, 1982, Pope John Paul II described godparents' important obligation.
“A duty,” he said, “is imposed … in a special way on parents and godparents: that of responsibly educating the newly baptized and helping them to grow in a Christian way.”
The Church takes the role of godparents so seriously it made their religious-instruction task a Church office (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1255). It also has special requirements for godparents.
The Code of Canon Law stipulates that each child should have at least one baptismal sponsor, either male or female; two sponsors, one of each sex, are also permissible (Canon 873). Sponsors must be baptized, confirmed and practicing Catholics who regularly pray, attend Mass, participate in the sacraments and are faithful to their obligations as Catholics (Canon 874). Godparents must also be at least 16 years old, although exceptions can be made for a just cause; and they can't be the parents of the child (Canon 874).
“Godparents, as long as they live, have to be an inspiring presence leading to the way Jesus taught us,” explains Father Adrian Figuerola.
Today's Godparents
Unfortunately, many of today's godparents' see their role as largely secular.
“For most godparents, it's an honorary title,” says Dan McGuire a Stafford, Va., Marine Corps Officer who takes his duties as a godfather of four children very seriously. “They are good friends of mom and dad, so they get to be godparents, and that's the end of it.”
Although it may be difficult to build and maintain a relationship with godchildren, especially if they live far away, various practical ways exist to do so.
“It's not that you have to change your whole lifestyle, but you can do simple things that are very meaningful,” says Richard Bimler, co-author of A Word to My Sponsor: Celebrating the Life of Your Godchild (Concordia Publishing House). “Little things done regularly remind that person that they always have a relationship with the Lord.”
Bimler cites his daughter Diane's godmother as an example of a godparent who was particularly diligent in fulfilling her obligations.
“She hasn't just remembered her birthday and Christmas, but she's had her in a prayer chain,” he says. “She showed an interest in our daughter's life in lots of little ways. Just by knowing someone is out there praying for you, calling you … lots of little things have really become big things.”
Indeed, “powerful godparenting can make a difference,” notes Kathleen Slattery in her article, “Godmother,” which appeared in the January 1990 issue of Guideposts magazine. She recalls a godparent she knew of in her pastor's first parish in South Carolina, nearly 50 years ago.
“A maiden lady ‘of a certain age,’ Miss B. had no fewer that 26 godchildren,” Slattery writes.
Miss B.'s pastor worried that such a large number of godchildren would prevent her from adequately fulfilling her responsibility. But a look at the chart Miss B. kept on her godchildren convinced him otherwise.
“The chart, which was as big as a billboard, took up the larger part of the wall,” Slattery continues. “Along the top were printed neatly the names of all 26 godchildren, and listed below in columns were their birthdays, baptism anniversaries, favorite books of the Bible, hymns, hobbies, foods, colors, latest accomplishments and more. Miss B. updated the information daily. Her chart, she said, was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she looked at when she went to bed.”
Although it isn't always easy to imitate Miss B. who, being single and retired, perhaps had ample time to keep track of her numerous godchildren, McGuire, who travels frequently, is determined to build a relationship with his godchildren.
When they make their first reconciliation or receive first holy Communion, he sends them a letter explaining how the transmission of grace associated with that sacrament can affect their lives. He also offers suggestions for reflection on the reception of that sacrament.
“The letter is meant to be kept for reflection [when the children are older],” says McGuire. “But I always include a part that the kids can read themselves.”
Mary Zurolo is editor of The Fairfield (Conn.) Catholic. A version of the article appeared in Catholic Faith & Family
What You Can do for your Godchild
Keeping in touch by mail is a great way to maintain a relationship with a godchild, writes Elaine Ramshaw in The Godparent Book (Liturgy Training Publications). In her book, she provides many other creative suggestions for building relationships with godchildren. They include:
—Assembling a scrapbook about the baptism. Include photographs, the church bulletin and other mementos. Write about your feelings on that day, what you remember, and what you understand baptism to mean. This scrapbook can eventually be discussed with the child and given to him or her.
—Making a cloth activity book for a preschool child to play with in church. Use buttons, snaps, pockets and other hands-on items to make activity pages involving Christian symbols such as sheep, Noah's ark, baby Moses in a basket, and five loaves and two fish.
—Setting aside money that will be donated to charity each year. Tell the godchildren about the donation and then let them decide where that money will go.
—Sending Easter cards. If godchildren will be far away at Easter, special Easter cards can bring the message of Christ's resurrection to them. On the cards, write that you will always think about your godchildren and their baptism at Easter, because their baptism means that Christ's rising from the dead gives them new life, too.
Name days are another occasion that can be used to teach godchildren about the faith. They're celebrated on the feasts of the saints for which godchildren are named.
—Praying for godchildren. On patron saints' feast days, godparents might attend Mass with their godchildren. Daria Sockey, of Bethlehem, Pa., suggests observing godchildren's name days by bringing desserts symbolic of their patron saints—an angel-food cake for Saint Michael or a cake shaped like a sailboat for St. Peter or St. Paul.
—Baptism day gifts. The date on which godchildren were baptized can also be the occasion for celebration. Richard Bimler, co-author of A Word to My Sponsor: Celebrating the Life of Your Godchild, suggests observing godchildren's baptismal birthdays by holding gatherings on those days and inviting guests who are special to the godchildren. They can share a meal and discuss stories about the baptismal day. The godchildren can also light their baptismal candles and say special prayers.
—Prayer is an excellent way for baptismal sponsors to do something for their godchildren.
“A godparent can always pray for the family,” says Marianna Bartold of Otter Lake, Mich., “especially the parents of the child, that God will continually bless the marriage with the graces they need.”
“The one thing I do is have a Mass said for [godchildren] on their birthday,” says Mary Fries of Fountain, Colo. “The Mass is the most powerful prayer.”
—Gift-giving has always been the duty of godparents. Sponsors can also offer gifts that catechize.
“I think a bit of thoughtfulness on [the party of] a godparent, whether [they live] nearby or far away, can go far,” says Bartold. “Sending presents of religious books, such as a children's Bible, saints' stories or sacramentals such as rosaries, scapulars and medals is one thing a godparent can do.”
—Example, however, is the best way of giving to godchildren is through example, says Kay Magri of Scottsdale, Ariz., godmother of two. When she discovered that her goddaughter was not attending catechism classes, Magri sat down and talked with the child's mother.
“I said, ‘Look you gave me this job eight years ago, and I'm trying to fulfill my obligation,’ ” Magri recounts. “I personally take it very seriously.”
Magri took her godchild to religious-education classes. She also made a felt Advent calendar for her godchild; and, years later, she shopped for a wedding dress with her goddaughter.
“I think of it as a real serious commitment rather than just a christening-day obligation,” Magri says. “Godparenting is a lifelong journey that you should be taking with your godchild.”
—Mary Zurolo
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Zurolo ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Gift, Mystery and Grace DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Peter Pilsner, by his own account, comes from a family “tested by suffering, but wondrously blessed through the grace of God.”
How wondrously blessed? Well, the Bronx priest, who teaches religion at Cardinal Spellman High School in that New York borough, is one of three Pilsner brothers who answered God's call to Holy Orders. Basilian Father Joseph Pilsner is a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston and Father James Pilsner is, like Father Peter, a New York diocesan priest. A fourth Pilsner brother, John, is pursuing a doctorate in comparative literature at City University of New York.
How tested by suffering? Mary Rose, the only girl in the family and the youngest of the five siblings, died in June 1999 after losing a physically excruciating battle with cancer. She was only 25 when she died.
Yet, through her illness and her acceptance of suffering, Mary Rose became—and remains—a touchstone of grace for the entire family. Here is her story:
At birth, Mary was afflicted with retinoblastoma, a rare form of cancer that attacks the retinas in both eyes. Her right eye had to be removed, but her left eye was saved and she had normal vision in one eye. Three months short of her 20th birthday, Mary developed a second form of cancer, osteogenic sarcoma. (It is not unusual for people stricken with retinoblastoma to develop other forms of cancer later in life.)
Despite her ordeal, which would come to include seven surgeries, she graduated magna cum laude from the Georgetown University School of Nursing in 1996. She won the school's top award for excellence in biological sciences. She also took her nursing boards and aced the exam with a perfect score.
Three years later, she developed a fever. Tests revealed that the cancer was still spreading. She had one more operation, her last. She remained in the hospital, but she was sent home during Memorial Day weekend. She died peacefully on the morning of June 4, 1999, in the presence of her parents.
Mary Rose Pilsner's funeral Mass was held on June 7. Father Joseph Pilsner was the celebrant; Father Peter Pilsner concelebrated the Mass and preached the homily. At the time, Father James Pilsner was not yet ordained.
Father Peter recalls how the faith of the Pilsner family, exemplified by the life and death of a heroic daughter named Mary Rose, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, made the funeral Mass a joyous occasion. It was, he says, a celebration of God's holy people sharing in the rewards of Christ's victory over sin and death.
In his eulogy, Father Peter told the story of Mary's personal journey of faith. As a young girl, she was shy and sensitive. She liked cheerleading, basketball and softball. She had many friends. As early as the seventh grade, she cultivated an ardent devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux. Her favorite book, in addition to Story of a Soul, St. Therese's autobiography, was The Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Therese of Lisieux by Francois Jamart. Mary typed out and saved many quotations from the writings of her favorite saint. Copies of those quotations were made available to the attendants of her funeral.
“My sister did not consider herself “another Therese,” explains Father Peter. “She thought of herself as a disciple of St. Therese or as a member of ‘her army of little souls.’ Mary drew strength and inspiration from the life of St. Therese, and she constantly put into practice Therese's ‘Little Way.’”
As sick as she was, even immediately following one of her many operations, she practiced small acts of penance and self-denial. One time, while Father Peter visited her, he noticed that a jar of cream-filled candy he had given her had gone uneaten. He asked Mary why. “Oh, I like the candy,” she said. “But I try to make little sacrifices.”
To find the proper words to capture his sister's towering faith, Father Peter paraphrases the words of St. Paul in 2 Corinthians, chapter 4: “When we encounter someone like Mary, someone who is afflicted, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; who is struck down, but not destroyed; who suffers, but does not lose faith … we encounter, in a way such as we can neither escape or deny, the treasure within—the treasure of God's grace in our souls, the treasure of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the treasure of the supernatural life … that is her gift to us.”
Advantage: Blank Slates
When Father Peter Pilsner teaches religion at Cardinal Spellman High School, he draws from his family's spiritual riches, Mary's legacy, his brothers' wisdom and the faith of his parents, Arnold and Marcia.
There are 1,350 students at Cardinal Spellman High School. They come from diverse multiethnic backgrounds. Father Peter says the school is “solidly Catholic and proud of its Catholic identity.”
He adds that he considers himself blessed to serve there. “What I enjoy most about teaching,” he says, “is that, for several hours a day, I do nothing but speak about the Gospel to a captive audience.”
All the while, he's well aware that the challenges are formidable to all who seek to evangelize and catechize in our day. Some of his students, he explains, have never heard the Gospel. “Most cannot answer a question like, ‘Who was Pontius Pilate?’” he says.
Yet, he maintains, “Working with a blank slate has some distinct advantages.”
It helps that Father Peter knows something many of his students don't: These are no ordinary seeds he is planting. “They're quite powerful when watered by God's grace,” he adds.
Msgr. James Sullivan, president of the school, emphasizes that Father Peter comes from a noble line—the many “school priests” from the Archdiocese of New York who have served, through their teaching ministry, Catholic students. “Through his faith, his love and the quality of his life, Father Peter testifies to the power of Jesus Christ in all of our lives,” remarks Msgr. Sullivan. “He is a wonderful, marvelous example of priesthood.”
Father Peter runs the pro-life club at the school. Its meetings draw standing-room-only crowds. He also gives retreats for the students and teaches “An Introduction to the Gospels” on RadioMaria.org, which originated in Italy and airs on a local FM station. Oh, and he's also a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves.
Christian Manhood
Father Peter entered seminary after graduating from Gannon University in Erie, Pa. He was ordained a priest on May 13, 1998, by the late Cardinal John O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Perhaps not incidentally, Father Peter's spiritual director at Gannon was Father Edward Krause—son of the late Edward “Moose” Krause, legendary Notre Dame athlete, coach, athletic director and a member of the Fighting Irish Hall of Fame.
“He often shared with me wonderful insights about his dad's example of Christian manhood,” recalls Father Peter.
Father Krause, speaking on the telephone from Gannon University, praised Father Peter for the depth of his priestly ministry: “Not only does he do fine work in teaching and in parish ministry, but he is also very encouraging to his fellow priests and to the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.”
When I asked him about his hopes for the future, Father Peter said he is counting on the Lord's grace to light the way “just as it has in the past.
“I can only thank God for the blessings he has seen fit to bestow on my family,” he adds. “I pray that I will be worthy of such a gift.”
Wally Carew, author of Men of
Spirit, Men of Sports, writes from Medford,
Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 01/12/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 12-18, 2003 ----- BODY:St. Paul Pro-Lifers Free to Protest
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 12—The city of St. Paul, Minn., has agreed not to issue citations or arrest people who assert their right to free speech by legally protesting abortion facilities.
The agreement was made as part of a settlement between St. Paul and a group of pro-life advocates who filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the city.
The federal lawsuit was filed this summer, when two pro-life activists were asked to leave a sidewalk in front of a St. Paul abortion facility. The lawsuit said the city rule that required a permit for such activity was unconstitutional.
The proposed settlement requires the city attorney to review the ordinance and recommend changes to the city council to ensure it complies with the requirements of the First Amendment.
Feeding Tube Stays Put
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 13—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer has stayed his Nov. 22 ruling that the husband of Terri Schiavo, who is being kept alive by life support, could have her feeding tube removed.
Judge Greer ruled that she must be allowed to remain alive until the 2nd District Court of Appeal reviews the case.
Schiavo's husband and guardian, Michael, says his wife has been in an irreversible vegetative state for more than a decade and would not want to be kept on life support.
But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, want the feeding tube kept in place. They say their daughter reacts to them with tears and smiles and moves her head, and they believe she could be rehabilitated with new and aggressive therapy.
Medical Care for the Unborn
If an abortion fails and the woman then refuses custody of the baby by failing to authorize medical care or to release it for adoption, the child will be surrendered to the state and placed in the care of doctors.
Unborn Health Insurance
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 18—Idaho Chooses Life, a statewide pro-life group, wants lawmakers to adopt the Bush administration's declaration that unborn children are persons under the government-financed Children's Health Insurance Program .
David Ripley, director of Idaho Chooses, argued that lawmakers who qualify unborn children for CHIP will see it as “one of the smartest ways to save taxpayer dollars” because more pregnant women will receive preventive care that keeps them out of expensive emergency rooms.
Health and Welfare Department spokesman Ross Mason estimated the cost of covering unborn children during pregnancy at $1 million.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: What Can Pro-Lifers Expect From Frist's Senate? DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — He says he opposes abortion “except in cases of rape, incest and the preservation of the life of the mother.” He is against taxpayer funding of abortion. And now, he's the new Senate majority leader, replacing Sen. Trent Lott.
He's Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Frist, and pro-lifers wonder how much support they should give him.
As majority leader, Frist will set the Senate's floor schedule and will be responsible for building coalitions to get legislation through the closely divided chamber—51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one Democratic-leaning Independent.
In response to questions about Frist's positions on life issues, his spokesman Nick Smith provided a rote statement from the senator that is pro-life but stops short of endorsing a human life amendment to the Constitution or even advocating the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Some people in his home state have claimed in the past that Frist has said he does not favor the latter.
“As a physician, my professional ethics are grounded in preserving life, and I am opposed to abortion except in cases of rape, incest and the preservation of the life of the mother,” said Frist, a heart surgeon, in the statement. “Furthermore, I oppose taxpayer funding of abortions. Those of us who oppose abortion care deeply about women and their health care. We know that too many women face a heart-wrenching dilemma involving this issue. We must persuade our friends and neighbors on the grass-roots level that abortion is not the way to resolve this dilemma.”
The U.S. bishops, in their Nov. 12, statement for the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, make the intention of the Church and the pro-life movement clear: “For, as Pope John Paul II reminds us, ‘it is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop’ (The Gospel of Life, No. 101). Roe v. Wade must be reversed.”
According to a column by Terence Jeffrey in the Dec. 23 issue of Human Events, a national weekly magazine, when Frist created a blind trust to take over his major stockholdings in 2000, he had more than $5 million invested in Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), a hospital chain founded by his family. The problem: The Catholic Financial Services Corp. runs an S & P 500 index fund that excludes six companies for being involved in abortion, and HCA is one of the six.
According to Jeffrey, Frist's trust agreement allows him to order the trust to divest from a particular company and directs the trust administrators to inform him if they divest entirely from any stock. Frist and his spokesmen have not publicly revealed if any such action has been taken.
In any case, Smith said, Frist's possible investment in HCA and his position on abortion have nothing to do with each other.
“These two issues are separate and distinct,” he said.
Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, noted that, Frist's stock interest notwithstanding, his record on abortion is good, with one exception: his position on stem cell research.
“His position on embryonic stem cell research is problematic for us,” Connor said. “He was one of the architects of the president's decision. His position was more expansive than the president's.”
Frist ended up endorsing President Bush's compromise decision to provide federal funding for previously existing stem cell lines— cells that could be produced without destroying more human embryos but which had resulted from destruction of embryos in the past.
“He's going to get his first real test on the ban on human cloning,” Connor said.
After the Raelian cult claimed it had produced a human clone, Frist said in a Dec. 27 statement, “These actions offend our human sensibilities and undermine fundamental respect for the decency of human life. Today's announcement reinforced the need for Congress to continue its efforts to enact a ban on human cloning.”
Frist supports a total, permanent ban on human cloning, one that applies to cloning for any purpose.
“Sen. Frist supported the Brownback-Landrieu bill banning human cloning [and] the partial-birth abortion ban but not preventing embryonic stem cell research, which was a concern,” said Erik Hotmire, spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who along with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is one of the most active pro-lifers in the Senate. “But overall, Sen. Brownback is supportive of Sen.
Frist and in fact voted for him for majority leader.”
What Pro-Lifers Want
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, which was founded in response to Roe v. Wade and is now one of the nation's largest pro-life groups, said Frist has an excellent “pro-life voting record.” He said he expected Frist to continue to be reliably pro-life. “He has been so far, so I expect he will continue to be,” he said.
“All I know is that he's untried,” said Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, a pro-family public policy organization. “He's also hesitant about restricting abortion.…But he is a man willing to learn. I'm optimistic.”
If pro-life Republican leaders do not deliver on legislation during the next two years, she said, “politically, I think it will be very damning. They have a window here. There would be no more excuses.”
Connor said there would be consequences if Frist failed to deliver on the pro-life issue.
“If he has any aspirations for higher office,” he said, “it would be devastating. The core of the base of the Republican primary voters are pro-life and he could not survive a contested primary.”
Pointing in particular to last year's races in Minnesota, Missouri and Georgia, Connor said, “I think pro-life voters elected pro-life senators expecting results.”
Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization dedicated to respecting and protecting human life, was less optimistic about Frist.
“I don't think his prospects for being a pro-life leader are good,” she said. “[For example], he has argued for allowing the importation from foreign countries of cloning products [therapies derived from human cloning]. He invested in HCA.”
“In general he has a strong pro-life voting record,” wrote Catholic bishops' conference spokeswoman Cathy Cleaver in response to e-mailed questions. “He has taken a position in favor of limited funding for embryonic stem cell research, so on this he disagrees with the bishops, who oppose embryonic stem cell research; but he supports a total ban on human cloning.”
“We don't know much,” said Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank that focuses on the “culture war,” of Frist. “We don't have a clear record of where he stands.”
If Frist and other pro-life politicians fail to deliver, Weyrich said, “I think the consequences would be enormous. The pro-lifers came out full-tilt in 2002, as they did in 1994. I think there would be great bitterness and President Bush's re-election would be in jeopardy.…There is no excuse now.”
Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A.D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Activists Remember 'Heroes' Of the U.S. Pro-Life Movement DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — In the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared abortion a constitutional right, many men and women have worked tirelessly to reestablish legal protection for all humans, especially children not yet born.
Some individuals have stepped into the heat of a public debate at the risk of their political career.
One man who lost perhaps the most for his defense of the unborn was the late Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey.
“He clearly would have been president were it not for his pro-life conviction,” speculated Michael Schwartz, a veteran of the pro-life movement who now works at Concerned Women for America, a pro-family public policy organization.
Casey served two terms as governor of Pennsylvania but was not allowed to speak to the 1992 Democratic National Convention because he was pro-life.
“They barred him at the door while pro-abortion Republicans from Pennsylvania were allowed to speak,” Schwartz said.
Ray Flynn, the former mayor of Boston and former ambassador to the Vatican, also applauded Casey's legacy.
“The political philosophy he had is the winning philosophy,” Flynn said. “The conservatives are represented, the liberals are represented. The only groups not represented are the pro-life, pro-family and pro-social and -economic justice [groups].”
Flynn also considered current Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and current New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, both Republican, to be pro-life heroes.
But Flynn, a lifelong Democrat and Bush supporter, noted that most pro-life legislation requires the votes of pro-life Democrats in the House.
“I have a lot of respect for Jim Barcia from Michigan,” he said.
Barcia, a Democrat, recently retired from Congress after defending the unborn for years, Flynn said.
Darla St. Martin put Smith and Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde at the top of her list.
She's executive vice president of the National Right to Life Committee, which is also 30 years old this year. It was founded in 1973 to allow state organizations to cooperate in the fight against abortion on the national level. “Hyde and Smith have provided outstanding leadership and dedication over so many years,” she said.
St. Martin noted that religious leaders have stepped forward as well. She praised Bishop James McHugh and Cardinal Terence Cooke, both of New York, for educating fellow bishops and lay people about the dangers of abortion.
“They had a tremendous impact on the Church and on society,” she said.
But Catholics are not the only pro-life heroes, she noted. Francis Schaefer, an evangelical author and lecturer, educated many different Protestant denominations about abortion. St. Martin also mentioned Kay James, who worked hard on the pro-life cause in the black community.
Many pro-life activists are familiar with the work done by Henry Hyde and Bob Casey, but fewer people know about individuals who work behind the scenes, said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, an organization that works on behalf of pro-life issues within the United Nations.
One person whose heroics are “notoriously under the radar” is Michael Uhlmann, who wrote the Human Life Amendment when he worked for Sen. James Buckley of New York, Ruse noted. While working for President Ronald Reagan, Uhlmann wrote the so-called Mexico City policy, which makes it illegal for U.S. money to be used for supporting abortion overseas.
“I am certain he has done much else that he will not talk about and that we will not know about until the general judgment,” Ruse said.
Uhlmann isn't the only unsung hero.
Ruse credited Amherst College professor Hadley Arkes for his dedicated scholarship and activism that bore fruit in the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. President Bush signed that law last Aug. 5.
“His ‘modest first step,’ which calls for the protection of the child who survives abortion,” Ruse said, “may not be so modest after all and may be the pivot upon which turns our future victory.”
When Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Phil Gramm of Texas announced their retirements and when Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire lost his seat to primary challenger John Sununu, many pro-life activists were worried about the future of the U.S. Senate. Many were worried that Kansas' Brownback and Pennsylvania's Santorum, both Republicans, would be the only vocal pro-lifers in the Senate.
But the incoming freshman senators have brought some people hope.
Schwartz of Concerned Women for America said he was impressed by Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman's performance in a Senate debate right before Election Day.
“Coleman understood what he had to say,” Schwartz said of the new senator. “He proved you don't have to be [disagreeable] to be a conservative. He stood on his principles and came off as a nice guy.”
In the debate, Coleman refused to back away from his pro-life views and actually turned the tables on his opponent, Walter Mondale, Schwartz said.
“I watched that and became a wholehearted Coleman fan,” he added. “I also have a lot of respect for Jim Talent and Lindsey Graham,” who were elected from Missouri and South Carolina, respectively.
“Now Brownback and Santorum have some reinforcements,” Schwartz said.
The situation has also improved in the House, according to Connie Mackay of the Family Research Council. Her group was founded by James Dobson to continue work he did on the White House Conference on Families in 1980. It has since become independent of Dobson's other organizations.
Mackay, the organization's chief government affairs representative, noted that strong pro-lifers are included in the freshman class, including Iowa Republican Steve King, South Carolina Republican Scott Garrett and Arizona Republican Trent Franks.
Three new pro-life Democrats were also elected, she noted. They are Tim Ryan of Ohio, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee and Michael Michaud of Maine.
“It remains to be seen who will be outspoken on life issues, but certainly a number of these will offer a strong voice for life,” Mackay said. “I think it can be said that the 108th Congress will be slightly more pro-life than the 107th.”
Several activists maintain that “hero” is not an apt term for the pro-life movement to use.
Judie Brown is head of the American Life League, which she founded in 1979 at her kitchen table and has grown to be a major player in the pro-life movement. Her organization's no-nonsense attitude is summed up by its motto: “Pro-life, without exception, without compromise, without apology.”
Asked about pro-life heroes, she said, “My response to this is very simple. In the political arena no one to my mind wears a halo because I cannot recall who among the 535 members of Congress commits himself or herself to personhood from conception and never abides making babies exceptions to the rule. Therefore, the heroes I would have in mind are not involved with politics.”
She did single out for praise former senators Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, both Republicans.
Brown also admires Colleen Parro of the National Republican Coalition for Life.
Scott Fischbach also thinks the term “heroes” might be an overshot. He's the executive director of Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life, which was founded in 1968, is affiliated with National Right to Life Committee and has seen some important victories in the state.
“Heroes? I think that is too strong of a term,” he said. “We have some people that are committed to the cause, but often you still have to whack them into doing what we need done.”
A problem exists on the other end as well, he said.
“Some that are extremely committed go over the edge and off the agenda that we have developed…so we have always stayed away from declaring too many heroes,” Fischbach said.
But Ruse thinks perhaps the greatest impact in advancing a culture of life is the tireless work of activists.
“These are the folks who get absolutely none of the glory, who stuff envelopes and ring doorbells, who pray in front of the abortuaries and care for the unwed mothers,” Ruse said.
“In my work as a U.N. lobbyist, I get the distinct impression I am far from the real action, far from the front lines,” he said. “These people in the trenches are the real heroes in this battle for hearts and minds.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Roe v. Wade, as Seen by Those Who Have Had Abortions DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK—In December, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in connection with the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on Jan. 22, announced cash prizes for the best “personal stories of women who have benefited from that Supreme Court decision.”
In an effort to keep abortion legal and to “never forget that freedom requires constant vigilance,” Planned Parenthood called its poster and artwork contest “Behind Every Choice is a Story.”
“Each entrant can share the satisfaction and pride of participating in this national contest celebrating 30 years of choice,” a Planned Parenthood press release stated.
But Florida resident and convert to Catholicism Elizabeth Phelps, who had her first abortion exactly 30 years ago this January, said the contest sponsors might want to know that lifelong sterility was the real legacy of her choice.
“I certainly didn't have a success story,” said Phelps, who planned to join other women harmed by abortion in the Silent No More march on Washington, D.C., Jan. 22, immediately following the more popular March for Life.
In 1973, the same year abortion was legalized, Phelps' first abortion resulted in a perforated uterus and the doctor abandoned the procedure, necessitating corrective surgery and causing a miscarriage one week later. A second abortion in 1981 was even more disastrous: It led to a hysterectomy after a doctor told Phelps she had a double uterus and the abortion procedure needed to be repeated.
“I also had pelvic inflammatory disease and most of my organs were stuck together, according to the doctor who performed the hysterectomy,” Phelps said. She told her story to Florida law-makers last year in an effort to help promote passage of the Women's Health and Safety Act as it made its way through the state's legislative process. The bill attempted to raise the level of safety of abortions in Florida to a level similar to surgical procedures done in doctors' offices and outpatient facilities.
Phelps, 47, is now a practicing Catholic who credits her turnaround to Rachel's Vineyard Ministries, the post-abortion training and healing ministry that has served women and couples dealing with post-abortion syndrome throughout North America and abroad. She looks back on her 21 years of marriage with no children and says reflecting on that gave her the courage to speak publicly about the dangers of abortion.
Even though Florida's Women's Health and Safety Act failed last year, Phelps said she wanted people to know how much damage abortion can cause and get help for those men and women still suffering from its aftermath.
“Not that the pain ever really goes away, but it does get better after Jesus touches your life and heals your broken heart,” she said.
Not all states have the same requirements for mandatory reporting of information required by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
“If we have better reporting, we can track the complications and trends related to abortions,” noted Patricia Chivers, former respect life coordinator for the Tallahassee-based Florida Catholic Conference and who currently works for Georgia Respect Life.
At least 30 other states have better reporting measures than does Florida, according to Chivers. But even as the soul begins to heal, abortion can continue to damage a woman's health long after the procedure. Phelps was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis C in 1994, which she believes is due to the complications caused by her abortions.
Her most recent liver biopsy was taken in January 2001, and doctors say the disease, which accounts for the majority of liver transplants in the United States, is progressing slowly.
“But the peace of Christ is something no one can take away from me,” Phelps said. “Christ has truly manifested his divinity in my life and continues to bless me.”
Phelps' spiritual healing began in earnest in 1994, when she made a pilgrimage to Rome and Medjugorje. Three months later, through a priest intermediary and friend, she met Dr. Theresa Burke, a psychotherapist and founder of Rachel's Vineyard Ministries.
Burke's new book, Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion, includes some of Phelps' story, along with those of many other women and men who have suffered abortion's aftermath.
“My life has not been the same since that day,” Phelps said of the Rachel's Vineyard weekend retreat she attended. “The healing that took place in my heart and soul is beyond words. The Holy Spirit truly goes into the slums of our souls and brings forth a new dawning.”
Standing before Florida lawmakers last February, Phelps had prepared a written text of her story to help further protection of women of childbearing years and their rights to fair and equal treatment through medical practices. But the time frame for her remarks was shortened and Phelps had to condense her point: She thought she had good doctors and that the abortion procedure was safe. The abortions might have been legal, but there was nothing safe about them, she told lawmakers.
“It is assumed that clinics are regulated as other facilities that perform similar procedures,” she said. “A dentist's office has more state-imposed regulations than an abortion clinic. We owe it to the women of the state of Florida to protect them as they would be protected at any other place performing comparable surgery.”
Today, Phelps, who works at Our Daily Bread Catholic bookstore in Jacksonville Beach, lives with her husband in the knowledge that they can't have a family of their own. Maybe that cross, that burden, is a blessing for other women, she reasons.
“Since I don't have small children at home who could maybe be hurt by it, I am one who can speak out,” she said. “Even to this day, there is that little tiny glimmer of hope that, though there is no way I could conceive, somehow I could have a child. Every day I pray for my two children in heaven. I pray for my children's intercession in my life.”
Tom Tracy writes from West Palm Beach, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Tracy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'You Have to Tell Your Story' DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:With a woman's decision to have an abortion come frightening and painful emotions that get buried over the years. But working through these emotions is essential for healing, according to the author of a new book on the topic.
“If you have been traumatized, you have to work that through and integrate what happened,” said Dr. Theresa Burke, author of Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion (Elliot Institute, 2002).
Burke, 42, who developed the Rachel's Vineyard support group models and weekend retreats for any man or woman who has struggled with the emotional and spiritual pain of abortion, said her healing method is to take participants on an “intensive but ultimately liberating journey” into their own grief. It's a journey modeled after the paschal mystery, united with Christ's own suffering, death and resurrection.
The key to recovery is to disable a person's tendency toward trauma reenactment following an abortion. This is accomplished through Rachel's Vineyard's “living Scripture” exercises—meditations designed to help connect memories and feelings—therapeutic role-playing and a memorial service and Mass of Resurrection, all part of the retreat process designed to release repressed grief, guilt and shame.
Some of the symptoms of postabortion trauma include bouts of crying, depression, guilt, sadness, anger, emotional numbness, sexual problems or promiscuity, eating disorders, lowered self-esteem, drug and alcohol abuse, nightmares and sleep disturbances, suicidal urges, difficulties with relationships, anxiety and panic attacks and flashbacks.
But by purging “toxic feelings and buried grief” through a supportive and structured process, she added, a person's heart and soul can “truly embrace the mercy and compassion of Christ to forgive oneself.”
The retreats, held throughout the year around the country and abroad, are usually promoted through word-of-mouth and the Rachel's Vineyard Web site. Recently, they've also found one national vehicle to promote them: the Register's monthly “New Evangelization Events” insert.
For more information about Rachael's Vineyard see www.rach elsvineyard.org.
—Tom Tracy
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Tracy ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: There From the Beginning DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Robert and Mary Rosera Joyce
While much of the pro-life movement commemorates its 30th anniversary, people like Robert and Mary Rosera Joyce won't.
Their pro-life work began before Roe v. Wade.
They are founding members of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and charter members of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. Their 1970 book Let Us Be Born was the first pro-life paperback published in the United States.
They recently spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from their home in St. Cloud, Minn.
How did you meet each other?
Robert: I am from Chicago, and I lived there until graduate studies and teaching at the University of Notre Dame.
Mary: I grew up on a dairy farm in Lena, Wis., near Green Bay. We met while teaching philosophy at DePaul [University] in Chicago. The first thing I said to Bob was, “What do you think of metaphysics?” With a twinkle in his eye he responded, “Philosophy par excellence!” It was love at first insight.
What first led you to become involved in the pro-life movement?
Mary: Starting in 1964, I began writing letters and articles about contraception in papers and magazines. So, when pro-abortion activism started in Minnesota in 1967, I started to write pro-life letters to the local papers. As a result, Bob and I were among the 15 originators of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life in January 1968.
Robert: We became regional coordinators for central Minnesota and presented many educational and organizational programs throughout that region and beyond while continuing to write letters and place ads in the local papers.
In 1970 you published the nation's first pro-life paperback,
Robert: We were alarmed at the lack of reading material on the subject and at the relatively superficial way abortion was being discussed. While I was on sabbatical in 1969–1970, we wrote this book, which was published almost immediately by Franciscan Herald Press, then [located] in Chicago.
Mary: From February through September 1969, I had a weekly commentary on Humanae Vitae in the St. Cloud Visitor, including an article called “The Abortion Atrocity.” After the completion of this series, we spent Bob's sabbatical in Arizona. We were almost alone in Tucson fighting the pro-abortionists there, who were getting aggressive in the news media. That motivated us to do this writing.
What was the focus of the book? Robert: It was a basic, nontechnical philosophy of human life. We said in the introduction, “We need to be born and reborn in a love for life if we are to have an enlightened sympathy for the pre-born child and mother.”
What kind of reaction did the book receive?
Robert: The publisher passed out copies to every member in attendance at the first convention of the National Right to Life Committee, held at Barat College in Lake Forest, Ill. That meant that many of the nation's pro-life leaders had a copy at that time. A year later at the second convention of the National Right to Life Committee held in St. Paul, Dr. John Willke told us about the Willkes' upcoming Handbook on Abortion and that it would include some of our ideas. Their handbook dramatically centered the movement nationally and internationally.
Mary: The word “pro-life” surfaced as a result of our “love for life” theme. The book used the expression pre-born instead of unborn, which continued in the movement, especially by Nellie Gray, the longtime director of the national March for Life, and others.
Our book also started the slogan, “Not a potential person, but a little person with great potential.” Most of all, it presented a clear explanation of the beginning of the human person at conception. The early pro-life movement was ambivalent about legal protection beginning at conception. Bob and I struggled with Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life about this matter. When the board first voted on it, only the central Minnesotans—five of us, including Father Paul Marx—voted to begin legal protection at conception.
What kind of pro-life work have you done since then?
Mary: I have placed and raised money for numerous self-designed ads in our local papers and have wrote letters, letters, letters. All had different themes. The facets are endless.
Robert: From 1972–80 we spoke on the philosophy of natural family planning and the true sexual revolution at the national seminars, held yearly and directed by Father Marx. We have been frequent writers for the NaProEthics Forum newsletter put out by the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Neb.
What words of wisdom would you offer to the young people involved in the pro-life movement?
Mary: Get interested in leadership, especially in chastity education. After Roe v. Wade in 1973, several of our college-age friends started the Soul organization and the National Youth Pro-Life Coalition, which survived through most of the '70s and then died out as their leaders moved into other ways of life. This kind of instability could probably be prevented if the established organizations maintained a young people's division with youth leadership passing on through the generations.
Robert: Pray for an ever-deeper conversion of heart for all of us. Work within the organizations of your choice. Be grateful that you survived the culture of death, and express your gratitude in whatever ways you can.
How do you keep from getting discouraged by the lack of political action on behalf of the right to life and more recent attacks on life at all stages?
Robert: I will never be discouraged as long as I realize that pro-life work—even the political—is basically the work of God, not just our own.
Mary: Cultural change is largely a philosophical process that calls for long-distance runners. We cannot press buttons for results. We need to stop, think and pray not only with our heads but also with our hearts. And keep working. I am now completing a manuscript called The New Culture of Love: Healing the Broken Heart of Western Civilization. One of the chapters is called “Healing the Broken Heart of the Life Issues.” As the Book of Proverbs says, “A people without a vision perishes.”
After 30 years, what signs of hope do you see for the pro-life movement?
Robert: When we became involved in this work in 1967, pro-lifers had no idea what they were getting into. We had hoped to turn things around politically in a few years. It really seemed that we had done so by 1972 with successful referenda in Michigan and North Dakota and notable victories in more than 30 state legislatures. But seven Supreme Court justices in January 1973 pulled the rug out from under the pro-life groundswell.
If we work and pray sufficiently, the pro-life movement will just as suddenly gain a sweeping victory through the courts someday. Like water boiling before turning to steam, the present steady, remarkably per-during opposition to abortion and to the other anti-life thrusts will prevail. Even then the work must continue.
Mary: An essential aspect of the needed cultural change is a true sexual revolution. When America's original Puritan-Victorian culture surged into its opposite extreme—a Playboy culture — our sexuality remained as lost in the latter as in the former.
The current progress in abstinence education is a good beginning as long as it stays and deepens in the middle ground and avoids the extremes. Also, by means of the increasing use of ultrasound technology in the clinics and the media, the pre-born child is now taking the lead in the pro-life movement.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Canada's 'Godfather of Abortion' Calls for End to Catholic Hospitals DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:OTTAWA— Dr. Henry Morgentaler turns 80 in March. But as the foremost public advocate in Canada of unlimited access to abortion since the 1960s, he shows no signs of abatement.
As an abortionist he describes himself as “part-time”—performing “maybe 30” terminations per week at his Toronto outlet, where he said other doctors now do much of the work.
As the founder and owner of eight private abortion clinics across Canada, Morgentaler at a Dec. 4 press conference called for “complete secularization of all public hospitals…and an end to whatever affiliation they have had with religious bodies, in particular with the Catholic Church.”
“When hospitals are or become Catholic through mergers,” he said, “they deprive patients of access to abortion, contraception and AIDS prevention, thereby imposing a religious doctrine on public tax-supported hospitals.”
Flanked by abortion lobbyists, Morgentaler invoked his alter ego as founding president (and now first vice president) of the Humanist Association of Canada.
“We live in a multicultural, non-sectarian society,” he said.
In a Dec. 11 interview from Toronto, Morgentaler added, “There is no reason why in a pluralistic society…hospitals should be affiliated with a particular religion,” whether Catholic, Protestant or Jewish.
Many hospitals in Canada were started by churches and religious orders. But all are now incorporated by law into the government system. However, facilities owned and operated by church boards, although publicly funded, in large measure retain their autonomy in the provision of services.
Msgr. Paul Schonenbach, English-language general secretary of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Morgentaler is barking up the wrong tree.
“In those few jurisdictions where there is now only a Catholic hospital, it's the fault of government cutbacks [necessitating hospital mergers], not the hospital,” he said.
Msgr. Schonenbach also took issue with Morgentaler's assertion that Canada is a “nonsectarian” society: “We are not a nonsectarian society but a society with many traditions.”
Pluralism, according to Richard Haughian, president of the Catholic Health Association of Canada, “means that you have different value systems that are allowed to coexist within a common framework,” as opposed to Morgentaler's “reductionism to a situation where we are all the same, where diversity is to be eliminated.”
“In our tradition in Canada,” Haughian said, “the place of privately-owned, not-for-profit health care delivery in hospitals and homes has been recognized throughout our history.”
But Morgentaler dismissed this tradition as a “relic of the past.” He said health care has evolved, and it would be a “continuing refinement of our democracy” to exorcize the remaining religious presence in the name of “tolerance.”
‘Pioneer’
There is no comparable personality to Morgentaler in the United States.
“Canada has a fascinating and unique history around abortion,” wrote Joyce Arthur on the Pro-Choice Action Network's Web site, “because a single lone figure—one doctor — stands out as a great Canadian hero, a pioneer who forged the way in the struggle for safe, legal abortion on demand.”
Abortion was legalized in 1969 under Pierre Trudeau's first Liberal administration. But the procedure was limited to hospitals, and after multiple charges dating back several years, Morgentaler served 10 months of an 18-month jail sentence in 1975-76 for procuring abortions in his private practice.
In 1988, the Supreme Court resolved Morgentaler's 20-year legal struggle by striking down the remaining criminal provisions, giving rise to Canada's unrestricted abortion license today.
Since 1988, the abortion rate has climbed from 19 per 100 live births to 33, with a total of 110,331 abortions recorded in 1998, the most recent year for which national figures have been released.
Abortion is now fully tax-funded in hospitals across Canada as well as in five of Morgentaler's eight private clinics. Three provinces, Manitoba in the West and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the East Coast, pay the doctor's service fee but refuse to cover extra clinic fees of up to $500.
Morgentaler won't discuss his income. In October, a pro-life group estimated his gross annual revenues at more than $7 million, but he denies the figure. Five clinics generate undisclosed profits that subsidize the other three, he said, and supplement the unknown salaries Morgentaler draws as “medical director” from his publicly supported Toronto and Montreal clinics.
He does not think a baby feels pain until “maybe seven months,” at which time he does not “believe” in abortion. (However, babies born at five months have been known to survive.) He finds “absurd” the notion that life begins at conception.
“I do not believe in God, I do not believe in an afterlife,” Morgentaler said, describing his personal spirituality as “naturalistic.” He extolled the “richness of the human spirit, adventure, stoicism and perseverance,” and said his heroes are “Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Erich Fromm and Bertrand Russell.”
Morgentaler said if Catholics want to have a hospital that “imposes” Catholic doctrine, then “co-religionists” should pay for their own private hospital. That is easy to say, given that private health services are illegal in Canada except for a few clinics, including Morgentaler's chain.
David Jensen, spokesman for the Ontario ministry of health, said it is unrealistic to expect “every hospital to offer every procedure and service. Our view is that abortion services are being provided in an accessible manner,” he said, if not at every hospital then in every region.
Msgr. Bernard Rossi, episcopal vicar for health care in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, said there has been no serious coercion of British Columbia's Catholic hospitals, even under the former hard-line socialist provincial government.
But Msgr. Rossi said there has been more or less constant pressure for the hospitals to amalgamate with nonreligious institutions under regional health authorities and thus abandon their Catholic identity.
Pavel Reid, a spokesman for the Vancouver Archdiocese, said secularists should not underestimate the value of that Catholic identity in caring for patients nonreligious hospitals are afraid to touch. When the HIV crisis exploded in the 1980s, he said, the city's largest Catholic facility, St. Paul's, was “the only hospital willing to create an AIDS ward.”
Msgr. Schonenbach foresees no pressure on Catholic hospitals to provide abortions or contraception and stands by the conscience rights of Church-run facilities.
“We don't see abortion as a health-giving situation,” he said. “A hospital is there to give health, not to terminate life.”
Chris Champion writes from Ottawa.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Chris Champion ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Mummers Parade Spares Church
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 4—Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua averted an ugly incident in Philadelphia as a comic parade troupe decided not to skewer the Catholic Church for the mishandling of child-abuse allegations in other dioceses.
The Slick Ducks Comic Brigade, a popular participant in Philadelphia's annual Mummers Parade, had planned to dress up as priests, nuns, cardinals and altar boys to lampoon the recent clerical-abuse scandal.
The group had previously dressed up as participants in the O.J. Simpson murder trial and in President Bill Clinton's sex scandal and had announced that priestly abuse would be its 2003 theme.
But protests from Mayor John Street, and Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua helped change their minds. The cardinal had called their planned march an “attack on the Catholic faith.”
One Slick Duck, John Brown, who calls himself a “very conservative Catholic,” explained: “If we were in Boston, we might have done it. There was no priest scandal in Philadelphia.”
Artist to Sculpt Monument at Ground Zero Chapel
St. Peter's Church, a venerable Wall Street-area parish, will house the sculpture.
That church was used as a makeshift hospital for firefighters, police and other victims of the terrorist attacks. It was the place where fire-fighters carried Fire Department Chaplain Father Mychal Judge, who was killed by debris after giving last rites in one of the towers.
Collier's theme is “resurrection.” He said he intends to depict four patron saints in the monument: St. Michael the Archangel, patron of police officers; St. Florian, the patron saint of firefighters; St. Joseph, patron saint of workers and of the universal Church; and one more saint whom he has not yet chosen. It will be female, he predicted—either St. Teresa of Avila, patroness of aviators, or St. Mary Magdalene, first witness of the Resurrection.
“As grand as any secular memorial might be, it can only say, ‘Remember,’” Collier told the paper. “But our Lord offers more. He offers resurrection, which is the hope of the dead.”
Church Might Put Two Priests on Trial
Two priests from the Chicago suburbs are likely to face a hearing before the canonical tribunal for allegations that may result in their permanent removal from the priesthood.
If it receives Vatican permission, the Archdiocese of Chicago is likely to try Father John Robinson, 57, and Father Raymond Skriba, 70, each of whom has already been removed from service.
Some 20 Chicago priests have been similarly taken out of parishes and may await Church trials, according to the paper.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Jersey Abortion Trial Could Redefine Woman's and Child's Rights DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:TRENTON, N.J.—When Rosa Acuna, a 29-year-old mother of two, was advised by Dr. Sheldon Turkish in 1996 to have an abortion, she asked him “if there was a baby already in me.”
“Don't be stupid,” he told her, “it's only blood.”
Acuna consented to the abortion, but when she sought medical help four weeks later for hemorrhaging and a nurse said, “They left part of your baby in you,” she had to know more.
After doing some reading about human development, Acuna came to the disturbing conclusion that Turkish had taken the life of her third child.
She filed, and lost, a wrongful-death suit alleging violation of informed-consent laws. But a New Jersey appellate court ruled in her favor in October, sending her case back to a trial court jury for a decision that her attorney thinks could impact abortion law in this country.
“This case exposes the conflict between a mother's fundamental rights and a conflicting philosophy of an abortion doctor who devalues the mother's interest in her relationship with her child,” said Harold Cassidy, who is representing Acuna and is known for his work on the “Baby M” surrogate-parenting case.
When a Superior Court jury hears his client's case on May 5, Cassidy said, it will mark the first time in the 30 years since the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion that a trial will be held on the question of whether a first-trimester abortion terminates the life of a human being.
A decision in his client's favor, Cassidy said, could mean that all doctors in New Jersey would be required to inform a woman considering an abortion that the procedure would terminate the life of a living human being. That, in turn, he said, could influence laws in other states. And, he said, the fact that abortion takes the life of a human being would be established in law.
Mothers' Rights
Cassidy said a successful outcome also could start a new debate in the courts concerning the nature of a mother's rights. Recognition that abortion takes the life of a human being, he said, would establish a constitutionally protected relationship between mother and child and show that a woman consenting to an abortion is waiving her oldest and most fundamental liberty.
“The recognition that the mother is involved in waiving her own fundamental right that the law says cannot be waived will ultimately result in the demise of Roe v. Wade,” he said, “and finally will allow the court to reach an honest analysis and disposition of the question concerning whether the child has any constitutional rights. In the end, all this will revolutionize how the court is forced to analyze the abortion issue.”
Cassidy said although abortionists claim they are acting in the interests of women, the rights of the mother and her interest in her relationship with her child are never mentioned.
“Part of the beauty of the Acuna case is that if anyone claims to be really pro-choice, you have to support the plaintiff,” he said. “You have to support the mother's right to be informed.”
In Acuna's case, Cassidy said, “The doctor made the decision for her.”
Turkish agreed in depositions that as a matter of biology life begins at conception but admitted his personal philosophical view was that a life had to be “viable” to be considered a human being.
Neither Turkish nor his attorney, John Zen Jackson, could be reached for comment, but in depositions Turkish has acknowledged that he usually tells pregnant women that the fetus is “nothing but some tissue.” He also reportedly has testified that he couldn't recall Acuna asking him whether there was a baby in her, but, had she asked such a question, he would have replied that a “seven-week pregnancy is not a living human being.”
Nationwide Impact?
Cathleen Cleaver, director of planning and information for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Pro-Life Secretariat, said she thinks the case is a good one for the right of women to know what they are about to undergo in an abortion.
“It appears very clear that this plaintiff was lied to by her doctor about whether there was the existence of human life,” Cleaver said.
But she said it would be difficult to determine what impact any ruling in the case could have beyond New Jersey.
“It depends on how far Harold Cassidy takes this case,” she said. “He has a lot of energy and he has the will to take it as far as he can, even to the Supreme Court.”
Cleaver said, however, that the Supreme Court and other federal courts treat abortion cases differently from others.
“Judges play by their own rules when it comes to abortion,” she said. “It is difficult to imagine the Supreme Court, for instance, feeling like it had to follow a lower trial court finding about whether life was present and whether it matters at all.”
Nonetheless, Cleaver said, she thinks it is good to pursue cases like Acuna's since there eventually will be a case that will chip away at abortion rights.
Charles Rice, professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame Law School and a visiting professor at Ave Maria Law School in Ann Arbor, Mich., questioned whether a positive outcome in the Acuna case would affect abortion law.
Roe v. Wade, he said, drew a distinction between the humanity and personhood of the fetus, saying that whether or not it was a human being, it was not a person with constitutional rights.
In the Acuna case, he said, even if the doctor is held responsible for informing the patient that a human life is taken in an abortion, the life is still not personhood and thus would not overrule Roe v. Wade.
“The constitutional issue in Roe v. Wade was not whether the child is a human being, but whether the unborn child is a person under the 14th Amendment and whether he has legal rights because he is a person,” Rice said. “In any civilized society, all human beings should be considered persons, but the issue involved in this case would appear to be whether the doctor was erroneous in not telling her of the evidence that this is a human being.”
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican Turns Up Volume on Cautions as U.S. Counts Down to War DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—As the United States counted down to a possible attack on Iraq this winter, Pope John Paul II and his top aides turned up the volume on a litany of cautions and caveats.
The Holy Father used his globally broadcast Christmas blessing to proclaim that a new war in the Middle East is entirely avoidable and that this is not the way to fight terrorism.
Throughout December, a string of high-level Vatican experts had voiced increasingly sharp criticism of the U.S. threat to unilaterally depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying such a war would be unjustified, counterproductive, devastating to civilians and in violation of United Nations rules.
To many, it seemed like the world was lost in a time warp. Wasn't it exactly 12 years ago that President George H.W. Bush was building up for a threatened war against Iraq? And wasn't the Pope one of his most vocal skeptics, warning that the war violated international law and would be “an adventure with no return”?
For many at the Vatican, there was a sense of dÉjá vu this time around, but there were enough new twists to make the current situation uniquely troubling in their eyes.
For one thing, the 1991 Gulf War was provoked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and its refusal to withdraw— an act condemned by almost every state, including the Vatican.
The current plan for armed intervention rests on the supposed threat to world peace posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction —weapons Iraq denies possessing. That is much shakier grounds for launching a full-scale war, and it explains why Vatican officials have said armed intervention should not even be considered until ongoing U.N. weapons inspections are completed.
Another huge difference between 1991 and 2003 is the level of international support for a U.S.-led attack on Iraq. By early 1991, the first President Bush had amassed a multinational force backed by a coalition of 37 countries. Even some Arab states provided bases for military operations.
Today, only Great Britain and a few allies have staunchly supported the United States and President George W. Bush in the drive to oust Saddam by force if necessary. Several European allies have voiced opposition, and Arab states are not cooperating.
What especially concerns the Vatican is that the United States has promised it will take on Saddam alone if necessary, for the good of the world. In the Vatican's eyes, that kind of reasoning delegitimizes the United Nations and opens the way to the politics of “the jungle,” as the Vatican's foreign minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, put it in a recent interview.
Supporters of an attack on Iraq would argue that international terrorism has changed the “just-war” equation, and that a pre-emptive strike against those amassing chemical or biological weapons can be considered a legitimate extension of national self-defense.
But so far, at least, the Vatican isn't buying those arguments.
“A preventive war is a war of aggression, there's no doubt. It is not included in the definition of a just war,” said Archbishop Renato Martino, president of the Vatican's justice and peace council.
Moreover, the U.N. charter does not foresee a preventive war, said Archbishop Tauran.
Some argue that the Vatican cannot be expected to say otherwise, given its moral aversion to war and violence. Yet it would be inaccurate to paint the Vatican's stance as pacifist.
Indeed, since 1991 there's been an evolution in Vatican thinking on the “duty to disarm the aggressor”—a phrase John Paul used in 1993, when Serb ethnic cleansing prompted a worldwide outcry.
This is not a peace-at-any-price Pope. In particular, he has accepted the right of countries to defend themselves from international terrorism, which the Vatican recognizes as a new type of threat. For that reason, when the United States launched military operations against suspected terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Vatican gave qualified support.
“Sometimes it is more prudent to act rather than to be passive. In this sense, the Pope is not a pacifist, because one must remember that in the name of peace even some horrible injustices can be carried out,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said at that time.
But in the Vatican's view the fight against international terrorism does not give an automatic green light to military action. Iraq is not Afghanistan, and the circumstances must be carefully weighed, Vatican officials say; in the case of Iraq, the balance comes down strongly against war.
The Vatican remains convinced that international terrorism must be neutralized primarily on different grounds: through improved security measures, closer control of the financial network that supports terrorism and resolution of the social and political injustices that feed terrorism.
In the end, a pre-emptive strike against Iraq fails too many of the Vatican's criteria to be justified. It may fit the spirit of “war on terrorism,” but that's a phrase Vatican officials have carefully avoided using.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Thavis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Rome Street Cleaners Visit Papal Nativity Scene
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Jan. 5—Since he ascended to the papal throne, Pope John Paul II has made a practice of visiting the Nativity scene set up annually by the workers of Rome's Sanitation Department. This year, the Holy Father changed his custom and invited the workers to visit him instead.
He summoned Rome's garbage collectors to visit the papal Nativity scene in the Vatican Apostolic Palace and greeted them personally in Clementine Hall, thanking them for their years of hospitality in inviting him and praising them for “the important service their company makes for the city and its population.”
During the brief encounter, the Pope said that this year while he did not see their Nativity scene in person, he was satisfied to admire it “in a photograph … as well as in a small reproduction of it, built with the same materials. However, at the end of the Christmas festivities, I wished to invite you in answer to your courtesy.”
Russian Patriarch Blames Vatican
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jan. 4—Moscow Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, told a newspaper that he blamed the Vatican for worsening relations between the churches, singling out last year's decision by the Holy See to establish western dioceses to serve Roman Catholics residing in Russia.
“Our church was presented with a fait accompli, while such issues need to be seriously discussed beforehand,” the patriarch complained. “The Vatican's decision once again revealed its strategy of insistent missionary work among Orthodox peoples, to which we are categorically opposed.”
Roman authorities have responded that local Catholics—many of German or Polish descent—have a moral right to be overseen by their own bishops.
Patriarch Alexy did not rule out further dialogue between the historically divided churches and said he continued “to hope for a change in the Vatican's position.”
Official: Pope ‘Deeply Worried’ Over Iraq
Archbishop Martino emphasized the Church's position that no single country can act unilaterally to police the world.
“The Pope lives the drama of the moment, he feels involved personally,” the archbishop told the Italian paper La Reppublica. “We cannot think that there is a universal policeman to take a stick to those who behave badly.”
He suggested that Americans were comfortable acting unilater-ally “because American society is very close-knit and it feels sure of itself. Then there's the aggression it suffered on Sept. 11. The fact that they hadn't ever suffered aggression on their own territory played a role in the reaction, which can be understood. Yet it's clear that, being part of the international assembly, the United States must also realize the needs of others.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: John Paul on Justice: Book Compiles Addresses to Diplomatic Corps DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—A new book published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace contains Pope John Paul II's addresses to the Diplomatic Corps between 1978 and 2002.
John Paul II and the Family of Nations is dedicated to the late Vietnamese Cardinal François Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân, a former president of the council.
Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, council secretary, supervised the publication of the volume, which is issued by Vatican Press. The work will soon appear in a number of languages.
“When John Paul II speaks to the diplomats, he goes beyond their persons; his speech is addressed to everyone because the universal vocation of the Church concerns all people,” Bishop Crepaldi told Zenit, a Rome-based news service, in the following interview.
Bishop Crepaldi, author of the book's introduction, added: “The Holy See's action is addressed above all to consciences; it has no interests to defend, except those of justice and of a solidarity without limits, and this enables it to support the cause of those who suffer and whose voice cannot be heard.”
The Church's universal intervention might be seen as interference in the sovereignty of some states.
Today, sovereignty in the political sense is proper to states, but the Holy Father underlines its origin, which stems from moral and cultural sovereignty. The state is the expression of the sovereign self-determination of peoples and nations; its moral authority consists of this.
For the Pope, sovereignty is the expression of the good of persons and peoples. The Holy See's diplomatic activity is concerned with the internal relations of a nation, which the Church interlaces with persons. The Holy Father has specified many times that “the Church and the Holy See in no way wish to impose judgments or precepts but only to offer testimony of their concept of man and history, which they know come from divine revelation.”
Why was the book titled
The Holy Father's addresses to the Diplomatic Corps may be interpreted as examples of the social magisterium of the Supreme Pontiff. And even before referring to the social doctrine of the Church, the Holy Father expresses the love of God toward men.
The Pope addresses individuals, peoples and nations as a father addresses his children, concerned with their good, concentrated on alerting them to dangers, motivated by a profound desire for a better future for them.
The horizon on which the addresses to the Diplomatic Corps are situated is the love of God for men and, therefore, that of the relation between the Church and the world—a relation of service, not of power.
What are the main topics of the Holy Father's addresses?
The topic of the unity of the human family is a theme that is always present in the addresses. For the Holy Father, humanity is only one family. In addition, there is religious liberty and peace.
In regard to religious liberty, the Holy Father has repeatedly pointed out the sad situations of countries in which Christians cannot freely profess their own faith. “There is a country in which Christian worship is absolutely prohibited and to possess a Bible is an offense punishable by law,” he said in 1999.
On peace, John Paul has underlined on many occasions that it is not conceived as an absence of war but as containing the good of the human community.
The Pope says: “God inscribes the moral law in the heart of man. God wants an existence based on justice. God makes brothers of men called to form only one family. God is the inspirer of peace through the Holy Spirit.
“However, it is also true that peace is the fruit of free wills, guided by reason toward the common good that must be attained. … War is not a fatality: Peace is possible! It is possible because man has a conscience and a heart. It is possible because God loves each one of us, as we are, to transform us and make us grow.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Forty-four Legionaries of Christ Are Ordained to Priesthood in Rome DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME—Forty-four Legionaries of Christ were ordained to the priest-hood Dec. 24 by Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, substitute for general affairs of the Vatican Secretariat of State. The ordination liturgy took place in the chapel of the Legion's Center for Higher Studies in Rome.
In his homily, Archbishop Sandri expressed his joy at ordaining the new priests.
“Today your religious family will be enriched by 44 new priests,” he said. “It is an event that fills the Church with joy and draws our thoughts to Jesus' words, ‘by their fruits you will know them.’”
Speaking to the candidates, the archbishop reminded them that in their configuration to Christ through priestly ordination, they will be like him: teachers of the faith and guides of the faithful on the path to holiness.
“These new brother priests are a gift to the universal Church,” said Father Marcial Maciel, the 82-year-old founder and general director of the Legion of Christ who was also present at the ordination ceremony. “Each new priest is now sacramentally configured to Jesus Christ—and called to follow his example of sacrificial love and service.”
One of the new priests, Father Lawrence Merta, a native of Brownsville, Texas, said he and his fellow ordinands sense how much their priestly ministry is needed.
“After so many years of formation and preparation for the priest-hood, the mission of giving God's love to souls is an urgent matter,” Father Merta said. “Christ has given me the gift of gifts. I owe him my generous and total response.”
The formation process for a Legionary priest typically takes 12 to 14 years. It includes a two-year novitiate, studies in classical humanities and philosophy, a few years of apostolic internship and finally theology study at the Regina Apostolorum, Pontifical University in Rome.
“God chose us to be priests in this precise moment of history,” said Father Steven Liscinsky of Stratford, Conn. “Never has a world so filled with hatred and violence been in greater need of ministers of God's love and forgiveness.”
The new priests come from Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Korea, the United States, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Mexico. Eleven of the new priests are from the United States and three are from Canada.
Their apostolic assignments range from missionary work to chaplaincies at the more than 130 Legionary schools. Some of the new priests will serve in several of the Legion's 11 universities; others will help with Legionary youth clubs now active in 20 countries.
New Legionary priests from the United States include Father Shawn Aaron, Modesto, Calif.; Father Matthew Brackett, Still River, Mass.; Father John Bullock, Houston; Father Simon Chung, Los Angeles; Father Steven Liscinsky, Stratford, Conn.; Father Daniel Massick, Colfax, Calif.; Father Lawrence Merta, Brownsville, Texas; Father Jonathan Morris, Cleveland; Father John Sasse, Louisville, Ky.; Father Charles Sikorsky, Baltimore; and Father Daniel Wilson, Yorba Linda, Calif.
(Register staff)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Will Never Abandon Us DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Ragister summary
Pope John Paul II held his first general audience of the new year on Jan. 8 for some 3,000 pilgrims from around the world. He resumed his teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours with a meditation on Psalm 100.
The Holy Father told the pilgrims that Psalm 100 is “a joyful invitation to praise the Lord” that highlights the loving relationship that exists between God and his people. Even though the psalm is short, it contains seven commands to orient the faithful as they worship God, including invitations to come before him, to enter his gates with praise and to give him thanks. “When we pray, we should feel like we are in tune with all those who pray, exalting the Lord in different languages and ways,” the Pope noted.
Ultimately the psalm is a profession of faith, he said, in which we proclaim that the Lord is good and will never abandon us. “He is always ready to sustain us with his merciful love,” the Holy Father said. Therefore, we can yield to his embrace with confidence.
In the atmosphere of joy and celebration that pervades this last week of the Christmas season, we wish to resume our meditations on the morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. Today we will dwell on Psalm 100, which is a joyful invitation to praise the Lord, who is the shepherd of his people.
Seven commands are articulated throughout this work, which urge the community of the faithful to celebrate in worship the God of love and the God of the covenant: shout, worship, come before him, know, enter the gates, give thanks, bless. It is reminiscent of a liturgical procession that is about to enter the Temple of Zion for a worship service in honor of the Lord (see Psalms 15; 24; 95).
A Loving Relationship
Words that are commonly used to exalt the covenant relationship that exists between God and Israel are interspersed throughout the psalm. First of all, the fact that we fully belong to God emerges: “to whom we belong, whose people we are” (Psalm 100:3). This affirmation is permeated with pride and, at the same time, with humility, since Israel sees itself as “God's well-tended flock” (Psalm 100:3). In other passages, we see that the corresponding relationship is expressed: “For this is our God” (see Psalm 95:7). Later we find a lexicon that expresses this relationship of love, where merciful “love” and “faithfulness” are united with “goodness” (see Psalm 100:5) — words which, in the Hebrew original, are precisely formulated with terms that are characteristic of the pact that binds Israel to its God.
Coordinates of space and time are also reviewed. On one hand, in fact, the whole earth appears before our eyes and all of its inhabitants are praising God (see verse 2); later the perspective is reduced to the sacred area of the Temple of Jerusalem with its courts and gates (see verse 4), where the community is gathered in prayer. On the other hand, reference is made to time within its three basic dimensions: to the past with creation (“our maker,” verse 3); to the present with the covenant and worship (“whose people we are, God's well-tended flock,” verse 3); and, finally, to the future in which the Lord's merciful faithfulness will last “through every age” and will endure “forever” (verse 5).
Let us now reflect briefly on the seven commands that make up this long invitation to praise God and that take up almost the entire psalm (see verses 2–4) before achieving their goal in the last verse, which is to exalt God, whose deep and intimate nature we contemplate.
Worship the Lord
The first call is to a festive acclamation in which the whole earth sings praise to its Creator. When we pray, we should feel like we are in tune with all those who pray, exalting the one Lord in different languages and ways. “For,” as the prophet Malachi says, “from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name is great among the nations; and everywhere they bring sacrifice to my name and a pure offering; for great is my name among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:11).
Afterward there are some appeals of a liturgical and ritual nature: to “worship,” to “come before him” and to “enter the Temple gates.” These verbs, which also allude to royal audiences, describe the various acts that the faithful fulfill when they enter the Temple of Zion in order to take part in the prayer of the community. After the cosmic song, God's people, his “well-tended flock” and his “special possession” (Exodus 19:5), celebrate the liturgy.
The invitation to “enter the gates with praise” and “with thanksgiving” reminds us of a passage from St. Ambrose's De Mysteriis, which describes those who are baptized as they approach the altar: “The people, who have been purified, draw near to the altars of Christ, saying: ‘I will go to the altar of God, to God the joy of my youth’ (Psalm 43:4). Indeed, abandoning the spoils of inveterate error, the people, who have been renewed in their youth as an eagle, hasten to participate in this heavenly banquet. They come, then, and seeing the sacrosanct altar appropriately prepared, exclaim: ‘The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me; you restore my strength’” (Psalm 23:1–2). (Opere Dogmatiche III, SAEMO 17, p. 158–159).
Bless His Holy Name
The other commands that are scattered throughout this psalm once again suggest some basic spiritual attitudes that characterize a person of prayer: know, give thanks, bless. The verb “know” expresses the essence of our profession of faith in one God. In fact, we must proclaim that only “the Lord is God” (Psalm 100:3) and fight against every form of idolatry and every form of human pride and power that is opposed to him.
The object of other verbs, “give thanks” and “bless,” is also “the name” and the person of the Lord (see verse 4) and his effective and saving presence.
When read in this light, this psalm ultimately leads us to solemnly exalt God and becomes a kind of profession of faith: The Lord is good and his faithfulness never abandons us because he is always ready to sustain us with his merciful love. With this confidence, the psalmist yields to God's embrace: “Learn to savor how good the Lord is,” the psalmist says elsewhere. “Happy are those who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:9; see 1 Peter 2:3). (Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: India Tightens Abortion Laws in Attempt to Curb Female Feticide DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India—In a nation where unborn baby girls are routinely aborted because of a preference for sons, recent changes in Indian law seek to reduce the problem of female feticide.
But the big test will be its implementation in a country of more than a billion people, where a government policy discourages families from having more than two children.
With the amendments, passed on the last day of the Indian Parliament's winter session Dec. 20, the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act of 1994 has gained the teeth it lacked from its inception.
The act now bans medical-equipment firms from selling ultrasound machines (used for sex-determination tests) to clinics not recognized by the government. It bans advertisements for sex-determination tests and mandates states to set up special boards to monitor any violations of the act. It also doubles the fine for those carrying out sex-selection procedures to 100,000 rupees (about $2,085).
Prenatal diagnostic techniques such as amniocentesis and sonography are “useful for detection of genetic disorders,” said federal health minister Shatrughan Sinha. But he introduced the new measures because those techniques are misused “on a large scale to detect the sex of the fetus and to terminate the pregnancy of the unborn child if found to be female,” he said.
Two weeks earlier, parliament amended the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1971 to increase the penalty for illegal abortions from two to seven years of imprisonment.
Both amendments come in the wake of growing concern over the sharp decline in the female sex ratio among children under age 6 in several areas—with fewer than 800 girls compared to 1,000 boys in many areas—as recorded in the decennial national census in 2001.
The widespread preference for male children in India—rooted in a preference for sons sanctioned by Hindu scriptures and exorbitant dowry demands for the marriage of women—has led to a mushrooming of thousands of clinics that thrive on female feticides. The number of abortions in India is estimated to be about
17.7 million, including 6.7 million that are chemically-induced. “We are very happy that finally, the government is taking up this issue seriously,” said Father Alex Vadakkumthala, secretary of the health commission of the Catholic bishops' conference of India. “Any law to strengthen the protection to the life of the unborn is a welcome step.”
However, when asked whether the latest amendments would help curb the rampant practice of female feticide, Father Vadakkumthala replied that “much would depend on how these [amendments] are implemented.” Though India has several progressive laws that ban dowry, child labor and even smoking in public places, he noted, these laws are hardly enforced.
“On the one hand, the government is trying to combat the female feticide, which is rooted in gender bias,” Father Vadakkumthala pointed out. “On the other hand, the government is actively promoting the ‘two children’ policy, which is one of the main reasons behind female feticide.”
Attitude Change
Acknowledging that India has many good laws for women, Virginia Saldanha, secretary of the Indian bishops' conference's commission for women, also pointed out that “a wide gap exists between the legislation and its enforcement.”
“What is most important is the change in social attitudes—the only thing that can bring about change in favor of women. As long as people believe that having a son is necessary, they will do all they can to ensure that they have a son,” added Saldanha, who is also the executive secretary of the Women's Desk of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conference.
As a result of the government's active promotion of the two-children-per-family norm, Saldanha said, “couples accept one girl, but subsequent conceptions of females are aborted.”
Ancient Indian sages taught that a father cannot attain moksha (salvation) unless he had a son to perform his last rites. Such religious sanctions rendering the girl child “unwanted” subsequently gave birth to the dowry system, reducing her to an economic liability for the family.
Due to strong opposition from a coalition of women's groups, the Delhi state government backtracked on legislation that would have penalized and denied large families their fundamental rights.
But similar legislation is already in force in states such as Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, denying families with more than two children the right to vote and run for municipal offices or obtain housing loans, government jobs and admission in government-run educational institutions.
Even illiterate people have methods for female feticide and infanticide. Tribals know how to tell the gender of pregnant women and administer a mysterious “fruit juice” to women likely to give birth to a girl. They also know that an infant daughter can be killed by stuffing her mouth with “black salt”—potassium chloride—or lacing her milk with a pesticide, tobacco paste or grains of paddy husk.
The inclusion of a clause in the latest amendment making it legal for women over 35 to seek sex-determination tests shows the “duplicity” of the government, Saldanha said. The message seems to be “we want you not to go for female feticide but if you are keen on it, wait; we have a way out for you,” she said.
And with the corruption that exists in India, especially in the medical field, she said the amendments would lead to prosecution of a few, “but those who can afford to bribe will survive, and it will be business as usual.”
“What India needs desperately is a strong advocacy campaign at every level against the all-pervasive gender bias,” Saldanha said. “Unless the discriminatory attitude against women—treating them as unwanted liabilities—changes, female feticide will remain a social menace here.”
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Sign of Cross Banned at Soccer Matches?
BBC, Jan. 6—Members of the Scottish Parliament have suggested forbidding soccer fans from making the sign of the cross at games, seeing in the gesture a provocation by majority Catholic fans of the Celtic team toward majority Protestant fans of the rival Rangers.
The Catholic bishops of Scotland have condemned these proposals as “absurd and unworkable,” according to the British Broadcasting Corp. A Church spokesman said it could foresee no circumstances in which the religious gesture should ever be treated as a breach of the peace.
“These proposals strike at the heart of people's personal religious beliefs,” said the spokesman, who was unnamed in the report. “Under no circumstances would the Catholic Church allow this gesture to become illegal.”
A Liberal Democrat member of the Scottish Parliament, Donald Gorrie, one of the proponents of the cross ban, responded: “There are actions which are very praiseworthy in the right context, such as a Catholic crossing himself or singing a national anthem, but these can become very provocative if they are made in a very ‘in your face’ way to try to rile the other side.”
Gorrie said he had no intention of changing the law but simply wanted to let local police judge when a gesture was intended provocatively.
Christians Organize Aid for Cyclone Victims
FIDES, Jan. 3—After the violent cyclone that hit the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, the local Catholic Church began arranging food aid and shelter for thousands of victims on the islands most affected.
On Tikopia, Fataka and Anuta, a tidal wave submerged whole villages and destroyed all communications, leaving at least 2,000 feared dead. Local offices of the Pontifical Mission Societies told Fides, the Vatican missionary news service, that the government, with the aid of Australian teams, is trying to verify damage and count the victims.
Christian aid organizations have been somewhat delayed because they are waiting for government permission to proceed with collection of funds and distribution of emergency supplies.
The situation is complicated by political instability in the Solomon Islands, which came out of a civil war in 2000. There are still rebel groups that oppose the government there.
Poland and Malta Seek to Protect Unborn from EU
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, Jan. 6—The overwhelmingly Catholic nations of Poland and Malta are expected to join the European Union next year. But first they are seeking to retain their right to protect unborn life, according to Independent Catholic News, a U.K.-based online daily new service.
The primate of Poland, Cardinal Jozef Glemp, asked the European Union to make a specific constitutional allowance for Poland to set its own laws on abortion, as Ireland is currently permitted to do by Protocol 17 of the Treaty of Rome.
In December, the island nation of Malta negotiated a similar clause, safeguarding its ban on abortion.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: EDITORIAL DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:It has been a perplexing three decades for those of us who are pro-life. We have been keenly aware of you, our acquaintances and close family members who don't share our pro-life convictions. It is baffling to us—you are decent, hard-working people, people who do much for our communities and much for us.
But you do it all while believing in, and voting for, a system that, we have learned, hurts women and kills children.
The next 30 years, we expect, will see a return to normalcy on the question of abortion. The last 30 years—since the Jan. 22, 1973, Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade—were abnormal.
The wrongness of abortion seems so obvious to us, we expect it to be just as obvious to you, our loved ones. Likewise, the objections that seem so obvious to you aren't obvious to us.
Abortion is good for women, you say. But is it? As one pro-abortion feminist put it, women “choose” abortion like an animal caught in a trap “chooses” to chew off its leg. Statistics show that women are backed into abortion by circumstance, unsupportive mates and negative family reactions. Abortion seems to us to be custom-made for men, who, let's admit it, are usually the ones who don't want children.
We oppose abortion only because we're religious, you say. We know that the opposite is true for many of us who returned to the faith. By seeing that abortion is wrong, we realized that there is right and wrong. We first learned to believe in the unborn child, and to hope for his future, and to love him. Only then could we believe, hope in and love an unseen God.
To support “a woman's right to choose” is the sophisticated position, you think. But we are startled by the extent to which it relies on ignorance.
—The very name you use—pro-choice—is tailor-made to avoid the issue. You don't support a woman's right to choose drugs, to choose to abuse her children or even to pay or not pay her taxes. Only to choose abortion. Well, if it's really okay to choose abortion, then why do you get so mad when we call you “pro-abortion”?
—Abortion is the most common surgical procedure performed on young women, but the television news has never explained its mechanics, explored its complications or exposed the many cases of the abortion industry's malpractice, let alone televised an abortion (as it has every other common surgery). Why?
—Most Americans don't know that abortion is allowed, and is common, through all nine months of pregnancy; in fact, you probably don't believe it even when you see it written here. The major sources of public information omit this basic fact. Why?
The next 30 years will be different. An argument that can only win if it isn't spoken can't last for very long.
And the pro-life answer will be heard. Countless women have had abortions. Mostly, psychologists tell us, they repress the memory. They don't talk about it. They don't think about it. When they do, it is with anger and pain. Abortion will fall in the next 30 years because more and more of these women will speak out against it. They've already started.
At any rate, even if you are for abortion, you are still our loved ones. In the past, perhaps we've offended you. We're sorry. Please know that our difference of opinion on this matter isn't personal. We want you to see what we see because we care about you.
Watch the 30th anniversary commemorations of Roe v. Wade, and you'll see that abortion's days are numbered. Abortion activists will make a show of celebrating Roe v. Wade, but America won't.
We all celebrate the Fourth of July in enormous crowds because we all know it gave us freedom. But we know in our hearts that Roe v. Wade didn't. The only enormous crowds this Jan. 22 will be crowds of protesters.
We hope you'll consider joining us.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Thirty Years Too Many
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. It is a gloomy anniversary. What can our nation say about 30 years of abortion on demand? Is there any regret for the 41 million aborted children? How many potential scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers and priests were aborted? Is there any regret over the countless women wounded, killed and assaulted in the abortion mills?
How should we recognize that horrible day, Jan. 22, 1973? Many will attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. I hope to attend, to witness to our government the horrors of abortion. To let them know that legalized abortion is unacceptable to a nation founded on certain inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I wonder if the march will receive any press this year? Every year, the story is rarely talked about in the mainstream media, even though it is one of the biggest marches in Washington. I ask people who have never spoken up before to make the effort to attend. All it takes for evil to succeed is for the good to say nothing.
Will our nation endure another 30 years of slaughtering the innocent? I pray that it will not. How can we continue to sleep at night with 4,000 children dying every day? Many say that abortion is no longer a relevant issue.
Even though this year marks 30 years since Roe v. Wade, abortion is a new tragedy because the babies who die today never died before.
THOMAS MESSE, M.D.
Groton, Connecticut
Work of Rosary Art
I am so impressed by your absolutely wonderful “Year of the Rosary” edition (Dec. 29-Jan. 4). I was only able to obtain one copy from a friend—and am unwilling to part with it. It is truly a treasure—a work of art!
I am interested in purchasing additional copies of this edition, as I believe it would be a most effective tool in teaching my CCD class about the rosary and the new mysteries.
How might I purchase additional copies of this issue?
VICTORIA GENNARO
Riverside, California
Rosary Men
Thank you so much for the “Year of the Rosary” special edition. It is so beautiful and meaningful, and it truly underscores the Holy Father's call to prayer this year.
Your “Guide to the Rosary,” including the pictures and reflections on each of the mysteries, would make a wonderful companion booklet as one prays the rosary each day.
I hope you have plans to separately print and promote this guide broadly. The National Resource Center for Catholic Men would certainly urge its use.
We are very grateful for the National Catholic Register and all you do to support, affirm and encourage our Catholic faith. May God richly bless you all in this new year.
L. KEVIN LYNCH
Gaithersburg, Maryland
The writer is president of the National Resource Center for Catholic Men.
Editor's note: Thank you to all of the readers who have contacted us to praise and request copies of our rosary issue. We have printed 10,000 copies of a special reprint issue of that paper; nearly 8,000 have already been sold. To order copies, call (800) 356-9916.
Soft on Cardinal Law?
The sympathetic editorial in the Dec. 22–28 Register, “Farewell Cardinal Law,” sounds like a take-off from The Wizard of Oz. He's not a bad man, just a bad cardinal.
It would be easier to have some sympathy for Cardinal Law if one did not know that for years groups and individuals in the area had been warning, urging and begging him to do something about the problems of various kinds of abuse. The pleas for help were largely ignored. Is that what is called clericalism?
Too many of the Catholic Church's leaders have replaced the wisdom of the Church's teaching of original sin, repentance mortification, penance and sacrifice with dubious psychological treatment from the experts of human behavior.
Now the bishops are again depending on secular experts such as Frank Keating and Kathleen McChesney to help solve their problems.
MEL SCHREMPP
Chewelah, Wash.
Rachael Lampa Fan
I am a young girl who very much enjoys your newspaper. I think you guys do a very thorough and interesting job.
My family are not regular subscribers as yet, but occasionally we are able to pick an issue up in the vestibule of our church, and when that happens it just gets read to pieces! Thank you for doing such an excellent job of informing and encouraging Catholics.
I am an enthusiastic fan of Rachael Lampa. I was so excited when informed by a friend that she is Catholic. They said they thought they had seen her interviewed in your “Inperson” column, several issues back.
I was wondering, would it be too much trouble for you to go through your files and find that particular issue and send it, or even just the article, to me?
Enclosed is some money. If this is too much trouble, don' bother, and keep the money as a donation.
KALLAH STANSBERRY
Pickens, South Carolina
Editor's note: Thanks. We'll send the issue to you.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Linking Trouble DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Pushing Abortion?
The headline “Catholic Universities Push Abortions to Students” (Dec. 22–28) is misleading. To say that Catholic institutions are pushing abortions because a remote link to the Planned Parenthood Web site appears on a university Web site that discusses reproductive-health issues for women is to make an erroneous claim.
With the amount of information available and the range of people able to post information on college and university Web sites today, it is often difficult to safeguard against every piece of information that might be considered objectionable. As your article stated, institutions that were informed about this link on their site took action to remove it. One institution has a policy of disclaiming material on their Web site to make sure its not seen as representing official university policy.
Our institutions are committed to meeting the challenges of Ex Corde Ecclesiae to foster their Catholic identity while at the same time engaging the culture around them. Mistakes are made, but malice need not be assumed, as your article does. Fair, honest criticism based on all the facts is constructive and helpful. Sensationalistic tactics make for exciting headlines but in the long term cause undue harm and help no one.
MELISSA C. DI LEONARDO
Washington, D.C.
The writer is director of communications for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
An Inadvertent Link
We take exception to the article “Catholic Universities Push Abortions To Students” (Dec. 22 - 28). Your reporter and headline writer were too eager to paint a provocative picture of what, for Santa Clara University—and probably for many others named in the piece—was an isolated, inadvertent occurrence.
The short reference on our Web site to Planned Parenthood was inappropriate. It was one among two score of organizations included in a resource list that covered a wide variety of health issues. To state that this 152-year old Jesuit and Catholic university “pushes” abortion because one reference in one of 140,000 pages on our Web site was inadvertently posted is quite an overstatement. The individual who posted it erred in not noticing the reference when he or she migrated the material to an SCU page. We removed it when someone told us it was there because it is inconsistent with Catholic teaching, and Santa Clara is a Catholic university.
To quote Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach so completely out of context lacks reportorial integrity. To read the full text of his May 2001 Rome speech, from which the quote was excerpted, visit www.scu.edu/Bannan Institute/links.htm on the Internet.
To read the full text of his Santa Clara speech in English, Spanish or Italian, visit www.scu.edu and search for “Kolvenbach” or go directly to: www.scu.edu/news/relea ses.cfm/1000/kolvenbach_speech.html.
Meaningful dialogue among Catholics requires honesty, mutual respect and genuine charity. We invite your readers to visit our Web site and especially to click on the “University on a Mission” link on its home page. We continue to work toward the full expression of this university's distinctive character and mission as a Jesuit, Catholic institution.
SUSAN SHEA
Santa Clara, California
The writer is communications director of Santa Clara University.
Editor's note: Our story reported that the universities in question removed the links from their Web sites. Nonetheless, we would defend the headline's wording.
If a university provided a “where to have fun” link to local hard-liquor stores, we would say it “pushed liquor to students.” If it had a “what to do to relax” page that linked to cigarette sellers, we would say it “pushed smoking.” These sites had a “where to go when you're pregnant” link to Planned Parenthood, which sells abortions. It is unthinkable that a Catholic university Web site would link to sellers of hard liquor or cigarettes. It should be even more unthinkable that it would link to Planned Parenthood.
On the Father Kolvenbach quote: Thank you for the link, but our quote doesn't appear in it. We were quoting this, from Father Richard John Neuhaus' 1998 book Appointment in Rome: “In my interviews with Father Kolvenbach…he has been refreshingly candid.…As to what he meant to say about Jesuit higher education, he answers that ‘for some universities, it is probably too late to restore their Catholic character.’” Neuhaus then refers to the problems caused when lay boards and “smart lawyers” gain control of universities.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: 'Not By the Color Of Their Skin': Is Affirmative Action Moral? DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Like many Texans, President Lyndon Johnson was a practical man. He knew when something wasn't working.
Despite the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he realized racism persisted in America. Blacks and other minorities continued to be barred from job opportunities and school admissions in many parts of the country.
This made social and economic mobility for them impossible.
Discrimination continued to tear the nation apart. Johnson didn't like it. He shared Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a just America. He decided not to dodge the problem or pretend it didn't exist but fix it. What did Johnson do? On June 4, 1965, he told the American people his plan:
“This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek…not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and as a result.” Three months later, he signed executive order 11246 creating a policy that would become one of the most divisive issues in the United States: affirmative action.
Today affirmative action faces a decisive legal battle. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide if the University of Michigan may use race as a factor in its admission policy. The outcome will determine if affirmative action is legal.
Yet the affirmative action debate is not only legal. There's a far more important question at hand: Is affirmative action morally acceptable? This is the key question for Christians.
While the Supreme Court possesses legal power to uphold and strike down laws, it does not always exercise sound ethical and moral judgment.
For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is legal, but that decision is morally deplorable. For moral clarity, we need the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, not the U.S. Supreme Court.
To judge the morality of affirmative action, we need to consider a few questions: Why was affirmative action established in the first place? What was originally understood by affirmative action? What insight does Catholic moral teaching provide?
When Johnson signed into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it dealt a fatal blow to legal segregation. The act restored the federal government's power to bar racial discrimination:
E Title II required access to restaurants, gas stations, lodging and all public accommodations.
E Title VI prohibited discrimination in programs accepting federal funds.
E Title VII outlawed employment discrimination. While the Civil Rights Act assured Blacks and other minorities equality in theory, it did not in practice. Johnson knew this. Johnson was not only practical but also optimistic. He believed in the American dream. On March 16, 1964, he announced to Congress that “for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty.” Then he declared an “unconditional war on poverty.”
Yes, Johnson was optimistic, but he wasn't naive. He initiated affirmative action as a temporary measure to “level the playing field” for all Americans. The result? Minorities enjoyed for the first time the same opportunity for career advancement, salary increases and school admissions as everyone else.
The aim of affirmative action was simple: to permit race and class to be considered as a factor among others in education and employment. So when and why did all the controversies start?
By the late 1970s some affirmative action programs (not all) endorsed strict quota systems that unfairly discriminated against whites.
Claims of reverse discrimination fueled resentment. “Preferential treatment” and “quotas” became expressions of disdain for affirmative action policies in general.
Thus, a civil rights initiative of the 1960s came to be seen as a civil rights violation of the 1990s. Affirmative action critics argued that this policy had no place in a country that prides itself on self-reliance and merit. Everyone should learn to pull up his own bootstraps.
Nonetheless, affirmative action advocates counter, America has not always been a land of opportunity for all. Historian Roger Wilkins points out that “Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination and only 30 involving anything else.”
All of this brings us back to our key question: Is affirmative action morally acceptable?
If affirmative action means strict quota systems based only on race, the answer is No. It's wrong to support any policy that causes reverse discrimination.
On the other hand, if affirmative action means giving a helping hand to minorities based on many factors and not just race, then the answer is Yes.
Affirmative action of this type originates from the moral principle of solidarity. It implies the just sharing of material and spiritual goods. The Catechism of Catholic Church calls solidarity “an eminently Christian virtue.”
It says, “Rich nations have a grave moral responsibility toward those which are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves or have been prevented from doing so by tragic historical events. It is a duty in solidarity and charity” (No. 2439).
Johnson did the right thing. That takes courage. Martin Luther King Day reminds us all to do the right thing by working to make America “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”
Father Andrew McNair writes from Providence, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair LC ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Abortion and the Violinist DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:In 1971, Princeton University Press published, in its maiden issue of Philosophy and Public Affairs, an article by Dr. Judith Jarvis Thomson entitled “A Defense of Abortion.”
Thomson, a professor of philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has written highly acclaimed books and articles on a variety of subjects. With her “defense of abortion,” however, she hit, so to speak, the philosophical jackpot. Her article has become the most widely reprinted essay not only on the subject of abortion, which is a remarkable phenomenon in itself, but in all of contemporary philosophy.
Because her article has been reprinted, anthologized, amplified, circulated, read and discussed as often and as much as it has, it seems reasonably safe to assume that it has had a significant influence, particularly as an apologia for abortion. The article's broad popularity among abortion advocates suggests that it is the best argument that has been put forth as a defense of and argument for abortion. Recently, a philosopher from Tulane University wrote a book-length defense of it.
Conceding Life
Thomson is confident she can defend abortion, even if she concedes (although she really does not believe it) the humanity of the unborn. She states, “I propose, then, that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception.” Now the ethical dilemma is this: If both mother and uterine child are both human and both have rights to life, can abortion be ethically permitted where the woman does not want to continue her pregnancy?
In order to solve this dilemma, Thomson provides a most imaginative analogy, perhaps the best-known one of its kind in all of abortion literature: “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back-to-back in bed with an unconscious violinist [who] has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment…the Society of Music Lovers … kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own.…To unplug would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months.”
Thomson believes that she has constructed a similitude that perfectly parallels the case in which a pregnant woman is yoked to her unwanted child for the same length of time. Her argument rests or collapses on this presumption.
There are parallels, to be sure. But are the scenarios, from a moral point of view, in perfect parallel with each other? In both cases there are two human beings who have rights to life. In both cases the continued life of one depends on the willingness of the other to make extraordinary sacrifices. But the parallel she needs in order to make her analogy viable is contestable. Is it true that unplugging yourself from the violinist and directly aborting an unwanted child are morally equivalent acts?
Thomson is confident that virtually everyone would argue that unplugging yourself from the musician is morally permissible. Here, she seems to be on reasonably firm ground. But her firm ground is established by the fact that this image is not controversial. Abortion is controversial because it involves factors that are not present in the violinist image. Let us examine three of these factors.
The act of unplugging yourself is justified on the basis of self-defense. It is a legitimate response to assault and battery (and in the example Thomson uses, to kidnapping and unlawful confinement as well). The development of the child in the womb is not an example of assault and battery or anything close to it. Assault and battery presuppose willfulness and malice aforethought and have always been regarded as criminal acts. It has never been regarded as a criminal act for an unborn child to develop in its mother's womb.
Why Judith Jarvis Thomson's ‘A Defense of Abortion’ convinced so many—and why it's wrong.
The act of unplugging is not the direct cause of the violinist's death. He dies as a direct result of his kidney ailment. On the other hand, direct abortion does, in fact, directly kill the child in the womb. The two acts are distinct and have entirely different moral implications. Self-defense against an unjust aggressor is a different act than directly killing an innocent child in the womb.
The intention present in unplugging yourself from the violinist is to be set free and not that the violinist die. It would, indeed, be immoral to intend the death of your host. This situation, where two ends follow from a single act is handled, classically, according to the principle of double effect. It is never permissible to intend an evil. Therefore, it would be morally impermissible to intend the death of the violinist. But this unfortunate consequence of freeing yourself is permitted to happen because you have a right to free yourself from an unjust aggressor. In a parallel example, doctors remove an ectopic pregnancy from a woman. The intention corresponds to good medicine, removing a pathology (the tube, for example, in which the ectopic pregnancy occurs) and not to intend the death of the fetus, although that consequence does transpire.
The intention of abortion is graphically clear. It is to kill the unborn child. This intention is made all the more salient by the expression “tragic complication,” which is used to describe the rare event of a child surviving a late term abortion. The aborting woman intends to free herself from her unwanted child, but she and her doctor directly intend the death of that child. Another term for induced abortion is “feticide,” which literally means “killing the fetus.”
The Relationship
Thomson supposes that the violinist and the victim are unrelated. She adds nothing to their relationship that would mitigate the victim's aversion to being yoked for nine months. The two are presumed to be total strangers. Such is not the case with the relationship between the mother and her child. The victim, by virtue of being yoked to the violinist, does not inherit or attain any specific kind of positive relationship. He does not become his brother, for example.
When a woman conceives a child, she is no longer merely a woman. Nor is the child merely her child. Conception confers maternity on the woman and her child is her son or daughter. There is a relationship between the two that is primordial, interpersonal and universally recognized. A mother is expected to do things for her children that strangers are not expected to do for each other.
Morality begins when people are generous and loving, when they exercise their duties to be decent rather than their rights not to be inconvenienced. Thomson asserts that “we are not morally required to be good Samaritans or anyway very good Samaritans to one another.” Her language is always legalistic. She completely misses the point that personal love and generosity are primary and that law, rights and obligations are secondary.
John Finnis is correct when he encapsulates the radical weakness of Thomson's argument by saying that she is trying to reduce the mother-child relationship to a “sort of social contractarianism.” It is essentially unjust to try to settle a matter of life and death, which is what abortion involves, by ignoring the ethical primacy of love and generosity while looking to legalistic terms for guidance. Law without love is another way of defining the path to the culture of death.
Thomson's defense of abortion is in itself a significant contribution to the culture of death. What is even more pernicious, however, is her facile deconstruction of motherhood and reduction of all human beings to islands of self-serving individuality. In order to rationalize the death of the unborn, she feels compelled to rationalize the death of the person as a locus of love and generosity. It is as if she is saying that we need the death of the authentic person in order to justify the death of the unborn. One form of killing necessitates a prior form of killing. If our souls are dead, we will surely be dead to the iniquity of abortion.
Donald DeMarco teaches philosophy at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald DeMarco ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Healing the Hole in America's Heart DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:My answer was Churchillian—we'll never give up, never give up, never!
The reporter's question was the inevitable: “Abortion is still legal 30 years after Roe v. Wade, so when is the pro-life movement going to face reality and change its focus?”
In 1973 Roe v. Wade elevated abortion from its historical place of shame to the supreme law of the land. Roe and the case of Doe v. Bolton effectively made abortion legal in every state, at any time in pregnancy. Abortion is a hole in the heart of our great nation, and pro-life people will never stop working for the day when all human lives are protected by law.
Unlimited abortion is a social experiment, now running for 30 years. Millions of children have lost their lives, and countless women have suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually. But we don't know with certainty abortion's effect on women's health, on the family or society, or even how many children have perished because proponents of abortion have opposed any systematic scrutiny of their experiment.
Instead, we've had a public debate for three decades that is dominated by an utterly false dichotomy—that abortion is a contest between women and children. Pro-lifers are seen as those who fight for unborn children, prochoicers as those who fight for women. Women and children are of course natural allies, not enemies, and pro-lifers fight for women every day—but the terms of the debate have been set, and they have held.
Because of the sustained efforts of the pro-life movement — and some marvelous developments in science and technology—fewer people now question the humanity of the unborn child. People generally accept the fact that abortion takes the life of an unborn child. Even proponents of abortion will admit it—in 1996, for example, abortion activist Naomi Wolf called upon her peers to recognize the “full humanity” of the unborn child.
Still, abortion is accepted in our culture. Why?
One reason is the profound misunderstanding about abortion that persists in our country. Most people do not understand the breadth of the Roe/Doe edict. Polls show that people think abortion is legal only in the first trimester of pregnancy, and most believe abortion should not be legal beyond that point. Abortion law is extreme, but most people don't know it.
People also misunderstand the reality of abortion practice. The fact that almost half of all abortions today are repeat abortions is inconceivable to most people. Abortions for health reasons or rape, themes that appear so often in the public debate, account for only a tiny fraction of abortions today.
Above all, abortion persists because its proponents have offered up the false assumption that abortion is good for women, and the culture has swallowed it.
It is time to challenge this assumption head-on.
Women choose abortion as a last resort, not as a free choice. Women turn to abortion because they feel alone and helpless, or abandoned, or pressured by boyfriends or family members. Abortion is not the act of empowerment it was promised to be. Even the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood's research affiliate, reports that the primary reasons women have abortions are a lack of financial resources and of emotional support.
“I can't stop crying” is the type of message that appears regularly on the message boards of the Web site www.afterabortion.com, a forum for women who are having trouble coping with their abortions.
While this is not a pro-life site, the stories shared here give the lie to the pro-choice argument. Their families pressured them, their boyfriends abandoned them, they had nowhere to turn.
Some had their abortions many years ago but feel the pain as intensely as if it were yesterday. Many speak of clinical depression and medication. Women on this site share their feelings of rage and regret and try to help each other deal with severe grief.
Their profound loneliness is palpable. You cannot visit this site and be unmoved. It should be required reading for anyone considering supporting Planned Parenthood.
No compassionate person wants a woman to suffer through the personal tragedy of abortion. No teen-age girl should have to drop out of school because she became pregnant. No young woman should have to face the prospect of a life of poverty. No one should feel abandoned by her family and friends. And no person should ever have to suffer the pain and anguish of abortion. Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae said that we are called to “a radical solidarity with the woman in need.” Each woman's struggle with an untimely pregnancy is our struggle. The problems she faces are ours to help solve.
Women deserve better than abortion. This month marks the first major public education effort of the Women Deserve Better campaign, a campaign supported by a number of pro-woman and pro-life groups to refocus the nation on the reasons why women feel pressured into abortion and to promote women-centered solutions to these problems. Advertisements will appear in Washington, D.C., subway trains, buses and commuter trains, in newspapers and periodicals.
Their message: “Abortion is a reflection that we have not met the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion.” (For more information on the campaign, visit www.womendeservebetter.com.)
Roe v. Wade created the lie that abortion is moral and acceptable because it is legal. Roe must be reversed, and we will never stop working for an end to legalized abortion. While we do, we must also strive to eliminate the reasons why women turn to abortion.
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq. is director of planning and information for the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Never Wrong? Not Quite!
Many Catholics nowadays can think of at least one friend of family member who has strayed from the faith. It's heartbreaking to know that somehow they missed the message. In frustration you might wonder if you could have said or done something that would have made a difference. The sad reality is that most people leave the Church because of what they think is true about it, not because of what is true about it.
Take the pope, for example: I have heard people say that the pope is only “a figurehead,” a mere “elected official.” The problem with this view is that it sees the papacy in only secular terms.
In this sort of discussion, try to get the person to see for himself that there is a spiritual component involved. Say, for example: “Yes, I would agree that the pope is an elected official, but who is he elected by—men or by God?” Help them see how the Holy Spirit operates in the election of the pope and in the Church today through the charism of papal infallibility.
Infallibility means that the pope and the bishops in union with him are protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error when it comes to matters of faith and morals. No, that doesn't mean that the pope is sinless or right about absolutely anything and everything. He goes to confession just like any other Catholic. But, when he teaches on faith and morals in an official capacity, we can be sure that we are hearing the Holy Spirit speak through him.
This can be verified by several passages in Scripture. First, by Jesus when he tells the Apostles, “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16) and “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). Before Jesus ascended into heaven he told the Apostles to teach “everything I have commanded,” promised that he would “be with you always” and that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church “into all truth” (Matthew 28:18–20; John 16:13). He also promised that the Church would never fall away from his teachings (Matthew 16:18). Paul's letter to Timothy, written in approximately 63–64 A.D., identifies the Church as the “pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
The teaching of infallibility was a doctrine clearly understood by Church leaders in the earliest stages of the Church's development. St. Iraneaus writes in Against Heresies in 150 A.D.: “We have proof, it is not necessary to seek among others the truth which is easily obtained from the Church. For the Apostles, like a rich man in a bank, deposited with her everything which pertains to the truth; and everyone who wishes draws from her the drink of life, all the rest are thieves and robbers. That is why it is surely necessary to avoid them, while cherishing wit the utmost diligence the things pertaining to the Church, and to lay hold of the tradition of truth.”
More recently, the Second Vatican Council devoted a section of the Divine Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium 25) to this topic: “The bishops can proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly…provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter's successor, and while teaching authentically on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as the one which must be held conclusively.”
Christ went through the trouble of organizing a Church and then giving his life up for it. It is only logical that he would have provided a means to guarantee its continuation and sound teaching.
Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Christina Mills ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Ever Awake at the Wheel DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:It's difficult to envision a church more ideally paired with its surroundings than St. Catherine of Alexandria on California's Santa Catalina Island.
The 52-year-old church is an easy walk from central Avalon (the island's main city), but far enough away from the narrow strip of beach, the crowded tourist shops and humming restaurants that those tourists who manage to find the church must have been looking for it.
Its rectangular, tile-trimmed tower bears a slim cross that soars high above the rooflines on its residential street. Inside a tower niche stands a sculpture of St. Catherine, easily recognizable by her wheel, the instrument of torture to which the fourth-century virgin and martyr was condemned by Emperor Maxentius; tradition says that her touch destroyed the spiked wheel that, in this seaside church, resembles a ship's wheel.
Above the four wooden doors in the church's opening archway is a semicircular tile portrait of Catherine and her wheel, waves crashing behind her. Here, as on the top of the tower, Catalina's traditions blend with Catherine's.
Glazed tiles made from island clay—known to collectors simply as Catalina tiles—are evident on historic structures around the island, perhaps most spectacularly on Catalina's signature building, the casino, and on the Wrigley Memorial, named for the one-time owner of the island and founder of the tile plant in the 1920s. William Wrigley Jr.—yes, that's the Wrigley of the chewing-gum empire and the Chicago ballpark—is partly credited with discovering the island's native clay. His family also gave the land on which St. Catherine stands.
Catherine's Sacrafice
Golden tiles frame a sculpture of the Blessed Mother outside St. Catherine Church, the niche edged in Catalina-style blue, white and gold tiles. Inside, more tiles designate a special area for another statue of Mary; the border pieces, framing tiles of pure white, are designed with garlands of delicate flowers. (Though they resemble them, they are not authentic Catalina tiles.)
The church's interior is simple and charming. Smooth white walls provide a backdrop for stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes. Many of them are nautical, like Noah's Ark or Jonah and the whale, and the images are uniquely painted with few colors — blue, white, purple, gold—and geometric shapes. The windows themselves are small and allow bright island light to pour into the church. Two of them, perpendicular to the crucifix, face each other and provide a natural spotlight for Christ on the cross.
Behind the crucifix is a muted mural, a cloudy sky sweeping over a narrow waterway edged by hills. Painted in subdued blues and purples, like its recently restored extensions, the mural provides an artistic touch without distracting from the reason the church is there in the first place: Christ's sacrifice and resurrection.
Catherine's sacrifice is also brought to visitors' attention again inside the church. Near the reconciliation room stands a statue of Catherine and her wheel, as well as a framed version of her story.
As a young woman of 18, Catherine went to Emperor Maxentius to rebuke him for his violent persecution of Christians. The enraged emperor summoned scholars to argue with the upstart, but she spoke so convincingly that many of the wise men converted to Christianity. The emperor had them immediately put to death, then ordered Catherine scourged and imprisoned. When the empress, accompanied by the emperor's soldiers, went to see this strong-spoken woman in prison, her words converted them as well. They, too, were put to death.
By then, Maxentius had had more than enough. He ordered Catherine to be tortured upon a spiked wheel—from this part of the story the term “Catherine wheel” was born—but Catherine destroyed the instrument of torture before it could do its work. Finally Maxentius had her beheaded.
Overtown Observers
St. Catherine is the patroness of young women, female students and wheelwrights. For centuries, theologians, apologists and philosophers sought her intercession. When explorer Sebastian Vizcaino landed on this Channel Island on Nov. 25, 1602, of course he named it Santa Catalina in honor of the popular martyr whose feast day it was.
California's second Mass was celebrated on the island at that time, by the Discalced Carmelite priests who accompanied Vizcaino. The parish was not established, however, until exactly 300 years later, as part of the Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles (now the Archdiocese of Los Angeles). Interestingly, Bishop Sylvester Ryan of the Diocese of Monterey was born and raised in Avalon.
On Nov. 23, 2002, the parish of St. Catherine celebrated its parish centennial, as well as the quater-centennial of the first documented Mass in what is now the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Among the guests from “over-town,” as islanders call the mainland, were Cardinal Roger Mahony of the archdiocese.
No doubt a few tourists also joined the celebration, remembering when they followed Vizcaino and first discovered St. Catherine's island.
Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.
----- EXCERPT: St. Catherine of Alexandria Church, Avalon, Calif. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elisabeth Deffner ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Stuff to Sell, Places to Work: Online Classifieds DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:I recently tried to sell a couple of our used cars through the classified advertising of a local newspaper.
The advertisement ran for a week, including the online classified section, and we had some lookers but no takers. As time ran out on the newspaper ad, I received a telephone call on our answering machine from an online advertiser. He claimed his service would guarantee the sale of our cars — “or your money back.” It sounded too good to be true and it probably was. I never called him back.
This wasn't my first experience with online advertising. More than two years ago, we decided to sell our monastery in Massachusetts and move to Florida. At first, we tried to sell it without a realtor. I went online and submitted an advertisement to a number of online sites. I paid for some of them. I didn't receive any inquiries at all. Of course, selling a monastery could be considered a unique real estate situation.
We did eventually sell the monastery, with the help of a realtor from Century 21. Besides whatever advertising they did, he got our monastery listed at Realtor.com, a popular site for real estate only open to realtors for listings. Even then, the sale of our monastery had nothing to do with the online listing.
I have almost never used the classifieds online. The only time I looked at them was when we were looking at houses in Florida using Realtor.com. I found a few houses that could work for us. It gave me a starting point. But, even then, I eventually went with a local realtor who found us an ideal piece of land to build on.
So are online classified ads effective? I don't know. But, according to Christopher Saunders, author of an Internetnews.com article titled “Study: Classifieds to Drive Internet Ad Growth,” apparently companies are saying Yes to online classifieds. Saunders writes that, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York-based researcher, spending on online classified advertising grew 38% from 2001, rising to $1.2 billion this year. “By 2007,” he adds, “that figure will almost double to $2.3 billion—making it the Web ad industry's fastest-growing segment.”
There is one particular type of classified ad that might be helpful during this time of ever-increasing unemployment—job listings. During the mid-1990s, online job listings concentrated mainly on professional and salaried jobs. This was because research showed then that few hourly and skilled workers used the Internet to find work. But this has changed. Surfing the Web has spread from a select few to the masses. Bruce Murray, a veteran of newspaper classifieds publishing and CEO of Corzen, a recruiting and consulting firm, says that in any sample market research they have done across the country, more than 50% of the total jobs available are unskilled and hourly wage jobs. Both the accessibility of the Internet to the masses and the types of jobs currently available have led the job-listing sites to consider advertising hourly and skilled-worker jobs.
Monster.com, a help-wanted-ad site, claims to list more than 800,000 U.S. jobs. One can search open positions, post a resume, get resume-writing help and obtain salary data. The site also has a link awarding $100 for the referral of a medical professional. I decided to try the “Search Job” option. “Restaurant and Food Service” under the “Job Category” seemed like a good option for hourly work. I searched for this type of job in the Tampa, Fla., area. Most of the jobs that came up from the search were for restaurant managers. Definitely not an entry-level type of job.
So I went over to career-builder.com, which has similar options for its job listings. Matt Ferguson, chief operating officer of this site, claims that there are a huge number of food-service jobs. I typed in the same criteria as I had in Monster.com and came up with half the job listings, but some unskilled jobs like “Banquet Server.” Next, I tried my luck with Yahoo's HotJobs at hotjobs.yahoo.com. The results were similar to those at Monster.com — almost all “hits” pertained to restaurant management. I guess busboys just aren't needed anymore.
Finally, I went over to the New York Times' “Job Market” link on the top-left column of its opening page. I tried the Accomodation/Food Services category without specifying the location. I found 70 jobs of the 4,000 they list. Of these, I found more variety —openings for cooks, chefs and even a coat checker. It seems that, for now, online newspaper classifieds will get you more opportunities for hourly work than the big job sites.
Don't limit your employment opportunities to secular sites. Employment opportunities can be found on some online editions of diocesan and national Catholic newspapers and magazines in their classified sections. Some diocesan Web sites have a human-resources section. You might even find a job opening on your local parish's Web site. I was thinking that perhaps somebody might have started a Catholic jobs Web site, so I took a stab in the dark with Catholicjobs.com. I came up on an almost blank page that said, “Coming soon…catholicjobs.com: Where Catholics find jobs.” Well, I guess we will just have to wait and see. Consider working for the Church—the pay may not be great, but the retirement benefits are heavenly!
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration,writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:This month let's look at the Bible online.
Catholicfirst.com has a Bible Names Dictionary containing 2,500 Bible and Bible-related proper names and their meanings at catholicfirst.com/TheFaith/Bible/BibleNames/b iblenames.htm. You may want to look up your name's meaning out of curiosity. On the “Catholic First” main page, you will find a link to the Douay-Rheims Bible and a biblical search engine as well for this version.
Looking for a different version of the Bible? Head over to the bishops' site for the New American Bible at nccbuscc.org/nab/bible.
St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Picayune, Miss., has an online Bible study based on the Liturgical Calendar at scborromeo.org/bible. htm.
A Catholic quick-reference doctrinal concordance can be found at infpage.com/concordance. It is not a comprehensive concordance, but it is helpful in researching aspects of the faith on which Catholics and other Christians disagree. It's available in French and Spanish, also.
It's always a good idea to check with the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Sacred Scripture at scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c2a3.htm. I would recommend reading the whole section on Divine Revelation beginning at scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c 2a1.htm.
There are many more links concerning various biblical topics found in my online directory Bible category at monksofadoration.org/Bibletxt.html.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:The Magic Never Ends: The Life & Works of C.S. Lewis (2001)
This respectful one-hour documentary about C.S. Lewis' achievements aired on PBS. Director Chip Duncan skillfully combines still photos, archival footage and location shooting with interviews with well-known scholars and Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham.
After being wounded twice during World War I, Lewis returned to Oxford University, where he lived and wrote for the rest of his days. The program chronicles his affiliation with an intellectual group called The Inklings, whose members included J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), and his “reversion” experience in 1931. We see the circumstances that led up to some of his best writing and learn the facts about his marriage to American writer Joy Davidman Gresham, including his care for her when she was diagnosed with cancer. (The video can be ordered online at www.duncanentertainment.com, or by phone at (414)223-1060).
Apollo 13 (1995)
Apollo 13, based on a memoir by James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, recreates the April 1970 NASA moon mission, which the TV networks ignored until an oxygen tank exploded aboard the spacecraft 205,500 miles from earth.
For seven harrowing days, Houston-based Mission Control leader Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) was forced to improvise plans and techniques to save the lives of astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon).
Director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) emphasizes the bravery and ingenuity of everyone involved, including the astronauts' families (Kathleen Quinlan, Tracey Reiner and others).
The convincing special effects and period detail heighten the suspense.
The scenes on the spacecraft were shot on an Air Force plane in actual weightless conditions.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Hope for the Future: Formation at North American College in Rome DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME—Born and raised in a rural Iowa community, Msgr. Kevin McCoy had no Catholic schools in his area. He did, however, have a strong parish life and was surrounded by many families. His parents took his religious education very seriously.
Now, as rector of North American College in Rome—which just celebrated the 50th anniversary of its seminary building—he takes seriously the religious education of some 165 seminarians. He spoke with Legion of Christ Brother Raymond Cleaveland about the college and the future of the Church.
How many seminarians are currently at the North American College?
The North American College is comprised of three programs: the seminary department, the continuing education program — both housed on the Janiculum Hill—and the graduate program in the “moth-erhouse,” the original seminary building called Casa Santa Maria.
We have 165 seminarians in the house this year representing 74 U.S., one Canadian and two Puerto Rican dioceses. We have 70 priests at the graduate house. Every year we also have two priestly sabbatical sessions of about 38 priests each.
You are in your second year as rector of the North American College. What other pastoral ministries have you had?
When I was ordained, I was an associate pastor at our cathedral parish. In addition to my involvement in the parish, I was doing some work in medical ethics and moral issues for the local Catholic hospital in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1983 I returned to Rome to do my doctorate in moral theology. From 1987 to 1997 I was appointed chancellor and finance officer of the Diocese of Sioux City. I came here to Rome in 1998.
In the last few years we have seen an upswing in vocations compared with 20 or 30 years ago. What is your outlook on the future for the American Church with regard to priestly vocations?
‘The Lord is not going to abandon the Church. He is not going to abandon his flock.’
I think that there has been an upswing. Certainly the number of diocesan vocations has increased. I think that goes to show the great hope we have. The Lord is not going to abandon the Church. He is not going to abandon his flock.
I think there is a direct relationship between the upswing and the fact that there are more people involved. Not only is it the vocation director out there promoting the priesthood, but there are more people being supportive of vocations and saying to young men, “Hey, have you thought of the priest-hood?”
Encouraging daily prayer for vocations is also important. In my diocese of Sioux City they set up a monthly day of eucharistic adoration for vocations—it makes a difference!
These men who are here will tell you that another thing that has most influenced them in their vocational decision is the Holy Father and his witness. The title of George Weigel's book, Witness to Hope, is very apt. I think that's exactly what the Pope has done in terms of his own personal witness: He has given a lot of young people reason to hope. He has shown them where that reason to hope lies: It is in Jesus Christ.
What advice do you give to your seminarians about the importance of prayer life?
When you are in the house of formation, with a schedule to follow, it is very easy to stay on track. But I have to get them ready for real life, where there is no one setting their schedules. So I stress that they ask themselves one key question: “Do I know myself?” Some guys know that if they are going to get their holy hour in, it has to be first thing in the morning. If that means I have to get up at 5 a.m. so I can be in the chapel by 5:30 a.m., that's what I am going to do.
But the parish experience reveals that there is not always an hour that you can commit to without interruptions. So as a friend of mine said, “The greatest thing I learned is that the holy hour sometimes has to be 15 minutes at a time. I use to get down on myself but then I realized that the Lord is there, ready for me whenever I come to pray.”
You have to make those kinds of adjustments. They learn that here in some respects, but it is really when they get out into the parishes that they truly learn. And they all come back knowing the real need for prayer, because without prayer, you're running on empty.
In forming future priests, how much does the example of the rector or spiritual director come into play, for example, in the area of prayer life, fraternity or as a father figure? What do you try to be first and foremost for these young men?
Here in the seminary they have key relationships with their spiritual directors and their formation advisers. And I meet with the first-year men individually to let them know that those are their key relationships that they will build in their discernment process. But what I tell them is the following: “I am here for you also.” It was interesting because one of the new men who had just come from another seminary experience came up to me the other day and said, “Wow, monsignor, you're just ‘around’! I see you a lot!”
To me that is very important. How am I around? If the guys are playing cribbage, I'll sit down and play with them. Or if they are watching the Super Bowl, I want to see it, too. These are what you might call “common human interests.” Now there are also the common “spiritual interests” that we share: morning Mass, for example. We're here for one another.
I think that if you ask the men they would say that I am probably pretty “paternalistic.” I don't mean that in the bad sense, but the fact is that when you live closely with 165 men, seeing their struggles in daily life, you develop a great love for them. I said to the deacons who were ordained [last] October: “You know, when we processed out of the ordination ceremony in St. Peter's, there was no one prouder than I was. I felt just like a very proud father.” I told Ambassador Jim Nicholson [U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican] and his wife that I think I have a bit of a sense of what parenthood is like, but I don't thing that any parent has ever had some 160 25-year-old sons!
Legionary of Christ Brother Raymond Cleaveland writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond Cleaveland ----- KEYWORDS:Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:PC Run Amok
CHRONICLE.COM, Jan. 2 —InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical student group, has been stripped of its recognition by Rutgers University for its policy that leaders of the group must be Christians, said the Web news service of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The student group has filed suit in federal court to restore its status.
The chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reversed a similar sanction against the group because, he said, the university was balancing concerns about discrimination with a “wish to uphold the principles of freedom of expression.”
A lawyer for InterVarsity said its identity depends on leaders who embrace particular beliefs. Not to discriminate, he said, “is just silly.”
New President
ST. JOSEPH's UNIVERSITY, Jan. 3 — Jesuit Father Timothy Lannon has been named president of St. Joseph's in Philadelphia, the Jesuit university announced.
Father Lannon is a former vice president for university advancement and associate executive vice president of Milwaukee's Marquette University.
No to Monologues
The story did not describe the contents of the play — which endorses homosexuality, even offering a sympathetic depiction of a lesbian rape—but points out several times that proceeds from the “beneficial” production would have gone to support shelters for battered women.
The newspaper also mentioned other Catholic colleges in the New York City area that had staged performances of “Vagina Monologues,” including Marist and Marymount colleges and Fordham University.
Continuing Education
AVE MARIA COLLEGE, Dec. 30—Continuing education courses beginning Jan. 14 at the college's campus in Yipsilanti, Mich., include: Sacred Scripture; Catholic Political Thought; 20th Century Europe; Evangelism and Catholic Spirituality; Dostoevsky; and a theater performance practicum.
The Ave Maria Theater Group will also produce a play about the Hebrew-Catholic martyr St. Edith Stein.
The courses may be audited or taken for credit. Call (866) 866-3030 or log onto www.avemaria.edu for more information.
In Gratitude
The gift, one of the largest ever made to the Benedictine Fathers' college, was made by Betty Boutselis of Ohio, the widow of Dr. John Boutselis, a 1945 graduate who grew up poor but wanting to become a doctor. Boutselis was encouraged to apply to St. Anselm by a college coach who happened to see him play in a pickup game. The coach later provided a scholarship.
Dr. Boutselis often spoke about how he might never have become a doctor “without the courage and compassion shown to him at St. Anselm,” said Father Jonathan DeFelice, president of the college, in announcing the gift.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: A New Look at Old Thunder DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:OLD THUNDER: A LIFE OF HILAIRE BELLOC
by Joseph Pearce Ignatius Press, 2002 318 pages, $24.95
In 1903 Hilaire Belloc—energetic journalist, critic, rising literary star, British Catholic apologist and friend of G.K. Chesterton—turned his attention to politics. He set his sights on winning a seat in Parliament. But his hopes were dashed when the local Catholic priest came forward to embrace him at a nomination meeting. Belloc was convinced this gesture was akin to a kiss of death for his chances of being chosen.
His fears proved well-founded. His subsequent rejection was a reminder of the bitter anti-Catholic prejudice that still existed in England at the time. Undeterred, in January 1906, Belloc spoke to a packed political meeting in South Salford, where he had been selected as the Liberal candidate. “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic,” he said. “As far as possible I go to mass every day. This is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that he has spared me the indignity of being elected as your representative.” Later that month, the working class voters of Salford elected Belloc to Parliament by a slim majority.
In recounting such illustrative anecdotes, Joseph Pearce writes not so much about Catholic doctrine as about a larger-than-life Catholic thinker and his ideas. Pearce's focus is on Belloc's development as a shaper of social and political thought, a man of exaggerated speech but also of considerable power, influence and integrity.
Belloc was, by nearly all accounts, a genius as a speaker and as a writer of prose and poetry. He was admired by many who did not agree with him. He so much believed the truths of the Catholic faith that some saw him as closed-minded. Belloc was always open to critique. He sought the heights of the English literary establishment. Now his work is gradually being recognized for the significant place it deserves.
Belloc was responsible for bringing many men of English letters into the Catholic Church. G.K. Chesterton, for example. Pearce recalls what Frank Sheed wrote about the two Catholic men who would have a profound effect on the Catholic literary renewal of the 20th century: “More than any other man, Belloc made the English-speaking world in which all of us live. … There was Chesterton, of course, but then Belloc has so much to do with the making of Chesterton and Chesterton, not much with the making of Belloc.”
Pearce's book is a good introduction to Belloc's life, times and contribution. It tells a gripping tale of one born of French-English parentage who was forced early in life to move with his family from France to England. His marriage in 1896 to an American, Elodie Hogan, was a great joy and support to him. Although his work and wanderlust often took him away from home, he was deeply attached to her. Her untimely death, writes Pearce, “opened up a wound in him that would never heal.”
Belloc would survive another four decades, but he never regained his form as the mercurial defender of the faith that he had been. Yet his reputation continued to grow. Possibly his two most significant works are his conversion story The Path to Rome (1902) and Europe and the Faith (1920), a defense of his view of European history as an essential carrier of the Catholic Christian tradition.
Pearce's book is painstakingly documented. An extensive bibliography is most helpful to any reader who might wish to pursue a particular theme from the encyclopedic Belloc's pen.
It must be noted that some of Belloc's views would be deemed offensive today (his opinion of Jews, for example). Pearce opts out of dissecting Belloc's rough edges in detail. All told, however, Pearce offers a balanced biography of an intellectual giant whose influence is still observable. Anyone wanting an introduction to the life and work of a most strategic early 20th century conservative English Catholic writer would do well to become acquainted with this most helpful biography.
Wayne A. Holst has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne A. Holst ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Burnout Busters
My husband says he is getting burned out at work, and I am feeling burned out at home. What causes burnout?
And what's the cure?
The symptoms of burnout vary: anger, overreacting to frustrating or annoying situations, imploding by withdrawing or brooding. Headaches, signs of depression and other physical maladies may occur in burnout. Daily tasks lose their joy and become overwhelming, boring and sometimes even unbearable.
Burnout is generally attributed to stress and how it is mismanaged. We all know hardworking people with stressful jobs who are not stressed out. Burnout is not simply due to stress. We experience burnout when our work is less meaningful, when we lose autonomy over our decisions, when the problems we address seem hardly worth the trouble or nearly impossible to resolve. We may feel unappreciated or isolated.
There is a great painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Caravaggio, “The Calling of St. Matthew.” Matthew is on the left, hunched over and carefully counting his coins; he is surrounded by, but uninterested in, his fellow tax collectors. He is adding, arranging, re-arranging, checking and double-checking. He is managing the accounts.
Sometimes our lives are like Matthew's: Preoccupied with our pressing duties, we go through the motions of managing work and family. We are concentrating so much on the details, on keeping everything running smoothly, on managing the stress and hassles of work and family, that joy seems to have left our lives. We can't seem to get our heads above the water.
When your husband talks about his job, does he seem to focus only on his frustration, problems, inconsiderate bosses and customers, and lack of getting anywhere? When you talk about your family, do you find yourself complaining about the kids, the housework, the overwhelming burden of never-ending chores and demands on your time?
Most psychologists say that, to avoid burnout, you have to live with purposeful happiness. We need to bring a sense of humor and joy to a life full of purpose bigger than ourselves.
How can our lives be meaningful without insincerely inflating things? How can we be happy when, as Pope John Paul II puts it, the real world is incapable of making us happy? By approaching life apostolically as a call from God and in an encounter with God.
Back to Caravaggio. Like Matthew, we can so fixate on keeping score and “putting out fires” that we miss what really matters: responding to the personal call from Christ. Caravaggio's Christ is like the Christ of Matthew's Gospel: deadly serious that we should stop wasting our time and our lives. Matthew is not only called away from his clinking, clanging ways, he is personally called to follow Christ as one of the Twelve.
Christ is the true source of joy in our lives. If we remain focused on him—through daily prayer and frequent reception of the sacraments—we will not find ourselves being so easily engulfed by the frustrations of being in the world.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Service in Vienna, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: On Paul's Conversion Day, Three Modern Converts DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:For sheer, earthshaking impact, the fall from a horse that turned Saul of Tarsus into St. Paul may be unequaled in the annals of Church history. That's why the Church celebrates the mysterious Conversion of St. Paul—who changed from a dogged persecutor of the early Church into the traveling Apostle who wrote much of the New Testament—each Jan. 25.
St. Paul, you may recall, was on his way to Damascus to halt those pesky Christians in their tracks when he was knocked to the ground by a blinding light. Then he heard a voice saying, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting…Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (Acts 9:1–6).
Twenty centuries later, people continue to be knocked off their own “horses” in all manner of ways: Approximately 200,000 converts enter the Catholic Church each year. As the Church once again remembers what was arguably the greatest conversion of all time, the Register looks at three contemporary converts whose experiences have made a comparably modest, but no less inspiring, impact on the world around them.
Producing Barbara
Barbara Hall has enjoyed a long and successful career as a television writer and producer. Currently noted for her work as executive producer of CBS' “Judging Amy,” she has received the Humanitas Award, the Viewers for Quality Television Award, the TV Critics Award, a Writers Guild Award nomination and three Emmy nominations. She previously worked on such well-received shows as “Chicago Hope,” “I'll Fly Away” and “Newhart.”
Hall told the Register she “fell off the horse” during the decade following her first year of college. Raised in a strict Methodist home, she abandoned the faith in college. “It stopped speaking to me,” Hall says. “I was falling off the horse all over the place.”
The victim of a violent crime, Hall found herself facing a divorce and raising a daughter. “I examined all kinds of spiritualities, from Buddhism to yoga to meditation and therapy,” she recalls.
When Hall's ex-husband remarried a Catholic, her daughter began attending Mass at a Catholic church. “I needed to know what she was hearing,” says Hall, whose journey first led her to an Episcopal church. “It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Suddenly I realized that church is about Communion.”
The conversion of her sister to the Catholic faith eight years earlier also played a role. “When you're thrashing around for religion, you need role models,” says Hall. “You want to point to someone and say, ‘I want to be that kind of Catholic.’” She was also drawn by the content and form of the Mass, recognizing a deep consistency with the early Church. “I found that I completely connected with [liturgical worship],” she says. “I wanted a liturgy that was as close to the original as possible.”
The journey had its difficulties. “It was an incredible struggle because I was alone in it,” explains Hall. “I had had a negative experience with religion to get over.” Her conversion also forced her to develop new friendships.
For Hall, the turning point came during a discussion with one of her Christian friends about three years ago. “I knew I had this need to go back to the church, but I was railing, going through all of the contradictions. I asked my friend, ‘How can you believe this? How can you live this?’ She responded, ‘You don't understand. I'm a bad Christian.’ At that moment, everything seemed to make sense.”
With friend and sponsor Barbara Nicolosi, director of Act One: a screenwriting institute, Hall attended a local parish's Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) classes. She came into the Church at St. Monica's Catholic Church in Santa Monica, Calif., last Pentecost. “Most of my evolving in the Church has happened since then,” Hall says. “You begin to understand it the more you participate.”
Florida's Burning Bush
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's “horse” moment came by means of a family crisis following his failed bid for the Sunshine State's top office in 1994. Bush, whose brother would go on to become president of the United States, became so obsessed with his gubernatorial campaign that he nearly lost his family as well.
Raised an Episcopalian, Bush had been introduced to the Catholic faith through his Mexican-born wife, Columba. He had occasionally accompanied his wife to church since their 1974 marriage, but it was not until 1995 that he entered the Church.
By the end of his 1994 campaign, Bush was estranged from his wife and children, one of whom was struggling with apparent substance abuse. Last year, their daughter Noelle was arrested on pharmaceutical-fraud charges; the family has confirmed that she has been through treatment.
In an effort to save his family, Bush decided to explore the Catholic faith. Bush told Time magazine: “I vowed to myself after the election that I would convert.”
Beginning in November 1994, just two weeks after his defeat, Bush attended his first RCIA class. He continued with the program once a week for five months at Epiphany Catholic Church in Miami. He was received into the faith at Easter 1995.
Bush has explained that his conversion turned out to be therapeutic. Of his RCIA experience, he said in an interview, “These were real people, and it was so much fun to talk about normal things and to be treated as just a normal, ordinary person…I'm convinced that I'm better off for not having won.”
Subsequent to his conversion, Bush was elected governor in 1998 and handily won reelection in 2002.
From Convert to Cardinal
Although he grew up Presbyterian, Cardinal Avery Dulles' faith had given way to atheism and skepticism by the time he entered Harvard University in 1936.
Books by Aristotle, Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and others first opened Cardinal Dulles' eyes to the richness of the Catholic faith. At Harvard, Dulles—the son of former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles—confronted the classics as well as contemporary Catholic writers such as Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson. “The more I examined, the more I was impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine,” he recalls.
Cardinal Dulles' conversion was a gradual, rational process. Through his study of history, he became familiar with the medieval Church and found himself attracted to it. “I studied the Reformation and read Luther, Calvin and the decrees of the Council of Trent,” says the influential cardinal. “I found my sympathies were always on the Catholic side and felt that was where I belonged.”
Like Hall, Cardinal Dulles also found himself attracted to the liturgy: “I was living in Cambridge, Mass., which, at that time, and perhaps still today, is a very Catholic city. The Catholic Church had a hold on its people that no Protestant church seemed to have. The people were attending church services in huge numbers and going to confession, communion, Benediction and Holy Week services.”
Also like Hall, he describes his journey as a solitary one. Aside from brief contact with a Harvard professor who had converted, Cardinal Dulles was “very alone” in his journey. “That professor was the only glimpse I had of a living Catholicism,” he says. “I didn't have any close friends who were practicing Catholics. Only later did I realize that others were making the same journey.”
Cardinal Dulles frequented the lending library at St. Thomas More bookstore, taking books out over the weekend and returning them for more. The turning point came in 1938 after he read a chapter of St. Augustine's City of God. “I got tired of reading and went out for a walk,” he recalls. After leaving Harvard's Widener Library, he walked out into a rainy spring afternoon and noticed a young tree budding along the Charles River.
“Somehow, I had a sense of God in nature and providence and work, which to me was very decisive,” says Cardinal Dulles. “I got down on my knees and prayed for a while and had a sense of the presence of God that I hadn't had before. I knew that I was on my way to the Catholic Church, but I still had a lot of things to work out.”
One day, Cardinal Dulles recalled asking at the bookstore, “How do I get into your church?” When they responded that he needed to be instructed by a priest, he answered that he had never met a priest. The store connected him with Edwin Quain, then a Jesuit graduate student at Harvard. He spent the next six weeks studying the Catechism.
Young Avery's decision came as a shock to his family. Although his father did not think the decision was right, he respected his son's freedom to make his own decisions.
The future cardinal was received into the Church at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge in November 1940. He was 22. After graduating from Harvard, he attended law school before being called to duty as an intelligence officer by the U.S. Naval Reserve. Upon returning to the United States, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1946. He is currently a theologian and professor at Fordham University.
Cardinal Dulles tells the story of his conversion in his book A Testimonial of Grace. In it he wrote: “If the Kingdom is the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field, one should be prepared to give up everything else to acquire it.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 1/19/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: January 19-25, 2003 ----- BODY:Taiwan: Not So Fast, Abortionist
The bill's sponsor, legislator Chiang Chi-weng, told the Taipei Times that her proposal is designed to balance the rights of women with those of unborn children. Pointing out that women can speak out for themselves, Chiang asked: Who will stand up for unborn children?
No to Donor Babies in Britain
BBC NEWS, Dec. 20—The British High Court has ruled that the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility clinics in Britain, has no right under current legislation to license embryos conceived via in vitro fertilization to create a “donor baby.”
According to the British Broadcasting Corp., the court ruled that the Hashmi family cannot screen its IVF embryos to find a baby who could help treat their son Zain. Zain Hashmi has beta-thalassemia, a dangerous blood disorder that might be cured by a cell transplant using tissue from the umbilical cord of a baby who is an exact tissue match for him.
Josephine Quintavalle of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, who brought the High Court challenge, says the screening of test-tube embryos to provide “donor siblings” for sick children was “ethically objectionable.”
Above-Board Vaccine Approved
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec. 17—A new vaccine called Pediarix, which protects against five different diseases—diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and polio—has won federal approval. The pro-life group Children of God for Life says the new vaccine does not contain any aborted fetal-cell lines, reported the news service.
Pediarix requires only three shots staggered through the first six months of life versus the nine most babies receive to have the same amount of protection from those diseases.
From Bone Marrow to Brain Cells
REUTERS, Dec. 20—Stem cells from a person's own bone marrow can be used to generate brain cells that may be a way to treat diseases like brain cancer or Alzheimer's, researchers say.
The lead author of the new research, Dr. John Yu of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, says using stem cells from bone marrow solves the ethical dilemma of using embryonic and fetal stem cells in medical research as well as potential problems with tissue rejection.
According to Reuters, the researchers were able for the first time to generate neural progenitor cells from adult bone marrow.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: Supreme Court Rulings Drop Three Bombshells DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The last week of the recent U.S. Supreme Court term saw rulings that both pleased and aggravated family advocates.
The court ruled on:
Sodomy laws, that homosexual acts done in private are constitutionally protected;
Library pornography access, that the federal government can require blocking software in many libraries’ computers; ESex-abuse moratoriums, that states may not extend statutes of limitation to prosecute sexual abuse.
Sodomy Laws. On June 26, the high court in Lawrence v. Texas declared Texas’ law against sodomy unconstitutional. Its 6-3 decision stood against decades of American, English, Christian and Jewish legal tradition. Only Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Catholic justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from the ruling.
Two homosexuals in Houston brought the case. They were arrested after police, responding to what turned out to be a false report of a weapons disturbance, discovered them engaging in sexual activity.
Their victory in court invalidates such laws in a dozen other states and raises further fears about legalization of same-sex “marriage,” particularly since it came a week after Canada announced plans to legalize such marriages. A Massachusetts court is expected to decide a same-sex marriage case this summer.
As recently as 17 years ago, the court upheld an anti-sodomy law in Bowers v. Hardwick.
Scalia, in his dissenting opinion in Lawrence, said state laws against things such as bigamy, adult incest, prostitution, adultery and obscenity are “sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices.”
“Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision,” Scalia wrote.
In other words, said Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, a Concerned Women for America affiliate, “Sen. Santorum was right.”
Homosexual-rights activists and Democratic politicians attacked Catholic Sen. Rick Santorum, RPa., earlier this year after he predicted: “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to have consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
Mark Chopko, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, downplayed fears that the ruling would open a path for legalization of homosexual marriage, saying the case “was decided on the narrowest of grounds.
“Justice Kennedy took pains to insulate this case from broader conclusions,” he said. “He points to laws against prostitution and rape to show that not every sexual act between adults is outside the reach of legislatures.”
Senate Majority Leader William Frist, R.-Tenn., said June 29 that the ruling threatens to make the American home a place where criminality is condoned. He said he supports a proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage.
Library Pornography
A ruling three days earlier seemed to be a victory for those who want to protect children from pornography when they use the Internet in public libraries.
In United States v. American Library Association, the court ruled June 23 that the Children's Internet Protection Act was constitutional. The act makes certain federal funds for schools and public libraries contingent on the installation of filtering software designed to prevent children from viewing sexually explicit images on the Internet. Under the federal E-rate program, which subsidizes Internet access in public schools and libraries, those libraries that chose to participate received $58.5 million in fiscal year 2002.
The American Library Association and other groups sued the federal government, claiming the restrictions on the federal funds violated the First Amendment. But, wrote Rehnquist for the court's 6-3 majority in the case, “We have held in two analogous contexts that the government has broad discretion to make content-based judgments in deciding what private speech to make available to the public.”
“I'm certainly encouraged,” said Robert Peters of Morality in Media in response to the decision. The courts had been applying stricter and stricter tests to such issues, he said. “They came up with a strict test to apply to adult political speech,” he said. “These liberals keep expanding what these tests are applied to.”
Some public library systems, such as San Francisco's, have decided not to take the federal funds in order to avoid installing the software.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the office for intellectual freedom at the American Library Association, said the association has not decided whether to mount another legal challenge to the Children's Internet Protection Act on different legal grounds.
“Clearly Justice Kennedy invited a second lawsuit ... if there is a burden on adult access,” she said.
Rehnquist noted: “With respect to adults, [the Children's Internet Protection Act] also expressly authorizes library officials to ‘disable’ a filter altogether ‘to enable access for bona fide research or other lawful purposes.’”
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sister Dale McDonald, director of public policy and educational resources at the National Catholic Education Association, said the ruling does not affect schools since the lawsuit was about only libraries. Schools have already had to comply with the Children's Internet Protection Act.
Michael James, associate executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said the ruling does not apply to higher education but that “virtually all of our Catholic colleges and universities ... have policies that say you cannot pull up pornographic or offensive materials. It applies to anyone who uses university technology.”
Abuse Moratoriums
Sex-abuse moratoriums became an issue for Catholics when California extended its statutes of limitations for child-molestation cases in 1994. It brought a flood of lawsuits involving priests because, say critics, charges that could be neither proven nor disproven could be brought and the Church would feel obliged to pay.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled June 26 that states could not revise already-expired statutes of limitations. Lawyers said the ruling would nullify most pending clergy sex abuse prosecutions in the state.
Stogner v. California stemmed from a challenge to a California law by a 72-year-old man accused of molesting his two daughters when they were children.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, hailed the ruling.
“Innocent until proven guilty carries with it certain predicates, one of which is that claims made decades after an alleged offense can never be settled in a satisfactory manner,” he said in a statement. “Thus, the court must err on the side of the accused. What the high court did today was to restore the clock to the criminal justice system.”
“The implications for the Catholic Church, especially in California, are grave,” Donohue continued. “This now means the Church will properly be safeguarded from steeple-chasing lawyers and their Johnny-come-lately clients. While some of the clients may have indeed been victimized by a priest, others are obviously playing the’ repressed memory’ game.”
But those who support deadline changes say child molesters aren't usually exposed until after the statutes of limitations have expired.
In this case, the conservatives on the court — Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas — joined Kennedy in his dissenting opinion, which said California should be allowed to punish “serious sex offenses” against children.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Notre Dame to Parents: We Won't Tell DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame students are required to take theology courses. Nevertheless, it's nearly impossible for students and their parents to know which Notre Dame theology faculty teach with the Church and which do not.
Brian MacMichael found out the hard way. He said one theology course was enough to make him wonder whether he had made a mistake when he transferred to the school from the University of Florida.
MANDATUM SECRECY
Investigative series
“The course was on the sacraments,” MacMichael explained, “and when the professor taught on the Eucharist she taught that Christ was equally as present in the community presence as in the Eucharist.”
When MacMichael cited Pope Paul VI's 1965 encyclical Mysterium Fidei(On the Holy Eucharist) to demonstrate that Christ is uniquely present in the Eucharist, he was disregarded.
“She held her ground, reiterating that Christ was just as present in the assembly during Mass,” he recounted.
“I was worried that perhaps this was what the entire theology department was like,” MacMichael said.
But doesn't the entire theology department have the canon law-required mandatums from the bishop certifying that they teach with the Church? No one there will say.
When the Register called to ask which professors at Notre Dame had canon-law mandatums to teach theology, neither theology department chair John Cavadini, university president Father Edward Malloy nor Bishop John D'Arcy of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese responded.
Leon Dixon of Muncie, Ind., is a 1966 Notre Dame graduate. He recalls his father, a 1948 graduate of the law school, complaining about the loss of Catholic values at Notre Dame. Dixon's daughter, Elesia, just completed her freshman year at the university.
“My daughter's freshman religion teacher was an agnostic,” said Dixon. “I can get an agnostic religion instructor anywhere in the world for a boatload less money. If Notre Dame holds itself out, as it attempts to do, as a Catholic university, then it needs to be with the Pope.”
Dixon said that he has written to the bishop regarding his concerns about the mandatum.
“This sort of omertà is a Catholic problem,” he said. “If Mr. [Gov. Frank] Keating had to resign because he felt the American bishops were acting like a mafia, on the intellectual side [Notre Dame] has a problem that will not be solved by the muzzling of internal Catholic intellectuals or of Notre Dame graduates whose real-world accomplishments and learning dwarf those of the faculty. It exposes their lies regarding’ academic freedom.’”
During his meeting with the U.S. cardinals last year, Pope John Paul II said parents “must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
The Register is investigating Catholic colleges and universities featured in U.S. News & World Report's college guide, asking: Are parents allowed to know whether those who teach theology even intend to teach in communion with the Church? Or has the opposite happened — is the canon-law man-datum being used to protect dissenters?
Since 1983, canon law has required that a theologian teaching in a Catholic university receive a mandatum from the local bishop, showing his intention to teach with the Church. The requirement was highlighted in a footnote in Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae(From the Heart of the Church). U.S. bishops began requiring the mandatum in 2001.
But parents say universities won't say who has a mandatum.
The Gamut
Do theology professors have mandatums at Notre Dame?
Responses from theology faculty, said Michael Garvey, assistant director of news and information, would be predictable.
“Father Richard McBrien will say that it's impossible to have any free thought if you implement it,” Garvey said, “and Father Edward O'Connor will say that it's impossible to have any free thought if you do not implement it.”
Indeed, the views of some of Notre Dame's theology faculty are well known.
Father McBrien declared in the Jesuits' America magazine, “I shall not seek a mandate because the requirement of a mandate compromises the academic integrity of the faculty and the university.”
Another theology faculty member, Lawrence Cunningham, has been quoted as saying he “resented” the fact that Catholics should have to take an oath of fidelity to their faith.
“Notre Dame has, for all practical purposes, decided to evade the mandate,” Father O'Connor said via e-mail.
The University of Notre Dame is ranked 19th among national doctoral universities by U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges 2003. Overall, the proportion of Catholics on Notre Dame's tenured and tenure-track faculty has fallen to about 55%.
Parents’ Rights
A recent University of California-Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute survey suggested Catholic colleges, far from instilling the faith in students, are just as likely to cause students to lose their faith. That scares parents who don't want to pay for a Catholic education only to see their child taught that the faith isn't true.
That's the concern of Ken and Anne Marie Schroeder of Cincinnati, who want to find a college for their four children.
Their daughter Julie visited Notre Dame in June. While Julie liked the school, her mother was not quite so sure about it.
“We care about the mandatum and the Catholicity of the college,” Anne Marie Schroeder said.
A high school senior, Julie is interested in possibly studying biology and genetics. “I would really like to know that Catholic values are being instilled in these areas of study,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder said the mandatum has been on her mind at each of the four colleges her daughter has visited.
“You want to know that your child is being taught the truth,” she said. “It would be great if the man-datum information was published or somehow made available. At least I would know what we were going into.”
David Hoppe, a Notre Dame alum, saw his daughter Katie graduate from the school in May. His son Geoff is currently a sophomore. Non-Catholic professors taught both of his children's freshman theology courses.
“One of the great regrets that I have, as an alumnus, is that the theology department is clearly the weakest department in the university,” said David Hoppe, of Burke, Va., who graduated from Notre Dame in 1973. “That should not be. It would be difficult to attend Notre Dame and receive a theology degree and believe that you had learned the Catholic faith.”
“I would have thought that it would be important to have a core curriculum course at a Catholic university taught by a Catholic,” Hoppe said. “It's not the strongest recommendation one can give a Catholic university when one says to stay away from its theology department.”
Still, Hoppe thinks Notre Dame has much to offer.
“You can still find good professors who inculcate the Catholic faith in the subjects they teach,” he said. “Students have the opportunity to attend daily Mass in their dorms. It's still a place where it is easy to live and grow in your faith. Notre Dame still has a religious grounding that many of the major Catholic universities have lost.”
One of the few professors who has written publicly about the man-datum is Notre Dame law professor emeritus Charles Rice.
Rice, writing for the Observer, the daily newspaper at Notre Dame, said: “It is fair to say that if Notre Dame will not ensure that its required courses in theology are faithful to the Church's magisterium, those courses (and required philosophy courses) should no longer be required. If the professors want to do their own thing, let them and the university abandon any claim that it is the’ Catholic’ thing and let the students decide whether to take such courses.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Hospital Sells Rather Than Stop Performing Tubals DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:PARIS, Texas — A major Catholic hospital system has announced its intention to sell a nearly century-old hospital — in part to be sure sterilization of women who have just given birth remains available in north Texas and southern Oklahoma, according to Dr. Thomas Royer, the hospital system's chief executive officer.
By late June, 20 companies, both profit and nonprofit, had expressed interest in buying Christus St. Joseph. A short list of candidates will be sent to the hospital system board in August, and St. Joseph's Catholic owner, Dallas-based Christus Health Systems, hopes to complete the sale by November.
The news of the spin-off came as a shock in May to the local Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word — whose order founded the Paris hospital — and to others in the area, where Christus St. Joseph is the largest employer.
For one, Christus St. Joseph had recently purchased the non-Catholic McCuistion Hospital, a move that would seem to point to financial strength.
But the decision was made hastily by the hospital system board days after some people expressed concerns to the bishop of Tyler, Texas, that one aspect of a plan to help save money and resources would violate Catholic teaching. That plan was approved weeks before by the local hospital board.
Since 1914, Paris had two hospitals serving what has grown to a regional population of 40,000, including many poor: St. Joseph downtown and McCuistion, just three miles to the north.
Then in 2001, Christus Health Systems purchased McCuistion. After initial financial losses, Christus St. Joseph was on a course for stability and growth, according to Monty McLaurin, chief executive officer for the hospital.
In late April, the local board approved a plan whereby the hospital could hope to save up to $2 million by moving obstetric and pediatric care from the former McCuistion (referred to as the “north campus") to the original St. Joseph “south campus” by February 2004. By consolidating all the acute services on the south campus, the hospital would reduce duplication of emergency care, X-ray services and so forth, McLaurin said.
There was one problem with the move, however, according to Royer, who is McLaurin's boss. Transferring labor and delivery to the south campus would remove those services from the Lamar Women's Health Center, a financially and legally separate sterilization center that operates in three rooms of the north campus.
Before Christus purchased McCuistion in 2001, those rooms had been “carved out” and formed into Lamar, which does two-thirds of its sterilizations postpartum and the rest as outpatient surgeries, said Lamar administrator Jinx Yoder.
Moving labor and delivery would mean patients would no longer have the option of having tubal ligations done immediately after childbirth — a common practice often considered part of “comprehensive reproductive health care.”
The Church teaches that sterilization is immoral since it is a form of self-mutilation.
A plan was then quietly floated to sell space near the new obstetrics location in the south campus to Lamar. But after learning of the plan, local Catholic family practice physician Dr. Stephen Burns objected in a letter to Bishop Alvaro Corrada del Rio of Tyler, whose approval of the sale would have been required by the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care.
Those directives also state: “Catholic health care organizations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide and direct sterilization. The possibility of scandal must be considered when applying the principles governing cooperation.” (See sidebar.)
Some Paris doctors insisted that the postpartum sterilization services be continued, health system chief executive officer Royer said.
“The diversity of opinion in the community regarding that transfer was certainly great enough over which the community could potentially become polarized,” he said. “It's neither right nor wrong, but because of the timing we didn't want to create an additional wedge in the community.”
Dr. Ed Clark, a Catholic pediatrician, said he and the other pediatricians and obstetricians had rallied around Christus’ original plan to move to the south campus in order to save money and grow. That hope is now in jeopardy, he said, but with the Church's restrictions against cooperating with sterilization, the sale of the entire hospital — both north and south campuses — “is probably the only choice they had.”
“Not being able to offer tubal ligations is a major problem for this community,” said Clark, who admitted he does not agree with Catholic teaching on sterilizations. He questioned whether it is ethical to make women travel 40 or 60 miles away for a second procedure, a second anesthesia, “and the risks involved with that.”
But the previously scheduled move of the obstetrics unit could have provided the Catholic hospital the perfect opportunity to avoid the possible scandal of the current arrangement, Dr. Burns said.
That option, however, was “not acceptable” to the obstetricians in Paris, said chief executive officer Royer, and neither was the elimination of obstetrical care altogether.
Father Gavin Vaverek, promoter of justice for the Diocese of Tyler, said Bishop Corrada had only just learned of the hospital unit's proposed move and then the pending sale. He said the bishop would be gathering facts on the issue.
“We're going to be looking at this because, No. 1, the sale may not go through; and 2, if there [are] immoral things going on there, that has to be stood against,” he said. “If they announce they are closing in six months, the evil should not be going on, if there is evil. The sale could take a long time.”
Father Vaverek said he was particularly sorry a Catholic hospital might no longer be providing services to the many poor in the area, who he said need to hear the Gospel of life preached to them.
“At the end of the day it's not about the directives ... it's about what's wrong or right,” he said. “[Catholic hospital officials] have allowed the [sterilization] issue to be confused and conflicted. There is no doubt from the Church's perspective that sterilization is a crime against the dignity of the human person.” It is “not an appropriate part of health care,” he added. “It is a procedure that takes a healthy organ and renders it unhealthy.”
He agreed with Burns that the earlier plan to sell space to a sterilization center would have been “a problematic cooperation.”
Father Bob Lampert, director of ethics for Christus Health Systems, said that in the 2001 acquisition the Catholic hospital “had no part” in Lamar Women's Health Center.
“It's clearly signed; it's not our property; we did not buy that part of the building. You can have two organizations in the same building. That happens all the time,” he said.
Oscar Omperon, chairman of the board for Lamar, indicated there was more to the arrangement than purchasing a hospital minus three rooms. He said Father Lampert met with him prior to the transfer of assets, and that the ethicist “was very much involved in that process.”
Father Lampert would not return calls asking for further comment on those meetings.
Lamar administrator Yoder said that after an initial awkwardness, collaboration between St. Joseph and Lamar “has been working beautifully.”
A woman who is delivering normally and wants to be sterilized goes to Christus for labor and delivery, then is taken by Lamar staff to the sterilization center for her surgery. A woman delivering by Caesarean section goes to the Lamar center rooms for the birth and the tubal ligation, then she and the baby are discharged to Christus, where her baby is cared for in the nursery and she continues her recovery.
Some staff work at both the hospital and center “but not at the same time,” Yoder said. They wear badges that can be flipped over, depending on whose “clock” they are on. The center pays the hospital a monthly fee for utilities, she said.
Dominican Father Albert Moraczewski, an ethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, said if one thing can be said about Catholic health care collaborations, it is that no two are alike.
“It's a complex issue, and each alliance is unique and distinct,” he said. “So it's hard to make any judgment on the case without knowing the whole thing. The devil is in the details.”
What many people, Catholics included, fail to understand in these situations is the important moral principles involved regarding the nature of human reproduction, Father Moraczewski said.
“The whole business of sterilization and contraception the Church sees as a violation of basic human dignity regarding human procreation,” he said. “A lot of people say contraception and sterilization are not as bad as abortion. That is a true statement; nonetheless, they are morally evil.”
Lawrence Welch, professor of systematic theology at KenrickGlennon Seminary in St. Louis, said the “immediate material cooperation” forbidden by the bishops’ health care directives means that which contributes something essential to the wrongdoers’ evil action, in this case, direct sterilization.
However, he said, a hospital selling space to a sterilization center could actually constitute an even greater degree of cooperation known as “implicit formal cooperation,” which intends the evil of the wrongdoer not for its own sake but as a means to another end — in this case, to offer postpartum sterilizations so that obstetricians stay at the hospital or so the hospital can remain open.
“You can't implicitly intend something that's immoral. You can't say,’ We're going to provide you space,’” he said. “Frankly, it's [Lamar's] problem [if the obstetrics unit moves away]. That's not the Catholic hospital's problem.”
Also addressed by the health care directives is the issue of scandal, defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2284) as “an attitude or behavior that leads another to evil.”
“Simply because you don't have implicit formal or immediate material cooperation [in a given situation] doesn't mean that it's licit,” Welch said. “There's always the possibility of scandal. Is that avoided here? I think that's a serious question.”
Glenmary Father Bob Poandl serves at a parish in Hugo, Okla., about 25 miles from Paris. He said he worried that a sterilization center operating within a Catholic hospital would confuse people about what the Church taught and how the Church acted on the question of sterilization.
“One Protestant told me he was very glad the Church would compromise and allow sterilizations,” he said. “He's a minister. He's getting the message.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: RU-486 Users Suffering DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:OTTAWA — Results are starting to come in on the use of the RU-486 abortion pill, and they didn't look good.
The Canadian government refused in May to publicly disclose results from its investigation of a woman who died during a trial of the abortion drug RU-486 in 2001.
After the woman died on Sept. 1, 2001, an initial report blamed a rare infection, not the drug. The Vancouver abortionist who gave the woman the drugs, Ellen Wiebe, was sent results from a new investigation, but the information was not released to the public.
Meanwhile, women who take it continue to report pain and suffering.
After taking RU-486 last year, a Los Angeles County woman lapsed into unconsciousness and was hospitalized.
The woman, 34-year-old Danlin Tang, and her husband, Alfred, are suing Family Planning Associates Medical Group and Dr. Soon Chon Sohn, both of Los Angeles County, and a number of unnamed clinic workers alleging they were professionally negligent. They say she suffered from septic shock, massive blood loss, severe anemia, acute respiratory failure and infection.
Tang went for an abortion at the clinic on May 28, 2002, according to her attorney, Michael Saint-George of the David R. Denis law firm. She was briefly examined and given the first part of RU-486 — a two-part drug regimen that aborts babies in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. A clinic staff member then allegedly spoke on the telephone to Tang's friend, who acted as a translator to explain to Tang, in Cantonese, how to self-administer the second part of the drug combination vaginally at home the following day.
Four hours after taking the second part of the drug mixture the next afternoon, Saint-George said, Tang began to bleed profusely.
“They gave her an instruction sheet to take home, which said to call if she bled in excess of soaking one large maxi pad.” When her friend called the clinic later, “definitely she was bleeding in excess of that amount,” Saint-George said.
But clinic staff said the bleeding was normal for the procedure. And on May 30, when Tang continued to bleed and began vomiting and losing consciousness, the family members called the clinic repeatedly.
“They were told again that the loss of blood was a normal reaction and there was no need to bring her in,” Saint-George said. “They said to put a damp towel on her forehead.”
On the afternoon of June 3, when Tang was unconscious and unresponsive, she was taken to Garfield Medical Center where, the lawsuit alleges, she was treated for septic shock, massive blood loss, severe anemia and respiratory failure. According to Saint-George, she required a transfusion and emergency surgery and her condition, as one doctor noted in her file, was “critically ill with grave prognosis.”
“This poor girl almost died,” Saint-George said. “It was a major effort by the medical doctors that saved her.”
Clinic staff violated basic safety protocols in not seeing Tang after her abortion, he said. “They should not have abandoned her.”
Tang's case argues professional negligence but it also maintains that clinic staff did not adequately inform her (especially because she did not speak English well) about its risks before she chose the RU-486 regimen.
Officials at Family Planning Associates Medical Group did not return calls seeking comment about the lawsuit, which the court will not hear until early 2004, but Saint-George said they have filed papers denying the allegations.
Saint-George said the case could be amended to also include defendants such as Danco Laboratories, the maker of mifepristone or Mifeprex (the first drug in the combination), and Pfizer, the company that manufacturers Cytotec, the drug used to expel the fetus.
Routine Suffering?
At least one other lawsuit in the country alleges a botched chemical abortion.
Brenda Vise, a 38-year-old Hamilton County, Tenn., pharmaceutical representative, died Sept. 12, 2001, five days after beginning RU-486. A $15 million lawsuit by her estate against the Volunteer Women's Medical Clinic in Knoxville, Tenn., and two doctors at the clinic alleges she died of a massive infection stemming Pfrom a ruptured ectopic pregnancy the clinic workers failed to diagnose.
Vise's lawsuit also alleges she contacted the clinic “multiple” times as she experienced severe pain and bleeding, but staff there told her her symptoms were “normal and routine.”
In April 2002, Danco Laboratories sent physicians a letter acknowledging that three women (including Vise) had suffered ruptured ectopic pregnancies, and two other patients, 15-year-olds, had suffered bacterial infections following administration of RU-486.
A sixth woman, 21 years old, suffered a heart attack three days after taking the drug combination.
Danco denied the “adverse events” were directly linked to their drug, but it is likely there are many more unreported complications because reporting is a voluntary practice by physicians.
Susan Cruzan, spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, which keeps a tab on reports, would not say how many adverse events have been associated with RU-486 so far.
RU-486's supporters are unruf-fled by the known injuries to women.
“The medication is extraordinarily safe and effective,” said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, former director of reproductive health for the Population Council, the group that led the movement to have RU-486 approved by the FDA.
“Compare this to the safety records of other drugs,” Winikoff added. “Look at Viagra for men. There were a dozen deaths within the first couple months. You don't hear anything about that. Even penicillin is lethal in rare circumstances. Even aspirin can be fatal.”
While abortion advocates continue to liken RU-486 to antibiotics and aspirin, pro-life critics are finding more and more evidence of the drug's risks to women.
A coalition of conservative groups representing a half-million members has documented evidence that the FDA repeatedly violated its own safety protocols in allowing RU-486 on the U.S. market in September 2000.
Concerned Women for America, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Christian Medical Association filed a petition to the FDA last August alleging that the agency fast-tracked RU-486 approval because of pressure from the abortion lobby.
The 90-page petition, based on hundreds of internal FDA documents and e-mails acquired through Freedom of Information requests, cites instances, for example, where the FDA permitted “tainted data” from French trials of the drug.
The FDA's own reports had found “pages missing from the case records ... underreported side-effects [such as] a patient bleeding with two subsequent [suction procedures]; convulsions reported as fainting; and an expulsion that was actually a surgical evacuation.”
The petition also charges the FDA failed to ensure that safety protocols used in the experiments, such as routine ultrasound, also be used in clinics.
And, the petitioners allege, one safety standard was simply set aside.
The Pediatric Rule demands that drugs to be used on adolescents or children be tested on them first.
“When the FDA considered abolishing the Pediatric Rule last March, Sen. Hillary Clinton strenuously objected,” said Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, a pro-family organization. “Yet, for mifepristone, the FDA ignored this regulation.”
“The citizen petition lays out irrefutable evidence that the FDA violated numerous safety regulations and shows how women have suffered because of it,” Wright said. “The only way to correct this is for the FDA to withdraw its illegal approval of mifepristone.”
Even Wright admitted that outcome is unlikely at this point, especially because it is probable some of the same FDA officials who approved RU-486 will review the petition.
Dr. Janet Woodcock of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research has told the petitioners the FDA is examining their allegations but is delayed (three months beyond the six-month mandated response time) “given the complex science and policy issues raised.”
As President Bush has said about reversing the Clinton administration FDA approval of RU-486: “Once the decision's made, it's been made ... unless it's proven to be unsafe to women.”
Celeste McGovern writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Celeste Mcgovern ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Leading Lutheran Pastor Becomes Catholic DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Rev. Leonard Klein is becoming Catholic after 30 years as a prominent Lutheran pastor.
Klein presided at his last service as a Lutheran pastor June 29. The 57-year-old former editor of Lutheran Forum is leaving to pursue the Catholic priesthood. He plans to attend St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore for eventual ordination in the Diocese of Wilmington, Del.
Klein spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake about his decision to enter the Church.
What led to your vocation as a Lutheran pastor?
I grew up in a Lutheran church/Missouri Synod congregation in a very active church family. We lived on a dairy farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. My parents were farmers. I have two younger sisters and a younger brother.
People often thought that I should be a pastor. I went to Yale planning to be a lawyer but in college sensed a call to the ministry. I received my basic theology degree from Yale Divinity School.
What precipitated your journey to the Catholic faith?
It began in seminary. In many ways, the question of whether I belonged in Orthodoxy or the Catholic Church began with my reading of patristics [the study of the early Church fathers] in seminary, but at that point there were good theologians who were claiming Lutheranism could claim a true catholic pedigree. I entered the ministry believing that.
It was the move of American Lutheranism away from its Catholicity that forced me into crisis.
Was there a specific incident or individual that led you to explore the claims of the Catholic faith?
Although there were certainly many, I normally give two moments. One was the decision in the mid-1990s by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's national executive board not to restrict payments for abortions in their health plan.
The other was the Formula of Agreement for full communion between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and three reformed churches in 1997. It seemed to me this bartered away the doctrine of the Real Presence. The dialogue partners were honest that they had failed to reach agreement on the Lord's Supper. The dialogue settled on the lame notion that we taught differently about the mode of the Presence, when it was the actuality that was being debated.
I was a public and vocal critic of the 1988 merger plans between the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
There were three dangerous moves in the constitutional process: sidelining the bishops from real power, the quota system and the notion that those attending assemblies were voting members rather than delegates. This allowed the fiction that an assembly was itself the church. I characterized the merger as an activist putsch to create a left-leaning system, and the constitutional moves were demonically brilliant in guaranteeing it.
Was there a particular hurdle that was more difficult to jump than others?
There was a double hurdle. The first was family. The second was that I have a wonderful parish. Sometimes those who do this are in a very difficult position. For the past 22 years I have had an intensely liturgical and sacramental parish. It is a historic congregation with a vigorous sense of mission. In my biography for the vocations board I said that it would have been very easy to slip into a prosperous retirement a few years down the pike.
Theologically, there were no hurdles. Over the years I've developed apologetic lines on the dogmas that trouble people. The dogmas made sense to me as a Lutheran. One of my lines is that “the infallibility of the pope is nothing compared to the infallibility of a Protestant church convention.”
Regarding the dogmas of Mary's immaculate conception and assumption, I say that the assumption says where Mary obviously is and the immaculate conception teaches that she must indeed be there.
The documents of Vatican II, the pontificate of Pope John Paul II and the saints of the Catholic reformation — Charles Borromeo, Ignatius Loyola, Philip Neri, Robert Bellarmine — and Cardinal [John] Newman have had a strong impact on me.
What role did the Lutheran crisis regarding sexuality play in your conversion?
That, too, was very important and influenced my timing. I did not want a blow-up over the pastorally demanding issue of homosexuality to be the apparent reason for my leaving.
I was very active in the group that left the Missouri Synod back in the 1970s. A lot of us in the East broke because we found the Missouri Synod increasingly sectarian and [we] had a more Catholic view of the church. A number from that faction are now Catholic. My involvement in the original Missouri Synod split is why I don't want to go through another schism to remake the Lutheran church.
How has your family reacted?
My wife and I both have elderly parents living, so the decision was a bit of a struggle for them.
Our children have been very supportive. Our elder daughter, who is married to a Catholic and has a child, will be entering with us as will our disabled younger daughter who lives with us. Our son has not chosen to do this at this time.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Judge Rules Against Florida Woman's Right to Live; Family Will Appeal DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida judge said he has sympathy for the family of Terri Schiavo, but the family says his conclusion was harsh: Mrs. Schiavo should die.
The 39-year-old Florida woman suffered brain damage after collapsing in 1990 and has been kept alive ever since with the help of a feeding tube. District Court of Appeals Judge Chris Altenbernd, who wrote the June 6 opinion for a three-judge panel, affirmed an earlier circuit court's ruling that ordered the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube, which would lead to her death. The courts have found her to be in a “persistent vegetative state.” Her family denies the claim.
For the past five years, Schiavo has been at the center of a bitter legal battle between her husband, Michael Schiavo, and her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler.
Michael Schiavo wants the tube removed because he contends she once told him she never wanted to be kept on life support. The woman's parents dispute that claim and believe she can gradually recover, if given the proper care.
The Schindlers and Michael Schiavo also had a falling out in 1993 over the use of malpractice suit money and Terri Schiavo's care.
“Each of us, however, has our own family, our own loved ones, our own children,” Altenbernd wrote in his decision. After viewing videotapes of Terri Schiavo, the judge added that he understood “why a parent who had raised and nurtured a child from conception would hold out hope that some level of cognitive function remained,” despite the fact that the cerebral cortex sustained severe and “irreparable injuries.”
“If Mrs. Schiavo were our own daughter,” he wrote in the opinion, “we could not but hold to such a faith. But in the end, this case is not about the aspirations that loving parents have for their children. It is about Theresa Schiavo's right to make her own decision, independent of her parents and independent of her husband.”
Pat Anderson, the lawyer for Schiavo's parents, said she would appeal, going as high up as the Florida Supreme Court if need be, which might prove futile since that court already has refused to intervene in the case.
George Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, said his client was “pleased” with the ruling. Felos’ own reaction was mixed.
“It shouldn't take over a half a decade to fulfill a patient's medical treatment wishes,” he said. “In that sense I have a feeling of sadness as a lawyer and a lover of the law; I don't think the legal system has worked particularly well in this case.”
Robert Schindler also expressed frustration with the judicial system. He said videotapes introduced during the appellate hearing showed his daughter, who lives in a hospice facility near St. Petersburg, as being aware of her environment and obeying commands. She also breathes on her own and is not considered to be in a coma, according to her family.
“When her mother gets anywhere near her, she erupts into laughter,” said Robert Schindler, who added that faith in God is what has kept him and his family going during the years. “The enjoyment, the smile that comes on her face. She's trying to talk.”
He also voiced his bitterness at his daughter's legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, whose girlfriend recently gave birth.
“The last time we had contact with him was a year ago or so when he promised he would get my daughter's wheelchair fixed,” said Schindler, who, along with other family members, visits his daughter several times a week. “It's been broken for three years ... and he never did. She's confined to a room, literally in solitary confinement. Anything we bring her, he throws out. We were bringing her clothes, gifts; if he knew [something] was from us, it was thrown out immediately.”
Pope John Paul II has spoken about the withdrawal of food and water from patients in similar circumstances. In an October 1998 address to several U.S. bishops during their ad limina visit (once every five years to report on their dioceses), the Pope said: “The statement of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee,’ Nutrition and Hydration: Moral and Pastoral Con siderations,’ rightly emphasizes that the omission of nutrition and hydration intended to cause a patient's death must be rejected and that, while giving careful consideration to all the factors involved, the presumption should be in favor of providing medically assisted nutrition and hydration to all patients who need them.”
“To blur this distinction,” John Paul continued, “is to introduce a source of countless injustices and much additional anguish, affecting both those already suffering from ill health or the deterioration that comes with age and their loved ones.”
Pro-life organizations expressed outrage about the recent Schiavo appellate decision.
“We have had enormous pressure placed on our culture over the last 30 years to deny the humanity of certain human beings because they are unable to either contribute to society or because they are viewed, to quote the Nazi German doctors, as’ useless eaters or as individuals who are unwanted and pose a great burden on their family,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “This is how we came to have abortion on demand in the United States, and now those very same arguments are being used to deny that individuals like Terri Schiavo are, in fact, human beings who deserve to be respected because of their person-hood.”
Nancy Valko, spokeswoman for the National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, put it more concisely: “Killing people is not curing them.”
The Schindlers believe doctors can help their daughter recover. It remains to be seen if a court will allow that to happen.
Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Interim Bishop Welcomed in Phoenix
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 23 — The Catholics of Phoenix are apparently pleased with their new interim bishop, who was appointed as apostolic administrator June 18 following the arrest of Bishop Thomas O'Brien in connection with a hit-and-run accident, according to the Associated Press.
The news service spoke to parishioners at the local cathedral, where Archbishop Michael Sheehan read from a letter promising happier times for the diocese, which had been rocked by abuse scandals.
“Like the phoenix bird rising from the ashes, the Church of Phoenix will rise to new heights,” the archbishop promised, adding: “My heart goes out to all who are hurting.”
Archbishop Sheehan is the archbishop of Santa Fe, N.M., but he is stepping in to also oversee the Phoenix Diocese until a new bishop can be appointed, which could take up to a year.
Hispanics Support Estrada —
Republicans had hoped to use this opposition to win Hispanic votes, but things aren't working out that way, according to The Washington Times.
“The Hispanic electorate doesn't care. They don't know about it, they are not well informed and they don't consider it to be an important issue,” said Sergio Bendixen, a Democratic pollster in Miami who surveyed 800 Hispanic voters on the subject.
Bendixen reported that that 28% of Latinos supported Estrada, 11% opposed and 61% were indifferent. Bendixen said many of those respondents who backed Estrada confused him with Erik Estrada, former star of the 1970s TV cop show “CHiPs,” who is now popular in Spanish-language soaps.
“I'd say a good third think that way,” Bendixen explained, noting that one respondent said Estrada ought to be confirmed because he'd been such a good actor on “CHiPs.”
Passions Flame Again Over Gibson Film
The league called the script “replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism” and pointed to the report of a committee of scholars from several religions who agreed.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had initially embraced the same report, has since backed away from its findings, saying it will wait to review the final film. Gibson had threatened to sue the bishops’ conference and the Anti-Defamation League.
The Anti-Defamation League report included a series of questions such as: “Will the final version of The Passion continue to portray Jews as bloodthirsty, sadistic and money-hungry enemies of Jesus?”
Gibson has denied he or the film is anti-semitic, and, according to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Jesuit Father William Fulco, who translated the script into Latin and Aramaic, has said it has “no hint of deicide” by the Jews.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Senate Judiciary Committee Grills Catholic Nominee on Abortion Views DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor caught more than one of his critics off guard when he was grilled on his record as a staunchly pro-life conservative.
At the same time, he might have earned a little respect from Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearing for his nomination to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Based in Atlanta, the district encompasses Alabama, Florida and Georgia.
Unlike other pro-life nominees, Pryor stuck to his guns on previous statements, calling abortion “murder” and the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., quoted Pryor's “abomination” statement back to him during the June 11 hearing, asking, “Do you believe that now?”
Pryor said, “I do.”
“I appreciate your candor,” Schumer responded. “I really do.”
Later, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., asked if Pryor's statement was accurate.
“I believe that not only is [Roe v. Wade] unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has [also] led to a morally wrong result,” Pryor replied. “It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent children.”
President George W. Bush nominated Pryor, a Catholic and Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, to the federal court in April. The judiciary committee is not expected to vote on his nomination before July 10, but it is expected to vote along party lines to send his nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. Republicans hold 10 of the 19 seats on the committee.
The panel's vote originally was scheduled for June 26 but was delayed by hundreds of follow-up queries to Pryor from committee Democrats, National Review reported. Many of the questions required complex answers, and some were more focused on the process of Pryor's nomination than on legal issues.
Pryor's frankness before the Senate committee has set him apart from other pro-life nominees to the bench, according to Douglas Kmiec, dean of the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America.
“At the hearing, he has been a defender of his faith and a defender of his ability as a private citizen to articulate criticism of the law that is anchored in his faith,” Kmiec told the Register. “He has very soundly illustrated that while his faith tells him to be strongly opposed to the taking of unborn life, if he were given the privilege of serving as an appellate judge, he would necessarily have to operate within the legal system.”
Father Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life, liked what Pryor had to say.
“I have watched so many hearings in the past where I just waited and hoped for the nominee to say the kinds of things Mr. Pryor has said about Roe v. Wade,” he said. “His testimony is so refreshing.”
Pryor was not granting any interviews regarding his nomination. He is one of several faithful Catholics and other traditional Christians nominated to federal courts who have had a tough row to hoe before pro-abortion and pro-homosexual-rights senators.
Leon Holmes’ nomination made it through the committee on a party-line vote in May and is pending. Democrats are blocking appeals-court nominees Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen — the first filibusters in history against appeals nominees. A Senate filibuster means that 60, instead of a simple majority, must vote to approve a motion.
Acting on a proposal by Senate Majority Leader William Frist, RTenn., the Senate Rules and Administration Committee on June 24 voted 10-0 to reduce the vote threshold needed to end filibusters. Though the rule change is expected to face major hurdles on the Senate floor, it is also thought that the move was taken in anticipation of one or more Supreme Court vacancies this year.
Pryor's Motivation
Pryor, who took office as attorney general of Alabama in 1997, has tried civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court. He has a record of prosecuting public corruption and white-collar crime, streamlining death-penalty appeals, and as being a leader of reform of both the juvenile justice system and criminal sentencing.
Kmiec, who has known Pryor for more than six years, said the nominee is also a devout Catholic and family man who cares deeply about his responsibilities as a parent and as a husband.
“By virtue of that, he lives a conception of Catholic family that would bolster the legal understanding he has,” Kmiec said.
Kmiec said Pryor came to his deep convictions, especially with regard to respect-for-life issues, because he took the Declaration of Independence seriously.
“I've spoken to him about it,” Kmiec said. “He believes that certain rights come from a Creator and that they are unalienable. Therefore the government that is created under the Constitution is designed to protect them and not to facilitate their destruction. He views that as a matter of correct political and legal philosophy.”
Pryor's other convictions were also put to the test during his nomination hearing when he was grilled on his position on homosexual rights. He was asked about his decision to file a brief in February with the Supreme Court that compared homosexual acts to “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia.”
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., then questioned Pryor about his decision to reschedule a family trip to Disney World to avoid “Gay Day,” a weekend festival at the Orlando, Fla., theme park.
“My wife and I have two daughters who at the time were 6 and 4 years old,” Pryor said. “We made a value judgment.”
But Elliot Mincberg, vice president and legal director for the leftist People for the American Way, said Pryor is out of touch with mainstream America and should not be confirmed by the Senate.
“Far from having a record that demonstrates commitment to fundamental rights and liberties, he has instead shown an opposition to those fundamental rights and liberties in an effort to overturn them,” Mincberg said. “Were he to be confirmed, he would be an incredible danger to Americans’ rights.”
Priests for Life's Father Pavone adamantly disagrees. He contends that Pryor is more in step with mainstream America than any nominee in recent memory.
Pryor's frankness “encourages a lot of people because it reflects the views of a lot of Americans, and not only believers,” Father Pavone said. Pryor's nomination, he said, “will help the process because it will set a precedent that a justice, a nominee, doesn't have to be ashamed of these positions.”
Patrick Novecosky writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patrick Novecosky ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: News In Brief DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:C-FAM and Culture of Life Foundation to Merge
WASHINGTON — The New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Washington-based Culture of Life Foundation announced June 24 the formation of a strategic alliance.
The boards of each organization also announced that Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute — an advocate for pro-life issues at the United Nations — will assume the title of president of the Culture of Life Foundation and will join its board of directors. Ruse will continue as president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and will run both organizations from Culture of Life Foundation offices in Washington, D.C., according to a joint press release by the organizations.
Also as part of the agreement, two other Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute board members will join the Culture of Life Foundation board: Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute; and Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute.
Judge Allows Disabled Florida Rape Victim to Give Birth
ORLANDO, Fla. — A 22-year-old mentally disabled woman who was raped at a state-run facility and is now more than six months pregnant was given a court order to carry her baby to term, CNN's Web site reported June 25.
Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Kirkwood signed off on the recommendation by the woman's court-appointed guardian, Patti Jarrell, who had the woman checked by at least two doctors, one of whom specialized in high-risk pregnancies.
The Orlando Sentinel reported June 3 that Jarrell had said she would have no problem recommending an abortion for the woman if it were medically necessary.
The woman, known in court records only by the initials J.D.S., reportedly suffers from autism and cerebral palsy and has no family. She had lived in the group home where she was raped since she was a child.
Family of Woman Who Died After Abortion Files Lawsuit
LOS ANGELES — The family of Diana Lopez, 25, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against a doctor and the Planned Parenthood clinic where the woman bled to death last year, the Associated Press reported June 25.
The lawsuit alleges Dr. Mark Maltzer “worked so quickly, recklessly and negligently pulling out sharp body parts of Diana Lopez's 19- to 20-week-old unborn infant that severe, irreparable damage was done.”
According to a state Department of Health Services report, within minutes of the operation Lopez's cervix was punctured and she began to bleed profusely. Doctors were unable to control the bleeding. Lopez was taken to a hospital, where an emergency hysterectomy was performed. She died of trauma from the procedure, the coroner's report said.
Martha Swiller, acting president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, said the organization “feels tremendous sympathy for this woman's family and we share their grief.” She added: “While abortion is extremely safe,” Lopez's death “is a tragic reminder that ... some risk does exist.”
The Associated Press noted that Maltzer was still performing abortions in the Los Angeles area despite being under investigation by the Medical Board of California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pope Asks God's Forgiveness for Bosnia Region's Suffering DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:BANJA LUKA, BosniaHerzegovina — Pope John Paul II visited Banja Luka, a Balkans city scarred by two ethnic cleansing campaigns in recent decades, on June 22 and asked God's forgiveness for wrongs committed by Catholics and others in the tormented region.
During his 10-hour visit, the Holy Father urged rival Serbian Orthodox, Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims to put “suffering and bloodshed” behind them and to embrace the difficult task of “starting afresh” together.
Beatifying a native-born 20th-century layman, he also sought to bolster a minority Catholic community threatened with virtual extinction by the 1991-1995 war's redistribution of ethnic boundaries.
Ethnic tensions remain high in the region, and many of the city's Serb majority seemed ambivalent at best about John Paul's visit. Days before his arrival, authorities pulled down militant Serb posters around the city that read, “Pope, go home.”
Security was exceptionally tight along the Pope's motorcade route and at the city's airport, where three military helicopters patrolled overhead during a small, subdued welcoming ceremony. Before the Holy Father arrived a bomb squad investigated a suspiciously parked vehicle along the motorcade route, but it turned out to be a false alarm.
In his arrival remarks, broadcast live on national television, the Pope told Bosnians he greeted and embraced them all.
“I know the long ordeal you have endured, the burden of suffering that is daily a part of your lives, the temptations to discouragement and resignation that you experience,” he said.
An internationally brokered peace deal in 1995 ended BosniaHerzegovina's 43-month war, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed and nearly 2 million were expelled or displaced by fighting. Many refugees have yet to return, and those who do face desperate social circumstances, including an unemployment rate estimated at more than 40%.
A NATO-led force of 13,000 soldiers is still posted in the country to keep an uneasy peace.
The Holy Father told Bosnians he stood by them “in asking the international community, which already has done so much, to continue to be close to you and to help you to reach quickly a situation of full security in justice and harmony.”
But he reminded Bosnians that they themselves must be “the primary builders” of their future and that they should rely on the “tenacity of your character” and their rich cultural and religious traditions.
“Do not give up. Certainly starting afresh is not easy. It requires sacrifice and steadfastness; it requires knowing how to sow seeds and then to wait patiently,” he said.
“The root of every good and, sadly, of every evil is in the depths of the heart. It is there that change must occur,” he added.
The main focus of John Paul's visit, his 101st trip abroad, was a beatification Mass for a Bosnian-born Croatian layman, Ivan Merz, a liturgical pioneer and lay activist who died from meningitis in 1928 at the age of 31. His beatification was originally scheduled for Croatia, where he worked and died, but Banja Luka's bishop persuaded the Pope that holding the ceremony locally would be a big morale boost for his diocese's Catholics, who suffered greatly in the 1990s’ war.
During the Mass, the Holy Father held up Blessed Merz as a model of holiness and “success in God's eyes” that is still valid for modern youth. He said the Croatian layman's secret was unfailing desire for unity with Christ and a strong sacramental life.
As many as 35,000 pilgrims from Bosnia and neighboring countries cheered the Pope with chants of “John Paul II, we love you” and wildly waved yellow and white Vatican flags. Authorities had prohibited the display of any other flag for fear of outbursts of nationalist extremism. Nonetheless, several Croatian pilgrims wore red-checkered paper sunhats reminiscent of their national banner.
The festive mood of the outdoor liturgy contrasted with stark evidence of the region's bloody past. In front of the altar, seven white blocks, like tomb markers, were written with the names of seven priests of the diocese killed during the recent war.
The Mass was held on the grounds of the Petricevac Franciscan convent that was destroyed in 1995 by Serb forces. Behind John Paul's altar lay the concrete foundation of what appeared to have once served as a chapel. Twisted rebar sprouted from where the walls would have been and a weather-beaten wooden cross stood in the former sanctuary.
But the Franciscan convent is also remembered by Serbs for the dark role played by one of its priests during World War II. Father Vjekoslav Filipovic, who was expelled from his order and forcibly laicized, led a 1942 attack by Croatian fascists who butchered more than 2,000 local Serbs, including hundreds of women and children.
“From this city, marked in the course of history by so much suffering and bloodshed,” the Pope said in his homily, “I ask Almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity and freedom also by children of the Catholic Church and to foster in all the desire for mutual forgiveness.”
The crowd — which included a Serbian Orthodox delegation and Muslim and Jewish representatives — hung on the Holy Father's words attentively and responded with brief, polite applause.
Some pilgrims seemed to welcome John Paul's words more enthusiastically, especially those among the younger generations.
Sanja Raslah, an 18-year-old Serbian Orthodox woman in the Mass choir, said she felt honored to sing for the Pope because he was “a symbol of peace.”
Banja Luka Bishop Franjo Komarica also took up the theme of reconciliation in remarks to the Holy Father before the Mass. He said the local Church forgave “the crimes committed by others, while seeking forgiveness for the crimes committed by members of the Catholic Church of present and past generations.”
During the 1990s’ war, many of Banja Luka's 45,000 Catholics were expelled or fled the fighting, and fewer than 3,000 remain. The diocese says that despite the return of some refugees the Catholic population is in gradual decline and “is threatened with extinction.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Norton ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Bosnian Runs 35-Hour Marathon to Glimpse the Pope
REUTERS, June 23 — A Catholic runner began a grueling 35-hour run from his native town of Mostar to faraway Banja Luka on June 21 to see Pope John Paul II begin his apostolic visit to Bosnia, Reuters news service reported.
The runner, Aleksandar Gola, said he would make the run in honor of the Holy Father, who came to Bosnia-Herzegovina to beatify a lay Catholic and urge religious peace in the country that still is divided along sectarian lines.
“I know this will be a long journey. But my wish to touch the Holy Father is stronger than any fatigue,” Gola told a local newspaper before he set out.
A number of threats to the Pope's safety were reported by extreme nationalists in Banja Luka, the largest Orthodox Serb-dominated city in Bosnia, which still nurses memories of savage repression by Catholic Croats against Serbs during World War II.
“The biggest reward for me,” said Gola, running with an escort of an ambulance containing his son, “is that I am going to be among four people who will be given Communion by the Holy Father.”
1,000 Masses for the Pope
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 19 — More than 1,000 parishes around the world have promised to hold Masses of thanksgiving to mark the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's pontificate this October, according to the English news site Independent Catholic News. And the promise all began with a family in South London.
The Ryans of Croydon, South London, began a Web site months ago to track the celebration Masses parishes were planning for Oct. 16.
“We want to create a spiritual bouquet,” Patrick Ryan said. “We are hoping to ring the world in prayer on Oct. 16 with Masses starting in Fiji, followed by New Zealand and then each country doing likewise as the sun circles the Earth until it sets at the close of day off the west coast of Alaska.”
The Ryans already have commitments from churches on all five continents: from the Arctic to the Equator, China, Congo, Belarus and Israel, and there are still four months to go.
To register a parish for this event, visit www.jp2-jubilee.org.
Pope Welcomes Staff of Hospital Named for His Brother
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, June 18 — While greeting Polish pilgrims after his general audience in St. Peter's Square on June 18, Pope John Paul II welcomed the staff of Powszechny Hospital in Bielsko-Biala, which has been renamed for the Pope's brother, Edmund Wojtyla.
As a young doctor, Edmund had worked in the hospital. He later caught scarlet fever from one of his patients and died at age 26 in 1932.
During his 1983 visit to Poland, John Paul recalled with emotion attending his brother's medical school graduation, which took place when then Karol Wojtyla was only 10 years old. The doctors from the hospital spoke of Edmund's dedication, kindness and sense of humor, noting that he used to tell jokes to cheer up his patients.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Remembering Pope Paul VI DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
During his general audience with 10,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on June 25, Pope John Paul II paid tribute to Pope Paul VI as “a steadfast and wise guide for the Church” who served as “a strong and meek apostle.” He also said Paul VI was a source of inspiration to him personally “as a father and a teacher” and that the secret of his ministry was love. “Love is the secret of Peter's mission!” he noted. “Love is also the secret of those who are called to imitate the Good Shepherd in guiding the People of God.”
John Paul noted that June 21 marked the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's election as Pope. He pointed out that Paul VI brought the Second Vatican Council to its conclusion and carried forward its program for Church renewal. He also told the pilgrims Paul VI showed “a great openness to the demands of this modern age.”
“I was able to personally appreciate the unceasing commitment that Paul VI demonstrated for the much-needed aggiornamento of the Church that the New Evangelization required,” John Paul said. “With prudent wisdom, he knew how to resist the temptation to’ adapt’ to the modern mentality by facing difficulties, a lack of understanding and, in some cases, even hostility with evangelical fortitude.”
During his teaching, the Holy Father especially singled out Pope Paul VI's achievements in imparting a deeper meaning of the Church and its relationship to the world, his courageous defense of human life and his support for the developing nations in constructing a more just and united society.
The passage from John (John 21:15-17) that we just heard presents a rather thought-provoking scene from the Gospel. The Son of God entrusts his flock, which is his Church, to Peter, against which, as he had already assured Peter, the gates of hell would not prevail (see Matthew 16:17-18). Jesus prefaces this charge with a request for love: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:15). This somewhat disturbing question, which is repeated three times, recalls the apostle's threefold denial. Yet, despite his bitter experience, Peter humbly protests: “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you!” (John 21:17).
Love is the secret of Peter's mission! Love is also the secret of those who are called to imitate the Good Shepherd in guiding the people of God. “Officium amoris pascere dominicum gregem ... Watching over the Lord's flock is a labor of love,” Paul VI loved to say, borrowing a well-known phrase from St. Augustine.
Love of God
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” How many times my venerated predecessor, God's servant Paul VI, whom we remember today, must have heard these words resound in his spirit! Forty years have passed since his election to the chair of Peter on June 21, 1963, and 25 years have passed since his death on Aug. 6, 1978. In his early years, he had worked in the direct service of the Apostolic See with Pope Pius XI. For a long period he was one of the most faithful and valuable collaborators of Pope Pius XII. He was the immediate successor of Blessed John XXIII, whom I had the joy of beatifying almost three years ago. His ministry as the universal pastor of the Church lasted 15 years and was especially noteworthy for the Second Vatican Council and for a great openness to the demands of this modern age.
I, too, had the blessing to take part in the work of the council and to experience the period after the council. I was able to personally appreciate the unceasing commitment that Paul VI demonstrated for the much-needed aggiornamento of the Church the New Evangelization required. After succeeding him in the chair of Peter, I have been concerned with continuing the pastoral work he began, and he has been an inspiration to me as a father and a teacher.
Strong Apostle
A strong and meek apostle, Paul VI loved the Church and worked for its unity and to expand its missionary work. From this perspective, we fully understand how apostolic trips, which are an integral part of the ministry of the successor of Peter today, were an innovative initiative.
He wanted the Church community to be open to the world without, however, giving in to the spirit of the world. With prudent wisdom, he knew how to resist the temptation to “adapt” to the modern mentality by facing difficulties, a lack of understanding and, in some cases, even hostility with evangelical fortitude. Even during his most difficult moments, he did not withhold from the people of God his illuminating word. Toward the end of his days, the whole world seemed to rediscover his greatness and draw near to him in a moving embrace.
Love is the secret of those
who are called to imitate
the Good Shepherd in
guiding the people of God.
His magisterium was rich and was largely oriented to educating believers in the meaning of the Church. Among his many contributions, I will limit myself to recalling, besides his encyclical Ecclesiam Suam (Paths of the Church) at the beginning of his pontificate, his moving profession of faith known as the “Creed of the People of God” that he vigorously proclaimed in St. Peter's Square on June 30, 1968. How could I fail to mention his courageous defense of human life with his encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) and his support of the developing nations in constructing a more just and united society with his encyclical Populorum Progressio(On the Development of Peoples)?
A Committed Apostle
His personal reflections from his spiritual retreats, when he would “withdraw” into himself as “in the cell of his heart” are also noteworthy. He often meditated on the position to which God had called him to serve his “always beloved” Church, in the spirit of Peter's vocation. “In this meditation,” he noted during one of these retreats, “no one should be more committed than me ... to understanding it and living it! Lord, what a reality, what a mystery! It is an adventure in which everything depends on Christ” (Retreat, Aug. 5-13, 1963, Meditazioni Inedite, Studium Publishers).
Dear brothers and sisters, let us thank God for the gift of this Pope, who was a steadfast and wise guide for the Church. In his homily on June 29, 1978, just about a month before the end of his hardworking life on earth, Paul VI confided the following: “Before the dangers that we have outlined ... we feel the urge to go to Christ, as our only salvation, and cry out to him:’ Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (John 6:68). He alone is the truth, he alone is our strength, and he alone is our salvation. Comforted by him, we will continue our way together” (Insegnamenti, XVI, 1978, p. 524).
In light of our eternal goal, we understand better how urgent it is to love Christ and to serve his Church with joy. May Mary, whom Paul VI wished to proclaim Mother of the Church out of filial love, obtain for us this grace! Indeed, may Our Lady embrace this devoted son of hers in her arms in the eternal blessedness that is reserved for the faithful servants of the Gospel!
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Virtual Vatican Museums DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Everything you always wanted to know about the Vatican Museums — and a few things you didn't know you wanted to know — can now be found online.
The new Vatican Museums Web site was unveiled June 24 in the Holy See Press Office by Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the chief administrator of Vatican City State, under whose jurisdiction the museums fall.
The scope and extent of the new Web site is breathtaking, from a virtual tour of the Raphael Rooms, Sistine Chapel and Gregorian Etruscan Museums to the stunning reproductions of some of the world's most famous works of art.
Cardinal Szoka, an American, noted that when Pope John Paul II inaugurated the new entrance to the Vatican Museums on Feb. 7, 2000, he called the museums “one of the most meaningful doors that the Holy See opens to the world,” through which is expressed “the renewed will of the Church to dialogue with mankind through art and culture, making available to everyone the patrimony entrusted to her by history.”
In fact, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has called the patrimony of the Vatican Museums “the patrimony of mankind.”
Now, visiting the museums could not be easier. Just go to mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_ Home.html and you are on your way to an unforgettable journey through the vast and historic halls of the Apostolic Palace where the museums are located.
With a few clicks you can learn the museums’ history, and with a few more you are inside one of the wonders of the world — strolling through the extensive art-bedecked halls and frescoed rooms and visiting the seemingly endless collections of paintings, sculptures, Egyptian artifacts and pre-Colombian art.
You can also select up to 30 works of art to view online, along with their history — works such as “The Transfiguration” by Raphael, a gold breastplate of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum, a mummy in its case, an Attic black-figure amphora, Caravaggio's “Deposition from the Cross” and Michelangelo's “Creation of Adam” from the Sistine Chapel.
The virtual tours of the Pinacoteca, with its works by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Raphael and others, are worth the entire trip.
For those impressed by statistics, the Vatican Museums site offers:
Emore than 3,200 conventional pages of text;
Efive languages (Italian, English, French, Spanish and German);
E2,950 Web pages;
E800 images;
E165 high-resolution images;
E120 zoom images;
E45 panoramic images; and E50,000 links.
More than 15,000 hours of work by a staff of 25 went into building the museums’ Web site, including research, writing and translating texts, and special photographic needs — not to mention the technical expertise needed in creating the Web pages themselves.
For those who are planning an actual visit to Rome, the site can be a useful tool in finding out how to reach the Vatican Museums and learning to navigate their labyrinthine halls.
And, since the Web site can be visited on hand-held wireless computers and late-model cell phones, officials hope to wire the actual museums so tourists can access an online guide while viewing the objects in person.
The new site can also be reached through the Holy See Web site (www.vatican.va). That site itself has come a long way and is worth browsing for all it offers, from papal encyclicals to online performances by the Sistine Chapel Choir to a visit to the Vatican Library.
First appearing on the Internet at Christmas 1995, vatican.va consisted of just a single page of Christmas wishes to the Holy Father.
For the next year it contained only the news from the Holy See Press Office and the Vatican Information Service. Its growth over the past eight years has been significant — giant leaps and bounds, in fact, compared with the usual slower-paced and conservative standards of the Roman Curia.
In the last 18 months the Holy See Web site has had more than 650 million hits, sometimes seeing 60 million visits in a month.
These hits come from, on the average, more than 1 million individual users from 150 countries around the world.
With a link to the Vatican Museums Web site, the numbers might be going even higher.
Joan Lewis works for Vatican Information Service.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Hebrew-Language Mass in the Holy Land: Will It Worsen Divisions? DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM — Every evening at 6:30 two to three dozen people attend Mass at SS. Simeon and Anna Church in western Jerusalem, the part of the city with a Jewish majority.
The beautiful modern sanctuary, with its crisp white walls, simple, tasteful decor and high ceilings is cool and airy, in contrast to the stagnant air outside the landmark building located in the bustling downtown area.
While the Eucharist is identical to the one celebrated in churches in the Muslim-dominated eastern part of the city, there is one vital difference: This liturgy is being conducted entirely in Hebrew, the language of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. In the eastern part of the city, as elsewhere in the Middle East, the language of prayer is overwhelmingly Arabic.
According to Father Pierre Battista, pastor of the Hebrew Catholic community in Jerusalem, there are approximately 400 Church-affiliated Hebrew-speaking Catholics living within Israel's pre-1967 borders, an area that does not include eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
The community, which is comprised mostly of older immigrants from Europe, some younger immigrants from the former Soviet Union and a few native-born Israelis, has four focal points: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv/Jaffa, Haifa in the north and Beersheba in the south.
Father Battista estimates 90% are Israeli citizens. Many entered Israel under the Law of Return, which grants citizenship to those with a Jewish parent or grandparent.
Almost unknown to Israeli Jews and other local Christians, the tiny community recently came under intense — and unwanted — scrutiny after a May 19 article by Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen in America magazine criticized the Hebrew Catholics’ long-standing desire for an ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel separate from that of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The article, titled “A Campaign to Divide the Church in the Holy Land,” said such a split is at best unnecessary, due to the community's small number, and at worst could undermine the standing of the Latin Patriarchate. It also accused the Israeli government of backing the move out of its enmity for Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the first Palestinian Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Traditionally, all Catholic communities in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarchate. Patriarch Sabbah has been highly critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Franciscan Father David Maria Jaeger, a convert from Judaism who teaches canon law at the Pontifical Anthenaeum Antonianum in Rome, is a supporter of the community's efforts.
“There is no proposal here to divide the Church,” he told the Register. Rather, he said, “there is a proposal to create a diocese in accordance with the directives of the Second Vatican Council — namely, that the dioceses should correspond to actual human and civil communities. That is not the case in Israel.”
Father Jaeger, who is an Israeli citizen and a spokesman for the Franciscans who run the holy sites in Jerusalem and its environs, said the lack of a Hebrew-speaking diocese is an anomaly.
“[Israel is] the only nation in the world that comes to mind where the Church is not implanted,” he said. “It is the only nation where we do not have a single bishop who is able and willing to address the state and society in their own language and from within shared experience.”
Although the Vatican has diplomatic relations with Israel and is therefore able to negotiate diplomatic issues, Father Jaeger said, there is no local advocate for Israel's Hebrew-speaking Catholics.
No Boundaries
Father Jaeger, who is widely credited with being the principal drafter and lead negotiator of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel, said the Vatican is mulling over the Hebrew-Catholic issue. Its reluctance to create the diocese, he said, stems from the delicate nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“There are no agreed-upon boundaries,” Father Jaeger said of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. “The whole world recognizes [Israel's] pre-'67 boundaries, but Israel does not. The Church cannot prejudge the political issue.”
According to canon law, Father Jaeger said, a new diocese must have territorial boundaries. The only way to resolve the issue would be to create “a personal diocese based on culture and society,” he said. “This means that Palestinian Catholics in Israel [would] continue to be cared for by the patriarchal Diocese of Jerusalem,” even if a Hebrew-speaking diocese were eventually created.
In a press release rejecting the assertions in the America article, the community's leaders underscored that Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel have their own unique needs.
Community members, they said, are “integrated into Israeli society with all that this implies regarding mentality, culture, way of life.” This way of life is “different to Arab society. In the families taking root in Israel, the second generation speaks Hebrew. A structure is needed that is able to respond to these people's needs and expectations.”
While Hebrew Catholics “understand the suffering” of their Palestinian co-religionists, Father Battista, the community's pastor, said, “our social context is different. The young serve in the Israeli army; they have no choice. They are afraid of terrorist attacks. Their mentality and aspirations are different.”
Gadi Golan, head of the Religious Affairs Bureau in Israel's Foreign Ministry, told the Register the Israeli government “is not involved in this internal Church matter. There has never been a discussion on the topic between Israel and the Vatican.”
However, when pressed on whether Israel would welcome an independent diocese for its Hebrew-speaking Catholics, Golan answered in the affirmative.
“When people ask me, I say,’ Yes, I support this,’” he said. “The local community here has needs that are not being met by the patriarch.”
By way of example, Golan leafed through a book on his desk.
“This book is called The Jewish People and Its Holy Scriptures in the Christian Bible and it was published by the Pontifical Biblical Commission,” he said. “It has come out in Italian, French and English. When I asked the Vatican why it has not be translated into Hebrew, I was told,’ That's the responsibility of the local church.’”
“Michel Sabbah will never translate it into Hebrew,” Golan asserted.
The patriarchate declined to comment on the matter.
Golan insisted the patriarch is opposed to a separate Hebrew jurisdiction because he fears it will weaken his influence.
“Look at the demographics,” he said. “You have in Israel proper 150,000 Christians, most of them Arabs, but the number of non-Christian Arabs in Israel is growing all the time due to immigration. Then you have the Palestinian Authority, where the number of Christians is decreasing every year. It's obvious that the future of Catholicism in the Holy Land will be in Israel.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:A Motley Crew of Catholics
The paper noted that parochial schools now include those for immigrants of the Maronite, Melkite and Armenian Catholic rites alongside schools for Muslim, Greek, Jewish and Coptic children.
Brian Croke of the Catholic Education Commission pointed out that the schools demonstrated the “growing religious pluralism” of the region. Catholic school growth is strongest where immigration has landed the most people, producing areas in New South Wales where Catholics make up a strong majority of the population.
It has also created new ethnic enclaves. For instance, St. Hurmizd Assyrian School in Sydney opened in January 2002 with 86 pupils — the only Assyrian Christian school in modern history built outside the Middle East.
Many Assyrian Catholics have begun to flee their native Iraq in the wake of sanctions, war and growing Islamic extremism.
Likewise, Maronite Catholics have fled Lebanon in increasing numbers since that country's civil war of the 1970s and 1980s, swelling an ongoing exodus of Melkite and Armenian Catholics from the Holy Land and around the region.
Sink the ‘Lust Boat’!
BBC, June 23 — Polish customs officials June 22 boarded the Langenort, a renegade ship operated by Women on Waves, a Dutch pro-abortion group that had promised to smuggle abortifacient RU-486 pills into Poland. Protestors pelted the ship with eggs and red paint.
Malgorzata Wilkosz-Sliwa, spokesman for Polish prosecutors, said the Langenort's crew would not be in breach of Polish abortion laws so long as any pills remained on the ship.
“If no one tries to distribute [the pills], then there is no crime,” she told the British Broadcasting Corp.
Later, though, Polish officials fined the project 12,000 zloty ($3,150), saying the boat “breached procedures for entering the port and did not obey the orders of the port commander,” Life Site News reported June 25.
In Poland, unborn life is protected by law but with a number of exceptions for rape, incest, fetal defect and the “health” of the mother. Women on Waves has previously discussed distributing the abortion-inducing pills in Ireland but has not yet attempted to do so.
Ugandan Girls Abducted from Catholic School
REUTERS, June 25 — Thirty children from a Catholic girls school in northeastern Uganda were abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army rebel sect June 23, Reuters reported. Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu called for the rights of the children of northern Uganda to be protected.
The Lord's Resistance Army, led by a self-proclaimed prophet, wants the country to be governed according to the Ten Commandments. The group has abducted thousands of children over the course of a 17-year-long campaign in northern Uganda, using the boys for soldiers and the girls for concubines.
Independent Catholic News reported on June 17 that 15 refugee children between ages 7 and 15 were taken from a Catholic orphanage in Adjumani, Uganda.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Notre Dame Students Feel Faith Is Under Attack DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:“I don't think anyone here has it [the mandatum],” Notre Dame junior Daniel Rober said. “That's the presumption that I take when I look at the content of the course.”
Rober described the lower-level theology foundations courses as a “crapshoot.” He said he chooses courses carefully based upon the course description and talking with older students who have already taken the classes.
Theology student Brian MacMichael said it's worse for theology majors. “The vast majority of theology majors are very impressionable,” he said. “Most of them have a genuine interest in the field of theology but do not enter the discipline with a working knowledge of the Catholic faith. It's dangerous because they ask questions believing they are getting the right answers.”
Ironically, MacMichael said, the school crows about requiring theology courses, but those courses might actually undermine students ’ faith.
“There was a systematic attempt to undermine what the Church is teaching in the name of academic integrity,” said Father Brian Herlocker, a 2000 theology graduate from Notre Dame, describing his theology education at the school.
“We were supposed to look at all sides, but that isn't what happened,” said Father Herlocker, who is ordained in the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., and works at the Newman Foundation at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. “Instead, if we read Veritatis Splendor [The Splendor of Truth, Pope John Paul II's 1993 encyclical] at all it was to set it up as a straw man or to show how out of touch the Pope was.”
Samuel Vasquez, a 1999 theology graduate, agreed. “My Scripture classes were horrible,” he said, “particularly those taught by a Baptist professor. They gut the Scriptures of any transcendent aspects.”
Vasquez is currently enrolled in the Institute for Pastoral Theology at Ave Maria University.
Rober said he has been able to keep his faith at Notre Dame and he has hope for its future.
“It's possible to find the right answers,” Rober said, “especially among the young priests. Students should not be fearful that Notre Dame is a heterodox place. The more faithful who come here, the better it will get. You learn by having to fight for your faith.”
Father Herlocker also had praise for theology department chair John Cavadini.
“He [Cavadini] is working in a place that is deeply entrenched and he is trying to make the changes that are needed,” Father Herlocker said.
“Notre Dame will change,” Vasquez added, “but it will take a generation.”
— Tim Drake
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Encouraging Sodomy DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:We tend to think of Supreme Court decisions as watermarks showing the state of the culture. We oughtn't. The latest Supreme Court decisions don't tell us what society is like now. Rather, they paint a powerful picture of what America's future might look like.
That's because the law is a great teacher. If the law limited itself to being a definition of the boundaries we would set on our own, it would fail its purpose.
Laws against speeding, trespassing and pollution impose standards we wouldn't naturally make on our own. Left to our own devices, we'd drive 80 miles per hour, boat and fish in the reservoir, and not notice so much where we left our trash. But the law helps teach us important lessons: Watch out for others, be aware of property lines, respect the environment.
This is what's wrong with the Supreme Court's decision to decriminalize sodomy. If put to a vote, polls suggest that Americans would likely make the most extreme forms of sodomy illegal. That means that the Supreme Court isn't using its boundary-defining powers to accept sodomy — it's using its teaching power to encourage sodomy.
The court isn't saying, “I suppose you're right. Extreme forms of sodomy are okay.” It's saying, “Sodomy is a good thing. Reconsider it.”
While we're on the subject, if we thought of Supreme Court decisions as lessons about the culture, we might read the decision about allowing library pornography filters with a sigh of relief.
But look at Supreme Court decisions as signs of what behaviors elites want to encourage, and the relief disappears.
How relieving is it that the National Librarians Association and other powerful elites fought all the way to the highest court in the land to keep pornography available in public libraries? How relieving is it that a third of the Supreme Court saw no problem with allowing unrestricted access to pornography at the audio-visual station next to the story-time room?
Or leave children out of it for a moment. Why should pornography be allowed for anyone at allin a public library? Librarians have sued for sexual harassment because they were being forced by patrons to see pornography.
Of course libraries must block pornography. What's there for the Supreme Court of the United States to deliberate in that?
The problem is that Supreme Court decisions are self-fulfilling prophecies. Take abortion. It was repugnant to the vast majority of Americans before it was legalized. Now it's the most common surgical procedure performed on young women. What will happen now that the Supreme Court is teaching that sodomy is normal?
The court's majority opinion tsk-tsked that sodomy laws “seek to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals.”
It continued, in teaching language: “This, as a general rule, should counsel against attempts by the state, or a court, to define the meaning of the relationship or to set its boundaries absent injury to a person or abuse of an institution the law protects.”
In other words, in removing the boundary to sodomy, the Supreme Court taught that communities can't criminalize consensual sexual activity.
Really? Then what's to stop legal incest, adultery, polygamy, bigamy and prostitution? And how long will take for the full implications of that teaching to be realized?
It is not too hard to look down the road and see the Supreme Court recognizing that it shouldn't define the meaning of the marital relationship either.
Absent any serious movement to protect marriage, that's exactly what will happen. Then John Paul's prophetic words will haunt our currently complacent Catholic families: “Families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference” (Familiaris Consortio, No. 44).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Husbands, Wives and Discerning Family Size DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Dermott and Sue Mullan are to be commended for taking a stand for life in “A Catholic Dad on Openness to Life ... And His Wife's ’ Response’” (Commentary, June 15-21). As a father of three who hopes for more, and as an international promoter of the Church's teaching on sexuality, I certainly stand with them. Unfortunately their articles lack some important distinctions found in the Church's teaching on this subject.
Many people fail to grasp the profound distinction between natural family planning and contraception because they're bent on justifying contraception. But the Mullans also seem to confuse the distinction because of their concept of openness to life. Dermott even speaks of natural family planning as another form of contraception when he writes, “Couples who choose to contracept typically discuss methods, some moral, others immoral.” This is a grave misconception! Natural family planning is not “moral contraception.” It's not contraception at all. Contraception is the choice to defraud a given sexual act of its procreative potential. Couples who use natural family planning in accord with the Church's vision never defraud their sexual acts in this way.
Natural family planning can be morally acceptable not as an exception to the rule of “openness to life” but because, when used properly, it accords entirely with openness to life. Never does the couple using natural family planning “close” their sexual acts to the Lord and Giver of life. God remains God. Far from being just another “technique” of avoiding children, natural family planning fosters precisely those virtues that bring spouses into proper relationship with God and one another. This is certainly to be promoted — to the ends of the earth!
The Mullans repeatedly stress that avoiding children should only be temporary. In most cases, this is true. But this needs to be tempered with the Church's teaching that “for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law,” couples may “choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period” (Humanae Vitae, No. 10).
Sue relates that “human nature is quick to find excuses, so it's best to decide about family planning with the assistance of a competent spiritual adviser.” Couples who are selfishly avoiding children need a change of heart. If a spiritual adviser can help a couple experience this change of heart, great. But, as Vatican II wisely teaches, when it comes to deciding family size, the “parents themselves and no one else should ultimately make this judgment in the sight of God” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 50). And Pope John Paul II emphasizes in his theology of the body that this point is “of particular importance to determine ... the moral character of’ responsible parenthood’” (Aug. 1, 1984).
Confusion abounds regarding the Church's teaching on openness to life. Those who want to be faithful to the Church's teaching often suffer when it's not accurately explained and presented.
CHRISTOPHER WEST
Denver
The writer is lecturer in sexual ethics at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary.
Great Issue
First, I submit a comment on “Who Teaches With the Church? Georgetown Won't Tell Parents” (June 15-21). I left a Catholic college in the 1980s with a cum laude degree and a lot of questions about the Church. Having matured and read more about my religion since then, I now treasure the answers I found about the all-male priesthood and the Pope's authority, despite my “Catholic” college experience.
Second, I thank the editor and staff of the Register for the wonderful balance throughout the June 15-21 edition. Our Pope was quoted on the “genius” of women ("Croatia Needs Women's ‘Genius’ to Survive, Pope Says") and, in balance, Barb Ernster wrote an uplifting piece that acknowledges the unique importance of men ("Moving Men Into Catholic Men's Movements,” Prolife Profile).
Finally, Dermott and Sue Mullan both dared to write the plain truth in an amazing and insightful commentary ("A Catholic Dad on Openness to Life ... And His Wife's’ Response’”). Wow. This subject material is simply not addressed anywhere else. How amazing it is to belong to a Church that values the different gifts of men and women. Thank you for the content and the balance.
ROSANNE WILLIAMS
Howard, Pennsylvania
A Baby, Not a Body Part
Regarding “Child as Body Part? Neither Side Likes Court Ruling” (May 25-31):
Our rosary group meets once a week before the Blessed Sacrament to pray. We were all upset by the thought that, even in the distinct circumstance of this one ruling, babies could be seen as less than full human beings.
We support each life from conception to natural death with our Pope John Paul II. We look forward to the coming actions of courts in our beloved country that will remove abortion from the United States of America. Eventually, we hope that all mothers will receive love and care from each one of us. No one of us stands alone. Support and love are needed by all.
Let our country, our churches, our medical communities and our relief organizations all give support to each expectant mother, regardless of age, religion or race. We must continue to help her after the birth with counseling, opportunities for adoption or facilities that allow her to keep her baby. Let us work together to make all these options, which are available now, well-known to those in need of their services.
C. JEANETTE TANGEMAN
Luvern, Minnesota
When Is a Soul?
The discussion of embryonic ensoulment in your June1-7 Letters section strikes to the heart of the pro-life/pro-abortion argument. I would argue that even the most superficial analysis will show that the human embryo is a person, total and complete and, yes, even ensouled.
Science is the study of the creative mind of the Lord. God is so interwoven with the nature of science that to try to separate the two ends in false conclusions and politically guided untruths like the pro-abortion lie that the embryo isn't human or the misguided idea that personhood takes place at some time other than conception.
Most of the arguments that we have seen against immediate ensoulment predate our understanding of genetics. This branch of science has shown us that our individuality on a structural level clearly takes place at conception. With the exception of a few mutational changes, you are the same person genetically as when you were conceived. The fact that we come from two human parents is what makes us human. We come into existence as an individual at the time the two gametes fuse. There is no other individual exactly like you from that point on. I'm sure that, had Aquinas had this knowledge, there would be little doubt that he would agree with immediate ensoulment.
Human development begins at the moment of conception and ends with natural death. It seems clear to me that ensoulment follows suit. To be human is to have a soul, and to have a soul is to be human. To say that human life begins without a soul is contradictory and is contrary to the example of the conception of Christ.
BEVERLY ANN THEWES
JEFFERY THEWES
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
School's Out
While we enjoyed your editorial “Why Home School?” (June 8-14), we fear that you failed to tell the whole truth about why so many Catholic parents are choosing to home school their children.
A few years ago, when we were living in Oakland, Calif., our family and other Catholics learned the hard way why we could not trust the local parochial schools. Not only was the Catholic faith being watered down, but the so-called “Family Life” education was almost pornographic in its content. Along with other concerned parents, we voiced our concerns to the principal, a nun. She told us that, if we do not like the way she runs the school, then we should go elsewhere.
When we met with our weak pastor, he told us that he would not interfere. We attempted to meet with the local bishop. He branded these concerned Catholic parents “troublemakers” and would not meet with us.
A few years later, we had the opportunity to speak to high-school students at Bishop O'Dowd in Oakland. At this “Catholic” high school we were booed when we told their students that abortion, adultery and homosexuality are wrong and contrary to official Church teaching. The students informed us that their teachers taught them that no one has the right to say what is wrong or right, that each person decides for himself. So much for costly Catholic education. It's past time that lukewarm Catholics wake up and check what's being taught to their children [in the name of the Church].
While your editorial presents a rosy picture of parochial schools, that is not the case. If it were so, Catholics would not for the most part home school their children, or build new independent Catholic schools, which unlike many parochial schools do not water down our faith and the teachings of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that Jesus established.
MR. & MRS. CONSTANTINO SANTOS
Atarcadero, California
Second Opinion on St. Mary's
The article “Ave Maria Pulls out of St. Mary's in Michigan” (June 22-28), may have confused your readers about the continuation of the Catholic Integrated Core Curriculum. Early in the piece, Sister Rose Marie Kujawa, President of Madonna University, indicates accurately that the Catholic Integrated Core Curriculum will continue. Later, as a student is quoted (inaccurately) to indicate that “the teachers who have a heart for it won't be there.”The discrepancy between these statements is confusing.
Let me state the facts clearly:
First, the CICC will continue in the same way that it was planned to, with minor alterations that would have been made anyway. The CICC is designed to achieve the aims set forward by Pope John Paul II in Fides et Ratio. The curriculum is integrated in itself: All of the courses are ordered to help the students achieve a unified, Catholic vision of human life, private and professional, guided by faith and reason. It is further integrated with programs in student life and campus ministry designed to deepen the students’ faith and charity.
Second, though some professors are leaving, five remain — all deeply committed Catholics, all devoted to the Pope's vision, all determined to build this program, which they see as a contribution toward righting the confusion in Catholic higher education. We do have the heart for it.
Third, Sister Rose Marie and the other administrators at Madonna University have acted throughout this process with great patience and charity. Madonna will provide a stable and well-managed context within which the St. Mary's Core can grow.
The distorted picture presented in the article would have been righted if your reporter had presented the information given to him by Dr. John Hittinger (the dean who designed the program) and by me. The reporter interviewed both of us — but quoted neither.
THOMAS F. WOODS
Ann Arbor, Michigan
The writer is a coordinator of St. Mary's Core Curriculum.
Attention, Register Associates
Join Register publisher Father Owen Kearns, LC, along with other Register supporters for a luncheon at 1 pm July 19 in Chicago at Navy Pier on beautiful Lake Michigan.
Father Kearns will discuss the mission of the Register and its role in the New Evangelization, with time for questions and answers.
Donation for the lunch is $50. Contact Michael Lambert for further information and reservations at mlambert@circlemedia.com or (203) 230-3805.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: C.S. Lewis Finds Irish Catholics In Outer Space DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Well, according to C.S. Lewis’ “space trilogy” — Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength — there are.
Indeed, in Out of the Silent Planet, we learn that Earth is unique not for having intelligent life but because it is the battleground — “the Ypres Salient” — of the universe. Earth is where Satan rebelled, where Satan is bound and where God fights him.
In Out of the Silent Planet, Professor Ransom, a philologist (based on J.R.R. Tolkien) is taken hostage by an ambitious, progressive, social-Darwinist physicist named Weston — a man so advanced in his field that he is able to create (secretly) the first interplanetary spacecraft (in the 1930s). Financing Weston's explorations of Mars (or Malacandra, as it is known to the natives) is an amoral main-chancer named Devine. For Mars is rich with gold.
Mars’ leader has requested an Earthman be brought to him. As Weston and Devine assume he wants a human for a blood sacrifice or some other primitive barbarity, they try to bring a retarded boy with them. And when that fails, they bring Ransom.
On Mars, Ransom escapes and is befriended by mammalian creatures (with heads somewhat like seals) known as hrossa. The hrossa practice traditional Christian — that is, Catholic — sexual morality. They are naturally monogamous and continent, limiting intercourse to a certain period of their lives, specifically for the purpose of raising a family of cubs.
Ransom learns to love the hrossa, but one might also reasonably suspect that Lewis, as an Ulsterman, has them in mind as Catholics for another reason. A sorn —the intellectual class of ascetic nonflying bird-men — tells him, “The hrossa know nothing except about poems and fish and making things grow out of the ground.”
The hrossa, in other words, are rather southernIrish: balladeers, fishermen, potato farmers.
When the hrossa send Ransom on a short, dangerous trail rather than on a safer longer one, the sorn comments: “If you had died ... they would have made a poem about the gallant hmân[human] and how the sky grew black and the cold stars shone and he journeyed on and journeyed on; and they would have put in a fine speech for you to say as you were dying ... and all this would seem to them just as good as if they had used a little fore-thought and saved your life by sending you the easier way round.”
In other words, take an Ulsterman for practicality; take a southern Irishman for poetry, especially of a sad, heroic kind.
Morality cannot be separated from or made subordinate to science. Morality is reality — the reality of the divine order in action.
But to an hrossa Catholic or a sorn conservative Church of Englander or Irelander, the divine nature of the universe and of life is a universally understood truth. As such, all Martians are well aware — they can see and hear — the angels (known as eldila) that hover everywhere on the planet. And Mars is ruled by a sort of archangel.
This is the divine constitution; the way things were meant to be. It is because Earth lacks it — and we lack it because our archangel rebelled against God — that we suffer from war, prostitution, slavery and sin. As one sorn notes, “There must be rule, yet how can creatures rule themselves? Beasts must be ruled by hnau[thinking beings] and hnau by eldila and eldila by Maleldil [God]. These creatures have no eldila.They are like one trying to lift himself by his own hair — or one trying to see over a whole country when he is on a level with it — like a female trying to beget young on herself.”
It would not surprise Ransom — or Lewis — that this last impossibility is something that science has as an objective (and has, to practical purposes, achieved). Because this is one of the lessons of Out of the Silent Planet: morality cannot be separated from or made subordinate to science. Morality is reality — the reality of the divine order in action.
Without that understanding, science becomes evil.
Written as it was just before the outbreak of World War II, Out of the Silent Planetdraws some sobering and profound conclusions. Perhaps they are less obvious now to many people because progress and science no longer travel beneath the steel of the national socialists. But this is another trend that Lewis expected.
Personally, I do not gravitate to science fiction or fantasy literature — learning new interplanetary bestiaries taxes my very earthbound patience — but if you want science fiction for a mature mind, try Out of the Silent Planet.
It offers plenty to think about and is done with real art. Perhaps in later columns we might touch on Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, for they have their important lessons, too.
H.W. Crocker III is the author most recently of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. His prize-winning comic novel The Old Limey and his book Robert E.
Lee on Leadership are available in paperback.
----- EXCERPT: Are there Christians on other planets? ----- EXTENDED BODY: H.W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Hunting Superman DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:“Primo posthuman — the 3M+ edition — more comfort, better performance, lower price,” touts the advertisement. The primo posthuman is ageless, has replaceable genes, allows for various upgrades, contains an error-detection device, will run multiple viewpoints simultaneously. It is impervious to environmental damage, sports a “metabrain” and enhanced senses, and even includes gender changeability.
As of 2003, the primo posthuman is still on the drawing board, but given the rate of scientific advancement in nanotechnology, biotechnology and genetic engineering, proponents of transhumanism expect it to be a reality sometime within the next 50 years.
“What exactly is a posthuman?” you well ask. “Some kind of robot?”
No. It is the envisioned transformation of human nature by technology — not technology outside the body but a high-tech fusion of man and machine. This fusion, transhumanist advocates argue, will bring about the final phase of evolution, an eclipse of humanity and the dawning of a posthuman engineered techno-paradise.
We might be inclined to dismiss transhumanist devotees as yet another science fiction-induced group of harmless mooncalves, destined merely to play out their impotent, self-absorbed fantasies in Internet chat rooms, reechy out-of-the-way bars and occasional sparsely-attended conferences.
That would be a mistake. As will soon become apparent, we should be taking transhumanism with the utmost seriousness, a seriousness with which one prepares (to borrow from C.S. Lewis) for the Last Battle. To understand this urgency, we must look at the past, present and future of the movement.
Demise of Human Nature
Transhumanists believe they are heirs to Charles Darwin but claim to do him one better. According to Darwin, all species, including the human species, are the result of natural selection acting upon random variations in individuals.
In his famous Origin of Species, published in 1859, Darwin noted that domestic animal breeders were able to select for desired traits artificially and direct the transformation of cattle, pigeons, horses and dogs, creating all kinds of interesting new domestic species within a relatively short time.
Couldn't this same kind of rational, artificial breeding be applied to human beings?
Fearing public opinion, Darwin did not openly advocate the controlled breeding of human beings until the publication of his Descent of Man in 1871. By that time, his cousin, Francis Galton, had already coined the term “eugenics” to describe “the science of improving stock ... especially in the case of man,” a science that would “give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had.”
For Darwin, Galton and the rest of the eugenics movement, the point of eugenics was to remove the production and maintenance of human nature from the hands of chance. The blind forces of evolution had given us a good start, but to progress yet further we would have to take evolution into our own hands.
For Darwin, that meant we must “prevent the reckless, the vicious and otherwise inferior members of society from increasing at a quicker rate than the better class of men ...” because progress “depends on an increase ... on the number of men endowed with high intellectual and moral faculties.”
Thus we have the birth of two defining aspects of the transhumanist movement in Darwinism. First, human nature is not a cosmic given but represents a particular phase of continuing evolutionary transformation. Second, while human beings might through their own negligence sink lower on the scale of evolution, they could, through their own eugenic diligence, climb even higher, transcending the current givens of human nature.
Transhumanists believe they are heirs to Charles Darwin but claim to do him one better.
Techno-Eugenics
For transhumanists, a “new and radically different chapter of evolution is about to begin,” a “burst of self-directed hyper-evolution” where “we must leave the flesh and most of its evolved habits behind.” This will not be achieved by mere old-fashioned selected breeding but through enlightened self-fabrication. Further evolution entails “becoming one with our technologies, guided by our rational desire to become like our finest imaginary gods: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent.”
These are the aspirations of the movement, according to a transtopian Web site, transtopianism being one brand of the larger transhumanist movement. If such misplaced desires were confined to a few places on the Internet, we would have no reason to fear. But such is not the case. Transhumanism has proponents in much higher and more powerful places.
Just this June, in fact, there was a large conference at Yale University. “The Adaptable Human Body: Transhumanism and Bioethics in the 21st Century” was co-sponsored by the Yale interdisciplinary bioethics program's working group on artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and transhumanism. The conference speakers included a long list of Ph.D.s from prestigious institutions all over America, almost all of whom were outspoken advocates of the technical transformation of human nature.
For example, there was Gregory Stock, Ph.D., director of the program on medicine, technology and society at the University of California at Los Angeles’ School of Public Health and author of Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future, Engineering The Human Germline and Metaman. Another was Gregory Pence, Ph.D., from the philosophy department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who testified in support of cloning before Congress in March 2001. Pence is the author of Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?and Brave New Bioethics.
Steering the conference was Nick Bostrom, Ph.D., co-founder of World Transhumanist Association, who taught at Yale but has since moved on to Oxford to become a British Academy postdoctoral fellow and a member of the philosophy faculty. The list goes on, and the lesson is that transhumanism has friends in high academic places.
But not just in academia. Transhumanist aspirations depend on the latest technology as applied to the human body, especially in the area of medicine. Thus, its goals are entwined with all the advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, genetic engineering and cloning. Indeed, in all too many cases, transhumanism is simply the explicit and refined form of the implicit philosophy of those who work in these areas.
These areas are well-funded, to say the least, and the transhumanist movement will grow as the technical advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, genetic engineering and cloning grow.
The Last Battle
Because of the inevitable growth of technology directly and indirectly applicable to transhumanist goals, Christians must prepare themselves for direct and continual attack — and not just from transhumanists. The majority of people in the technologically advanced nations happily embrace all the latest comfort- and pleasure-producing paraphernalia and look to medicine to reduce or eliminate all suffering and extend life spans indefinitely.
Transhumanists promise all this and more — “paradise engineering,” a world voided of pain and saturated with technologically enhanced physical pleasures. According to David Pearce, co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and head of BLTC Research (a transhumanist research and development company), “third-millennium bioscience allows us to rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem [and] deliver genetically preprogrammed well-being.”
The envisioned transtopia promises a hedonist heaven on earth and, indeed, is driven by a self-proclaimed “hedonist imperative” that strives to eradicate completely “the biological substrates of suffering.” Since transhumanists believe all suffering is biological in origin, the triumph of their doctrines will mean that “physical’ and 'mental’ pain alike are destined to disappear into evolutionary history,” including the phasing out of the “biochemistry of everyday discontents.”
In place of merely natural human beings, “matter and energy will be sculpted into perpetually life-loving super-beings,” whose “states of mind are likely to be incomprehensibly diverse by comparison with today"; yet, in such diversity, “all will share at least one common feature: a sublime and all-pervasive happiness.”
Needless to say, transhumanists are atheists and adamantly reject the pestiferous Christian belief in otherworldly happiness and the doctrinal belief in the necessity for suffering in union with Christ to ensure entrance into a heaven not of this world. Equally obvious, in contrast to Christianity, the only acceptable Eden is encased in hedonism.
As has already become clear in regard to genetic engineering and cloning, the battle line between Christians and transhumanists will be drawn, ultimately, upon one question: Is there such a thing as human nature or is “human nature” merely a passing phase in evolutionary history, one which we must transcend for our own well-being?
The battle will occur at every level of public debate and upon every conceivable issue, between those who regard human beings as made in the image of God and those who believe “we must evolve ... by literally becoming one with our technologies, guided by our rational desire to become like our finest imaginary gods: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent.”
To become like gods. Now doesn't that sound like a familiar promissssss?
Benjamin Wiker writes from Steubenville, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: From Darwinism to Transhumanism ----- EXTENDED BODY: Benjamin Wiker ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Courageous: Pryor Faces Schumer DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Alabama Attorney General William Pryor can take comfort in the beatitude "blessed are the persecuted" these days.
And he'd better. He has found little else in the U.S. Senate.
His nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals continues to be mired by Senate Democrats. His nomination's fate is uncertain, but, in the end, the man looks to be on his way to excellent eternal standing — if public witness under fire gets brownie points at the pearly gates. And, when it comes to the things of this world, if he loses his current fight, it will not be because he did not put up a fight and perform near flawlessly.
When Pryor sat at the hearing table in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 11, the Senate Democrats, who have heretofore faced principled but somewhat demure judicial nominees, had no idea what they were up against.
They came prepared, mind you. Their strategy: demonize the nominee on abortion, homosexuality and partisan politics. Make him look like an extremist, and make sure they know he is a papist.
Bill Pryor, a Catholic pro-life father and husband, is a public official with a public record that shows he's no fan of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in America. He has called Roe “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.”
Senate Democrats had stalled plenty of pro-life nominations previously. They stopped Texas Supreme Court judge Priscilla Owen because she ruled in favor of an abortion parental-notification statute. They stopped Miguel Estrada, who was up for a seat on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and is pro-life, like most Hispanics — which means he's out.
Naturally, they weren't going to overlook Pryor's line about the “abomination.” Surely he would take it back, they must have thought.
Well, he didn't. Nor did he soften it. He told it like it is. “Do you believe that now?” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Pryor.
“I do,” Pryor replied. In shock, Schumer thanked Pryor for his “candor.”
It didn't end there, however. Pryor later told the committee:
“I believe that not only is [Roe] unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution, but it has [also] led to a morally wrong result. It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children.”
He has also said he “will never forget Jan. 22, 1973 [the day of the Roe decision], the day seven members of our highest court ripped up the Constitution” and that the Supreme Court had created “out of thin air a constitutional right to murder an unborn child.”
No one at this point was going to drop this line of questioning. One of the senators on his side asked Pryor to clarify the statement, “I believe that abortion is the taking of human life.” He answered, “I believe that abortion is morally wrong.”
That's probably the last thing anyone watching the hearing would have expected to hear from the nominee — from any nominee.
And it got more contentious — and ridiculous, if that was possible.
Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., trying to demonize Pryor as a hater of gay people, asked: “News accounts also report that you even went so far as to reschedule a family vacation at Disney World in order to avoid Gay Day. In light of this record, can you understand why a gay plaintiff or defendant would feel uncomfortable coming before you as a judge?”
Pryor answered, “As far as my family vacation is concerned, my wife and I had two daughters who at the time of that vacation were 6 and 4, and we made a value judgment. And that was our personal decision.”
The exchange continued:
Feingold: “Well, I certainly respect going to Disney World with two daughters. I've done the same thing. But are you saying that you actually made that decision on purpose to be away at the time of that?”
Pryor: “We made a value judgment and changed our plan and went another weekend.
Feingold: “Well, I — I appreciate your candor on that.”
As if to confirm what the hearing was all about, Schumer told the committee, “[Pryor's] beliefs are so deeply held that it's very difficult to believe those views won't influence how he follows the law. A person's views matter.”
He said to Pryor, “Your record screams passionate advocate but does-n't so much as whisper judge.”
The fact of the matter is that Pryor is a well-respected lawyer. He's proved himself as dutiful, willing to uphold the law even when he disagrees with it. As attorney general he told state district attorneys to take “the narrowest construction available” when dealing with the state's partial-birth-abortion law, following Supreme Court precedent.
So what is wrong with Pryor? Schumer told us. And it raises the question: Can a pro-life Catholic survive a Senate confirmation process? Would one ever survive a Supreme Court confirmation? Are we even fit for public office?
Pryor meanwhile waits to be granted the imprimatur of the Senate Judiciary Committee. When Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked the Alabama attorney general what his religion is, Catholics especially should have stood at attention.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor ofNational Review Online and an associate editor of National Review.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:When I was young and unmarried, I dreamt of having a daughter some day.
My fantasy was a vague jumble of jump rope, lace-collared dresses, hair ribbons and tea parties. I envisioned a little girl who wore braided pigtails and patent leather Mary Janes. Years later, when the doctor announced I had given birth to a girl, I felt unsure about many things, but fairly confident that at least I was entering familiar territory. After all, I was a little girl once. I knew what little girls were all about.
I am not sure exactly when reality checked my fantasy. Perhaps it was 18 months later, when Kateri, my tow-headed toddler, discovered grasshoppers. I was working in the garden when she returned from exploring the front lawn and presented me with fists full of the hapless creatures, their bodies crumpled and oozing from the clutches of her fat little fingers.
“Ook, Mama!’ Ook!’ Ook!” she exclaimed. I shrieked, shook the grasshopper parts from her hands and rushed her into the house for a good scrubbing at the bathroom sink. Kateri was undaunted. All that summer she continued to collect grasshoppers — as well as ants, beetles, moths and spiders.
I didn't give up the idea, however, that my daughter would become the kind of little girl I once was. For her birthday, I searched toy stores and catalogs until I found the perfect doll, dressed in delicate floral pajamas. At first, Kateri humored me. She fed the doll a bottle and changed its diaper. It wasn't long, though, before she put the baby down for an extended nap. She put one of its dresses on a giant rubber grasshopper, her favorite birthday present, and soon “Hoppy” was accompanying us on every outing to the grocery store while the doll lay forgotten in her bassinet.
It's not that Kateri and I have nothing in common. We do share a passion for chocolate cake and I am embarrassed to admit how often I hear my own voice in hers as she scolds her younger siblings. Countless times in the eight years since her birth, though, I have gazed at her with wonder. I am amazed to have a daughter who sports a backward baseball cap and roots for the St. Louis Rams with fierce emotion.
The ways in which our children surprise us, I now realize, can be a wonderful gift. Our kids invite us to explore worlds we would never venture into on our own. They challenge assumptions we didn't even know we were making. Through our children, God teaches us to truly love people whose basic makeup is vastly different from our own. And Catholic parents don't have to look far to see why Pope John Paul II has so insistently applied Matthew 5:13-14 to the young people of the Church: “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.”
These days, Kateri has no time for tea parties, and fancy buckle shoes would only cramp her style. Early in the morning, she dons a pair of rubber boots and heads outdoors to explore the marshy edges of our property. She wades through thick mud and murky puddles, carrying a metal pail that she fills with frogs, newts, salamanders and beetles. Sometimes she captures a garter snake and races home to show me her prize.
“Look!” she cries in breathless excitement as I back away from the wriggling reptile in her hands.
Her freckled nose is smudged with mud. Uncombed hair wildly frames her exuberant face. This little girl is no cookie-cutter, miniature version of myself. She never will be. She is unabashedly, irrepressibly, undeniably herself. In other words, she is exactly what a little girl should be.
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: Sugar and Spice? Please ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Travell -------- TITLE: Holy House in the High Desert DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:In the spring of 1900, a man named Jim Butler found silver in Tonopah, Nev. It was one of the biggest silver strikes ever made in that part of the country.
As it happened, the area's Catholic priest — its first Catholic priest — was also named Jim Butler. The two were not related, but that probably didn't stop some locals from scratching their heads in wonder over the possibility of a priest-prospector.
At the time the silver strike occurred, Father Butler was serving a parish in the tiny town of Austin, Nev., about 100 miles north of Tonopah. Upon hearing of the discovery, many of his people headed south to look for work in the newly opened mines.
Father Butler was right behind, seeing to their spiritual needs and, in 1902, helping to establish St. Patrick's Catholic Church. Over the next few years the mining tapered off; with it went many of Father Butler's parishioners.
The original edifice built by that first group, made up largely of Irish immigrants, lasted until 1966. A wooden structure, it burned to the ground in that year. About a year later, the rectory was also destroyed by fire. The time had come to build a new church and rectory in Tonopah.
The parish had been run by diocesan priests except for in the 1970s, when a Jesuit served as pastor for about four years. The present pastor is also a Jesuit and a retired psychology professor from the University of San Francisco.
The parish is part of the Diocese of Las Vegas. On March 17, 2002 — the feast of St. Patrick — the parish celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding. Las Vegas Bishop Joseph Pepe celebrated the anniversary Mass.
On the St. Patrick Church grounds is a mounted church bell from the original church. Fifth-graders in the parish religious education program ring it before Sunday Mass. Sitting atop the church is a large, neon cross. It's never turned off. Thanks to the church's position on a hill, the cross can be seen for miles.
Two Bishops Grew Here
Inside, St. Patrick's is resplendent in warm woodwork that creates a soothing, rustic ambience. The ceiling is rich walnut; it matches the lighter hue of the walnut pews below and compliments the soft white walls.
As parishioners enter St. Patrick's from the front door, they are reminded that their patron inter-cedes for them — an icon of his image watches over the church from the rear.
In addition, above and behind the altar, again with a background of walnut paneling, is a large portrait of the greatest of all Irish saints. It was given to the parish by now-retired Bishop Norman McFarland.
Each St. Patrick's Day, the church holds a special liturgy, followed by a major celebration for which most of the town turns out.
And inside the church is a special plaque celebrating the fact that, surprisingly enough, two bishops have come out of the small St. Patrick's Parish in Tonopah. Both men were born and raised in town and were parishioners of this church. Perhaps that bit of history goes to show that the grace of God falls where it will — including on a little mining town in the middle of a desert. The plaque reads:
Most Rev. Thomas J. Connolly, Bishop of Baker in Oregon.
Most Rev. William R. Johnson, First Bishop of Orange in California.
“They Got Their Start In Tonopah.”
Words and Music
Two bishops from this one, small church — that certainly impressed this Catholic traveler. But I was equally taken with the extraordinary faith of St. Patrick's present parishioners.
I'm not sure what I expected to find in these remote parts, involvement-wise, but I was struck by the devotion and participation I saw. For example, it turns out the people of St. Patrick's of Tonopah love doctrinal instruction, giving their priests the feeling that they are truly filling a need. According to the present pastor, Jesuit Father James McCauley, who has been a classroom professor much of his adult life, a weekly lecture series on Church teachings has proved popular.
The small parish is big on music, too. Recently Father McCauley invited a four-member Gregorian choir from San Francisco — they call themselves Schola Gregoriana — to sing traditional Gregorian music at one of the weekend Masses.
The parishioners, says Father McCauley, were delighted. They appreciated the opportunity to hear Gregorian singing and expressed how moved they were by it. As a result, the pastor plans to incorporate more Gregorian singing into future liturgies.
These are days of feast and festivity for St. Patrick's, no doubt about that. But it hasn't always been so: The parishioners here have persevered through some long stretches of time when no priest was available to them.
The word Tonopah is said to be a Native American term for “scarce water.” That seems fitting for the parish of St. Patrick's. For the more scarce the water, the more it's appreciated when it is available in abundance. And the times when the drought looks like it may go on forever can be providential opportunities to learn to trust in God.
As the people of St. Patrick's have shown for more than a century now, three things will always endure for those who trust in the Lord — faith, hope and love.
Joseph Albino writes from Syracuse, New York.
----- EXCERPT: St. Patrick's Church, Tonopah, Nevada ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joeseph Albino ----- KEYWORDS: Travell -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:THE HULK (Universal) Director: Ang Lee. Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliot. (PG-13)
Take One: Crouching Tiger director Lee brings his poetic sensibilities to the comic-book story of Bruce Banner and his big, green, gamma-ray-induced alter ego.
Take Two: Deliberate pacing, psychological drama and a somewhat head-scratching climax may bewilder action fans expecting a Godzilla -style action-fest.
Final Take: The sometimes-cartoony Hulk is no Gollum (now the standard in lifelike computer-generated imagery), but Lee's film is the most thoughtful and one of the most interesting of comic-book movies.
EMMA (Warner Bros) Director: Rob Reiner. Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, Sophie Marceau. (PG-13)
Take One: Romantic-comedy vehicle shuttles between two plots, one involving a novelist (Wilson) and a stenographer (Hudson), the other involving characters in the novel he's writing.
Take Two: The big problem: Neither set of romantic entanglements is actually romantic, and neither set of characters is interesting. Nonmarital affairs in both story-lines include a bedroom scene played for laughs.
Final Take: Another misfire from the once-reliable Reiner, Alex and Emma is occasionally amusing but never makes you care.
FINDING NEMO (Pixar) Director: Andrew Stanton. Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould. (G)
Take One: The makers of Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. focus for the first time on the parent-child relationship with a funny, heartfelt tale of a young clownfish (Gould) who is separated in the sea from his loving, though overprotective, father (Brooks).
Take Two: Caveats for parents of younger kids include the fact that Nemo loses his mother before he's even hatched, and constant white-knuckle excitement includes a scary scene with a shark.
Final Take: Another home run for Pixar, Finding Nemo is the studio's most emotionally affecting film to date — it made this dad cry — and the lavishly detailed animation raises the bar yet again.
RUGRATS GO WILD
(Nick/Paramount) Directors: John Eng, Norton Virgien. E.G. Daily, Christine Cavanaugh. (PG)
Take One: Cable-TV Nickel-odeon franchises collide as the Rugrats (in their third film) meet the Wild Thornberrys (in their second film).
Take Two: Lacking much in the way of either plot or character development, the lightweight film's main draw is its juxtaposition of cartoon casts, which allows for some enjoyable pairings.
Final Take: Basically harmless fun for fans of the two series.
HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE
(Columbia) Director: Ron Shelton. Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Lena Olin. (PG-13)
Take One: Ford and Hartnett play homicide detectives who moonlight in other fields when not pursuing a rap-world murder.
Take Two: Inept film systematically fails as police procedural, murder mystery, buddy picture and action-comedy — and is unpleasantly blasé about human life. Hartnett sleeps with anonymous beauties whose names he can't remember; Ford's thrice-divorced and having an affair.
Final Take: Perhaps the lowest point yet in actor Harrison Ford's sagging, post-Fugitive career.
Steven D. Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from Bloomfield, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: A Register's-eye view of five current box-office leaders ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Spotlight: Watching silent films with children DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Recently I watched a century-old film with my three older children (ages 8, 5 and 2). Actually, parts of the film are more than a century old, dating to 1902; other scenes were added in 1905 (see Video/DVD Picks, The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ , below).
For many mainstream movie-watchers, silent movies represent an inaccessible world into which only film experts and historians dare to tread. But children, as C.S. Lewis once noted in an interview, are “so terribly catholic” — so uncritically open to everything, from mind-numbing sing-along songs to Gregorian chant, from the crudest cartoons to the high-mindedness of Fantasia, from Barbie costume jewelry to rosary beads and holy medals.
The open-mindedness of the young obviously imposes a huge responsibility on parents to watch what their children are exposed to.
On the other hand, it also represents a tremendous opportunity to expose children to valuable and worthwhile experiences that for many of their peers will be lost, possibly forever, by the time they are teen-agers.
My children know the stories of Jesus’ life, and they loved noting details in the century-old tableaux of the 1905 Passion — the unobtrusive word that Mary speaks to Jesus before he turns the water to wine, the rooster that flaps into the lower left-hand corner of the screen after Peter's denials, the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’ clothes during the crucifixion.
Because the film is silent, we were able to discuss the film freely as we watched it. And so, with Papa's guidance, we provided our own impromptu commentary track. The 8-year-old read the title cards for the other two. Even the 2-year-old watched attentively.
The 1905 Passion isn't the only silent film I've watched with my kids. They've also seen a couple of Douglas Fairbanks actioners, some Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton comedies and another early Gospel film.
With the possible exception of The Miracle Maker , I know of no life-of-Christ film that makes for more accessible and inspirational viewing for children (or rather, with children) than the 1905 Passion . Its stagy production values, exaggerated acting style and sometimes symbolic storytelling pose no obstacles to the youngest viewers. It's a pity more adults aren't able to approach such films on their own terms.
— Steven D. Greydanus
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Final Solution (2002)
From Christian production house Messenger Films, here's a well-done drama that tells a true story of hatred, persecution and redemption in 1993 South Africa. An integrated prayer service becomes the setting for an impromptu truth-and-reconciliation session when a vicious Afrikaner terrorist stumbles into the church seeking for sanctuary from pursuers.
The film tells the true story of a reformed white supremacist named Gerrit Wolfaardt (Jan Ellis), who is indoctrinated from youth in the belief that God's election passed from the Jewish people to the South African whites and that the black Africans were cursed by God.
Final Solution depicts Gerrit's conversion, but it doesn't forget his victims. Gerrit might have found peace with God, but it isn't all about him — a point the film drives home at just the right moment. The film's use of violence is direct and uncompromising, and while the film's R rating isn't unwarranted, parents and teachers shouldn't be put off from showing this worthwhile film to teens. It's an earnest, well-made film with a message that deserves to be heard.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982)
E.T. has been called everything from “the story of a boy and his dog” to “ Close Encounters for kids,” but its blend of wonder, poignancy, humor and innocence is unique.
Unlike Close Encounters, E.T. doesn't overwhelm with gee-whiz effects. The pace is slow, the story intimate and human-scaled.
The family life of young Elliot (Henry Thomas), who has been abandoned by his father and raised by his hardworking mother, is depicted affectionately but not idyllically.
Steven Spielberg shows the chaos and the rough edges of life in a broken family, but Elliot's mother (Dee Wallace) is lovingly and sympathetically portrayed.
The film includes a clear element of religious symbolism. Like Jesus, E.T. comes from above and possesses miraculous powers, including a healing touch, and his glowing heart evokes the Divine Mercy image of Our Lord.
He undergoes a passion, death, resurrection and ascension into the heavens.
E.T. doesn't make a religious statement, but like Close Encounters it evokes hope that we are not alone and that whatever is out there is on our side.
Parents should note that for a family-themed film, the language is salty at times.
The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ (1905)
A Vatican film list honoree in the category of religion, this long-unavailable silent film has recently been released on DVD with another very early Jesus film, From the Manger to the Cross (1912).
The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ is a remarkable relic from the very dawn of cinema.
Popular for decades after its release, the film portrays the events of the Gospel story in short, pageant-like vignettes with simple early special effects, introduced by simple title cards such as “The Annunciation” or “The Ascension.” There are no dialogue intertitles; as with traditional sacred art, viewers are expected to know the stories, and no effort is made to clarify for the uninitiated.
Catholic tradition is reflected in certain scenes, as when Veronica wipes the face of Christ and finds the Holy Face on the cloth.
Other scenes depict folk versions of Gospel stories: The Magi show up along with the shepherds at the Nativity, St. Michael the Archangel guards the Holy Family on the road to Egypt by blinding Herod's guards to their presence and the miraculous catch of fishes is combined with the walking on water.
The pristine black-and-white print is beautifully accented by original hand-tinting on certain objects.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:JULY, VARIOUS DATES?
Nine Months in York Town
PBS; check local listings
Americans won the Revolution under the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution came later. Escaping the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777 and 1778, the Continental Congress drafted the Articles in York Town, Pa., and imbued them with the principles of state sovereignty and individual liberty. This new documentary draws upon archival sources and features dramatizations and re-enactments.
SUNDAY, JULY 6
World's Biggest Candy Show
Food Network, 10 p.m.
Held yearly in Chicago, the National Confectioners’ Association All Candy Expo displays 120,000 square feet of candy, chocolate and gum. Parents, doctors and dentists will be glad to know that sugarless, low-cal and low-carb treats are on the rise.
MONDAY, JULY 7
America's Walking: It's A Dog's Life
PBS, 2:30 p.m .
All dogs love the magic word “walk,” and all dog owners know that walking Fido is good exercise. This show tells viewers how to find the right breed for themselves: which dogs walk fast or far; which need a leash; and which walk smoothly or lunge.
TUESDAYS
P. Allen Smith Gardens
Familyland TV, 9 p.m.
English-trained P. Allen Smith, an expert in garden history and design, visits pleasant U.S. gardens and offers hands-on “how-to” tips for gardening success.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9
EWTN Live
EWTN, 8 p.m.
Catholic marriage, family and personal counselor Greg Popcak (pronounced “popchak") discusses the altruistic personality.
THURSDAY, JULY 10
Messengers of Mercy
EWTN, 4:30 a.m., 6 p.m .
Servants of Mercy sisters give physical, emotional and spiritual help to chronically ill and dying patients, especially in their own homes. St. Maria Soledad Torres Acosta founded this active-contemplative order in Madrid on the Feast of the Assumption in 1851. Their U.S. foundations are in California, Kansas, Louisiana and New York.
FRIDAY, JULY 11
North America's Wild Mustangs
Discovery Channel, 8 p.m.
This documentary depicts some of the 40,000 wild horses that still roamed the beautiful landscapes of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming in 2002. Their life is not easy, and efforts to help them are not universally agreed upon.
SATURDAY, JULY 12
Gardens of Alcatraz
Home & Garden TV, 5 p.m.
The Isle of the Pelicans (alcatraces) in San Francisco Bay was home to the U.S. Army's Fortress Alcatraz, 1850-1933, and to a federal penitentiary, 1933-1963. The 22-acre island is home to more than 140 kinds of plants from around the world, tended through the years b y soldiers, guards, convicts and volunteers.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: All times Eastern ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Villanova Law School Bans Abortion Internships DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:VILLANOVA, Pa. — Villanova University Law School Dean Mark Sargent noticed something troubling when he started reviewing student applications for the school's Public Interest Fellowship Program this year. Several had listed the Philadelphia Women's Law Project as their choice.
While it does do some good things regarding social justice, Sargent said, “it's also the leading pro-abortion group in the state.”
Early in the spring semester Sargent issued a new policy governing the program that prohibits the Public Interest Fellows — who receive about $4,000 to work without pay for public-interest organizations during the summer — from working on abortion advocacy issues. The policy does not, however, prevent students from working at organizations that support abortion rights as long as the students do not actually work on abortion issues.
It also does not affect any internships or volunteer work besides the Public Interest Fellowship Program, which is funded by an auction on the Villanova campus, is organized by Villanova staff members and bears the school's name. As Sargent would later write in response to alumni criticism, “It is indisputably a Villanova Law School program.”
Immediately there were objections. Most opposed to the measure did not dispute the Catholic's school's right to take such a pro-life stance. Instead, complaints centered on two areas: the lack of student and faculty input on the new policy and the seeming hypocrisy of the school to prohibit students from working for abortion rights but not for capital punishment.
Some alumni “voiced complaints quite vociferously,” said Sargent, although he noted that negative responses from alumni overall were minimal. One graduate published an op-ed piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer urging other concerned alums to contact her and the school.
But Clark Hodgson said he's heard nothing negative from fellow alumni.
“I thought it was the perfect response,” the 1964 law school graduate and Philadelphia lawyer said. “It upholds the school's Catholic tradition.”
Augustinian Father Jack Denny, the law school chaplain, said three or four students approached him to share their objections, but most students did not seem to hold strong opinions either way.
“It would be my impression that a lot of students who were opposed to the policy were opposed on other grounds,” he said. “I don't think anyone disputed his right to make such a policy. He's a Catholic dean at a Catholic school.”
Patrick Reilly, president of the Manassas, Va.-based Cardinal Newman Society, which works to restore Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities, said Sargent's decision is a positive move for Catholic colleges and would be the norm if colleges adhered to Ex Corde Ecclesiae , Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on the identity and mission of Catholic schools.
“Anything done in an official way by any Catholic college or university must reflect the Catholic identity of the institution,” he said.
But that doesn't always happen, he pointed out. “Certainly the problem of students interning with inappropriate employers is very common at Catholic universities,” he said.
Second-year Villanova law school student Steve Finley first heard about the controversy through the school's online discussion forum. “I was surprised that such a policy didn't exist before,” he said.
Finley attended the town-hall meeting organized to address student and faculty concerns. At the meeting, Sargent gave an introduction outlining his reasoning and then fielded questions, mostly from those opposed to the policy.
“The vast majority of students weren't engaged by the topic at all, but it is honest to say that of all the school-sponsored non-required events I attended this year, this was the best attended,” Father Denny said.
At the meeting, Sargent explained why the abortion issue differs from the capital punishment issue, a question he addressed again in The Philadelphia Inquirer in response to an alumnus’ critical letter.
“[The Pope's] statements on the issue were not made with the authority that requires the faithful obedience of all Catholics and Catholic institutions, unlike the Church's position on abortion,” he wrote. “The law school is thus not compelled to disassociate itself from advocacy for capital punishment as it is from advocacy for abortion rights.”
He continued: “To take time to think hard about what we should do regarding capital punishment is not hypocrisy but prudence. The need to make a prudential decision about the ambiguous question of capital punishment does not make a principled decision about the unambiguous question of ... abortion hypocritical.”
Outside Support
Sargent, who describes himself as “a Catholic who takes very seriously the seamless garment of life,” said that while no organized pro-abortion group has contacted the school to complain, many pro-life individuals and groups have been very supportive and vocal.
The Family Research Council publicly commended Sargent for his actions.
“People who support abortion are trying to mainstream the issue, so anything that flips that over is a big plus,” said Bill Saunders, who directs all Family Research Council pro-life activities. “We're happy to see this at a mainstream school.”
Father Denny pointed out that Villanova remains extremely supportive of public-interest organizations and low-paying advocacy work and offers clinics in juvenile justice, emigrant services, civil justice and farmworkers’ legal aid.
The university's support of these programs is done in the spirit of Catholic social teaching, Father Denny said, adding that Sargent's new policy is entirely consistent with the teaching.
“I'm most proud of the dean because there was a clear and unapologetic declaration that we're a Catholic institution and that we cannot and will not associate our name with abortion advocacy,” he said. “You just can't attach the word Villanova to abortion advocacy.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Weekly Book Pick Chesterton for the Common Man DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:G.K. CHESTERTON:
THE APOSTLE OF COMMON SENSE
by Dale Ahlquist
Ignatius Press, 2003 183 pages, $13.95
To order: (800) 651-1531 or www.ignatius.com
Somewhere in William Words-worth's canon is the line, “Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour; England hath need of thee.” Dale Ahlquist seems to be saying something similar about Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
“Apostle of common sense” is an apt phrase to sum up the literary giant, for Chesterton mounted an enduring crusade to show his fellow Brits that they really did possess that most uncommon of virtues: They only had to use it. Such an apostle is needed now — and not only in England.
To help us understand Chesterton's thought, Ahlquist indicts our own time in a way his subject would have commended. “To save seventy-five cents on a six-month supply of toilet paper,” Ahlquist writes, “we drive across town to the Discount Super Store, which is owned by some multinational corporation, while the corner shop, which is owned by our neighbor, goes out of business.”
We likewise suffer when we follow the example of the modernist philosophers who fail (or refuse) to follow their premises to their logical conclusions. For in this way we sabotage our own efforts to arrive at the truth. Chesterton arrived at the truth because he followed the arguments to their logical end. Ultimately, the most reasonable conclusion to his thinking about things was his baptism as a Catholic.
“Chesterton says that modern thinkers will not follow new ideas to their logical end; nor will they trace traditional ideas back to their beginnings,” Ahlquist relates in a chapter about The Thing , Chesterton's apologia on being a Catholic. “If they followed the new notions forward it would lead them to nonsense or utter chaos. If they followed their better instincts backward, it would lead them to Rome. So they refuse to follow either one and remain suspended between two logical alternatives and try to tell themselves that they are merely avoiding extremes.”
It was more than common sense that led Chesterton to embrace Christianity. In an outline of Orthodoxy , which Ahlquist argues is one of the best books of the 20th century, he describes Chesterton's mystical appreciation for the paradoxes one finds in life — paradoxes that rationalist thinkers feel compelled to explain but which the common man accepts in a way that lead him to faith.
Those who have already sampled Chesterton's oeuvre might wonder why they should spend time reading about the man and his works rather than return to the works themselves. Why not read both? Ahlquist provides a road map through 13 of Chesterton's representative works. He pulls out the most memorable quotes (he quotes copiously, in fact, and is heavy on synopses) and shows what a keen observer Chesterton was of his times and of human nature. And he makes a good case for why the man whose work helped convert C.S. Lewis should be read in every secondary and tertiary school in this country.
Reading Chesterton can be like listening to a complex symphony, one that requires great attention yet lets one's spirit soar. But not everyone — alas, not even some college students — is able to read Chesterton as he ought to be read.
Ahlquist's dissertation can serve as a guide for college professors who want to introduce their students to this genius. And, for the rest of us, it's not only a reminder of the need for common sense — but also a demonstration of the way to exercise it.
John Burger is the Register's news editor.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Burger ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:New Leader
PONTIFICAL COLLEGE JOSEPHINUM, June 12 — The Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education has appointed Msgr. Paul Langsfeld as the Columbus, Ohio, seminary's rector/president. He succeeds Bishop Earl Boyea, an auxiliary of Detroit since 2000.
A priest of the Washington Archdiocese, Msgr. Langsfeld has served as vice rector and dean of formation at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., since 1998.
Msgr. Langsfeld has served as an expert in catechesis for the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy and helped in the early drafting of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
He holds a doctorate in dogmatic theology from Gregorian University, Rome, and a licentiate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
Third Term
While the situation is typical of many colleges, the Star-Ledger reports that all five of New Jersey's other Catholic colleges continue to be headed by a priest or religious.
Nuns lead Felician College in Lodi, the College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station and Georgian Court College in Lakewood, while priests fill the presidencies at Seton Hall University in South Orange and St. Peter's College in Jersey City.
Trouble at Boston College
Now, after seeking a separation from the Big East, the Jesuit-led college might be left at the altar by the Atlantic Coast Conference, whose members are now studying a plan in which membership is limited to 12 schools. That means it will have to choose between Boston College and Syracuse University to fill the remaining expansion slot.
True Shepherd
FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY, June 13 — Bishop Stanislaw Rylko, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican, received the 2003 Shepherd's Award from the Steubenville, Ohio, university.
The Polish-born bishop, a pastoral theologian, has championed the cause of renewal movements in the Church, the university's announcement said, and has been highly visible worldwide in promoting lay movements.
Rewarding Service
The newspaper focused on Lumen Christi High School in Jackson, Mich., where students work at soup kitchens and nursing homes, and some even work a hot-line that refers women thinking about abortion to counselors.
“Students first join thinking this will’ look good on my transcript,’” said teacher Paulette Burgess, “and then find out how rewarding the experience is.”
Joe Cullen writes from New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Heavenly Hospitality DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Also on the grounds is Mount St. Scholastica Monastery. Except for the eight years she spent in Bethlehem, Sister Paula Howard has spent the rest of her 62 years as a Benedictine here as teacher, administrator and dean of Donnelly Community College, an inner-city diocesan school founded by one of the monastery's sisters.
“The whole spiritual ideal is balance — not totally austere, not lax,” says Sister Howard, reflecting on the Benedictine way. “It's a life given to prayer, contemplation, balance and hospitality.”
“The hallmark of [our] spirituality is balance and reverence for people and things, which exhibits itself in hospitality for the world and everything in it,” she adds. “We don't stay aloof from the world. We invite the world to come to us.”
In their own ways, even the cloistered subdivision(s) do as much. Since St. Benedict was very strong in insisting that hospitality is an essential part of monastic life, says Trappist Father Edward John Mullaney of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Mass., the abbey's 11 guest rooms are booked every day of the year. Most are filled by people making silent — or at least quiet — retreats.
The Trappists are members of the Cistercian “subdivision(s)” of Benedictines. With 70 monks, St. Joseph Abbey is the largest Cistercian house in the United States. The Trappists lead a secluded life with no apostolic ministry.
“We're the contemplative side of the family,” explains Father Mullaney. “We like to say our ministry is prayer — we pray and work.
“Each abbey is self-supporting by the labor of their hands,” he adds. With farming monks turn to making cheeses, fruitcakes and, as at St. Joseph's, those famous Trappist jellies and jams.
Father Mullaney says the order is growing rapidly in Latin America, Africa and Asia — reflecting the growth trends of the Catholic Church at large. In developed western countries, you have to look a little harder to find such vibrancy.
“We have an important role in the Church, though it's very small,” says Father Mullaney. “We just show to the Church that God is worth it — worth giving up everything for.”
He pauses for a moment, then adds: “We do really model Christian community for the people. We have the time to live the full liturgical life. We're a link with the Church of the past and the Church of the present.”
Maybe Benedictine spirituality isn't such a “niche” aspect of the Catholic faith after all. And maybe its universal appeal is at the heart of its 1,500-year-old success story.
One thing's for sure: On his feast day and every day, St. Benedict is praying for his order — and for all those who may have a chance to draw closer to Christ through it.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Workplace Loyalty
Q As an employer I am so frustrated by the lack of employee loyalty that I don't even know if my people are worth training and motivating. Everyone is looking for the better deal all the time. Maybe I should just focus on my customers and not put my resources into my employees.
A Are workers putting up with tough work situations just until the economy starts to recover and then — boom! — they're going to bolt to greener pastures? Maybe.
Employers are always tempted to be distracted from the best interests of their employees. They have to focus on their customers, and they have to try to survive their own cutthroat world. Neglecting employees’ needs is a constant temptation for managers — and it's a prescription for problems. Besides, it's a false dilemma to choose between customers and employees. Both need to be happy to remain loyal.
What builds staff loyalty? For starters, a commitment by management to support, communicate and lead. Also vital is creating and maintaining a culture in which workers feel encouraged to grow professionally and personally. These are the things people are looking for. Move away from those basic values, and you can expect more employee exits.
The problem is that these values are not easily pieced together unless there is a fundamental commitment to maintain an environment where all stake-holders — customers, employees and employers — have the tools and the support they need to grow.
Revisit Pope John Paul II's explications on the dignity of man and the dignity of work. He's as good a guide as you'll find when it comes to laying a foundation in which the commitment to building loyalty is governing rather than incidental. Make sure your work-place isn't just a place to earn a buck — but an environment in which workers can “realize their humanity more fully in every respect” (Pope John Paul II: On Human Work ).
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: St. Benedict's Bounty DATE: 07/06/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 6-12, 2003 ----- BODY:Well, okay. The precise day of the feast is July 11, and you're probably reading this several days prior. But there's no time like the present to consider the holy monk's lasting legacy since it's still going strong 1,500 years after it began.
Wherever they are (they're dispersed all over the world), and whichever of the many monasteries and congregations they belong to (there is no centralized governing institute), today's Benedictines are linked by the Rule of St. Benedict — the first formal rule in the West governing monastic life.
Through the centuries, the influence of St. Benedict's niche movement has been wide, deep and even history-changing. For many generations, Benedictine monasteries preserved learning and advanced Western civilization.
In scriptoriums, monks copied Scripture and sacred writings. In the fields, they developed crop rotation and ways to harness water and wind to saw wood and grind grain. No wonder Pope John Paul II in 1980 named St. Benedict co-patron of Europe (along with Sts. Cyril and Methodius).
St. Benedict balanced the scales of Christian spirituality by combining Ora et Labora — prayer and labor. In his revolutionary view, labor was dignified and worthy, not slavish or degrading. He blended prayer and work together so that tasks and jobs become prayers.
“We've always had an active component to the Benedictine tradition,” says Father Albert Marflak, the prior of St. Andrew Abbey in Cleveland, home to 39 Benedictine monks. He describes how St. Benedict left Rome and went as a missionary to Monte Cassino, where he destroyed the temple to Apollo.
The monastic compounds became centers for learning, prayer and spirituality. In his message about the 1,500th anniversary of the order in the Jubilee Year, the Holy Father recognized that Monte Cassino, which was pummeled during World War II, “would soon become the cradle for the growth of Western monasticism and a center of evangelization and Christian humanism.”
The content of work has, of course, changed over time. But, like the contemplative life, its nature remains the same. “Our work in the states has moved away from the farming aspect and more into education and pastoral ministry,” says Father Marflak. As for contemplation, it's “the call of our baptism. As Benedictines, we focus in a radical way on our baptismal commitment.”
Father Albert is quick to point out a couple of often-overlooked historical facts.
“The monastic tradition was a lay movement,” he explains. “Benedict was not an ordained deacon or priest.” The rule, he adds, was written to help lay people seeking God and wanting to live a Christlike life.
All the World's a Cave
Born in the Italian village of Nursia around 480, St. Benedict went to Rome to study. Appalled by the degeneracy he found there, he fled to Subiaco, where he lived in the seclusion of a cave for three years. Word of his holiness got around and a community of monks asked him to be their abbot. When they saw how strictly he followed his own rule, and realized he expected them to do the same, they tried to poison him. He blessed the cup containing the poison and the substance was rendered harmless. He returned to his cave, but continued to attract followers. He established 12 monasteries, then organized them into a single monastic community at Monte Cassino.
It was there that he wrote his famous rule, which prescribed common sense, moderate asceticism, prayer, study, work and community life under one superior. It stressed obedience, stability and zeal, and it centered the monastic life on the Divine Office. He was equally at home counseling rulers and popes as he was ministering to the poor and destitute. He died at Monte Cassino around 547.
The Scriptures then, as now, are the heartbeat of monastic life — and really ought to be the heartbeat of the Christian life for all, says Father Marflak.
And now, as then, the Benedictines are, in many ways, a force to be reckoned with. “We're very much thriving within our community and with the Benedictine monks throughout the country,” says Father Marflak. Asked for an example, he cites St. Andrew's preparatory school for boys. In the fall it will see its third consecutive annual increase in enrollment: Some 450 students will attend, up from 395 this school year just passed.
Another Benedictine institution making its mark in the modern world is Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. Daniel Carey, an alumnus who rose to oversee the school as its president, looks fondly at his 16 years of education from Benedictine monks and nuns. And he says that, if not for his appreciation of Benedictine spirituality, he might not be interested in being where he is today.
“We try to be very clear about who we are and what we stand for,” says Carey. Accordingly, an impressive mural in the student lounge depicts St. Benedict (along with his twin sister, St. Scholastica).
In fact, St. Benedict's footprints are everywhere on the campus. “Today we still very much try to educate the students about the rule of St. Benedict,” Carey says. “Our history, our tradition, our sense of values — these things are very integral to this place.” The response: 25 men and 16 women have gone from student life to religious life during the past 25 years.
“Moderation calls us to the middle as a place of higher education,” Carey says, referring to St. Benedict's rule. “It's one of the core values of St. Benedict.”
Father James Albers joined St. Benedict's Abbey on the grounds of the college in 1995 and is now the prior. “Our students take the sacraments very seriously,” he says, pointing out the reliably robust attendance he sees at daily confessions and Mass. The students’ unambiguously Catholic spirituality, he says, “is more than an intellectual thing — it's embedded in their hearts.”
Heavenly Hospitality
Also on the grounds is Mount St. Scholastica Monastery. Except for the eight years she spent in Bethlehem, Sister Paula Howard has spent the rest of her 62 years as a Benedictine here as teacher, administrator and dean of Donnelly Community College, an inner-city diocesan school founded by one of the monastery's sisters.
“The whole spiritual ideal is balance—not totally austere, not lax,” says Sister Howard, reflecting on the Benedictine way. “It's a life given to prayer, contemplation, balance and hospitality.”
“The hallmark of [our] spirituality is balance and reverence for people and things, which exhibits itself in hospitality for the world and everything in it,” she adds. “We don't stay aloof from the world. We invite the world to come to us.”
In their own ways, even the cloistered subdivision(s) do as much. Since St. Benedict was very strong in insisting that hospitality is an essential part of monastic life, says Trappist Father Edward John Mullaney of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Mass., the abbey's 11 guest rooms are booked every day of the year. Most are filled by people making silent—or at least quiet—retreats.
The Trappists are members of the Cistercian “subdivision(s)” of Benedictines. With 70 monks, St. Joseph Abbey is the largest Cistercian house in the United States. The Trappists lead a secluded life with no apostolic ministry.
“We're the contemplative side of the family,” explains Father Mullaney. “We like to say our ministry is prayer—we pray and work.
“Each abbey is self-supporting by the labor of their hands,” he adds. With farming monks turn to making cheeses, fruitcakes and, as at St. Joseph's, those famous Trappist jellies and jams.
Father Mullaney says the order is growing rapidly in Latin America, Africa and Asia—reflecting the growth trends of the Catholic Church at large. In developed western countries, you have to look a little harder to find such vibrancy.
“We have an important role in the Church, though it's very small,” says Father Mullaney. “We just show to the Church that God is worth it—worth giving up everything for.”
He pauses for a moment, then adds: “We do really model Christian community for the people. We have the time to live the full liturgical life. We're a link with the Church of the past and the Church of the present.”
Maybe Benedictine spirituality isn't such a “niche” aspect of the Catholic faith after all. And maybe its universal appeal is at the heart of its 1,500-year-old success story.
One thing's for sure: On his feast day and every day, St. Benedict is praying for his order—and for all those who may have a chance to draw closer to Christ through it.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: It's the feast of St. Benedict. Do you know where your Benedictines are? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: European Official Warns Against U.S. Pro-Lifers DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:BRUSSELS, Belgium — The European commissioner for Overseas Development and Humanitarian Aid is taking action to counter U.S.-based pro-life groups.
A five-page internal memo circulated by Poul Nielson earlier this year discusses the problems posed by American prolifers to the Third World “reproductive health” policies promoted by Nielson's European Commission office.
These groups “hold extreme views on religion and sexuality with their ultimate goal being no contraceptive use at all and sex within marriage only,” the memo states.
“Within the commission,” the memo added, “we need to be aware and alert for new campaigns to undermine the work of the [European Commission] and its partners in addressing reproductive health, and we need to respond swiftly.”
The creation of the “focal point” to monitor U.S. pro-life groups was first reported by The Irish Examiner in early May. Jean-Charles Ellermann-King-ombe, spokesman for Nielson, on July 2 confirmed to the Register the existence of the internal memo.
American pro-lifers also have their allies. Irish member of the European Parliament Dana Scallon is at the hub of 47 parliamentarians who have questioned coercive abortion and sterilization programs in developing nations.
Their main concern is the funding of the U.N. Population Fund.
“Reproductive health” programs sup ported by the U.N. Population Fund in 32 developing nations have been under scrutiny by various pro-family organizations worldwide, including the New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Virginia-based Population Research Institute.
‘Outrageous’
Earlier this year Scallon and her pro-life colleagues presented to the European Parliament a report published by Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute Vice President Douglas Sylva criticizing U.N. Population Fund policies. The institute's report, citing the United Nations’ own internal documents and primary sources, details potential human-rights violations that stem from U.N. Population Fund policies.
Along with uncovering evidence of financial mismanagement, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute paper alleges that the U.N. Population Fund “secretly supports and promotes abortion.”
Scallon said that even though the European Union is expected to maintain a neutral position on abortion, “their funding in the area of reproductive health goes to organizations that are recognized as abortion providers.”
EU-funded organizations include International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world's largest private abortion provider, and Marie Stopes International, Britain's largest private abortion provider. (The U.N. Population Fund does not always provide direct “reproductive health services” in client nations, preferring instead to outsource those services to Planned Parenthood and others.)
Responding to reports that Nielson is now monitoring pro-life lobbying groups, Scallon said, “It is outrageous to set up a monitoring unit and describe those people, who have a democratic right to investigate how money is spent, … as extremists.”
The Catholic bishops of Europe are also registering concern.
John Coughlan, spokesman for the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, said the bishops were “aware of Commissioner Nielson's initiative as a result of media reports. … We would be deeply concerned if in fact the aim is to launch some sort of propaganda war, in which sincerely held moral and religious convictions are treated with contempt. We would be especially troubled if this initiative were to lead to attacks on the role of religion in society generally.”
‘Misunderstanding’?
Nielson spokesman EllermannKingombe told the Register in June that it is a “misunderstanding” to say that Neilson's office is “monitoring” pro-lifers.
While the report in The Irish Examiner “is good, the word 'monitoring’ is an ill-suited term,” Ellermann-Kingombe said. “The commission follows the debate for the sake of Parliament. We must be prepared to answer the questions raised in Parliament on these points. There is a person on staff whose ‘focus point’ is the commission's commitment to the consensus achieved at Cairo. This person does not 'monitor’ lobbying groups.”
The “Cairo consensus” refers to the United Nations’ International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. There, the Vatican and a coalition of nations opposed to abortion forestalled the use of language that would make abortion a universal component of “reproductive health” services. The consensus was to provide critical services to increase sexual health and maternal health in developing nations.
The conference program further noted the commitment to provide safe abortions in those nations where abortion is legal, with an understanding that in nations where abortion is not legal and is culturally abhorrent no effort would be made to promote it. Further, no U.N. program should cooperate with national programs, such as China's one-child policy, where coercion was used against families.
Ellermann-Kingombe stressed the European Commission's dedication to the goals and programs of Cairo.
“We have seen over the last six months an increasing number of questions from the European Parliament asking if the European Commission is promoting abortion,” he said. “It is our obligation to defend Cairo. We cannot ignore attempts by some to roll back the provisions of Cairo on which we base our [development and aid] policies.”
Fund's Policies
The member countries of the United Nations make annual contributions to the U.N. Population Fund so its policies may be implemented throughout the developing world. Increasingly, alarms have been raised about U.N. Population Fund policies on abortion and sterilization.
Despite five years of protest from pro-life organizations that U.N. Population Fund funds do in fact support forced-abortion programs in the developing world, there have been few changes in U.N. Population Fund policies. A March 2003 U.S. State Department report confirmed that forced abortion and sterilization programs continue to be used in more than 30 nations, most of which receive U.N. Population Fund aid.
The State Department investigation noted that families who violate China's “limited-child policy” suffer extreme social penalties. The State Department analysis concluded that on the basis of the U.N. Population Fund's cooperation with China's “draconian” population-control programs, U.S. law prohibits further contributions to the U.N. Population Fund from American taxpayers.
Federal law prohibits the use of U.S. government funds in any program that “supports or participates in the management of a coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
Along with the U.N. Population Fund funding issue, European officials have been openly critical of the Bush administration's reinstitution of the Mexico City policy, which prohibits the use of U.S. aid going to foreign nongovernmental organizations that use funding from any other source to perform abortions.
In his internal memo, Nielson said the European Commission “acted swiftly to deplore” the reinstatement of Mexico City policy, a decision he said was “the result of effective lobbying from a vocal minority of anti-choice groups.”
Nielson specifically named Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Population Research Institute as two of these groups, which he said have “changed tactics” by using “more subtle methods that are specifically targeted at organizations, laws and budgets.”
Nielson also expressed concern that new laws have been passed in the United States “making family planning and abortion harder to access,” and that changes had been made to the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “which now downplays the effectiveness of condoms.”
Religious Freedom
Paul Diamond, a London lawyer who specializes in religious-liberty issues, said Nielson's opposition to pro-life viewpoints reflects a contemporary European “secular intolerance” toward religion, an intolerance Diamond said “extends right through to life issues.”
“There is extraordinary hostility to religious manifestation all across Europe,” Diamond said.
However, because European Union countries such as Ireland remain strongly opposed to abortion, Diamond suggested these pro-life governments could insist that Nielson's office abstain from taking sides on abortion-related debates.
“I think there may be a misuse of public funds,” Diamond said. “It's very close to the politicization of the commission for a political agenda. … I think member states could probably object to it quite robustly, if they were minded to.”
Whatever happens next, pro-family organizations on both sides of the Atlantic are calling the media attention given to the “monitoring” reports a victory.
“At the very least it forces a discussion at the Parliament level,” said Peter Smith of the U.K.-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. “How our money is spent is a legitimate question that parliamentarians must answer — and in some cases, like mine, using my tax money against me by monitoring my pro-life work.”
Mary Jo Anderson writes from Orlando, Florida. (Register staff contributed to this story.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Jo Anderson ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Faith And Therapy: New Groups Promote Both DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:UNIONDALE, N.Y. — After appearances on the Eternal Word Television Network, Catholic therapist Allison Ricciardi heard from people around the country hoping she could refer them to therapists who integrated Catholic faith into the therapeutic process.
“I knew there had to be other Catholic therapists all over the country,” she said. “It was just a matter of finding them and making their names accessible to those in need.”
Find them she did, gathering 65 psychologists, therapists and educators from around the country to a May 30-June 1 conference on Long Island. The conference was presented by CatholicThera pist.com, a Web site founded by Ricciardi.
Ricciardi, an advocate for integrating faith into a field not known for its compatibility with religious belief, said both the conference and Web site grew out of her 13 years of practice and meetings with others who have expressed frustration with psychology as it is currently understood.
The conference allowed participants to “feel a sense of camaraderie and support within the field as well as expand their knowledge base,” she said.
The result, she hopes, will be a coordinated effort to evolve psychology from an inexact science that does not in itself “solve the mystery of the human person” to an effective means for removing “the psychological and emotional impediments to union with God and communion with others, beginning here in this earthly life.”
Legionary of Christ Father Richard Gill is president of the Institute for Psychological Sciences in Arlington, Va. Paralleling Ricciardi's efforts. Father Gill and Dr. Gladys Sweeney, dean of the institute, established their graduate education center to promote a dialogue between science, Catholic anthropology and spirituality.
Established in 1999, the institute expects to have 60 students this fall studying for master's degrees or doctorates in clinical psychology or seeking postdoctoral education in the field. The school is halfway through the accreditation process and expects to receive certification from the American Psychological Association by 2006.
The institute is training students for work in Catholic mental health institutions and preparing them to “influence the course of psychology, even to change the way people think about psychology and [how] psychologists think about themselves,” Father Gill said.
He said the field has been in need of a direction, with competing schools of thought unable to provide one — or even provide useful care for those in crisis. He sees in the Catholic understanding of the relationship between man and God the guidepost the field has been lacking.
Church's Expertise
“The Church has been around for 2,000 years and has acquired an expertise in knowing what makes people tick,” Father Gill said. “Therefore, a psychology that's open to Catholic spirituality is going to be better off.”
Psychology integrated with a Catholic perspective is one the field as a whole is not ready to embrace, Sweeney admitted. A practicing clinical psychologist and former staff member of Johns Hopkins Medical School before establishing the institute, she said psychology has been slowly opening up toward religion and its importance.
“Their momentum is right, since the [American Psychological Association] has recently given a greater importance to the spiritual aspects of people's lives,” she said.
While this admission does not mean the association accepts the religious perspective as true, she added, “our thinking is, ‘Why not be bold and clearly base our views in the Catholic view of the person?’”
By incorporating Catholic teachings in this process, Sweeney said they are not trying to replace the existing field of psychology and its understanding of human behavior but to expand its horizons.
“We are in the business of relieving suffering, to move people from misery to hope,” she said. “To do that, you need to understand the true nature of mankind, because once you have that understanding, you are ready to answer the question of what is best for [humanity].”
Also at the conference, and working in loose collaboration with the Institute for Psychological Sciences as well as similar programs at the University of Dallas and Ave Maria University, was Dr. Andrew Hrezo, director of the Wellness Center of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. Hrezo, who holds a doctorate in education counseling, oversees a program with an enrollment of 55 students seeking a master of arts degree in counseling.
The first graduating class was in 1991. The center's graduates are available for licensure by the American Counseling Association, Hrezo said, which is a parallel organization to the American Psychological Association.
“Our graduates offer a very significant understanding of the human person, through the guidance of the Church and Scripture,” he said. “It is a guidance that is very helpful in showing people how to have full lives.”
“This is quite different from the ‘there is no truth’ and ‘if it feels good, do it’ perspectives of many [in the counseling field]. Feelings are fine, but the question is how they are integrated,” he said. “A person is headed in the right direction when there is a clear understanding of known values and guidelines for mankind.”
Hrezo predicted the Long Island conference was the beginning of a process that will establish standards, guidelines and criteria “that are valuable to Catholic believers that reflect God's design for human beings.”
He said he expects further conferences, additional members and professional publications to follow, such as a planned joint conference next summer in Lincoln, Neb.
“There is an optimism among those practitioners who attended,” he said. “There's room and reason for cooperation and collaboration [with each other and with the psychological and counseling profession in general], because there's an openness to discovering what has been lost in the study of psychology. Everyone's excited about it because we're on the cutting edge.”
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Boston's New Franciscan Archbishop Faces Tough Job DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — Like his spiritual father St. Francis, Bostonians are saying Archbishop Sean O'Malley received a call to repair his Church. And when he got to Boston, clad in the brown robe and sandals of the Capuchin Franciscan order, he asked Catholics there to help him with the rebuilding.
Archbishop-elect O'Malley, 59, was named July 1 to head the Boston Archdiocese, one of the country's major — and most troubled — sees.
He succeeds Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned Dec. 13 amid allegations of negligence in regard to sexual abuse of minors and others by priests in his archdiocese.
The new archbishop had been bishop of Palm Beach, Fla., for only nine months when Pope John Paul II sent him to Boston.
“Repair” of the local Church here includes addressing hundreds of lawsuits against an archdiocese that considered filing for bankruptcy protection last year, reinvigorating a demoralized presbyterate and restoring trust among the laity.
At a press conference in Boston on July 1, Bishop O'Malley apologized for abuse that has occurred and said, “It is most regrettable that there was not more of an awareness of the grave consequences in bygone days.” He spoke of the importance of seeking “new ways to avoid the grave mistakes of the past.”
“We know that no amount of money can ever compensate for the damage caused by abuse,” he said in reference to financial settlements. “We hope that the achievement of financial settlements will be a factor in a process of healing. … We want to do right by the victims and, at the same time, to carry on the essential elements of our mission.”
He asked the roughly 500 priests of the archdiocese to “support one another.”
“Your role is essential in the life of the Church,” he told them. “We are a eucharistic people. We need our priests. The whole Catholic community wants holy priests, happy priests, hardworking priests. Draw strength from the mysteries you celebrate.”
Turning to Catholics who have “stepped away” from the Church because of the scandals, he remarked, “Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
“The Catholic faith and practice has built a culture in our people of New England, [sustaining] virtues of honesty, solidarity, social justice, service to the poor, the sick, the suffering, protection for the weak, for the unborn,” he said.
He closed his comments with a simple but loaded charge to his new flock: “True discipleship to Jesus Christ is discipleship in the community of faith. I address to you, the Catholics of Boston, the words that inspired St. Francis — ‘Repair my Church!’”
A History as Healer
Born in Lakewood, Ohio, Sean O'Malley attended St. Fidelis Seminary in Butler, Pa., and Capuchin College in Washington, D.C. He entered the Capuchins when he was in high school, made his solemn profession in 1968 and was ordained a priest two years later. With a doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese literature from the Catholic University of America, he taught there from 1969 to 1973. Archbishop O'Malley, who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, once served as director of the Apostolate for the Spanish Speaking in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
Boston is his third assignment to a diocese that has been troubled by the abuse problem. Originally assigned as the coadjutor bishop of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in 1984, he was named in 1992 as bishop of Fall River, Mass. There he had to clean up after former priest James Porter, who had been accused of molesting more than 100 children and who eventually pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 28.
In Palm Beach, he took over after two bishops in a row, Joseph Symons and Anthony O'Connell, resigned after admitting to sexual involvement with minors many years before.
Bishop O'Malley's potential approach to his new assignment was indicated by his press conference remarks.
“I am grateful for my vocation as a Capuchin Franciscan brother and as a Catholic priest and bishop,” he said. “The path has never been easy, but today it seems overwhelming. Still I feel privileged to be called to serve the Church in Boston and hope that in some way I might be an instrument of peace and reconciliation in a Church in need of healing.”
The appointment was widely welcomed.
“He is, without a doubt, the best bishop we have in Massachusetts,” said Laurie Letourneau, director of the Life Action League of Massachusetts. She welcomed Archbishop O'Malley's humility and approachability.
Boston Auxiliary Bishop Richard Lennon, who has been the administrator of the archdiocese since December, said at the press conference: “[Bishop O'Malley] is a holy man who lives a Gospel-based life, faithful to the Church founded by Jesus Christ, with special concern for the poor, suffering and marginalized, all in the genuine spirit of St. Francis of Assisi as he follows the charism of his religious order.”
Bishop O'Malley's confrere in Denver, Capuchin Archbishop Charles Chaput, was glad to see his former seminary classmate named to Boston.
“He's a man of intelligence, integrity and great personal warmth,” Archbishop Chaput said. “People seek him out because he has a great heart. He knows how to connect with other persons, no matter who they are, at a very human level.”
Archbishop Chaput said the new archbishop “values simplicity, fidelity, conversion and reform — real reform in the spirit of St. Francis, who loved the Church and remained faithful to her teachings, even when the personal cost was very high.”
Reservations
There are some, however, who have their reservations about the appointment.
David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests, said victims are withholding judgment for the time being.
“We wish him well,” Clohessy told the Register. “He's got a good reputation [for dealing with this issue].”
But “we're very cautious,” he added. “The last thing the Church needs or victims need is to have dashed hopes.”
Clohessy noted that the Bristol County, Mass., district attorney sparred with Bishop O'Malley last September over the disclosure of the names of 20 priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct but who could not be indicted because the statute of limitations had run out, the priest had died or the alleged victim decided not to prosecute. The district attorney claimed the Fall River Diocese had dragged its feet on the matter, but Bishop O'Malley denied those claims, saying he had voluntarily given the names to the district attorney six months earlier.
Nevertheless, on the day of his appointment, Bishop O'Malley spent 45 minutes in a private meeting with more than a dozen persons who claim to have been abused by priests in Boston.
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said: “The Catholic League takes great interest in monitoring the way various Catholic groups, victims’ organizations and the media will respond to Bishop O'Malley. No doubt they will embrace him initially, but the real test will come when they don't get what they want. We at the Catholic League think fidelity is a virtue. And that is why we are delighted with the news that Bishop O'Malley is going to Boston.”
The archdiocese, which has a Catholic population of about 2.1 million out of a total population of 3.9 million, announced July 3 that Bishop O'Malley's installation would be July 30.
Five Years, Four Bishops
Meanwhile, Bishop Gerald Barbarito of Ogdensburg, N.Y., was named Bishop O'Malley's successor in Palm Beach. Bishop Barbarito will be the fourth bishop there in five years. While Archbishop O'Malley was widely regarded as one of the top candidates for Boston, Bishop Barbarito's appointment to Palm Beach came as a surprise.
“We're all heavy-hearted and we're all in shock,” said Father Terry LaValley, chancellor for the Diocese of Ogdensburg, of the announcement of the appointment. “It came out of nowhere.”
Bishop Barbarito, originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., has been in upstate New York for a little more than three years.
“I have absolutely no doubt” the bishop can handle his new assignment, Father LaValley said.
Saying the bishop is much loved by the priests of the diocese and “he has genuine care” for the people of his flock, Father LaValley said his presence “will be a great gift for the people down there.”
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz is based in Altura, Minnesota.
(Catholic News Service contributed to this story.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Exodus: Episcopal Controversy Leads Some to Rome DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:CONCORD, N.H. — Tensions are guaranteed to be high when the Episcopal General Convention meets in Minneapolis on July 28. The church is in crisis.
In May, Jeffrey John was appointed to head the Anglican diocese of Reading, England. Just one month later, across the Atlantic, Gene Robinson was elected Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. Both men describe themselves as homosexuals.
Their appointments have caused divisions in the Anglican church and its American counterpart. The Anglican Communion's move away from orthodoxy has led some of its members to consider Catholicism.
Rev. John withdrew his name from consideration July 6 citing Church unity.
Historically, the Anglican Communion has opposed homosexual relations. At its 1998 Lambeth Conference — a meeting of all of the world's Anglican bishops — the southern provinces (Africa, Asia and Latin America) outvoted the northern provinces 527 to 69 to approve a resolution calling homosexual acts “incompatible with Scripture.” That declaration also opposed the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of actively homosexual clergy.
Yet individual parishes in England, the United States and Canada have ignored the resolutions, blessing same-sex unions and ordaining actively homosexual clergy under the rubrics of what is described as a “local option.”
John told The Times of London he has been in a homosexual relationship for 27 years but claims the relationship is celibate. Gene Robinson said he “came out” as a homosexual in 1986 and soon after divorced his wife, with whom he had two daughters.
Robinson, running against three other candidates, won the majority vote of 58 of 77 clergy members and 96 of 165 lay representatives in his election in May. However, before he can take office, his election must be ratified by a majority of U.S. Episcopal dioceses. If he is confirmed he would be the ninth bishop of New Hampshire.
The moves have led to a dispute within the Anglican Communion — a church body made up of 79 million members. Sixteen of the Church of England's bishops wrote an open letter expressing their concern over the action, some calling for Rev. John to resign his post.
They warned it could divide the church.
The archbishop of the West Indies and the primate of Nigeria have both called for Rev. John to step down. In addition, 14 Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic Global South Primates have declared themselves in “broken communion” with the Diocese of New Westminster.
North and South
“The split has become a fissure that is going to wrench the whole Anglican community apart,” said David Virtue, an evangelical Anglican and critic of the actions. Virtue operates Virtuosity, a West Chester, Pa.-based orthodox Anglican news service.
“If the Anglican Communion dies, we will have a federation,” he said.
Virtue is not alone in predicting a schism. Lee Penn, a convert from the Episcopal church to the Eastern-rite Russian Catholic Church in 1995, believes the division could lead to a “true schism between the rich, northern provinces and the poor, southern provinces.”
“Following the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Trinity Parish located on Wall Street decided to withhold some of [its] funding of the poor southern provinces,” Virtue said. “They were saying, ‘You didn't do what we told you to do, so we aren't going to give you any more money.’”
Virtue said the divide is not about gender but rather regarding the authority of Scripture.
“Do we adhere to Scripture or not?” Virtue asked. “The southern global provinces are saying, ‘Yes, we do,’” and the north is saying, ‘We do not.’”
“Revisionists are trying to tell God that he needs to change his mind about sex,” he continued. “If we can change that we can change anything.”
One thing is for certain. The dispute is leading some Anglicans to look elsewhere.
“My sense, based upon what I hear from other conservative Anglicans, is that the controversy is starting to push people out,” said Penn, who lives in San Francisco. “There is an acceleration in the breakup of the Anglican Communion and an increasing defection to other denominations.”
Membership statistics demonstrate that the Episcopal Church USA has decreased from approximately 2.5 million in the early to mid-1990s to 2.3 million today.
When it comes to abandoning the Anglican church, Virtue explained that there are four common options available to Anglicans — the Anglican Continuing Church movement, the Anglican Mission in America, Orthodoxy or the Catholic Church.
Of those options the Anglican Mission in America has had some success in attracting disgruntled Episcopalians.
“The [Anglican Mission in America] is a mission based in South Carolina that is trying to rescue Anglicanism from the liberals,” Virtue explained. “They have a couple of bishops and are creating mission parishes in the United States.”
At present the Anglican Mission in America is comprised of approximately 51 parishes and 12,500 people. “When a parish joins the [Anglican Mission in America],” Virtue said, “they take the whole congregation with them.”
Still others are headed toward Rome.
The exodus from the Anglican Communion to Catholicism has been a steady trend that the Coming Home Network — a nonprofit organization that assists Protestant clergy considering entering the Catholic Church — has monitored for the past decade.
Crossing the Tiber
In 2001, the organization noted at least eight Episcopal clergy converts. Last year there were 14. The network received its largest group of inquirers in 1995, when they were contacted by 49 Episcopal clergy, all of whom later converted.
The Coming Home Network also noted that the largest denomination represented by their members is the Episcopal church.
“We are in contact with 149 Episcopal clergy,” said Jim Anderson, assistant director for the Zanesville, Ohio-based Coming Home Network. “Of those, 111 have converted to Catholicism and 39 are still on the journey.”
Among the converts, one of the most recent is Jeffrey Hopper of Abilene, Texas. Ordained an Episcopal priest in December 1988, Hopper served as a military chaplain.
He entered the Catholic Church on June 1 and has already begun the pastoral provision process to be considered as a candidate to the Catholic priesthood.
Hopper told the Register that the impetus for his spiritual search was the moral breakdown in the Episcopal church.
“I finally realized that you can't change church doctrines with a 51% vote,” Hopper said. “Once the Anglican Communion began allowing female ordination in the 1970s it seemed natural that homosexual ordination would be next. If you can compromise on one standard, why can't you compromise on another?”
He said the decision didn't come easily. At one point, a colleague asked him, “If all of the people who believe as we do leave, who will be left?”
“At some point you have to ask, ‘Is this the Church?’” Hopper said. “Cardinal Newman said that to be deep in history is to cease being Protestant.”
Hopper said he knows of other clergy who feel similarly.
“While at a recent clergy conference I encountered two other Episcopal priests who were considering leaving the church. They had the same concerns,” Hopper said.
As important as the crises are, they are not the sole reason for conversion.
“Crises in the Episcopal church are common, and in one sense it was the passing succession of theological controversies that kept me in the Anglican Communion for so long,” said Gregory Elder, who was ordained in the Episcopal church in 1983.
“As a priest and pastor, I was concerned about the spiritual lives of the Episcopalians to whom I ministered,” he added.
Elder was received into the Catholic Church at Easter and currently serves as associate professor of history, philosophy and religious studies at Riverside Community College in Moreno Valley, Calif.
David Mills, a Catholic convert and editor with Touchstone magazine, agreed.
“I could have joined another Anglican body,” he said, “but I was never really a convinced Anglican.
“For others who were, the collapse of the Episcopal church has showed them that there really is only one Catholic Church, and they aren't in it.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Little Flower on the Big Screen DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Twenty-one-year-old Younce grew up in Vancouver, Wash., in the Society of Friends (Quaker). In May 2001 she entered the Catholic Church.
A graduate of Oregon's George Fox University, Younce has performed in approximately 15 plays. Her most recent role is as the star of St. Luke Production's motion picture Thérèse. The film will open in theaters in October.
Younce spoke to Register features correspondent Tim Drake about what it was like to portray a saint.
Tell me about your family.
I have two older sisters and a younger brother. My father is a carpenter and my mother is a high school teacher.
What first led you to the Church?
I never had any intention of becoming Catholic. When I was in high school one of my friends was Catholic and he took me to Mass once. We studied the Bible together and so I heard the Catholic perspective from his point of view. It always frustrated me and we got into arguments about it.
In reading the history of the Society of Friends I was led to read writings from the early Church Fathers. From there, I continued to study Church history. I decided that if I were to belong to a church, I was going to belong to a church that had the same teachings as the early Church.
I was really trying not to look into the Catholic Church, but oddly enough I started reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church and to my surprise — and somewhat dismay — I learned that the Catechism had the same teachings as the early Church. Theology hooked me first, but tradition and the Catholic culture quickly roped me in after that.
How did your family react to your conversion?
Oh my. Fortunately my family is very supportive of the decisions I make. They were upset and asked me to wait until I had graduated from high school and moved away from the house to convert. So I honored that and waited. I came into the Church in May 2001.
How did you first come to learn of St. Thérèse?
In January 2000, St. Thérèse's relics came to Vancouver, Wash. I knew nothing about her before this. I was a senior in high school and every morning before school I would attend Mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Vancouver. One morning as I went to Mass, I saw all these police cars and traffic. When I asked a police officer what was going on, he told me, “Thérèse's relics are here.”
I walked into the Church and it was packed. I got into a back pew and an older man named Concepcion saw that I didn't know what I was doing and coached me through. When he saw that I wasn't going up for Communion he said, “You know that you can get a blessing, right?” He stood by me and made sure that I went up to touch or kiss the case that held Thérèse's relics.
I remember walking away and feeling something different. I wondered if this is what people meant when they said that you receive graces from coming into contact with relics. After that encounter, I picked up a book on the wisdom of the saints that I had purchased at a garage sale, and I read an excerpt from St. Thérèse's Story of a Soul. I was very struck by her wisdom. Then I forgot about her until I auditioned for the film, but she didn't forget about me.
Originally, you auditioned to play Thérèse's sister Celine, didn't you? How did you end up getting the lead?
I had been performing a one-woman show at my high school about women in the life of Jesus for my senior project. A man there suggested that I contact St. Luke Productions. “They are doing a film and you should see if you can get some experience,” he told me. So, I called with the idea of helping out on the set. In April 2000, they scheduled an audition.
Originally, I read the part of Celine. A week after the audition, the casting director called to say that they had lost the actress who was going to play Thérèse and they wanted me to come back in and read for the part of Thérèse. A few days after the audition they gave me the role.
Was there an especially memorable moment for you during filming?
Most of the crew did not profess to be religious in any way, so they went about their business. On the day we filmed St. Thérèse's death scene, the set was silent. As she was dying she rose up in her bed effortlessly and saw something. She said, “God, I love you,” and fell back in the bed and died.
The script of her death was written from her last conversations and so everything that we were saying came from her mouth. She said the most profound things. I will never forget how her words of the Gospel and of God's love impacted everyone.
What message do you think Thérèse has for the young?
Thérèse embodies the Scripture that speaks about not allowing others to not take you seriously because you are young. For Thérèse, no one believed she had a calling to be a nun, except for her father. She knew at age 15 and she died at age 24. She was young all of her life and yet had an incredible devotion to God. She is a doctor of the Church.
The young feel as if they have no responsibilities. They are given reasons for not having a lack of direction, and when they do have a dream or a sense of God's will they are not taken seriously. That happened to Thérèse as well, but she never gave up. At 17, I knew that I wanted to be Catholic but was being told that I was too young to make that decision. Thérèse, too, was told to wait to enter the convent, and the wait was worth it. She waited patiently and didn't get discouraged.
In what ways has your portrayal of St. Thérèse impacted your own faith?
I knew a lot about Catholic theology and Church history, but I didn't know a lot about saints, how Catholics perceive the relationship aspect between God and man or how Catholics perceive the love of God.
Everything celestial that I understood came from my Protestant background, but it has come to a fulfillment in becoming Catholic. In reading what Thérèse wrote and understanding her I came to a different understanding of how we are to love others and how we are to love God. It's been very gradual, but I can see how my perception has changed because of her.
Given your background, do you have the sense that you were handpicked for the role?
Yes, increasingly more and more. All of us who were involved were chosen. That's a humbling feeling. Thérèse chose me to tell her story and I realize that only God alone could give me the grace to do so. No matter how much acting training one has, it's still a challenge to portray the life of such a woman. The grace of God covers those moments.
What do you have planned next?
I acted throughout college and am taking a short break. I'm beginning a master's program for teaching.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Lindsay Younce never expected to play Thérèse of Lisieux in a major motion picture. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: In U.S., Vatican-Based Group Arms Leaders With John Paul's Social Teaching DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — After a year of prayer and planning, the first U.S. chapter of a Vatican-based organization was officially launched in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., in June.
The Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation is named for Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus. That encyclical, which deals with Catholic social teaching, is the group's guiding document.
A group of Italian business leaders established the foundation in Italy in 1993. The U.S. chapter was launched during a special Mass and reception at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., June 1.
The idea is for the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation to play an important part in the Holy Father's call for a New Evangelization, explained Robert Nalewajek, who lives in the Bridgeport Diocese and is helping to introduce the foundation in the United States.
The foundation is the “only layled organization [the Pope] meets with yearly,” he added.
According to Count Lorenzo Rossi de Montelera, chairman of the foundation, this privilege is “to indicate how close to the mind and heart of the Holy Father this initiative is.”
Italy's 15 chapters proved successful enough for the Holy Father in 1999 to call for the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation to grow globally. Rossi said contacts have been made in countries such as Poland, Germany, Spain and Canada. There is also interest in Australia and New Zealand.
Coming to America was a natural. “Our purpose statement for the United States,” said Nalewajek, a former international businessman, “is to implement Catholic social teaching though Catholic lay business, professional and academic leaders.”
The groundwork had been laid for the past year, as a 20-member steering committee in the Bridgeport Diocese has met regularly to study Centesimus annus.
“One has to have a good understanding of what Catholic social teaching is,” Nalewajek said, quickly pointing out that the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation is much more than a philosophical or debating organization. “There's an action orientation — to implement,” he emphasized. “But you can't evaluate and act if you haven't done the reflection.”
Rossi pointed out that the foundation “is not so much about doing things but more about study, getting to know the doctrine better and spreading it so that the members will be good witnesses to the doctrine in their own lives.”
Three Principles
Nalewajek explained there are three fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching, of which “the Holy Father insists the first is the greatest — the correct understanding of the human person,” he said. “The inherent dignity of every person that comes from being made in God's image” is the fundamental principle on which all the others depend.
The second principle is “solidarity” — each person is connected to and dependant on all humanity — and the third is “subsidiarity” — meaning decisions in society need to be taken to the lowest competent level.
According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic social teaching also focuses on the dignity of work, the rights of workers and “care for God's creation.”
“Our next job will be to evaluate, to look at the framework of society and decide how Centesimus annus applies to our diocese and the United States,” Nalewajek said.
Steering committee member Lorraine Carrano found the preliminary study highly productive. As corporate vice president of mission services at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, the only Catholic hospital in Fairfield County, Conn., she was familiar with the Church's social teachings regarding health care but found yet another dimension to bring Church teaching into the workplace.
“With [the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation], we have an opportunity in the United States to educate Catholics to the social teachings of the Church,” Carrano said. “Hopefully they'll bring those teachings into the workplace and maybe redefine our work environment.”
How did Bridgeport become the first U.S. site for the organization? “The Holy Spirit guided it,” Nalewajek said.
This charter diocese is a microcosm of the country, noted steering committee member Richard McStravick, president and chief executive officer of Sound Federal Savings. The county encompasses the Connecticut “Gold Coast,” one of the wealthiest areas of the nation, is home to thousands of businessmen and professionals who work in the greater metropolitan New York City area, and contains large low-income, inner-city areas with a melting pot of immigrants.
For steering committee member Thomas Kirk, a businessman, the foundation means “an opportunity to live your faith through your work more than typically expected of you as a businessman.”
The Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation plans to present such opportunities to the typical Fairfield County professional and businessman, though the “action” stage is yet to be formalized. The group is looking to offer lunch-hour seminars on social teachings in the workplace and putting interactive learning on a Web site.
Social Teaching
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Bishop William Lori, head of the Bridgeport Diocese, have accepted the role of ecclesiastic counselors for the group in the United States.
“One of the great secrets of knowledge is the extraordinary body of Catholic social teaching that is often not recognized,” Cardinal McCarrick said. “[The Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation] seeks to throw light on this extraordinarily important teaching that is so relevant to our time. I'm pleased to be involved with any organization that is working to make this possible.”
Msgr. Stephen Happel, dean of theology and religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., will be working with the foundation on ways to further educate target populations on Catholic social teaching.
“We've already talked about designing formal programs where diocesan heads of social justice programs can fly to Washington on weekends” for an intensive course on social teaching, Nalewajek said.
Some Italian chapters have taken the initiative to organize courses on ethics for business entrepreneurs from other parts of the world, Rossi said, adding that “there is no imposition on what the program should be. Each chapter decides which are the best approaches.”
From the 325 people who attended the Mass for the U.S. introduction, Nalewajek reported that 155 people said they'd like to join the foundation.
“If you're getting the word out, you're evangelizing,” said Nalewajek, quoting John Paul's encyclical that “the Church's social teaching is itself a valid instrument of evangelization.”
With the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, he said, “We're heeding the Holy Father's call for a New Evangelization.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Rebuilt Church Boasts a More Traditional Style
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 29 — In Birmingham, Ala., a parish church destroyed by fire two years ago has been rebuilt in a more traditional style than its predecessor, the Associated Press reported.
St. Francis Xavier Church, destroyed by lightning in 2001, used to be a 1970s-style A-frame building. Parishioners decided to reconstruct the building in a “classic” church design, with a 92-foot bell tower, 27 stained-glass windows and porcelain tile floors.
“What was popular in 1970 isn't popular anymore,” said parishioner Janet Harrod. “The classic and Old-World [style] will speak to people 100 years from now.”
The rebuilding choice followed “town hall” meetings held by the church building committee with parishioners, who decided to raise an additional $4.5 million to supplement the insurance company's payment.
The pastor, Father Patrick Sullivan, said that the lightning strike might have been a “blessing in disguise.”
The wire service noted that the parish is one of several new traditional church buildings in the area, including a chapel and castle in 13th-century style at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Ala., founded by Mother Angelica.
Vatican Bashed by Mutant Superheroes
CATHOLIC LEAGUE, June 27 — The July edition of the Marvel Comic series “The X-Men” tells the tale of good and evil by using Catholicism as a backdrop — and as a whipping boy.
According to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the comic mocks the Church's pro-life position and its belief in the Eucharist, shows a former nun raped by a priest and contends that the Pope is the Antichrist.
Catholic League president William Donohue noted that bigotry was a theme of the first issue of “The X-Men” in 1963. “Here we are 40 years later and the prohibition has been lifted,” he said. “Just for Catholics.”
“Catholics are liked so much these days that our friends can't resist addressing us in comic books. … Maybe it's time we had an affirmative-action system for Catholics so we can catch up with everyone else. Just don't award us 20 points — the Supreme Court likes its preferences veiled,” he said, in reference to the recent high court ruling on race-based college admission policies.
Harley Hog Heaven?
In response to Harley-Davidson's 100th anniversary celebration, scheduled for Aug. 23 to Sept. 1 in Milwaukee, the archdiocese is asking local parishes to welcome bikers visiting for the festival.
“We want our parishes to open their doors to people from out of town,” said Church spokeswoman Kathleen Hohl.
On its Web site, the archdiocese offers a list of resources for churches to attract riders.
Father John Schreiter of St. Bruno's Catholic Church in Dousman, Mich., helped organize the archdiocese's Harley-Davidson promotions. Father Schreiter plans to host a “bike blessing,” which reads, in part: “May God bless you and keep you safe on this machine. May you meet Christ in the beauty of your travels, in the freedom of the open road, the companionship of other bikers and in each person you encounter.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Birth at Sea: Iraq War Again Raises Question of Women in Military DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:SAN DIEGO — In what is believed to be the first time ever a military woman on active duty has given birth, Naval doctors delivered a 7-pound baby boy on May 23. His mother is deployed in the Persian Gulf.
The 33-year-old mother, a staff sergeant whose name has not been released, had her baby on a San Diego-based warship, the USS Boxer, according to Pentagon officials. The mother and child were flown to a Kuwaiti hospital after delivery.
The delivery brings to the fore all kinds of questions about the role of women in war zones.
Charmaine Yoest, a fellow at the University of Virginia who has written on the issue of women in the military, said the incident “just highlights that women in combat will not work and that fraternization is a real problem for today's military. You couldn't make up a story that more clearly illustrates the complications that arise from sending women into combat and putting them at risk of capture.”
“Nevertheless,” Yoest said, “I am afraid that the pressure to be politically correct will keep us from confronting this problem in a substantive way.”
A Pentagon official told the reporter who broke the story, Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times, about the new mother Marine and how she managed to be deployed until giving birth.
“She never told anybody she was pregnant,” the official said. “I think she claimed she didn't know she was pregnant. The good thing was the Boxer has a complete hospital on board, so that was not a problem.”
According to reports from people who know the mother, she did not know she was pregnant until she was in labor — and at first she thought she was suffering from bad cramps.
But that the delivery was safe should not be the end of public concerns, critics of the military's current pregnancy policies say.
“We don't know the marital status of this [woman Marine] or whether she has other children, but overly generous pregnancy benefits subsidize and increase the incidence of single parenthood,” said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, who served on the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces.
Donnelly hopes the news of the 33-year-old mother will be the catalyst for a military review.
“Liberal pregnancy policies imposed on the Navy and Marine Corps in 1995 by then Secretary of the Navy John Dalton are in need of serious review and repeal,” she said. “Clinton-era pregnancy policies, still in effect, offer overly generous education, housing and medical benefits to pregnant sailors, regardless of marital status or number of pregnancies.”
Single-Parent ‘Mecca’
In her 1997 book, Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military, feminist Linda Bird Franke praised the generous benefits as making the American military “a particular Mecca for single parents.”
And, in fact, in 1989, as Kate O'Beirne recently noted in National Review, the Navy had double the number of single parents than in the civilian population.
A few weeks before the news of the Marine birth broke, the U.S. military's commander in chief suggested he did not share Donnelly's or Yoest's concerns about the role of women in the military, passing the buck to the Pentagon on the matter.
“The configuration of our force and who ought to be fighting where — that's going to be up to the generals,” President Bush said. “That's how we run our business here in the White House. We set the strategy and we rely upon our military to make the judgments necessary to achieve the strategy.”
At the time an official for the liberal feminist Women's Research and Education Institute told a reporter, “We won the war and women were all over the place, doing their jobs and doing them well. It works.”
But is it working? During the 1980s, the Navy experienced a pregnancy rate of women on sea tours of 10% — raising readiness questions. (There has been no data released about the pregnancy rate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.)
And, besides the readiness issues that some say should be on the Pentagon's list of priorities, there are even more fundamental issues: Do Americans want children born in war zones? What if the new mother had not been on the sea but on the ground, traveling through the deserts of Iraq when she experienced her “cramps”? And what about the real, heightened possibility of these children being orphaned?
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, there were more than 35,000 women deployed in a force of about 270,000.
Donnelly would like to see the president take an active role in ordering a review of current policy, given the inappropriateness of a baby being born on a warship.
“I suspect that the majority of [women in the military], who are a very impressive bunch, are just as embarrassed by this as the men are,” she said. “The policies that lead to this sort of irresponsibility are the fault of the Clinton administration, but the Bush administration is responsible for retaining them.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Archbishop Wanted 'Pallium' Pilgrimage to Lead Milwaukee to Pope DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee was out in force — approximately 600 pilgrims strong — to celebrate their new archbishop's reception of the pallium in St. Peter's Square in Rome on June 29.
Pope John Paul II conferred the pallium on 40 new metropolitan archbishops, including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee and Archbishop Marc Ouellet of Quebec. The annual ceremony takes place on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul during the papal Mass at St. Peter's. This year the Holy Father spoke of the pallium as a “sign of communion with the Apostolic See.”
The pallium is a circular band of wool worn over the chasuble by an archbishop when he celebrates Mass within his metropolitan province. In general, dioceses are grouped together in “provinces” around one archdiocese. For example, all the dioceses of Wisconsin constitute the metropolitan province of Milwaukee, with Milwaukee's archbishop bearing the title of “metropolitan archbishop.”
The ceremony in Rome is now almost 20 years old — John Paul introduced it in 1984, instead of having the pallia delivered to new archbishops in their own archdioceses.
“I wanted to make the reception of the pallium an occasion of interior renewal for Milwaukee, to reaf-firm the bonds of unity between the See of Rome and the See of Milwaukee,” Archbishop Dolan told the Register. Soon after he was nominated as archbishop in June 2002, Archbishop Dolan began the planning for what he has called the “pallium pilgrimage.” More than 600 Milwaukee Catholics joined him for a week in Rome.
“The faith of the people in Milwaukee is so strong,” Archbishop Dolan explained when asked how such a large pilgrimage could have been organized in the aftermath of the sexual scandals of 2002, which included the resignation of Archbishop Dolan's predecessor, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, after revelations of a homosexual affair and subsequent payoff. “Our Catholic people are looking for an opportunity to show their pride in the Church and their gratitude for their faith — they are looking for opportunities to publicly express their faith.”
Archbishop Dolan prepared the archdiocese for the pilgrimage by hosting three lectures in Milwaukee given by Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, papal biographer George Weigel and theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles. All three lectures were standing room only.
In addition, all the pilgrims were invited to participate in a day of recollection before leaving Milwaukee, with the opportunity to receive the sacrament of confession. The Roman pilgrimage also included a day of recollection in Assisi preached by Archbishop Dolan himself.
“The power of 600 people sharing their faith in prayer and sacrament will be a force for renewal in all the parts of the archdiocese from which the pilgrims come,” Archbishop Dolan said.
“I want them to know and to taste and to smell Rome; I want to cram into a week — if that were possible — all that the seminarians experience who are here for four years,” the archbishop said, referring to his seven years as rector of the Pontifical North American College, the American seminary in Rome. “I want them to know what the word ‘catholic’ means, to know that the Church is always in need of reform and that she has been purified by many serious crises in the past.”
Archbishop Dolan's large delegation — the largest in recent years to accompany an American archbishop — reinforced his emergence as a figure of great hope for the Church in the United States.
“There is a temptation to get a big head,” Archbishop Dolan acknowledged. “But I am not able to fulfill everyone's hopes. I will not be able to succeed in keeping all of my promises. The best a bishop can do is to point out the One who always keeps his promises, the One who alone can fulfill all hopes.”
“This pilgrimage is about four people,” Archbishop Dolan told the pilgrims at the opening Mass in the historic Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere. “It's not about me. It is about Jesus, Mary, Peter and Paul.”
The pallium Mass had an added American element this year, in the presence of Archbishop Demetrios, the Greek Orthodox bishop for the entire United States. He was representing the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Batholomew I, who every year sends a delegation to Rome for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul. The Holy Father in turn sends a delegation to Constantinople for the feast of St. Andrew every Nov. 30.
After several years of not celebrating the Peter and Paul Mass himself, the Holy Father returned this year to the role of principal celebrant. The introduction of a hydraulic wheelchair has made it possible for him to celebrate Mass without having to stand or walk.
“As Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter, I renew today, in the suggestive framework of this feast, my full commitment to put myself at the service of the communion of all the disciples of Christ,” John Paul said. “Help me, dear brothers and sisters, with the aid of your unceasing prayers.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vetican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Hacking the Vatican
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS, June 24 — The Vatican Web site (www.vatican.va) is a rich source of information, providing online access to papal documents, news reports and now images of Vatican art. This makes it a tempting target for hackers, as the Vatican revealed June 24, announcing that it has hired a team of specialists to protect the site, a target of some 10,000 viruses per month and at least 30 (mainly U.S.-based) hackers a day.
“Fortunately, up to now no one has managed to penetrate the Pope's site, thanks to a highly efficient team of specialists charged with anti-virus protection, who have always managed to block hackers’ e-mails,” said Archbishop Claudio Celli, secretary for the administration of the Holy See's heritage. “Young Americans are the most common and aggressive of hackers around the world seeking to cross the Vatican's e-borders.”
The cardinal noted that other surfers sometimes cause trouble without meaning to, such as one insomniac Franciscan friar who has repeatedly tried to edit the site.
John Paul to Spend Vacation Writing
“He intends to finish a book he has been writing on his human and pastoral experiences as a bishop,” said papal spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls.
Earlier this year the Holy Father published a book of his poems called Roman Triptych.
Navarro-Valls denied reports that ill health was responsible for the Pope's cancellation of his trip to the mountains. In his younger days, John Paul was an avid mountaineer. Before his election as Pope, the report pointed out, he was also a prolific poet and playwright.
Pope Urges Indian Bishops to Preach Christ
FIDES, June 27 — “Evangelization is a charge in which all the members of the Church share by virtue of their baptism,” Pope John Paul II said as he exhorted bishops from India on June 26 during their ad limina visit to Rome, undertaken every five years.
The Holy Father also recognized the challenges the Indian bishops face, noting: “How unfortunate it is then that even today in many places in India unnecessary obstacles still impede the preaching of the Gospel. Citizens of a modern democracy should not suffer because of their religious convictions. Nor should anyone feel compelled to hide his or her religion in order to enjoy fundamental human rights, such as education and employment.”
John Paul encouraged the bishops despite present difficulties to be “beacons of courage and hope, inspiring clergy, religious and lay faithful to take heart and continue to preach Christ, who loves us even unto death, death on a cross.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vetican -------- TITLE: After Iraq, What Is Ahead for the United Nations? DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — The Iraqi war raised serious questions about the role of the United Nations. The Vatican, for one, believes the organization must be modified to respond to today's interdependence among states.
In the following Zenit interview, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, analyzes the organization's situation and the challenges it faces if it is to function adequately.
Archbishop Migliore, 50, arrived in New York six months ago, after having been Vatican undersecretary of state for relations with states since 1995.
The Iraqi crisis seems to have given a mortal blow to the United Nations, whose limitations seem ever more evident. How aware is the New York headquarters of this?
The limitations of the United Nations are known and are due, to a large extent, to its original approach, which was in keeping with criteria dictated by the Cold War. At headquarters, there have been plans under way for years to reform the United Nations.
Recently, Secretary-General Kofi Annan created a commission of experts to find new ways for society and the private sectors to participate in the activities of the United Nations. This need is perceived because the ideals and objectives the United Nations adopted at the time of its creation are still timely, but the modalities and mechanisms for forging the common will absolutely must be changed.
In what direction?
I think this is already clear to all. The situation in which the Security Council found itself at the moment of the debate on the Iraqi crisis, the importance that the Economic and Social Council — one of the principal organizations of the United Nations — has acquired in the last decade in the development of large international conferences and the opportunity to associate nongovernmental entities with the work of the organization are factors that call for new procedures to enable the United Nations to promote its principles and objectives.
The United Nations is presented as the supreme organ of international legality, but it functions as a terrain of compromise among different interests in which those of the strongest prevail. How can this basic contradiction be overcome?
From the very beginning, the procedures ruling the United Nations have been oriented to guarantee the safety of the balance of powers. However, in the new world context, marked by globalization, the point of view does not seem to be so much balance and dissuasion as it is interdependence.
The Pope mentioned this last January when he addressed the ambassadors accredited in the Vatican: “The independence of states cannot be conceived except in interdependence.” From this point of view, the most ideal forum is the General Assembly, which includes all the member states of the United Nations on an equal footing.
Could the end of a bipolar world and the emergence of a sole superpower make the United Nations increasingly ineffective?
At the time of the adoption of Resolution 1483 after the war in Iraq, these words were heard again in the Security Council: If the United Nations did not exist, it would have to be invented.
This might mean, among other things, that the weak point must not be sought only in procedures but especially in the political will of those who participate in the shaping of consensus.
If one remains at the level of mere particular interests, agreement can easily be reached on the lowest common denominator, leaving room for those disposing of greater resources.
If, instead, there is a political will to identify the universal common good, something already referred to 40 years ago in [Pope John XXIII's 1963] encyclical Pacem in Terris [Peace on Earth], then one can aim at the highest common denominator.
The idea of multilateralism, along with the United Nations, has gained ground. Is it still a feasible concept?
In its social doctrine, the Catholic Church favors a view of international authority in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity. At the recent U.N. conferences at Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg, for example, commitments were made, among them, to pursue development that respects nature and to promote the development of poor countries by bringing them into the circuit of production and trade.
Commitments that often remain on paper …
Multilateralism means that promises must be kept, and that it is not enough to make a simple gesture to lighten the external debt. It is necessary to revise barriers and economic subsidies in countries with a strong economy in order to allow poor countries to produce and enter the network of commercial exchange.
Today, the urgent need for disarmament is proposed again, in particular of the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction. Multilateralism means that if there is a desire to respect commitments that have been endorsed, the first to maintain the agreements must be, precisely, the strongest countries.
Moreover, it means that one cannot be selective in exacting respect from those who do not comply. Multilateralism must be revived, which is in crisis on many fronts, including respect for its fundamental rules.
The Holy See does not tire of stressing the importance of the United Nations for peaceful coexistence. But on the occasion of important international conferences, it has distanced itself more than once from the orientations of the United Nations in matters of respect for life and the family.
The Holy See has maintained a very clear line in regard to the Iraqi crisis, stating from the beginning that the question was not the exclusive concern of one or a few governments.
If the problem was that of nuclear disarmament, chemical or biological, according to the rules and procedures established at the heart of the United Nations, then it was up to the United Nations to makes its rules respected. It is a question of respect of international legality.
In regard to that, the Holy See expects much, because it is convinced that we have attained such a patrimony of consensus, rules, procedures and control mechanisms that — if they are accepted and respected with determination by states — we can allow ourselves to resolve inevitable conflicts through legal and peaceful means.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican ------- TITLE: Our Hope Is in the Lord DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:A truth that is a source of consolation ensues from this psalm: We are not left to our own devices, the events in our daily life are not dominated by chaos or fate, and these events are not merely a series of acts that lack any meaning or goal. A true and genuine profession of faith in God flows from this conviction, which is celebrated in a sort of litany where God's own attributes of love and goodness are proclaimed (see verses 6-9).
God Rules the Universe
God is the creator of heaven and earth, and the faithful guardian of the covenant that binds him to his people. He is the one who secures justice for the oppressed, gives bread to sustain the hungry and sets prisoners free. He is the one who opens the eyes of the blind, raises up those who have fallen down, loves those who are righteous, protects the stranger, and sustains the orphan and the widow. He is the one who thwarts the way of the wicked and reigns as ruler over all creatures and all times.
These 12 theological affirmations — perfect in number — express the fullness and perfection of God's action. The Lord is not some ruler who is far removed from his creatures. Rather, he is involved in their unfolding history as the one who fights for justice by siding with the lowly and with those who are downtrodden, oppressed or wretched.
The Choices We Face
Therefore, man finds himself facing a radical choice between two conflicting prospects. On one hand, there is the temptation to “trust in princes” (see verse 3) by adopting their standards, which are inspired by wickedness, selfishness and pride. Truly, this path is slippery and leads to ruin; it is a path that is “crooked” and “devious” (see Proverbs 2:15), which will result in despair.
In fact, the psalmist reminds us that man is a fragile and mortal being, as expressed by the word 'adam, which in Hebrew refers to earth, matter and dust. Man, as the Bible often reminds us, is like a palace that crumbles (see Ecclesiastes 12:1-7), a cobweb that the wind can tear to pieces (see Job 8:14) or a blade of grass that is green at dawn and withered at night (see Psalm 90:5-6; 103:15-16). When death befalls him, all his plans disintegrate and he returns to dust: “When they breathe their last, they return to the earth; that day all their planning comes to nothing” (Psalm 146:4).
Trust in God
However, man also faces another prospect, which is the one the psalmist exalts using a beatitude: “Happy those whose help is Jacob's God, whose hope is in the Lord, their God” (verse 5). This is the way of trust in God, who is eternal and faithful. The amen, which is the Hebrew word for faith, actually means being based on the indestructible foundation of the Lord, on his eternity and on his infinite power. But above all, it means sharing his choices, which are highlighted by the profession of faith and praise that we have already described.
We need to live according to God's will, offer bread to the hungry, visit prisoners, support and comfort the sick, defend and welcome strangers, and devote ourselves to those who are poor and destitute. In practical terms, it is the same spirit that is found in the Beatitudes; it is deciding to choose love, which saves us even in this life and will eventually form the basis for our trial at the Last Judgment, which will seal history. At that time, we will be judged on whether we chose to serve Christ in those who were hungry, those who were thirsty, those who were strangers, those who were naked, those who were sick and those who were in prison. At that time the Lord will say, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
The Bread of Life
Let us conclude our meditation on Psalm 146 with a reflection from our subsequent Christian tradition.
When commenting on verse 7 of this psalm, which says that the Lord “gives food to the hungry” and “sets prisoners free,” the great third century writer Origen perceived an implicit reference to the Eucharist: “We are hungry for Christ, and he himself will give us the bread of heaven. ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ Those who speak these words are hungry; those who feel the need for bread are hungry.” This hunger is fully satisfied in the sacrament of the Eucharist, in which man is nourished by the body and blood of Christ (see Origen — Jerome, 74 Omelie sul Libro dei Salmi, Milan, 1993, p. 526-527).
(Register translation)
Register Summary
Pope John Paul II met with more than 8,000 pilgrims in the Paul VI Hall for his general audience July 2. His teaching was on Psalm 146, which appears in the Liturgy of the Hours.
The Holy Father pointed out that Psalm 146 is the first of the five “alleluia” psalms that close the Book of Psalms. It is a hymn of praise to God, who rules sovereign over all creation and who is faithful to his covenant. The psalm reminds us, the Holy Father said, that we are not alone here on Earth. God is ever attentive to the sufferings of his creatures and he acts with justice and shows compassion.
John Paul said we are faced with two conflicting prospects. We can place our trust in the princes of this world by adopting their standards, which are inspired by wickedness, selfishness and pride. Ultimately, this way leads to despair. Or we can choose to follow the Lord, who is faithful and eternal. The Holy Father reminded those present that we, too, are called — in the spirit of the Beatitudes — to follow Jesus’ example and to share with the poor, defend the oppressed and show compassion to those who reflect in their lives the face of the suffering Christ.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Horn of Africa Region Faces Serious Famine DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The Horn of Africa was not on President Bush's itinerary for his trip to Africa on July 8-12, but it is coming into focus as it hasn't been since the Ethiopian famine of 1984.
“Ethiopia's in trouble,” said Ambassador Tony Hall, who represents the United States at the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Program. “We have approximately 1,200 children dying every day in the country; half of all the children in Ethiopia are chronically malnourished; 51% of the children are stunted.”
With its mixture of drought, conflict, democracy and dictatorship, the Horn of Africa is representative of the challenges facing a Bush administration committed to alleviating the vast extent of suffering in Africa.
Hall is unambiguous in his assessment, calling the food shortage in the region “the major problem in the world today from the standpoint of a humanitarian emergency.”
He is not alone in his evaluation. Ken Hackett, executive director of Catholic Relief Services, maintains the current crisis threatens to be of equal — if not potentially greater — magnitude to the Ethiopian famine of 1984, which killed nearly 1 million people.
“We're talking about 14 million people who are severely affected,” he said, “a large proportion of whom are in a severe state of malnutrition.”
But why is this region so vulnerable to famine? According to Hackett, unlike other African countries, Ethiopia is facing a deadly combination of “successive drought” and “terrible poverty.” Their ability to rise out of that poverty is severely impaired, he said. “The same is true in Eritrea, although there are some factors there that aggravate the situation, such as the lingering of war and mobilization of soldiers.”
Ethiopia is “probably the poorest nation in the world, with an annual per capita income of around $100 a year,” Hall said. “On their best year, Ethiopia cannot feed itself, and since they've had drought year after year for the past few years, it's been very difficult to try to catch up with the situation.”
Ethiopian-rite Archbishop Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa also cited poverty as the “basic” reason for this recurrent famine. But he believes if poverty is “tackled from different angles, Ethiopia will not only be able to feed itself but could [also] be a source of agricultural products for other countries.”
As far as his country is concerned, he remains hopeful, not least because it currently has the most popular government it's had for decades.
“There is stability now in Ethiopia,” he said. “The government is continuing with its participatory democracy model and trying to fight corruption.”
To the North
The story is not the same in Eritrea, which is run by autocratic President Isaias Afworki.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Eritrean who recently returned to Italy said, “People are afraid to speak openly about the government but are starting to voice their total opposition to it, especially students who are forced to do military service, which takes them away from important agricultural work.”
After winning de facto independence from Ethiopia in 1991, Eritrea has continued to have border disputes with its neighbor, leading to a two-year war begun in 1998, which cost tens of thousands of lives. It also led to conscription for men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 that is often prolonged indefinitely.
But even with stable and democratic governments as in Ethiopia, famine and poverty are likely to persist.
“It's going to take an awful great injection of resources and support to really make any positive policy changes that are going to have any difference,” Catholic Relief Services’ Hackett said.
For this reason, Archbishop Souraphiel and others favor a “Marshall Plan” for Africa and programs similar to the $15 billion U.S. contribution to combat HIV/AIDS.
“When the Iraq war was going on, I heard commentaries it might need $60-$70 billion,” the archbishop said. “Imagine if such a thing were given to poor countries to bring them out of their poverty.”
The Ethiopian Ambassador to the Holy See, Nagash Kebret, agrees but acknowledges that aid on its own is not enough to prevent the effects of recurrent drought.
“[Aid] has to be in the context of sustainable economic development,” he said. “Relief assistance has to be turned into development assistance. We believe this to be the best solution to the problem.”
Throughout the years, the U.S. government has been criticized for the meager quantity and poor quality of aid it offers developing countries. Ethiopia has been different, with the United States providing 60% of its food aid.
“We've been very grateful for the assistance from the United States,” Kebret said. “They were the first to respond to our appeal.”
Archbishop Souraphiel agrees but singles out areas of neglect.
“Our neighbor Somalia has had no government in 11 years, and nobody's giving it attention,” he said. “There are also a lot of problems in southern Sudan.”
He believes it is because countries in the region have little to offer economically.
“You need oil, uranium or diamonds to get attention,” he said. “If you're poor like us and Somalia, we're out of circulation.”
Hall said Bush has already addressed the food issue. Concerning the continent in general, he said the “president's heart has been touched” by the extent of its suffering.
“I know he realizes that out of the 35 most difficult countries in the world humanitarian-wise, 25 of them are in Africa,” Hall said.
Part of Bush's call for a decade of “unprecedented advancement” for Africa also includes efforts toward healing and peace. Archbishop Souraphiel is particularly keen for these efforts to be applied to the horn of Africa.
“They could bring those groups together struggling for power,” he said.
Moreover, he added, they could encourage both Ethiopia and Eritrea “to make preparations for lasting peace because the people want it.”
As Africa anticipated the Bush visit, the archbishop hoped the president would see the continent's poor areas.
Speaking to the Register at the end of June, Archbishop Souraphiel said rains have now begun reaching parts of the region. But with the next harvest not until December, and poverty and hunger widespread, he emphasized that “help is still needed.”
The archbishop is confident, however, that the war on want can be won — it just depends on strength of will.
“If the American government and President Bush really want to help these poor countries to come out of poverty,” he said, “they can do it.”
Edward Pentin is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Chileans Crowd Buddha's Ashes
REUTERS, June 28 — As part of a world peace pilgrimage, Buddhist monks brought the ashes of Siddartha Gotama, the founder of the ascetic religion called Buddhism, to the mostly Catholic nation of Chile on June 28.
Contained in a golden dome, the 2,500-year-old remains were guarded by police and security guards as monks carried them in great solemnity, chanting and waving incense, to a decorated platform in a cultural center in Santiago. Hundreds of city residents crowded the center, surprising local Buddhists — a tiny congregation.
“This is an opportunity you only have once in a lifetime,” said Luis Flores, a native Buddhist. “It's the equivalent of going to Jerusalem for Catholics.”
The remains have visited 15 countries, Yahoo reported, and will reside permanently at the United Nations.
Africa's Forgotten War
FIDES, June 27— Killing, sacking, terror. This is how a missionary stationed in Monrovia, capital of Liberia, described the situation there, in a June 27 report by Fides, the Vatican's missionary news service. The town has for many days been caught in a conflict between troops loyal to President Charles Taylor and rebels.
“The city streets are empty, patrolled only by military trucks,” said a missionary who was not named in the report. “The few people encountered have terror written on their faces. The homeless crowd into makeshift camps. The city is falling ever more into anarchy — if you have a rifle you make the law.”
He called for international intervention to separate the warring parties. Diplomatic efforts to try to stop the war continue.
A U.N. mission has initiated talks between the warring parties, while President Bush has asked Taylor to step down “so as to save his country from more bloodshed.”
European Union Policies Called a Threat to Africa
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 30 — The U.K.-based Catholic Association for Overseas Development stated June 27 that a new European Union agreement on farm subsidies does not contain reforms necessary to stop the dumping of cheap EU goods on developing countries, which threatens the livelihoods of poor farmers in Africa, among other places.
The association called the final proposals lame efforts that will do little to end the damage EU subsidies do. The total Common Agricultural Policy budget of about $50 billion will remain in place until 2013 — meaning 10 more years of subsidies, after which the battle will likely be re-fought.
“This agreement is a bad deal for the world's poor. It's an outrage,” said Duncan Green, a trade policy analyst with the Catholic Association for Overseas Development.
The EU's support for dairy farmers amounts to about $18 billion per year, which works out as about $2.30 per day for each cow.
Put another way, the average EU cow now receives more than the per capita income of half the world's population.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: China Watch: Group Reveals Population Abuses DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va. — An organization that fights population-control efforts claims to have new evidence supporting a continued ban on U.S. funding of the U.N. Population Fund.
When a new push to gut the Kemp-Kasten Amendment forbidding U.S. funds from aiding countries with coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization programs emerged last December, a Chinese-American went to see if China's one-child policy had suddenly changed.
The man, a journalist who had been commissioned to investigate the matter on behalf of the Virginia-based Population Research Institute, set out to test the assertions of the United Nations and some U.S. lawmakers that China no longer enforces its brutal one-child policy.
But Steven Mosher, Population Research Institute president and an expert on China himself, said the journalist/researcher returned with a cadre of Chinese government documents — some of which have been translated into English and made available in summary form — showing not much has changed.
The man remains anonymous to protect his family in China and his ability to freely travel there. The documents he brought back, dated from as recently as January of this year and reaching back to about a year ago, lay out in great detail the widespread system of fines and punishments used to discipline nurses, doctors and civilians who refuse to adhere to the one-child policy.
“These documents make clear that the coercion is still the order of the day and that requirements of sterilizations and abortions are still in place and that these apply evenly across the country with no exceptions,” Mosher told the Register.
The journalist and other witnesses have subsequently met privately with members of Congress, Mosher added.
It has been the assertion of the U.N. Population Fund that such coercive incidents were nowadays a rarity and that its own research and projects in China indicated that the nation had mostly turned the page in its one-child policy.
But the Population Research Institute documents and witness accounts underline a different reality. One Chinese doctor noted that China's health bureaucracy regularly slaughters infants, and newborns are sometimes “taken back from the gynecology and obstetrics hospital.”
“When the infant is born, the nurse will take it away right away and won't let its mother see it and know if it's living or dead,” the doctor said.
Another witness said that at provincial hospitals, pre-born babies are often delivered alive only to be drowned by a nurse.
The Bush administration has already deemed the U.N. Population Fund for China to be in violation of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, but U.N. watchdog organizations such as the Population Research Institute and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute say there is a movement afoot among Democrats on the House International Relations Committee — with the support of some pro-abortion Republicans, along with the U.N. Population Fund itself — to tear down the Kemp-Kasten barrier.
In May, in the amendment process to the Department of State Authorization Act, Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., successfully offered an amendment to void the Kemp language and restore $25 million to the U.N. Population Fund for its family-planning work in China and other developing countries. Those funds have been put on hold for the U.N. Population Fund, and the administration would like to redirect it to health care projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But now Congress is waiting to address that bill, and Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., plans to offer a pro-life amendment to counter Crowley's.
“I think the United States will maintain its funding blackout until the next Democratic presidency,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. The U.N. Population Fund, he said, has already been implicated in coercive family-planning actions not just in China but also in Peru, which was sterilizing Indian women against their will.
“Wherever you find [the U.N. Population Fund] operating with an authoritarian regime, more than likely coercion is going on,” he added.
Both the Population Research Institute's Mosher and Scott Weinburg, the agency's director of governmental affairs, agreed Kemp-Kasten will ultimately be upheld in the short term. Weinburg said it is telling that the Democrats are willing to change the law in order to fund the U.N. Population Fund, which means they are tacitly admitting that the U.N. Population Fund is supporting coercive abortions in China.
“We just need to make sure the president preserves Kemp, and he will,” Weinburg said.
William Ryan, a spokesman and deputy branch chief of the Asian desk at the U.N. Population Fund, told the Register that the fund is confident its programs are not involved in coercive practices in China “and we have said so repeatedly.” On the question of whether China still enforces its one-child policy, he said, “I don't have anything to add.”
But the pages of the translated Chinese documents that the Population Research Institute provided the Register establish that the health ministry mandates rural health clinics to “seriously perform well-planned birth work” and that that work is a major national task for all local clinics.
“Planned-birth administrative health organizations that violate these regulations and approve planned-birth technical services that do not meet these regulations [such as assisting in an unauthorized birth] or who fail to carry out supervisory responsibility or who know of violations but do not report them and which lead to major mistakes [illegal births] of technical services for planned births — those people will be punished,” according to a 2001 document of the Chinese Ministry of Health, Central Region, with parenthetical comments by Population Research Institute or its translators.
— Special to the Register
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cast Your Nets DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:There is much fretting in the Catholic world about what Pope John Paul should be doing that he isn't doing or what he should-n't be doing that he is doing. These debates can be healthy. But we wish there was a little less attention being paid to what critics think the Pope should be doing, and a lot more attention being paid to what the Pope thinks we should be doing.
Because, the truth is, if all of the Catholics who are concerned about the Church were doing the things the Pope has asked us to do, the world would be transformed very quickly.
Solving the problems of the Church wouldn't take a miracle; it wouldn't even take greater numbers of faithful Catholics than we already have, at least not at first. But it would mean uniting around John Paul and taking his concerns and directions to heart.
Imagine, for instance, what could come of his apostolic letter at the beginning of the new millennium (Novo Millennio Ineunte). In it, the Pope challenged all Catholics to “set out into the depths and let down your nets for a catch.”
Then he got specific, naming the things he wants done. Here's the language the Pope used as he outlined his pastoral program: “I therefore earnestly exhort the Pastors of the particular Churches, with the help of all sectors of God's People, confidently to plan the stages of the journey ahead.”
Yes, bishops could do more (as the letter featured on this page suggests) but so can “all sectors of God's people.” That means each of us.
Imagine the consequences if all concerned Catholics started promoting Sunday Mass, for instance. We could each set the goal of filling our own Church and then get others from our parishes together to help.
Think of what would happen in the lives of the families we welcomed back! Their entire week would be given a new set of priorities, with Sunday Mass becoming its centerpiece. And statistics show what that means: Their children will be more likely to be church-goers, too. The ripple effect of our effort would roll grace out into time and space in ways we can't even see.
Or take the Pope's request to promote confession. Some of us could find a way to do that in our communities (find suggestions at www.ncregister.com, in the “How to Be a Catholic” guides) and quite literally save souls.
To make his intentions crystal clear, the Pope followed up his apostolic letter at the beginning of the new millennium with documents emphasizing each of his main requests. Confession got an apostolic letter all its own. The Eucharist got an encyclical.
But the Holy Father emphasized his call to return to prayer by giving it a whole year: the Year of the Rosary.
Imagine if even more Catholics had read what he said about promoting the rosary — “May this appeal of mine not go unheard!” — and taken him up on it. Our Lady of Fatima, whom the Pope mentions frequently, gave a good idea of the positive results that would come about if more people prayed the rosary.
In concluding his apostolic letter on the new millennium, the Pope himself recognizes that Catholics aren't necessarily doing what he's asking. Noting that he asked the Church to review the guidelines of the Second Vatican Council, he asked, “Has this been done?”
The Register tries each week to spotlight examples of those who are doing what the Pope asks. We recently featured Youth for the Third Millennium, which cooperates with parishes to reactivate Catholics. We've featured groups providing shopping-mall confessionals, groups promoting prayer on the Internet, groups promoting the social teaching of the Church, pro-life apostolates and more. This week, on the back page, we focus on Catholic Kids Net, which helps start apostolic parish groups for children.
These are the apostles of the new evangelization, answering Christ's call to “put out into the deep and cast your nets for a catch.” The Pope made those words into the Church's rallying cry at the beginning of the new millennium. It's time to listen to him — and act.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: How to Answer the Crisis DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Our bishops may be doing quite a bit in response to the sex-abuse crisis in the Church, as Chicago Cardinal Francis George has indicated (“Up Next: Seminaries and Root Causes,” June 29-July 5). Perhaps, though, they are working harder but not smarter.
It seems to me they could work more effectively, and at a cheaper cost, if they would:
1) Promote Eucharistic adoration.
2) Promote the family rosary.
3) Promote the sacrament of reconciliation, and make times frequent and convenient.
4) Forcefully and unapologetically preach against contraception, and provide natural family planning classes.
5) Require people presenting themselves for marriage to refrain from cohabitation and fornication, from the time they announce the marriage intentions and request a Church wedding.
6) Forcefully and unapologetically preach against divorce, and provide marriage- strengthening programs.
7) Forcefully and unapologetically preach against abortion, and provide post-abortion healing retreats.
8) Forcefully and unapologetically preach against homosexual activity, and welcome Courage into the diocese.
9) As for the apostolic visit of the seminaries: What is to prevent the individual bishop from making a visit — preferably unannounced — to the seminary where he sends his men for formation? Attend the classes they attend. Visit the library they visit. Have lunch with them, ask them how they are doing and what they are learning.
This list is by no means exhaustive. The items listed are relatively inexpensive and certainly need lay involvement in order to make them work. I honestly do not see the need for a lay review board, diocesan surveys or a plenary council to study the problem.
KATHRYN GROENING Midland, Michigan
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Embryo Adoption DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Celeste McGovern, the writer of your recent article on embryo adoption (“Brave New Womb: Embryos’ Dilemma,” May 25-31), makes a controversial assumption in the second paragraph when she writes: “[Embryos] are implanted into the womb of a surrogate mother who adopts them” (emphasis mine). The current debate among Catholic moral theologians focuses on the very issue of whether or not embryo adoption is in fact a surrogacy. If it is, then it has been condemned as immoral by Donum Vitae.
In his book Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life, Professor William May of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family addresses the common objections to embryo adoption, including those of Msgr. William Smith quoted in your article. May argues — successfully, I believe — that Msgr. Smith's quote from Donum Vitae is taken out of context and that embryo adoption is not a “surrogacy” as contemplated by Donum Vitae. Surrogacy necessarily implies the surrogate's intent to carry the child to term on behalf of another, essentially colluding with the genetic parents in the illicit creation of the human life.
Such is not the case with embryo adoption. Unlike the genetic parents or a surrogate, the adoptive parents want simply to rescue and nurture a defenseless embryonic human life already created but now abandoned.
Many orthodox Catholics, myself included, are coming to the conclusion that while in vitro fertilization is itself clearly immoral, the adoption and nurturing of abandoned embryos is a courageous response to the mandate of Donum Vitae to give to the human being, from the moment the zygote is formed, the unconditional respect that is morally due in his bodily and spiritual totality. “The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life” (Donum Vitae, Part I).
While embryo adoption is not a moral imperative, it can be both licit and heroic for those married couples called by God to this kind of generosity.
KITTY CLEVELAND Mandeville, Louisiana
Pope Was Right on Iraq
I was one who was vehemently opposed to the war with Iraq before the start of hostilities and am even more opposed to it now that it has been demonstrated that the president misled us with selective and even deliberately false interpretations of intelligence information. It was G.K. Chesterton who warned us many years ago that Wall Street is a very great threat to peace. I believe he was supposed to have felt that Wall Street was a greater threat to peace than Moscow, i.e. communism. I think this war adequately demonstrates that.
Then came Robert Royal's article in defense of this war (“Revisiting Iraq: Four Lessons” June 22-28). Oh, what is wrong with me that I have not been able to support Mr. Bush's war! I anguish. Mr. Royal has constructed a very tight defense of the war. One cannot get away. One has to either support the war or be irresponsible in the face of threats to peace.
That works well as long as one thinks inside the neat box Mr. Royal has constructed. But we dare not stay in the box. We must allow reality to interrupt our narrowness.
There is much I could state in response, but let me confine myself to two ideas.
First, regarding the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of irresponsible powers as a reason for war, I think we need to remember that we also possess weapons of mass destruction, and we are the only nation to have used them against other nations, if one does not count the gas used by both sides in World War I. We do not posses the moral superiority that is the prerequisite of Mr. Royal's argument. Weapons of mass destruction have a way of canceling each other out.
Even Hitler did not use poison gas, as he wanted to, out of fear of Allied response.
As for Saddam Hussein, he did not use them even when we were attacking him, if he in fact did have them.
Secondly, as for the new ethical principle that Mr. Royal calls for in light of modern weaponry: The principle needed has been around for a while, I think since the Iron Age. It is called the law of revenge. You can only do to your neighbor what he has done to you. That is the principle that an imperfect world must rely upon to prevent the spread of violence in a violent, selfish world. It is all the more needed in a world of modern weaponry that can do enormous destruction, not less needed.
Finally, I would like to say that our troops have fought well.
They have risked their lives and some have died and others suffered terribly. Mr. Bush used our fine young people for selfish ends. He should be all the more ashamed of himself that he took advantage of the willingness of our young people to serve in order to satisfy selfish economic interests of a wealthy clique.
Next time, let's do what your editorial in the same edition called for: Let us listen to the Pope.
GERALD P. MCAFEE Allentown, Pa.
Suffering Under the Soviets
Regarding “Pulitzer to Holocaust Denier Might Be Revoked” (Media Watch, June 29-July 5):
It seems to me that Walter Duranty's Pulitzer should be revoked. It is thanks to the likes of him that people are pretty much in the dark about communist evils. What are those evils?
Consider, to begin with, Stalin's famine of 1933. It was enforced, deliberate: The peasants were robbed of their food by the Soviet authorities. In the ensuing struggle to stay alive, people were driven to eat disease-ridden horse carcasses and also horse manure. Cannibalism was common. One of the few books written about this historical fact is Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (American Philological Association, 1986). His book is 411 pages long, and he helps put the situation into perspective by pointing out that each letter of his long work represents about 20 human lives. Yet Duranty did not want the world to know. (That last little line I just wrote: 680 lives.)
Still, the death of these millions represents only a small portion of the communist atrocities. More than 50 million have been murdered by their own government in China; about 20 million in communist Russia. In the 1970s, the communists of Cambodia murdered about 2 million of their people.
In sheer numbers, this is graver than the mind-boggling evil of the Nazis; yet most people know nothing about it. (Of course, it should be pointed out that the Nazis were not practicing any restraint or human decency; they had the will to kill this many innocent people, but they ran out of time.)
I'd like to suggest some homework to my fellow Catholics: the above-mentioned Robert Conquest book, along with his work called The Great Terror: A Reassessment (Oxford University Press, 1991, reissue). Also: Martin Amis’ brilliant, fascinating, horrifying little history called Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million (Miramax, 2002), and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's three-volume Gulag Archipelago (Harper-Collins, 1974). It is all grim reading, but one can always count on the appearance of light in the darkness.
JOHN LORANGER Sparks, Nevada
Methodists and ‘Tragic Conflicts'
I believe that a partial quote in the “Methodists for Life” item in the Prolife Victories column from the June 22-28 issue is misleading.
The quote states that the United Methodist Church's “Social Principles” states, “We support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures.” The complete quote reads, “In continuity with past Christian teaching, we recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures” (emphasis added). Source: The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, paragraph 65J (1996).
The quotation of only the last half of the sentence drastically alters the meaning of this statement to provide a wholly permissive view of abortion that is not reflective of the actual statement.
RHONDA NORCROSS KEMPKER Olathe, Kansas
Semites and Saints
Regarding “Jewish Groups Soften Demands Against Vatican” (Media Watch, June 8-14):
I do not understand why the Jewish people should have any say as to on whom the Catholic Church bestows sainthood. I am not a theologian, nor am I anti-Semitic, but there were Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah and those who did not. The Jews who do not accept Jesus, not only do not believe he was the Messiah, but they also do not believe the Catholic religion is the true religion. Hence they do not believe in the saints.
Letting the Jewish people have input into who is to be declared saints is akin to having the Knights of Columbus have a say as to who should be the chief rabbi of Jerusalem. Furthermore, the arguments put forth by the Jews to keep Pope Pius XII from being canonized go against recorded history and the praises bestowed upon him by the Jewish leaders at the time.
Previous issues contained articles debating whether or not it was proper to evangelize the Jewish people because of the covenant God gave to them. I believe the consensus was not to evangelize, which I do not understand. Again, not being a theologian, did the covenant not say that God would send a Messiah? In not accepting Jesus, did the Jewish people reject God? Did Jesus not establish a new covenant at the Last Supper with the establishment of the Eucharist? If it is proper to evangelize Protestants and others because they fell away from the Church, why not those who fell away from the covenant?
Jesus told the apostles to go and teach all nations. He did not say “except for the Jewish people.” The Jewish people are deserving of every effort to be made to bring them into the true religion.
GERARD MCEVOY Malvern, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Senators And Lawyers In the Confessional DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:In the face of the sexual-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, groups representing victims are pressing a national legislative strategy they think — wrongly — will deter these crimes by clergy.
Groups such as Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests have organized legislative efforts in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Virginia and Maryland to require priests to divulge information about child abuse they hear in the confessional. The initiatives are an obtuse and ill-planned response to a true tragedy. They would punish innocent persons, trample on the religious freedoms of people of many faiths and do little to help children.
While the Virginia legislature had the good sense to vote down a similar bill, Maryland Sen. Delores Kelley has introduced a bill that would require priests, and all clergy, to report information about child abuse they hear, even in the confessional or during similar moments of spiritual counseling.
The Maryland bill contains an exemption for the penitent — the information cannot be used against that person — but not for third parties discussed during confession. The New Hampshire version offers no exemption. Texas already has legislation like that, passed with nary a peep from Texas Catholics who politically could not risk appearing sympathetic to child abusers.
There are good reasons to object to these bills on constitutional grounds. For one thing, statements made about third parties and reported to authorities would normally be barred from use as evidence in a trial by rules against hearsay, rules designed in part to prevent citizens from spying on neighbors. Also, the law has always recognized that certain communications between parties should be kept secret.
The priest-penitent privilege is centuries old, recognized in all common-law jurisdictions. In a celebrated 1996 attempt to breach this privilege, Oregon tried to enter into evidence a secretly made tape recording of an inmate's confession to a priest. Even though the inmate wanted the contents of the confession to be known, the Catholic Church sued to keep them secret.
The suit was brought by then Bishop Francis George of Portland, now cardinal of the Chicago Archdiocese.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the Church, noting “the history of the nation has shown a uniform respect for the character of sacramental confession as inviolable by government agents interested in securing evidence of crime.”
Fortunately, Texas is in the minority in completely abolishing the priest-penitent privilege. More typical is a 1989 Maryland statute requiring priests and other professionals to report cases of suspected child abuse, with the exception of those learned in confession. Ironically, the newly proposed Maryland bill, like many of its cousins in other states, exempts lawyers from having to disclose reports of abuse they hear from clients.
Legislation would punish innocent persons, trample on the religious freedoms of people of many faiths and do little to help children.
While neutral on its face, this legislative movement is aimed primarily at Catholic priests who, it is assumed, will go to confession to fellow priests and tell of their child abuse. Leaving priests no place to hide, advocates claim, would disabuse them of the idea they can continue violating children.
In fact, the more likely result is that penitents of all varieties, from felons to venial sinners, would lose the fundamental trust necessary for useful spiritual guidance. Felons obviously just would not confess. But neither would children who stole from the cookie jar.
As aggrieved as victims of abuse are, they should think twice before bringing the wrath of the state to bear against their own Church and against the principle of clergy-communicant confidentiality.
The separation of church and state fundamentally means today what those on the Mayflower, in the synagogues of Baltimore and in the Quaker meeting houses of Philadelphia hoped for. It means the state must stay out of the internal workings of a religion, for the good of everyone.
There are other laws to punish child abusers and their churches when they are negligent. If the free exercise of religion means anything, it means that penitents can seek spiritual guidance from clergy, secure in the knowledge their communications are confidential.
Leaving the state out of the confessional is the best hope for helping all of us overcome our darker sides and for preserving our hard-won civil liberties.
John Farina, a theologian and lawyer, is a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, where he directs the Catholicism and Civic Renewal Project.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Farina ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: God and the Theater of the Grotesque DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:A quarter-century ago, when Godfather scribe Mario Puzo penned the first great comic-book superhero movie, Superman (1978), he did so with an eye to christological themes: A father in the heavens sends his only son to earth, and he becomes a savior. We also see the son's earthly father die, like St. Joseph, after which the son leaves home to do the work he was meant to do.
Religious themes and motifs are less symbolic and more explicit in the recent wave of superhero movies, from last year's Spider-Man to this year's Daredevil and, most recently, X2, the sequel to the 2000 film XMen.
X2 features a super-powered “mutant” character who prays the rosary, considers his sufferings as tests from Jesus and speaks of faith as an alternative to anger. Similarly, the hero in Daredevil confided the truth about his dual identity to a sympathetic priest and went to him for confession.
In Spider-Man, the hero's aunt was seen praying the Our Father (in the traditional Catholic style, without the long ending), apparently for the soul of the hero's murdered uncle, whose picture lies before her as she prays. Also, what appears to be a holy water stoup can be seen by the front door of their Queens home.
These elements of real-world religion in this new wave of superhero films are in a way in keeping with the spirit of the heroes’ Marvel Comics origins. Superman, like Batman, was from rival DC Comics, where characters lived in imaginary cities such as Metropolis and Gotham City. By contrast, Marvel characters have traditionally been closer to our own world — many of them live in New York, and even in specific neighborhoods like Queens or Hell's Kitchen — and real-world religion has long been a part of their world.
In the X-Men comic books, the popular character Nightcrawler, otherwise known as Kurt Wagner, was imagined from the outset as a believing Catholic. In one storyline, he even took up residency in a monastery and gave up superhero life to pursue priest-ly studies (though he wasn't ultimately ordained).
This character comes to the screen in X2. The film doesn't explore his background or faith in depth, but it does establish that he has spent time in a European carnival, and his folk Catholicism is respectfully treated.
In X2, Nightcrawler prays frequently — the rosary, Psalm 23, the Our Father — and has body art that he says represents “angelic shapes given to mankind by the Archangel Gabriel.” Asked how many designs he has, he answers, “One for each sin, so … a lot.”
Wanted for a crime he's not responsible for, Nightcrawler takes refuge in an abandoned cathedral, where he gazes at a crucifix and tells another character, “Perhaps he is testing me.” When another character tells him that anger can help one survive, his reply is, “So can faith.”
Unfortunately, the religious elements in these movies sometimes coexist with other, morally problematic elements. For example, in X2 and Daredevil, even the heroes don't always manifest proper respect for life.
Lethal force in self-defense can be morally legitimate and necessary. In X2, a lone defender protecting innocent children against an unknown number of hostile, well-armed attackers seems justified in being willing to use lethal force.
Yet when on two occasions heroes find villains immobilized and in harm's way, and make no move to help them, it seems both morally wrong and dramatically pointless. (One of these instances comes right after the villain has just impugned the hero's character and even his humanity, making it all the more puzzling why the story has the hero do the wrong thing.)
In Daredevil, the hero commits an even more egregious offense by actually chasing a villain onto subway tracks and then letting him get run over. Small wonder that when he goes to confession, the priest tells him, “You're not coming to me for forgiveness, you're coming for permission, and I can't give you that.”
There are also issues in the area of sexual morality. In Daredevil, the hero has a brief nonmarital affair with the heroine, and in the original X-Men it was implied that one of the heroines is cohabitating with one of the heroes.
In X2, there's a kind of mutant “coming-out” scene, in which a young mutant is asked by his confused parents, in an exchange clearly meant as a riff on attitudes regarding homosexuality, “Have you tried not being a mutant?”
Then there's X2's villainous femme fatale Mystique. Now, we expect bad behavior from bad characters, so the fact that this character is willing to use her shape-changing abilities to allure male characters isn't exactly scandalous. What's more problematic is the fact that the actress playing her is wearing only silicone prosthetics and blue body paint.
The positive depictions of religion in comic-book movies are a welcome change and a step in the right direction for Hollywood.
In fact, the character — a mutant with shape-changing abilities — is supposed to be naked, though she's meant to have a somewhat nonhuman appearance, with a sort of reptilian texture to her blue-toned skin.
Though there's no explicit nudity, Mystique's appearance is deliberately provocative — especially to young male eyes that require little provocation. Many will reasonably find the actress’ exposure gratuitous.
On the plot level, the character's implicit rationale for not wearing clothes is that her shape-changing abilities make them impractical. If she were so inclined, certainly, she could use her powers to appear clothed, just as she does when impersonating other characters. For that matter, she could use her powers to habitually appear not to have blue, bumpy skin. But it's part of her characterization that she doesn't want to appear to be something she isn't, except for tactical or other reasons.
Of course, had the filmmakers been so inclined, they could have chosen to make Mystique's “natural” appearance more artificial and shown less of the actress’ skin. It's a question of degree. It always is. From a bathing suit to a leotard to a mini-dress, the line between decent and indecent is not an absolute thing. But Mystique is on the wrong side of the line.
Weighed against all of these problematic issues are other, positive moral elements and themes. For example, if the original Superman movie had symbolic religious overtones; the X-Men stories, reflecting the comic book's 1960s origins, are civil-rights parables. The evil Magneto, like Malcolm X or Elijah Muhammad, represents radical separatism pursued “by any means necessary,” violence included. But X-Men founder and mentor Professor Xavier, like Martin Luther King, advocates peaceful coexistence and dreams of a day when his students might be judged not by the configuration of their genome but by the content of their character.
In light of the way religion in action movies has often been relegated to psycho killers, the wave of positive depictions of religion in comic-book movies is a welcome change and a step in the right direction for Hollywood. How the heroes’ morality will fare in the long term as the comic-book movie industry continues to expand — with plans for Fantastic Four and Iron Man movies as well as sequels to Spider-Man and X2— remains to be seen.
Steven D. Greydanus is the Register's movie reviewer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Does Freedom Mean Getting Your Own Way? DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:The Supreme Court has declared an act of homosexual sodomy is a constitutional right.
By a 6-3 vote, the court on June 26 struck down a Texas law against homosexual sodomy, and a dozen other state laws fell at the same time. Lawrence v. Texas promises to be one of the most notorious opinions ever issued from the court. Some people are comparing it to Roe v. Wade.
There is an obvious connection. The centerpiece of Lawrence is the concept of “liberty” the court has shaped in its abortion cases, especially Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Casey was a 1992 case against an abortion law in Pennsylvania. At the time, it was seen as the case that could kill Roe v. Wade, or at least inflict serious injury. As we know, Roe remained intact, but the Casey decision gave us a shockingly frank view of the court's essential philosophy on abortion in the infamous passage known to lawyers everywhere as the “mystery passage.”
The Constitution must include a right to abortion, the court explained, because of the nature of constitutional liberty: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.”
The mystery passage meant more than just the right to define, of course. It was talking about a constitutional right to act on a self-defined concept of existence. Abortion, therefore, is a constitutionally sanctioned act based on one's definition that human existence begins at birth and not before.
The mystery passage is moral relativism, pure and simple. Or is it? What if a husband defines his child's existence as before birth? That definition the court will not countenance. The mystery passage appears as relativism, but the court takes sides.
The mystery passage has been the subject of much derision, and rightly so. But six justices, true to their creed, solemnly invoked it in Lawrence v. Texas.
When the court speaks of liberty, it explained in Lawrence, it is liberty “in both its spatial and more transcendent dimensions” of which it speaks. Homosexual sodomy and abortion are, to this court, the more transcendent dimensions of liberty.
Liberty involves dignity and autonomy. Anti-sodomy laws threaten the ability of people to “retain their dignity as free persons.” The Constitution promises “the right to make this choice” and regards the choice as “central to personal dignity and autonomy.”
Liberty involves destiny. Just as Roe “recognized the right of a woman to make certain fundamental decisions affecting her destiny,” those who would engage in homosexual sodomy must also be free from laws that would “control their destiny.”
Liberty involves sex. “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression and certain intimate conduct.” Sodomy, it is understood, qualifies here. “Sexuality,” according to the court, “finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person.” Indeed, there is “an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.”
In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), Pope John Paul II says that at the root of the culture of death is a distorted notion of freedom — a freedom “that exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way” (No. 19). Such a freedom “negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth” (No. 19).
Thus, the notion of freedom at root in the culture of death is a radical individualism divorced from truth. Roe, Casey and now Lawrence call that constitutional liberty.
Several years ago it was revealed that a small group of pro-life and pro-abortion leaders in Boston had been meeting privately to talk about the issue of abortion. At the conclusion, neither side having moved an inch, each group drafted a statement of belief, which formed the foundation of their views on abortion. The statements are illuminating.
The pro-lifers spoke of “one universal truth” and the “truth” about “the dignity of the human person.”
The pro-abortionists’ statement was quite different. “We recognize no single, universal truth that determines our moral decisions,” they said. Instead, they said, we must “consider a broad range of values” and weigh “various life circumstances” in a “world of vast and profound complexity,” where “we live out our destinies.”
Therein lies the two worldviews that support the two sociopolitical views on abortion today.
There is no mystery to which philosophy the majority justices of the Supreme Court adhere.
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq., is director of Planning and Information for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cathleen A. Cleaver ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Lincoln Diocese Puts Psychology to Work DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:LINCOLN, Neb. — In the middle of the broad prairie of southeastern Nebraska, a program sponsored by the Diocese of Lincoln has been at the forefront of developing the union between psychology and the Catholic faith.
Father Joseph Walsh, executive director of Lincoln's Catholic Social Services, and Dr. Kathryn Benes, clinical services director, have been creating a pastoral counseling program to work through the local parishes.
Benes said the rural areas the program serves see “families falling apart, kids running amok and alcoholism.”
“But when we began, the local parish priests didn't see how the Diocese of Lincoln could help,” she said. “Very few priests were referring anyone because they didn't believe counselors were very helpful. In fact, they felt counselors were harmful because they didn't have any understanding of the Catholic faith.”
In response, she and Father Walsh re-examined psychology from a Catholic perspective to see if there was a way of uniting the two.
“When we looked back to the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century we found a rich Catholic heritage,” she said. “That's important because we have a lot to learn from the Catholic psychologists of the past. In one sense, we've been pioneers, and in another, we've picked up the baton from those who came before.”
“From that research, we've been able to develop a continuum of services for the 135 parishes in the diocese,” Benes said, including psychological assessment, emergency psychological services, support groups, counseling for Project Rachel clients and crisis response teams for the 32 Catholic schools.
She said the six-person staff, which includes four counselors and the intern, also does consultations.
“We talk with priests and help them to be able to help parishioners,” she said, “and we've trained the educational personnel at the schools so that when we come in we can work as a team.”
The internship, Benes said, has added an additional dimension, but they are moving carefully.
“We won't have another intern until 2004,” she said. “By then we should have a curriculum and be able to coordinate with orthodox Catholic educational institutions, so their students can transition into this program.”
“That way we don't have to compromise,” she said. “We want an internship program that upholds the highest levels of psychology education and the highest levels of integrity to the Catholic Church.”
It's part of the ongoing effort by Catholic Social Services in Lincoln to combine mental health care and Christian values, a union that combines the best that pastoral care and psychology have to offer, Father Walsh and Benes said.
With the assistance of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the consent of the American Psychological Association, the Catholic Social Services counseling program has moved a step further this year with the inauguration of a pilot accredited internship for doctoral candidates.
Tony Palmer, a student at the university, is spending a year completing 250 to 500 contact hours of clinical work as a final step toward his doctorate in clinical psychology. Upon completing his doctorate, he will be joining the faculty of the Institute for Psychological Sciences in Virginia.
Prompted by his desire to experience the Catholic counseling program at the Diocese of Lincoln, Palmer said he is pursuing a path that began “when I came to believe that it was very important for all knowledge to be placed in context of the Catholic view of the person.”
In turn, he hopes to “take what I've learned in graduate school that is good and incorporate it within Catholic practice,” he said. “I have to connect with people in two worlds and bring them together. In a way, that's very challenging, but it's also very worthwhile.”
The American Psychological Association-approved internship promises to be the beginning of a significant advance in educating psychologists for service to Catholics and others seeking a spiritually centered mental health profession, according to Father Joseph Walsh, executive director of the program.
“We are literally trying to bring psychology into the service of the Church,” he said, “through the pastoral work of the diocese.”
— Philip S. Moore
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Heaven Help Me DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Heaven worries me. What if I get there and I don't like it?
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure I wouldn't like the alternative. But after all, what is the point of struggling on Earth to follow Christ if you are not sure about the reward? What do we really know about heaven?
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). People naturally fear the unknown.
“When we've been there ten thousand years … we've no less days to sing God's praise then when we first begun.” That hymn doesn't make me feel any better. It makes heaven sound repetitive and tiring.
Like most things that worry me about the faith, I try not to think about heaven too much. My children, however, have a different approach. They question everything and expect their father and me to come up with the answers. Recently, my sons were chagrined to learn that our dog would not be spending eternity with them because he does not have an immortal soul.
“It's too bad about the dogs and horses,” I remarked to my husband after the kids were in bed.
“What do you mean?” he asked from his usual supine reading position on the sofa.
“Well, I'd like to have a horse and a dog in heaven, too.”
“C'mon, Kathy, you know heaven isn't like that.”
“Yeah, I know what it isn't, but what is it?”
“It's being with God, and God is the infinite act of knowing. So you will understand all the mysteries of the universe.”
That's all well and good for my husband. He is a scientist and his idea of a good time is reading philosophy and theology books. I don't think about the mysteries of the universe that much. I would be interested in finding out why that guy I liked in sophomore home-room didn't ask me to Homecoming. But even that wouldn't keep me going for all eternity.
“There has to be more to it than that,” I said. “Heaven can't be just for intellectuals.”
“All right, what would you like to have in heaven? Name anything.”
“Okay, a horse.” “What is it that you like about horses?” he asked, sitting up, warming to his professorial role.
“They're beautiful and powerful, and riding made me happy.”
“You'll have all that! God, who made horses, is the essence of beauty, power and happiness. Your experience of these things on Earth has been a shadow of what you will experience in God's presence. Think of something else that makes you happy.”
“Being with my family.”
“Good. Now imagine meeting your big brother at the airport for his once-a-year visit. You run up to him and hug him. What are you thinking and feeling?”
“I'm so happy to see him, I'm not thinking of anything. I just feel the love between us.”
“Take that feeling and multiply it a thousand times and you'll have an inkling of what it is like in heaven.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said, sighing. “But wait a minute. How do you know all this stuff is true?”
“It's in St. Augustine's Confessions,” my husband said with a wave of his hand. “He and his mother, St. Monica, share this mystical vision of heaven not long before she dies.”
All that time my husband spends reading on the sofa pays off every now and then. Now that I have a better idea of what heaven will be like, all I have to worry about is getting there.
Kathleen Whitney Barr writes from Newark, Delaware.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathleen Whitney Barr ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Hot Spot for Southern Cal's Son Worshipers DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:With its whitewashed walls and gold accents, this Mediterranean-style sanctuary seems, at first glance, every bit as cool and contemporary as you'd expect to find in a beach community — especially one that's home to the rich and famous.
But you can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't judge Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Newport Beach, Calif., by any preconceived notions you may have about the community it serves.
Newport Beach is far more than a summer playground for affluent teens and the young at heart. It's a community with a unique history and a place in which Catholics, especially, have a deep history.
At the turn of the century, when Newport Beach was little more than a summer getaway, its Catholics had to go to the next county to receive the sacraments. Later a parish was established in close-by Huntington Beach. A 1913 diocesan newspaper item reports: “Mass was celebrated for the first time in the history of Newport Beach, on Christmas morning at 11 o'clock.” The presiding priest came from St. Mary's in Huntington Beach.
The two beach communities maintained a tight-knit relationship for years to come. It was a priest from another Huntington Beach church, Ss. Simon and Jude, who organized a 1923 meeting to discuss the feasibility of establishing a parish in Newport Beach. According to Father Bill Krekelberg, who serves as archivist for the Diocese of Orange, “The meeting was enthusiastically attended by a majority of the people — 15 members!”
Their faith and devotion must have been powerful, for, by June of that year, land had been purchased and plans drawn up for the construction of Newport Beach's first church. (Final cost of construction: $4,759.80.) On July 16, the first Mass was celebrated in Newport Beach's own parish, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Our Lady's feast day under that title, by the way, is July 16.
Hungry Hearts
When the parish boundaries were established the following year, they included Newport Beach, the Balboa peninsula, Balboa Island, Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar. “If that sounds like a lot,” the parish history notes dryly, “it wasn't. In this vast and sandy territory lived a gently weathered and stalwart congregation of 20 year-round Catholic families. This abiding core was seasonally supplemented by a summer horde of sun-worship-pers.”
“Horde” is the right word. Within 13 years of opening, the church, which seated 200, was already too small to accommodate all the summer visitors, even with two Masses on the schedule. At the time, about 340 families lived permanently in the area, a number that tripled during the summer. Rapid growth continued through the years. According to the 1940 census, the population of Newport Beach was 4,438; in 1950, it had risen to 12,120.
At last a new church was built. But the parish's troubles weren't over. When they saw the damaged walls, the buckles in the parquet floor and the unusable confessionals, parishioners realized that their beautiful new church leaked when it rained. Within two years, though, all had been made right again.
Blessed in 1951, this “new” church is the same one that stands on Balboa Boulevard today — and the same one that seems so modern at first glance.
That isn't to say that the church has remained exactly the same since it opened 52 years ago. Far from it.
The neighborhood has grown up around it, and now the street is divided by a median of crowded parking meters. A forward-thinking pastor had the site of the old rectory paved for parking in 1963. Later, buildings on two additional lots were removed for even more parking, a blessing in the summer especially, when visitors can cruise along the peninsula for an hour or more in search of a vacant parking place.
The golden Stations of the Cross were installed in 1963, replacing the oil-painted depictions that had originally formed a continuous frieze along the walls of the nave. The richly detailed stained-glass windows were installed section by section during a period of three years during the 1960s.
Each piece of glass is separate, and artist Paul Phillips estimated that it required 100 yards of lead to connect them all.
A shrine to the left of the altar holds a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (the Blessed Mother wearing the Carmelite habit), and another statue of her stands in the courtyard outside the church. A shrine to St. Jude is lit by flickering candlelight in the back of the church, and more candles brighten the Blessed Sacrament chapel where parishioners can pray privately before a statue of the Sacred Heart.
For me, this church stands as a lovely reminder that, just as it does-n't matter whether the community is rich or poor, neither does it necessarily matter whether the décor is contemporary or traditional.
What matters is that Jesus is really present within — and that we're invited to meet him.
Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.
----- EXCERPT: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Newport Beach, Calif. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elisabeth Deffner ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: PBS Gets Religion on Creation? DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Fifty years ago, there appeared a very short announcement in the prestigious scientific journal Nature bylined to two young, unknown scientists named James Watson and Francis Crick.
“We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid,” they began. “This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.” This was a marvel of scientific understatement — referring, as it did, to the discovery of the helical structure of that most marvelous microscopic spiral staircase, DNA.
Watson and Crick, and many other scientists, believed that they had discovered the chemical key to life, a key that would open the door allowing them inside the hitherto mysterious inner workings of the cell. They were certain that following the chemical steps of DNA's staircase would lead scientists ever closer to reducing the mystery of life to mere lifeless chemical formulae, processes and laws.
Alas, for both, DNA also stood for Deity Not Allowed. “The god hypothesis is rather discredited,” says Crick, now 86, adding that he went into science explicitly to discredit it. “I asked myself what were the two things that appear inexplicable and are used to support religious beliefs: the difference between living and nonliving things, and the phenomenon of consciousness.”
James Watson is no less blunt, assigning religious explanations of the mystery of life to “myths from the past.” For him, “Every time you understand something, religion becomes less likely. Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be the exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours.”
Behind the veil of this only slightly veiled reference to appropriating the “exclusive property of the gods” lies the eugenic desire for self-creation. Watson is an avid proponent not only of eugenics but of abortion and cloning as well.
Significantly, Watson's acceptance of eugenics, abortion and cloning — and his rejection of religion — are as intimately entwined as the helical strands of DNA. Since his youth, Watson has held that “if you wanted an explanation for life, it had to be about the molecular basis for life. I never thought there was a spiritual basis for life; I was very lucky to be brought up by a father who had no religious beliefs. I didn't have that hang-up. My mother was nominally a Catholic, but that's as far as it went.” Watson gave up attending Mass just prior to World War II.
Given this unpleasant nexus between atheistic materialism and moral barbarism in Watson, one might well wonder if we ought to mourn, rather than celebrate, the birthday of the discovery of DNA's structure.
The answer is that we should indeed celebrate. But instead of inviting Watson and Crick, we should watch a marvelous new film called Unlocking the Mystery of Life.
A better antidote to the crass reductionism of Watson and Crick could not be found — and it's playing, of all places, on local TV affiliates of the Public Broadcasting Service.
Unlocking the Mystery of Life tells the true story of what research into the microscopic world has revealed during the last 50 years. Rather than finding a simple solution to the riddle of complex life, scientists have uncovered an entire microscopic world riddled with complexity.
Unsolved Mysteries
Upon unlocking the door to the cell, we have discovered the cell to be akin to an extraordinary city — complete with the most advanced interlocking systems of energy storage and transfer, building and repair, internal regulation and external defense. And it's all managed, in great part, by an unfathomably complex library of information storage and instruction going by the humble name of DNA.
This embarrassment of cellular riches is only embarrassing if one is bent on the Crick-ean project of discrediting the “god hypothesis.” But against this materialist belief that all biological complexity could so easily be reduced to chemical simplicity, scientists have found that it is complexity all the way down — a complexity that in its intricate organization and precise execution far surpasses the most advanced human-made technology.
The discovery of this astounding microscopic complexity has brought a growing number of scientists to question the reigning reductionist view that life is merely the result of a fortuitous mix of chemicals.
In Unlocking the Mystery of Life we meet prominent scientists and philosophers who are convinced that such complexity could only be the result of a designing intelligence. For them, the astounding intricacies of DNA imply that design is now applicable. To counter the reigning materialist view of science, they have come together, joining their efforts in the intelligent-design movement.
It is quite significant that PBS stations are showing Unlocking the Mystery of Life, as it has been far friendlier in the past to the materialist approach to science. Thankfully, PBS affiliates have the documentary to show as many times as they would like over the next three years. Stations in Texas, Maryland, Michigan, Florida and Washington, D.C., have already presented it.
This may or may not signal a new openness to intelligent-design-based scientific investigation on the part of popular culture's elites. Then again, who knows? The programming may yet prove the cultural equivalent of that small announcement in Nature half a century ago: an easily overlooked sign of big things to come.
Benjamin D. Wiker writes from Hopedale, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: Unlocking the Mystery of Life takes intelligent design seriously ----- EXTENDED BODY: Benjamin D. Wiker ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:A Beautiful Mind(2001)
Based on Sylvia Nasar's 1998 biography of brilliant but schizophrenic mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. (Russell Crowe), A Beautiful Mind is engrossing, heartbreaking and ultimately redemptive. Director Ron Howard understandably simplifies several aspects of Nash's life (though not as much as was suggested by dubious Oscar-season allegations).
Biopics often make individuals who are both gifted and disturbed into paragons of virtue, but this film, almost refreshingly, makes no effort to whitewash its troubled protagonist's obnoxious, sometimes objectionable behavior.
Nash's saving grace is a lovely student named Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) who marries him; she provides the audience's emotional anchor in the story, as well as Nash's emotional anchor to reality.
The film's boldest element is its approach to Nash's delusions. A Beautiful Mind draws viewers into Nash's world — then yanks the rug from under them. It's a frightening moment; and the fright of Nash's condition never really goes away.
Best moments include Alicia's touching speech about forcing herself to see in Nash the man she married (“And he becomes someone I love, and I become someone who loves him”) and Nash's Nobel ceremony tribute to her (“You are all my reasons”).
Song of Bernadette(1943)
This great classic was recently released on DVD with a number of special features; religious analysis on the commentary track from the author of a revisionist life of Christ is at times edifying but needs critical discernment.
Based on the historical novel by Jewish author Franz Werfel, the beloved Song of Bernadette stands head and shoulders over most religiously themed fare from Holly-wood's golden age. Comparatively unsentimental, the film can depict key characters from Church officials to Bernadette's parents behaving unsympathetically without losing sympathy for them, then seam-lessly redeem them.
There's room for ambiguity: No effort is made to address or resolve the local vicar's repeated (and seemingly reasonable) misgivings about the phrase “I am the Immaculate Conception”; and the first reported cure, of the vision-impaired stonecutter, seems less than scientifically convincing (though it's followed by a more convincing one). And the film makes some effort to grapple with the meaning and significance of suffering.
This subtlety and nuance helps the film make its overtly supernatural and Marian premise moving even to non-Catholic and non-Christian audiences. The film is further elevated by Jennifer Jones’ radiant performance and the Oscar-winning cinematography and score.
The Iron Giant(1999)
Here's a nostalgic fantasy in the spirit of E.T. It's an animated feature about a young boy (Eli Marienthal) growing up in a fatherless house, whose unusual friendship with a being from outer space — a giant robot (Vin Diesel) with a penchant for eating metal — has to be hidden from his mom (Jennifer Aniston) and the federal government.
Eschewing song-and-dance numbers and cute animal sidekicks, the film's appeal comes from its winsome characters, its resonant story and its New England setting in the days of Sputnik and duck-and-cover drills.
Remarkably, despite an action-packed finale, Giant manages to go beyond empty lip service in its anti-violence message. Yet young Hogarth's moralizing is overly glib, not only in attributing a soul to his mechanical friend (which could be excused in a fantasy) but also in including deer hunting when he says, “Killing is wrong.”
Still, the film's strengths overcome its weaknesses, and Giant goes beyond E.T.'s christological resonances in the misunderstood, persecuted title character's last act. Warning: It's a dark, tense movie with scary music.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Academy Gives Students the Tools to Evangelize DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Colette McClain of Virginia joined Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist 20 years ago after hearing Sister Joan Noreen speak at her parish about the Liturgy of the Hours.
She has attended all Spirituality Evangelization Academy programs since the academy's inception in 2000.
“We're taught a lot of different things, then we zoom in on one in particular that we really try to learn, research and write on so it becomes our own,” she said. McClain's interest is in salvation history and the covenants of the Old Testament and how they lead to the new covenant and the Eucharist.
In 1978, Sister Noreen and Bishop Thomas Welsh, then bishop of Arlington, Va., co-founded Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist. It is a public association of regional communities of Christ's faithful that helps Catholics pursue a deeper spiritual life by centering their hearts on the Eucharist.
Twenty-five years later they're taking it a step further through the Spirituality Evangelization Academy, an adult faith formation program.
“It's a direct response to the call of Pope John Paul II for a New Evangelization,” Sister Noreen said. “Our whole philosophy is that everyone needs to be well formed in the faith in order to evangelize.”
The purpose of the Spirituality Evangelization Academy, based in Center Valley, Pa., is to train Catholic laity in evangelization by offering a comprehensive formation program in classical Catholic spirituality through weekend retreats and seminars. In turn, these newly-educated Catholics will return to their parishes or schools and present their own conferences or workshops.
The academy's curriculum follows the Catechism of the Catholic Church and divides its coursework into three series, each of which consists of four institutes.
The first is a study of the four parts of the Catechism: the creed, the sacraments, Christian morality and Christian prayer.
The Eucharist series lays the groundwork for a Eucharistic spirituality by examining the development of Eucharistic thought through the ages. It includes a study of the Eucharist's origins in Scripture and Jewish tradition and developments in Eucharistic theology, ecclesiology and liturgical practice.
Finally, the spirituality series focuses on the spiritual traditions of the Benedictine, Carmelite, Franciscan and Salesian orders.
Most retreats take place over one weekend at Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist's home in the Diocese of Allentown, Pa., although Sister Noreen said there are plans for more one-day programs in other parts of the Northeast. The format includes presenters, often priests or theologians, and plenty of time for reflection and Eucharistic spirituality. Participants eventually choose one topic to study in depth as their evangelization project.
Subjects include the study of such saints as Peter Julian Eymard, a French priest who founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, and Pascal Baylon, a lay Franciscan with a deep devotion to the Eucharist.
“We discover so much about Eucharistic spirituality by drawing attention to the saints, because they have given the Church its Eucharistic piety,” Sister Noreen said.
Participants have also studied the pastoral letter “Behold Your Mother: Woman of Faith” from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and look to Mary as the embodiment of Eucharistic spirituality.
A workshop scheduled for October is titled “Catholic Martyrs of the 20th Century.”
Before presenting to parishes, Spirituality Evangelization Academy participants present their topics to an Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist group at monthly meetings in one of the four group locations: Allentown, Pa.; Philadelphia; Newark, N.J.; and Arlington, Va. Eight members have so far presented their topics.
“It gives me much more confidence to present things,” said Don Libera of Virginia, an Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist member since 1990 who has taught workshops on the Liturgy of the Hours at his parish. “One of the reasons for the academy is to help us and put us in a position to give talks. The academy has given me encouragement to do more of that.”
Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist members, who drive from as far away as Winston-Salem, N.C., and Hamden, Conn., already concentrate on the coupling of ongoing personal spiritual formation and a solid education in the Catholic faith through their commitments, which include monthly reconciliation, weekly fasting, daily prayer, rosary and the Liturgy of the Hours.
“What we do is learn how to fold these into our daily lives,” Libera said. “Members are all striving to live out their call to holiness, and the academy helps us to live out this call to the next level, which is evangelization.”
Bishop Welsh, chairman of Spirituality Evangelization Academy's board, founding bishop of the Diocese of Arlington, Va., and later bishop of Allentown calls it a “natural offshoot of [Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist].” It maintains a positive relationship with the Diocese of Allentown, diocesan spokesman Matt Kerr said.
Spirituality Evangelization Academy is not limited to Our Lady's Missionaries of the Eucharist members. Sister Noreen, who hosts a regular program on the Eternal Word Television Network, said anyone interested in a deeper spiritual life is welcome at the academy. People have come from overseas for the programs.
“The Holy Father [in early June] in Croatia said we must not be idle in holiness,” Bishop Welsh said. “If Catholics are going to be out there evangelizing, they need to have the formation to do it.”
Dana Wind is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Double Standard?
Academic freedom “surely cannot mean that people have a right not to have their feelings hurt by certain ideas,” said Hitchcock, a professor of at the Jesuits’ St. Louis University. “Controversial ideas are the only kinds that need the guarantee of freedom.”
He observed that “if Georgetown's speaker had, for example, denounced the pro-life movement, liberals … would be praising the speech as an act of courage and honesty.”
New Evangelization
FOCUS, June 30 — The organization, known formally as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, announced it will expand its evangelizing presence to 17 colleges with the addition this fall of five more colleges.
Based in Colorado, the program trains recent college graduates in Scripture, Church teaching and practical aspects of ministry, and sends them out in teams of four to do outreach, lead Bible studies and work individually with students to help them build virtue and habits of prayer.
At the request of local Catholic ministry offices, Focus will expand to include Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J.; Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.; George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.; University of North Dakota in Grand Forks; and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Stepping Down
The newspaper said Sister Geibel, 65, “is the longest-sitting college president in Pittsburgh and the longest-serving leader in the school's 74 years.”
Sister Geibel has worked at the small, mostly women's college for 32 years, first as a faculty member, then as a department chair and later as an academic vice president.
First Assignment
Though a moral and pastoral theologian for 40 years, Father Gallagher, 69, had taken on his first pastoral assignment — pastor of two churches in the archdiocese — after retiring in 1999 as dean of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
Father Gallagher is a native of the region.
Latino Nurses
WJL, June 6 — Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., was awarded a $867,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Health for a new nursing program aimed at recruiting Latino nursing students, reported Washington's ABC television affiliate.
The program is an effort to help cure the national nursing shortage by recruiting Hispanic students.
According to the university, Hispanic nurses make up only 1.5% of all registered nurses in the D.C. area.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: ... And Tolerance for All - Except Catholics DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:THE NEW ANTI-CATHOLICISM: THE LAST ACCEPTABLE PREJUDICE by Philip JenkinsOxford University Press, 2003 288 pages, $27 To order: (800) 451-7556 or www.oup-usa.org
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Philip Jenkins was talking with some academic colleagues about the recent history of anti-American terrorism. He mentioned that one Islamist plot
in the mid-1990s had planned the assassination of the Pope. The remark inspired high humor — “not because my listeners doubted that such a scheme had existed, but because everyone else present agreed that killing such an obviously pernicious figure would be a highly desirable act.”
“I make no assertion that this depth of hostility is in any way representative of academe,” Jenkins adds, “but it is a useful reminder of the incredible loathing that the Church and its leadership inspire in some liberal circles.”
In The New Anti-Catholicism, Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University, marvels at the American media's tolerance for swipes against the Catholic Church — especially in a time otherwise marked by hyper-sensitivity to possible offenses. “What sometimes seems to be limitless social tolerance in modern America,” he writes, “has strict limits where the Catholic Church is concerned.”
Jenkins is an unlikely defender of the Church: He left it for Episcopalianism in the late 1980s, albeit “without any particular rancor.” But he's on something of a roll with the theme. His 1996 book Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis documented the uncommonness of pedophilia in the priesthood and exposed media bias against the Church in that particular regard.
In The New Anti-Catholicism, Jenkins points to numerous episodes in which media coverage has clearly been swayed by a bias for anti-Catholic story lines. But his chronicle of the virtual inculturation of anti-Catholicism never descends to whining: He's not arguing that the Catholic Church is beyond reproach. “Of its nature, the Catholic Church is … more exposed to criticism because of the breadth of outlook that in other respects is one of its proudest boasts,” he writes.
Nor does he encourage Catholics to cry foul over every negative portrayal of their beliefs and practices. He seems more interested in exposing the shifting societal attitude as a force the Church must reckon with — or confront — if it is to maintain a voice in the public square: “Contemporary anti-Catholicism is not usually directed against Catholics as individuals or as population groups … but rather against the ideas and teachings of the Church.”
What's so new about the “new anti-Catholicism” is that it is no longer based on a know-nothing, nativist, xenophobic fear. Now it's more ideological: The left-leaning powers that be are too sophisticated to take Catholics seriously. In fact, Jenkins argues, the critics aren't so much interested in theological disputes but simple politics. Women priests. Abortion. Homosexual unions. The hot political topics of the day.
Curiously missing from Jenkins’ latest is a prescription. He's well diagnosed the problem of anti-Catholicism but offers no strategy for combating it. Then again, that's not his job. It's ours — each and every Catholic's. And Jenkins has done the bulk of the research for us. With The New Anti-Catholicism as a guidebook, faithful Catholics can get to work on Operation Make-Our-Presence-Known with new vigor.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Director's Take: Will the Film Be Like the Saint? DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Recent screenings in Dallas and Rome of the new major motion picture Thérèse have stirred excitement about the possibility of a renewed Catholic presence in the film industry.
Before the presentation of the film to the Roman Curia on May 8, Zenit news service spoke with the film's director, Leonardo Defilippis, about the vision behind the film, the person of St. Thérèse and the prospects for the use of film in the New Evangelization.
Defilippis, a Shakespearean-trained actor, is the founder of St. Luke Productions, whose subsidiary, Luke Films, Inc., produced Thérèse.
Why did you pick the story of St. Thérèse for your first major film?
In choosing Thérèse, I don't think we were choosing someone to have this big impact or because she is the most popular woman in modern history. That was not our intention. We just love Thérèse and want to honor her.
Thérèse is a very difficult subject. You look back and wonder why there hasn't been a motion picture about the most famous and popular saint of modern times, as she is becoming. I think it is very difficult subject matter, especially the interiority. But we chose her for that subject matter. We had no idea of the seed that it would grow into.
Will viewers be surprised by your depiction of Thérèse? Is your film a departure from the Thérèse one sees depicted in statuary and some “lives of the saints”?
I guess the best answer is that we tried to portray her in a very honest way and not with some secret agenda, nor to show her as this purely sentimental type of saint — the plastic or plaster figure so often depicted with the roses and crucifix.
I think we want to show her as part of a real family. But we're going to be honest. She came from an unusually religious family — a very gifted family — and we want to portray something really beautiful.
We also wanted to do something really difficult and challenging which was to communicate in film the inner life of a saint — the inner life of a human being.
But in the film, you feel the presence of God. It is hard to describe. I think it is something you have to surrender to. Once you surrender to this little French story about the life of this girl, you can see the hand-print of God on her life.
St. Thérèse is a doctor of the Church. Will viewers be able to gain a sense of her spiritual wisdom and teaching from the film?
I think so, especially Thérèse's “Little Way,” which she is famous for. Thérèse is called “Doctor of the Science of Divine Love,” and I really think you will feel not just the presence of God and grace being imparted but really feel the love — the love within her heart.
It's also been noted that this story is like a romance; a great, loving romance. You see she really is a disciple of St. John of the Cross and St. Thérèse of Avila where, like St. John of the Cross, in her own spiritual canticle she rises to the heights the spiritual life and she becomes the bride depicted in the Song of Songs with that incredible loving relationship.
What is so beautiful about Thérèse is that she desired to be hidden away and forgotten, singing her canticle of love known only to God. At the same time she really showered everybody with roses. The great love and spirituality is found in the many little things she does. She touches people having been so hidden. She is a paradox.
After having seen the movie, Cardinal Francis George called her “a sign of contradiction” — like the cross, a stumbling block. Some people are going to recognize it and embrace it while others will reject it. Some don't see the hidden level; they do not want to feel the love that is pulsing in her heart toward us.
Is your film primarily a tool of evangelization? Do you think non-Catholics and non-Christians will be receptive to the film?
As the Holy Father has said, evangelization is a simple word. It is making Christ seen and heard. The whole purpose of the film is to do what Thérèse did best and that is to evangelize. She is the patron saint of missions. Mission and evangelization are really the same word, and the goal is to preach the Gospel. That seems rudimentary and this is a new method for the New Evangelization.
At the same time, St. Thérèse is a person in which, in her own words, there is something for everyone in her life story. Of course that goes along with the legacy since her death. And I think she will have a powerful impact in the non-Catholic world.
She has a powerful influence among other religions, especially Islam. Protestants who have never been exposed to religious life and the life of a monastery will be fascinated by the window into that particular vocation.
At the same time, like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to use a modern example, people won't be able to deny that she loves Christ. I think Protestants will really respect that.
I think for the secular world, especially working with people in Hollywood, they become fascinated with her because there is something disarming about her. In terms of Thérèse, people will find her very accessible and not judgmental. So many agnostics and atheists have been launched into a relationship with her because of her confidence in the Lord.
Will
I think it can; I really do. Name one film done during the Christmas season that has had explicitly religious content in the last 10 years. There have been none. I think a religious film, at this particular time, when the world is having its own problem and people are so afraid of so many different elements, could be a big change because of the popularity of St. Thérèse.
If the Church could get behind a film like Thérèse, to honor their own daughter, I think it could create a renaissance of all different kinds of film, not just of saints. There is a hunger for something spiritual and that is why I there is an opportunity.
I think people want to do something to support these type of films and will get behind Thérèse.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Gambling Risks
Q I just turned 21 and have been looking forward to playing the slot machines that are legal in our local area. Do you see anything wrong with this?
With our desire to “live life to its fullest,” especially in the teen and early-adult years, people often experiment with behaviors that, in reality, have nothing to do with living a full life but rather lead to a life of bondage.
These behaviors include such things as drug and alcohol abuse and premarital sexual activity. I would add gambling to this list. Let me share a true story with you about a married couple, Rick and Toni.
A number of years ago, Rick felt the same way you did. Living in a state where gambling was legal, he was “itching” to play the slot machines when he turned 21. It started innocently enough, but over the years he felt the “need” to keep going back to the casino. After several years of marriage and parenthood, he found it added an “excitement” to his life that he otherwise felt was missing.
He didn't realize that he had become addicted to gambling. Rick found himself lying to his wife and co-workers about how he was spending his time. Since he was handling the family finances, he also had to lie to his wife about where the money was going. Being a financial officer of a business, he made a relatively good income, yet even that wasn't enough to feed his habit. In order to find the money to keep gambling, he accepted one credit card after another, eventually relying on advances from new cards to meet his minimum payments on the older ones. At the end, Rick had amassed $140,000 in debt on 28 credit cards.
But it didn't stop there. As a trusted financial officer, he embezzled another $360,000 from his employer. It all came crashing down when Rick finally realized there was no way out. In desperation, he even became suicidal. Thanks be to God, he sought help at a Catholic hospital and, ever so slowly, he and Toni have been able to rebuild their life together. But they have had to declare bankruptcy, and Rick spent some time in prison after being convicted of embezzlement.
You may say this will never happen to you. I can guarantee that Rick and Toni never thought it would happen to them, either. It's true that the Church doesn't consider games of chance in themselves to be contrary to justice — yet the Catechism says, “they become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement” (No. 2413).
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission (formed by Congress in 1996), notes that, 10 years ago, gambling was legal in only two states. Now it is legal in 48 states, causing much wider devastation than ever before on the family.
I would encourage you to avoid the dangers associated with gambling and seek a more wholesome form of entertainment and recreation. God love you!
Phil Lenahan is director of finance at Catholic Answers in
El Cajon, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Most Women are Pro-Life WASHINGTON TIMES, July 2 — The balance between pro-choice women and women who say abortion should be outlawed or severely restricted is shifting toward the pro-life side, bumping that group into the majority in the debate over reproductive rights, according to a new national poll.
The Washington Times reported that 51% of women surveyed by the Center for the Advancement of Women said the government should prohibit abortion or limit it to extreme cases, such as rape, incest, or life-threatening complications.
The findings, with a 3% margin of error for the 1,000 women surveyed, tips the scale from the last sampling in 2001, when 45% of women sided against making abortion readily available or imposing only mild restrictions. Only 30% support making it generally available, down from 34% in 2001, the survey found.
“We are winning,” said Ann Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League. “It's by no means going to be in a year are two, but our effort is to eventually make abortion unthinkable.
” Baby Survives Long Fall
WHITE PLAINS JOURNAL-NEWS, June 24 — A 10-month-old girl has miraculously survived an 80-foot fall after being thrown out a seventh-floor window by her father.
The baby's fall was broken by several tree branches; she landed on the ground with only cuts and bruises. The incident took place in Peekskill, N.Y.
Police said the man, Willie Williams, had barged into his ex-girl-friend's apartment, argued with her and then dangled the baby out a window. When the mother called 911, Williams dropped the girl, police said. Williams was charged with attempted murder, assault and unlawful imprisonment.
Pro-Life Baptists
BAPTIST PRESS, June 19 — The Southern Baptist Convention has repudiated previous pro-abortion resolutions from three decades ago.
A lengthy resolution titled “On 30 Years of Roe v. Wade,” presented at the group's annual meeting, restated the SBC's belief the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling was “an act of injustice against innocent unborn children as well as against vulnerable women in crisis pregnancy situations” and also said convention resolutions in 1971 and 1974 were unbiblical and anti-life.
Parental-Rights Bill
Introduced
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COALTION FOR LIFE, June 20 — Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., has introduced House Resolution 2444, the Parent's Right to Know Act, to Congress. The bill requires that written notice be given to parents before contraceptive drugs or devices are dispensed to their minor children.
For years, Planned Parenthood clinics, among other taxpayer-funded “family planning” agencies, have been prohibited from notifying parents when their minor children ask for various forms of birth control.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: K4J DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:What do you do when your child is invited to join a Protestant Bible study?
Pray for a Catholic alternative.
Just ask Laurie Gill of St. Louis. That was the situation she faced five years ago.
As a Catholic, she knew it would be harmful to her daughter's formation to be inculcated in evangelical Protestant interpretations of Scripture — especially the ones that deny the authority of the pope, the intercession of the saints and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Yet the people were warm, the values were solidly Christian and the discussion was dynamic. “Why can't we have anything like this in the Catholic Church?” she asked God in her prayers.
Within a year, her prayers were answered.
Gill heard about Catholic Kids Net, a program founded in 1998 by mothers who shared the common goal of teaching elementary-aged kids virtue and helping them to grow in their Catholic faith.
Today, Catholic Kids Net and its character-formation program, “K4J” (Kids for Jesus) — 5,000-members strong — serve families, parishes and schools throughout the United States.
Kathleen Conklin, one of the program's founders and its national director, explains that part of the reason Catholic Kids Net has been so successful and grown so quickly is because “it was designed to fit the busyness of today's families.”
The organization's K4J program is simple and effective. Each month, members are mailed a mission pack containing all the materials a child needs to work on a “Mission of the Month.” This focuses on a specific virtue that the children are to learn about and practice each day of the month. A typical K4J mission pack includes an activity booklet, a Holy Hero trading card, a parents’ newsletter, stickers to track daily progress, a mission badge, and a toy, craft or other hands-on activity centered on the theme of that month's targeted virtue.
Children can receive their mission packs at home as individual Catholic Kids Net members, or they can join a K4J team. All Catholic Kids Net and “K4J” materials are reviewed and approved by Father Steven Reilly, a member of the Legionaries of Christ, for their adherence to Catholic doctrine.
“Our materials teach kids virtue in a fun and exciting way,” says Conklin. “This is not a paper-and-pencil experience. When the mission pack arrives in the mail, it's bumpy. It's exciting to open. We know that kids learn through play.”
Since discovering Catholic Kids Net, Laurie Gill, her husband, and their six children have been involved in the K4J programs as a family, in their parish and as a character formation program at their school. She says she values the program's unique approach.
“This program gives us goals as parents,” she says. “We're not just waiting for our kids to do something bad and saying, ‘Don't do that.’ We're saying ‘Here is something good we want you to achieve,’ and then helping them do it.”
Gill believes the philosophy behind the program reflects the thoughts expressed by Pope John Paul II when he addresses youth. The Holy Father frequently tells young people that they are not “in training” to become future disciples of Christ, but that the Lord needs their energy, talents and enthusiasm for spreading the faith today.
“Kids have gifts the world needs right now,” says Gill. “Catholic Kids Net expects a lot from them. We expect them to put their energy and idealism to work for the Kingdom.”
Gill is convinced that the K4J program is capable of producing positive changes in children's behavior. For example, she recalls a particular month when the targeted virtue was generosity. Her family was holding a garage sale and a neighbor came by with a little girl who was looking for a doll. On her own, Gill's then 8-year-old daughter went to her room and chose one of her own dolls to give the girl. The point is not that her daughter is a perfect angel, Gill explains, but that the action was self-motivated.
“It came from her,” she says. “She never would have done that had it not been for the ‘Mission of the Month.’”
One of Catholic Kids Net's latest accomplishments is the development of a Vacation Bible School program that Conklin describes as “Catholic all the way to the roots.”
Legionary of Christ Father Eugene Gormley, chaplain of the Highland School in Irving, Texas, was involved in a pilot Catholic Kids Net Vacation Bible School program that took place the week of June 16-20. He calls the program, which involves kids aged 4-13, “a balance between fun and formation.”
Father Gormley believes all the Catholic Kids Net programs are “well-balanced and attractive to kids.” He sees the organization's emphasis on reaching children at a young age as particularly important. “We must remember that children in the early ages need formation and training because personalities are developed in the first years,” he adds. “If we wait until junior high, it's too late.”
Father Gormley attributes Catholic Kids Net's success to the fact that its programs appeal to children who are leaders, creating a kind of positive peer pressure.
“Once the leaders are involved,” he says, “other children want to be as well.”
Becky Crawford was Vacation Bible School coordinator for this year's program in Texas. She sees Vacation Bible School as a key opportunity for Catholic kids to focus on their Catholic identity. Though other Vacation Bible School programs exist, she says the Catholic Kids Net program is “the only one written by Catholic for Catholics.”
Positive Peer Pressure
One happy side effect of the Catholic Kids Net programs, many parents say, is that they can increase virtue in parents as well as children. “I learned a lot because they did,” says Crawford of her experience with the Vacation Bible School. As the daily lessons focused on missionaries in the history of the Catholic Church, she and other parents found themselves discovering and admiring missionary saints along with their children.
The daily practice of virtue in the K4J program also lends itself to parental involvement. As an example, Crawford cites a recent Mission of the Month that focused on Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Many children, in working toward their goals, asked their parents to bring them to daily Mass or take them to church to visit Jesus in the tabernacle.
Few Catholic parents would fail to respond to such virtuous requests from their kids and as a consequence many found their own spiritual lives improving.
For the future, Catholic Kids Net is working on a K4J curriculum designed for adolescents. In particular, Conklin says, they would like to reach teens who are in danger of falling prey to bad influences. She believes that exposing them to “virtuous peer pressure” can boost their self-esteem and give them courage to live the Catholic faith.
“We teach kids that they have been created for something great,” she says. “God has given them a mission and he will give them the grace to accomplish it.”
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Odometer of a Country Priest DATE: 07/13/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 13-19, 2003 ----- BODY:Major challenges are nothing new to Father Dan Farley. Today's top priority: forging a single parish — St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Amherst, Wis. — out of the four Badger State churches he's served single-handedly since 2000.
Yesterday's? Getting his ordination day “postponed” from 1984 to 1998. Any given month, it might be driving the 3,000 or so miles it takes to serve his 350-square mile parish.
That doesn't include bike rides to parishioners’ homes for friendly visits or to farms on which he pitches in, when he can, with the chores.
“I was told this was a dying community,” Father Farley says, looking back on his arrival and recalling how some residents were attracted to large churches miles to the east and west. Even when the population took a slight upswing after years of decline following the farm crisis of the 1960s and ‘70s, church membership stayed down.
That's not the case anymore, according to Bob Helbach, a parishioner all his 60 years. “Since he's been here a lot of young people have joined the parish and a number of the young people we've lost over the years are coming back,” says Helbach. “Little children in church will pretty much behave themselves and listen.” He “really reaches everybody” — young, old and in-between, adds Helbach.
“He's funny,” proclaims a beaming 11-year-old named Audrey Sanders. Her father, John Sanders, was a member of one of the four churches for 30 years; her mother, Kris, for 13.
Most of his people know that Father Farley is also a chaplain for the National Guard. A dead giveaway: the military-ready Humvee in which he occasionally pulls up for Mass.
“He can really catch your interest and has such a way of explaining the Scriptures and our faith that makes it easy to understand,” says parishioner Kris Sanders. “You can see that he has such a love for God and he's a light for God.”
Adds Helbach: “I've never met a priest with more faith than he's got.”
Daily Routine
Father Farley, who points to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen as a “major influence,” gets up around 5:30 a.m. to make a holy hour before daily Mass. He makes sure the day ends in quiet prayer, too. In between, he translates contemplation into action. From the start, he instituted a Sunday-evening holy hour for the parish to pray for “ongoing conversion of our community as well as a deepening conversion of our own hearts.”
When people had been told their small size was their downfall, “I told them that's their strength,” Father Farley says. “We all know each other better.” One proof came as the new Family Life Committee scheduled events to bring families closer together with each other and as a parish. The first, held in the middle of a bone-chilling Wisconsin winter, drew more than triple the expected attendance.
“He knows how to gather people. He really reaches out to the community, to everybody,” says Sanders. “He's trying to start different ministries because he wants our parish to be a center of ministries so our group can reach out to others.”
One ministry, a parish prayer chain, quickly drew 60 members. Each Sunday Mass, Father Farley reports the answers to the prayers. “In one week alone, there were three miracles,” he says. In one, he explains, a young child about to have a cancerous kidney removed in a major hospital was re-tested. No trace of cancer was detected. The surgery was canceled.
One Friday a month, during Eucharistic adoration, Father Farley spends noon to 6:45 p.m. hearing confessions. Then come Mass and a healing service.
Outreach of all kinds has started. Even the rural reaches of the Midwest have their share of marital difficulties, family conflicts, substance-abuse problems and homosexual struggles. Father Farley involves parishioners as partners in the parish outreach efforts. And they're responding. As John Sanders sees it: “He's on fire with the Holy Spirit, and it's very catchy to everyone else.”
Bill Sommers, a 30-year parishioner, seconds the opinion.
“Our Family Life program is flourishing, and we owe that all to him,” adds Sommers. “Outreach to the elderly, home visitations — all this has started since Father Farley has been here.”
“He's invigorated us all,” adds Sommers. “He's the spark that's ignited a fire in our parish.”
According to Father Farley, his ministerial priesthood was a long time coming. “By second grade, I knew this was the vocation God was calling me to,” he says. He hoped to be ordained in 1984, but his response hit a roadblock: epilepsy.
His quest took him from praying in his hometown, Chippewa Falls, Wis., to teaching in a Jesuit high school in Omaha, Neb., to meeting in Los Angeles with the Salesians. His first job in Southern California was as a security guard in the 1984 Olympics; later he landed a job as a manager with an international company. His office overlooked downtown L.A. and Beverly Hills.
But, he says, “I knew the Salesians of St. John Bosco was the direction I wanted to go.” In pre-novitiate, he worked in the Boys and Girls Clubs in East L.A., in detention facilities and with street gangs. After four years, with epilepsy still the issue, he was told to consider diocesan priesthood.
Hoping to explore a vocation with the Diocese of San Bernardino, he met a neurologist with an experimental epilepsy program at UCLA. Result? Father Farley was cured of seizures.
Not surprisingly, he sees the hand of God behind his move to California. “At the heart of all this was this nudge,” he says — the sense that God was saying, “It's time to go home.” He returned to his own diocese of LaCrosse, Wis.
Growing Pains
Today Father Farley's big challenges are twofold: building St. Maximillian Kolbe Church from those four rural parishes he's been shuttling between and somehow raising the funds to construct the sorely needed new sanctuary.
Why sorely needed? Because the parish is growing even before it's built. Two new families joined in 2000, 14 the next year. So far, 26 new families have been added to the rolls. “It's just the beginning,” says the enthusiastic priest.
His high energy will be an invaluable asset in the coming months. Already three of the four churches are closed. And already St. Maximilian Kolbe is spiritual home to 240 families.
“Father Farley has done an outstanding job uniting the parishioners,” notes Bishop Raymond Burke, who heads the LaCrosse Diocese. “He has a very dynamic and generous way of serving the parishioners and this has really brought them together.”
He's up to all challenges. Even without the numbers or wealth to accomplish what's needed, Father Farley is unwaveringly hopeful. He's committed to the rural parish where he can know everyone by name, be personally involved with couples in marriage preparations and give special attention to boys interested in the priesthood. “One of our parishioners,” he says with obvious fatherly pride in his voice, “is being ordained this June.”
“He's an instrumental mentor,” says Bill Sommers. “My son Alex, who's 14, is contemplating becoming a priest. He watches Father Dan, sees holiness in him and wants to imitate that holiness.”
If there could be higher praise than that for a priest, the Church has yet to articulate it.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
Editor's note: Father Dan Farley welcomes e-mail. Write to him at daniel.farley@us.army.mil
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Local Changes To Mass Raise Ire DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:SEATTLE — To sit, to stand, or to kneel — that is the question.
New directives from Rome and the U.S. bishops make small but significant changes, and some parishioners and priests fear that their dioceses are asking to give up good customs, and the reverence they add to Mass.
The revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal, with adaptations forthe United States, was published by the U.S. bishops in April.
In a few dioceses — including Seattle; Gary, Ind.; Los Angeles; andMonterey, Calif. — the bishops have acted on a clause in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal that allows them to depart from a 30-year national custom of kneeling after the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).
A vocal minority in those areas is confused and troubled by the change.
In Seattle, Archbishop Alexander Brunett has established the practice that all in the assembly will continue to stand after the Agnus Dei, while in the majority of U.S. dioceses the people kneel. Also, Seattle parishioners are asked to remain standing through the rest of Communion, until all have received, at which time they may sit or kneel for a period of sacred silence.
Archbishop Brunett said the new practice is not a change but a renewal of the original meaning of Communion.
“It's the same kind of theology and practice that the Church has had for centuries,” he said. “The idea is for a hymn to be sung [at that time] and not to stand for the sake of standing. We come forward as a joyful community. We stand as an act of praise or acknowledgment. … They don't drop immediately into their private devotion but enter into that communal event.”
Although priests are being catechized on the new posture and are encouraged to catechize their people, no one will be disciplined for not standing, the archbishop said.
“It's not a mandate,” he said. “Our procedure here is that if this is any kind of a burden or hardship on people, they can certainly sit or kneel. If they don't feel they want to enter this aspect of communio theology, I'm not going to look down on it.”
Gail Rowan, a mother of two in Mount Vernon, Wash., said she is deeply disturbed to be asked to stand at a time she is inclined to kneel out of reverence and adoration, and she wrote of her concerns to the bishop and the Vatican.
“It didn't feel right,” she said. “People have told me, ‘I used to pray [after receiving Communion], but now I'm looking around.’”
Though most parishioners appear to be going along with the new practice without objection, Rowan said she and her family continue to kneel.
“You miss that time for prayer and giving thanks to God,” she said. She pointed out that the amount of time to kneel and pray personally after Communion had been cut from several minutes to a matter of seconds.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal now says that while the priest is receiving Communion, the Communion chant is begun.
“Its purpose is to express the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to show joy of heart and to highlight more clearly the ‘communitarian’ nature of the procession to receive Communion,” say the new guidelines. “The singing is continued for as long as the Sacrament is being administered to the faithful.”
The new rules allow sitting or kneeling for the “period of sacred silence after Communion.”
Seattle parishioners say their priests have instructed them that the new practices are in accord with Rome and the U.S. bishops, which leaves little room for questioning.
In fact, customary practice of kneeling remains the norm in the United States, according to the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal. But it also allows bishops the option to depart from that norm.
The kneeling norm in the United States is an exception to the norm for the rest of the world. Throughout the world, the faithful kneel only for the consecration — they do not kneel during the whole Eucharistic prayer or during the “Behold the Lamb of God.” Exceptions to this rule were requested by the U.S. bishops after the Second Vatican Council and granted by the Vatican.
Kneeling Debate
The subject of kneeling has been in dispute for years and culminated recently in some cases of individuals being refused Communion because they knelt to receive. In one extreme situation, a priest called in the local police to arrest a kneeling communicant, said Charles Wilson, a canon law expert with the St. Joseph Foundation in San Antonio.
Although the General Instruction of the Roman Missal states that standing is the normal posture for receiving Communion in the United States, it also states: “Communicants should not be denied holy Communion because they kneel.” Rather, the document continued, those who kneel should be instructed “pastorally” on the reasons for the norm.
Canon 843 states that “sacred ministers may not deny the sacraments to those who opportunely ask for them, are properly disposed and are not prohibited by law from receiving them.”
Responding to several letters from Catholics in the United States who said they were being forced to stand, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship wrote, “The faithful should not be imposed upon nor accused of disobedience and of acting illicitly when they kneel to receive Communion.” And Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said kneeling for Communion is a centuries-old tradition.
Edward Peters, professor of canon law at the Institute for Pastoral Theology of Ave Maria University in Ypsilanti, Mich., said, “I don't think there's any question but that withholding Communion from someone who chooses to kneel is a serious violation of that person's fundamental canonical rights under Canons 213, 843 and 912.”
“The argument that unity of posture is important at Communion time seems to me exaggerated here,” he said. “Of course unity is important, but it should be a unity in important things, such as our belief in the Real Presence or our willingness to show our love for Jesus in Communion, and not on something mostly external, let alone divisive.”
Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of the liturgical journal Adoremus Bulletin, said many Catholics find it inexplicable that a bishop would object to people's expression of devotion to the Eucharist through kneeling.
“Many liturgists have been convinced that kneeling is a posture only used for penance,” she said. “This argument was steadfastly advanced during the whole time the bishops were considering the revision of the “Roman Missal.”
Richard Stith, a Catholic who teaches law at Valparaiso University in Indiana, said kneeling in prayer after Communion does not conflict with an attitude of communion with others but focuses momentarily on the very source of that communion — Christ himself.
“The tradition of folding oneself, internally and externally, around the Body of Christ — embracing and communing with Christ dwelling within one after Communion — is the closest to an ecstatic union with our Lord that we non-mystics ever get to experience,” he said. “It also is the greatest source of our union with others. We are united with others because of our union with Christ. He is the axis of the wheel, and we are the spokes.”
Archbishop Brunett said the people who have written him about their discomfort with standing are not aware of the different liturgical gestures in Catholic churches around the world, where, for example, it might not be the custom to kneel during the Eucharistic prayer.
“Most of the letters I get about this issue show a not-very-well-developed understanding of Eucharistic theology,” he said. “They … show somebody is doing something from habit but not with understanding for why they did it.”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
Canon Law on Liturgy
Canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law states: “The ordering and guidance of the sacred liturgy depends solely upon the authority of the Church, namely, that of the Apostolic See and, as provided by law, that of the diocesan bishop.”
It continues: “Within the limits of his competence, it belongs to the diocesan bishop to lay down for the Church entrusted to his care liturgical regulations that are binding on all.”
Canon 835 says the “sanctifying office” in the Church is exercised principally by bishops, “who are the high priests, the principal dispensers of the mysteries of God and the moderators, promoters and guardians of the entire liturgical life in the churches entrusted to their care.”
What else does the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal call for during Mass? Here are a few of the major points:
EStanding. Stand, then say “May the Lord accept the sacrifice we offer you …” Says the general instruction: “The faithful should stand … from the invitation, Orate, fratres (Pray, brethren), before the prayer over the offerings.”
EKneeling. The congregation “should kneel beginning after the singing or recitation of the Sanctus until after the Amen of the Eucharistic prayer, except when prevented on occasion by reasons of health, lack of space, the large number of people present or some other good reason. Those who do not kneel ought to make a profound bow while the priest genuflects after the consecration. The faithful kneel at theAgnus Dei unless the diocesan bishop determines otherwise.”
EBowing. “An inclination of the head should be made when the three Divine Persons are named, at the name of Jesus, of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the saint in whose honor Mass is celebrated.”
ESilence during Mass. “Sacred silence … as part of the celebration, is to be observed at the designated times … Within the Act of Penitence and again after the invitation to pray, all recollect themselves; but at the conclusion of a reading or the homily, all meditate briefly on what they have heard; then after Communion, they praise and pray to God in their hearts.
ESilence before Mass. “Even before the celebration itself, it is commendable for silence to be observed in church, in the sacristy, in the vesting room and in adjacent areas, so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred action in a devout and fitting manner.”
Source: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on the Liturgy
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Activists Planned for Bay State Homosexual Marriage Ruling DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — As the Register went to press July 14, the Massachusetts Supreme Court was expected to declare the state's matrimony laws to be discriminatory for not allowing homosexual couples to marry.
With the decision, the commonwealth would become the first state to recognize marriages between two people of the same sex.
“It has always been the role of the courts in our system of government to say when a law draws the wrong line,” said Mary Bonauto, an attorney for the Boston-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders. She argued the case on behalf of seven same-sex couples.
“Only ‘marriage’ conveys the love and commitment that others automatically understand and respect. … Equal marriage rights would strengthen these families and the communities of which they are an integral part,” Bonauto said.
But Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, said such a decision could wreak havoc on the future of the American family.
“Americans want our laws to send a positive message to children about marriage, family and their future,” Daniels said.
He said a pro-homosexual marriage decision in Massachusetts, “with legal consequences for our entire nation, would dramatically confirm that the Federal Marriage Amendment is the only way to allow the American people to determine the future of marriage and the family under American law,” he said.
He added that U.S. cardinals and the Vatican have supported an amendment to the Constitution that would define marriage in the United States as only between one man and one woman.
“The Pontifical Council for the Family has said that judicial efforts to destroy marriage as the union of male and female are contrary to the common good and truly unjust,” Daniels said. “This is why my friend Cardinal [Anthony] Bevilacqua has joined with Cardinal [Edward] Egan, Cardinal [Francis] George and scores of bishops in endorsing the Federal Marriage Amendment.”
Family groups were prepared to lam-baste the ruling. Genevieve Wood, spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, noted that government's role is to recognize, not change, marriage.
“Marriage is an institution which no court has the authority to redefine, and yet, left unchecked, that is exactly what they are attempting to do,” Wood said. “We have three separate coequal branches of government in this country. The White House and Congress must not let our nation's court system run amok with no accountability.”
She noted that homosexual activists used the courts because they couldn't win at the ballot box.
“Time and time again, in states like California and Hawaii, when the people of this country have voted on the issue of creating same-sex marriage, the answer has been a resounding No,” Wood said. “The Massachusetts Supreme Court must refrain from overriding the will of the people and should base its forthcoming decision solely on the Constitution.”
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., announced his opposition to same-sex marriages in an interview with the Washington Post.
“I do not support [same-sex] marriage … it's just a personal belief about what the relationship of marriage is and how it works, but I'm in favor of civil unions,” Kerry said. “I've supported all forms of partnership union. I think gays should have all of the rights of ownership, of partnership, of visitation in hospitals, of inheritance and so forth.”
“Marriage is an institution between men and women for the purpose of having children and procreating,” he said. “That's my belief, and some people may not like it. I've been willing to take my lumps on everything that I think enhances people's rights and gives people equality, but I think there is something special about the institution of marriage — the oldest institution in the world.”
Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor for National Review, said it would only be a matter of time before same-sex marriage reached the Supreme Court.
“The Massachusetts decision is going to increase the pressure on politicians to support a Federal Marriage Amendment,” he said. “Because if they can do this in Massachusetts, they can do it anywhere.”
And like other conservatives, Ponnuru doesn't believe the federal Defense of Marriage Act will stand up to a constitutional challenge.
“Congress can regulate the status of the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution,” Ponnuru said.
But he noted that the Supreme Court in 1995 overturned a Colorado referendum that prohibited special status and privileges to homosexuals. The court's reasoning was that the amendment was passed with “animus” toward homosexuals.
“The Supreme Court could strike down marriage laws for any number of reasons: depriving people of equal protection, ‘animus’ toward gays or due process,” he said.
Robert George, professor of political philosophy at Princeton University, said it is possible citizens in Massachusetts won't let the decision stand.
“When the Hawaii Supreme Court sought to redefine marriage in that state, the people responded by amending their state constitution to overturn the court's ruling. Hawaii, like Massachusetts, is a liberal state,” George noted. “It is possible that the citizens of Massachusetts will respond in the same way.”
But George said only one thing would settle the matter and ultimately protect marriage.
“I hope that the people of the United States as a whole will respond by enacting the Federal Marriage Amendment,” he said, “to protect marriage as a union of a man and a woman from judicial redefinition.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Josh Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Archbishop Faces Chaos in Liberia DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:MONROVIA, Liberia — A Liberian bishop who has tried to mediate between warring factions in this West African country has said law and order has “completely broken down” there.
Interviewed in early July, Archbishop Michael Francis of Monrovia spoke of government troops recently “going about molesting people” and looting houses from those who are displaced.
“The little [that people] had, they had taken from them,” he said. “It's a miracle how the people are coping.”
President Bush, visiting Africa from July 8-11, was considering whether to send U.S. troops to intervene. Both the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services strongly encouraged him to support the deployment of an international stabilization force for the country of 3.29 million people founded by freed American slaves. The Economic Community of West African States meanwhile announced plans to send 1,000 peacekeeping troops.
The situation rapidly deteriorated after two rebel groups, the Liberians United for Democracy in Liberia and a sister force, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, overran the country and made incursions into the country's capital, Monrovia, held by President Charles Taylor. The attacks during the past six weeks alone have left an estimated 1,000 civilians dead and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
“The government is trying to constrain [the lack of discipline],” Archbishop Francis said. He added that a “tenuous cease-fire” brought a halt to the unrest.
Society of African Missions Father Thomas Hayden spent 17 years in Liberia. He is monitoring the situation from the order's American province headquarters in Tenafly, N.J., where he is vice provincial. Five Society missionaries still work in Liberia, along with Salesians, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Missionaries of Charity and Consolata Sisters.
He said a major problem is the lack of any trained army, police or security force in the country for almost 20 years.
“What you have on the ground are young men with machine guns over their shoulders, walking around,” he said. “Generally speaking they didn't bother people until the end of February.”
Earlier this year the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy in Liberia and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia marched into the country from Guinea and Ivory Coast in an attempt to overthrow Taylor.
“They drove 28,000 people from their homes in the south of the country. They looted everyone's home, all of the churches, rectories, homes of the aged,” Father Hayden said. “They took everything that wasn't nailed down.”
Refugees, including Bishop Boniface Dalieh of Cape Palmas and two Society of African Missionary priests, poured into Ivory Coast.
Bishop Dalieh would like to return, Father Hayden said after receiving an e-mail message from him July 10, but the bishop is concerned about the “child soldiers” who make up most of the rebel force.
“They're boys aged 9 to 15, riding around in stolen cars with guns,” Father Hayden said. “They're dangerous because they don't know how to handle the guns and too immature to realize their importance.”
Both Archbishop Francis and Father Hayden are also concerned about food shortages. The archbishop described the food and medicine situation as “very, very difficult and dangerous.”
Father Hayden said there had been no fresh food in Monrovia for the last two months.
“It wouldn't take much to spark massive fighting in Monrovia,” he said.
Aid and relief efforts have also been severely curtailed. Archbishop Francis, who is also in charge of the Liberian Church's aid and development federation, Caritas, revealed that all its warehouses have been raided. Before that, all the facilities of Catholic Relief Services were looted.
“The same thing happened to three of our parishes, and the pastors were dehumanized and ill-treated,” the archbishop reported.
Country's Decline
Liberia's deterioration began 23 years ago when Samuel Doe seized power in a military coup. Widespread human-rights abuses followed, creating instability and international condemnation and, eventually, a revolt almost 10 years later led by warlord Charles Taylor.
Taylor's insurgency quickly turned into an ethnic civil war, the downfall of President Doe and his eventual execution. Ever since, the autocratic Taylor has been trying to extend his influence, coercing thousands to battle against foes in neighboring countries and bringing instability to the whole region.
Archbishop Francis has tried to mediate between the warring factions and leads the Interreligious Council of Liberia, a body admired for its effectiveness.
“The council is very interesting because it's made up of Muslims and Christians — perhaps the only council of its kind in all of Africa,” Father Hayden said. “Many members of the [Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy in Liberia] are Muslims, but they're not allowing religion to enter this conflict at all, and that's to the credit of the interreligious council.”
Father Hayden estimates that 25% of the country's population is Christian, 10% Muslim and the remainder traditional African religions.
Indeed, except in the south of the country, most of the priests and religious have been relatively safe and have remained in the country. Father Hayden said he believed they were “at risk” but did not think they were in much danger from a rebel group, although “Taylor has an intense dislike for the archbishop,” he said.
People have told Father Hayden the only person Taylor fears is Archbishop Francis. The archbishop “is not afraid to criticize Taylor anytime he steps over the bounds on human rights as he's done over and over again … but Taylor respects him for his integrity,” he said.
However, he said, the Church's leader in Liberia is not worried. “If you kill me they'll find another archbishop,” he is known to have remarked.
Taylor vowed in early July to step down and possibly accept asylum in Nigeria once peacekeepers arrive. But Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, the apostolic nuncio to Liberia, is pessimistic.
“He is a master of presentation and deception who will change his mind,” Archbishop Bottari de Castello said. “He's a terrible man and very difficult to believe.”
“He speaks very convincingly but during his presidency he signed seven negotiated peace treaties and didn't keep one of them,” Father Hayden said of Taylor. “So the question is, will he keep his word? I have my doubts because he just cannot be trusted.”
Taylor has already hinted any exile would be a “cooling off” period before he returned to Liberia.
Archbishop Francis said he was disappointed by the seeming reluctance on the part of the United States to assist Liberia because of the country's historic ties and its significant help during the two world wars and the Cold War.
But according to Father Hayden, ending the conflict would be just the “first phase.” The nation's infrastructure is all but ruined and the country lacked a skilled work-force for 20 years.
Asked about his feelings for the country's future, he replied, “I am hopeful, but I'm not terribly optimistic.”
Edward Pentin is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Parents Take Nothing for Granted DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:CHICAGO — Jill and Tim Thompson won't be sending a child to Loyola University of Chicago next year.
The Searcy, Ark., couple wants to find a school near family in the Midwest, but they say they have no way of determining who has a mandatum at Loyola.
Jill Thompson said she's well aware of recent studies suggesting that students are even more likely to lose their faith at a Catholic college than at a secular one.
“Our parents were more likely to turn over our care blindly because of the confidence that they had in the Church at that time,” Thompson said, “but we've been living in the Catholic Church for the past 30 years and I'm not taking anything for granted.”
When the Register called to ask which professors at Loyola University of Chicago had canon-law mandatums to teach theology, neither theology department chair John McCarthy nor university president Father Michael Garanzini responded.
“Most of it is being handled internally,” said Bud Jones, associate vice president for public relations.
In February, Chicago Cardinal Francis George wrote about the mandatum in a column published in the diocesan newspaper, Catholic New World. In that article he publicly stated which institutions’ professors had sought the mandatum.
“I gave the mandatum to about 20 Catholics who teach Catholic theology in the four Catholic universities in the archdiocese,” Cardinal George wrote.
“Almost all the Catholics who teach Catholic theology at the two smaller Catholic universities in the archdiocese, Dominican and St. Xavier, have received the mandatum. At Loyola University, most of the Catholic professors in the Institute for Pastoral Studies have received the mandatum, but many of the Catholic professors in the theology department have not.”
The cardinal's public statement provoked an outcry within Loyola's theology department.
A Jesuit institution, Loyola University of Chicago is ranked 69th among national doctoral universities by U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Colleges 2003.
The Register is investigating Catholic colleges and universities featured in U.S. News & World Report‘s college guide, asking: Are parents allowed to know whether those who teach theology even intend to teach in communion with the Church? Or has the opposite happened — is the canon-law mandatum being used to protect dissenters?
During his meeting with U.S. cardinals last year, Pope John Paul II said parents “must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
Since 1983, canon law has required that a theologian teaching in a Catholic university receive a mandatum from the local bishop showing the theologian's intention to teach with the Church. The requirement was highlighted in a footnote in Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church). U.S. bishops began requiring the mandatum in 2001.
“According to the [bishops’ conference's] ‘Guidelines Concerning the Academic Mandatum in Catholic Universities (Canon 812),’ which received the recognitio of the Congregation for Catholic Education on May 3, 2000, all full-time and part-time professors of sacred Scripture, theology, canon law, liturgy and Church history at any Catholic institution of higher learning are to seek the mandatum,” said canonist and author Pete Vere. “It is the responsibility of the individual to seek it.”
Yet parents say universities won't tell who has a mandatum.
Private or Public?
Canon law is silent as to whether the mandatum should be private or public, and opinions vary widely.
“The president has told us that the university isn't going to say anything publicly,” said Loyola theology professor Dennis Martin. “You can see where this is going to end up. No one will end up with the mandatum.”
Thompson agreed.
“I disagree that this is a private issue,” she said. “That idea is not consistent with an active laity in the Church. If parents are paying $10,000 or $20,000 a year to send [their children] to a Catholic school, they have a right to know what they are paying for.”
“These professors are not private tutors,” Vere said. “He or she is teaching in an open classroom at a Catholic university.”
Moreover, Vere argued, an institution's mission can be confusing to parents.
“If pursued as a public matter, the mandatum would be of great assistance to parents and students who seek a Catholic university rather than a university historically founded in the Catholic tradition,” he said.
While few at Loyola are speaking publicly, Chicago Cardinal Francis George has voiced his concerns.
“The mandatum is a public reality,” Cardinal George told the Register. “It's a personal act, but personal acts are sometimes public — like receiving the sacraments.”
“Being a professor is a public thing,” Martin said. “Media people come to professors for commentary on Catholic issues. If he responds he is acting in a public way.”
“Some of the theology faculty members were up in arms about it, but at this point no one cares,” said Larry DiPaolo Jr., who received his master's degree in theological studies from Loyola and is currently seeking a doctorate in New Testament from the school.
“Frankly, it seems as if it has died out,” DiPaolo added. “I would say that the mandatum is in limbo.”
How Do Parents Know?
Still, parents such as the Thompsons would like to know who has a mandatum.
Asked how a parent would know who has received the mandatum at Loyola, Cardinal George told the Register he would instruct interested students and parents to contact individual theology faculty members.
“The mandatum is a public matter,” Cardinal George said. “Whether to publicize it or not is a private matter. If a faculty member isn't willing to tell a parent, that says something.”
Theology professor Martin also encouraged parents to ask questions of the universities.
“Parents and students should know who has applied,” he said. “It's like any product — if you do not receive a satisfactory answer or if you get evasive answers, you go elsewhere.”
Cardinal George said his column about the mandatum was “purposeful.”
“I traced it to the secularization of these institutions,” he said. “Many of the disciplines have secularized themselves.”
Jesuit Superior General Peter Hans Kolvenbach was once quoted by Father Richard John Neuhaus as saying, “For some [Jesuit] universities, it is probably too late to restore their Catholic character.”
Martin pointed to the July 1967 Land O’ Lakes Conference, led by former University of Notre Dame president Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, as evidence of the secularization of Catholic colleges and universities.
The university presidents and administrators at that conference declared, “The Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.”
“The Land O’ Lakes conference intended to secularize colleges,” Martin said. “Why should anyone be surprised that it has succeeded?”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: He Saw St. Bernadette, Dead, In His Living Room DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Noah Lett a Lutheran pastor turned Catholic, works as a theologian with the Eternal Word Television Network.
Last year, Lett co-hosted the 13-part EWTN television series Black and Roman Catholicwith Dr. Dolores Grier. He has also been a guest on EWTn's “The Journey Home.”
Lett spoke from his home in Leeds, Ala., with Register features correspondent Tim Drake.
Tell me about your childhood.
I was born in April 1956 and grew up in Marion, Ind. I have one younger sister.
My father worked at and retired from General Motors. My mother worked in the cafeteria at the local high school.
There was no attempt in our home to pass on the Christian faith; I don't even know if my parents had the faith to pass on or if they were ever baptized. They rarely attended church and they didn't make my sister or me attend. On the rare occasion when they attended church they went to the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a denomination founded during the Civil War.
The result of all of this is that my religious education at home consisted of the moral conduct of my mother and father and the dinner prayer, “Jesus wept. Amen.”
You were ordained as a Lutheran pastor?
I graduated from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, and was ordained in 1986 in the American Lutheran Church, just prior to its merger with the Lutheran Church of America, which created the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. My first assignment as pastor was in Queens, N.Y.
What led you to the Church?
It was the culmination of a process that had begun when I was 6 or 7. At that age, I had heard the story of Solomon's dream from an older relative. I thought it was wonderful. And so I would ask my friends what they would do if they could have one wish like Solomon. One of them told me they would wish for a tricycle. I responded, “Oh, no. You want to be smart so you could fix it and have it forever.”
Then one day, about a week later, a voice said to me, “Why don't you ask the God of Solomon to bless you like he blessed Solomon?” and so I looked up and hollered out, not knowing how to pray, “God of Solomon, bless me like you blessed Solomon.” At that moment I felt my natural curiosity swell in agitation like a hungry fire wanting to consume all knowledge. Two questions created this agitation, this hunger, and this is exactly how they came to me at the time — what makes existence worthwhile and why don't you know right now, because it makes all the difference in the world.
For the next 11 to 12 years, I tried to answer the questions. I would come upon things I thought were the answer but find them unsatisfactory through a process that was more like tasting rather than analyzing. Eventually, at the age of 17 in 1973, I heard the Gospel for the first time, found a certain measure of peace and moved on with my new Christian life.
I had been a Lutheran pastor for about 10 months when one day, in 1988, I went home to fix myself lunch.
I walked through the hallway and the dining room into the kitchen, when suddenly, I found myself standing in front of the incorruptible body of St. Bernadette in Navarre, France. I had never been to Navarre, but I was not afraid at that moment. Rather there was a feeling that this is as it should be.
A voice rang out in the chapel asking, “Noah, what do you see?” I looked upon the lovely body of St. Bernadette and said, “I see a woman who loves you dearly.” After a pause the question was repeated.
From where I stood I looked more closely at Bernadette's uncorrupted body and replied, “I see that you have the power to prevent the corruption of death.” A third time the voice asked, “What do you see?”
Her uncorrupted body lay there in front of me, but in my mind I could clearly see the many moments, with all her subtle nuances of movement, when she had received our Lord at Mass. So I thoughtfully answered, “I see that the Roman Catholic sacraments give what they promise.”
At that moment I felt as if I had crossed a vast frontier. And just as suddenly as it began it was over. I found myself back in Queens, N.Y., standing in the doorway to the kitchen. I was also aware that I had become Roman Catholic and that I needed to lay down my Lutheran ministry, since it could not provide the Eucharist of the Catholic Church.
So I resigned that week but stayed on for several months, at the congregation's request, until a new pastor could be found.
What did you do next?
My family and I returned to Columbus, Ohio. I went to the nearest Catholic church, which happened to be Holy Name Catholic Church, and introduced myself to the pastor, Father William Reichert, with these words, “Hello my name is Noah Lett. I no longer want to be a Lutheran pastor, I want to become a Catholic.” Father Reichert contacted the bishop and eventually the date was set for my daughter and me to be received into the Church in 1989.
What have you found to be the most difficult hurdle as a black Catholic?
One of the things that concerns me now — this is something that I had given very little thought to until recently — is the widespread ignorance most African-Americans have of the Church and her teachings. How sad that so many are unaware of this healing treasure so near to them.
Of the 32 million African-Americans in the United States, about 4 million are Catholic. Yet they have, for a variety of reasons, very little influence in the African-American community. The Black Muslim movement in the United States is less than 70 years old and numbers less than 4 million members and yet their influence is much greater.
I would like to be instrumental in helping African-American Catholics pass on the faith to their children and in helping them develop new tools with which to evangelize their neighbors, who presently know nothing about the Church but who could at any given moment be incited to become genuinely curious.
What are the most common misconceptions about black Catholics?
The most common misconception held by white Catholics, especially many in leadership, is that black Catholics are, as a group, interested in having Baptist-like actions of worship mixed in with the Mass. Any parish with African-Americans that does not allow or encourage this is assumed to be yet another obstacle on the road to progress. Most African-American Catholics want what Pope John Paul II wants — a Mass celebrated according to the rubrics in the Roman Missal. This is what our Catholic parents passed on to us and what we desperately want to pass on to our children.
Non-Catholic African-Americans have a unique misunderstanding. They look upon black Catholics as an oddity, so they treat us, with all sincerity of heart, as if we are members of just one more denomination. In my family, for instance, they make this assumption. Fortunately, from time to time they become curious, and I try to answer their questions about how being Catholic is different than being a member of a denomination.
Tell me about your television program. I understand it is still running in reruns on EWTN, correct?
Yes. It began airing last September. The genesis of the program was Mother Angelica's wish that her friend, Dr. Dolores Grier, host a series for the network. Eventually, I was asked to assist Dr. Grier. Early in the development of the series, we agreed that our personal love for the Church and our individual practices of traditional devotions should be evident in every program, no matter what the topic. This was to show that we were not dissidents or experimentalists, complaining about the Church because of some political or other kind of agenda. But like the ordinary Catholic, we love the Church and attentively listen to the magisterium. The series was well received and continues to air.
How has Catholicism shaped your view of race?
I was never ashamed of being black; however, I was inattentive to it — I was just a man. The Catholic Church is teaching me that yes, I am a man, but also a black man, and this is a gift of God given to me for my salvation, the good of others and the glory of God.
I never had an interest in evangelizing a particular place or people, but now because of the grace of the sacraments, I find myself wishing like St. Stephen that I could go and share the riches of the Church with the race of my birth. How wonderful it is to be Catholic and discover, by our sacraments and teaching, that every one of us should be attentive to our race, because it is a gift meant to enrich the whole world.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Noah Lett ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: A Modest Proposal: American Psychiatric Association Ponders Pedophilia DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:ARLINGTON, Va. — Controversy surrounds the American Psychiatric Association in the aftermath of news reports that presenters at its annual conference in May called for pedophilia and other sexual problems to be considered sane behavior.
Psychiatrist Charles Moser of the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco and psychologist Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa argued before the American Psychiatric Association membership that the logic of the association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders is flawed.
Citing the 1973 decision to removed homosexuality from the third edition of the authoritative manual, Moser said the fact that some abnormal sexual preferences are not considered mental illness means none can be classified as mental illness, even if they are morally objectionable or even, as in the case of pedophilia, illegal.
The current edition of the manual, with revisions, is referred to by professionals as DSM-IV TR. It speaks of disorders known as paraphilias and defines them as “recurrent intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors that generally involved nonhuman subjects, children or other non-consenting adults, or the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner.”
Defending his position in a prepared statement, Moser said, “Some individuals have interpreted interpreted [the report] as suggesting that we support child sexual abuse. We are strongly opposed to child sexual abuse and believe that anyone convicted of this crime should be punished.”
Quoting from his presentation to the American Psychiatric Association conference in late May, he said, “We would argue that the removal of pedophilia from the [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual] would focus attention on the criminal aspects of these acts and not allow the perpetrators to claim mental illness as a defense nor use it to mitigate responsibility for their crimes.”
Also in a prepared statement, the American Psychiatric Association disavowed any implied support for Moser's proposal or the possibility that paraphilias would be removed from the diagnostic manual. The association reiterated its position that “mentally ill” is defined as “anything that harms an individual or others,” and said, “There are no plansor processes set up that would lead to the removal of the paraphilias from their consideration as legitimate mental disorders.”
What's Normal?
Although controversial, Moser's proposal is not the first to challenge the American Psychiatric Association's standard for mental illness as vague and subjective. Since 1973, some psychologists and psychiatrists have been arguing that lacking a scientifically provable definition of normal behavior, the mental health field cannot accurately define abnormality without referenceto legal or moral definitions specifically rejected by the American Psychiatric Association as a standard.
Dr. Michael First, text editor for the DSM-IV TR, insists that this is unjustified.
“The issues surrounding the concept of the definition of mental disorder are no different than issues involved in the definition of medical disorder in general,” he said. Citing the changing definition of “high blood pressure” as an example, First said, “There are, in fact,no hard boundaries separating normal from disorder, and as we learn more about the negative consequences of conditions, boundaries could change. [For both] the condition must represent a biological or psychological dysfunction in the organism and it must be of sufficient severity as to result in harm to the individual or others.”
First said psychological dysfunction is defined as causing distress, functional impairment or future significant risk for harm.“Empirical data that sheds light on the nature of the dysfunction as well as the manifestation of harm,” he said, “can be helpful in readjusting normal-abnormal boundaries.”
Dr. Janet Gebelt, assistant professor of developmental psychology at the University of Portland, calls these “fuzzy criteria.” She agrees with Moser that the definitions are subjective and personal.
“Is a person feeling unhappy because of the behavior or because of other people's reaction to the behavior?” she asked.
“Distress caused by prejudice or discrimination is not a form of distress that meets the definition of disorder,” she said. “I don't think any psychologist would say society is always right.”
While Gebelt insists psychology can be based on scientific experiments and observations, she said the studies will only define normal as “common” behavior, not necessarily “right” behavior. “Normal is anabsence of abnormality,” she said.
Noting that a 1963 study by Dr. Stanley Milgram induced a large number of randomly selected people to deliver what they believed to be fatal electric shocks to another person, she said, “You can take perfectly ordinary people and make them do evil. This doesn't constitute mental illness, but that doesn't make these actions excusable.”
Oblate of St. Frances de Sales Father John Harvey disagrees with Moser's claim that sexual disorders rest on cultural definitions.
“Cultural concepts can change the definition somewhat,” said Father Harvey, director of Courage, an organization for Catholics with homosexual tendencies. “However, it's one thing to say you don't know where the line is and another entirely to say you can't define normal.”
However, Dr. A. Dean Byrd,vice president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and clinical professor of medicine for the University of Utah, disagrees with some of Moser's conclusions — but not his assertions about the subjectivity of the diagnostic manual. He calls the American Psychiatric Association's standards political activism masquerading as science.
I do not object to the [American Psychiatric Association] presenting a worldview,” he said. “I do object to the [American Psychiatric Association] presenting one worldview and labeling it as science.”
Science neither has nor can provide answers to moral dilemmas,” Byrd said. “So, how do we resolve this disagreement about the definition of mental illness? The [American Psychiatric Association] could begin by acknowledging the value-ladenness of the mental health enterprise.”
“An open dialogue and spirited debate is needed to discuss these issues. What factors enhance human dignity? How do we define human flourishing?” Byrd said. “The [American Psychiatric Association] slides down a slippery slope when it advocates what amounts to a virtual censorship of the scientific investigation of politically unpopular views. Science advances by asking interesting questions, not by avoiding questions whose answers may not be helpful in achieving a particular political agenda.”
Philip S. Moore is based in Vancouver, Washington.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Unborn Lost in the Translation
According to a June 29 report by the Columbia Daily Tribune, two of the candidates for the Democratic nomination for president omit their strong pro-abortion stances on their Spanish Web sites: the (formerly pro-life) Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.
Is it a strategic choice, knowing that many Hispanics, Catholic and not, wouldn't vote for someone they know to favor killing the unborn?
When contacted, the congressmen's campaigns said they simply had not finished their translation work on the sites. They promised that the candidates’ strong “pro-choice” positions would find their way onto the sites when they were completed — although, according to the paper, they did not specify when that would happen.
Wal-Mart Embraces ‘Gay Rights’
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 2 — After an extensive lobbying campaign conducted by a small group of homosexual-activist shareholders, America's largest private employer, Wal-Mart Corp., has decided to include homosexuals in the list of protected groups in its anti-discrimination policy, according to the Associated Press.
The Pride Foundation, which led the shareholder campaign, boasted about the policy change it had wrought: “The change means nine of the 10-largest Fortune 500 companies now have rules prohibiting discrimination against gay employees, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The one exception is the Exxon Mobil Corp.,” it said in a statement.
For those concerned with the traditional family, the news was a disappointment, coming less than two months after the retail chain removed several racy magazines from its shelves. Wal-Mart also will require its 1.1 million employees to undergo “sensitivity training.”
Ten Commandments Un-American?
CNSNEWS.COM, July 2 — In what CNSNews.com called a stinging rebuke, a federal appeals court on July 1 demanded that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore remove his display of the Ten Commandments from his courthouse — and asserted that the commandments had played no major part in American history.
The three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals compared Moore's refusal to remove the monument to past refusal of southern governors to comply with desegregation orders.
“That there were some government acknowledgments of God at the time of this country's founding and indeed are some today, however, does not justify under the Establishment Clause a 5,280-pound granite monument placed in the central place of honor in a state's judicial building,” the court ruled.
One of its arguments against the monument was that it used a specific Protestant translation and ordering of the commandments,which Jews and Catholics might find objectionable — although no Catholic groups were involved in the attempt to remove the monument.
Moore has garnered vast public support among Alabama voters for his advocacy of public acknowledgement of religion.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pro-Lifers Press on With Agenda After Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Victory DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The first federal law banning an abortion procedure since abortion was legalized nationwide in 1973 is about to become law.
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are preparing to iron out differences in bills both houses passed this year banning partial-birth abortions. Republican leadership was trying to appoint representatives to a conference committee over Democratic objections the week of July 7, but many expect that President Bush could sign a bill into lawby summer's end.
That would be a sweet victory for pro-life activists after an eightyear struggle over banning such abortions — years that saw vetoes by former President Clinton and failures in Congress to override those vetoes.
But activists credit the debate — which engendered vivid descriptions of a fully formed baby being stabbed in the neck while in the process of being born — with educating the American public about the horrors of abortion.
Surveys seem to indicate that the ongoing effort has had an effect.
A Gallup poll indicated in May that almost as many Americans identify themselves as “pro-life” as they do “pro-choice,” with “prochoice” edging out “pro-life” 48% to 45%. As recently as 1995, Americans favored the “prochoice” label by a 56% to 33% margin.
“Soon we will have over 50% of Americans who call themselves ‘pro-life,‘” said Cathleen Cleaver, director of planning and information for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “[Abortion activists] are going to have a problem painting half of America as the fringe.”
They might also have a problem convincing people that women want abortion.
Changing Hearts
A recent poll conducted by the pro-abortion Center for the Advancement of Women found that 51% of women said the government should prohibit abortion or limit it to extreme cases, such as rape, incest or life-threatening situations.
In addition to federal measures, there are many states working on — or that have already passed — incremental legislation for parental consent or notification, a 24-hour waiting period, unborn victims of violence and the end of state funding of abortions.
But legislative efforts to end or curtail abortion are not the only avenue to bring about a culture of life. Some pro-life activists are devoting more energy to educational and cultural activities.
In March the Society of Jesus issued a major statement against abortion. It read, in part: “The close linking of service of faith and the promotion of justice has been a hallmark of Jesuit ministries from the very beginning. There can be no service of faith without the promotion of justice. Jesuits, therefore, must seek an end to the injustice of abortion.”
Jesuit Father Richard Ryscavage serves as head of social and international ministries for the Society of Jesus in the United States. He said the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision provided “a good time to weigh in on the debate.”
“Congress is so fickle. If they had their choice, they wouldn't deal with abortion,” Father Ryscavage said. In the absence of political courage, he suggested local activism.
“I think the Church needs to get more involved in providing alternatives at the local level,” he said. “In a way, Jesuits haven't been known for talking about this collectively. Now is the time to talk about it in the parishes and in the schools.”
Judie Brown, president of American Life League, noted that her organization has abandoned the legislative arena for now. This is partly due to her opposition to the partial-birth abortion ban bill. She opposed the bill because it featured an exemption for the life of the mother and because the two-year penalty for committing a partialbirth abortion ranked considerably lower than regular sentences for homicide.
“What we are saying is that the child that is nearly born doesn't carry the same sentence as any other murder,” Brown said. “The partial-birth abortion ban is a scam.It doesn't ban anything.”
So Brown said her group would focus on four major educational outreaches.
“We've decided — and I think we should have done this years ago — that we'll win the battle politically when we win the hearts and minds of the people,” she said.
The first is the organization's construction of a $50 million Campus for Life center on 135 acres in Stafford, Va., that would educate Americans on the early stages of human development and provide online courses for credit.
She also has a goal of peacefully closing every Planned Parenthood clinic in the country within six years through the grassroots activism of two American Life League affiliates, Rock for Life and Stop Planned Parenthood.
Another initiative of American Life League caught significant media attention when the organization took out newspaper ads in the Washington Times, which labeled 12 senators who were abortion supporters and Catholic as the “Dirty Dozen.”
The ad campaign inaugurated the organization's new affiliate, the Crusade for the Defense of the Catholic Church. The newspaper spots drew immediate fire from the senators, but individual bishops have not expressed anything negative about the campaign.
“We've said we can take the arrows. In that case, the bishops don't get the arrows,” Brown said. “It's a no-lose situation for souls.”
Powerful Images
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life is very focused on educational matters as well. His group has asked a medical company to provide the most accurate pictures that depict an actual dilation and extraction abortion, which is the most common abortion procedure in the United States. He also intends to order a similar picture series for a vacuum abortion, which is used in the first four months.
“When we look at how we won the debate on partial-birth abortion, we realize that for the first time, people saw what abortion was about,” he said. “The pictures showing the procedure have been on C-SPAN, in newspaper advertisements and at rallies.”
Father Pavone wants to make the general public just as aware of the other two abortion procedures through these medical diagrams.
“The anti-smoking movement, the anti-fur movement, the cause against drunk-driving have all used visual images,” he said.
While pictures can be worth a thousand words, sometimes the best arguments in American society are personal stories. For many years, this worked against the prolife cause because the unborn child was unable to speak in his own defense, except in the case where he survives an abortion.
In the public debate during the last several decades, the only stories Americans often heard were of women asserting a need for an abortion because of some personal tragedy.
But the bishops’ conference's Cleaver said that's all changing with an organization called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. It is made up of women who have had abortions but later began to regret their decisions.
“The most credible voice on abortion is not doctors or feminists but women who've had an abortion,” Cleaver said. “Finally, after 30 years, we have this voice that is being heard.”
She said even the media, often seen as biased in favor of abortion, is receptive to retelling the stories of these women.
“The mainstream can't help but report on this,” Cleaver said. “They're showing the pictures of the women holding the signs saying,‘I regret my abortion.‘”
She said support for abortion in America rests on two things: denial of the personhood of the unborn child and the belief that abortion is a problem-solver for women.
“We've all but won the argument on the humanity of the child. Every time they see a photo, like the GE commercial [for ultrasound technology] or the Newsweek cover [showing babies in the womb], it reinforces what they already know,” Cleaver said.
But abortion will remain legal,she said, until Americans reject the notion that abortion is good for women.
“In 1992, the Supreme Court said that abortion could not be made illegal because women have come to rely on abortion,” Cleaver said. “That is all that abortion is standing on now.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Vatican Ponders U.N. Membership
“We will have to weigh carefully the consequences and the advantages and disadvantages of such a step,” the archbishop told reporters. “We are at the stage of elaborating the project, which is currently being studied by lawyers in the [Vatican] State Secretariat.”
The Holy See is currently represented at the United Nations in New York by its permanent observer, Archbishop Celestino Migliore.
Archbishop Tauran said no decision had yet been made on full U.N. membership.
Hindu Nationalists Denounce Pope's Remarks
TIMES (INDIA) NEWS NETWORK, July 7— In a resolution passed July 6, the Hindu nationalist group RSS called on the Indian government to lodge a protest against Pope John Paul II for alleged interference in Indian affairs, reported India's Times News Service.According to the resolution, the Pope's call for Christians to spread their faith in India as in every other land constituted an attempt “to infringe on our national ethos and disturb peace.”
RSS called John Paul's statement a “direct challenge” to Indian local “sovereignty” and suggested that force, fraud or bribery were involved in many conversions to Christianity. It asserted that “conversion is not just a change of the form of worship of prayer but subversion of national loyalty.”
The past months have seen ongoing tensions between local Indian officials with ties to extremist nationalist groups and the Holy See, which points to attacks on local Christians and attempts to persecutemissionaries as violations of international human-rights agreements India has signed — and by which it is bound — which include the freedom of religion.
Vatican Seeks Agreement With Czech Government
CTK NEWS AGENCY, July 5 — According to Prague-based CTK News, the Holy See still awaits an official note from the Czech government clarifying the relations between the Church and the Czech state. The news service cited a July 5 statement by Czech Catholic Bishops’ Conference spokesman Daniel Herman.
This past spring, the Czech lower house of parliament, its Chamber of Deputies, refused by a strong majority of votes to ratify the agreement previously signed between the Vatican and Prague.
“The Holy See has expressed its surprise and regret over the rejection of the agreement by the Czech Parliament,” Herman told the news service. “The main question on which it is necessary to agree will be whether the Czech government and the parties supporting it are interested in an agreement with the Holy See.”
The Czech Republic is one of the last post-communist governments still lacking an agreement with the Church.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: In Times of Distress, Prayer Restores a Zest for Life DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Psalm 143, which we just heard, is the last of the so-called “penitential Psalms,” which are seven psalms of petition that are spread throughout the Book of Psalms (see Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). They are used in our Christian tradition to ask the Lord to forgive us our sins. The text that we wish to examine more closely today is one that St. Paul, who perceived the radical sinfulness of every human being, was particularly fond of: “Before you no living being can be just” (verse 2). This phrase formed the basis of the apostle's teaching on sin and grace (see Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:20).
Morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours proposes this petition to us as a profession of our faithfulness and a plea for God's help at the beginning of the day. In fact, as we pray the psalm, we say to God: “At dawn let me hear of your kindness, for in you I trust” (Psalm 143:8).
A Plea for Help
The psalm begins with an intense and insistent cry to God, who is faithful to the promise of salvation that he has made to his people (see verse 1). The psalmist acknowledges that he has no merits of his own that would make him worthy; therefore, he humbly asks God not to assume the attitude of a judge (see verse 2).
He then portrays the dramatic situation, which is like a deadly nightmare, with which he is struggling. The enemy, who represents the evil in history and in the world, has led him to the threshold of death. In fact, we see him prostrate in the earth's dust, which is already an image of the tomb; we see the darkness, which is the negation of the light that is God's sign of life; finally, we see “those long dead” (see verse 3), among whom he already seems to be banished.
The psalmist's life itself has been devastated. At this point he cannot breathe and his heart seems like a piece of ice that is unable to keep on beating (see verse 4). Only the hands of this faithful man, who has been knocked down and trampled upon, remain free, and he raises them up to heaven in a gesture that is both a plea for help and a pursuit for support (see verse 6). Indeed, his thoughts turn to the past, when God worked wonders (see verse 5).
Hope Amid Darkness
This spark of hope melts the frozen stream of suffering and trial in which the psalmist feels like he has been immersed and about to be swept away (see verse 7). Nevertheless, the tension is still strong, but a ray of light seems to emerge on the horizon. At this point, we move on to the second part of the psalm (see verses 7-11).
This part begins with a new and urgent appeal. The faithful man, feeling as though his life is slipping away, cries out to God: “Hasten to answer me, Lord; for my spirit fails me” (see verse 7). Moreover, he fears that God has hidden his face and distanced himself from him, abandoning his creature and leaving him to his own devices.
The disappearance of God's face causes the man to fall prey to despair, indeed, to death itself, since the Lord is the source of life. It is precisely at this extreme that his trust in God, who does not abandon us, flourishes. The psalmist multiplies his pleas and backs them up with declarations of trust in the Lord. “For in you I trust … for to you I entrust my life … for in you I hope … for you are my God …” He asks to be delivered from his enemies (see verses 8-12) and freed from anguish (see verse 11), but he also repeatedly makes a request that manifests a profound spiritual aspiration: “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God” (verse 10a; see verses 8b, 10b). We must make this very admirable request our own. We must understand that the best thing for us is the union of our will with the will of our heavenly Father, because only in this way can we receive all his love, which brings salvation and the fullness of life. If it is not accompanied by a strong desire to be docile to God, our trust in him is not genuine.
Source of Life
The psalmist is aware of this and therefore expresses this desire. He professes a faith that is genuine and fitting to God his savior, who rescues him from distress and gives him a zest for life, in the name of his “justice,” which is his loving and saving faithfulness (see verse 11). When it arises from a situation that is particularly distressing, prayer leads to hope, joy and light, thanks to sincerely following God and his will, which is a will of love. This is the power of prayer, which generates life and salvation.
Fixing his gaze on the morning light of grace (see verse 8), St. Gregory the Great, in his commentary on the seven penitential Psalms, describes the dawn of hope and joy in this way: “It is the day illuminated by that true sun that knows no setting, clouds that do not darken and fog that cannot obscure … When Christ, our life, appears, and we begin to see God with his face uncovered, it is then that every shade of darkness will disappear, the smoke of ignorance will vanish, and the mist of temptation will dissipate … It will be the most luminous and splendid day, prepared for all the elect by the one who has snatched us from the power of darkness and has transferred us to the Kingdom of his beloved Son.
“The morning of that day is the future resurrection … In that morning the happiness of the righteous will shine forth, glory will appear and exultation will be seen, when God will wipe away every tear from the eyes of the saints, when death, at last, will be destroyed, when the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of the Father.
“That morning, the Lord will make his mercy felt … saying: ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father’ (Matthew 25:34). Then the mercy of God will be manifested, which the human mind cannot conceive in the present life. In fact, the Lord has prepared for those who love him, that which no eye has seen, no ear has heard and that has not entered into the heart of man” (LF 79, coll. 649-650).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:“The best thing for us is the union of our will with the will of our heavenly Father, because only in this way can we receive all his love, which brings salvation and the fullness of life,” Pope John Paul II told 7,000 pilgrims who gathered for his general audience July 9. The Holy Father was offering his reflections on Psalm 143 as he continued his series of teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours.
Although Psalm 143, one of the seven penitential psalms found in the Book of Psalms, is characterized by a note of gloom as the psalmist cries out in distress, the psalm invokes God's promise of salvation and recalls God's marvelous deeds in the past, the Holy Father said. When God's people are faced with adversity and trials, they do not lose hope. On the contrary, they cry out to him, confident that he will help.
“The psalmist is aware of this and therefore expresses this desire,” John Paul noted. “He professes a faith that is genuine and fitting to God his savior, who rescues him from distress and gives him a zest for life.”
This is the true power of prayer, the Holy Father said. “When it arises from a situation that is particularly distressing, prayer leads to hope, joy and light, thanks to sincerely following God and his will, which is a will of love. This is the power of prayer, which generates life and salvation.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Mostly Christian Southern Sudanese Continue to Feel Effects of Civil War DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:KHARTOUM, Sudan — Even as President Bush prepared to visit nearby Uganda on July 11, there were indications the Islamic government of Sudan just north of there was preparing for more possible military action against Sudanese freedom fighters.
Sudan watcher Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., reported July 7 that the National Islamic Front government has been preparing military resupply efforts in a southern garrison town in violation of cease-fire agreements.
President Bush and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights have made assurances that a peace process is on track. Yet the people of Sudan seem to be no better off than they have been during a civil war that has dragged on since 1982.
President Bush did not make Sudan part of his five-nation African tour in early July.
The country's civil war has been primarily between the Arab Muslims in the north and black Africans in the south, where a significant part of the population is Christian.
At times, there has been inter-tribal fighting in the South, and some Southern tribes have even sided with the government against the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the main rebel group.
However, the Africans have borne the brunt of the war. War and famine have killed more than 2 million people and displaced in excess of 4 million — the vast majority being Southerners.
U.S., U.N. and Sudan
Last year, the U.S. Congress passed the Sudan Peace Act, which requires the president and secretary of state to make six-month reports to Congress on the progress of peace negotiations in the northeast African country.
If the president certifies that all parties are negotiating in good faith, then negotiations and financial support for them will go forward. If the opposite determination is made, the president has authority to sanction the offending party.
The first report, made in late April, found that the two main parties, the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and its army, have been negotiating in good faith. This finding came despite the fact that there were numerous cease-fire violations, most of which, observers say, came from government forces.
Since the April report, news reports indicate that not only has the government carried out aggression against civilians in the South, but it has also stepped up oppression in the North, including repression of media and those who oppose the government.
In early April, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which was chaired by Libya, narrowly voted to remove Sudan from a list of countries that have a “special rapporteur,” an individual who gives information to the United Nations on human-rights abuses. Sudan was also part of the commission but did not abstain from the vote. Many people, including Sudan's Catholic bishops, opposed this move since it would essentially give a free hand to the Islamic government to increase oppression.
According to Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the United States was ready to acquiesce and allow the vote to go forward without raising opposition to it. However, she said, a member of the delegation started working at the last minute and got the European nations to oppose such a move. It was not enough, though, and the African countries voted as a bloc on the issue.
The result is there is no longer a U.N. observer to independently verify reports of human-rightsabuses, something Sudan advocates say is necessary in order to keep international pressure on the government.
That pressure is clearly needed, but some critics say it's not coming sufficiently from the United States. These critics cite two recent attacks as proof. A midnight attack of 10 villages on May 22 by Sudanese government forces killed 59 people. And 13 months earlier, government troops in the same area of Sudan massacred 3,000 people.
The larger massacre was supposed to have been investigated by the U.S. State Department, but Dennis Bennett of the evangelical relief group Servants Heart, who reported both attacks, claims the investigation didn't happen soon enough, and Khartoum felt free to do it again — even when the ceasefire was in place.
State of Negotiations
Gen. Omar el-Bashir, president of Sudan, and John Garang, head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and its army, met in April for the first time in 20 years and stated that a peace agreement should be reached by the end of June. Talks resumed July 6 and were expected to last a week. More negotiations about permanent security were scheduled to take place later.
Additionally, issues on the status of Khartoum, the capital, are beginning to crop up. The peace agreement calls for the South to remain part of the country for six years, but it would not be under Islamic Shariah law (the religiously based law of Islam) as is the rest of the country. After six years, a vote would be taken on self-determination for the people of the South.
But Garang has recently asked for Khartoum to be given a secular status during that time and not to be under Shariah law, since it is the capital of a diverse nation. Bashir is opposing the move, saying Shariah is the law of the land and should be especially so in Khartoum. Bashir has also called for a renewed jihad in the South.
These events are happening at the same time that the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative in northern Uganda is claiming Sudan is again providing arms and equipment to the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda.
The Lord's Resistance Ar Army is rebelling against the Ugandan government and has become a terrorist group, according to the United States. It has assisted the Sudanese government against the people of the South along with fighting its own war in Uganda.
Sudan denies the claim, but news reports cite several witnesses who have seen Lord's Resistance Army guerillas in the area with new uniforms and weaponry.
Additionally, the Lord's Resistance Army is targeting Catholic clergy and nuns. Father Carlos Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, told Reuters news agency that the head of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, ordered his commanders to kill Catholic priests and nuns.
“We have no reason to doubt the message was authentic,” Father Rodriguez said. “In the last five weeks [the Lord's Resistance Army] has burned, bombed and desecrated churches on nine occasions.”
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz is based in Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Feminists Defend Fujimori Population Programs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/REUTERS, June 30 — Even as a Peruvian congressional commission concluded that former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori conducted a “no-holds-barred sterilization campaign” aimed at minorities, the impoverished, Catholics and traditional families, Peruvian feminist groups have rallied behind the disgraced, deposed president's family planning policies, according to the Associated Press.
The congressional commission said in the June report that FujimorI's programs had the help of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.N. Population Fund.
Susana Chavez of the feminist organization Manuela Ramos defended FujimorI's program as “excellent in terms of access and information.” She attacked current Health Minister Fernando Carbone and Prime Minister Luis Solari for cutting government funding for artificial contraception and refusing to support the abortifacient “morning-after pill.”
The Manuela Ramos group claims that of the 600,000 Peruvians born each year, at least half are unwanted or ill timed; the organization does not say how it knows this.
The AP reported that current president Alejandro Toledo's health ministry has focused its energy on making births safer rather than preventing them.
Belfast Campaigners Laud Review of Abortion Law
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, July 7 — The leading pro-life group in Great Britain, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, has welcomed a decision by Belfast high court Justice Brian Kerr to review the legality of abortion in Northern Ireland.
Independent Catholic News quoted Betty Gibson, chairman of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in Northern Ireland, who said: “The pro-abortion lobby … wants to make abortion widely available in Northern Ireland and claims that the law here is unclear. [The society]'s case is that the law is perfectly clear. The law on abortion in Northern Ireland gives considerable protection to unborn children, which is what the overwhelming majority of people here want.”
As Mo Mowlam, a former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, once put it when she complained about the strength of opposition to abortion here: “It's called democracy.”
Two Leading Bishops Die
CHALDEAN NEWS AGENCY/VHEADLINE.COM, July 7 — July has seen the deaths of two important Catholic clerics at opposite ends of the world, according to local news services.
In Beirut on July 7, Chaldean Patriarch Mar Raphael I Bidawid, an outspoken critic of U.N. sanctions against Iraq since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, died at age 81 after nine months of illness. After studies in Rome, he returned to his native Iraq as a priest in 1947. He served as rector of the seminary in Mosul and bishop of Amadya in northern Iraq. In 1966 he was transferred to the Diocese of Beirut and became patriarch of the Chaldean Catholics in 1989.
In Venezuela, Cardinal Ignacio Velasco Garcia, archbishop of Caracas, died July 6 at age 74, Vheadline.com, a Venezuelan news Web site, reported. Cardinal Velasco gained renown recently by taking part in the civil campaign to recall and remove from power leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Cardinal Velasco was ordained a priest in the Salesian order in 1955. He was made a bishop in 1989 and appointed archbishop of Caracas in 1995.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Massachusetts' Marriage Mess DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:It's hard to write about homosexuality nowadays. If you make a moral argument against homosexuality, you'll sound judgmental to modern ears — and your argument will be mistaken for hatred of homosexuals themselves. On the other hand, those of us who see a moral problem with homosexual conduct have a hard time believing those who defend things like homosexual marriage. We are so used to seeing honesty on this question sacrificed for political correctness that we have a hard time believing homosexuals’ claims about their own relationships.
But now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the debate — in a decision that will likely send the question up the ladder to the U.S. Supreme Court — we have to look at homosexuality and homosexual relationships very openly and honestly.
In such a culture, how do we convince people that homosexual marriage is wrong? For most people, the morality of a thing and its consequences are inextricably linked. They know it's immoral to lie, not because it harms truth, but because it harms liars.
What are the consequences of homosexual “unions”?
One thing has to be admitted at the outset: There are homosexual couples who are committed, caring people who mean well and really do love each other. To dismiss all homosexual couples as pariahs is unhelpful and unfair.
But to be honest, we also need to admit that those sorts of homosexual relationships are rare in the homosexual world.
One of the ironies of our society is that we see what homosexual life is like, right in front of us, and insist on keeping only an ideal image of it in our minds. Take homosexual entertainment. A homosexual channel was started in Canada, but it got extremely low ratings until it added hard-core homosexual pornography. Is that a sign of a healthy community?
The honesty of John McKellar is refreshing. Ahomosexual himself, he is against homosexual marriage. He told Crisis magazine: “Our lifestyle is very much about party, pageant, parade and promiscuity. We want to have our cake and eat it, too. There was an article in the gay press last year titled, ‘How to Stay Married and Still Be a Slut.‘”
It's also ironic that we who have more sociological data about the consequence of domestic violence and divorce than any other society before us are on the verge of allowing homosexual marriage.
Domestic abuse is common among homosexuals. Web sites for homosexuals include a lot of information about the high rates of violence among homosexual lovers. They even offer friendly tips like “What to do if you're being abusive.” Salon magazine reported in 1997 that incidents of “gay-on-gay” violence were far more common than anti-homosexual violence. Lori Girshick's research on lesbian battering has shown how prevalent it is.
And what about sexual abuse of minors? Pedophilia is a different disorder entirely, but it is undeniable that homosexuals see sex with teen boys as a rite of passage. That concept has appeared in the show “Queer as Folk.” One episode featured “the deflowering of a 17-year-old preppie hungry for initiation,” according to one promotion. Canada's homosexual cable-TV channel features a series of movies called “Boy's Life.”
This world is not one in which children thrive.
So how do we stop homosexual marriage in the face of opposition from the court? Exactly as Peter Wolfgang suggests on the opposite page: with elbow grease.
Massachusetts’ decision will have enormous consequences, but it should not prompt defenders of marriage to surrender the battle. In America, there are American ways to stop legal changes. The democratic system doesn't give the final word to any branch of government. If anyone has the final word, it's voters.
Whenever homosexual marriage is put to a vote, it fails. So we should start putting it to a vote. The best way is the Federal Marriage Amendment. Find information on it at: www.allianceformarriage.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Content of Our Catechesis DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:The editorial “A Year After Dallas” (June 29-July 5) discussed the implementation of national sex-abuse policy by the U.S. bishops. The editorial stated that “In St. Louis the bishops discussed three questions a plenary council would address: the need for catechesis, the role of laity and the spiritual life of priests and bishops.” The item then goes on to say that these topics “go to the heart of the crisis” — presumably the sex-abuse crisis.
From the point of view of this layman, there is one issue even more fundamental than these three topics: the ignoring of Humanae Vitaeby the bishops and priests in our country.
There is a profound schizophrenia in the U.S. Catholic Church over the issue of sexual morality that stems from the semi-rejection of Humanae Vitaeby bishops and priests. Why do we have an organization known as Priests for Life? Are not all priests for life? Well, no, many are for artificial contraception and abortion. Is there any wonder we are having a sex-abuse crisis?
The embarrassed silence on this issue on the part of bishops and priests speaks volumes to the faithful. Before catechesis we need to address the content of the catechesis. Even the role of the laity and the spiritual life of priests and bishops is mere tinkering around the edges unless and until the bishops themselves demonstrate their obedience to the vicar of Christ.
How will the faithful know that their bishops and priests embrace Humanae Vitae? By hearing it proudly proclaimed by their shepherds.
May we address the real problem in the sex abuse crisis and end this tragic episode in the history of the American Church.
BILL MCKENZIE St. Louis
Nothing Doing at Notre Dame
Thanks to Tim Drake for addressing Notre Dame's dirty little secret (“Notre Dame to Parents: We Won't Tell,” July 6-12).
The article barely scrapes the tip of the iceberg of the increasingly lax attitude toward Church mandates within the Notre Dame community. I graduated from Notre Dame's sister school, St. Mary's College, in ‘99, and was often dismayed at the non-Catholicism of the theology department. I did take one course “across the street” in Mariology at my brother school, and fortunately found the professor (a Jesuit priest whom I never, ever saw in a Roman collar) mostly in line with the teachings of the Church. However, rumblings in the conservative community regarding the non-Catholicism of the theology department increased throughout my time there.
My faith did grow as a member of the Notre Dame family, as I became a member of the Ladies of Columbus and served as an acolyte at Basilica Masses. These activities, however, were detached from the theology department and were decidedly extracurricular. A student attending St. Mary's or Notre Dame can find some wonderful fostering there regarding their Catholic faith, but they're going to have to look pretty darn hard.
Keep up the great work.
MARY BETH ELLIS Orlando, Florida
Embryo Adoption Again
Well, a letter on the subject of embryo adoption has finally appeared (“Embryo Adoption,” Letters, July 13-19).
There are three things to answer in Kitty Cleveland's letter. First is the notion that surrogacy is defined by what happens after birth. This is the position of the advocates of embryo adoption, i.e., that unless the woman who is carrying another woman's child surrenders the child she is carrying to the genetic mother, then no surrogacy is involved. This is completely erroneous. The evil of surrogacy consists in the pregnancy (one woman carrying another woman's child) and not in what happens after birth.
The second thing to answer is whether the quote from Donum Vitaeis taken out of context. Yes, it is taken out of its original context but that does not mean that the concept it embodies could not be applied to another context. And the words in the document that the spare embryos are exposed to an absurd fate —i.e., that they have no place to go is a statement of fact, independent of context. Were the authors of this document not aware of the possibility of embryo adoption to solve this dilemma?
The third thing to answer is the implication that Msgr. William Smith has no other basis to oppose this notion. However, in the original article, he speaks of embryo adoption as an additional trespass to the one incurred with in vitro fertilization. This is where he hits the nailmines who shall live or die. Who are these advocates of embryo adoption to play God, anyway?
Spare embryos are in the same boat as aborted fetuses. They've reached the end of their earthly sojourn. They are victims of the evil design of men. They may be seen as martyrs to the moral law and hence receive an implicit baptism of blood. These human creatures who have no personal sin are more precious in the eyes of God than any of us who have lived and sinned on the earth. Let them go to the arms of God.
PAUL A. TROUVE Montague, New Jersey
Pray for Gregory Peck
Local Catholic papers printed a long eulogy on Gregory Peck from the Catholic News Service saying what a great man he was and an exemplary Catholic, but the article failed to mention that he was a strong outspoken proponent for the killing of 4,000-plus pre-born babies a day in abortion. I hope he repented before he died. (The Register noted the actor's death in “Memorial Service Held for Gregory Peck,” Media Watch, June 29-July 5).
According to Gerri Pare, director of the U.S. bishops’ New York-based Office for Film and Broadcasting, Peck “embodied both in his personal and professional character a strong moral presence …”
However, when the pro-life Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court, Peck became the radio voice for the People for the American Way announcements used to distort Bork's record and mobilize public opinion against him. Peck helped mightily to defeat Bork, and what a difference that has made in our society where even the barbaric, medically unnecessary and high-risk procedure known as partial-birth abortion was sanctioned by a Bork-less Supreme Court.
If Bork had been confirmed, the moral standards of the country would be much higher now.
WILLIAM J. HOGAN, M.D. Rockville, Maryland
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Ave Maria Fallout DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:I served as the academic dean at St Mary's College of Ave Maria University, the college whose closing you reported in your recent issue (“Ave Maria Pulls Out of St. Mary's in Michigan,” June 22-28). Please permit me to offer a few corrections and observations:
1. Ave Maria University came into existence as a legal entity sponsored by Orchard Lake Schools and Ave Maria College; St. Mary's College is its only campus and its only accredited entity. When St. Mary's College closed on June 30, Ave Maria University will have no accredited educational entities. It is but an empty, legal shell.
2. The money pledged by Thomas Monaghan for the continuation of the core curriculum is not for “technology or library,” as the article states; the original grant made in 2000 was so designated. Although the technology was upgraded, the library promise was not kept by Mr. Monaghan.
3. The majority of excellent teachers with their hearts in the core program remain with it.
4. The reason given for the closing of the college, the deficits, is very misleading. The whole financial plan was made by Monaghan and his team, and monitored by them. The expenses were never over budget, but the college failed to bring in sufficient revenue. The greatest failure to raise revenue came from the development department — and it was Ave Maria that agreed to build up this department and did not do so. No college can run on tuition money alone, but the Ave Maria team expected St. Mary's College to run without development income.
5. Patrick Reilly's concerns are misplaced. No one will “gut” the core program and there is no reason to monitor the situation. The new Integrated Catholic Core needs additional funding; perhaps more people will come to support it.
6. David Twellman describes the Mona-ghan vision as something good — but it has a dark side to it — and it excludes some key Catholic features. The dark side is the dependence upon Monaghan's arbitrary focus or level of interest and its idiosyncratic definitions of Catholic faith. Mr. Monaghan seems oblivious to Church doctrine on social justice in his treatment of faculty and staff as “at will” employees. He also spurns centuries-old academic customs and protocols, especially those pertaining to faculty status and governance.
Unfortunately, the quest for authentic renewal of Catholic higher education has taken some wrong turns under the Ave Maria auspices.
JOHN HITTINGER Pontiac, Michigan
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Gay Marriage (And Its Imitations) Can Be Stopped DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:In his June 23 column, “Time to Face Facts: Homosexuals Gain Victory,” National Review's Jonah Goldberg argues, “The gays have won.”
Goldberg writes that the “signs of the gay victory have been all around us for years.” But the only “signs” he cites are the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada and support for homosexual rights among liberal media elites. He offers no further evidence on behalf of the dismal conclusion that “like it or not, the traditionalists have lost.”
I would not go so far as to call Goldberg a “sniveling capitulationist,” as his National Reviewcolleague John Derbyshire did June 20 on the magazine's blog, “The Corner.”
But it was National Reviewthat reminded us in the run-up to the Iraq war that nations whose views differ with ours would have little bearing on the direction of U.S. policy and it was Goldberg himself who explained in a cover article for the magazine how out of touch Canada is. So for Goldberg to cite Canada as proof for anything the United States might do, even in “dispassionate analysis,” is a little odd.
I offer my own experience as proof that Goldberg's second point — liberal media support for homosexual rights equals a homosexual victory — is mistaken. I am the Knight of Columbus district deputy who organized last November's petition drive to stop the Connecticut Legislature from legalizing same-sex marriage or its facsimile. This was done in partnership with our ecumenical allies at the Family Institute of Connecticut.
Remember the electoral map from the 2000 presidential election, with the conservative Bush-voting states in red and the liberal Gore-voting states in blue? Connecticut is about as blue as a blue state can get, complete with everything that implies. With very little opposition, pro-homosexual marriage state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, and his cronies had been quietly furthering the homosexual agenda at the Connecticut Capitol for years.
Lawlor claimed the state would inevitably legalize homosexual marriage. All the media elites in this state happily agreed. In fact, the only media outlet based in Connecticut that supports traditionalist views is the editorial page of this newspaper. And even Waterbury, Conn., Republican-Americancolumnist Lee Grabar wrote last November that the petition drive amounted to closing the stable doors after the horses had escaped.
But both our friends and foes proved to be wrong. We gathered 70,000 signatures in little more than a month, making ours the most successful petition drive in state history. This caused three significant results at the state legislature:
My own experience shows that, with a little elbow grease, marriage can be defended.
1) In January the Judiciary Committee chaired by Lawlor forwarded to the General Assembly its “study” of same-sex marriage with no recommendations. The homosexual lobby had hoped that a recommendation favorable to them would increase the pressure for same-sex marriage.
2) In April the Judiciary Committee voted against a bill legalizing “domestic partnerships” (a phony “compromise” in place of “civil unions,” which in itself was a phony compromise in place of same-sex marriage) by a vote of 26-16. Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin Sullivan, a supporter of domestic partnerships, expressed surprise at how little support there was for it in the Judiciary Committee.
3) At the end of the legislative session in June, an amendment legalizing domestic partnerships that Lawlor attached to an unrelated bill died a quiet death.
Lawlor continues to claim the pro-homosexual side is winning, but even the Hartford Courant, in a line buried deep in its June 6 article “A Day to Stress Positives: Lawmakers Focus on Accomplishments,” wrote, “One of the most prominent bills that failed was gay marriage, representing a major victory for the Catholic Church and a defeat for gay-rights activists.” (You can be sure that if things had turned out differently the Courant would have run a blazing headline across its front page.)
What does all this mean?
First, not only are homosexual-rights extremists not gaining victory in Connecticut, they're actually losing ground. The more Lawlor claims otherwise, the more he resembles “Baghdad Bob,” the hapless Iraqi information minister who insisted to the bitter end that Saddam Hussein was winning.
Second, that homosexual marriage's seemingly inevitable march to legalization in Connecticut has been halted and reversed proves Goldberg wrong.
Yes, the legalization of homosexual marriage is still possible, and those who support the sanctity of marriage must continue to remain vigilant. But after our experiences in Connecticut, one of the bluest-of-blue states, we can claim with some reasonableness that homosexual marriage is not inevitable.
So buck up, Goldberg! Homosexual marriage and its imitations can be stopped. All it requires is a little elbow grease.
Peter J. Wolfgang, of New Hartford, Conn., is the Knights of Columbus district deputy for Connecticut's northwest corner.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Peter J. Wolfgang ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Paul VI's 'Last Homily' DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:On June 24, on the feast of St. John the Baptist, Pope John Paul II blessed a new marble bust of his predecessor Pope Paul VI. It will adorn the atrium of the audience hall that bears Paul VI's name.
The date of the blessing was chosen with care — Paul VI's baptismal name was Giovanni Battista — coming as it did only days after the 40th anniversary of Paul VI's election (June 21, 1963). In the course of his remarks, John Paul recalled the homily Paul VI delivered on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in 1978.
“On June 29, 1978,” the Holy Father said, “in the last public celebration for the 15th anniversary of his election as Supreme Pontiff, Paul VI gave a talk that had the solemn and heartfelt tone of a last will and testament.”
As we prepare to celebrate the 25th anniversary of John Paul's pontificate this coming Oct. 16, it is worth rereading that “last will and testament” of Pope Paul VI. Rereading that unforget-table homily gives a sense of what the Church was going through in 1978 when John Paul was elected.
Roiled by Events
Pope Paul VI died 25 years ago next month, on Aug. 6, 1978. In his actual last will and testament Paul VI indicated something of the times in which he lived: “Now that the day is dying, and everything is ending and the bond of this stupendous and dramatic, temporal and earthly stage is dissolving, how to thank you once more, O Lord, for the gift, after that of natural life, greater still, of the faith and grace in which solely in the end my still-living being takes refuge?”
Throughout the 15-year pontificate of Paul VI (1963-1978), the world and the Church were roiled by events both stupendous and dramatic, and it often seemed as if the certainties of the faith itself were dissolving. In 1972, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Paul VI spoke of the “smoke of Satan” entering the “temple of God.”
“We believe in something preternatural that has come into the world for the very purpose of disturbing and stifling the fruits of the Second Vatican Council, and to prevent the Church from bursting into a hymn of joy at having regained full awareness of herself,” Paul VI said, speaking of the devil's attacks upon the Church in late 1960s and 1970s.
By the last months of his life, Paul VI was greatly afflicted by divisions in the Church and tragedies in the world. The communist world was expanding, and his tireless efforts to secure the freedom of the Church in the Soviet empire had borne little fruit.
His pleas on behalf of the poor and suffering grew more urgent.
In May 1978, one of Italy's leading politicians and a personal friend of Paul VI, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped and assassinated by terrorists. The anguish was so great that at the funeral Paul VI pronounced a prayer of great biblical power, adopting the psalmist's lament that God was not listening to his prayer:
“And who can listen to our lament, if not you, O God of life and death? You did not hearken to our supplication for the safety of Aldo Moro, this good, meek, wise, innocent and friendly man; but you, O Lord, have not abandoned his immortal spirit, sealed by faith in Christ, who is the resurrection and the life.”
Pope Paul VI was able to cry out with St. Paul: ‘We have kept the faith! I can say today, with the humble but firm conciousness of never having betrayed “the holy truth.”’
All this was before Paul VI's eyes as he delivered his last Peter and Paul homily, on the 15th anniversary of his election and six weeks before his death. Even 25 years later, it still speaks powerfully of the apostolic soul of Paul VI.
“This [is] the Church's faith, the apostolic faith,” he said. “The teaching is preserved intact in the Church through the presence within her of the Holy Spirit, and through the special mission entrusted to Peter, for whom Christ prayed. … Such is the untiring, watchful and consuming purpose that has carried us forward during this 15 years of our pontificate. ‘I have kept the faith!’ we can say today, with the humble but firm consciousness of never having betrayed ‘the holy truth.’”
Taking after his pontifical namesake, St. Paul the Apostle, Paul VI was able to cry out — those who were there say he pronounced the words in almost solemn defiance of his critics — “I have kept the faith!”
Paul VI had faced widespread dissent from his teachings during his pontificate, and he was stating his case before the Church and before God that he had not failed in his obligation to protect the deposit of the faith. And to those who would not follow his lead, Paul VI had stern words.
“We give them this paternal warning: Let them refrain from disturbing the Church,” he said. “The moment of truth has come, and everyone must know his or her own responsibilities before decisions that must safeguard the faith, the common treasure that Christ — who is the petra, the rock — entrusted to Peter, the Vicarius Petrae, the Vicar of the Rock, as St. Bonaventure calls him.”
On no issue did Paul VI face more opposition than on his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which restated the immorality of contraception. He acknowledged his own suffering at the hostile reception many Catholics gave to his upholding of the ancient tradition.
“The commitment to teaching in the service and defense of truth, which we have offered at the cost of much suffering, includes, we believe, as an indispensable part, the defense of human life,” he said. “The defense of human life must begin at the very source of human existence. … We did no more than accept this charge when, 10 years ago, we published the encyclical Humanae Vitae. … We have made these statements, motivated only by our supreme responsibilities as universal teacher and pastor, and for the good of humanity.”
Toward the end of his life, Paul VI clearly felt that, while he had done all that he could do, the times were against him and it would be left to his successor to find a way forward. Another day might be more favorable for preaching the Gospel, but as the sun set on Paul VI's life, he could say with a clear conscience that he had never betrayed that Gospel.
Calling him a “strong and humble apostle,” Pope John Paul II spoke about the courage of Paul VI at his general audience June 25. He remembered that Paul VI “wanted the ecclesial community to open up to the world without giving in to the spirit of the world. With prudent wisdom, he knew how to resist the temptation of ‘conforming’ to the modern mentality, sustaining difficulties and misunderstandings, and sometimes even hostility, with evangelical strength. Even in the most difficult moments he did not cease to bring God's illuminating word to his people.”
“Let us give thanks to God,” John Paul concluded, “for the gift of [Paul VI's] pontificate, a solid and sage guide for the Church. … In the light of our eternal goal we understand better how urgent it is to love Christ and to serve his Church with joy.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza is the Register's Rome correspondent.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Too Grabby? A Tale of Greed at the Ballpark DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Barry Bonds hit his historic 73rd home run Oct. 7, 2001 — the last game of the regular season — at San Franciso's beautiful Pacific Bell Park.
The ball sailed majestically toward the walkway behind right field and into the glove of a restaurateur by the name of Alex Popov.
Thus began a tale that raises issues my mother warned about.
“Your eyes are bigger than your belly,” my mother used to say. I don't think she meditated at length on its philosophical implications, but she was fond of reiterating this cozy maxim. Its timeless message did not fall on deaf ears or a forgetful memory.
“Wanting more than you need” is a simple definition of greed. I prefer my mother's version because it indicates what fools we make of ourselves when we travel along greed's perfidious pathway. I can easily imagine inhabitants of Dante's Infernohaving eyes that are literally larger than their bellies. This is a fit punishment, indeed, for a vice that makes lust larger than life. “Keeping up appearances” is not possible in hell, although “keeping up with the Joneses” is.
Which brings us back to Candlestick — pardon, Pacific Bell — park. The batted and bruised spheroid lingered in Popov's Spalding softball mitt for exactly six-tenths of a second, at which point a horde of anxious souvenir-seekers descended, unmercifully, upon the defenseless fan.
After a one-minute melee, Patrick Hayashi, a software engineer, emerged with the ball clenched tightly in his hands.
Does six-tenths of a second constitute “possession”? Is it permissible, according to the unwritten code of “fan culture,” to attack and mug a fan the moment he catches a fly ball?
It was obviously a matter for the courts to decide. Let us not talk about being sensible. After a year of litigation, a San Francisco judge ordered the two men to sell the immortal icon and split the proceeds between them. As a result, what Popov and Hayashi had refused to do by private agreement, they were forced to do by judicial decree.
The ball fetched a disappointing $450,000 at auction, far less than the $2.7 million that was paid for Mark Maguire's 70th home run ball in 1999. But greed's insatiable appetite then took an unexpected turn.
Martin Triano, Popov's lawyer, charged his client $473,500 for services rendered, $23,500 more than the ball's auction price and a whopping $248,500 more than Popov's share. Triano is now suing Popov for the sum, which the latter regards as “way overblown,” while Popov himself is exploring the option of suing his former attorney on the grounds of “legal malpractice.”
St. Thomas Aquinas had a more elaborate definition of greed that included other vices it set in motion. For the angelic doctor, greed can be “a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound (superabundare) in external riches without another man lacking them … a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things,” and also a means by which “man sins against himself, because it causes disorder in his affections” (Summa TheologiaeII-II, 118, 1. ad 2).
St. Thomas was right. Greed involves more than mere covetousness. It includes un-neighborliness, injustice, injury to self, an inordinate concern for material things and contempt both for God and things eternal. Geoffrey Chaucer once warned, “Radix malorum est cupiditas” (the root of all evil is greed). And Dante spoke of how greed can “submerge mortals” and render them powerless “to draw their eyes from” its “blinding surge.”
The retail value of an ordinary Major League baseball is $14.99. The price of greed is considerably higher. Moreover, greed has an insidious way of causing the appetite to grow by feeding it. This is a most frustrating and vexing predicament. We thus become hungrier the more we eat. If we are not content to want merely what we need, how much beyond what we need will it take to make us content?
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard talked about the “bad infinity” (das schlechte Unendlichkeit), the endless craving for things that will never bring us spiritual satisfaction. In other words, if we are not satisfied by having what we need, we will never be satisfied and will be doomed to eternal frustration. Greed intensifies the very dissatisfaction it is supposed to placate. Like all the other deadly sins, its mode of operation is essentially diabolical.
The opposite of greed is temperance, that wonderfully balancing virtue that properly proportions our eyes and our bellies so we would not be humiliated if people could see us exactly the way we are. If my mother speaks to me in the next world, I hope she will tell me how suitably proportioned my eyes are in relation to my belly.
Don DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome's University and adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Don DeMarco ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: To Trust Like Skinny Bones DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:I have always viewed an infant as a tiny miracle from God. But I never imagined that having a baby would require a miracle.
Since our marriage almost five years ago, infertility problems have so far prevented my wife, Florence, from becoming pregnant. As the years and the tears have gone by, we have relied more and more on faith and the power of prayer. But, as the saying goes, be careful for what you pray for because what we've ended up with, for now, has been a cat — and a lesson in trust.
Let me explain. Several months ago, at the beginning of Lent, Florence and I met a scruffy black kitten with a white nose and white paws that was wandering around in a park. That someone had abandoned him was obvious. Terribly thin, he was peering into a garbage can when we saw him and acting as lonely and hungry as a homeless person. He soon leapt on my wife's lap and received a fur massage while we sat on a bench. I tried my best to ignore him. He was cute, but he was a cat. I didn't like cats. After leaving the park that afternoon, I thought we would never see him again.
My wife had other ideas. For three straight days, starting with the afternoon we met him, she went back to the park and fed the kitten. On the second day, she tried to bring him home. But he leapt out of her arms and escaped. Reflecting on the cat's refusal to accept her good intentions, Florence told me later that day that God's sorrow must be infinitely greater each time we, his children, turn our backs on his tender care and providence.
The next day, when she couldn't find the kitten, she prayed to God that, if he wanted one of his creatures to be helped, she needed some divine assistance. God heard her prayer: Not only did she find the kitten, whom she had nicknamed “Skinny Bones,” but she successfully took him home this time. I was not surprised. Her maternal instincts needed to nurture. Skinny Bones wasn't a baby, but he was innocent and trusting, and he needed care.
There have been many ups and downs in trying to get pregnant. There have been many times when we questioned God and wondered why so many obstacles have been in our way, and there have been many times when we have felt it will be impossible to either conceive of a child or afford to adopt one in the future.
Witnessing Skinny Bones’ acceptance of life's twists and turns has been a real blessing and a great inspiration. One moment he was running freely through a park and the next he was confined in a foreign apartment with two strangers. Once he adjusted, he completely accepted our small home as his. Since then, his love for us has been total and unconditional. He sprawls on our laps as if he has known us for years. He follows us everywhere we go in the apartment. (As I write this, he's asleep in the chair next to mine.) He's grateful when we feed him. He is at peace because he trusts.
To us, this kitten with the big yellow eyes represents a gift from God. And the greatest gift has been the reminder that we shouldn't worry about today's problems, but to abandon ourselves to our heavenly Father and his love, which will give us what we need when we need it — but only if we trust in him completely.
Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Caribbean Prayer-away DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Its 1752 founding date makes Santa Ana Basilica the oldest church in the Netherlands Antilles.
The church celebrated it's 250th anniversary in 2002.
The church, a defining feature of the Caribbean island of Curacao, was named after an older church dedicated to the mother of the Blessed Mother, the Cathedral of Santa Ana in Coro, Venezuela (about 35 miles away). Curacao was at one time part of the Coro diocese. (July 26 is the feast of St. Ann and her husband, St. Joachim.)
Curacao had been discovered by the Spanish in 1499. Because they were in search of gold and there was none to be had here, most of the Spaniards moved on. Then, in 1634, the Dutch came and conquered the land. The new arrivals were Protestants, and they used the island as a slave colony. Nevertheless, they allowed their slaves to be Christians, and Catholic priests — mostly Franciscans and Dominicans — were allowed entry.
Eventually, in 1842, the Vicariate of Curacao was formed with a Dutch Bishop as apostolic vicar. In 1870, the Vatican ordered the Dutch province of the Dominicans to accept the responsibility of what would later become the Willemstad Diocese as a whole. The Dutch Dominicans then took over all six islands; the Willemstad diocese was established on April 28, 1958.
From 1820 to 1824, there was an influx of 50 missionary priests who, as victims of the struggle for independence in Venezuela, came, evangelized and left. Though today there are only nine Dominicans in the diocese, between 1870 and 1966, there were, at one time, as many as 66 Dominicans, and they were considered the clergy of the diocese.
Three of the six islands, Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire, are predominantly Catholic. There are three other small islands where the population is only 10% Catholic. These include St. Martin (or St. Maarten), Saba and Statia (named after St. Eustatius)
Because Aruba has become independent, five of the six islands form the Netherland Antilles — what used to be called the “Dutch West Indies.”
Today, six Dominican priests are active on Curacao. One is responsible for one of two churches which have been combined into one parish. These are the Basilica of Santa Ana and Holy Family Church.
Native Faith
The original Church of Santa Ana, which was built by missionaries from Austria, was relatively small. Through the years it was enlarged to its present size. Because it was the oldest church on Curacao, and also to ensure that it would not be torn down, the church was raised to a basilica in 1977. July 26 is the feast of its patrons, Sts. Ann and Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Santa Ana, which holds 400 people, is situated between the main street of Curacao and a side street. The side street is called Conscience Street because people go there for Confession — to have their conscience cleansed. At the Santa Ana Basilica, confessions are heard in church both before and after the Masses. In addition, confessions are also heard in the rectory by request.
The lovely Stations of the Cross in Santa Ana are mosaics. They came from a convent on the island that was abandoned. The stained-glass windows, tabernacle and other artwork all came from Holland.
In Curacao, unlike Catholic churches in the United States, rather than there be one choir for a church, there are number of choirs that on the weekends walk from church to church, singing during the Masses in each church they come to. However, there are special choirs for Christmas and Easter.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, there is a Mass at 9 a.m. in the morning. The Mass on Monday morning is very crowded because large numbers of people who live on the outskirts of town come to the city. Before they go to the market, they attend Mass.
Catholics who come to Curacao on cruise ships, in particular those cruise ships that stop during a Panama Canal cruise, often stop to pray at Santa Ana Basilica, which is the closest church to the port.
However, the cruise ships usually don't usually come early enough for the Catholic cruise passengers to make it to the 9 a.m. Mass. Unfortunately, most recently, the basilica has also been closing early in the day to avoid the possibility of vandalism.
On Sundays, Mass is at 8 a.m. in the morning and again at 7 p.m. in the evening. The Mass of anticipation is said at 7 p.m. at Holy Family Church (Santa Familia), which is the other church in the parish. Visitors are also welcome to attend an 11 a.m. Mass Sunday mornings at Holy Family Church.
A Charismatic group is active in the Basilica of Santa Ana. Each Monday, following the Monday morning 9 a.m. Mass, the Charismatics hold a prayer meeting from 10 a.m. to 11:59 a.m.
Annually at the Santa Ana Basilica, there is a special nine-day novena to St. Anthony, patron saint of the poor, beginning on June 5 and culminating on June 13, the feast day of St. Anthony.
In all of the Catholic churches of Curacao, all of the Masses are said in Papimentu, the native language of the island of Curacao. Since 1840, efforts have been made to write out what was traditionally only a spoken language.
During the past 20 years, greater efforts have been made officially to write out the Papimentu language. For example, currently the Bible has been translated into Papimentu, as have been many religious booklets.
I certainly found it a most moving experience to pray at a basilica that has seen more than 250 years of history, with missionary and diocesan priests celebrating Masses and other liturgies and multitudes of Catholic faithful of all nationalities praying, worshiping and receiving the sacraments.
I found myself thinking: Imagine what stories would be told if only these walls could talk — even if only on the feast of this basilica's patron.
Joseph Albino writes from Syracuse, New York.
----- EXCERPT: Santa Ana Basilica, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Albino ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Sick of Superheroes? DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:2003 may be the year in which feature-length documentaries come into their own.
Grown-up moviegoers seem to be tiring of Hollywood's endless parade of comic book-like franchise extravaganzas (Terminator, Charlie's Angels,Matrix, The Hulk, etc.). Ordinary ticket buyers are now willing to plunk down money at their multiplexes for the kind of fare previously shown only on PBS or at obscure Greenwich Village art houses.
It's been a long time coming. Over the past 10 years occasional docs like Hoop Dreams, The War Roomand Startup.comhave found a large audience in mainstream commercial theaters. But the flow of product has never been steady.
This year is different. Michael Moore's loathsome Bowling for Columbine, with its distorted depiction of contemporary American gun culture, has grossed more than 10 times its costs in theatrical release. Equally profitable revenues from broadcast, video, DVD and foreign distribution are predicted. This unexpected blockbuster success has encouraged other distributors to program similarly low-cost documentaries against this summer's big-budget franchise films.
Spellboundand Capturing the Friedmans, currently in selected theaters across the country, are two very different documentary experiences. The first, which follows the teen-age contestants in the 1999 National Spelling Bee, is positive and uplifting. The second, which investigates a much publicized pedophilia case, is difficult and disturbing, raising more questions than it answers. Both are better than most of this summer's feature films.
The Oscar-nominated Spellbound is a compelling portrait of eight national spelling bee contestants — five girls and three boys of different races and geographic areas. The first section is a series of character studies that pays careful attention to social context, focusing on each kid's family background and hometown.
The second section is the suspense-filled contest itself, in Washington, D.C., where 249 final-ists vie for top honors. The stakes are high. The prizes, which include college scholarships, can make a substantial difference in these teenagers’ lives.
One of the film's greatest strengths is that director Jeff Blitz gets us to root for all of his main characters. Our hearts are broken when any of them misspells an obscure word (like cephalagia or cabotinage) and is forced to drop out of the contest.
The movie's subtext is the continuing power of the American dream. A disproportionate number of the finalists are from first-generation immigrant families for whom good spelling is proof of assimilation and a ticket to social and economic advancement.
Angela Arenivar's dad, Ubaldo, is a Texas ranch manager who does-n't speak English. He illegally crossed the border from Mexico before she was born in hopes that his children would get an education. Angela's victory in the regional championships is the fulfillment of his dreams, and the family will get to travel to the nation's capitol for the first time in their lives.
Nupur Lala is also the daughter of recent immigrants. “You don't get second chances in India the way you do in America,” her father explains after she wins her regional bee in Florida.
Some of the kids have had to overcome other kinds of obstacles. Ashley White, an African-American girl from southeast Washington, D.C., is from a single-parent family. Even though she's received almost no community support or recognition, her dreams remain intact. “I'm a prayer warrior,” she exclaims. “I just can't stop praying. I rise above all my problems.”
We cheer when one of the movie's characters finally gets the grand prize (I won't spoil things by revealing which one), and we walk out of the theater believing that all of these kids are winners. Their passion, intelligence and hard work leave us feeling good about America and its younger generation.
Andrew Jarecki presents us with a darker view of contemporary culture. He originally wanted to make a film about children's birthday party clowns. But after interviewing Manhattan's top performer, David Friedman, he realized he had stumbled onto a bigger story. Capturing the Friedmanswent on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
David's father, Arnold, and his younger brother, Jesse, were convicted as child molesters in a controversial 1987 case in Great Neck, N.Y. In a bizarre twist, David videotaped his family's response to these traumatic events, and this footage becomes the centerpiece of JareckI's film, along with present-day interviews with the surviving Friedmans, law enforcement officials, the alleged victims and their families.
Arnold Friedman is a moral monster, an admitted pedophile and consumer of child pornography. But as the film progresses, it's not clear if either he or his son were guilty of the molestation charges. The police and the surrounding community may have succumbed to a kind of hysteria that blinded them to the truth.
This is tough material, definitely not for children or family viewing. But Jarecki never exploits his subject matter; nor does he take a definitive position on Arnold and Jesse's innocence or guilt. Arnold appears capable of the monstrous acts with which he's charged, but it's also possible the police framed him. The only certainty is that the Friedman sons paid a terrible price for the sins of their father.
These two challenging films may be only the beginning of what could become a constant stream of dramatically satisfying, theatrically released documentaries. If you look hard enough in the months ahead, you may discover at a multiplex near you docs with titles as diverse as Bonhoeffer, Al Sharpton, Balseros and People Say I'm Crazy.
John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:The Quest for the True Cross (2002)
Based on the rather misleadingly named bestseller coauthored by scholar Carsten Thiede, this documentary challenges the academic community's knee-jerk dismissal of Christian relics as medieval forgeries. Theide, who previously made waves arguing for an early dating of the Gospels, now investigates a purported relic of the titulus cruces — the placard over Jesus’ head bearing the charge “King of the Jews” — for centuries housed at the Santa Croce Church in Rome, where tradition holds it was brought by the mother of Constantine, St. Helena, following her pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Theide marshals a number of interesting arguments against the titulus being a forgery. For example, the Greek and Latin lines as well as the Hebrew are written right to left — an aberration that could conceivably be the work of a firstcentury Jewish scribe, but is scarcely imaginable in a medieval Christian artifact.
A popular critical documentary, Quest for the True Cross is secular in outlook and presents various scholarly points of view, requiring critical viewing.
Still, as a challenge to academic skepticism and an apologetic for what would be the most direct archaeological evidence to date relating to Jesus, Quest For the True Cross makes worthwhile viewing.
The Peter Rabbit Collection: The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (1993)
Beatrix Potter's timeless nursery tales are sensitively brought to life in nine animated episodes of the BBC-produced The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (available complete in a four-DVD set; individual episodes are also available on VHS). With evocative watercolor backgrounds and character design strongly reminiscent of Potter's illustrations, animation ranging from fine to excellent, and dialogue and narrative drawn straight from the source material, the series is remarkably faithful to the text, spirit and look of Potter's beloved stories.
Like the original stories, The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends includes incidents both charming (e.g., the work of the mouse tailors in “The Tailor of Gloucester”) and alarming (e.g., the kidnapping of the bunny children in “The Tale of Mr. Tod”).
Each episode is framed by lovely though irrelevant live-action sequences, featuring Potter herself writing the stories in letters to children, which neither add much nor detract much.
A pleasant piano score and lilting Celtic theme song provide ideal accompaniment.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Witty dialogue, romantic complications and class-skewering satire are hallmarks of screwball comedy, but George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story doesn't turn on absurd situations, outlandish behavior, or unpredictable plot twists. Instead, it's a more mature and humanistic social satire, a comedy of manners skewering every kind of snobbery: not only the class-based snobbery of the rich against the poor — and the poor against the rich — but also the intellectual snobbery of the literate against the popular, and above all the moral snobbery of the self-righteous against the imperfect.
Like the heroines of The Awful Truthand His Girl Friday, Katharine Hepburn plays a divorcée caught between flawed ex-husband Cary Grant and a respectable but somehow unsuitable fiancé (John Howard).
But Philadelphia Storygoes beyond the formula by throwing in surprise contender Jimmy Stewart as a disgruntled novelist-reporter — an unexpected source of conflict and uncertainty that eliminates the need for Grant to resort to the underhanded tricks he needed to show up his rivals in Awful Truthand Girl Friday.
The late, great Hepburn shines in the role she originated on Broadway, and Stewart won his only Oscar for his terrific performance.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: STEVEN D. GREYDANUS ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: The Theology Drain in Catholic College Presidencies DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Dr. Timothy O'Donnell is an anomaly in the world of Catholic academia today.
Like most of his counterparts at other American Catholic colleges and universities, the president of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., is a layman.
Unlike most, he holds a doctorate in sacred theology.
As recently as 35 years ago, a Catholic college president with such a degree or comparable religious training might have been the norm, not the exception. But a new study on lay Catholic college presidents confirms what many have suspected for a long time: that most of the people leading Catholic colleges and universities today are lay men and women who lack a thorough education in the faith.
The study by Father Dennis Holtschneider and Melanie Morey — titled “Leadership and the Age of the Laity: Emerging Patterns in Catholic Higher Education” and released at a lay leadership conference at Fairfield University in Connecticut in late June — found that only 4% of lay presidents have terminal degrees in theology. Forty-three percent, by contrast, have graduate education degrees. Fifty-five percent of the lay presidents have no religious training past high school and nearly a third lack any kind of formal religious education, although more than a fourth have had some type of religious formation in seminaries or religious congregations.
Interestingly, even though most of those surveyed agreed that inadequate spiritual and theological lay preparation was a problem for the future of Catholic higher education, only 9% said they personally felt ill-equipped to lead the religious mission of their institutions.
The survey, to which 55% of the nation's Catholic college presidents responded, also found the number of women presidents in decline. And many of the presidents who participated in the survey said they considered faculty an obstacle to effective leadership in Catholic character, mission and identity.
Dr. Monika Hellwig, president and executive director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said the study gives statistical support to a trend she has been observing for some time. She added that the association has commissioned its own survey to identify resources that might help address the problem, including workshops for college trustees and institutes for new administrators.
“We needed to know this,” she said. “We need to know it in order to plan.”
Father Holtschneider, the executive vice president of Niagara University in Lewiston, N.Y., said although the trend toward lay leadership already has been seen in elementary and secondary schools, Catholic hospitals and Church social-service agencies, it is even more important that those who lead universities be fluent and knowledgeable about the tradition they are charged with preserving because universities are intellectual enterprises.
Here to Stay
Of the 222 Catholic institutions of higher learning in the United States, 116 are led by lay presidents and 106 by presidents who are priests or religious. This likely means, Father Holtschneider said, that lay presidents are here to stay.
A Vincentian priest who holds master of divinity and theology degrees and a doctorate in higher education, Father Holtschneider said among those who responded to the study at the conference, most didn't think a president necessarily needed a theology degree. Several college presidents and others interviewed by the Register concurred, with most citing qualities such as vision, will and a commitment to give a university a palpable Catholic identity as more important than formal theological training.
Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that seeks to restore Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities, said he considers the president's theological background to be less important than whether the person understands the role of authentic Catholic theology in Catholic higher education and the need to relate all other disciplines to it.
“The real problem is Catholic universities are no longer centered [on] a real Catholic theology,” he said. “The president needs to make that a priority regardless of what his background is.”
Christendom's O'Donnell believes his own preparation — which includes a licentiate in theology — was ideal in some ways but would not be necessary if a president had a solid formation in the faith and recognized that the fundamental purpose of a Catholic university is to educate under the guiding light of the faith, as Pope John Paul II made clear in his 1990 apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae(From the Heart of the Church).
Rather than require college presidents to follow a specific program of study, O'Donnell said the boards of trustees who choose them might be better off with someone who has a sound theological formation, is deeply familiar with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and is faithful to the magisterium.
“The president is probably the most significant in setting the tone for a college or university,” O'Donnell said. “Formation is important, but even more important than formation is a deep faith commitment. That's not something you go to school for.”
Dr. Daniel Curran, the first lay president of Ohio's University of Dayton, a Marianist institution, said although he brings little formal theological training to his job, his 23 years at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia as a faculty member and administrator taught him about the needs of Catholic institutions and provided opportunities for spiritual formation with the Jesuits.
“When the Marianists were looking for a [president],” he said, “they were looking for an individual who had gone through a process of spiritual formation. They clearly were looking for a practicing Catholic, but very important to them was that I could articulate my personal position on my faith.”
Father Thomas Berg, who has helped develop plans for the Legionaries of Christ's University of Sacramento in California, said a theology degree in and of itself has little bearing on the ability of a lay president to effectively pursue and foster the Catholic mission and identity of an institution.
What is needed, he said, is a person who can generate or embrace a vision and then carry and promote it along with the school's identity and mission.
“That has to be incarnate in that person,” he said.
“What is necessary,” he added, “is that this individual has a genuine appreciation for the history of Catholic higher education, sees no conflict between the pursuit of genuine academic freedom and fidelity to the magisterium and is ready to work with administration and faculty to articulate … and communicate the elements of that institution's Catholic identity and mission within the parameters of fidelity to the Catholic magisterium.”
Speaking from the perspective of a faculty member, Dr. James Hitchcock, professor of history at the Jesuits’ St. Louis University, said he thinks the will of a Catholic college president is a bigger factor than professional training or intellectual ability.
“Do you want a Catholic college and if so, are you willing to make the decisions that bring that about, some of which will be unpopular?” he asked.
But Dr. Janet Smith, chair of life issues at Detroit's Sacred Heart Major Seminary and a former faculty member at several Catholic schools, including the University of Notre Dame and the University of Dallas, said she thinks Catholic colleges need to look more carefully not just at presidents but at the trustees who choose them.
“Many received their education 40 years ago and have not a clue about what things are like on Catholic campuses today,” she said. “Some don't even know there are huge divisions in the Church and how careful you must be about hiring people.”
Judy Roberts writes from Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Common Sense for Uncommon Times DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:WHAT WE CAN'T NOT KNOW: A GUIDE by J. Budziszewski Spence, 2003 266 pages, $27.95 To order: (888) 773-6782 www.spencepublishing.com
In his Autobiography, G. K. Chesterton relates how he rediscovered faith while immersed in the effete, decadent world of art for art's sake: “It was not that I began by believing in supernormal things. It was that the unbelievers began by disbelieving even in normal things.
It was the secularists who drove me to theological ethics, by themselves destroying any sane or rational possibility of secular ethics.”
The perverse precepts of a minuscule segment of Western society at the turn of the 20th century have been mass-produced, with typical American efficiency, on college campuses for almost two generations. Lawlessness — or, more accurately, the law of the jungle — has become the new “orthodoxy.”
In this book J. Budziszewski, professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, sets out to defend commonsense morality against the determined forces of relativism, skepticism and politically correct “tolerance.” I am happy to report that he engages his foes in full gear and fine fettle.
“People become angry when one asserts the moral law,” he writes. “This outrage is itself an amazing fact. It needs to be explained.”
Budziszewski covers much of the same material that might be presented in a first-year college course on Catholic moral theology: the natural law, the nature and workings of conscience, the first principles of morality (for instance, the Golden Rule) and how particular moral imperatives like the Ten Commandments follow therefrom.
He cites St. Thomas Aquinas effectively, yet his message for the most part is not specifically Christian. Rather, the author tries to formulate arguments that will provide a common ground for all people of good will who realize that being human necessarily has moral consequences.
“The desire to know truth is ardent, but it is not the only desire at work in us,” he writes. “The desire not to know competes with it desperately, for knowledge is a fearsome thing. So it is that often-times we groan about how difficult it is to know what is right even though we know the right perfectly well.” Underlying such frank discussion is a vivid sense that an identifiable, standard-issue human nature exists, but that something has gone wrong.
Indeed, we are programmed, in a sense, to distinguish right from wrong; this is part of “what we can't not know.” “The mind is so designed as to acquire [first principles] on its own, as the eye is designed to see on its own,” he points out. “What we call teaching only helps the process along.”
Budziszewski gives a remarkably thorough presentation of natural-law thinking by resting his case upon four pillars, rather than the usual one or two. These “witnesses” to the basic moral law are: one, deep conscience, that built-in program; two, the intelligible design of the universe; three, the design of our own species (we are not only rational animals but also social beings); and four, the natural consequences of our actions.
At key points the author himself becomes the fifth “witness”: As a former atheist who converted to Christianity and traditional values, he is well acquainted with the intricacies of the battles — both political and interior — that are being fought.
As the title suggests, What We Can't Not Knowis often colloquial in tone. That may be its greatest weakness as well as its greatest strength, for these are serious issues. Yet anyone brave enough to watch a contemporary courtroom drama on TV could enjoy the clash of worldviews here. And this very sophisticated book has rock-solid philosophical and theological foundations.
Americans have expended enormous efforts in unlearning the obvious. Professor Budziszewski, with wit and wisdom, guides readers in relearning what we have known all along.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Bridesmaid BC
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 1 — Boston College has been turned down for membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which opted to admit only Virginia Tech and University of Miami to its ranks.
With Miami gone, that leaves the Jesuits’ BC as the only school with a major football program in the Big East conference. For the Big East to be able to “hold together,” the AP said, it will need to retain its spot in the Bowl Championship Series, which leads to the selection of a national champion, as it looks for another member with a major football program.
Tenacity Needed
NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, June 29 — Catholic schools and individual students in poor areas “have to have good relationships [with public schools]” because all federal money goes through the district first, said educator Steve Perla at an association conference in Boston.
He urged Catholic educators to apply for direct funding from their state's Department of Education; to speak to superintendents in urban areas who, under Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act, have a certain amount of money set aside for private schools; and to form coalitions with groups who have similar interests.
Polar Priest
Father Birkenhauer, who earned a doctorate in geophysics with an emphasis on seismology, became known as the “polar priest” because of the 15 months he spent in the late 1950s as chief seismologist and chaplain with a team of 28 American scientists conducting studies of the polar ice cap in Antarctica.
Strict Policy
In addition to reporting on the likelihood that Belmont Abbey's next president would be a layman — an increasingly common phenomenon for Catholic institutions — the North Carolina newspaper also reported a little-known fact about one of the country's most famous Catholic universities:
“Notre Dame University … has strict requirements for its presidents, who must come from the Indiana Province of the Holy Cross order of priests.” It added that few colleges have a similar policy regarding their sponsoring religious communities.
Urban Wildlife
The project is part of BioBlitz, a larger effort to survey and record the numerous life forms that exist in the park and to introduce others where possible. So far, the newspaper said, the owls “seem to be enjoying their new digs.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Divorced, Remarried … and Coming for Dinner
Q We're faced with more than one divorce and remarriage involving close Catholic family members. We worry about the effect on our children. Do we embrace the new unions with hope of bringing the wayward siblings home to the Church? Or show our disapproval in an effort to teach our own children right from wrong?
A This dilemma is a tough one and, sooner or later, most Catholic families face it. We want to be very clear at the outset: There is no catch-all answer to this question. Every divorce and remarriage situation is unique, and our response to each one will be unique as well. (For example, are they well aware of Church teaching, or have they received conflicting information from some authority figure?) A blanket, right-or-wrong reaction simply isn't possible here. But we offer considerations that may help.
First, as odd as it may sound, how your reaction will affect your children should be a secondary consideration. In other words, how you should treat these family members is a question to answer in its own right, apart from whether you have children. Decide what the Christlike response to the situation is first; only then decide how to convey this to the children.
What, then, is the Christlike response? First, Christ created scandal by associating with all manner of sinners in order to make his grace and mercy available to them. Yet he never shied away from delivering his message for fear of driving people away. Many abandoned him because of one or another of his challenging teachings — but he never abandoned them for failing to live up to it.
Second, while Christ did associate with sinners, he never excused their actions. He may have stopped the crowd from stoning a prostitute, but, in the same breath, he urges her to “Go, and sin no more.”
Our response should be both straightforward and merciful. Our close relatives should know exactly what we believe and why but never be talked at with a spirit of condemnation. “Speak the truth in love,” St. Paul urges. In our experience, we've found that a carefully written, well-thought-out and well-prayed-out letter can be effective.
If children are old enough to fully understand what's happening, we should discuss it frankly with them. They should know why we do not approve, framed in the beauty of the Church's teaching on marriage. Above all, they should know that we love “Uncle Bob and Aunt Rose” and are praying for their change of heart.
On a practical level, if these were our relatives, we'd certainly still have them over for family gatherings and welcome them warmly. We'd include them in all the holidays and birthdays. We personally would not, however, have them spend the night in our home. This would constitute turning a blind eye to their living situation, perhaps even seeming to condone it. That is a line we could not cross.
Ultimately, it is exposure to our own family's loving faithfulness that will do our dear relatives the greatest good.
Tom and Caroline McDonald are family-life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom and Caroline Macdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:MORE MOMS HOME
Nearly 10.6 million children were being raised by stay-at-home mothers last year — an increase of 13% in a little less than a decade, according to a newly released Census Bureau report. Of the 41.8 million children younger than 15 who lived with two parents last year, more than 25% had mothers who did not have a job outside the home.
Source: Associated Press, June 17 Illustration by Tim Rach.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Are Video Stores Safe for Kids? DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Karen Thomas, a mother of three boys from Wolfeboro, N.H., worries whenever she learns her sons have been shopping in video stores.
“They like to go shopping with their friends. Let's face it,” she says, “they're at an age when they don't want me by their side. I just pray that if they happen to see a video or DVD cover that's a bit risqué, our family training will kick in and they'll move on.”
Thomas is not alone in her concerns. Countless numbers of parents fret about their children being exposed to profanity, illicit sex and low moral standards while browsing through video stores — even if they don't buy or rent the wares.
It doesn't have to be this way. And, in some video outlets, it isn't: A number of large video chains have set up safeguards to protect children from being exposed to these temptations.
One conspicuous example is Blockbuster Video, the world's leading renter of videos, DVDs and video games (it's got more than 5,500 stores in the United States alone). You won't find any films or video games rated X or NC—17 in Blockbuster outlets.
“We pride ourselves in providing quality home entertainment. A big part of that is being a family-friendly destination,” says Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove.
Parents point out that even at Blockbuster, there are plenty of offerings that they'd rather not expose their children to. Hargrove says that Blockbuster offers a free service called Youth-Restricted Viewing, which allows parents to limit what products their minor children can rent or purchase from its stores.
Blockbuster says it also helps children pick appropriate selections. For example, this summer it launched a Kids Club program. For a one-time donation of $2, which benefits Boys and Girls Clubs of America, families can rent one free video every day of the summer. The only caveat is that the video has to be listed on the company's family-viewing guide. Nor are movies on this list restricted to undesirable titles; up for free grabs are such popular offerings as Cats & Dogs, Shrekand Inspector Gadget.
When it comes to being family-friendly, Blockbuster may lead the pack — thanks to its sheer size — but it has plenty of company.
Sean Devlin Bersell, vice president of public affairs for the Video Software Dealers Association, points to Hollywood Video, the second-largest rental chain in the country, and Movie Gallery, the third largest, as examples of other stores committed to providing a family-friendly environment.
Of course, the picture is not all sunshine and light. “Most of the video chains do have ‘family sections’ — but, for the most part, the stores are filled with PG-through R-rated films, which constitute the vast majority of theatrical releases,” says Brother Bill Johnson, a Missionary Oblate of Mary Immaculate who works with the Oblate Media and Communications Corp. in St. Louis.
Brother Johnson is quick to point out that the responsibility lies not only with the video stores but also with the parents.
“I am a firm believer that the family is the first and primary source for the faith-development of children,” says Brother Johnson.
He sites the apostolic letter Familiaris Consortio, in which Pope John Paul II calls the family “the first community called to announce the Gospel to the human person during growth and to bring him or her, through a progressive education and catechesis, to full human and Christian maturity.”
Says Brother Johnson, “Parents who take their role of ‘an educating community’ seriously need to interact with their children and help them learn to evaluate and make choices as they grow in maturity.”
Bersell says “parents should educate themselves about the movie and video game rating systems, talk to their local video store about what restrictions they want placed on their children, examine the ratings and the rating reasons before renting or buying movies and video games. They should talk to the clerks to learn more about a particular movie or video game and monitor their children's entertainment consumption.”
Though lawsuits are under way, parents can still rent films from companies that edit out offensive material. (See “Edited DVDs Cleaning Up Hollywood's Act,” from the Register's Feb. 8, issue, at www.ncregis ter.com/Register_ News/020203dvd.htm.)
Love Guides
Which puts the focus back on the family.
“At a certain point in growing up, a child will find himself in a video store or other media outlet without benefit of a parent,” says Brother Johnson. “A key developmental task of all children is to eventually develop their own sense of identity and maturity.
“A child who has been affirmed, has experienced love and respect, and has been helped to learn the consequences of choices and behavior in the family of origin will carry respect and reverence into a video store, the mall, the halls of education and the community in which they live.”
There are some “sure bets” out there. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate, for example, have assisted in the creation and production of a video distributor called Videos With Values (www.videos withvalues.com) that offers a very safe choice for families.
Brother Johnson explains: “One of the goals of our media ministry is to provide families with alternative entertainment choices not found in the video stores.”
Gradually, video stores are implementing programs that create “family” areas and personal parental screening systems.
In the end, however, the decision to avoid inappropriate videos and games must be made by well-formed, responsible kids and teens — making choices under the watchful eyes of the parents who love them.
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: All the LifeNews That's Fit to Present DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:“I read it religiously,” says Cathleen Cleaver, secretariat for pro-life activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “It is an extremely important source of information for anyone working in the pro-life movement.”
“I've used it since its inception,” says Catholic University of America law professor Helen Alvare.
“It's absolutely terrific,” says Joe Kral, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, based in Houston.
What is “it”? The Pro-Life Infonet — or, rather, what used to be the Pro-Life Infonet. This spring, founder and editor Steven Ertelt transformed his operation into the new and improved Life News.com.
For 10 years Ertelt ran Pro-Life Infonet essentially as an Internet news-clipping service. But the times prompted this major new endeavor, he says, because Pro-Life Infonet had to maneuver over roads filled with pothole-sized gaps in accuracy and deceptive detours from the truth.
“Many of the mainstream media outlets weren't picking up seven or eight out of 10 stories with a pro-life angle, or they were reporting it with biased coverage,” Ertelt explains from his home base in Helena, Mont. They ignored developments that could hurt the abortion lobby, for example, like reports of women who died during abortions and the well-established link between breast cancer and abortion.
Even the editor of the staunchly liberal L.A. Times, Ertelt points out, had to take his reporters to task for their bias in this regard. (See the Register editorial “L.A. Timesin the Mirror,” June 15-21.)
Also: When the secular media reported on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, they often referred to a live baby outside the womb as a “fetus.” “[That] doesn't make any sense at all,” Ertelt says, clearly aghast at the irresponsible journalism.
“All of this is the culmination behind creating LifeNews.com,” explains Ertelt. “Our goal is to report the news in an accurate way without all the biases and inaccuracies found in the mainstream media. We're going to get the facts and report those issues in a faithful manner. The pro-life community can look to us to provide accurate and timely pro-life news.”
Indeed, pro-life leaders already know Ertelt for these qualities from LifeNews.com's predecessor.
“To me its standout quality is its relentless keeping up,” says Alvare. “It's got a wide variety of things I need. I never miss it. You wouldn't know the trends, how many states are considering bills in the pro-life direction” if not for Ertelt, she continues. The only time mainstream media reports these developments “is when the anti-lifers are whining about something going on against Roe v. Wade.”
From Houston, Kral recalls the time Idaho was trying to pass an unborn victims’ violence law establishing mother and unborn child as distinct victims — “instead of recognizing only the mother and treating the child as chattel, property.” “Legislators were getting confused,” says Kral, adding that he believes Pro-Life Infonet clarified the situation.
“I remember that very well,” he says. The two-victim approach ultimately prevailed and “we were able to fend off an anti-life challenge.”
Culture-Wars Veteran
On LifeNews.com, Ertelt presents originally written news and features that his reporters, all with extensive journalistic experience, glean from national, state and local venues “to get it done right the first time,” he says. That includes the gamut of pro-life issues — abortion, euthanasia, bioethics issues, assisted suicide, human cloning, stem-cell research, legal and legislative issues.
At age 29, Ertelt is no Johnny-come-lately to the pro-life cause. At Hendrix College in Arkansas, he was president of the American Collegians for Life, then left to help the National Right to Life Committee found National College Students for Life. Going back even further, as a pre-college teen, Ertelt read about pro-life work.
When he learned about the numbers of babies being aborted, “I was completely dismayed that so many people were dying,” he says. “Look at all the potential doctors, teachers, nurses — people who could have made a wonderful contribution to the community and who could be making such a beautiful impact on society today” if only they'd been allowed to be born.
After graduating college in 1996, he became full-time public-affairs director for Indiana Citizens for Life. “One of the things I was most proud of,” he says, “is that we were one of the first states in the country to pass a partial-birth abortion ban.”
In 1996, at a meeting of pro-life groups in Indiana, he met his wife , Sally Winn, now vice president of Feminists for Life. She was the chair of the Marian County right-to-life organization in Indianapolis. They have two daughters, Emily, 9, and Hannah, 7.
Ertelt next became executive director of Montana Right to Life; from there all roads led to LifeNews.com. “I felt this is where God wanted me to be,” he says, “and the best place where I could use my talents.”
And how. LifeNews currently has a subscriber list 45,000 strong. “It's a blessing and joy to see the impact the site has had on public policy,” says Ertelt. Whether it's spurring pro-life people into action, informing them which companies donate to Planned Parenthood or inspiring them with the details of the latest victory on the pro-life front, LifeNews clearly is making a difference.
“We can take these things, learn from them and apply them,” says Kral. “I use the stories in our talks to legislators,” explaining how they “can learn from the bad and the good things that are going on in other states.”
The far-reaching effects even mean running more efficient pro-life meetings. Cleaver explains that, as pro-life staffers from various locations meet together, time and again someone will reference a story from LifeNews.com. Inevitably, it becomes a rallying point.
“We all got it from Steven,” says Cleaver. “It always helps us come together around an incident, and it saves us several steps because everyone has read it.” His service “gets us up to speed much more rapidly.”
Web of Support
One of Ertelt's goals is to license the news from Life-News.com to pro-life-friendly newspapers, radio, television, magazines and Web sites.
There's plenty of opportunity to make that happen. His worldwide subscribers include fledgling pro-life groups in South Africa and another in Israel, which join better-established groups from America, England, Australia and New Zealand.
“One of the things we haven't seen,” Ertelt says, “is a big growth in subscribers in Asian countries.” China, with its forced-abortion policy, is an example. But, since this information isn't going out via letter, phone or mail, he hopes to see subscribers increasing. “That's one of the great things about the Internet,” he says.
Because of all the information out there, “it's impossible to read everything — to distinguish the wheat from the chaff,” notes Cleaver. “Steven Ertelt has done that for everyone.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 07/20/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: July 20-26, 2003 ----- BODY:Shorter Gap, Healthier Babies
REUTERS, June 30 — Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have found that mothers who separated their children by an interval between one and three years were 50% less likely to have a stillborn child, compared with women who waited at least six years between children.
The findings, which appeared in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, were drawn from a review of the outcomes of two consecutive deliveries of 410,021 women who gave birth in Sweden between 1983 and 1997.
Suprising Support
Richard Seron, who has filed suit against his former employers at the now-closed Pre-Term Health Services and Planned Parenthood, claims his bosses reprimanded him for advising a clinic escort not to confront pro-lifers outside the clinic.
“They also instructed me to tell incoming clients to not listen to the sidewalk counselors,” said Seron, who claims he was told to confiscate all pamphlets.
Three sidewalk counselors claim the buffer zone law passed in 2000 tramples their free speech rights by barring them from coming within six feet of patients who are within 18 feet of a clinic.
No Planned Parenthood Funds
LIFENEWS.COM, June 26 — By a vote of 16 to 10, the Louisville city council has scrapped $6,000 earmarked in the city budget for an “abstinence” program at Western Middle School sponsored by Planned Parenthood.
Pro-life advocates appealed to the city council to oppose funding the local affiliate of the largest abortion business in the country — whether the funds were used for abortions or not.
“Taxpayers understand that by funding Planned Parenthood, this council will participate in freeing other resources that will be used to promote abortion,” explained Joyce Daugherty, vice president of Right to Life of Louisville.
Fetal Homicide Law in UK
Shields’ anger over her son's death turned to determination to have the law changed so no other mother would suffer as she had.
Her emotional written submission to a review board was instrumental in the state government creating a new law for the killing of an unborn baby. The law will come into effect by the end of the year.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: culture of life -------- TITLE: Pope's 100th Foreign Journey to Focus on Catholic Croatia DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — Pope John Paul II leaves June 5 for a five-day trip to Croatia, one that will set the record as the 100th foreign visit in the Holy Father's almost 25-year pontificate.
It will also be his third visit to this predominantly Catholic nation in the Balkans, the other visits being in 1994 and 1998.
“I think that the whole country is rejoicing,” said Josipa Gasparic, a Croatian student of theology at the Angelicum University in Rome. “For centuries, we were considered the last bastion of the Catholic Church. After the 1054 split between Catholics and Orthodox, we were looked down upon as ‘papists.’ So it is an incredible joy to receive the Holy Father. This is even true for people who do not practice. We have always defended the Pope.”
Analysts of the region note the mark left in Croatian Catholicism by communism. Some think it is the Pope's intention to help liberated Croatia grow into a more mature faith.
“The rebirth of Croatia back in the late ’80s was linked to strong nationalism and a not-fully-correct approach to religion,” said Federico Eichberg, a Balkans expert who serves as chief of staff for Italy's Department of Foreign Trade. Croatia's first elected government apparently emphasized the nation's Catholic heritage in an antagonistic way.
“This approach has not always been positive,” Eichberg said. “The Pope can help Catholics of this second generation to de-link Catholicism from nationalism.”
For the Holy Father, Croatia has many parallels to his beloved Poland: It is a Catholic country that suffered under communism and today struggles to enter Europe. His 1994 visit was during the Balkans war — at a time when being Catholic in Croatia was more than just a faith to be practiced. It was a cultural identity that differentiated the Croats from the Serbian Orthodox Christians and Bosnian Muslims.
The primary goal of the Holy Father's visit then was encouragement. His 1998 visit was also meant to strengthen, through the beatification of Zagreb's Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, the man who defended human rights during World War II, saved prisoners, stood up against communism and protected Jews.
The upcoming visit will likewise beatify a new hero for Croatian Catholics: Sister Marija Petkovic. The event is scheduled for June 6, during the Holy Father's visit to the Diocese of Dubrovnik on the island of Korcula.
“She was born into a well-to-do island family in 1892,” said Stuepan Bagaric, consul at the Croatian Embassy to the Holy See, of Sister Marija. “Marija organized classes in literacy after World War I. Besides teaching children, the elderly and widows, Marija became known for her devotion to the poor.” Eventually, she founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Mercy.
The Pope's plans are to stay in Rijeka during this visit and travel from there by plane to Osijek, Djakovo, Dubrovnik and Zadar. This visit will be challenging because it includes four dioceses. Though it appears the 83-year-old Pope is stronger as of late, the tour would be exhausting for someone even half his age.
Some members of the Croatian government have stated that the Pope's visit will accelerate Croatia's acceptance into the European Union. Opinions vary among those who follow the region.
“It's not true,” Eichberg said. “The present government was elected in 2000. So their mandate is coming to an end. The visit of the Pope won't change anything.”
“Croatia is one of the countries closest to entering the European Union,” said Paolo Quercia, a Croatia expert at the Center for Military and Strategic Studies in Italy. For Quercia, the link between a papal visit and EU membership seems “a bit superficial.”
“The political class wants to capitalize on this visit because they are down in the polls and will probably lose the next election,” he said. “But talking about EU membership devalues the papal visit to something political.”
However, some still think there is a link between the Pope's visit and EU membership.
“Europe doesn't like Croatia because it is nationalist, and they are against nationalist tendencies,” said Gasparic, the Croatian theology student. “But Croatia is naturally in Europe — both by geography and mentality. The Pope is trying to help Croatia find its legitimate place.”
Meanwhile, the Vatican's attention is focused on Croatia's spiritual pulse. Of the country's 4.6 million inhabitants, 84% are Catholic and most seem to be practicing, to some extent.
“Churches are full and confessionals are packed,” Gasparic said. “During Lent, you have to wait two hours in line to go to confession. There is a national sense of being Catholic.”
However, work is needed with regard to real understanding of the faith and truly living the Church's moral teachings.
“Every second wedding I go to, it's because the woman is pregnant,” Gasparic said. “Unity of life and thought is missing. It's cultural relativism.”
People wonder why the Pope is returning again to a small country he has already visited on two occasions recently.
“I think that now is the right time to evangelize because churches are full,” Gasparic said. “People are interested in discovering their Christian identity, which was suppressed under communism. Since the war, there has been an increase in religiousness. This happened because many had the experience of nearly losing their life. People are experiencing the beauty of life again.
“It is clear that the Pope loves Croatia. Maybe he has the feeling that we have a lot to give to the world.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Mandatum Cover-Up? DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:The scandals that dominated headlines last year painted an unwelcome picture of the Church: Lay Catholics' requests for action and information were being stonewalled. In 2003, parents of college-age children say they're seeing the same thing happening again.
Call it the mandatum cover-up.
Confronted with the 2002 sex-abuse scandal, Pope John Paul II connected the dots between the abuse crisis and the crisis on college campuses. In a special meeting with U.S. cardinals, he said Catholics have a right to know if authentic Catholic doctrine is being upheld.
“People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young,” the Pope said. “They must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
A recent Higher Education Research Institute study conducted by the University of California-Los Angeles showed that Catholic students' moral views were weaker, rather than stronger, after four years on a Catholic college campus. At 38 of the Catholic colleges surveyed, 37.9% of Catholic freshmen said in 1997 that abortion should be legal. Four years later, as seniors, 51.7% supported legalized abortion.
During the next several months the Register will publish its ongoing investigation of Catholic colleges and universities featured in U.S. News and World Report's college guide and ask the question: Are parents allowed to know whether those who teach theology even intend to teach in communion with the Church?
Or has the opposite happened — is the mandatum being used to protect dissenters?
The Mandatum
Catholic parents Joe and Kathleen Braun of Morris, Minn., live only a mile away from a public, liberal arts university, but they aren't choosing to send their children there.
“You won't find any faith or morals there,” Kathleen said. “Our faith and our sanctity are far more important than simply receiving training. Schooling is about learning our vocation.”
Neither are they sending their two college-age children to the nearest Catholic university. They say they are very concerned about whether their children's professors are teaching in union with the Church.
At the majority of the country's 235 Catholic institutions of higher education the mandatum, an assurance that Catholic theologians are teaching in accordance with the Church, is being treated as a private matter between each individual theology professor and his or her local bishop, making it virtually impossible for students or their parents to know which professors have received the mandatum.
This potentially serves to only hide dissenters in a seemingly Church-sanctioned way, not renew Catholic education.
When inquiries are made, whether to the college president, the theology department chair or the bishop, there has been unwillingness to share information. Since the Register began its investigation seven months ago, phone calls to at least six bishops, five theology department chairs and four university presidents seeking comment on the mandatum issue have not been returned.
The mandatum, which is required of all teachers of theology at Catholic colleges and universities, states: “I hereby declare my role and responsibility as a teacher of a theological discipline within the full communion of the Church. As a teacher of a theological discipline, therefore, I am committed to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church's magisterium.”
The case at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., demonstrates how the mandatum has been handled by many of the country's Catholic colleges and universities.
Confronted with the question of how a parent or student might discern whether a theology professor has received the mandatum, Terry McNichols, chair of the theology department, suggested that the individual contact either the theology department chair or the local bishop.
“Yet, I don't know whether the bishop would share that information,” McNichols said. “Even I do not know who has applied for the mandatum. I know that there are some who have not, only because they have told me.”
A spokeswoman for St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop Harry Flynn said the archbishop wasn't available to speak on the issue because of his national work regarding the sexual-abuse crisis.
In the end, McNichols concluded, “They would have to contact the individual theology department members, and I don't know how many of them would share that information.”
If a dissenter were on staff, rejecting the mandatum, the public would have no way of finding out.
While the situation at the University of St. Thomas appears typical of larger Catholic institutions, that is not always the case.
Omaha, Neb., Archbishop Elden Curtiss told the Register that all 35 theology faculty at both Creighton University and the College of St. Mary in Omaha received the mandatum.
“I told the faculty that if they did not sign it, I would make that public,” he said. “Thanks to the role of former theology chair Father Richard Hauser I didn't have a fight with the faculty.”
Archbishop Curtiss noted that even the non-Catholic theologians, who are not required to apply for the mandatum, expressed their respect for the teachings of the Church.
“The Holy Father's intention was that the bishop would dialogue with the faculty and that they would show that they were in union with the Church and the teaching magisterium,” Archbishop Curtiss said. In other words, it was meant to work against dissent, not shield dissenters from view, he said.
He said he is concerned that the silence from many of the bishops indicates “there is a lot of avoidance going on.”
Many smaller Catholic institutions also seem ready and willing to share the information.
For instance, the Brauns from Minnesota sent their oldest daughter, Carissa, to Our Lady of Corpus Christi College in Texas. “They knew what Ex Corde Ecclesiae [John Paul's 1990 apostolic constitution, From the Heart of the Church] meant and they implemented it. It's displayed on a wall when you walk into the college,” Kathleen Braun said. “That's one of the reasons we selected that school.” They have been extremely pleased with the formation their daughter has received at the college, she said.
Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, also treats the mandatum seriously. “All members of the theology department have applied and received affirmation,” said Dr. Alan Shreck, chair of the department of theology there. “The mandatum is an important thing for us. It's our pledge of fidelity to the Church.”
Shreck described Franciscan University's approach to the mandatum as merely a natural progression of something the school has been doing since the 1980s, when its theology faculty and campus ministers first began taking an oath of fidelity and making a pledge.
“This is what we believe. We want to make a public statement that we are in union with the Church,” Shreck said.
Theology professors such as University of St. Thomas' McNichols say the double role theology plays makes the issue more complex.
“Theology isn't catechesis,” he said. “Otherwise, we couldn't defend ourselves as an academic discipline. We have to balance between fidelity and fostering independent thinking.”
Many students at Catholic institutions don't accept that answer, however.
“I don't know why a Catholic professor would not want to say that he or she was in full communion with the Church,” said Kevin Cary, a sophomore at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. “If they don't agree with the Church's teachings, why are they teaching Catholic theology?”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Parents Feel Left in the Dark About Professors At Catholic Colleges ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Plan to Protect Baby Conceived in Rape Draws Scorn DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Life has never been easy for J.D.S., a 22-year-old Orlando, Fla., woman. Her health has always been troublesome: She is mentally disabled and suffers from autism, cerebral palsy and seizures. And she has faced many obstacles relatively alone.
When she was about 3, her family left her in a Florida nursing home and disappeared. After she turned 18, no one appointed a legal guardian to oversee her medical and legal needs. And a little more than five months ago, a man, whom she can't identify because she can't speak, raped her while she was in the care of a state-supervised facility.
Now that she is more than five months pregnant and weighs about 88 pounds, the woman, known in court documents only by her initials, is not alone anymore. And one of her friends is none other than Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who wants separate guardians appointed for the woman and her unborn child. His request overruled an earlier decision by child-welfare officials that would have sought a guardian for J.D.S. and her baby after it was born — and not until then.
“The governor's focus in this case is to ensure that the best interests of both the mother and her unborn child are served, and appointing a guardian is the appropriate way to do that,” said Jacob DiPietre, Bush's deputy press secretary. “This specific case involves a mother who is totally incapable of making life choices for herself or for her child. In light of this, the state should do its part to protect both the mother and the unborn child.”
An Orange County Circuit Court judge in Orlando has criticized the state's Department of Children and Families' failure to file a petition of incompetency when J.D.S. turned 18 so that a guardian could look after her interests. Judge Lawrence Kirkwood also has set a June 2 hearing that will determine whether she is incapacitated.
If J.D.S., who has been moved from where she was raped to another state-licensed home, is found to be unable to make decisions for herself, another hearing will be scheduled that would address the issue of guardianship for both the unborn baby and herself. Even though she can't speak, she is considered legally competent, mainly because the state hasn't officially declared her to be incompetent.
Catholic Governor
Bush's request for the unborn child has focused attention on a 1989 landmark Florida Supreme Court case in which a 15-year-old girl sought an abortion without parental consent. In its 4-3 ruling, the court stated that the girl could have an abortion because granting a guardian to a fetus was “clearly improper.”
Several organizations — the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women and the Center for Reproductive Rights — have asked Judge Kirkwood to appoint a guardian for J.D.S. but not for the baby.
In a document filed with the court, the organizations argued, “Florida law clearly holds that a statute's reference to a ‘person’ does not encompass a fetus.”
In an interview, Linda Miklowitz, president of the Florida National Organization for Women, expressed concern that J.D.S. is “very likely not to be able to carry a healthy child to term.”
She added: “Those people who would sacrifice her life for the sake of a religious principle and also cause a child to be born who could very well be severely disabled also are following a belief in religion that not all Americans can tolerate.”
Bush, who is a Catholic convert, says he is opposed to abortion.
“My faith is an essential part of my life and my worldview,” the governor, President George W. Bush's brother, said in a statement e-mailed to the Register. “But clearly, one need not be a Catholic to recognize that in this case the state has an interest in protecting the lives of both the mother and her unborn child.”
Pro-life organizations have expressed support for Bush's pro-life stance in this particular case and anger at those who oppose him.
Mary Jane Owen, executive director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, an independent advocacy group, pointed out that when the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1989 against a guardian for a fetus, technology wasn't as sophisticated as it is today.
“We didn't have … three-dimensional sonograms back in 1989,” said Owen, who uses a wheelchair because of spinal cord damage, has partial hearing loss and only recently regained sight after 30 years of blindness. “We didn't have them in 1999. We've got them now. We can now see little babies putting their thumbs in their mouths, moving their fingers around, yawning, moving every part of their bodies. We can see their little noses, their little eyes. We know they're human beings.”
Owen also expressed concern about the prevalence of sexual abuse of disabled people. She, too, was sexually abused in a rehabilitation facility.
“I know very few disabled people who have not been sexually abused,” Owen said.
The violence associated with those who are sexually assaulted is tragic, and the tragedy would be compounded by a second violent act, an abortion, said Julie Makimaa. She is a pro-life activist whose mother was raped at age 18 and gave Makimaa up for adoption when she was a baby.
“Certainly her child is an innocent victim in what has happened and shouldn't be punished or rejected because of the crime of its father,” she said, adding that there is often a stigma attached to children born of rape victims. The child has been “purposely associated with the rapist without question” and is often referred to as “the ‘rapist's child,’ the child that will be born with deformities or psychological problems,” she said.
Such associations and “myths” were used to support abortion as a “means of compassion” for victims of assault, Makimaa said. “So the children conceived as a result of rape and incest have always been used to promote abortion.”
“They are so afraid of the truth that they have actually lost sight of the truth,” said Lynda Bell, spokes-woman for Florida Right to Life, referring to abortion activists. “This baby is a person. This baby is a child; it's an unborn child, but it's a child nonetheless.”
Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Supreme Court Set to Take on School Choice Once Again DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — A case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court could be a great boon — or a great blow — to religious freedom in the United States, school-choice proponents say.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that using public money in Cleveland voucher programs didn't violate the constitutional rights of taxpayers, even if some of it went to religious schools. Now the court will decide whether a program that bars money from religious schools violates the constitutional rights of students.
In the short term, theology majors are particularly interested in the fate of Gov. Gary Locke, et al. v. Joshua Davey, a case that originated in Washington state.
The high court announced May 19 it would hear arguments in the case, which challenges Washington state law restricting public funding of education in the state. The case is on the court's docket for the 2003-2004 term, which begins in October.
Both sides of the school-choice debate expect the decision to be politically significant.
Joshua Davey, the plaintiff in the case, was a student at Northwest College, a Christian school founded by the Assemblies of God in Kirkland, Wash. He graduated May 10 with highest honors from the college and plans to attend Harvard Law School in the fall. As a student at Northwest, Davey was awarded a $1,125 state-funded “Promise Scholarship.”
The state award was reneged, however, because Davey wanted to use the money to major in pastoral studies at Northwest. He was double-majoring in business management.
Davey's scholarship was taken away under a 1969 Washington state law that denies state funds to students who choose degrees in theology as well as a provision in the state constitution that blocks aid to religious schools. The Washington Constitution says: “[N]o public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction, or the support of any religious establishment.”
As the Register reported last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a lower court's ruling, citing the student's constitutionally guaranteed right to free exercise of religion. The 9th Circuit Court found that Davey had been discriminated against when the decision was made to deny him the scholarship money.
Gary Locke, the Democratic governor of Washington, is appealing the 9th Circuit Court's ruling. He argues that the 9th Circuit Court's decision would invalidate similar restrictions of state financing of religious entities or studies in 19 other states.
Even at the libertarian Cato Institute, Casey Lartigue, an education-policy analyst, said, “This case won't stand up to constitutional scrutiny. There is not a particular religion being advanced. The 9th Circuit should [blind carbon copy] their opinions to the Supreme Court, telling them, ‘Here's a head start on our latest case that should be coming your way.’”
Both sides of the school-choice divide say the implications of Locke v. Davey could reach beyond theology majors' scholarships.
“The importance of this case cannot be overstated,” said Mark Levin, president of the Landmark Legal Foundation. He said it gives the high court an opportunity to go a step beyond last year's landmark school choice decision in correctly applying the U.S. Constitution.
The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
When the Supreme Court gave a green light in a case sparked by Cleveland's voucher program, Levin said, “the Supreme Court said that the use of vouchers at religious institutions does not violate the Establishment Clause. In the Washington case, the court will determine if states violate the Establishment Clause … the court will determine if states violate the Free Exercise Clause by excluding religious institutions from their choice programs.”
In a June 2002 ruling in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case involving the Cleveland vouchers program, the Supreme Court decided that while the Constitution prohibits the establishment of religion, it does not require discrimination against religious schools and the parents and students who choose them.
The Supreme Court, in its Zelman ruling, reversed an appeals-court decision that struck down the Cleveland voucher program because most of the scholarship money wound up with students attending Catholic schools in Cleveland.
Opponents of public funding of religious education hope for victory from the court.
“The Davey case is extraordinarily important,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “I rarely make predictions about Supreme Court outcomes — and I never bet on them — but as an optimistic soul I'm hopeful that Washington state will prevail. States will thus retain their right to prevent taxpayers from being forced to pay for religious schools or ministries.”
School choice supporters expect the opposite, however.
Clint Bolick, author of Voucher Wars: Lessons From the Legal Battle Over School Choice, argued before the Supreme Court in the Zelman case. He is hopeful about Davey's prospects.
“We're optimistic that the Supreme Court will remove the major remaining legal obstacle to school choice by ruling that states may not discriminate against religious educational options,” Bolick said.
“Davey is a good test case because the state has not acted even-handedly but has blatantly discriminated against religious options, thereby violating the First Amendment's principle of neutrality,” he said. “If the court disagrees, we will have to fight these battles state by state, as we are presently doing in defending school-choice programs in Florida and Colorado.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Playing Life by Ear Takes Faith DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:The wife and mother, singer and song-writer's first album, What I Wanted to Say, was released in 1997, followed by Ordinary Time in 2000. She spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from her home in Nashville, Tenn., about her most recent album, Lighten Up, which is scheduled for release in June.
How did your family form who you are?
I grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., as one of six girls and two boys in a family of 10. My dad was a pathologist and my mom was a stay-at-home mother. We were one of only two Catholic families in the entire high school.
One of the great things about my family is that they were playful. They liked surprises and loved to laugh. They wanted to conform their lives to the truth, but they lived their life in a kind of play-it-by-ear way, which is contrary to the control-centered culture of death. I think that was a very beautiful thing that my parents passed on to us.
Was there a time when your faith proved most important in your life?
Yes; shortly after our marriage, we moved to Singapore. It was a very stressful time in my life, when my faith pulled me through.
I was very fortunate to have been plucked out of America at a very crucial time. We were newly married. Bill was working constantly. We were separated from friends and family, and we had a new baby. We were Catholics in a pagan country suspicious of Catholics.
It was there that I first learned undiluted doctrine through a priest at a Catholic study center. It was there that I learned the Christian message of sacrificial love as a mother and a wife — the very message that has been obscured in American culture. When I returned to America, I had three children and was too busy for the distractions of American culture, which would have pulled me away from that message.
How did you begin making music?
I've always sung, but the song-writing didn't come until I was 34 and pregnant with my daughter who is now 7. I never set out to write songs; it was just a fun thing that I started doing that just came together.
I don't sit down and say, “I'm going to write today.” I do it as I'm doing the dishes. Most typically, as I'm battling around in the kitchen, some line or an image will come to me.
You have eight children now. Do you find that it gets any easier?
Yes, I definitely do. Our oldest is almost 15 and the youngest is 3. We have settled into a routine where the kids have to help, even if it isn't the fashion. Many of the kids' friends have very little expected of them at home. In a big family, you can't live that way.
We're raising our children in a culture of death, and so much of the media and entertainment is about escaping from relationships. Thankfully, it has less of an impact on larger families because you are in such close and unavoidable contact. We are supposed to smooth out each other's rough edges. Big families are an inoculation against the culture of death.
Tell me about your new album.
This album is going to be about forgiving one another and letting go of yourself to find the joy around you no matter where you might be. The title Lighten Up is like a note to myself.
There was a point where I realized that I was burnt out trying to do everything just right. You think you're relying on God, but you're really relying on yourself and it catches up with you after a while. I felt like I had run out of love and realized I couldn't manufacture it myself. I had such high expectations for myself, and that's really not what a faithful life is. That's me, myself and I. When you find that you're doing a whole lot, but you're not really doing any of it with love, then you just have to stop. If we can't smile at our own family, that's not good.
We cannot hide our weaknesses from God, and we cannot earn God's love. He already loves us. There is a lot on the album about God's loves for us.
How does this album differ from the first two?
I was a little more careful to keep the deep, introspective songs out and to make sure that each song had an answer. The production is also different. It has more of a bluegrass flavor. I like bluegrass — it sounds happy to me and down-to-earth. It's not a grandiose or hyped sound. It's playful. When I sing in concerts, the songs on this album are very fun to sing.
I listen to music when I'm cleaning the house, doing the dishes or when I need a lift. I kept that in mind as I put this album together. It's the kind of thing you can turn on at four in the afternoon when you're bottoming out and you know you still have to make dinner.
You've inspired many stay-at-home mothers with the gift of your music. What is the primary message you hope to pass along?
What I strive to do with my songs is address the loneliness and isolation of mothers to help them to lighten up a little bit. It's easier to do something if you know that others are doing it.
There are a lot of women all across the country doing really heroic things and no one knows about them. A lot of my messages are things people already know but have simply forgotten. I'm trying to remind them, with my music, that what they are doing is important and noble.
Is this the first album that your children sing on?
They sang a little on the first album, at the end of “Without You I Can Do Nothing.” On this album they sing on “Mother, You Are Worried About Many, Many Things.” It is a song from children to their mothers asking them to slow down. Today's ultra-busy parenting style destroys family life.
Mothers are frantically driving their children to multiple activities but the kids have no time to be kids. Everyone loses. When you are overwhelmed by all of this recreational stress, it gets harder to see the beauty of your children. Parents need to realize that the children do not need all of the activities. They need to realize that they are enough.
What do you have planned next?
Six songs have already come to me for my next album. When there seems to be a critical mass, I'll go ahead with it. It will probably be a very simple album … more acoustic.
Clearly many of these songs come from personal experience, don't they?
I'm 42 and have eight children to raise. I want to be loving. I always used to squash all of the little things that bugged me. I thought that was forgiving. But lately I can't spare that kind of energy. I found that I was getting mad about nothing and mad about everything. It's a bad example for your children and yourself. You have to really forgive each other, and that is also how you convert each other. The song “Lay It on Down” came from me saying over and over again, “I've just got to lay it on down.”
There are several songs about marriage, seeing the humor in the whole setup, and the need for good-old garden-variety everyday forgiveness. My husband is a marriage counselor, so I know there is a lot of trouble out there. Every marriage has its crisis and it is an invitation for actual love — self-sacrificing love. This is the way God arranged for our sanctification. It's right there in every moment of the day.
My song “Round and Round” is about how we are attracted to our opposite and then we're mad because they are opposite. You don't know how it's going to turn out, but when you start chipping away at yourself then you see beautiful things begin to happen.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Well I don't know who started this, and I don't even care
But the pressure's getting to me and I think I need some air
Cause the e-mails and alpha males are making my head spin
Then there's the world, the flesh, the devil, and I can't seem to win
So I sat down and made a list of everything that's wrong
What's wrong with you, what's wrong with me and how that list went on!
Do you think you could forgive me for trying to be so right?
Cause hearts were made for better things, they were made to catch the light!
Lighten up, lighten up … The sins of all those fathers, how they take their toll
Generations bumble on, searching for their souls
But oh, the sweet salvation, from just one loving cup
Yes, hearts were made for better things, they were made to lighten up
Cause mothers dance while folding clothes
Babies throw the Cheerios
Kids lie awake nights just to suppose
There are signs and wonders everywhere
Joys and sorrows enough to spare
And glorious mysteries in the air
Lighten up, lighten up …
So the sun's bright lights are blinding and you'd rather stay inside
Brooding in the darkness, scheming and preoccupied
Well have a laugh and keep the faith
And check that baggage at the gate
Cause hearts were made to love and lighten up!
— Marie Bellet
----- EXCERPT: Marie Bellet never set out to make music. Yet in between the laundry, the dishes and her eight children, she has produced three albums. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: From Mouse Eggs to Human Babies? Ethicists Debate the Implications DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:PHILADELPHIA — One bioethicist called it “an ethical earthquake.”
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania caused stem cells from mouse embryos to develop into eggs and then apparently into new embryos without the addition of sperm. The repercussions could affect everything from congressional bills that seek to ban cloning to the ability of homosexuals to generate offspring, according to some experts.
The study by University of Pennsylvania researchers was published in the May 6 issue of Science magazine, which also carried a statement from the university's bioethicist, Arthur Caplan, who made the “ethical earthquake” assessment. He said the ban on all cloning passed in February by the House of Representatives and a similar bill pending in the Senate are premature because they seek to regulate a rapidly changing area of research.
To pro-life ethicists, however, the recently reported research raises the same basic question as before.
“Does it involve the destruction of human embryos to get new stem cells?” asked Msgr. William Smith, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. “If so, then we're right back with the same problems we've always had.”
Indeed, a spokesman for the U.S. bishops said the research findings open new avenues for ethical transgressions while offering no solutions to current problems. The assessment is in stark contrast to reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post that suggest the new method of harvesting eggs, if applied successfully to humans, will alleviate the concerns of some lawmakers and ethicists who oppose experiments on human embryos.
With the new method, scientists “will be getting the remains of one dead fetus and using those stem cells to produce eggs that may be fertilized to create more human lives to be killed” in experimentation, said Richard Doerflinger, deputy director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. “There will be no mother or father to serve as a protector or spokesperson for the embryos. They will be more than ever merely research material, a commodity.”
Even if eggs could be developed without killing embryos (for example, from adult stem cells), Doerflinger said the method would be morally suspect if the eggs then would be used for invitro fertilization.
“The dignity of human life requires that it be brought about in the context of normal sexual relations,” he said. Causing the eggs to develop into embryos by partheno-genesis (without fertilization by sperm), as the University of Pennsylvania researchers seem to have done, would also be illicit for the same reasons, he added.
Seeking Approval
The lead researcher in the study, Hans Schoeler of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, told the Register he will gauge public opinion and seek government approval before proceeding with experiments on human embryonic cells. A German citizen, Schoeler said he also is consulting with officials in his country.
If they say No, he will not use human cells even if he gets U.S. approval and funding. “We see this as an offer,” Schoeler said. “We are asking if we should do this.”
He said if he got the green light, he would derive embryonic stem cells only from the lines or colonies already ruled permissible for research by President George W. Bush.
“You wouldn't need fresh embryos if you're generating oocytes [eggs] not derived from a woman,” Schoeler said.
Even the use of these stem cells raises ethical issues, however.
In August 2001 Bush announced his resolution to a heated debate and permitted federal funds to go to researchers who use stem-cell lines already developed. The decision was supported by some pro-life advocates, including members of the president's ethics panel, but was criticized by the U.S. bishops.
Doerflinger said using the remains of aborted babies or embryos developed by in-vitro fertilization sends the wrong message that we can derive a present benefit directly from a past evil.
“There are questions about the origins of the stem cells that will be used in any such experiments,” Doerflinger said in regard to Schoeler's research. “And even greater questions arise about what they will be used for. If they are used to make more eggs and then more embryos — that is, new human beings — for destructive experimentation, then we're worse off than we are now.”
However, the fact that the eggs are not derived in this case from a living woman is seen by some as a positive ethical advance. Some critics of stem cell research oppose it mainly because it would require using women as “egg farms” and because the limited number of eggs that can be harvested would be fewer than the number needed to develop treatments for all patients who might benefit from stem-cell therapies.
These critics fear the development of an underclass of poor women who would be paid to provide a large number of eggs at the risk of their health. They also foresee patients being denied access to limited treatments for economic or social reasons. These objections would be removed if an unlimited number of eggs could be produced.
Judy Norsigian, head of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, who is against cloning for research purposes, said “com-modification and safety issues would be avoided” by the new experiments, though other issues would remain, according to the Washington Post.
Yet Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said the new research could lead to the “human embryo farms” that Bush has warned against.
Some experts also claim the possibility of producing embryos spontaneously from stem cells threatens the Catholic view of life beginning at conception, the joining of egg and sperm. Doerflinger rejected these assertions, saying the Church simply affirms that human life begins when conception occurs, against those who claim it begins later.
But if human life could occur in other ways yet to be developed (such as cloning), the Church would condemn the method as unethical while affirming the humanity and dignity of the life created, just as the Church says invitro fertilization is wrong while the resulting human life has full dignity, he said.
“Obviously,” Doerflinger pointed out, “the Church cannot say that human life can only begin with the meeting of sperm and egg because we have a fundamental belief in the virgin birth of Jesus, who is fully human and fully God.”
Stephen Vincent writes from Wallingford, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Vincent ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Judge: Parents Must Decide on Child's Life Support
THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 17 — In a difficult end-of-life case, a New York judge has ruled that parents generally do not need to obtain a court's permission to remove a child from life support if he is in a persistent vegetative state.
New York Supreme Court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan decided that a 3-year old girl who never regained consciousness after a seizure last New Year's Eve did not need to be kept on a respirator.
The order was issued verbally in April. The girl died April 17, but the facts of the case were only made public a month later.
Previously, New York law had been ambiguous on the rights of parents in such cases.
Though a spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference said he thought that in this particular case the removal of the girl from a respirator was “consistent with Catholic teaching,” the conference opposes a Family Health Care Decisions bill, which would establish procedures for family members and others to make health care decisions for an incapacitated patient.
The group is concerned about how the bill would address people without surrogates, pregnant women and the withdrawal of food and water from dying patients.
Sunday Now a Day of Spirits
DELAWARE NEWS JOURNAL/NEW YORK TIMES, May 19 — A number of states, including Delaware and New York, have looked to an unlikely source of revenue in tough fiscal times: increased tax receipts through more sales of liquor. How to achieve that? Leave liquor stores open more days each month.
Legislators have begun to re-examine centuries-old “blue laws” designed to keep the Sabbath holy by banning sales of alcohol (in some states, even wine), the Delaware News Journal reported.
The New York Times reported that the Delaware bill opening the shops passed with little opposition and went into effect May 18. In New York, the legislature passed a slightly different proposal, still requiring that liquor stores close one day per week but permitting the store to choose the day.
Laws restricting Sunday liquor sales face challenges in Kansas, Washington state and Rhode Island, the News Journal reported, also noting that four of the five most populous states now permit liquor sales on Sunday. Only Texas does not.
Islamic Quebec?
THE MONTREAL GAZETTE, May 14 — It seems that Islam has become the largest non-Christian faith in Quebec — as it already has in the rest of Canada, according to The Montreal Gazette.
Immigrants “from south Asia, north Africa and the Middle East” have swollen the population of Muslims in Quebec to 108,620 — an increase of more than 140% during the 1990s. Canadian census figures show that Muslims now outnumber Jews in both the province and the nation.
Chairman Bashir Hussain of the Montreal Chapter of the Council of Muslim Communities in Canada recalled that there were once only a few of his coreligionists in Montreal.
“Now,” he said, “we have about 30 mosques and places of prayer, and it's still not enough.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Countries Come Under Close Scrutiny in Religious Freedom Report DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released its third annual report May 13, updating U.S. officials on 22 countries it has examined.
So far, the State Department has put six countries on the countries of particular concern list: Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and North Korea. But the commission has recommended the same status for six more — India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Laos — something to which the State Department has not yet acceded.
Having India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on the list creates problems for the State Department, said Nina Shea, a commission member and the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the human rights organization Freedom House. She speculated that the reticence might be due to the war on terror.
In fact, the Washington Post recently editorialized on that theory, criticizing the fact that Saudi Arabia in particular is not on the countries of particular concern list.
However, a State Department spokesman told the Register on condition of anonymity that Saudi Arabia is “very, very close” to being added to the list, and Vietnam “is as perilously close as Saudi Arabia” is to being added. The department is working with these two countries to let them know what being put on that list means, the spokesman said, so they can take steps to avoid it. While there is no timeline on that, he said, it is not something that can be drawn out ad infinitum.
The commission is an independent agency established by Congress following the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998. Its job is to keep Congress and the administration informed on how religious freedom around the world is respected. The commission also makes recommendations on actions the president and secretary of state should take with those countries that are extreme violators of religious rights.
Part of that action is to list nations as being “countries of particular concern.” The commission makes the recommendation and the secretary of state can either make the designation or not. Countries that are so designated can be subject to a variety of economic sanctions.
Not every country in the report is a country of particular concern. Two countries where commission members have visited to discuss religious freedom are France and Belgium. The commission cited them for “initiatives targeting ‘harmful sectarian organizations,’” similar to laws passed in Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and for a rise in anti-Semitism. In fact, the report states that France's and Belgium's laws are looked to as models for Eastern European countries.
One of the problems with these laws, a State Department spokesman said, is that they can be interpreted rather loosely to apply to any number of organizations, including the Catholic Church. While he does not expect that to happen in France or Belgium, it could easily be done in the emerging democracies, he said.
While the United States might have problems with these types of laws, the Catholic Church doesn't necessarily see it that way.
“Most doctrines of religious freedom are based on the premise that man cannot come to the truth and hence accept an implicit or explicit relativism about religious truth,” said Arthur Hippler, director of the Office of Justice and Peace in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis. “On the contrary, it is because the truth about God matters that you must be free to pursue it. This right, the council fathers taught in Dignitatis Humanae (Declaration on Religious Freedom), should be protected by the civil laws of the country.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “The right to the exercise of freedom, especially in moral and religious matters … must be recognized and protected by civil authority within the limits of the common good and public order” (No. 1738).
Catholic Concerns
For Catholics, Eastern European countries are of particular concern. Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., a member of the commission, has been on two trips for the group, one to Belarus and one to Russia.
Belarus, he said, “has the most repressive religion law of any country in Europe. The criteria set up for the licensing of religions are particularly onerous.”
In a meeting with Orthodox Metropolitan Filaret, Bishop Murphy was told the Orthodox “do not want to become a state church” in Belarus. But, the bishop added, the government would like it to be that way.
Russia's constitution, on the other hand, guarantees freedom of religion, and the country has signed on to all the major international treaties regarding human rights. However, it has become like the “pre-Soviet Russian cultural mentality” where only the Orthodox Church was respected, Bishop Murphy said. “On the local level, legal authorities defer to local Orthodox leaders in decisions” about granting licenses to different religious groups.
China and North Korea come under particular scrutiny in this report. Though it is primarily about religious freedom, the report also diverges into other human-rights issues, such as China's treatment of North Korean refugees. According to a source who spoke to the Register on condition of anonymity, these refugees are barely clothed when they cross the frozen river dividing China and North Korea in an average temperature of 20 below zero.
The Chinese have forcibly repatriated these refugees, according to the commission's report. The source said those who are arrested are put in the back of trucks and not given any kind of humanitarian aid on their journey back.
An American Thing
The quest for religious freedom is a particularly American concern, commission member Shea said. “It is unheard of in most places in the world.”
“Countries are always saying, ‘You're interfering in our internal affairs,’” she said, when they are confronted on human-rights issues. But, she added, “we're not applying the First Amendment here; we're applying international treaties.”
Pope John Paul II, however, is grateful for this attention to the issue. When President George W. Bush met with him on July 23, 2001, the Pope told Bush, “It is significant that the protection of religious freedom continues to be an important goal of American foreign policy.”
Because of limited resources, the report lacks a country-by-country analysis, Shea said. She expects Cuba and Egypt to be on next year's list. Cuba's repression of activists was too recent for the report, she said. And Egypt recently acquitted a group of people who had been arrested for the massacre of Chaldean Catholics there. Shea said that is something that needs to be investigated further.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:John Paul Offers Condolence for Terrorism Victims
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, May 17 — In a telegram sent by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano in the Holy Father's name to Archbishop Domenico De Luca, apostolic nuncio in Morocco, the Pope prayed for the victims of a terrorist attack May 16 in Casablanca.
“Having learned with emotion of the attacks last night in Casablanca, the Holy Father prays for the numerous victims and for their families in this trial,” the telegram said. “Denouncing once again the blind violence that strikes innocents, he asks the Almighty to enlighten consciences and to aid men in their efforts for peace. On this sorrowful occasion the Pope assures the people and the leaders of Morocco of his deepest sympathy.”
Pope Denounces Land Confiscations in Zimbabwe
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, May 16 — Addressing new diplomats at the Holy See on May 15, Pope John Paul II sharply questioned Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe's program of seizing land from white farmers and distributing them to his political cronies, Agence France-Presse reported.
The Holy Father called the “land reform” program an “error” that could only lead to greater disharmony in the troubled land.
“It is an error to think that any real benefit or success will come simply by expropriating large landholdings, dividing them into smaller production units and distributing them to others,” the Pope told the assembled legates.
Where agrarian reform is needed, he said, it must be viewed as “a complex and delicate process … Justice must be made available to all if the injuries of the past are to be left behind and a brighter future built.”
Since the reforms began three years ago, Mugabe's forces have taken 11 million hectares of farmland — and watched a nationwide famine set in.
John Paul promised the Church's full support in attempts “to construct a culture of dialogue rather than confrontation, of reconciliation rather than conflict.”
Cardinal Kasper Preaches at St. Martin-in-the-Fields
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, May 19 — Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, preached May 18 at a healing service at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, on the topic of “Healing and Christian Unity.”
This was the first time a member of the Curia addressed a congregation in an Anglican church in England, Independent Catholic News reported. The cardinal conveyed greetings from the Holy Father, who said he fondly remembers his 1982 trip to England. At that time, the Pope said, he recognized how much the churches shared the same Christian traditions and common heritage.
Cardinal Kasper said Jesus wanted all his disciples to be as one and for Christians to be united as one people of God.
“The challenge of our time is the striving for peace,” the cardinal said. “God wants peace and Christians should be peacemakers. God sent Jesus Christ to heal the wounds of our division so that Christians may be signs of peace and reconciliation.”
The cardinal called the divisions between Christian churches a “scandal on the face of the world.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Archbishop Foley: Public Wants Ethics in Media DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:MURCIA, Spain — When it comes to the media and communications, the public wants consistency in what journalists say and how they live; in a word, they want “ethics,” according to Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
Archbishop Foley spoke with Zenit news service during the second international congress on the Church and the media, held at the Catholic University of St. Anthony in Murcia, Spain, May 15-17.
The American archbishop opened the meeting with a talk on the “Ethical and Moral Dimension of the Means of Social Communication.”
In your address, you said public opinion asks journalists and the media in general for truth and values. Can it be said that it is precisely ethics, and not so much the technology involved, that makes the difference between one medium and another?
Today there are many differences between the different media, and there are also different levels of professional quality. But people perceive the consistency between the communicator's words and life. I think there is profound appreciation for people — not only in the world of communication but also in political life — who are consistent in the values they preach and those they live.
You gave Pope John Paul II as an example in this sense.
This is what gives force to his communication. When he delivers an address and puts aside the text he has prepared, people perceive that he is obviously a consistent person, a person with a life that is completely integrated between values and actions. He is a completely honest, sincere man.
What should be distinct about a Catholic journalist? What should be his added value?
He should certainly be a person of truth. This without a doubt. But I think that a Catholic journalist should have a background of formation in philosophy, theology and history. In this way, he can put in a proper context — historical, philosophical, theological — everything he analyzes.
When I studied at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, there were courses in economics, politics and education. When they gave me an award some years later, I told them they should have a special course in religion.
They instituted one and they now have a department of religion within the school of journalism. They realize that religion is an essential part of human life and that an intelligent journalist should know the world of religion in order to write an intelligent and comprehensible report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: John Paul Schedules Two Trips Abroad in June DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Among the highlights of Pope John Paul II's busy schedule of events for June are two trips abroad and three traditional celebrations in the life of the Church: World Communications Day, the feast of Corpus Christi and the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.
June 1 is the 37th World Communications Day. Traditionally celebrated on the Sunday before Pentecost, this day is marked by a message from the Holy Father, which is published on the Jan. 24 feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of journalists. The theme of the 2003 message, which the Pope will highlight in remarks at the Angelus that day, is “Communications Media at the Service of Authentic Peace in the Light of Pacem in Terries” (Peace on Earth, Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical).
On June 5 the Pope heads to Croatia for a five-day trip, where he is scheduled to travel by plane, boat and car. This Balkan republic has a population of 4.6 million people, 84% of whom are Catholic. Requests by journalists to accompany John Paul on his history-making 100th apostolic trip outside of Italy have flooded the accreditation desk of the Holy See press office from every part of the world, though only about 60 members of the media can be accommodated on the papal plane.
Members of the Pontifical Work of the Holy Childhood, on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of its founding, will be received by the Holy Father in an audience in St. Peter's Square on June 14. The Holy Childhood is one of the four branches of the Pontifical Missionary Works and, through missionary animation and formation, it assists more than 1 billion children worldwide, including about 300 million Catholic youngsters.
One of the most evocative liturgical celebrations of the year is the feast of Corpus Christi, which this year falls on June 19 (in the United States, it is celebrated under the name of Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ on Sunday, June 22).
Dating back to 1246, this solemnity is marked by an evening papal Mass on the esplanade at St. John Lateran Basilica and a Eucharistic procession along Via Merulana, lined by tens of thousands of faithful, to St. Mary Major Basilica where the Pope imparts his blessing. The procession between the two Roman basilicas commenced in the 1400s. Its current itinerary began in 1575 when Pope Gregory XIII built the street that links them, and this route was followed for more than 300 years until the procession fell into disuse. John Paul revived the custom in 1979 and has processed the distance on foot every year, except in 1981, after the attack on his life in St. Peter's Square, and in 1994 following hip surgery. Since 1995 he has ridden in an open, canopy-covered vehicle, seated before a small altar bearing the monstrance and host.
On June 22 the Holy Father will undertake his 101st foreign trip, one of the briefest of his pontificate, traveling just for the day to Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where, during a Eucharistic celebration, he will beatify Ivan Merz. Merz, a Bosnian Croat layman who took a vow of celibacy, devoted his free time to the Church, teaching and evangelizing Croatians. He helped found Catholic Action in Croatia and died in 1928 at age 31.
June 29, the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, is a very joyful occasion on the Pope's calendar, for on that day, in a concelebrated Mass in St. Peter's Square, he bestows the pallium on metropolitan archbishops whom he has appointed during the year.
A pallium is a band of white wool with two hanging pieces, front and back, that is decorated with seven black crosses and represents the authority of a metropolitan and unity with the Holy Father. Palliums are woven from the wool of baby lambs that are blessed by the Pope each year on the Jan. 21 feast of St. Agnes, whose symbol is a lamb. They are stored in a special coffer in the confessio below the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica.
Significantly, June 29 is only the second day each year when the statue of St. Peter in the basilica is dressed in ornate papal vestments and wears the triple tiara and a papal ring on the index finger of his right hand (the other day is Feb. 22, feast of the Chair of Peter).
Joan Lewis works for Vatican Information Service.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Is With Us in Our Struggle Against Evil DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
More than 18,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square on May 21 for Pope John Paul II's weekly general audience. The Holy Father based his teaching on Psalm 144, which he characterized as a testimony of hope that was composed by King David.
Faced with great danger and difficulty, King David turned to the Lord with confidence, knowing that God would not ignore his prayer but would intervene in history and defeat evil. “It is only with God's support that we can overcome the dangers and difficulties that occur repeatedly throughout each day of our life. It is only with help from heaven that we will be able to make a commitment, like the ancient king of Israel, to walk toward freedom and away from all oppression,” John Paul said. “God will not abandon us in the struggle against evil.”
Like King David, we, too, must recognize our weakness and understand that we are totally dependent upon God, the Holy Father said. He urged Christians to pray Psalm 144 as they fix their gaze on Jesus, “who delivers us from every evil and sustains us in the battle against hidden and perverse powers.”
We just heard the first part of Psalm 144. It has the characteristics of a royal hymn and is interlaced with other biblical texts, thereby giving birth to a new prayer (see Psalms 8:5; 18:8-15; 33:2-3; 39:6-7). It is King David himself who is speaking, acknowledging the divine origins of his success.
The Lord is portrayed in images that are related to war, following the usage of symbols typical of those ancient times. So, he is envisioned as an army instructor (see Psalm 144:1), an impregnable fortress, a protective shield and a victor (see verse 2). This is the way in which the psalmist wished to exalt God as one personally committed to fighting against evil in history. He is not some dark power or inexhorable fate, nor is he an unfeeling ruler indifferent to human events. The references and the tone of this divine celebration were influenced by a hymn of David that was recorded in Psalm 18 and in chapter 22 of the Second Book of Samuel.
Man's Weakness
Compared with God' power, this Jewish king sees himself as fragile and weak, as all human creatures are. In order to express this feeling in his prayer, the king uses two phrases that are found in Psalms 8 and 39, which he combines in order to give them an effectiveness that is new and more intense: “Lord, what are mortals that you notice them; human beings, that you take thought of them? They are but a breath; their days are like a passing shadow” (see verses 3-4). Here his firm conviction emerges that we would be empty and shallow, like a breath of wind, if it were not for our Creator who keeps us alive and who — as Job says — “is the soul of every living thing and the life-breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10).
It is only with God's support that we can overcome the dangers and difficulties that occur repeatedly throughout each day of our life. It is only with help from heaven that we will be able to make a commitment, like the ancient king of Israel, to walk toward freedom and away from all oppression.
God Frees Us
God's intervention is portrayed in traditional cosmic and historical images in order to illustrate God's lordship over the universe and over human affairs. Therefore, mountains are in smoke due to sudden volcanic eruptions (see verse 5). Flashes of lightning seem like arrows that the Lord has shot and that seem ready to rout evil (see verse 6). Finally, there are the “many waters” that are the symbol in biblical language of chaos, evil and nothingness — the negative forces in the unfolding of history (see verse 7). Other images of a historical nature are joined to these cosmic images: They are the “foes” (see verse 6), the “foreign foes” (see verse 7) and the liars and perjurers who are idolaters (see verse 8).
This is a very concrete, Eastern way to portray wickedness, perversion, oppression and injustice, tremendous realities from which the Lord delivers us as we go forth in the world.
Christ Our Messiah
Psalm 144, as found in morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, ends with a brief hymn of thanks-giving (see verses 9-10). It arises from the certainty that God will not abandon us in the struggle against evil. For this reason the psalmist sings a melody that he accompanies with his 10-string harp, since he is certain that the Lord “will give victory to his anointed one and deliver David, his servant” (see verses 9-10).
The word for “anointed” in Hebrew is “messiah”: We see, therefore, this royal psalm that was already transformed in the liturgical use of ancient Israel into a messianic song. We Christians repeat it as we keep our gaze fixed on Christ, who delivers us from every evil and sustains us in the battle against hidden and perverse powers. Indeed, the battle “is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens” (Ephesians 6:12).
Let us conclude, then, with a thought from St. John Cassian, a monk who lived in Gaul in at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries. In a work called The Incarnation of the Lord, where he used verse 5 of this psalm as his starting point (“Lord, incline your heavens and come”), he saw these words as an anticipation of Christ's entrance in the world.
He continued in the following words: “The psalmist prayed that … the Lord would manifest himself in the flesh, appear visibly in the world, be assumed visibly in glory (see 1 Timothy 3:16) and finally that the saints would be able to see, with the eyes of their body, all that they had spiritually foreseen” (L'Incarnazione del Signore, V, 13, Rome, 1991, p. 208-209). This is exactly what every baptized person is a witness to in the joy of faith.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Mexican Church Launches Family Campaign Before Key Elections DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:MEXICO CITY — José Buendía, the leader of a small radical political coalition in Mexico, was furious. In front of television cameras, he announced he would start legal action against certain Mexican bishops. Their crime? Taking a stand in the run-up to congressional elections.
Buendía sued Bishop Mario de Gasperín of Querétaro in the attorney's Office for the Attention of Electoral Crimes, arguing that the bishop “has violated the federal code of Institutions and Electoral Process, as well as the federal penal code.”
“[Bishop] de Gasperín has repeatedly called in his homilies, and most recently in his pastoral letter, not to vote for parties who are promoting the legalization of abortion, which [the political coalition] México Posible includes as part of its political platform. … In this sense, this is nothing other than an illegal [interference] of Church authorities in political, electoral issues,” Buendía said.
Supporters of the Church and bishops, however, said critics of the bishop's pastoral letter are upset about possible pro-Church political gains.
“What Mr. Buendía considers a violation of electoral laws is nothing else but the justifiable concern of the Mexican episcopate over the increasing influence gained in the media and public opinion by anti-life and anti-family forces in the during these past few years,” said Miguel Angel Calzada, a journalist from the Diocese of Acapulco.
The elections, to be held July 6, will renew the 500-seat Mexican Parliament, and the episcopate has decided to go bold on Church teachings. In fact, on March 25, the president of the Mexican bishops' conference issued a statement clearly reminding Catholic politicians about “the moral duty they have in their public role, especially legislators, to remain faithful to the teaching of the Gospel.”
According to the statement, this requires “a clear commitment [to] their Catholic faith and [the rejection] of laws contrary to moral and ethical principles like those that attempt [to deny] the right to life or [attack] institutions such as marriage and family.”
But the strongest statement — one that sparked fierce reaction from feminist groups and liberal politicians — was an unprecedented “Message to Mexican Families” released May 2 by the episcopate at the end of their yearly assembly.
The message to families, which replaced the usual pastoral statement, says, “The family, the shrine of life and Good News for the third millennium, has inspired us to reflect, with the hearts and minds of shepherds, about the reality of human life within the family.”
It also warns of increasing threats to the family in Mexico.
From that point on, the document becomes a primer on Catholic teaching about life, marriage and family, and also a rejection of several political and legal initiatives.
Referring to the increasing support to legalize homosexual unions, for example, the document clearly states, “The human being is either male or female, with biological, genetic, psychological and spiritual differences that complement and enrich them mutually.”
“In the sacrament of marriage,” the document continues, “the love of the couple is called to be unique, indissoluble and holy.”
“This truth,” the bishops say, “is contrary to the increasing pro-divorce mentality.”
The message to families then tackles contraception, saying, “it is grave for married couples” to use contraceptives, “resorting even to sterilization to avoid a pregnancy, or, even worse, resorting to abortion.”
“It is impossible to be a Catholic and to promote, at the same time, the ‘right’ to abortion,” the document says.
The text also reminds parents that children are a gift “and cannot be considered a ‘right.’ Parents may not resort to assisted procreation through immoral means such as in vitro fertilization.”
Stand on Elections?
Despite the letter being addressed to families, several local media outlets said the intention of the bishops was to take a strong public stand with the elections in mind.
In fact, the outcome of the congressional elections will decide the future of several anti-life laws that have been introduced in both the states and the national congress.
Nevertheless, the statement that sparked the fury of the México Posible political coalition was the pastoral letter of Bishop de Gasperín. In a short, blunt statement titled “Un CatÛlico vota Así” (This is how a Catholic votes), Bishop de Gasperín said the Catholic Church does not have a political party but that “the Catholic faithful is bound to the duty of being coherent with their faith in private and public.”
Therefore, a Catholic “cannot vote for a party or candidate that does not respect the dignity of the human person, like those who defend or promote prostitution, homosexual unions, chemical or surgical [birth control], pornography, human cloning, the free use of drugs or drug trafficking, the free, indiscriminate sale of alcohol, ‘machismo’ and any kind of ethnic or racial discrimination,” the bishop wrote.
Moreover, Bishop de Gasperín said a Catholic “cannot vote for a party or candidate opposed to the inalienable right of parents to choose the kind of education they want for their children, according to their convictions.”
According to the bishop, a Catholic “must vote for a candidate who has demonstrated with facts his or her spirit of service to others, preferably to the poor, a candidate that in all and above all defends the dignity of the human person.”
According to Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel of San CristÛbal de las Casas, who recently delivered a homily calling on Catholics not to vote for pro-abortion and anti-family candidates, “the bishops are not campaigning in favor of a political party, because the Church is not married to any political party.
“But it is our right and our responsibility to recall the basic duties of Catholics who want to promote a society based on moral principles and basic human rights. … If someone with his or her vote supports pro-abortion candidates, he or she is becoming responsible for the death of many innocents,” the bishop added.
According to Rosario Alfaro, operational director of the Lay Association for Sexual and Affective Maturity, “there is no doubt that an anti-life, anti-family mentality is catching on not only among the youth but also among political parties.”
“The gains made by pro-abortion and pro-gay organizations can be seen in the recent changes in the programs of some political parties as well in the promises they are making during the current campaign,” Alfaro added. “I think the Mexican bishops are doing the right thing, because if they are not the ones openly defending the Gospel of Life, who will?”
Alejandro Berm˙dez is based in Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Berm˙dez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Son Who ‘Mercy’-Killed Parents Released
BBC, May 16 — Daniel Gardner, 53, admitted to killing his parents, Stanley, 79, and Eileen, 83, at their London home in March 2002. Daniel had spent many years caring for the older couple at home; Eileen Gardner suffered from advanced Alzheimer's disease, while her husband was terminally ill, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Daniel Gardner himself has diabetes, which forces him to walk on crutches. Apparently, as he admitted in court, he hit a breaking point March 4 — that day he put plastic bags over his parents' heads so they would suffocate and then he tried to kill himself.
Having pleaded guilty to manslaughter, Gardner was sentenced to two years of rehabilitation and community work. The judge noted in his sentence the defendant had been suffering “from a serious depressive illness which put you under huge emotional strain,” and he was not a danger to the public.
Local euthanasia groups called for streamlined, state-administered mercy killings for such patients as the Gardners, while Phyllis Bowman of the group Right to Life commented, “One needs to ask why his parents were not admitted to proper hospice or hospital care.”
Baby Auctioned Off for Parts
THE AGE (Australia), May 19 — A female gang in the Southern Italian city of Bari has been charged with auctioning off a newborn child, taking bids even before the baby was born, possibly from people interested in using its organs for transplant.
The Age reported that three Ukrainian immigrants, including the baby's mother, a prostitute, sold the child for $623,000 to undercover police who'd been trying to crack a drug ring. The officers were shocked when the gang members offered them an unborn baby.
“There's a five-month parcel waiting for you if you're interested,” they said, then kept the officers posted about other bids on the child's life that they had to beat.
On May 9 the baby was born and given to the officers, and the parents were arrested. Police are now investigating the other “bidders,” even as shocked Italian legislators call for new laws to prevent organ trafficking.
Priests Take Sacraments to SARS Victims
FIDES, May 16 — At least 45 priests in Hong Kong have put themselves forward, volunteering for exposure to the deadly SARS virus in order to bring the sacrament of anointing the sick to patients, reported Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency.
The local diocese had called for volunteers and the priests responded. Five priests have been chosen to remain in SARS hospitals and the other 40 to visit Catholic families in quarantine.
The priests have been given a special course in precautions to take when carrying out their ministry among the sick.
“The sacrament of [annointing] the sick gives strength, peace and courage to overcome the difficulties of those who are seriously ill and the fragility of old age,” volunteer priest Father Joseph Vhan said, “and it helps to overcome the temptation to discouragement and despair when facing death.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Failed Pope? DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Voices continue to claim that John Paul's reign has been a failure, even on the eve of his 25th anniversary as Pope. He is blamed for the scandals in the Church — shouldn't he have disciplined bishops? He is blamed for dissent in the Church — shouldn't he have disciplined wayward theologians?
What can be said, honestly and forthrightly, in the Pope's defense? Isn't it just our affection for an indisputably holy old man that makes us want to make excuses for him?
Quite a lot can be said for him, actually. In fact, his governing style has been celebrated as brilliant for more than a decade, and yet some of the very people who described it best seem to have forgotten all about it.
His is the governing style that banished communism from Poland — not by decree and denunciation, but by the hard way; the way that lasts. Here are three characteristics of it.
The Pope creates facts.
When he was cardinal-archbishop of Krakow, the Pope didn't spend his time denouncing communists who wouldn't allow him to build new churches. Instead, he went to the places he wanted churches built and started saying Masses in meadows until a de facto parish had been formed, one the communists had to recognize.
In the cities, he didn't spend his time excommunicating communist sympathizers. Instead, he encouraged Catholic projects like the Solidarity movement, creating a positive anti-communist initiative that swept the country.
Look at the “facts” the Pope has created or boosted in just the last decade: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Jubilee Year, the wildfire growth of the new lay movements he encouraged within the Church, the World Youth Days, the Year of the Rosary and, with his new encyclical, a resurgence of Eucharistic adoration.
If his was a papacy mostly concerned with delineating and denouncing the darkness, would these candles have been lit?
The Pope's arguments transcend ideological factions.
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was sometimes criticized for not explaining in clear detail the evils of the ideology of communism, even as it swept Poland. After the fall of communism, we know better.
The Pope spent his energy — and credibility — teaching about the dignity of the human person, the value of work and the proper ends of the economy. Just as importantly, he spent his time reminding Poles of their unique culture and national identity. These proved deadly antibodies against the disease of communism.
If he had taught mainly about the wickedness of communism, he would have raised defenses and entrenched in his opponents. Instead, he took seriously the questions that communism raises and answered them.
The Pope has done the same thing in the Church. Take sexual morals. Instead of repeating denunciations that the world thinks it has understood and rejected, he has patiently introduced a new theology of the body. He answers the world's questions about sexuality by elevating sexuality's importance beyond what the world could guess.
The Pope is a witness to hope.
Some critics have argued that the Pope is too “optimistic” rather than “realistic” — that he expects really good encyclicals and youth rallies to trump the decadence elsewhere in the Church.
But the man who saw his country liberated by force from the Nazis only to be drowned under the horrors of communism is not likely to have rose-colored misconceptions about the wonderfulness of men.
What this Pope does have, is faith. He knows that God really did create the universe, really does care about its future and really will help it along. He believes that human beings are prone to sin, but that love, and its constant companion, freedom, is — in the words of Solomon — stronger than death.
If the Pope's governing style puts a great deal of trust in human freedom to eventually choose the truth, it's because God's did first.
And the man who saw the Berlin Wall go up and then come back down, the man who praises America's freedom even while he regrets its excesses, may be onto something.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Free-Market Injustice DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:I read with great interest Angelo Matera's essay on the free economy and Catholic social justice (“The Pope and St. Joseph on Wall Street,” May 11-17). This is an issue of social justice that impacts the lives of every American and every place where we have exported our values. Back in my days of excess, I used to refer to my trips to the mall as retail therapy — and I used to think that there was no other way to live.
I am grateful for Pope John Paul II's eloquence and courage in speaking out against the injustices of the free market. Gospel frugality is fundamental to the universal call to holiness. But I think it scares many of us because we think that means that we are supposed to want to be destitute. Of course, what it means is that we must shun excess. On the supply side, we have to stop cutting corners where they should not be cut and defending indefensible practices.
As consumers, we need to stop organizing our lives around our latest or next purchase. It is amazing how many conversations are about getting and spending money. And, we have to stop defining ourselves and others by what we drive, what we wear and where we live. We live in a society where even children know which zip codes and telephone prefixes represent the “best” neighborhoods. We teach the children to be miniature consumers and are not surprised when they talk about what they want in terms of material possessions. Even sectors of society not in the free market, including universities — where students are seen as consumers — are defined by the market logic. If we could make our economy more human and more Christian, I think we would breathe a collective sigh of relief.
In defense of the short-term focus of the free market, John Maynard Keynes is often quoted as saying, “In the long run we are all dead.” That, of course, is entirely the point.
MARY ELIZABETH COURTNEY
Columbus, Ohio
From War to Battle
Now that the war is over we have to ask ourselves one question: What did we accomplish? According to the just-war theory, there are certain conditions one has to meet in order for war to be all right.
The first condition is being the last resort. In this particular war against terrorism we really had no opponent to face because you can't put a link to who's responsible for terrorism. I believe the United States failed to meet the first criterion of just war.
The second condition is having legitimate authority to declare war. After the attacks of Sept. 11, President Bush promised there would be retaliation on those responsible for this horrific act and will be put to justice. I feel that the United States did have legitimate authority because the longer we waited, the more time it would give the terrorists to plan another massive strike on this country. The big question is whether or not Osama bin Laden is associated with Saddam Hussein. We know Saddam has many chemical weapons he would like to experiment with on the United States. The United States did give Iraq plenty of chances prior to war to disarm and make Saddam step out of power. We gave Saddam an ultimatum and he did not cooperate with us.
I feel the United States did a good job of meeting the conditions of the last two just-war principles. With our strong army, we had reasonable expectations of success. Our military was well prepared and very few U.S. lives were lost. The ultimate goal in war is to re-establish peace, which is going to happen for the Iraqi people. No longer will they be oppressed and abused by a dictatorship.
There's only one problem with this victory of war. The terrorists such as Saddam are still out there, but now they just want to retaliate and destroy the United States even more. If Saddam is still alive, I'm sure he would want nothing more than to mess with our country like we did to his “dictatorship.” I think we are in for a long battle for the next years to come.
JOE ROBINSON
Dubuque, Iowa
A Pro-Life Sourpuss
Cathleen Cleaver always writes well for your paper. I appreciate her writing style and good content, almost more than any other writer you [publish].
I do, however, have one beef with Cathleen's recent article on The WB network's show “Everwood.” It's not just Cathleen who has highlighted in the Register the pro-life position of Patricia Heaton, the wife in “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Several of your commentators have done the same thing over this past year.
I understand that the pro-life community is eager to find and highlight pro-life role models in Hollywood. But, while it is commendable that Heaton is pro-life, I have a hard time admiring her simply because the character she plays on television doesn't seem very “pro-life.” I'm not talking about abortion here. Heaton's character is an eye-rolling, sarcastic woman who doesn't often seem happily married and who experiences constant tension with her in-laws and even her own husband. The basis of the show is “put-down humor.” Every time I see Heaton's character, I can't help but think how miserable she seems. This kind of negativity makes a family comedy — and one of its main characters — laudable?
If Heaton wanted to live out most consistently her pro-life convictions, it seems she would abandon her role in “Everybody Loves Raymond” for a role that communicated the joy, beauty and fulfillment of marriage and family life.
MARGARET BRECOUNT
Cincinnati, Ohio
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Embryonic Ensoulment DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:I found Father Pacholczyk's interview to be fascinating (“The Little Flower Blossoms in Yale Neuroscientist,” Inperson, May 4-10). I was somewhat taken aback when he said, “An embryo is a human being, a being that is human, that is not some other kind of animal. Whether it's a person yet at the moment of conception, whether it's been ensouled — those are very interesting intellectual discussions but they're not ultimately relevant.”
The last sentence of the above quote got more than a raised eyebrow from me as I read it. I always thought the Church's teaching was that at the moment of conception an embryo is ensouled and is considered life, and if it is life it is human. Am I wrong in my interpretation? It seems to me that you can't be human without a soul.
I wonder if Father Pacholczyk has had his opinion considered by a panel of theologians. I look forward to reading an explanation of his comments in a future edition of your paper.
RAYMOND C. MILLS
Newport, Rhode Island
Father Pacholczyk Replies
Mr. Mills' comments are emblematic of a rather common misunderstanding about the Catholic Church's teaching on ensoulment. The Church has never definitively stated when the ensoulment of the human embryo takes place. It remains an open question. The “Declaration on Procured Abortion” from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1974 phrases the matter with considerable precision:
“This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation [implantation in the uterus]. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent …”
And the moral affirmation of the Church is simply this: that the human embryo must be treated as if it were already ensouled, even if it might not yet be so. It must be treated as if it were a person from the moment of conception, even if there exists the possibility that it might not yet be so. Why this rather subtle, nuanced position, instead of simply declaring outright that zygotes are ensouled, and therefore are persons? Because, as the declaration stresses, there has never been a unanimous tradition on this point.
The matter has been discussed for centuries, and delayed ensoulment was probably the norm for most of Christian history, with immediate ensoulment gaining some serious momentum of its own only in the 1600s. Aquinas, for example, held that ensoulment occurred not right at the first instant but at a timepoint removed from the beginning, in order to allow the matter of the embryo to undergo development and become “apt” for the reception of an immortal soul from God. Augustine seemed to shift his opinion back and forth during his lifetime between immediate and delayed ensoulment. Even today in various quarters, the discussions continue, with new embryological details like twinning and chimaerization impinging on the debate, and new conceptual questions arising from the intricate biology surrounding totipotency and pluripotency.
In the final analysis, it is salutary to realize that it is God's business as to when he ensouls the human embryo, and we may never categorically resolve the matter from our limited vantage point. More relevant to the discussion is the fact that we do not need an answer to this fascinating and speculative question in order to grasp the essential moral conclusion that human embryos are absolutely inviolable and deserving of unconditional respect.
The Church's perspective on this matter is sometimes characterized in these terms: “If we don't know whether the early embryo is a person, we shouldn't destroy it, in the same way that we shouldn't shoot into a patch of dark bushes, because it might be a person making the rustling noises. Because there's a chance the embryo is a person, we can't risk destroying it.” This is a problematic summary of the Church's position, however, because she actually embraces a much more forceful line of argumentation, namely: that we know exactly what is in the bushes, and therefore we cannot ever shoot. We know exactly what the embryo is, namely, a human being, a being that is clearly and unmistakably human. It is not a zebra type of being, a plant type of being or some other kind of being. This is a scientific affirmation which does not ultimately depend on religion, value systems, or imposing anything on anyone. It is a matter of simple empirical observation.
All of us began as embryonic human beings, and such human beings are never to be instrumentalized for stem-cell extraction or other destructive ends. Hence the Church recognizes that we need not worrys about the fine details of the timing of personhood or ensoulment in a misguided attempt to identify a basis for the moral question. We need only recognize that once you are constituted a human being (which always occurs at fertilization or at an event that mimics fertilization like cloning), you are an embryonic member of the human race who is to be protected unconditionally.
The human zygote, thus, is already a being that is human, and such beings are sacrosanct entities, because that's what we all directly spring from at the root level. What the human embryo actually is, even at its earliest and most undeveloped stage, makes it the only kind of entity capable of receiving the gift of an immortal soul from God; no other animal embryo can receive this gift. Hence, the early human embryo is never merely biological tissue; at a minimum, it is the privileged sanctuary of someone meant to develop as a human person, and to be treated and respected as such. Once you are a human being, you are a bearer of human rights, even if your person-hood/ensoulment might end up coming further along in the sequence of things. This teaching, I am convinced, may well be one of the strongest declarations of the Church's belief in the absolute primacy of the value of personhood over all other considerations. The human person, even in its most incipient and precursorial instantiation in the embryonic human being, is to be safeguarded in an absolute way.
REV. DR. TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK
Fall River, Massachusetts
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Wohl's World: Decadent Romans, Philosopher Saints And Brutal Goths DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Put yourself in Goth-governed Rome, where you are ruled by the Dark Ages equivalent of professional wrestlers — giant men with shaggy blond hair who value only muscle and loyalty.
They have their good points: They are straightforward, some of them are good men and their women can be attractive and buxom. But of the arts, culture and the intellect, they know but little and care less. They are not Catholics but Arians. And in the end, their answer to any argument is a fist or a sword blow.
Would you, in such circumstances, if you were a Roman, be like the beautiful young noblewoman Rusticiana and stamp your feet in patriotic fury? Or would you, like her philosopher husband Boethius, attempt to act as intermediary between the Romans and the Goths?
Or would you, like Boethius' Senate colleague Albinus, simply say, “Rome is finished,” recognizing that Rome is decadent unto death?
Or would you be like Peter and become an agent of the Byzantines, whose new emperor Justinian and military commander Belisarius are seeking to recreate the Roman Empire (while swayed by women of ill repute and unorthodox religion who send a pope to his death)?
These are the Greeks, the Eastern “Romans,” trusted by neither noble Roman nor simple Goth, given to serpentine diplomacy and given power by mercenary armies whose ranks are filled out by such as the Huns, who murder, rape and pillage their fellow “Romans” while under Byzantine command.
Or would you, like St. Benedict, commit yourself completely to God, a reminder to men of how they should live?
These questions are raised in Louis de Wohl's novel Citadel of God. It is subtitled A Novel about Saint Benedict, but the great saint is absent from most of its pages.
Its sweeping historical drama encompasses personal tragedies such as Boethius' execution; misbegotten espionage, with Peter acting as a Byzantine spy, leaving death and disaster in his wake; and epic struggles, with the Byzantines charging into a more than decade-long war with the Goths. This is the swirling storm of the story. Benedict is the eye of the storm.
Louis de Wohl, the author of this and many other novels about the saints, was the son of a Hungarian father and an Austrian mother. He was a successful author in Germany — many of his novels became films — until the rise of Hitler. He then emigrated to England, and during the war — in which he served in the British army — his Catholic faith was renewed.
When the war was won, he decided to relaunch his novelistic career in his new language, English, and with a new subject: the lives of the saints. He wanted no mere devotional literature but novels that would put readers to grips with men and women confronting war, vice, desperation, despair and love, global politics, personal sin, wrenching sacrifice and utter devotion. He wanted to present men and women who lived dangerously for God.
Citadel of God is a remarkable, vibrant display of a novelist's historical imagination — so effective that it sent me to pulling Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy off the bookshelf, something I hadn't done since college days.
While the thrust of Citadel of God is its page-turning story, there are asides that ask yet deeper questions. After Boethius' death, his widow, Rusticiana, muses despairingly: “Christ, was it worth saving a world like this? … Barbarians, trampling all that is good and noble underfoot and Romans too cowardly to resist, ready to betray the best and deliver them to brutes. They have learned nothing in five centuries, and they will never learn anything. … Let them go, let us all go to perdition. For that is where we belong.”
To her despair, St. Benedict's work provides the counterpoint. We are reminded that St. Benedict was not merely a strikingly good and wise man who hated sin and whose monks preserved and protected Europe's classical inheritance, but he was a man who continually astonished those who knew him by performing what can only be called miracles.
And most of all, in this self-centered world of schemers and sinners — of “rotten senators, murderous Goths, cheating merchants, whores, scoundrels, adulterers, thieves, cutthroats, barbarian robbers, perverts, pleasure-seekers, charlatans and time-wasters” — it is St. Benedict's monks who answer the question of why God should care for such a world.
St. Benedict, an observer notes, has built “a place where everything is done for the sake of God alone,” where the monks' chanted prayers are “like a living cord, a rope he throws up to heaven and God takes it and holds the earth in balance with it.”
That is what saints do for us, and Citadel of God is a salutary reminder of it.
H. W. Crocker III is author most recently of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. His comic novel, The Old Limey, and his book Robert E. Lee on Leadership are available in paperback.
Citadel of God ($14.95, paperback) is available from Ignatius Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: H.W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Requiem DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:We were 10. I loved that number. I still do.
Our dad was a grocer, our mom was a mom and they did the best they could with 10 children, the first being born as the Nazis invaded Poland and the last one coming along at the same time as sputnik.
We lived in a big, drafty two-story house where my mom, a convert, took care of all of us as well as her father-in-law and an assortment of aunts, uncles and cousins as our house became a kind of way station for our larger, extended family.
I was the “baby” and there was almost a never-ending upside to this position in the “lineup.” For one thing, I had three older sisters who all took turns wanting to mother me. This led to multiple trips to toy stores, amusement parks and the beach.
Having six older brothers, on the other hand, was both a boon and a curse.
The older ones were hard to get to know at first because so much of their formative years were behind them by the time of my arrival.
They would filter in and out of my daily existence and they, too, would take a turn in taking me under their wing.
One taught me how to tell time, one how to tie a tie, another how to handle a schoolyard bully. Though it had its drawbacks — namely being called the “baby” and having to walk over to any number of rouged-cheeked aunts at family parties and forced to give them some “sugar” — when all was said and done, being the last in a long line is okay.
I could brag about varsity basketball players, football and track stars — well, they told me they were stars — and then the ultimate weapon of mass destruction for any young boy on any playground in those long-ago days.
I had brothers who were U.S. Marines. Game, set and match.
Gunny Brennan
Which brings me, in a very roundabout fashion, to my brother Ray, or Gunny as we called him. I use the past tense because my brother Ray died in April of lung cancer. He was a younger brother to some of us, a big brother to others of us and a twin to one of us.
When you come from a big family, and when you're way down on the bottom of the food chain as the “baby,” one thing quickly becomes clear: You've got a lot of funerals in your future. I have been to more than I can count. But they were always for “older” relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles.
My brother Ray was 57. That isn't old anymore. In fact, it's getting younger every year. But 40 years of smoking Pall Mall reds caught up to my brother and ravaged him. He was tough as nails. He joined the Marines right out of high school, was given an all-expenses-paid trip to Southeast Asia courtesy of the U.S. government and came home in one piece, where he loved his wife and raised his family.
He was obstinate, stubborn, short tempered and had a mouth like a … well, like a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant. He lived on cigarettes, chocolate doughnuts and coffee, and if his health hadn't turned so drastically for the worse I was half considering marketing his diet in book form.
I don't pretend to know why God chose to call my brother home when he did. But on the other hand, I am not wringing my hands or shaking a fist skyward challenging the Almighty on his timing, either. In the old days we used to pray for a “good” death. We had kind of lost the meaning of that until my crazy, maddening brother Ray showed us all how a Catholic man does it.
The night before Ray died, his wife, Josie, called me to say if I wanted to say goodbye I better come over. I didn't want to say goodbye but I went. In the family room, a hospice organization had supplied a hospital bed, and that's where Ray was when I got there. He was very uncomfortable, the cancer having spread to other parts of his body. He went in and out of consciousness, would look at me, nod and go back to sleep. Like the coward I am I came up with any number of words just to have something to say, though none of the words were “I love you.”
That wouldn't have worked for my brother anyway. This was a man who never gave the sign of peace at Mass to a single human being in his life. That was “hippy” stuff. But he lived the sign of peace in his sometimes difficult, almost always chaotic life.
His faith was as simple as a tap on a rock in the Old Testament and twice as hard. Later on that last evening, my brother Joe, a priest, came over. He was there to anoint Ray. By this time, due to the pain and the inability to get comfortable, Ray had moved to the couch in the family room. He was lying on it, his eyes closed, when Joe approached him and, in a loud voice, hoping to have Ray hear, announced he was here to anoint.
Without a word, and without opening his eyes, either, Ray struggled into a sitting position and without another prompt from my brother the priest, extended his arms and turned his palms up for reception of the holy oils. He was anointed; we all prayed the Our Father. At around four in the morning my brother was gone.
At the Reception
It was the hardest funeral I have ever attended, so far. But my brother wasn't done dispensing gifts to the siblings he left behind. During the reception afterward, as my brothers and sisters gathered together, it struck me.
Through all these years, through bickering, disagreement and un-Christian attitudes we have all participated in against one another, the death of our brother revealed to us all just how close we really are. And there was real joy in knowing I belonged to such a group of people who were at the same time so different and so alike.
There are times when it feels like we are just the sum of our imperfections, but there is never a time when the bond, though sometimes strained, is not felt between myself and all of my brothers and sisters.
Our brother Ray has shown us the way again. And as we laughed and cried, and laughed again during Ray's funeral reception, all us brothers and sisters huddled together in some kind of tribal imperative, I never felt better in my life about my family, my deceased brother and my faith.
I was going to end this piece with the oh-so-clever tagline, “Now we are nine.” But that wouldn't be accurate, because as our mother and father taught us and as we believe, Ray lives on — not just in collective memories of his nine brothers and sisters he left behind but in the reality of Christ's promise. So it looks like I'm stuck with them all.
We are still 10 and will remain 10 … forever.
Robert Brennan is a television writer in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: Death Hits a Large Family ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Brennan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Edwin Sandoval and the Case of the Abortive Amputee DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Satire exaggerates contradictions in order to make them visible, but when society's real contradictions become so exaggerated that they outpace the stride of fiction, then all that is left is merely to report the facts. And so I report State v. Sandoval, a judicial masquerade issued May 7 from the Connecticut Supreme Court.
It all began in Manchester, Conn., with one Edwin Sandoval, who furtively inserted two pills of misoprostol into his pregnant girlfriend's birth canal during intercourse, the very misoprostol used in RU-486 to cause uterine contractions and expel an unborn baby. His girlfriend, who did not want an abortion, immediately went to a doctor, who removed the deadly pills. The baby, a boy, was born alive and well in March 1999.
Sandoval was charged, among other things, with assault. In his defense, he argued that he could not be charged with assault because the fetus (a.k.a., the unborn child) was the target of his aggression, not the mother. This was really rather clever, for he knew that it is perfectly legal to assault an unborn baby with RU-486. He could not be convicted of assault on a fetus with misoprostol without implicating an unending domino cascade of like charges of assault against abortionists all over Connecticut. And since the assault of abortionists rarely fails in being deadly, they would also be liable to charges of murder.
Clever Mr. Sandoval. However, the state of Connecticut, in its case against Sandoval, saw right through the trap.
Cruel enough to protect the deadly assault on the unborn by RU-486 on a daily basis, it was still kind enough to desire the protection of this one mother from the very same assault.
But how? How to be both Jekyll and Hyde? If they didn't come up with something, then the most for which Sandoval could be charged would be practicing medicine without a license.
Making matters worse, as it was Sandoval's baby and the state declared the parents had a right to slaughter it, wasn't Sandoval simply exercising his right? Indeed, he and his girlfriend had already done so a year or two earlier, jointly aborting the first of their progeny. Now, with their second offspring, a split decision: half wanted death, half wanted life. What state Solomon could settle it?
Aha! A simple way out: Charge Sandoval with assault on the mother, not on the baby! For the baby is a nonentity by law, and if a nonentity, then Sandoval had assaulted nothing. But the mother was an entity, one the state believed it must protect. Therefore, Connecticut shifted the burden of assault upon the girlfriend.
But then another difficulty arose: The very definition of “assault” in the state statute didn't quite fit. According to the law, a person is guilty of assault if (1) he causes “serious physical injury to another person … by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument,” or if (2) he attempts “to disfigure another person seriously and permanently or to destroy, amputate or disable permanently a member or organ of his body.”
Well, Sandoval didn't cause “serious physical injury” to his girlfriend, and misoprostol, even though it is both a “deadly weapon” and “dangerous instrument,” is quite legal and laudable in Connecticut for the very reason he intended. Better go to the second option.
For if the second part of the definition of assault were to be fitted to the crime, then the fetus had to be either an organ or member. Happily, “the parties … agree that the fetus is not an organ” so by default the “sole issue that we must decide” opined the venerable judges, “is whether the fetus was a ‘member’ of the victim's body within the meaning of those statutory provisions.”
Everything then hung on the definition of “member.” As luck would have it, the “term is not defined … anywhere … in the penal code.” What then? According to good legal custom, failing explicit legal definition, “the words of a statute are to be construed with common sense and according to the commonly approved usage of the language.” A quick canvass found that “both the defendant and the state agree that … the term ‘member’ means ‘a bodily part or organ,’” and since “organ” had already been eliminated, they were left, by default, with “part.”
So off they went to Webster's Dictionary, to look up “part” — not “fetus,” mind you, which would have proved embarrassing, and certainly not “unborn baby,” but only “part.”
Part: a portion of a whole, less than a whole, a unit of something larger, constituent, fraction, fragment, member, piece. Hmmm. Good enough, pronounced the court, a fetus is a part, and hence a “member,” of the mother. And so they had Sandoval cornered.
“In light of the state's compelling interest in safeguarding life and limb,” the court declared smugly, “we are unwilling to presume that the legislature … sought to protect a person's ear, tongue and skin but not a developing fetus living within, and physically attached to, the mother.” Since “we interpret statutes to avoid bizarre or nonsensical results,” we find Sandoval guilty of assault.
Did the court not see the irony in its own words, the moral schizophrenia in its self-satisfied and curious flourish? Unlikely, or it would have seen it in the law itself. Sadly, justice was blind to this irony, not by the characteristic blindfold of lady justice but by the darkness of the culture of death.
But to light a candle in this darkness is it not a bit bizarre to equate an “ear, tongue and skin” with a “developing fetus living within”? Isn't it a trifle nonsensical that, in the “state's compelling interest in safeguarding life and limb,” a life has been made a mere limb not only to protect it from assault but also to safeguard the right to kill it by abortion?
Despite the court's attempt to cover the nakedness of the state's naked aggression against the unborn, it is simply true, all presumption aside, that in Connecticut and every other state the legislatures, in having both laws against assault and for abortion, are seeking “to protect a person's ear, tongue and skin but not a developing fetus living within, and physically attached to, the mother.”
Sandoval is guilty of assault — indeed, assault on both mother and child. But in convicting Sandoval, the state was unwittingly convicting itself.
Benjamin Wiker writes from Steubenville, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: I am beginning to think our society is beyond satire. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Benjamin D. Wiker ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Our 16-year-old son, Bobby, talked with his friend, Aaron about buying tickets to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Pops concert. They would be playing John Williams music, a favorite of both of theirs.
At the last minute, however, Aaron decided he would rather go to the area-wide prayer meeting for youth.
Bobby was crushed, since he had been looking forward to the concert for two months. And his friend has a driving license, so he was the transportation to the orchestra hall in Detroit, a one-hour drive from our house.
Bobby found himself in a dilemma. He could be mad at himself for not having purchased the tickets yet. If he had, Aaron would have been certain to go, having put down his $40 for a ticket. Or he could be mad at Aaron for backing out. On the other hand, he could conclude that the circumstances meant that God wanted him to go to the prayer meeting.
Then he remembered that he had one more option: dad. I heard him coming down the stairs and I was preparing my answer for the question I knew was coming.
“Would you take me to the concert, Dad?” he asked. (Actually, he pleaded.)
I'm not much of a John Williams fan. I appreciate his music when I hear it in whatever movie it was written for, but to listen to it by itself is like having Rodgers but no Hammerstein. Of course my son would disagree, and I will admit he knows music much better than his tone-deaf father does.
“Let's all three pray (my wife was present too) about it for a couple minutes,” I said. “Who knows what God may have in mind?” Of course my hope was that the Lord would indicate clearly to all of us that my son would derive great benefit from the prayer meeting.
After a few minutes of spoken prayer and then silence for listening, I said that I think Bobby is supposed to go to the concert. Two surprised faces looked at me — at the one who usually has No for an answer before a question is even asked. I had said what I did partly in the hope that I would be outvoted 2-to-1 and persuaded by them that I was wrong. But I knew I was right.
My hopes ended quickly when my wife said that she felt he should attend the concert, too. Then Bobby concurred, but said he was afraid that he didn't deserve to go because he hadn't made good use of his day as far as getting homework and chores done, and that the prayer meeting would be better for him spiritually.
“But God has given you musical ability,” Linda said, “and he wants to bless you at concerts and music events; not just at Mass or prayer meetings.”
I looked at the clock and said that we better get moving. “The concert starts in two hours.” A hurried dinner and we were off.
When the performance was over, Bobby said it was tremendous. I didn't rate it that highly, but it was better than I had expected it to be.
What is the moral of the story? Don't ever pray about something that you already have your mind made up about?
The real moral: God wants to show goodness to our children more than we do. And, in the process, he may bless us by allowing us to be a channel.
Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: Symphony of Signs ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Horning ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Where Anaheim's Real Angels Reside DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:As I walked into St. Boniface Catholic Church, it struck me that I was entering one of the largest churches I've been into in California.
The Anaheim church — located a mile and a half from Disneyland — traces its history back to 1860, when an adobe chapel named for St. Anthony was erected on the rancho of Don Bernardo Yorba.
The chapel was never big enough to gain parochial status, though it served Catholics in what became the city of Yorba Linda for a number of years. In the 1870s, the parish of St. Boniface was established in Anaheim and San Antonio was made a mission of the church that it predated.
The second-oldest parish in the Diocese of Orange (the eldest being Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano), St. Boniface had wide parameters at the turn of the century. In the 1899 Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles directory, the description of St. Boniface reads, “The Anaheim parish includes the whole of Orange County and has, therefore, an area of 730 square miles.”
The population of the county and the parish grew, requiring construction of a new church and, in 1887, the establishment of another mission church. Our Lady of the Rosary was built in Santa Ana, which became the county seat. The “new” St. Boniface Church was a Gothic masterpiece 100 feet long and 42 feet wide, but soon enough the parish had outgrown it. In 1919 a contract was given for construction of the east and west wings.
As the Catholic population in the county grew, so too did anti-Catholic sentiment. One news report describes a fiery cross, set ablaze by the Ku Klux Klan, burning before the doors of St. Boniface. KKK activity was relatively minimal throughout the county, however, and St. Boniface remained safe, faring better than its mission church. Our Lady of the Rosary was destroyed by fire in 1896 under mysterious circumstances; some speculated that the anti-Catholic American Protection League might have been behind it.
In 1960 the parish built the St. Boniface Church that today faces bustling Lincoln Avenue, one of Anaheim's many major streets. The church plant — including a rectory, parish hall and St. Boniface School — is tucked in among historic homes and tiny offices near Interstate 5.
Even on peaceful afternoons, when the church is dotted with people silently praying for their petitions before the altar or in one of the church's shrines, the sound of traffic zooming past makes an interesting counterpoint. At 6:30 a.m. Mass on a weekday, however, the shuffle of worship-pers and the boom of the homily drown out any sounds from the world outside.
Boniface's Bigness
The décor is an unusual but reverent combination of traditional and contemporary. On the left side of the church is a shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, always bursting with flowers; in the back of the church is a chapel for Our Lady of Guadalupe. The temperature here is noticeably warmer than in the rest of the high-ceilinged church, as flickering candlelight dances before statues and portraits of the Blessed Mother. The church's Stations of the Cross are painted directly on the walls, and the altar is a simple, black marble arch atop black marble steps.
Furnishings and decorations are not the only things that have changed. The parish's demographics, too, have shifted over the decades. Anaheim's first Catholics were mostly Mexican laborers hired to lay out the German settlement that was established in the heart of the former Spanish rancho. (Boniface has a strong connection to the German community; born in Devonshire, England, in the seventh century, he served out his priesthood in Germany, where he was eventually killed by pagans.) Later, St. Boniface's parish rolls included German surnames as well as Spanish and those of many other cultures.
Today, the parish offers five Sunday Masses in English, four in Spanish and one in Vietnamese. And even at the earliest weekday Mass, virtually every culture in the diocese is represented in the pews of St. Boniface.
Together they gather beneath the long vivid windows, each one with a purpose: naming the sacraments, illustrating Bible verses, painting the history of our faith.
Just as with the church itself, it is not the size of these windows that makes them so impressive — though their dramatic length is certainly that.
As I worshipped with the parishioners of St. Boniface, it seemed to me that it isn't the size of church or even its history that makes it a vital part of our Catholic heritage. It is the depth of parishioners' faith, then and now, that makes this Orange County church so striking.
And, of course, it is the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist — reserved here in a lovely tabernacle, as in so many other Catholic churches and chapels around the world — that turns a house of worship into God's own home.
It's an obvious distinction, to be sure — but one St. Boniface (feast: June 5) would have given his life to defend. “In her voyage across the ocean of this world,” the bishop and martyr wrote in the early 700s, “the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandons ship but to keep her on her course.”
Elisabeth Deffner writes from Orange, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elisabeth Deffner ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:THE MATRIX RELOADED (Warner Bros) Directors: The Wachowski Brothers. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne. (R)
Take One: Sequel to the massively influential Matrix boasts more kung fu, bigger effects and a landmark, quarter-hour chase scene.
Take Two: One pointless character after another, impressive but thrill-less action and transparently bankrupt philosophical gibberish are compounded by a four-minute excursion into sleaze, with group dirty dancing and an extended sex scene.
Final Take: Weighty arguments about The Matrix as Gnostic allegory or Christian parable notwithstanding, this is one glaringly empty spectacle.
X2: X-MEN UNITED (20th Century Fox) Director: Bryan Singer. Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen. (PG-13)
Take One: Darker sequel to X-Men adds a Catholic superhero to a huge ensemble cast in its ongoing sci-fi adventure tale about a brewing war between humans and super-powered mutants.
Take Two: The violence is regrettably rough in one scene, and blue-skinned femme fatale Mystique is nearly naked in body paint and silicone prosthetics.
Final Take: With the above caveats, X2 is a well-made follow-up to X-Men that will appeal to mature action-adventure fans.
DADDY DAY CARE (Sony) Director: Steve Carr. Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Anjelica Huston. (PG)
Take One: Eddie Murphy's most family-friendly film yet is a cross between Mr. Mom and Kindergarten Cop, with Murphy as an out-of-work exec overwhelmed after naÔvely opening a day care service.
Take Two: Get past the predictable diaper/toilet gags and the weak humor, and you may or may not mind the incompetent-adult-male stereotypes or the indulgent celebration of undisciplined kids running amok.
Final Take: The movie's nominal pro-family/parenthood theme suffers for lack of perspective regarding discipline, responsibility, respect for authority and acceptable behavior.
THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE (Disney) Director: Jim Fall. Hilary Duff, Adam Lamberg, Alex Borstein. (PG)
Take One: Squeaky-clean family fare with Disney's TV-sitcom 'tweenybopper heroine on a class trip to Rome, where she meets a hunky Euro pop star and agrees to impersonate his look alike stage partner.
Take Two: Lizzie spends her whole trip pretending to be sick so she can run around behind the teacher's back cavorting with said pop star; in the grand climax she gets to play Britney Spears to a screaming crowd.
Final Take: Some parents may gladly embrace a family film with no off-color content, but the stunningly false resolution and pop-princess glamorization left a bad taste in my mouth.
BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (Fox Searchlight) Director: Guinder Chadha. Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Myers. (PG-13)
Take One: Think Greek Wedding with soccer and saris, The Rookie with young female athletes and disapproving dad in a turban.
Take Two: Formulaic plot is overpadded with sitcom misunderstandings, and there's too much lying to parents and sneaking around, too much locker-room footage and tiresome gay-themed subplots.
Final Take: Modest entertainment is undone by the above drawbacks. They should have focused more on the soccer.
----- EXCERPT: A Register's-eye view of five current box-office leaders ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Spotlight: The Matrix Reloaded DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:The most influential action movie since Star Wars, The Matrix is a highly problematic film that has attracted attention as much for its spiritual resonances as its ground-breaking special effects and disturbing violence. It's been called a Gnostic allegory and a Christian parable, a world-denying fantasy and a tale of redemption from slavery and bondage.
Critics looking for reinforcement of either theory will be disappointed by the bloated, shallow spectacle of The Matrix Reloaded. Writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski elaborate and complicate their imaginary worlds both within and without the Matrix, but they fail to make either world interesting or thought-provoking.
Inside the prison-world of the Matrix, we meet an esoteric inner circle of figures with names like “the Merovingian” and “Perse-phone” and “the Keymaker,” none of whom has any clear rationale for being in the story.
In the real world outside the Matrix, we find a dull sci-fi civilization in which our own culture, not to say religion, is apparently dead. Christianity survives inside the Matrix, it seems, but it's hard to imagine Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) being an integral part of the cultural mix in the “real-world” city of Zion. In one scene, thousands of Zionites engage in a quasi-cultic, orgiastic, rave-like carousal. As one Christian critic put it, “Please, I'd rather live in the Matrix than with these folks!”
The movie tries to philosophize about free will and causality, yet undermines its own clumsy attempts to suggest that “everything starts with choice.” In the first film, we learned that a character called “the Oracle” had prophesied that two other characters would fall in love. Based on what this film reveals about the Oracle, their “love” must be as causality-bound as the weather. A world in which even love isn't free has no room for human freedom.
— Steven D. Greydanus
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:The Emperor's New Groove
(2000)
The Emperor's New Groove is really about another new groove — Disney animation's. The old Disney-as-usual wasn't selling anymore, and Disney was ready to begin trying new things. This entry couldn't be more different from the ones that preceded it. Instead of a love story, it's a morality tale about an unconscionably self-centered emperor named Kuzco (David Spade) who's forced to re-examine his priorities when, in a metamorphosis reminiscent of Pinocchio and C.S. Lewis's Prince Rabadash, he finds himself transformed into a llama.
Instead of the old Disney anti-family stereotypes (feeble or over-bearing father, absent or irrelevant mother, etc.), there's a refreshingly affectionate portrait of family life. Pacha (John Goodman), the magnanimous peasant who spends most of the movie helping the llama-emperor, is married to ChiCha (Wendie Malick), an attractive, very competent, very pregnant, stay-at-home mother of two; and their kids are adorable — and funny. Eartha Kitt is hilarious as the villainess, and Patrick Warburton as her henchman Kronk nearly steals the show. The fast-paced humor targets kids and adults alike, and there's a touch of whimsy worthy of Chuck Jones (“Looney Tunes”) in the innovative animation.
Charade
(1963)
Often described as the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made, Charade stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in a sparkling thriller with overtones of screwball romantic com- edy. Or is it the other way around? Directed by Stanley Donen, Charade's blend of genres allows it to have its cake and eat it, too. The thrilleresque double-crosses and reversals pull the rug out from under the initially naÔve Hepburn, making her deeply skeptical and suspicious of everyone and everything; yet the element of romantic comedy calls for her to learn to trust and love Grant despite the web of uncertainty that surrounds them both.
On the surface Charade seems cynical and morally ambiguous, as we meet a heroine who talks of divorcing her husband and a hero who seems to be divorced, though nothing is certain where he's concerned. Ultimately, though, the film reveals its reassuringly principled intentions. Grant and Hepburn have considerable charisma and chemistry, and Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy enliven the proceedings in strong supporting roles. Terrific action sequences include a sprawling fight scene that ends on a hotel roof and a riveting climactic showdown. The film's real climax, though, is the romantic final scene.
An American in Paris
(1951)
Unlike the magical Singin' in the Rain, Gene Kelly's An American in Paris doesn't transcend the musical form — but it's still one of the great exemplars of the genre. The plot, characterizations and love story are all paper-thin, but they're just a pretext for Kelly's effervescent dancing and choreography, along with George Gershwin's timeless music. In a conceit both touching and surreal, Kelly plays an American ex-G.I. in Paris who's never wanted anything but to paint, though he's obviously the best hoofer in France.
As in Singin' in the Rain, he's caught between two women — one controlling, artificial and aggressive (Nina Foch); one down-to-earth and charmingly plain-spoken (newcomer Leslie Caron). Since Foch isn't nearly as much fun as shrill Lina Lamont, the film compensates by giving Kelly a rival for Caron (Georges Guetary). Its big claim to fame is the climactic set piece: an extravagant 17-minute ballet sequence that's one of
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: New Generation in Bioethics Launches Magazine DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — Call them the “Kass generation.”
A new bioethics and technology journal coming out of the Washington Beltway promises to address some of the leading issues of the day — the culture of life issues — in a fresh, clear way.
And it's being run by young professionals — almost fresh out of college — in a different generation than cloning opponent and medical doctor Leon Kass, head of the president's bioethics commission and a University of Chicago professor.
In fact, the editorial staff comprises all twenty-somethings. But they are, broadly speaking, from the Kass school of thinking.
The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society is a new journal put out quarterly by the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The first issue includes pieces by historian Victor Davis Hanson and Gilbert Meilander, a theological ethics professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana.
As senior editor Christine Rosen said jokingly, “We editors of The New Atlantis are young mavericks intent on shaking up the technology/bioethics establishment a bit.”
The name of the new journal comes from a Francis Bacon fable from the 17th century. As editor Eric Cohen explained, the fable is about “what it would be like to remake, manipulate and reconfigure nature and human nature — both for better and for worse. It is, you might say, the creation story of modern life and modern science — and especially modern biotechnology.
“To a great extent,” Cohen said, “we live in the New Atlantis, and now we must find a way to live both morally and responsibly with both its burdens and its blessings. We need both an ethic of technology and a politics of technology. We must celebrate, defend and advance those areas of science and medicine that serve human excellence and human dignity; we must face squarely those areas of technology that threaten our very way of life; and we must set limits on those areas of science and experimentation that risk turning human life into a mere thing, a mere project or merely interchangeable and manipulable parts rather than a human whole.”
Yuval Levin, a staffer at the president's bioethics commission and an editor at The New Atlantis, said, “We're hoping to be a key source of ideas on science and technology for conservatives who recognize how important these issues will be to the country's future — to help folks be a little better informed about science and much better informed about what it means for society and politics. I think this first issue gets that tone across, but time will tell.”
And it's not only people who agree with The New Atlantis' politics, however, who are happy to see its creation.
“The New Atlantis recognizes that the politics of the 21st century will turn on technological issues, especially biotechnological advances,” said Ronald Bailey, a writer for the libertarian magazine Reason and a proponent of human cloning.
“The initial editorial by Eric Cohen is more skeptical of the blessings of modern technology than it needs to be, but one must salute the editors' intent to discuss these vital issues seriously,” Bailey noted.
In Kass' piece in the inaugural issue, an essay he originally delivered at the Technology and Society Lecture Series at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, he discusses the “deepest source of public anxiety about biotechnology”: the pursuit of perfection.
“It raises the weightiest questions of bioethics, touching on the ends and goals of the biomedical enterprise, the nature and meaning of human flourishing, and the intrinsic threat of dehumanization (or the promise of super-humanization),” he says. “It compels attention to what it means to be a human being and to be active as a human being. And it gets us beyond our often singular focus on the ‘life issues’ of abortion or embryo destruction, important though they are, to deal with what is genuinely novel and worrisome in the biotechnical revolution: not the old crude power to kill the creature made in God's image but the new science-based power to remake him after our own fantasies.”
Except for some Internet bloggers worried about what they say is the magazine's “Luddite” approach, many signs are hopeful for The New Atlantis — on paper and in reality.
“The New Atlantis promises to be the journal that makes available to the educated public what needs to be thought about and done to bring technological progress under moral and political control,” said Peter Augustine Lawler, a Catholic and a professor at Berry College in Georgia, who has a piece on socio-biology in the first issue of The New Atlantis. “Every article is informed by a proper appreciation of the dignity of the human person as more, much more, than a pursuer of comfort and security. So the authors, whatever their differences, see that the limits and dangers of modern or ideological thought did not disappear but in fact grew with the fall of communism.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
Information
The New Atlantis www.thenewatlantis.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: The High Cost of Unnatural Choices DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:NATURAL RIGHTS AND THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE
by Hadley Arkes
Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002
288 pages, $28 To order: 800-872-7423 or www.cambridge.org
One might think that, after three decades of legalized abortion in the United States, there is nothing left to say about the issue that hasn't already been said. But the conversation continues to develop — indicating its importance to countless Americans long after politicians and judges have wished it would just go away.
Hadley Arkes' Natural Rights and the Right to Choose is a worthwhile entry in the dialogue. Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College in Amherst, Mass., is frequently published in both Catholic and public-policy journals. He was a key figure in the creation of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2001.
Natural Rights is part philosophy lesson, part memoir. As a tutorial in the philosophy of law, it is not light reading. But neither is it beyond the comprehension of most adult readers, and it certainly rewards the effort. For those who have never considered the basic philosophical foundations of American law (or even realized it had philosophical foundations), Arkes offers a lucid and practical explanation.
Most essentially, he shows how the single-minded protection of “the right to abortion” in America's halls of justice has only been possible by rejecting the idea of a natural law on which all rights are based. We have rights, the courts say, not because of some inherent dignity that each of us bears simply by being a human person but because our government has decided to grant them to us. The story of legalized abortion is, Arkes writes, “a story of the radical absence of rights, our nakedness of rights, until those rights are conferred by the powerful.”
But if philosophy is not what you're looking for, don't let that keep you from opening the book. Natural Rights is also an engaging and informative memoir offered by a primary player on the legislative front in the battle to establish a culture of life in America.
We read about behind-the-scenes strategizing by experts in the intricacies of the legislative process and their efforts to use that process — not only to produce laws that protect the unborn but also to stimulate a conversation among the American people about our current laws and their moral dimensions. We also read a firsthand account of the unbelievably stubborn refusal of some politicians and “women's-rights” agitators to consider for a moment the slightest restriction on the sacrosanct right of any woman (or girl) to procure an abortion for any reason.
I had read disturbing descriptions of partial-birth abortion before, always provided by pro-life activists. And yet the clinical description of the procedure that Arkes cites, offered by its inventor, is the most grisly I've come across. Equally repulsive is the evidence Arkes offers for the practice of “live-birth abortion.” He cites the testimony of several nurses, given in congressional hearings, of the practices at Christ Hospital in Chicago, where doctors induce labor and deliver a live fetus only to set it aside to die over a period of hours, wrapped in a disposable towel. So much less of a mess that way. No pieces. And in a place named after the Son of God.
Arkes' book is a clear reminder that, though we have recently observed the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, there is still much that needs saying and doing.
Barry Michaels writes from Blairsville, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barry Michaels ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:40 Years
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SEMINARY, May 14 — As it makes plans to mark the 40th anniversary of its founding later this year, the seminary announced that it is enjoying increased enrollment, a new library and administration building, and a refurbished campus at one of the few fully bilingual major Catholic seminaries in the United States.
Located in Boynton Beach, Fla., in the Archdiocese of Miami, it is a regional seminary, jointly owned and operated by Florida's seven dioceses. It was founded in 1963 and staffed by the Vincentian Fathers through 1971.
St. Vincent de Paul is home to 76 students from Florida and several other states as well as from the Caribbean basin and Central and South America, Ireland, Poland and Vietnam. The seminary reported some of the highest enrollment it has had in 15 years.
Vouchers Tabled
CHRONICLE.COM, May 9 — Colorado legislation that would have created the first voucher program for higher education in the United States was withdrawn for this year after its sponsors conceded that it did not have the votes to pass, reported the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The plan would allow students to dictate, through their college choices, how a large amount of state aid would be allocated among Colorado's public institutions.
Proponents of the scheme — which has attracted considerable interest from educators in other states — say support for the initiative is growing and that it has a strong chance of passing in the next session.
Article Pulled
THE TIMES-PICAYUNE, May 14 — Jesuit Father Bernard Knoth, the president of Loyola University New Orleans, angered staffers of The Maroon, the student newspaper, when he quashed an article about the sudden departure of Scott Fredrickson, the music program director.
The article, headlined “Chair's firing shrouded in secrecy,” was pulled as it was about to go to press, igniting protests by Maroon staffers.
Fredrickson confirmed for The Times-Picayune, a New Orleans daily, that he had left Loyola, but he refused to comment further. Father Knoth told the Times-Picayune that stories on personnel matters were not appropriate for the undergraduate newspaper.
Architect-Priest
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY, May 5 — Jesuit Father Terrence Curry, an architect and artist-in-residence at the university, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach at Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary during the 2003-2004 academic year.
The university said Father Curry would teach courses and run seminars for the faculty of architecture and engineering.
His lectures will emphasize community development and user participation in architecture and urban design.
Brothers Honored
CATHOLIC NEW YORK, May — In a rare gesture, Iona College will award an honorary doctorate at this year's commencement to the Irish Christian Brothers, the founders of the college. While not unprecedented, it is uncommon to award degrees to anyone but individuals.
The brothers, who celebrated their bicentennial in 2002, continue to staff the college and Brother James Liguori, Iona's president, will accept the doctorate of humane letters and speak on behalf of the religious congregation.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Q What do you think about the idea that, if parents are “too strict” or put their moral standards too high, a child will ultimately just rebel?
A I think it is utter nonsense. How's that for sugar-coating my answer?
Certainly if a parent is dictatorial and unloving, he risks raising a child who sees little rationale or warmth underlying the standards and who may ignore or challenge those standards with time. As one expert puts it, “Rules without relationship can breed rebellion.”
The critical difference between strong parenting with love and strong parenting without love, however, is often ignored. Implicitly, the warning is that, no matter how much love, if you expect too much good behavior or you are too different from the rest of the parenting crowd, you're asking for psychological trouble. Your high expectations will be the very thing leading to your child's unruliness. This notion finds face in the stereotype of the “preacher's kid” who, as everyone knows, is the sneakiest, most morally profligate kid in the crowd.
Truth be told, most preachers' kids are more moral and mature than the norm. False notions are fueled by the exceptions that do fit the stereotype.
Some kids will rebel against good rules and limits — regardless of how loving their parents are. As long as free will exists, there are no parenting guarantees. But again, these are the exceptions and, of these, many only temporarily rebel before finally and fully embracing what they were taught for years.
The most crippling aspect of this nutty notion is that it keeps parents from resolutely taking the stands that, deep down, they know are right. All for fear of somehow emotionally pushing their children away. After all, Dorothy already thinks she has the Wicked Witch of the West for a mother and Attila the Hun for a father. So you'll only make things worse by being “too controlling” in your rules. You need to compromise your moral position here and there so as not to appear unreasonable.
It seems to me that, once upon a time, back before the onslaught of all the experts and their theories, parents instinctively understood that it was healthy to set high standards and enforce them vigorously. This led to good kids, not rebellious kids. Now it seems that this instinct is being challenged. Set your bar too high, the new wisdom says, and your children's resistance is a sure sign that you're being too pushy about this whole parenting thing. On the contrary, it's a sure sign that you're a parent and they're kids.
But what if you are clearly way above the parenting norm in your social supervision, in the chores you require, in the respect you expect and so on? Won't your kids draw comparisons? “How can all those people be wrong and you be right?” Sure they will. And they'll resist you even more than they otherwise would if more people thought as you do. Stand strong. The results you want — great kids — will happen. Even if your ride is bumpy and you are much misunderstood along the way.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author.
He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: Do Standards Make Rebels? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:A new study shows that Americans who live where the influence of religion is strong tend to share much more of their wealth with others. In fact, more than $3 of every $4 donated to charity is given to houses of worship or other religious causes. Where the culture is more secular and the practice of religion less prevalent, charitable giving dries up.
Source: Chronicle of Philanthropy, May 1, 2003.
Illustration: Tim Rauch.
----- EXCERPT: Faith Fuels Generosity ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: What Ever Happened to Meatless Fridays? DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Lent has been over for quite a while now. We are at the tail end of the Easter season, 50 days of rejoicing in the resurrection until Pentecost Sunday (that's next Sunday, June 8). The days of fasting are a memory; there's no more need to forego that Big Mac on Friday.
Or is there?
For years the popular perception has been that year-round, meatless Fridays are a thing of the past — a cultural artifact gathering dust in the Museum of Catholic Nostalgia, along with Communion rails and Monday-night novenas.
Yet a glance at canon law reveals that this isn't necessarily so. Canon 1250 states: “The days and times of penance for the universal Church are each Friday of the whole year (emphasis added) and the season of Lent.”
Canon 1251 adds: “Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the episcopal conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday.”
The reasoning seems to be that, in countries where meat is not a regular dietary feature, some other food should be given up instead. Since this is not the case in the United States, what exactly happened to our meatless-Friday requirement?
Canon 1253 provides an exception to the rule — and, perhaps, an explanation for the cultural shift: “The episcopal conference can determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed. In place of abstinence or fasting it can substitute, in whole or in part, other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.”
Remembrance of the Passion
In November 1966, the U.S. bishops did just that. The bishops' conference's “Complementary Norms on Penance and Abstinence” released American Catholics from a strict obligation under pain of sin to abstain from meat on Fridays outside of Lent.
But the same document insisted that Friday was to remain a special day of penance throughout the year: “Friday should be in each week something of what Lent is in the entire year. For this reason we urge all to prepare for that weekly Easter that comes with each Sunday by freely making of every Friday a day of self-denial and mortification in prayerful remembrance of the passion of Jesus Christ.”
The bishops went on to say that, among these now freely chosen penitential practices, “we give first place to abstinence from flesh meat. We do so in the hope that the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law.”
This change came in the wake of Vatican II, a time when adjustments in liturgical and disciplinary law, not to mention theological dissent and some unapproved innovations, were causing a stir among the faithful and in the media. It seems that the Friday-abstinence story was cast by reporters primarily in terms of “no more going to hell for eating a hamburger on Friday” rather than a call to continue the tradition of Friday penance, embraced out of love, and with leeway for more variety.
Perhaps the nuances and distinctions were preached in pulpits at the time, but many Catholics did not follow through. Time went on, two new generations have matured and the notion of Friday abstinence or penance has largely disappeared from many Catholics' conscience.
Recently, there seems to be the beginning of an upswing in the year-round Friday observance. With the growth of EWTN, local Catholic radio stations and other high-fidelity Catholic media, the teaching is receiving more publicity. In addition, many lay movements have made their members aware of the importance of maintaining Friday as a day of penance.
Growing up in Puerto Rico in the 1970s, Marisa Cordero had never heard that abstinence or penance was recommended for non-Lenten Fridays. She was surprised 10 years ago when an American teacher of natural family planning told her Friday penance is still in force.
After moving to the United States, she and her family became involved with a prayer group whose members, by and large, did practice Friday abstinence from meat — often adding penances or prayers. “I thought at first that this was just some local custom for this part of the country,” she says. The Cordero family now also observes meatless Fridays.
Extra Effort
Linda Langlitz of Cincinnati remembers sermons explaining the change when she was a teen-ager. “My understanding was that we could choose some other penance, but somehow I either wasn't told, or didn't grasp, that Friday was still the day for it,” she recalls. “My impression was that we were being told that we should, in general, practice penance regularly, but at times of our own choosing. So for years I did not particularly observe Friday but gave things up occasionally, not systematically.”
Then, some years ago, her husband read what the teaching actually was. “Since then, we do give up meat on Friday,” says Langlitz. “I also give up chocolate, which for me is even more effective, since I love it so much more than meat.”
Therese Bower's family stopped going meatless in the '60s, when she was in grade school, but she does not recall receiving any explanation for the change. Years later, her husband converted to the Catholic faith. He enjoyed studying the faith in his spare time.
“At some point, Keith and I realized that Friday penance was not optional, not abolished,” says Bower. “We now do meatless Fridays, except for the rare occasion when it is tremendously inconvenient. Then instead, we make a point of getting to noon Mass or praying the chaplet.”
“I find that forgoing meat is a good sacrifice, not so much because I like meat,” adds Bower, “but because of the bother of having to plan what to cook. You know, four o'clock rolls around and you say ‘Whoops! It's Friday!’ and you have to figure out what to eat. It often ends up being something goofy, like devilled eggs and toast, so the kids have to put up with that for their penance.”
Those who return to a more faithful practice of Friday penance report that it has proved a valuable source of grace, increasing their self-discipline and reinforcing their Catholic identity.
“When the change first came, I thought to myself, ‘At last they're treating us like adults,’” says Mary Corey of Delhi, Ohio. “But, as the years went by, I also saw the need for structure.”
Father Ed Gearhart, a pastor and canon lawyer in the Diocese of Cincinnati, agrees that the tradition of year-round Friday penance isn't as clearly or universally taught as the regulations for Lenten Fridays are. He makes a point of reminding his parishioners now and then and says he believes the practice is reviving.
“More catechesis would be helpful,” says the priest. “But I do see a trend of more and more people [abstaining]. We seem to be in a time of transition on this.”
Daria Sockey writes from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Daria Sockey ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: In Portland, a Model of 'Poor' Service DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:Commentator Bill Moyers and a television crew from the Public Broadcasting Corp. program “Now” are profiling the Macdonald Center and Residence in Portland to highlight the suffering of Oregon's poor and elderly.
They came to learn about the human cost of state budget cuts as the Oregon Health Plan abandons thousands of people who depend on the partially Medicaid-supported program for their survival.
Moyers is featuring the Macdonald Center and Residence because it has pledged to keep its commitment to the poor no matter what the state does to its medical assistance. His choice of the center for the episode is just the latest in a series of visits by state and nonprofit agency officials from around the nation.
Delegations from North Carolina, New Jersey, California, Arizona and Florida have toured the facility. They have come to learn more about the center's unique assisted-living center for Medicaid patients and its outreach program for the hundreds of forgotten handicapped, mentally ill and elderly who live in the shabby residence hotels that surround Portland's fashionable high-rise downtown.
Since the facility opened on Sept. 1, 1999, the center has received an award of excellence from the American Association of Home Services and a national award for excellence in affordable urban assisted living from the National Cooperative Bank Development Corp.
As it happened, Moyers visited just as the Macdonald Center's services were sorely needed — and its survival seriously in doubt, says Holy Cross Father Richard Berg, the center's founder and executive director. With 11 vacant rooms out of 54, the center is falling $20,000 short in its budget each month.
Despite the difficulties, Father Berg is determined. “We're trying to change the system by being an exemplar,” he says. “This means we intend to continue in operation as we have been. We're not going to close and we're not going to turn anyone out onto the street.”
Welcome Visits
Father Berg's determination has been the driving force behind the center since it was established 14 years ago. With a doctorate in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, Father Berg served at the University of Portland from 1974 to 1993, first as religious superior for the Holy Cross Order in Portland and from 1978 until 1991 as dean of the college of arts and sciences.
In 1989, Father Berg was asked to take over as director of the St. Vincent de Paul Downtown Chapel, which serves the homeless and poor in Portland's skid row area. Upon arrival he discovered that, in addition to the homeless, nearly 2,000 people were living in the 21 low-income residence hotels served by the chapel.
“I recruited students from Notre Dame and the University of Portland and sent them out to visit those people to see what their real needs were,” Father Berg says. “What we identified was that social isolation is the biggest issue for residents in the inner city.”
What would become the Macdonald Center was Father Berg's response: “The volunteers began visiting these people. At first, a lot of doors were slammed in their faces, but after the residents were confident that they weren't there to evangelize, their visits became welcome.”
More than 1,000 volunteers have served as Macdonald Center visitors, overcoming isolation caused by mental illness, physical disability or addiction. Half of those visitors have been students in four Portland-area nursing schools, and Father Berg says they also developed a community-nursing program.
From that, the idea of an assisted-living facility was born. “They found an incredible amount of serious disability and illness,” he says. To expand care, the decision was made to incorporate the center as a separate operation and build an assisted-living facility for those who could not independently care for themselves.
“The Archdiocese of Portland recommended [the reorganization] and Maybelle Clark Macdonald provided the first million dollars toward the $6.5 million construction costs,” Father Berg says. Additional money came from low-income housing tax credits and donations by local philanthropies, including the Meyer Memorial Trust, Murdoch Foundation and Collins Foundation as well as from individual supporters.
Maybelle Clark Macdonald, along with her husband, Fred, is a local philanthropist whose family was successful in the timber industry.
Despite the limited budget, neither the facilities nor the care are poor, Father Berg points out. The rooms are just 235 square feet, but they are well furnished. Public rooms and hallways are decorated and there is a courtyard. Artists provided 150 framed art prints for the walls.
Welcoming the Poor
Resident Jim Bruckner, who has lived at Macdonald Residence for two years, says it isn't the décor but the attitude of the staff that makes the difference. “This is a kind and friendly place where the staff gives support rather than makes demands,” he adds.
Faith makes the difference, says activity director Pam Noble. “It gives us our strength and determines the way we treat each other. Even though we don't talk about it, faith is essential.”
Meanwhile, Nona Bradford, Macdonald Residence director, says that with a payroll of 30 people, it costs approximately $1 million a year to operate the residence and an additional $300,000 to operate the center.
The Macdonald Center's budget comes from donations, while the cost for the residence is covered by an agreement with the state, where assisted-living residents pay $450 of their minimum $552 Social Security income as rent, with another $1,413 provided for their care through the Oregon Health Plan.
“Every one of our tenants [is among] the lowest-income people in the city of all ages,” Bradford says, “but if we are at full occupancy, we can break even on $1,963 per person. So, while other facilities are looking for higher-income people, we've let the word out that we want [the poor].”
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 06/01/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 1-7, 2003 ----- BODY:‘Family-Planning’ Funds Cut
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, May 9 — Missouri's pro-life legislators have cut $3.6 million from the state budget that would have gone to Planned Parenthood and other so-called “family-planning” organizations.
Victorious pro-lifers pointed out that, while none of the $3.6 million allocation has directly paid for abortions, the “family-planning” funds are intermingled and have helped subsidize abortion businesses in the past.
The budget cut was one of many reductions made in the state budget due to a financial shortfall, reported the St. Louis daily newspaper. Unfortunately, a $700,000 allotment to an “abortion-alternatives” program was also eliminated.
British Docs Say No to Death
BBC NEWS, May 13 — If physician-assisted suicide is ever legalized in the United Kingdom, the vast majority of U.K. physicians will refuse to help patients kill themselves.
That's according to an Internet poll of 986 doctors, reported by the British Broadcasting Corp., in which 74% stated their opposition to the practice.
More than half said they have been asked for help to die by a patient, yet 56% also said they considered it impossible to set safe bounds to guard against the misuse of euthanasia. The survey was conducted by Doctors.net.co.uk and commissioned by the pro-life campaign group Right to Life.
Adult Stem Cells for Liver Damage
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, May 14 — Stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical-cord blood may be useful for treating people with liver damage due to cirrhosis, viral infection, trauma, chemotherapy or radiation therapy. That's according to research performed at, and reported by, the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“There is a huge demand for liver transplants but there are never enough organs, and the procedure is not always successful,” said study leader Jan Nolta, Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine at the school. “We're hoping that, in the future, we can use stem cells from … matched donors to help treat liver disease and reduce the need for liver transplants.”
The study, done in immune-deficient mice, showed that human stem cells that normally produce blood cells also can form liver-like cells in a damaged liver. The researchers published their findings in the May 15 issue of the medical journal Blood.
Abstinence vs. Contraception?
AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, May 5 — Research published in the April 2003 Journal of Adolescent and Family Health shows that abstinence, not contraception, is the main reason why teen birth and pregnancy rates are declining.
The report explains that researchers have studied teen birth and pregnancy rates from 1991 and 1994 — and concluded that, among unmarried girls, abstinence accounted for the entire decline in births and 67% of the drop in pregnancies.
According to data collected by the Planned Parenthood-affiliated Alan Guttmacher Institute, there were 85.6 pregnancies for every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19 in 1999, 27% lower than the record high of 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 teens in 1990.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Flag Day 2003: Will 'Under God' Remain in the Pledge? DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — It was on Flag Day in 1954 that the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. On Flag Day this year — June 14 — anticipation is building over whether the U.S. Supreme Court will allow students to continue reciting those words as they place their hands over their hearts.
The Bush administration — along with members of Congress, the Knights of Columbus and the American Center for Law and Justice — are hoping the high court will overturn last year's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the phrase “one nation under God” is unconstitutional.
The lower court said the words violate the separation of church and state since a “profession that we are a nation ‘under God’ is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation ‘under Jesus,’ a nation ‘under Vishnu,’ a nation ‘under Zeus’ or a nation ‘under no god.’”
The controversial phrase owes its origin to the Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic fraternal organization in the world, which lobbied for its inclusion. Congress granted its wish in 1954.
Now the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Knights, urging the Supreme Court to hear the case this fall.
A decision on whether it will be heard is expected this month. “In America, we've known ever since Thomas Jefferson that our rights are not gifts of the state but of the Creator,” said Becket Fund president Kevin Hasson. “The state didn't give them to us so the state can't take them away. It's crucial to remind ourselves — and the government — of that fact every time we pledge allegiance.”
The challenge to the “under God” phrase is replete with ironies. Michael Newdow, an emergency room physician and lawyer, sued on behalf of his 6-year-old daughter because, he said, as a parent he wants his daughter to be free from daily theistic “indoctrination,” which he finds “offensive.”
It turns out that his daughter has stated she has no trouble reciting the words, Newdow said: “When I see our Pledge of Allegiance containing the words ‘under God,’ I see a gross violation of one of our foremost constitutional mandates…. [T]he resultant harm is that a minority population is made to feel like ‘outsiders’ in both situations…. What of those parents who choose not to inculcate their children with such a belief? Where is the religious freedom so precious to our democratic ideals?”
Newdow said his is a “civil-rights campaign” against the “official antipathy toward atheistic Americans,” one he considers to be “as important and as serious as any in our history.”
Newdow says he is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church who later went on and started his own church, the First Amendmist Church of True Science, according to his Web site regarding the Pledge court case, www.restorethepledge.com.
Plus, Newdow's daughter is a devout Christian who attends Calvary Chapel church in Sacramento, Calif., with her mother, Sandra Banning. Banning, who is not married to Newdow, said she was appalled that “the whole nation was under the impression that my daughter was an atheist, when she was raised in a Christian home.”
“As a single Christian mother, I want to set a godly atmosphere for her,” she said. “We speak very openly about the Lord. I pray with her every day and keep her active in church.”
According to Banning, her daughter told her, “Mommy, it doesn't matter to me. I will still say ‘under God’ under my breath.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union thinks that in light of the Supreme Court's “rulings invalidating prayer at school events,” the Pledge of Allegiance is an “unconstitutional endorsement of religion and cannot be recited in schools”; schools “can and should teach tolerance and good citizenship but must not favor one religion over another or belief over non-belief.”
The Pledge of Allegiance was penned during the Reconstruction era, when the United States was beginning its ascendancy on the world stage as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the first wave of European immigrants were landing on the shores of the “land of opportunity” and taking the citizenship oath on the shores of Ellis Island.
The “Pledge to the Flag” was written by Francis Bellamy and James Upham — “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands — one nation indivisible — with liberty and justice for all” — to help inspire American schoolchildren with a love for America and for all of the principles upon which it was founded.
The pair then published it in The Youth's Companion magazine on Sept. 8, 1892, and sent copies of the Pledge to schools throughout the United States so 12 million school-children could recite it during ceremonies commemorating the 400-year anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America on Oct. 12, 1492. Immediately after the celebration, recitation of the Pledge became a daily occurrence in American schools.
Two changes were made to the Pledge during the 1920s. In 1923, the first National Flag Conference in Washington, D.C., voted to change the words “my flag” to “the flag of the United States of America.”
Then in 1942, the Pledge finally received the official sanction of Congress, but the following year the Supreme Court ruled that public school students could not be forced to recite it.
The Knights began adding the words when they recited the Pledge at council meetings in the early 1950s. After signing the bill to add the words in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower told the organization: “These words will remind Americans that despite our great physical strength we must remain humble. They will help us to keep constantly in our minds and hearts the spiritual and moral principles which alone give dignity to man and upon which our way of life is founded.”
U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who would argue the current case before the Supreme Court, said America has a long history of protecting religious minorities such as Newdow.
“This continent was populated by people who surrendered their homes and crossed a terrifying ocean to reach a rugged and inhospitable frontier in order to escape religious persecution and to seek religious freedom,” Olson said.
“From its birth, this nation and the American people have offered sanctuary and shelter to persons of all faiths,” he told the Federalist Society in a speech at their national convention in 2001. “Our Constitution — always with the support of our people — has again and again extended its embrace to the unpopular, the unusual, the unconventional and the unorthodox. We protect not only those who will not salute our flag but also those who would spit upon it or burn it. We regularly pledge our allegiance to a Constitution that shelters those who refuse to pledge their allegiance to it.”
“Far from tyrannizing those who worship a particular god or embrace a particular religion, we protect those who worship any god — or no god,” Olson said.
Therefore, Olson states in his brief to the court that Newdow's case should be overturned because the Pledge is not religious but patriotic speech.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said “the court has ruled again and again in favor of the Pledge,” adding that the Justice Department will “vigorously defend our nation's heritage and our children's ability to recite the Pledge.”
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, said Newdow has “really stretched it.”
“His argument ignores that no one is compelled to recite the Pledge of Allegiance,” Sekulow said. “No student, no adult is forced to say it. It's not a requirement for citizenship. You don't earn brownie points for saying it; there's no reward. It's just a patriotic expression of belief in God's providence and acknowledges the religious history of our nation.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Makson ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Home Schooling Is on the Rise In Black Families DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:WESTERVILLE, Ohio — It appears home schooling has gone mainstream in more ways than one.
Fox News recently reported that home schooling has experienced a 4,000% increase during the past two decades, noting an especially marked increase among black families. Black children are now five times more likely to be home schooled than they were five years ago.
Home schooling is a movement that is growing in black urban and suburban communities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, Richmond, Va., and Prince George's County, Md.
“In the past, many African-American families didn't know that home schooling was an option or didn't understand the dynamics of home schooling,” said Jennifer James, co-founder of the Chapel Hill, N.C.-based National African American Home Schoolers Alliance. “As it has become more mainstream, more of them are seeing it as a viable option for them.”
“It's a growing trend,” commented Alex Jones, a Catholic convert from Pentacostalism who works with the Archdiocese of Detroit. “Parents don't want to expose their kids to the inferior education, the moral climate and the violence so often found in the public-school system.”
Black home-schooling parents agree. “Schools are just not really working,” said Paula Penn-Nabrit, author of Morning by Morning: How We Home Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League (Random House, 2003).
Penn-Nabrit and her husband, Charles, of Westerville, Ohio, began home schooling their three sons 12 years ago in response to the cost of private school and their concerns about race and core values. All three went on to attend Ivy League schools — two attending Princeton and the third attending Amherst.
“The most consistent reason I'm hearing from parents is that they are beginning to seriously question the impact of institutionalized racism on our children,” Penn-Nabrit said. “Eighty-three percent of K-12 teachers are Caucasian, white women. Yet there has been no serious analysis of how that variable plays out among the high proportion of low performance among black boys in schools.”
A variety of organizations provide a valuable network and support for home schoolers of color. They include groups such as the Afrocentric Home School Association, the National African-American Home Schoolers Alliance and Mocha Moms — an organization of black stay-at-home mothers with 81 chapters in 27 different states.
Although their children are only ages 5 and 2, Jennifer and Michael James founded the National African-American Home Schoolers Alliance in January. “We wanted to have a network in place for them once they reach school age,” Jennifer said. Currently, the organization has more than 150 members in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Crystal Welsh, of South Euclid, Ohio, is a member of the Afrocentric Home School Association. She began home schooling her 5-year-old son, Jared, last year and plans to begin home schooling her 10-year-old son, Jabari, next fall.
“Jabari is gifted and talented,” Welsh explained. “Because of peer pressure from classmates, he didn't do as well as he could have. He didn't want to be ostracized by his classmates. He went from a child who put his hand up all the time to being a child that didn't say a single word the entire school year.”
In the last month alone, Welsh said she has discovered a number of families that have been home schooling for a long time. “Here I thought I was being the radical one, and I'm meeting people who have been doing this for 15 to 20 years,”
Welsh said.
She explained that she has already seen a difference between the socialization of her two sons.
“Jabari has been socialized to think, ‘I can only play with children who are in my age group,’” Welsh said, “but our youngest son doesn't mind playing with those who are much older or those who are younger.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Law, Faith and 'Cultural Leprosy' DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Douglas Kmiec, dean of the Catholic University of America School of Law in Washington, D.C., lends a Catholic voice to the debate over legal issues of the day.
He taught law at the University of Notre Dame for many years after attending Northwestern University and the University of Southern California's law school. He also worked in the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.
Register correspondent Joseph A. D'Agostino talked to Kmiec about his faith formation, law and life in Washington.
Are you a cradle Catholic or a convert?
I'm a cradle Catholic who was converted. I was born and baptized Catholic and was raised in a Catholic family that took its faith very seriously, but I also have been blessed along the way to encounter faith-filled people who have been an influence on my life. They have opened the doors of faith to me in ways many people are not fortunate enough by virtue of their busy lives to encounter.
So, when I say that I am a converted cradle Catholic, I mean my faith has been deepened by an association with these good people and by the things they have invited me to read over the years, much in the way someone new to the faith might be excited for the first time by encyclical writing or by reading aspects of the catechism and reflecting on what that means in one's own life.
Did you fall away for a while and then come back?
No, I think it was a question of being like those who, at least as I perceive it, become somewhat complacent about faith or who are just simply not engaged in the way faith wants to embrace all of you — your spiritual side as well as your intellectual side.
I think people worship and kind of stay at a certain pattern, at a certain level; they plateau. They don't give up their faith. They're guided by it at a very basic level, but they're not really challenged by it. I think I've been fortunate to be challenged along the way, to have to explain my belief to others and therefore find out more about it.
I am going to guess a lot of this had to do with reading intellectual material. Is that true?
Initially, but some of the intellectual things I would be instructed to read — whether it was Thomas Aquinas or the City of God or whether it would be encyclical writing of the Church — has prayers embedded within it. I look at Pope John Paul II and his marvelous body of work, and at every turn, when he reflects on the significance of family or the significance of human work, he's linking that to Scripture.
I have on my morning table the devotional of Abraham Lincoln — not a great Catholic scholar. Mary Todd Lincoln gave Abraham a devotional and it largely consists of the Psalms, but there are New Testament passages. The devotional has from the original author little doggerel or poetic phrases that deepen the meaning of the Scripture itself or elaborate on it.
The historians disagree over the extent to which Lincoln himself relied upon it, but there is some evidence that in fact he treasured this book not only because it was from his wife and family but also because of the extent to which he carried it with him almost regularly. It was a gift from my own spouse, on Father's Day I think, and I just find it a wonderful resource.
Are you an admirer of Lincoln?
I am. I think he wrestled with a great moral dilemma. He didn't get it correct right away; he had his imperfect territorial solutions and so forth that he attempted on the slavery question and ultimately saw the imprudence and immorality of that.
But Lincoln did something very important for us — he reminded us that the Constitution can't be understood and we can't really govern ourselves without the premises of the Declaration of Independence. So for me Lincoln was a necessary course correction at a time when the Constitution might have become merely a commercial charter.
As opposed to one based on natural law?
Well, I think Lincoln takes it closer to being one based on natural law. I view the Declaration of Independence as the closest we get from the founding generation that is an explicit embrace of natural law.
You talked about how reading deepens your faith. Was there some particular book or body of books that did that? Many look to St. Augustine as a great influence.
I'm going to echo that sentiment. I feel so imperfect to my tasks during the day that reading Augustine is a great encouragement because of his coming to terms with his own sin and imperfection, and his heartfelt and honest laying that out. I always find that useful for my own examination of conscience.
As a lawyer and someone who teaches jurisprudence, I think Thomas and his treatise on law can't be overlooked, but I will say I find it less personal than Augustine and far more intellectual in the sense of abstract and philosophical premises worked through to conclusion.
Who were these people who got you to read these things that deepened your faith?
There were people at different times. I was greatly taken with Fulton Sheen as a youngster. Anybody growing up in the '50s was plunked down in front of his program, “Life is Worth Living,” and my mother and father would find reprints of his and bring them home. One of the things they started us doing as a family was to read together as a family, often out loud, and I have continued that with my own five children. The things we would typically read would be essays of Fulton Sheen's, so I suppose I have to give him credit.
In college and law school, I wandered through secular sources that ultimately proved to be unsatisfying, so it was really learning in the negative. It was the era of John Rawls, and his theory of justice was all the sparkle of the intellectual community. I remember taking multiple philosophy seminars that implicated Rawls or Kant or individuals of like nature, including those far less favorable to anything — Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Hegel and the like.
Northwestern had a wonderful philosophy department, and I suppose if I were to find one savior out of the desert it would be the late Henry Veatch, who was an Aristotelian scholar. But as an Aristotelian, he was a kind of a foundation for me for Aquinas, and he would encourage me to read both. Even in that college period, people would start showing me the good things. It was like being let in to the good part of the library.
Did you become more Thomistic in reaction to that?
I had two benefits in my law school period. One, I was married, so I became more family-oriented. I didn't have children at the time, but I was oriented toward my spouse and her interests as an antidote to the coarsening of the human heart or personality in law school, and that was a wonderful leaven to have.
And, increasingly, I would find I would be wandering into St. Basil's in Los Angeles, which was the home of the former Cardinal [J. Francis] McIntyre, and he would ensure that the back vestibule of the church was filled with things you could just pick up and read. That became my way of actually keeping sane, which is the way I would put it, in terms of law studies.
Following law school, I returned from California to home base. I was born and raised in Chicago, and at the time there were family needs to be close to my parents, and so I didn't think about practicing in Southern California. I stayed in Chicago and practiced until I went to Notre Dame.
[Between Notre Dame and Catholic University] there was an inter-regnum at Pepperdine.…It was not just nice geographically. This was an eye-opener of faith as well.
People — Protestants especially — tend to criticize Catholics as not being scripturally grounded. The founding faith of Pepperdine is the Churches of Christ. Of the things I remember most vividly from being there was a very large Bible lectureship that involved thousands of people who would come from across the country to study the Bible, reflect on it and think about its meaning in their daily lives; it was remarkable to see.
My experience at Pepperdine [was not] in any meaningful sense for me incompatible because right at the foot of the hill was the little Catholic church my younger children attended and where my wife taught and where we both were religious education teachers on Sunday.
What do you think of the environment in Washington for Catholics and other traditional religious people? Somehow now it's controversial for Sen. Rick Santorum to express basic Catholic doctrine on homosexuality.
I'm an optimist when it comes to this. First of all, the Scripture tells us that nothing is impossible for Christ. I believe it. I also believe that I am the master of my own faith and happiness in terms of how strongly I want to immerse myself in both. Abraham Lincoln, again, said that we have the capacity to make ourselves happy if we want. A melancholy man said that.
We can view ourselves as cultural lepers who are always subject to attack and always marginalized, and thereby make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or we can just do what Santorum did — and I hope he has no regrets about doing it; I don't think he does — which is to say honestly, My Church has given me significant moral guidance on this question. It has acknowledged that everyone, homosexual or not, is created in the image and likeness of God but that there are sexual practices that aren't open to life, that aren't consistent with marriage, aren't consistent with family and, quite frankly, for that reason are viewed as morally inappropriate.
All it takes is one voice like Santorum to turn it around, and then 10 more voices are informed by the Catechism and those 10 in fact multiply themselves.
Do you think a small elite could lead the way and lead a lot of people?
Yes, because I think they are speaking the truth of the human person. I think that's what the Holy Father tells us over and over again: “Be not afraid.” Don't be afraid of your faith…in a democracy, which the Holy Father also warns can be idolized to the point of being the end of the moral enquiry.
Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Connecticut Cathedral: A Renovation According to 'Spirit of the Liturgy' DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — After ceiling plaster fell onto empty pews below in early 2001, St. Augustine Cathedral in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., was temporarily closed for patchwork repairs. Then Bishop William Lori arrived and took things in another direction.
He thought it was time for a thorough renovation. At the same time, he was prompted by the 50th anniversary of the diocese in 2003.
While some church renovations around the country, such as the one planned for the Cathedral of Rochester, N.Y., have engendered protests for the perceived destruction of beautiful edifices, the Bridgeport renovators have been careful to preserve the church's historical beauty and integrity. They also plan to keep the tabernacle in a prominent place.
Bishop Lori, an auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C., before coming to Bridgeport, set two main goals. “I wanted to be faithful to the original Gothic spirit of the cathedral while at the same time making sure the cathedral was well-suited to the requirements of the liturgy,” he began.
Second, he wanted to increase seating from 550 to about 750 “to accommodate more people so this cathedral could be the center of liturgical life, to bring people back from [all over] Fairfield County,” he explained. And he wished for a sanctuary with room for all priests concelebrating with him.
“We tried to get a sense of what the cathedral has looked like,” Bishop Lori said about initial planning. “It has a good architectural lineage and heritage. It's important we preserve it.”
Liturgy First
The cornerstone of the 135-year-old neo-Gothic edifice, the oldest church in the large one-county diocese, was laid on Aug. 28, 1864, the feast of St. Augustine. Parishioners worshipped for the first time in the church on St. Patrick's Day 1868.
Patrick Charles Keely of Brooklyn designed the church. Keely designed 26 cathedrals and more than 600 churches, some of which were subsequently turned into cathedrals. Such was the case with St. Augustine's when the Diocese of Bridgeport was erected Aug. 6, 1953.
Bishop Lori explained the guiding principle for the renovations. “It seems to me that the first task for all of us is to study and contemplate the authentic spirit of the liturgy,” he said, “to recognize what we are celebrating first and foremost are the mighty deeds of salvation accomplished by Christ in the Holy Spirit.”
For the $4.5 million project, church architect Henry Hardinge Menzies of New Rochelle, N.Y., faced two big challenges. One was “to give importance to the altar and the tabernacle,” Menzies said, and the other was “to design all these new elements to look as if they were already there in the cathedral.”
A number of original furnishings and traditional elements had been removed during renovations in 1978 for the diocese's 25th anniversary. Among what remained were splendid stained-glass windows and Keely's decorative work such as columns, capitals and rosettes, some bearing shamrocks as signs of the Trinity and part of the architect's signature.
Standing in the nearly gutted church, Bishop Lori noted the “intricate, nice work,” indicating renovations will “simply call the people's attention to it.” At the same time, new elements such as the altar, pulpit and baldacchino “will be very consonant with the style of the cathedral,” he said.
The aim is to keep the traditional lines of the neo-Gothic church but in a modern idiom, Menzies explained. For example, although inspired by the baldacchino at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, he designed a unique, arched one for St. Augustine's.
This four-ton baldacchino with bronze pillars and an open-top effect will highlight the new altar. A 500-pound statue of the Archangel Gabriel blowing a trumpet will stand on the pinnacle. Suspended directly above the altar will be a huge realistic wooden crucifix from Northern Italy with a 5-foot corpus.
“The altar, the table of Christ's sacrifice, still will be the focus of the sanctuary,” Bishop Lori emphasized.
‘Sacrament House’
On the day the Register visited the work in progress, the tabernacle had arrived from Madrid, Spain. “A ‘Sacrament house,’ as they say in German,” Bishop Lori noted. The gleaming gold tabernacle was designed by the architect to follow the cathedral's Gothic lines and with the idea of being placed at the center-rear of the sanctuary.
After looking at all the options, Bishop Lori made the pastoral decision to reserve the Blessed Sacrament at the back of the sanctuary, he said.
“The Mass is the most important thing in the church,” noted Menzies, whose articles on Church architecture have appeared in Homiletic and Pastoral Review. “But when there's no Mass, the most important is the tabernacle where the Blessed Sacrament, our Lord, is.”
He said St. Augustine's was originally built as a church, not as a cathedral, with an added Blessed Sacrament chapel. With the tabernacle planned for the sanctuary, the architect placed it directly behind the altar.
“Anything on the axis is prominent, off it is secondary,” he said, explaining that when the tabernacle is off to the left or right, its location is architecturally secondary and causes the problem of balancing something of equal importance on the other side.
“But what other element could be of equal importance to the tabernacle?” he asked.
Italian marble and granite will be extensive throughout the church. In the sanctuary, light and deeper green marbles will form a diamond pattern beneath the marble altar with a marble and limestone base.
The new green marble octagonal baptismal font will be relocated at the entrance to the nave and double as a holy water font. The reason, Bishop Lori explained, is because “the baptismal font symbolizes baptism as the entryway into the life of Christ, into the life of the Trinity.”
The renewed cathedral will be rededicated Dec. 2, exactly 50 years to the day Bishop Lawrence Shehan, later a cardinal, was installed as Bridgeport's first bishop.
“The church should be the spiritual home for our people,” Bishop Lori said. “But it also is a proclamation in wood and stone and slate of what the Lord in his goodness has done for us.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from
Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dei Verbum Calls All to Read the Bible From the Heart of the Church DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, Zenit news service is asking Church leaders and prominent laity to reflect on the main documents of the council.
In the following interview, Zenit spoke with Scott Hahn about Dei Verbum (The Word of God), the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation.
Hahn is professor of Scripture and theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and holds the Pio Cardinal Laghi Chair at the Pontifical College Josephinum. He is founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and founder and director of the Institute of Applied Biblical Studies.
Where has been the greatest progress in the understanding of Scripture within the Church?
I'm tempted to say that the greatest progress is Dei Verbum itself.
The document is a remarkable development — a positive, constructive, integral, holistic approach to the ways God reveals himself. There were three major renewals in the Church in the years leading up to Vatican II: in Scripture studies, in patristics [the study of the Church Fathers] and in liturgy. Dei Verbum was a synthesis of all three.
The document in turn inspired many further developments. I think the greatest was the pure distillation of Dei Verbum's teaching that appears in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially Nos. 75-136.
The Catechism distills the essence of the document and shows us a practical, pastoral, Catholic approach to the Scriptures, as they are read in the liturgy and in accord with tradition. The Catechism takes its cue from Dei Verbum and calls us all to read the Bible from the heart of the Church.
What are the major points of
It's all about divine revelation, which is more than propositions and data — it's more than just facts we have to learn. The major point of the document is our salvation. Salvation is more than avoiding hell and getting into heaven. It's sharing the power of divine love with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The new covenant is the life-giving love of the Trinity that spilled out of eternity and into time, out of Israel and into the nations. The Trinity is the source and the fulfillment of revelation, the beginning and the end.
What is revealed is the eternal mystery of God's inner life. By revealing himself, God empowers us to share his life forever. This is what Christ came for. This is why we receive the Holy Spirit. This triune personalism is at the heart of Dei Verbum.
The document then provides a golden setting for the jewel of the Scriptures when it speaks about Tradition. What comes across most clearly is the fact that Tradition is alive. As Catholics, we don't see Tradition as archaic or arcane. It's not an antique heirloom. We speak of “living Tradition,” “sacred Tradition.” It's something organic, something dynamic.
And where does Tradition possess its greatest vitality? In the liturgy, where the Scriptures are proclaimed each day. Tradition, then, is not something we fall back on when we can't find a doctrine in the Scriptures.
No, Dei Verbum shows us that Scripture and Tradition are interdependent. The apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. It is Tradition that defined the canon of the sacred books. It's in the communion of saints that we find our Bible-study group, our interpretive community.
So sacred Scripture is the Word of God; sacred Tradition takes the Word of God and hands it on in full purity; and Scripture and Tradition together form one sacred deposit of the faith.
How does the magisterium fit in?
The magisterium is that “unending succession of preachers” in our own time. Again, like Tradition, the magisterium is not something reactionary or reliquary. It's a living, breathing part of the sacred mystery of divine revelation.
The magisterium carries on the task of the apostles with the same divine power they possessed. So it's not a hanging judge, not an umpire, not a traffic cop. Its task is to proclaim the Gospel.
Dei Verbum says that the magisterium alone has the responsibility of authentically interpreting the Word of God. Non-Catholics and dissenting Catholics have sometimes presented this as a demotion — having to submit to authority outside themselves — but it's not a demotion. It's actually a promotion.
Who, after all, is more powerful, the mayor of a village or the vice-president of a nation? We are actually more powerful when we place ourselves in the service of a greater power.
So Catholic interpreters are not prevented from going deeper; they're empowered to go deeper. Since we're able to avoid certain errors, we can explore the Bible with greater freedom, power and assurance.
What is the greatest challenge still ahead of us?
The Pope himself threw down the challenge in 1994, in his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente.
He called for an “examination of conscience” over how the Church has received the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. “To what extent,” he asked us, “has the word of God become more fully the soul of theology and the inspiration of the whole of Christian living, as Dei Verbum sought?” Those are sobering words.
Since I am a professor of Scripture and theology, I suspect that they're the words I'll be judged by. Have I done all I can to promote biblical literacy among lay people and biblical fluency among the clergy? God help me if I haven't.
What advice would you give someone who wants to make the most of the Bible in his or her life?
Read the Bible from the heart of the Church. Read the Bible along with the Church, with the Old and the New Testaments as they appear together in the lectionary. Listen to them in the liturgy, but read them, too, either before Mass in preparation or afterward in meditation.
Taking the Scriptures in devotional reading and participating in the Mass creates a sort of feedback loop. The more you do one, the better you do the other. And read Dei Verbum! Its language is actually very simple and accessible to lay readers. I've read it dozens of times. It doesn't get old; it gets better.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Alone Governs History DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Psalm 108, which we just heard, is part of the sequence of psalms in the morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours that has been the theme of our weekly catechesis. At first glance, it has one surprising characteristic.
The composition consists of two passages from earlier psalms — one from Psalm 57 (verses 8-12) and the other from Psalm 60 (verses 7-14). The first passage sounds like a hymn, while the second passage is like a prayer of petition that contains an inspired word from God that imparts a sense of peacefulness and confidence to the psalmist.
This fusion gives birth to a new prayer, thereby becoming an example for us. Actually, our Christian liturgy often combines different biblical passages and transforms them into a new text that is designed to shed light on new situations. However, the connection with the original texts is still there. Indeed, Psalm 108 (although this is not the only one; see Psalm 144, to mention just one other example) shows how already in the Old Testament Israel would use the word that God had revealed in a different way in order to make it relevant for current times.
A New Song
The psalm that results from this combination is, therefore, something more than the simple sum or juxtaposition of two pre-existing passages. Instead of beginning with a humble plea like Psalm 57, “Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me” (verse 1), the new psalm begins with a resolute proclamation of praise to God: “My heart is steadfast, God…I will sing and chant praise” (Psalm 108:1). This praise takes the place of the lament found at the beginning of the other psalm (see Psalm 60:1-6), and thus becomes the basis of the inspired word from God that follows (Psalm 60:8-10; Psalm 108:8-10) and the plea that precedes and follows it (Psalm 60:7,11-14; Psalm 108:7,11-14). Hope and despair blend together to form the basis of a new prayer that aims at sowing trust, even during the time of trial that the whole community is experiencing.
Thus, the psalm opens with a joyful hymn of praise. It is a morning song that is accompanied by harp and lyre (see Psalm 108:3). The message is clear and is centered on God's “love” and “truth” (see verse 5). In Hebrew, these words hÈsed and 'emËt are terms that are typically used to define the Lord's loving faithfulness to his covenant with his people. On the basis of this faithfulness, God's people can be sure that he will never abandon them to the abyss of nothingness and despair.
God Is Exalted
The Christian interpretation of this psalm is particularly thought provoking. In verse 6, the psalmist celebrates God's transcendent glory: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.” When commenting on this psalm, Origen, the famous Christian writer of the third century, recalled Jesus' words: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (John 12:32), which refers to the crucifixion. The effect of the crucifixion is what is affirmed in the subsequent verse: “that your loved ones may escape” (Psalm 108:7). Origen concluded with these words: “What a wonderful meaning! The reason why the Lord was crucified and exalted was so that his loved ones may be delivered…All that we asked for has come true: He has been exalted and we have been delivered” (Origen-Jerome, 74 Omelie sul Libro dei Salmi, Milan, 1993, p. 367).
God Governs History
Let us now turn to the second part of Psalm 108, which, as we have noted, is a partial quote from Psalm 60. Although Israel in its anguish feels that God is absent and distant (“Was it not you who rejected us, God?” in verse 12), the voice of the Lord resounds in the Temple (see verses 8-10). In this revelation, God appears as arbiter and lord of all his Holy Land, from the city of Shechem to the valley of Succoth that lies beyond the Jordan, and from the eastern regions of Gilead and Manasseh to the southern centers of Ephraim and Judah until finally reaching the vassal but foreign territories of Moab, Edom and Philistia.
In colorful military and juridical images, God's lordship over the Promised Land is proclaimed. If the Lord reigns, there is no reason to fear: We are not tossed here and there by the dark forces of fate or chaos. There is at all times, even in the darkest moments, a higher plan that governs history.
This faith enkindles the flame of hope. In any event, God will show us a way out, a “fortified city” located in the area around Edom. This means that, in spite of trial and silence, God will return and will reveal himself in order to sustain and guide his people. Decisive help can only come from him and not from foreign military alliances or from human help (see verse 13). He alone is the source of freedom and through him alone “we will triumph” (see verse 14).
With St. Jerome, let us recall the psalmist's last lesson, interpreted in a Christian perspective: “No one must despair in this life. You have Christ yet you are afraid? He will be our strength, he will be our bread, and he will be our guide” (Breviarum in Psalmos, Ps. CVII: PL 26, 1224).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Gaza Strip Closure Hinders Aid Workers DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM — Israel recently decided to curtail the movement of relief workers into and out of the Gaza Strip. This severely hampering efforts by humanitarian aid organizations — including Catholic charities — which provide assistance to needy Palestinians.
Since May 10, Israeli authorities have barred those without diplomatic passports from entering or leaving Gaza, a densely populated territory Israel captured from Egypt in 1967. Conditions there are among the most wretched in the world and hundreds of thousands of people rely on various forms of assistance from more than 40 nongovernmental organizations.
Israeli authorities decided to hermetically seal Gaza, which was already under a looser security closure that restricted movement of Palestinians, following a spate of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli civilians in May. These attacks, which were perpetrated by militant groups that reject Israel's right to exist, coincided with the resumption of peace negotiations under the framework of the new Middle East “road map.”
A Mideast peace summit with President George Bush and the prime ministers of Israel and the Palestinian Authority was expected to take place in early June.
Israel's closure of Gaza also came after three members of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity movement were injured — one fatally — by Israeli troops while they acted as human shields. They entered Israel claiming to be relief workers.
In a statement issued May 26, the same day it held a demonstration against the closure policy, the Association of International Development Agencies charged Israel with impeding humanitarian work.
“The Israeli measures are contributing to the overall erosion in the ability of humanitarian aid and development organizations to provide assistance to the Palestinian people. Many organizations have been forced to spend up to 50% of their working hours dealing with the growing restrictions,” the statement said.
The 41 organizations that signed the statement called for Israel to “immediately lift the restrictions” and to provide “full and unrestricted access to all.”
Daniel Seaman, an Israeli government spokesman, dismissed the organizations' complaints, insisting that some relief workers are still permitted to enter Gaza.
“There is a procedure to gain permission,” he said. “They have to submit a request to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]. Then the individual's background is checked.”
Citing cases where foreigners entered Israel, Gaza and the West Bank claiming they were relief workers but instead acted as “human shields” during Israeli military operations, Seaman said, “Some people took advantage of these organizations to help terrorists. When these organizations stop aiding and abetting terrorists and Palestinians stop murdering Israelis, then we'll reconsider their request.”
In response, nongovernmental organization representatives say their work, which is vital to countless Palestinians, should not be hindered by the questionable behavior of a small group of individuals. They stress, too, that aid workers who were once considered acceptable to Israel's military are suddenly being grounded.
“I definitely understand Israel's concerns, but to deny humanitarian workers to carry out their work, which affects large numbers of Palestinian civilians dependent on aid, isn't the answer,” said Nanna Ahlmark, the communications officer for Caritas, a Catholic charity.
Caritas has been forced to delay the opening of a state-of-the-art clinic in a Gaza refugee camp because the closure has prevented it from hiring staff.
“This is a large problem affecting all humanitarian organizations working in Gaza,” Ahlmark said. “It's affecting our projects and many, many others.”
Refused Entries
Sue Turrell, regional Middle East manager for Christian Aid, an interdenominational agency of British churches, said Israel has refused her entry into Gaza on three separate occasions during a three-week period.
“I come to Gaza three to four times a year to meet with our partners, to check on the progress of various projects, to see how the money is being spent. Now I'll have to come an additional time once the border is open again,” Turrell said wearily.
Christian Aid's partners, which include the Near East Council of Churches, run clinics and vocational schools and help small farmers.
Due to the closure, Turrell said, her organization has been unable to establish a new program that, once up and running, will provide small grants for community projects.
World Vision Israel, an ecumenical Christian organization, has also been badly affected by the limits being imposed on aid workers.
“Our main office is in Gaza City, so important papers aren't getting through, financial matters can't be processed and programming is suffering,” said Allyn Dhynes, who works on advocacy and peace building at World Vision. “Now all business is conducted by phone, fax or e-mail — provided the electricity is on at the time.”
During a recent Israeli army incursion into the Gaza neighborhood of Beit Hanoun, a fresh-water well dug by World Vision was destroyed by an army bulldozer.
Prior to the travel restrictions, Dhynes said, “our staffers waited four to five hours at the checkpoint. That in and of itself hindered us. Now, the closure allows for no movement whatsoever.”
Dhynes said that of World Vision's staffers, an American national was recently refused entry. “The Israelis said it was for security reasons,” he said.
“We're not human shields,” Dhynes said, referring to the foreigners who have recently tried to intercede during Israeli military operations.
“That's not our mandate,” he added. “Humanitarian aid is our mandate.”
There are signs that the “road map” is already yielding results, however. Following a meeting with Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas May 29, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said that he would order the IDF to pull out of the center of West Bank cities. Israel Radio reported the next day that Sharon also intends to ease restrictions on humanitarian organizations working in the occupied territories.
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Iraq's Christian Liquor Stores Attacked
THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 22 — In a region of the world where alcohol is mostly illegal — banned because it conflicts with the Koran — Iraq was once an oasis, The New York Times reported. But the place is drying up.
Saddam Hussein closed Basra's discos and bars in the 1990s in an attempt to burnish his image as a good Muslim, although he allowed local Christians to keep their liquor stores open.
Now those Christians are the victims of vigilante attacks by newly dominant Shiites; firebombs, shootings and warnings of worse have rained down upon Christian liquor-store owners since the fall of secular-minded Saddam, the paper noted.
“They told me, ‘If you don't close the shop in an hour, we'll destroy it.’ I closed,“ one shop owner said.
Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Gabriel Kassab of Basra has advised all 150 liquor-store owners in that city to shut down for their own safety, according to the Times.
Archbishop Kassab said harassment of non-Muslims has worsened since the war; for instance, Christian women are frequently accosted for leaving the house without Islamic garb.
French Republic Attacks Church at U.N. Meeting
CATHOLIC FAMILY AND HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE, May 19 — The government of France, which has been officially anticlerical more or less since 1789, has weighed in against religion at the United Nations, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reported.
The Catholic lobbying group was stunned to hear a French delegate at a U.N. debate assert that religious — and even moral — concerns have no place in U.N. debates.
The subject at hand was abortion, specifically the application of the National Abortion Federation, a trade association of abortionists, which was applying to the U.N. for status as a nongovernmental organization. The delegate from the Holy See pointed out the federation “does not respect life. It destroys life in its budding stages, when it most needs our protection.“
Arising in outrage, the French delegate to the meeting accused the papal ambassador of injecting “moral” and “religious” criteria into proceedings of the United Nations.
Russian Orthodox Church Assumes Czarist Privileges
FORUM 18 NEWS, May 27 — The Russian Orthodox Church is taking on many of the trappings of an official state church, suggested a report by Forum 18 News out of Oslo, Norway.
“There has been a steady increase over the past seven years in concordat-style agreements between the Russian Orthodox Church and various organs of state,“ the report said.
It noted the Orthodox Church is routinely granted preferential status in prison ministries, allotted government money to rebuild some of the many churches once destroyed by the communists and designated to give talks to local police. An Orthodox chapel has even been built alongside the Ministry of Internal Affairs building in Moscow, the site reported.
Such privileges for the Orthodox are seen by some as a threat to the religious liberties of Catholics; however, they mirror the Church-state arrangements traditionally sought by popes for Western countries.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Home Schooling Hits Prime Time DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Not all of the media attention focused on home-educated families has been positive. Warner Brothers television recently unveiled its parody of home schoolers in the sitcom The O'Keefes.
The television program, which debuted May 22, is loosely based on the life of series creator and executive producer Mark O'Keefe. It stars Judge Reinhold and Kirsten Nelson as overprotective parents faced with the prospect of sending two of their three socially inept children to public school.
While the program is meant as a comedy, not everyone is laughing.
Last March, Home School Legal Defense Association president J. Michael Smith wrote to Warner Bros. chief executive officer Barry Meyers objecting to the show's depiction of home schoolers. Smith expressed his concerns, on behalf of the 75,000 families represented by the organization, that the sitcom reinforces inaccurate opinions about home schooling and requested that home schoolers be consulted about the show's content.
Paul McGuire, a spokesman for Warner Bros., said it was too early to make any promises regarding Smith's offer to provide input on future scripts. The first eight episodes have already been taped. Whether the series will continue depends upon the program's ratings.
“The show rewards the values of this family,” McGuire said. “I think people should take a look at it first before they judge it.”
The Legal Defense Association, in its review of the pilot, described the producers as having “almost no knowledge of the home-school community or deliberately ignoring the facts about home schooling.”
The O'Keefes goes out of its way to reinforce almost every negative myth about home schooling, it said.
“No one should be surprised that Hollywood does not accurately present the facts about a community it seems to know nothing about,” the Home School Legal Defense Association wrote in its review.
“The overwhelming message is that children cannot grow into full adults or be socially well adjusted while being home schooled,” the Home School Legal Defense Association review said. “This myth is one of the most hurtful accusations thrown at home-school families.”
In contrast to that portrayal, the association cited numerous studies that show the maturity and development of the average home-schooled student far exceeds the level of the average public-school student.
— Tim Drake
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Home schooling is on the rise in the black community, and it's no wonder. Blacks in particular are often stuck in the worst-performing public schools in America. New York's mayor recently admitted that his city has schools where only 5% of students read at grade level and where only 20% meet a minimum standard in math.
But what about the more affluent families in the suburbs who have access to better public schools and are more able to attend Catholic schools?
Why is home schooling a trend among these Catholic families? There are three contributing factors.
Catholic schools are expensive, and multi-child discounts are rare.Often it's larger Catholic families who home school — and it isn't always by choice. The math is simple. The more children a family has, the more expensive schooling is. Where Catholic schools used to be able to offer multi-child discounts, dwindling donations and rising costs have made that increasingly difficult. This is especially true at independent Catholic academies. Now, large Catholic families often simply can't afford Catholic schools. The irony is not lost on them (nor, often, on the schools themselves): A Catholic school education is often out of reach for precisely those families who are most likely to be attuned to Church teaching and concerned with living their faith.
Parents fear a poisonous moral climate.Sending children off to school has always tugged at parents' natural protectiveness, and the world has always been a place of moral challenges. But the moral climate has gotten far worse for children at a far younger age than in memory. The pop-culture marketing machine pushes atrocious role models on very young children, reaching into the schools through libraries, students and “educational” Web sites. For example, one of the top Web sites for kids, Nickelodeon, features a recommended music list that includes the sex-drenched songs of Britney Spears, angry rapper boy Lil Bow Wow, Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera, who is notorious for a recent nude video. For parents, the line between being overprotective and exercising common sense has become very difficult to discern.
Academic excellence is often more possible at home. For parents who have the inclination and the natural gifts to teach, the student-teacher ratio in the largest Catholic family is better than most schools'. Parents can tailor their teaching to individual students much better, and by getting involved in specialized home schooling groups they can allow their children to pursue a particular interests much more easily than they could were the child attending a traditional school.
Parents who send their children to school have many good reasons. They point out that home-schooled children are deprived contact with the differing opinions and beliefs that they will face when they leave school behind. This can make them insular and leave their faith untested. Also, they say, if the families most committed to their faith take themselves out of the schools, how will the school environment ever improve?
Two very good points. Ultimately, many home-schooling families would send their children to school if they were able to and if the school had a strong moral environment.
Alongside the home-schooling movement are signs of renewal in Catholic schools. Parish schools are already proven to be top-notch academically and above-average in discipline. Now, many dioceses are shoring up the faith content of their schools as well, using the Catechism of the Catholic Church as a standard for religious instruction texts. In addition, many new independent Catholic schools are being built, often by concerned parents.
Ultimately, new interest in better schooling — at home or in new schools, by families of all kinds — is a sign of hope for the future of education. Like anyone else, educators have to adapt to the needs and desires of their customers. The more parents demand, the better schools will become.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Letters DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Bill O'Reilly Booster
In your May 4-10 issue, you had yet another small but negative report concerning Bill O'Reilly (“O'Reilly Condemns Pope — Again”). You have rightly pointed out many times that the media likes to dwell on the negatives of the Catholic priesthood and, in particular, the sex-abuse scandal, despite the fact that only a tiny percentage of priests have been involved in this evil. Well, I think that you might be doing the same thing with regard to O'Reilly — that is, dwelling on the small percentage of what is negative about him.
Concerning the Pope, O'Reilly has been a disrespectful, crass bully and fails miserably to see the greatness and undoubted holiness of John Paul. Concerning other issues, O'Reilly is far from perfect, and he is sometimes disgracefully hot-tempered. But I believe that overall he has done great work.
There has been in recent years a revolution in the media. The snobby, secularist, rich liberals no longer have all the power. This is due in large part to Fox News in general and Bill O'Reilly in particular. He is a potent voice of ordinary, commonsense values. And he's not playing a role, either; these values are what he really holds. The power people in the media used to be able to ignore or scorn such values, but notice that this is not so easy for them to do anymore.
Through the years he's been on, O'Reilly has taken on or challenged the powerful with great effect: the corrupt Clinton administration, Jessie Jackson, the rap-music industry and other venal corruptors of children, the anti-God fanatics, the anti-Christian artists, the moral relativists, the historical revisionists. And with the pro-choicers he has achieved some real dialogue where there is otherwise hopeless and angry polarization.
Now I do not go to Bill O'Reilly for my theology; he is rather shallow in that regard. But for commonsense, morally decent reporting of the news, who is better? That's not a rhetorical question, either: Please tell me who you think is better at reporting the news in a fair and balanced and fearless manner than O'Reilly? Tell me and I'll seriously consider your suggestion. But I doubt you will be able to give me a name.
JOHN LORANGER
Sparks, Nevada
Cutthroat Christianity?
I take issue with Angelo Matera's reference to “… our economy's obsession with cutthroat competition” (“The Pope and St. Joseph on Wall Street,” May 11-17). First, though, let me say that I do so with some reserve. Mr. Matera, as the former chief executive officer of your parent corporation, has done a service to the Church by his work with your excellent Catholic newspaper.
However, is the competition in our economy “cutthroat” — or is it simply the result of consumers being offered choices and those consumers exercising choice according to their preferences? And if so, what's wrong with that? What alternative might he propose?
For example, if the Register grows in circulation and other competitive newspapers diminish in circulation (or even go out of business), is that a “cutthroat” thing, or simply consumers exercising their preference? And isn't that a good thing? Or at least morally neutral? And could not the same thing be said about the holy Roman Catholic Church and, say, Gnosticism? Then again, Wal-Mart and Kmart; Toyota and Edsel?
By no means do I argue that our economy (or the “global economy” for that matter) is perfect. I doubt any economy will ever be perfect on this earth. At the same time, criticizing our economy's competitive nature, albeit one with “winners” and “losers,” seems misguided to me. The focus, at the end of the day, in any economy, needs to be on each individual's decisions and actions vis-‡-vis the economy, his community, his neighbors and his family.
Perhaps I missed Mr. Matera's point. One thing I do know is that I am proud our “economy” or society offers choices and the opportunity for newcomers, who offer a more satisfying product, to succeed.
JOHN RODA, ESQ.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Our faith is not a purely private matter. Whether or not you favor more government intervention in the marketplace, all Catholics should speak up about the amorality that dominates American business culture today.
Choral Conspiracy?
Regarding “Hark! The Herald Daddy Sings” (Family Matters, April 27-May 3):
As a father of six, I used to enjoy singing in church. It seems to me that in the last several years all the songs have been put into a higher key. I'm not a musician, so am not familiar with how one would go about doing that. My suspicion is that it was done deliberately as part of the feminist movement. Even my wife has a hard time getting to the top notes most of the time. I've noticed that some of the leaders have to strain at times. It would be interesting to research this matter to see who made the decision to go this way.
If ever you want men to sing along without rupturing their throats, see if you can get this changed. Thank for your attention and may the good Lord bless you on your way.
DON FAIR
Middletown, Nebraska
Materialism and The Matrix
I read with great interest “Into the Gnostic Wonderland” (April 6-12) by Father Alfonso Aguilar. While I appreciate the teaching on Gnosticism in general, I would stop short of using the movie The Matrix as a vehicle for this particular instruction. The movie is highly deceptive. By this I mean to say that almost any person of any particular religious stripe can read his or her particular religious tradition into it.
I would recommend that, for any serious discussion that has to do with this movie, one really ought to read Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. Mr. Baudrillard is a contemporary French philosopher whose book was included in the opening scenes of The Matrix. One may remember that Neo took this book from a shelf in the movie and opened it to the last chapter. It was titled: “On Nihilism.”
Simulacra and Simulation is a work that attempts to describe postmodern materialism, and it consists of ponderous observations of the author regarding Western culture. There are quotes from the book that are in the movie itself (i.e., “welcome to the desert of the real”). In very general terms, Jean Baudrillard suggests that much of our culture (which has strong leanings toward a foundation in materialism) is based on simulations of reality that have no foundation in reality itself. He goes on to demonstrate how he believes that the “real” continually rears itself up against such simulations, thus forcing the simulation to reinvent itself over and over again. A very strong theme in The Matrix.
I do not wish to criticize Father Aguilar for the fine work he has done in outlining the system of Gnosticism, but I honestly think that the Matrix movie franchise is simply a dark commentary on a Western culture that is losing its soul to materialism, and nothing more.
FATHER KEVIN CHRISTOFFERSON
Butte, Montana
The writer is pastor of St. Patrick's Church in Butte, Montana.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Kevin Christofferson ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: JPII Admirers Witness to Love DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:I am an 18-year-old devout Catholic, and an adorer of His Holiness. I felt compelled to write this short and quick note to tell you how thoroughly I enjoyed “The Pope at 83: One Day the E-Mail Will Be Right” (Opinion & Commentary, May 18-24).
Austin Ruse's account of the “end times” for John Paul the Great is so clear and concise it's frightening. I have long wondered and dreamed about what the time will be like.
In the past few years I have visited Rome four times, and I plan to return in September. I am always terrified, and dare I say excited, of the possibility of his death while I'm in the Holy City. But were I to be in the States, I imagine the reaction to be on level with the accounts I hear of the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. I can see myself driving and hearing the news, and just having to pull over. Or being in class and having to leave.
I pray that day will not come for many long years for our Holy Father, but, when the day comes, I know that St. Peter will be ready and waiting — and he and JP2 will meet with open arms.
BRANDON M. BELINSKY
Westford, Massachusetts
My husband left your commentary page open on the kitchen table and left a note — “Read this” [referring to Austin Ruse's tribute to Pope John Paul II on his 83rd birthday]. While enjoying my morning coffee, I read the words and the tears flowed.
The death of our Holy Father has been anticipated by many. Our own Milwaukee Journal has predicted his imminent death numerous times. When they report on his worldwide travels, they [never fail to] mention his “frail” health or how he slurs his speech. They miss the point that his “slurred” words fall on thousands and thousands of young people eager to be with him and hear his eternal message of hope.
We love our Holy Father because he is so good, so holy, so wise. He tells us not to be afraid and points to the way of Christ as the way to happiness. He writes eloquently and profusely about the things that matter to us common folk — marriage, family, virtue, priesthood, the sacraments, the Eucharist, consecrated life, the rosary.
Oh, how I love him and will miss him; there cannot be another like him in my lifetime. However, knowing that he will be met “by Jesus…[and he] will take him in his arms and love him like he loved the Apostle John,” I pray that day comes soon for my dear father, Pope John Paul the Great! Thank you for your beautiful words.
PATTI HUNDT
Kansas City, Missouri
I just read “The Pope at 83: One Day the E-Mail Will Be Right.” I'm not good enough with words to express what I thought about your beautiful words. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shout Alleluia! My heart beat faster. I wondered if it was just me, so I asked my wife to read the article without comment from me. She said it gave her goose bumps.
This is truly inspired writing. May God continue to bless you.
GENE BUXA
San Pablo, California
Thank you so much for your ringing endorsement of Pope John Paul II. Having read several criticisms of him recently in other publications, I was getting a bit discouraged. Your editorial (The Faded Pope? June 1-6) really lifted my spirits and my confidence in the Church. So thank you again.
ANN HYSKO
via e -mail
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: From the Old Ball and Chain to Freedom and Responsibility DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:You might not have noticed them, but hope and presumption were there at the last funeral you attended.
One of the pivotal virtues for Christian living is hope, by which we trust that God in his infinite mercy will one day welcome us into his eternal Kingdom. We realize we're not there yet, and we need to persevere to the end.
One of the sins against hope is presumption (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2092), which takes many forms. One form of presumption, commonly witnessed at funerals, is the attitude that in the end God will forgive us irrespective of our cooperation with grace. According to this mind-set, heaven is the inevitable and more or less universal sequel to this life.
As many of us know, the prevailing view at funerals today is that the deceased is “in a better place.” It comes as no surprise, then, that funerals increasingly have become in practice “mini-canonization” services.
Against this backdrop, many are startled to learn that the Catholic Church actually forbids eulogies at funerals (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 382; Order of Christian Funerals, No. 27). Rather, the homily at the funeral Mass, which must be given by a bishop, priest or deacon, should “illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ” (Catechism, No. 1688).
“As bearers of the tenderness of the Church and the comfort of the faith,” priests are called to “console those who believe without offending those who grieve” (Order of Christian Funerals, No. 17). Balancing this pastoral ministry with the prohibition of eulogies has become increasingly difficult.
Grieving Catholics often consider it something of a “right” to be able to eulogize deceased loved ones at length during the funeral Mass. In recent months, Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., and Bishop Frederick Henry of Calgary, Alberta, have issued decrees that prohibit even “brief remembrances” of the deceased during funeral Masses.
Here some clarification is in order. First, the funeral rites have three discernible phases: 1) the vigil (or “wake”), which marks the time between death and the funeral liturgy; 2) the funeral liturgy itself, which may or may not include a Mass; and (3) the Rite of Committal, which typically takes place at the graveside.
While the Church has preserved the integrity of the homily at the funeral Mass, the rite does provide for a “remembrance of the deceased before the final commendation” by a family member or friend. The “remembrance” is not supposed to replace the homily nor should it cross the line and become a eulogy, which is an address in praise of the deceased.
The remembrance is a legitimate part of the funeral rites and it can provide an appropriate outlet for the expression of the mourning experienced by those who survive the deceased. Yet remembrances can be unpredictable and difficult to control in the context of a sacred Church liturgy. For that reason, Archbishop Myers and Bishop Henry have restricted the remembrance to the vigil or the graveside service.
Why is this important? Because the Christian funeral is not a celebration of the life of the deceased person but a celebration of the saving mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. After all, the merits of Christ's sacrifice, made present and effective at Mass, are ultimately the basis of our hope and comfort when confronted with a loved one's death.
Further, we must break through the presumption that the deceased is already in heaven. Instead, we need to pray and offer sacrifice for the deceased, which Scripture describes as a “very excellent and noble” practice (cf. 2 Maccabees 12:43; Catechism, No. 1032). What better way to do this than by offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?
When we lose sight of the fundamentally paschal character of funeral Masses, we not only fail to pray for the dead, but we also miss a teachable moment for all of us. The reality of death affords all of us the opportunity to reflect upon our own mortality and thus seek to restore a right relationship with God.
Part of the grieving process involves our being able to share with others our memories of our dear departed loved ones. Spending time with those who have recently suffered such a loss is indeed a praiseworthy act of mercy. But there's a time and place for everything.
An analogous situation might be that of a marriage. There are many “moments” that are rightly part of the celebration, but nonetheless it's proper to keep matters more appropriate to a rehearsal dinner, wedding shower or reception out of the sacred marriage liturgy. The same applies to funerals.
I often think of a dear friend who died more than a year ago. He had a tremendous sense of humor but, particularly as his terminal illness progressed, he always got very serious when talking about his impending death. Even though he was a daily communicant for decades and devoted his “retirement” to service of the Church, he pleaded with me to not assume “he made it” after he died but rather to offer prayers, alms and works of penance on his behalf. His approach might seem extreme or scrupulous to some, but in reality it was a magnificent display of hope — in God, not our own efforts.
Leon J. Suprenant Jr. is the president of Catholics United for the Faith and publisher of Lay Witness magazine.
For answers to liturgical questions, call Catholics United for the Faith toll-free at (800) MY-FAITH.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Lock Wed DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:To the secular world, freedom and responsibility are divergent forces. Freedom is popularly envisioned as being independent of responsibility, while responsibility is believed to place restrictions on freedom.
Marriage in particular, it is commonly thought, by trying to unite these two antagonistic factors, lends itself to comedy. “Marriage is not a word,” one pundit says, “but a sentence.” “Wedlock is padlock.” “Socrates died of an overdose of wedlock.” “The plural of spouse is spice.” “Marriage ties the knot, divorce unties it.” Benjamin Disraeli once quipped that every woman should marry, but no man. The jokes are inexhaustible.
G.K. Chesterton was far wiser when he remarked, “It is most amusing to listen to the opponents of marriage on this subject. They appear to imagine that the ideal of constancy was a joke mysteriously imposed on mankind by the devil, instead of being, as it is, a yoke consistently imposed on all lovers by themselves.” Moreover, it may be added, the yoke is sweet, just as its burdens are light, because it nourishes both parties.
St. Paul's injunction, “husbands, love your wives” (Ephesians 5:25), challenges them first to view freedom and responsibility not as mutual enemies but as enriching cohorts and, secondly, to put this dynamic tandem into practice.
The deeper truths of our lives are often expressed in the form of a paradox. The poet Carl Sandburg once remarked, “Truth consists of paradoxes, and a paradox is two facts that stand on opposite hilltops and across the intervening valley calling each other liars.” Through the intermediary of love, freedom and responsibility cease calling each other liars and become united as productive allies.
Marriage, like all great truths, rests on the paradox that in being bound, one becomes free. We are not free unless we are bound.
Responsible Freedom
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (now Pope John Paul II) has shown, in his book Love and Responsibility, how love unifies freedom and responsibility. Love, which is the will to affirm and promote the good of the beloved, is, first of all, an act of freedom. We could not love if we were not free. But as soon as a man loves a woman, for example, he freely assumes the immediate responsibilities that his love for her entails. Freely loving another while rejecting one's responsibilities for promoting her good is self-contradictory.
As Cardinal Wojtyla wrote, “Love divorced from a feeling of responsibility for the person is a negation of itself, is always and necessarily egoism. The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person the more true love there is.”
Love, freely chosen then, expresses itself by the desire to affirm and promote the good of the other. In this context, freedom and responsibility coalesce. Freedom is the starting point, love is the amalgam and responsibility is the practical application. The “lock” in “wedlock” is not the same “lock” that appears in “padlock” or “grid-lock.” No locksmith is needed to preside at a wedding.
This “lock” is the liberating love that unites husband and wife in a way that is mutually beneficial. It might look like lock, but it lives like liberation. Marriage is not the dissolution of individuality but the loving cooperation of two individualities in the interest of enlarging their personalities.
How would a husband “count the ways” he would love his wife in a responsible way? Let us enumerate the following ways: protection, tenderness, comfort, encouragement, fidelity, attentiveness, support, affirmation, understanding and reassurance. The complete list, if there could be one, would be much longer, but this decalogue will serve as a good beginning for a long relationship.
A few years ago, John Whitaker, M.D., produced “A Personal Marriage Contract” for the “now” generation. It appeared in Woman's Day magazine as a more realistic approach to marriage than the traditional forms that seem to be failing at an escalating rate.
The new contract would be laughable if its author and editors had not taken themselves so seriously. It exemplifies not love but, as Pope Pius XII once commented, having fraudulent marital arrangements in mind, “a juxta-position of solitudes.” A bad marriage can make one lonelier than he ever was in the single state.
Narcissus x 2?
The “contract” could hardly be a more telling illustration of a complete rupture between freedom and responsibility: “I will put myself first.” “I cannot make you happy or unhappy, but I can make myself happy.” “Don't expect me to accept you as you are when you fail to maintain mental attractiveness and fail to take care of your mind.” “Don't expect me to accept you as you are when you fail to maintain physical attractiveness and fail to take care of your body.” “I understand that nothing is forever, that there are no absolute guarantees and that now is the only real forever.”
The time-honored fable of Narcissus tells us that narcissism results in the dissolution of the individual. Narcissism multiplied by two, even disguised as a “personal marriage,” must share the same tragic fate. Whitaker views marriage primarily in terms of selfishness. One hardly needs a marriage contract in order to practice this uninspiring vice.
He carefully excises commitment, trials, tests, turbulence and responsibility for the other from the marriage formula and then, having thoroughly emaciated his subject, pronounces it healthy. The poor, misguided doctor has simply capitulated to the times. For him, and for the zeitgeist that forms his mind, freedom and responsibility are sworn enemies and love is a splendid illusion.
“Husbands, love your wives,” St. Paul advises men, “even as Christ also loved the Church.” The Church is the mystical bride of Christ. His intimacy with his ecclesial bride is such that he will not abide heresies to separate him from his beloved. Selfishness, egoism and narcissism are the three great marital heresies that alienate husband and wife from each other. Love, responsibility and commitment are the great marital graces that preserve marriage and allow it to prosper.
Christian marriage, as St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us, has three blessings: “The first is children, to be received and raised for God's service. The second is the loyal faith whereby each serves the other. The third is the sacrament, which signifies the inseparable union of Christ with his Church.”
There is nothing so wrong with the sacrament of Christian marriage that it cries out to social engineers for reform. Marriage is an institution established and sanctified by Christ. Husbands and wives must be true to the prototype in order to enjoy its great promise.
Donald DeMarco is an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald DeMarco ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Pentecost People: Catholic Happy Clappies DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:I know it's difficult to imagine, but the charismatic renewal is big stuff here in England.
Our family has just enjoyed a great week at Celebrate! — the annual Catholic charismatic renewal conference over here.
“What?” I hear you exclaim. “The English? They of the stiff upper-lip, her majesty the queen, ‘What ho, dear chap!’ and cups of china tea?” That's right. Between 2,000 and 3,000 gathered for the conference. They were there complete with praise bands, happy-clappy worship, speaking in tongues and ministry sessions where people fainted. There was real joy, laughter, applause and tears.
Not a stiff upper-lip in sight.
When I told a traditionalist friend about this phenomenon, he commented, “I'm convinced all those people are high on drugs.” Funnily enough, the same comment was made on the day of Pentecost. The apostles and their coterie were also jabbering in tongues.
They must have been staggering about and fainting as well because observers said they were drunk even though it was only nine o'clock in the morning.
Perhaps a certain drunken quality is desirable within the Christian faith. Not lying-in-the-gutter drunkenness, of course, but the kind of spiritual inebriation exhibited at Celebrate. Jesus said the Kingdom would be marked by new wine.
English religion — like the weather — tends to be cold and damp. Maybe we all ought to let down our hair a little and get happy. So many Catholics seem gloomy. You know the old joke: “You can tell the pillars of the Church because their faces look like stone.” We are often so caught up with what's wrong with the Church that we can't see what's right with it. The charismatic renewal is confident about the faith. It brings joy, power and zip into religion.
If dogmatics minister to the intellect, charismatics minister to the emotions. To be whole, we need both.
The charismatic element in worship attracts young people. Forty-four percent of the people at Celebrate this year were under age 22. Eight different streams were organized for different age groups.
A Baptist minister who attended the young adults' stream came into a room where 150 young men and women knelt in silence before the Blessed Sacrament with their arms reaching out to the altar. The Baptist minister asked what on earth was going on. When it was explained, he fell to his knees himself and said afterward in an awestruck voice, “Those kids really love Jesus! I have never in my life seen anything so beautiful and moving!”
Charles Whitehead is the Englishman who holds it all together. A married layman and father of four, Whitehead has spearheaded the movement for years. He's spent 10 years as president of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Council with offices in Rome, and he now works with Catholic Evangelization Services in England and as the chairman of an international body that advises on the use of the charismatic renewal in world evangelization.
In a recent conversation, I challenged Whitehead about the charismatic renewal. Wasn't it too Protestant? Wasn't it divisive? Whitehead admitted there were some problems but pointed out that any movement has difficulties. They simply have to be dealt with in a mature and positive way. Charismatic Catholics are able to show Pentecostals what it means to belong to the historic Church.
Charismatics work well with Protestants, but because they are largely orthodox in their beliefs and loyal to the Church's teaching, Catholic charismatics are able to explain Catholic distinctives and engage in apologetics with evangelicals effectively because they have gained their trust and admiration. It is Whitehead's conviction that the Catholic charismatic renewal has moved on. Whereas it was once shallow and broad, it is now becoming broad and deep.
The Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost not just to exhibit a display of supernatural power or to give the apostles a spiritual kick. The kick was given to empower evangelization. It is the same today. The charismatic movement began in the 1950s, and this movement of the Spirit can be seen as a precursor to the Second Vatican Council and now the New Evangelization. The charismatic gifts are given to empower evangelization, and if they are trapped within the Church and within the lives of Christians they are not being used for their true purpose.
It is no mistake, therefore, that it is Catholic charismatics who are at the forefront of the New Evangelization. In Europe there is a range of new communities that are enlivened by the charismatic movement and engaged in first-rate evangelization efforts. Here in England the Sion Community, the Pilgrims Community, the Community of the Open Door and Catholic Evangelization Services have all sprung up to engage in proactive evangelization. They publish magazines, produce the successful Cafe series of videos and are busy promoting conferences, retreats and missions.
In the new communities the life is centered on a cycle of Eucharist, liturgical prayer, adoration and contemplation as well as an exercise of the charismatic gifts and forms of worship. Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said new charisms come “like a bolt of lightning from the blue, destined to illuminate a single and original point of God's will for the Church in a given time.” Whether we happen to be a charismatic Catholic or not we can learn much from this exciting movement.
At Pentecost 1998 Pope John Paul II met with 350,000 people who had gathered to celebrate the new movements in the Church. The Pope called on them, and so calls to us, with these challenging words: “Open yourselves docilely to the gifts of the Spirit! Accept gratefully and obediently the charisms that the Spirit never ceases to bestow on us.”
The charisms of the Holy Spirit are not only alive in all the new movements but also in the established works of the Church. The charismatic movement, with its powerful signs and strong witness, reminds us that every ministry has to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit isn't there it is no more than a religious gimmick, and as such it will not be a bolt of lightning from heaven but a flash in the pan.
Dwight Longenecker is the author of seven books. His latest, Adventures in Orthodoxy, is described as “a Chestertonian romp through the Apostles' Creed.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:John 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.“ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.“
Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me the grace to appreciate the greatness and beauty of the priesthood.
1. Peace Be With You. The apostles are gathered together in fear and in confusion. The Lord had already appeared to the women and to Peter, and John had believed when he saw the empty tomb. Yet the pain of the Lord's death and the nagging doubt didn't go away: Was he really the Son of God?
In this situation, Christ comes not to condemn them for their cowardice and lack of faith, nor to chastise them for hiding in the room.
He comes to rescue them and give them life.
They are his chosen ones, his bishops. He has already bestowed on them the fullness of the priesthood and thus made them, in a unique way, one with himself.
This gift that he bestowed on them is a gift of love. He chose them because he wanted to, and he was not about to abandon them.
In their hour of need he came to give them peace and the Paraclete.
Here we see the Christ's love
----- EXCERPT: The Gift of the Priesthood ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Hopping to It on Whitsuntide Tuesday DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Everyone knows what it's like to be hopping mad. But those who visit Echternach, Luxembourg, on Whitsuntide Tuesday — two days after Pentecost Sunday — also know what it means to be hopping glad.
Each year on that day in this scenic medieval town (located in the tiny country's “Little Switzerland” Mullerthal region), a ritual more than 1,200 years old rolls through the streets. It is called the Hopping Procession, and it may be the only institutionalized vestige of liturgical dance in the Catholic Church.
The procession attracts thousands of pilgrims to the old Benedictine abbey founded in the seventh century by the Irish-Anglo monk St. Willibrord. Echternach is the only place in the world where this dance still exists.
The hopping custom began with Willibrord's death in 739 but evolved into something closer to its present form in the 1300s when it was invoked as a pilgrimage-and-prayer procession against the ravages of the Plague. It also had some connection with tithe processions. People from neighboring areas would walk in a procession to the town, bearing offerings of wheat, wax and money. One group was bound by a pledge to make the annual pilgrimage; they started the dance. Until the 18th century, only men were permitted to participate.
The format of the dance has changed over the centuries. Originally the pilgrims hopped from side to side, a few paces to the left and then to the right. The first groups were small, so the dance was conducted only in a forward motion. Overthe years the crowds swelled and, eventually, as the long processions got held up for one reason or another (witness any long parade today), the participants would have to hop on the spot and sometimes even appear to be hopping backwards if stopped on an incline. Since 1945, the procession has only hopped forward and side to side.
The clergy lead the procession. Behind them follow youth and then older people, some of whom struggle to keep up with the considerable physical exertion needed to keep up. The music played by flutes, fiddles and drums is a simple folk whose rhythm has come to resemble a polka.
Various important personages from archbishops to the Emperor Joseph II have tried to ban the practice. After being suspended for several years during the French Revolution, it was resumed following the signing of the 1801 Concordat. From that time on, women were allowed to take part. During World War II, which saw Luxembourg embroiled in the horrendous battle of the Ardennes, only small groups were allowed to perform inside the basilica. An unforgettable moment occurred in 1945 when at Whitsuntide a procession carefully picked its way through the rubble — all that remained of the battered town.
Today, a Pontifical Mass is celebrated in the basilica on Whit Tuesday, followed by an address from the bishop of Luxembourg in the courtyard. The choir sings some hymns in honor of St. Willibrord. Then, at the sound of an enormous bell donated by the Emperor Maximilian after his pilgrimage in 1512, groups of pilgrims from countries that honor the saint — Germany, Holland, France and others — wend their way toward the Sure Bridge and through to the market place, up some of the higher streets and back to the basilica.
The final hop is through the church and to the exquisite crypt where St. Willibrord is buried. A final blessing is given to the pilgrims. Then the groups disperse to listen to more hymns and music by various musical groups. The pilgrims number in the thousands.
Fortunately for pilgrims, the Church issues strict guidelines for pilgrims so that this religious celebration does not turn into a secular folk festival.
The St. Willibrord Way
I'm sure I'm not the only Catholic who had never heard of St. Willibrord before visiting Echternach. I learned that he was a very important, even essential, figure in the evangelization of northern Germany and the Netherlands. Born in 658 in Northumbria, England, he was educated in Ireland by Irish monks, including St. Egbert. After ordination as a Benedictine in his 30s, he believed God wanted him to preach the Gospel to the Frisians in the low countries at the mouth of the Rhine where evangelical attempts by St. Wilfrid had met with failure.
With the Pope's permission he set off with 11 assistants in 690. He converted many and established several churches. He also baptized Pepin the Short, who later became the king of France.
Known for his gift of prophecy, Willibrord was also a man noted for his good humor and love of life. The English historian St. Bede wrote of Willibrord while he was alive: “He is a venerable old man…awaiting the rewards of a life in heaven, after the generous battles he waged in spiritual combat.”
Today St. Willibrord is patron of those who suffer from epilepsy and other motor disorders. The dance in his honor is thought of as a healing one — we have all heard the term “St. Vitus' dance” for such disorders. The spiritual strength of the Whitsuntide dance is symbolized by the strong sense of a believing community among the participants, who do not participate as individuals. Rather, they are linked one to another by holding on to ends of a handkerchief moving in tempo to the rhythm of the traditional melody.
The abbey itself is another spiritual treasure. It was the hub of Christianity for centuries. Its monks, inspired by Irish illuminists, crafted beautiful manuscripts now housed in the world's great libraries and museums.
In 1939 Pope Pius XII raised the abbey to the status of a basilica. In 1944 the town and basilica were blown up during the Battle of the Bulge. Miraculously, the crypt where Willibrord was buried escaped damage. In 1949 the cornerstone of a new basilica was laid and the basilica rebuilt. Today the basilica, monastery and school dominate the townsquare area.
And the Hopping Procession claims a spot in the spiritual imagination of all those who see it. As one commentator put it: “Like all processions, [this one] is a striking symbol of God's people on the move. We do not opt for the easy life. We go on striving for a goal, moving steadily toward our ultimate aim of communion with God.”
Lorraine Williams writes from Markham, Ontario.
----- EXCERPT: The Hopping Procession of Echternach, Luxembourg ----- EXTENDED BODY: Lorraine Williams ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: A Papal Plea for 'Peace in the Name of God' DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:“As long as I have breath within me I shall cry out: ‘Peace, in the name of God.’”
Pope John Paul II wrote these words in his own firm hand on Oct. 16, 2002, and they cry out from papal stationery framed at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn., to announce the museum's latest temporary exhibit, “John Paul II: A Passion for Peace.”
The show relies on a multimedia approach to explore the Holy Father's never-ending quest for peace for all mankind. To highlight the Pope's passion for peace, his words are projected on a stand shaped like an open book placed between ever-changing wall-sized photos. A few select artworks from his private collection add to the sense of his personal presence.
At the show's opening, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said John Paul's passion for peace “arises not primarily from his office as a pope but from his identity as a priest.” The exhibit, he explained, attempts to help visitors understand more fully the way the Polish priest who became bishop of the universal Church has given for 25 years and continues to give today.
Conveying the significance of key moments in the Pope's quest for peace, twin galleries set a reverential tone as one of five projectors materializes John Paul's sentences on an open book. Walls become screens filled with ever-changing pictures of the Holy Father as he embraces a crucifix, reflects in prayer or kneels before a statue of Mary amid the Mountain of Crosses in Lithuania.
The compelling photos make us feel part of the ocean of people at a Mass in Gdansk in 1987. Close-ups make us privileged observers at John Paul's side as Mother Teresa kisses his ring.
“And so America, if you want peace, work for justice,” the projected words tell us. “If you want justice, defend life. If you want life, embrace the truth. The truth revealed by God.”
A separate line of small snapshots become thumbnail highlights in a life devoted to peace that began with the birth of Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland, on May 18, 1920. Photos recall the Pope's pilgrimage to Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine and his meetings with world leaders to promote peace.
They illustrate what Mikhail Gorbachev as last premier of the Soviet Union pondered: “Everything that happened in Eastern Europe in these last few years would have been impossible without the presence of this Pope and without the important role — including the political role — that he played on the world stage.”
The Vatican loaned a few artifacts from the Pope's private collection for the show. One moving item underlines the prayer-peace connection — a large rosary fashioned by hand from iron horseshoe nails by Polish Solidarity leaders in prison.
Da Pacem Domine — “Give Us Peace, Lord” — reads an inscription on a great bronze lamp John Paul lit at Sarajevo's Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in April 1997 during his peace mission to Bosnia Herzegovina. The event is multiplied as a wall-sized photo.
One of the most striking pieces in the show is the carved wooden sculpture of Christ pierced by a missile by Jan Smigacz. It depicts Jesus standing in agony as a missile pierces his side like a lance and exits from his back.
The sculpture of the papal family by Dr. Anneta Duveen was unveiled at the opening. In triple busts, it portrays Karol Wojtyla as a young boy with his deeply religious father Karol Sr. and mother Emilia.
“If you pick a good subject, you're halfway home,” commented the sculptress, a convert from Judaism and now a secular Franciscan. After this show, the sculpture heads to the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C.
When Christ said “Blessed are the peacemakers” in his Sermon on the Mount, surely he had this Pope in mind.
“John Paul II: A Passion for Peace” runs through Oct. 1.
While you're there, don't miss the museum's second temporary exhibit, “Attack on the World Trade Center,” which — by accident or design — makes a striking companion to the papal display.
Pages from newspapers and magazines graphically capture the Sept. 11 attacks, among them the well-recognized photo of the cross formed from steel beams at Ground Zero.
Two actual steel girders recovered from Ground Zero, more than five feet high, are displayed here to look like huge silhouettes of twin buildings on the skyline.
“We purposely put them at the same attitude and angle as the WTC stood,” explains museum director Larry Sowinski. They become a stirring remembrance and people can touch them.
Another moving segment focuses on New York Fire Dept. Capt. Daniel O'Callaghan. His captain's hat and badge are on exhibit. Mementoes, family pictures and hand-drawn cards from his young children become heart-rending reminders of innocent lives forever changed. Other biographies honor Franciscan Father Mychal Judge, the fire department chaplain killed at Ground Zero.
Visitors find a hope-filled sign outside this exhibit. There hangs a single permanent display — a huge, 387-year-old cross of wood sheathed in copper that stood for centuries atop St. Peter's Basilica. The one who carried it knew suffering and triumphed over it, Christ the redeemer.
A reminder of the only true path to peace, it's part of the permanent collection in the extensive museum, named this year as one of the country's top five religious museums by Penelope Fletcher, deputy director of the John Paul II Cultural Center.
Permanent displays include the story of Servant of God Father Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, in pictures, artifacts and personal effects; a gallery celebrating Christopher Columbus with artifacts dating to 1493; a papal gallery with rare pictures, art and unique artifacts; a visual history of the Knights; and a peaceful outdoor atrium fountain.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Eucharistic Adoration Is Enduring Boston College Tradition DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — This year the 31st annual All-Night Eucharistic Vigil will be held at St. Mary's Hall chapel on the campus of Boston College on June 6-7 from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m. Boston College has granted permission to use its chapel, but the vigil is not sponsored by Boston College.
St. Mary's Hall is an on-campus residence for retired Jesuits.
George and Ellie Leon have participated in the all-night Eucharistic vigil for years. For them, it anchors their pilgrim journey and girds them with spiritual armor as they walk through life hand-in-hand with Christ.
“It is a great, great discipline,” George Leon said. “Just by speaking softly and tenderly to our Lord and our Lady while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, the reward is a deep feeling of inner peace.”
In 1972, the late Melvina Collozzi, the wife of a physician, approached Barbara Keville and suggested starting an all-night Eucharistic vigil. Almost immediately, Keville, a tireless worker, set up the first vigil and has made sure that it has continued for the past 31 years. Her son, Father Joseph Keville, is scheduled to celebrate the opening Mass at this year's vigil.
There will be an opening Mass, a Eucharistic procession, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament throughout the night and into the morning, recitation of the rosary, Benediction, Stations of the Cross and refreshments will be available. The vigil will conclude with a 5 a.m. Mass.
In addition, copies of the Holy Father's encyclical letter Ecclesia De Eucharistia, which was released April 17, will be distributed. In the introduction to the encyclical, Pope John Paul II documents the primacy of the Eucharist in the lives of every member of Christ's Church.
“For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our passover and living bread,” the Pope writes. “Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men. Consequently, the gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.”
“Many of the men who are in the seminary today say that they discerned their vocations during the time they spent praying before the Blessed Sacrament,” said Father Christopher Coyne, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston.
Eucharistic adoration, a favorite devotion of the Church's greatest saints, draws the believer into closer union with the sacred mysteries. It is the source of wondrous graces and it fosters vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
It began 31 years ago on a rainy night at St. Agnes parish, located in Arlington, Mass., a suburb of Boston, in atonement and reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary for every sin that has ever been committed.
It was called an “all-night Eucharistic vigil.” It was supposed to begin at 9 p.m. and last until 5 a.m. the next day. However, the late Bishop Lawrence Riley, an auxiliary bishop of Boston who was loved and respected throughout the archdiocese, was detained, arrived late and didn't begin celebrating the opening Mass until 10:30 p.m. By then, the church was filled, spirits soared and everyone joyfully prayed the rosary until the beginning of Mass.
The first vigil was a smashing spiritual success. Before it was even over, many wanted to know, “When and where will the next all-night Eucharistic vigil be held?”
Since the inaugural event, all-night Eucharistic vigils have been held every year around the feast days of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart at parishes scattered around the Archdiocese of Boston.
Currently, more than 200 parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston have some form of Eucharistic adoration. Two parishes — St. Patrick's in Natick and St. Jeanne D'Arc in Lowell — have perpetual Eucharistic adoration. A third parish, St. Michael's in North Andover, has received permission from the Archdiocese of Boston to begin perpetual Eucharistic adoration. Parishioners sign up to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament. So far all but five hours — 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. — have been covered, and some say it is only a matter of time before the graced-filled circle of perpetual Eucharistic adoration will be complete.
At St. Michael's, more and more parishioners are spending time praying before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the day.
“The numbers are growing every day, especially since Sept. 11,” said Donna Restivo, the parish business manager. “Our people find great comfort just sitting in silence before the Blessed Sacrament.”
Wally Carew writes from Medford, Massachusetts.
He is author of Men of Spirit, Men of Sports as well as a forthcoming book on the 90-year Boston College vs. Holy Cross football rivalry.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: What If the Side Characters Had Their Say? DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:What If the Side Characters Had Their Say?
SILENT WITNESSES IN THE
GOSPELS:
BIBLEBY STANDERS AND THEIR
STORIES
By Allan F. Wright
Servant/Charis, 2002
219 pages, $11.99
To order: (800) 486-8505
Jesus told perfect stories: simple, yet profound tales about ordinary people engaged in unremarkable yet meaningful activities. For 2,000 years these riveting parables have drawn people to the Church and into a closer walk with the Author of Life.
Can our Lord's stories be improved upon? No. Expanded upon? Why not? Allan Wright seems to have asked himself that latter question as the starting point for his book. He takes some of Jesus' parables, along with other stories from Scripture, and looks at the figures who made it into the scriptural record, but only as bit players. “Bible bystanders,” he calls them.
Wright imagines the stories of such onlookers as the servants at Cana who filled the wine jars with water, the lepers who failed to return and thank Jesus for healing them, the boy who donated his lunch to feed the multitude and the woman with the alabaster jar.
Working from the premise that no one is insignificant in the eyes of God and convinced that these silent ones have much to teach, Wright names them and gives them thoughts and dialogue. “The Gospel characters that I write about are familiar to most of us who have grown up attending a church or…reading the Bible,” he writes. “After much prayer and reflection, I have tried to imagine what it must have been like to be near Jesus, close to the action as he traveled around with his band of disciples.”
The fictional narratives serve as bases for reflection on the significance and substance of the scriptural accounts. After telling each story, Wright, a religion teacher at a Catholic high school in New Jersey, takes his readers a couple of steps further — just as he might lead a classroom of eager students.
First he provides interesting bits of historical and cultural background that enhance the reader's understanding. In the story of the Good Samaritan, for example, it helps to know that, in addition to being blazing hot and a haven for brigands and robbers, the rugged 17-mile road from Jerusalem to Jericho drops 3,500 feet.
The second thing Wright does — and herein lies the meat of his book — is to gently peel away layers of meaning, showing readers how to apply these ancient stories to their struggles with life in the 21st century. After recounting the story of the raising of Lazarus, for example, he writes: “The image of these men removing the stone and unbinding Lazarus has left an impression on me that I can't shake. When I think about that scene and the request of Jesus, I wonder what ‘stones’ he might be asking me to remove before the power of God is unleashed in my own life.” After pondering the story, he identifies his own problems as “attitudes toward others and ignorance of the Scriptures, Church teaching and, most importantly, sin.” Reminding readers that Christians can call upon the Lord for help in removing such impediments, Wright concludes, “After all, even when God raised his own Son from the dead, he used angels to move away the stone.”
The habit of reading, absorbing and applying Scripture is invaluable to spiritual growth, and Silent Witnesses is a useful manual for learning the technique. In fact, because the exercise is so worthwhile, I found myself decidedly disappointed over the first-draft quality of the writing. Rigorous rewriting or editing might have made this good book great.
The good news is that t h e characters and their imaginative stories rose above the shortcomings of craft to challenge, inspire and even bless my reading. Between the lines as much as in them, I found myself rewarded with a startling reminder of the power and perfection of Scripture itself.
Ann Applegarth writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ann Applegarth ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Bad Year
EDUCATION WEEK, May 21 — Some 140 Catholic schools merged or shut down in 2002 — the highest number in five years — while 47 new schools opened, reported the trade publication, citing an upcoming report from the National Catholic Education Association.
Reasons for the closures include changing demographics and a faltering economy.
While enrollment at Catholic elementary schools has dropped during the past two school years, enrollment in Catholic secondary schools has increased slightly.
Overall enrollment dropped from 2.61 million in the last school year to 2.55 million this year — a difference of 63,050 children — in 8,000 schools, according to the statistics reported by the Catholic Education Association.
Hard Core
THE BOSTON GLOBE, May 25 — New Hampshire's Magdalen College is representative of a “small but growing conservative Catholic counterculture, including a dozen or so colleges [that] have sprung up to cater to…kids from families who are looking for a traditional religious and secular education in a strict social environment,“ according to the daily.
While the article opined “the isolation and conservatism of Magdalen is extreme even by the standards of America's conservative Catholic colleges,“ the piece was objective and often positive.
It even pointed out that the new Catholic colleges are “an outgrowth of the Second Vatican Council…because they are generally run by independent lay groups, not religious orders,“ and because they promote the council's intention to elevate the laity “without bringing down the clergy.“
No Thanks
ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 22 — Bishop Daniel Reilly of Worcester, Mass., declined to attend the commencement ceremony at College of the Holy Cross, which featured an address by pro-abortion jour-
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:My husband has a job he really likes, but he doesn't make enough money to keep our family supplied with some things we really need. This causes me, a stay-at-home mom, great stress. What can you suggest?
Dr. Patrick Divietri, a guest on a radio show I host, says that all money problems are value problems. What do you value the most in family life? That's where the money, time and passion should go.
Your happiness, your husband's job satisfaction and the children's well-being are all critical to the functioning of your family. These concerns must be discussed in detail. Take your husband to a restaurant where you have his undivided attention. After a couple of snifters, bring out the yellow pad and pen. Each of you write down the five to eight things you value most, in order of importance.
If job satisfaction is, let's say, No. 6 on your husband's list, then everything above that would be a higher value to him. And if he is not able to serve those other values properly because of a measly salary, you might ask him if he's really satisfied when other valuable things seem neglected. You might also ask if he is really satisfied with his work — or if he might be mistaking comfort and complacency for satisfaction. Is he stretching himself to grow as the family grows? How does his job impact the happiness of the whole family? These are fair questions, though they should be approached with a tone of inquiry and not interrogation.
Then present your list, exploring your own happiness as a stay-at-home parent.
We know that Christ wants us to live up to our responsibilities, and he wants us to be filled with joy (see John 15:11). Too often, we are tempted to settle for one or the other. We're content, but we're also shirking some responsibilities. Or we're responsible but grumpy.
Studies have shown that men tend to measure success in terms of individual achievement, not as the result of interdependent collaboration. And men tend to look at individual satisfaction instead of looking at how actions impact relationships.
Other research shows that a mother who is struggling with financial strain all the time can resemble a depressed person in the way she parents (being either harshly punitive or indifferent about the same behaviors). Financial stress needs to be addressed, too, assuming the stress is not a product of consumerism gone wild. Money should not be high on the value list except as a means to attain things you value more. If God is No. 1 on your list, then tithing is consistent. If the kids' education is higher, you may need to spend more there.
Regularly meeting to discuss the most important values in your life is deeply enriching for a marriage. Sharpen the pencils and communicate about the common ground of shared values to motivate one another to be more supportive — and happier.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: Values Inventory ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Although two-thirds of American adults believe that religion is losing its influence in our society (66%), an even higher proportion of adults (70%) say their religious faith is “constantly growing deeper.” Those who actively practice their faith say that they are very happy with their life (73% compared with 64% among the less active) and feel connected to other people (72% versus 63%).
Source: Barna Research Group, April 24
Illustration: Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Faith Endures ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Modesty en Vogue: The Clothes Make the Teen in 'Pure Fashion' Shows DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:At a time when exposed midriffs, pierced navels and tattooed backsides are all the rage, the pressure is on young girls to grin and “bare” it.
Everywhere you turn, Catholic parents — their influence challenged by the onslaught of writhing pop idols on TV and the prevalence of racy attire at the shopping mall — are lamenting the loss of their daughters' modesty.
“It used to be just the fringe people who dressed like that,” says Kathie Nalepa, who resides in Clarkston, Mich., with her husband and three children. “But [now] even the girls who want to do the right thing are feeling pressure.”
“Pure Fashion” shows hope to offer an antidote. One, co-organized by Nalepa, drew more than 600 mothers and daughters. Hosted by Challenge Clubs of Michigan, a Catholic youth organization, the show featured club members — girls in junior and senior high — modeling modest, but trendy, clothing.
The Michigan show was just one of many. Since Pure Fashion was launched in Minneapolis five years ago, Challenge Clubs in nine states have put on scores of similarly styled events under the Pure Fashion banner.
One of the best pieces of news to come out of the shows lately is that they're attracting audiences not only from Catholic youth groups but also from a widening swath of the general public.
Pure Fashion is proving successful because it “speaks to virtues that are very necessary in today's world, modesty and purity,” says Tammy Grady, a Regnum Christi consecrated woman who provides spiritual formation to members of Challenge Clubs in the Midwest. “We're all a product of our environment. What the media portrays is fashionable. So there has to be a whole environment created that leads [young people] to the good, and it has to be ongoing.”
Since 1995, when the more outrageous styles started to emerge en masse (low-cut jeans with the top button undone, for example), retailers have more than doubled the floor space devoted to teen fashions. The market, they know, is ripe: Spending among 12- to 19-year-olds hit $170 billion last year, according to market-research firm Teen Research Unlimited, and 48% of the teens they surveyed said they plan to spend as much or more this year.
“You're looking at a huge market. Companies like Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret know these young people, primarily girls, are interested in buying products and so they market them heavily,” says Teresa Tomeo, a former Detroit television news anchor who left the secular media in 2000. Today she speaks, writes and hosts a Catholic radio program with Jeff Cavins.
Coleen Kelly Mast of Catholic Answers, who also spoke at the recent Michigan show, says Pure Fashion can impress upon young girls how important it is to consider how they present themselves to others. “You are a walking advertisement,” she says. “The type of clothing you wear will either advertise your body — or your values and beliefs as a person.”
“Teen-age girls often don't realize what men and boys think and feel when they see girls dressed immodestly,” adds Mast. “Clothes that are tight, short, skimpy or transparent can be a real temptation for others to lust.”
Supply and Demand
Catholics are not the only ones doing something to stand up to (and out from) current styles. Last fall, a group of Mormon teens in Mesa, Ariz., wrote a petition asking Dillard's department store to offer more modest clothing. Some 1,500 high-school students signed. The retailer responded quickly with a line of modest dresses — right in time for homecoming season, as it happened.
And Dillard's at the Mall of Georgia, in Atlanta, provided clothing for Pure Fashion this year. When asked if the retailer was hearing from its customers about the current fashions, the store's general manager, Michael Falabella, said those decisions are made at the buying level, and managers can't do much about it. (Calls to Dillard's corporate offices, and other retailers, were not returned.)
Kim Gibas, a Plymouth, Minn., mother whose daughter modeled for a Minneapolis Pure Fashion show, says it's hard to make an impact on retailers “because there aren't enough kids out there wanting to buy the stuff. Their sense of modesty is gone. Nobody thinks it's wrong.”
Indeed, Tomeo says the relationship between the media and what's happening in society is well documented. Studies by the American Academy of Pediatrics have found that half of the Saturday television commercials are aimed at young girls and focus on physical appearance. Other studies from the National Institute on Media & Family found that viewing MTV results in more permissive attitudes about sex and exposes youth to a tremendous amount of violence — particularly sexual violence against women.
The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, a document of the Pontifical Council on the Family, says it is the duty of parents “to protect the young from the aggressions they are subjected to by the media. The practice of decency and modesty in speech, action and dress is very important for creating an atmosphere suitable to the growth of chastity, but this must be well motivated by respect for one's own body and the dignity of others. Parents, as we have said, should be watchful so that certain immoral fashions and attitudes do not violate the integrity of the home, especially through misuse of the mass media…May no one shirk from this duty by using the excuse that he or she is not involved.”
Tomeo says getting involved is not difficult with the Internet at hand. Many Web sites are helping parents organize and give voice to their concerns. Not only are the sites good resources, but many also have petitions you can send online, along with pre-written letters, toll-free numbers and other means for action.
The Parents Television Council (www.parentstv.org) has 800,000 members that get the networks' attention when they launch a campaign. Tomeo also recommends the American Decency Association (www.americandecency.org), the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families (www.nationalcoalition.org), www.lyrics.com and her own site, www.teresatomeo.com, as good resources.
Mast says parents should begin modesty training at age 6 or 7, when they still control the money and shopping.
“Teaching modesty should be a normal part of the discipline of children on the road to self-mastery,” she says. “It can remind them of their inner dignity as a child of God.
Each time a child shops for or gets a new outfit, the question of modesty should be addressed. Children can begin to think about the statements they are making with their clothes.“
Nalepa marvels that actions taken, even small ones, can bring positive responses from teens. “I am convinced that kids want to be modest,” she says. “I think it's a natural virtue. When modesty is presented as a good thing, they're happy. They don't want to worry about being sexual beings. They're just kids.”
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota. ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Priest Profile: Souls Galore for Jesus DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:
When his life is over, his work on earth done, Father Richard Fineo hopes to meet the Lord totally exhausted, after having given his all, with just one question on his lips: “Did I bring enough souls with me?”
The good news, he's found, is that getting there is half the reward. In his assignment as parochial vicar at St. Mary's Cathedral in Fargo, N.D., Father Fineo ministers to 625 families in the heart of America's “big sky” country — where, most days, the view is as far as the eye can see. His outlook wasn't always so sunny.
“To love well,” he says, “your heart must be broken many times.”
Father Fineo remembers how he experienced his first heartache when he was only 13, having applied to a seminary prep school only to be rejected. Throughout his public-school education in his native Long Island, N.Y., the sense that he was being called to ministerial priesthood persisted. After high school, he entered the Passionists, studying with them for four years but leaving before taking vows. “I still wanted to become a priest, but I didn't think I was being called to community life,” he recalls.
During the next phase of his life, he held several jobs in the hospitality industry. At one point during his job search, he was advised that his rÈsumÈ was “too Catholic.” If he toned it down, he was told, it might be easier for him to get a job.
While working as a Catholic layman, he continued to discern a possible vocation to the priesthood, turning to the Blessed Mother for assistance. In fact, he made an extended pilgrimage to the major Marian shrines in the Philippines, Russia, Japan, Italy, France, Portugal and Israel. While in Italy, he visited the grave of St. Padre Pio, where he felt his heart drawing closer to the Lord. His yearning to become a priest intensified. There were nearly 1,000 people on the pilgrimage. As it happened, one was a friend of Bishop James Sullivan of North Dakota.
After returning from the pilgrimage and continuing to work in the secular world, one day he said he was stunned to receive a telephone call from that very apostolic successor. “Bishop Sullivan called and invited me to come out to North Dakota and become part of his diocese,” recalls Father Fineo. “I was flabbergasted. I was so shocked I couldn't even answer the bishop.”
Finding it difficult to express in words his feelings about this turn of events, he took action instead: He placed all his cares and concerns where he knew they would be safe — “deep within the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
“In my heart,” he adds, “I heard Our Lady say: ‘If you try to walk away from the priesthood now, I will take the hinges off the door!’”
While on pilgrimage in Medju-gore, Father Fineo met Father Bill McCarthy of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles. Under Father McCarthy's guidance, he entered Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Conn., to study for the priest-hood.
“I can't say enough about Father McCarthy,” says Father Fineo. “He is a great example of priest-hood. I learned so much just being around him.”
On June 1, 2002, Bishop Samuel Aquila ordained Father Fineo a priest for the Diocese of Fargo, where he felt he was being called to serve.
It's hard to say who's happier about the assignment — him or his parishioners.
“Father Fineo is a priest who has great passion for the Eucharist and for families,” says Dave Dahlin, who along with his wife, Marie, is raising 10 children at St. Mary's. “He's courageous, too. He came all the way out here from New York, giving up all traditional supports, to love and serve us.”
Soon after he arrived at St. Mary's, Father Fineo started a conversation group for young adults. The Dahlin daughters joined and are joyous members of the group, which they call “Kibbitz.”
“I am lucky and blessed to know Father Fineo,” says 19-year-old Laura Dahlin. “He shares so much about himself and his journey with Christ. He always talks about finding Christ in ordinary things and it has helped me so much to see Christ in all the little things that make up my life.”
Father Fineo has a twin brother, Robert. Another brother, Michael, narrowly escaped death from the 25th floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. His home parish is Our Lady of Peace in Lynbrook, Long Island. As for his move from New York to one of the country's most rugged and least densely populated regions, Father Fineo says simply: “I love it.”
And why not? To a priest, home is where the hungry souls are. “We have confession two, three times a week,” he says. “There are long lines, too. I often hear confessions before and after Mass and I have even heard confessions at a gas station and out in a ball field.”
Each morning, Father Fineo gets out of bed and greets a new day with hope in his heart for the people who look to find Christ through his help. “God is so good,” he says. “Every morning I ascend the holy altar and offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the source and summit of our faith. That is my greatest joy and comfort.”
And he doesn't shy from change. These days, he embraces it as the Lord's plan for his life.
That's a good thing, because, on June 25, his life will change once again: He's off to Fargo's Church of the Nativity and a new assignment as an associate pastor.
When his earthly ministry is through, will he have brought enough souls with him to Jesus? Only God knows the answer to that question — but, so far, things are looking pretty good.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 06/08/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 08-14, 2003 ----- BODY:Parishes Pray for Clinics
PRIESTS FOR LIFE, May 19 — The organization Priests for Life has matched the nation's 19,000-plus Catholic parishes with its 700-plus freestanding abortion facilities so that every parish in America can focus on praying for the closing of one specific facility.
“This focuses the spiritual energy of the Church on the deadly energy of the abortion mills and brings our strengths against their weaknesses,“ explained Father Frank Pavone, director of Staten Island-based Priests for Life and architect of this project.
Some suggested activities for parishes are prayer vigils, sidewalk counseling and supporting alternatives to abortion. More information, including the specific clinic each parish is asked to pray for, can be found at www.priestsforlife.org/mills.
Right to Know in Alaska
ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS, May 16 — Women deserve to know about the development of their unborn child and the risks of abortion at least 24 hours before having an abortion, according to a bill approved by the Alaska Senate.
If the bill passes into law, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services will be required to prepare a packet of information on abortion, childbirth, assistance available to pay for prenatal care and for an abortion, and a statement that the father of a child is legally responsible to support the child. Women would receive the information in person or via fax, mail or the Internet.
Tennessee Won't Fund Abortion
KNOXNEWS.COM, May 16 — Pro-lifers have successfully cut funding for abortions from the Tennessee state budget.
While state officials insisted the government funds abortions only rarely, prolifers maintain that occasions may arise where the state might do so, such as when a female inmate becomes pregnant while in prison.
The House approved the amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville), on an unrecorded voice vote. It states plainly: “No state funds shall be used to fund abortions.“
In-Utero Surgery Saves Lives
THE THOMASTON TIMES, May 14 — Surgery carried out in utero has saved the lives of twins Grace and Camille Mercer, who were dying from Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, reported the Georgia newspaper.
At 19 weeks into her pregnancy, Carrie Mercer learned from a sonogram that her twin daughters were suffering from the syndrome, which causes an unbalanced flow of blood between two babies who share a placenta. One baby receives too much blood and nutrients; the other doesn't receive enough.
The Mercers contacted a fetal surgeon who had successfully treated TTTS, Dr. Ruben Quintero of the Florida Institute for Fetal Therapy and Diagnosis. During the laser surgery, Quintero severed veins and arteries connecting the twins — only those channels causing the transfer.
Mercer carried the babies to term, delivering two healthy girls who weighed within two ounces of one another and were the same length.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: House Okays Partial-Birth Ban; Will Courts? DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Most of the major hurdles facing a ban on partial-birth abortion have been overcome: Bill Clinton, who twice vetoed congressional bills banning the procedure, is out of office. Democrats, who largely opposed a ban, are out of power. George W. Bush is waiting to sign a bill, once differences in the House and Senate versions are ironed out.
The only major question is whether the new law will survive Supreme Court scrutiny. Backers of the bill that passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 282-139 on June 4 are confident it is crafted carefully enough to pass constitutional muster.
Equally confident are the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project and the National Abortion Federation, which plan to sue in federal court as soon as Bush signs the ban into law.
The bill's author said the bill was specifically written to address the concerns of the Supreme Court.
“We fully expect a challenge,” said Ohio Republican Steve Chabot, who chairs the House judiciary constitution subcommittee. “But the bottom line is this is a gruesome, inhumane, barbaric procedure that should not be allowed.”
The bill stipulates fines and up to two years' imprisonment for doctors who perform partial-birth abortions.
“Opponents of reproductive freedom are simply playing fast and loose with both women's health and the Constitution,” said Laura Murphy, a spokeswoman for the ACLU. “If we have to go to court to stop them, we will.”
“The anti-choice movement claimed earlier versions of this bill banned only one procedure, but the Supreme Court said otherwise,” Murphy said. “This bill, too, bans an array of safe and proven abortion techniques, including the most widely used second-trimester procedure.”
The Supreme Court overturned a Nebraska ban in the 2000 Carhart v. Stenberg decision. But Gerard Bradley, a professor at the Notre Dame School of Law, finds that Congress has rectified a major complication that the court had with the Nebraska law. That complication had to do with whether the law's proscription of the intact dilation and extraction method — partial-birth abortion — would also affect the more common dilation and evacuation method.
A dilation and evacuation abortion involves inserting a vacuum to end the life of an unborn child while he is inside the womb. In a dilation and extraction, the abortionist dilates the cervix only enough to begin the process of birth but not enough to allow full delivery. With the unborn child's head still inside the mother's body, the abortionist punctures the back of the neck and removes the baby's brains, collapsing the skull.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority in Carhart, said: “[U]sing this law some present prosecutors and future attorneys general may choose to pursue physicians who use [dilation and evacuation] procedures, the most commonly used method for performing previability second-trimester abortions,” he said, referring to the method of abortion where a baby's body is cut into pieces in utero and then pulled out piece by piece by a doctor. “All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution, conviction and imprisonment. The result is an undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision.”
What was “shoddy” about the Nebraska case, Bradley said, was its use of the phrase “substantial portion” of a living unborn child. “Because a [dilation and evacuation] procedure may commonly involve pulling from the birth canal a limb or extremity — the court referred repeatedly to ‘arm and a leg’ and, at one telling point, ‘as small a portion as a foot,’” Bradley said.
The bill passed by the House on June 4 — and the similar one passed in March by the Senate — defines a partial-birth abortion as any abortion in which the baby is delivered alive until “in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother” or, if the baby is delivered head first, “the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother,” before being killed.
“This bill's definition of the prohibited procedure — most pointedly, delivery of ‘the entire fetal head’ or, in the case of breech delivery, ‘any part of the fetal trunk past the navel’ — overcomes the vagueness and uncertain application of the analogous Nebraska language — ‘substantial portion’ of the unborn child,” Bradley said.
“No abortion doctor could confuse what is prohibited by [this bill] and a [dilation and evacuation] abortion,” he said.
The Bush administration June 4 called the ban “morally imperative and constitutionally permissible.” After the House vote, the president urged Congress to “quickly resolve any differences and send me the final bill as soon as possible so that I can sign it into law.”
The legislation in the Senate contains the Harkin Amendment, which is an endorsement of the Roe v. Wade decision that removed all state laws against abortion. The House seems unlikely to endorse such language, so disputes will be settled in conference committee.
Cathy Cleaver, pro-life activities spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops, said it will be a “historic event” when Bush signs the bill into law.
“It will be the first federal law to forbid an abortion procedure since Roe v. Wade in 1973,” she said.
“We have lived in denial of the violence of abortion for far two long,” said Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, during debate. “Today, we can stop some of this violence against children.”
‘Health’ Deception
Another concern involves whether an exception for health must be included to pass constitutional muster. The current bill includes no health exemption — and that has abortion supporters upset.
“We are voting to limit a woman's access to safe and legal medical procedures,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat.
“Things can go tragically wrong in the final stages of pregnancy,” Woolsey said. “A woman should not be required to risk her health and future fertility by continuing a dangerous pregnancy.”
But supporters of the ban note that the American Medical Association has stated the procedure is never necessary.
On its Web site, the association states: “According to the scientific literature, there does not appear to be any identified situation in which [partial-birth abortion] is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion, and ethical concerns have been raised about” the procedure.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, said abortion activists are trying to deceive the public with the “health” exemption.
“It is well documented that partial-birth abortions are performed thousands of times annually and that the vast majority are performed on healthy babies of healthy mothers during the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy,” he said.
Although the Supreme Court had ruled against the pro-life position in 2000, Johnson remained confident the court would find this bill to be constitutional.
“The court did strike down a similar ban in Nebraska. They said Roe must allow partial-birth abortions for a healthy baby and a healthy mother,” Johnson said. “They didn't just say it was legal for special circumstances.”
But he added: “We hope when this bill comes to the Supreme Court there will be at least five judges to challenge such extremism.”
Although there is speculation that as many as two judges on the court might retire this summer, giving Bush a chance to appoint pro-life jurists, Johnson said a change of opinion would not necessarily require different judges on the bench.
“Sometimes justices change their mind,” he said. “Justice O'Connor was part of the five-justice majority that struck down the Nebraska law, but we believe language in her concurrence strongly suggests that the revised definition contained in [the House bill] would satisfy her.”
Joshua Mercer is based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Phoenix Bishop Cuts Deal And Gets Reduced Penalty DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:PHOENIX — An agreement has been reached between a diocese and a law-enforcement agency that critics say compromises a Catholic bishop's authority.
Bishop Thomas O'Brien of the Diocese of Phoenix reached a settlement with Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley in order to avoid facing charges of obstruction of justice.
The agreement, signed May 3 but not revealed until a month later, binds Bishop O'Brien to appoint a moderator of the curia (a canonical position) and delegate to him the responsibility for dealing with sexual misconduct. He also must apologize for placing accused priests in parishes.
The agreement also requires the diocese to appoint a youth protection advocate to enforce diocesan policy on sexual misconduct. The diocese must pay $300,000 to the county victim compensation fund; $300,000 for counseling for those victimized by abuse; and $100,000 to reimburse the county attorney's office for its investigation into child sex abuse. It must host and pay for a summit on sexual abuse with the county attorney's office.
One observer, Deacon Keith Fournier, former director of the American Center for Law and Justice, thought the agreement was a good one.
Deacon Fournier is a constitutional lawyer who as a juvenile prosecutor once represented children's services in Jefferson County, Ohio, and administered a youth services grant there.
When sex abuse of children is involved, “We are talking about the mystery of iniquity here,” he said, “We're talking about evil, and evil needs to be exposed.”
But that exposure might be coming at a high price to the Church, according to attorneys.
“What is most objectionable about this agreement,” said Pat Schiltz, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, “is that the bishop plea-bargained himself out of some probation and a possible $5,000 fine to the tune of $600,000-plus that the people of the Diocese of Phoenix now have to pay out.”
The diocese, though, said the payment to the victim's assistance fund and partial cost of the investigation is coming from the profit on the sale of property no longer needed for future parish sites because the diocese is establishing larger geographical parishes and constructing larger churches. No money is coming from a Charity and Development Appeal or parish collections, and most of the money will go to help victims, said diocesan spokeswoman Kim Sue Lia Perkes.
Schiltz, who has defended numerous churches and dioceses against sexual-abuse lawsuits, also said the bishop's admission is not going to help in any future lawsuits against him.
“It will be hard for him to argue that he was not negligent,” he said.
The admission, Schiltz said, “is very carefully worded, but it's not something I would want to have hanging around my neck if I were defending him.”
Other States
The agreement goes a step further than similar cases in New Hampshire and the Diocese of Manchester, N.H., Schiltz said. The New Hampshire agreement “monitors the results” of actions the diocese is taking to curb child sexual abuse, he said. But “what Phoenix has done is to realign the operations of the diocese at the whim of the state.”
That realignment could have included Bishop O'Brien's resignation, according to press reports. Barnett Lotstein, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, told the Register the office knew for a fact that Bishop O'Brien was seeking to resign from his office but that the papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, refused the resignation. According to the Arizona Republic, the resignation was rejected because it came at the request of county attorney.
On the question of his resignation, Bishop O'Brien said, “There has been no speculation about my service as bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix. Although we explored several different resolutions to this matter, we made it clear to Mr. Romley and his office that my resignation was not an option. I serve at the pleasure of the Pope, not the county attorney.”
Perkes told the Register that Romley demanded the bishop's resignation. “That demand was shared with the bishop's religious superiors and he was told that he could not resign,” she said.
Bishop O'Brien, 67, has been bishop of Phoenix since 1981. He is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Administrative Committee and its Committee on Marriage and Family. The latter committee, under his chairmanship, in 1997 issued “Always Our Children,” a statement on homosexuality that had to be subsequently revised at the direction of the Vatican.
Two Bad Effects
Angela Carmella, a law professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, believes the situation could have two bad effects on the Church: the state could start making diocesan policy and it could show the Church is getting lazy.
“If the state has a law that applies to all, I have no problem with the state enforcing that law,” Carmella said. “But for the state to have a say in the policies themselves, the institutional boundaries are crossed there.”
Additionally, “the Church itself is responsible for its own renewal and reform,” Carmella said.
The exposure of sex abuse was brought about by the public, the press and the state, she added, “and that's okay.”
But, she continued, “My big concern about these agreements is that the Church might be tempted to abdicate its responsibility for reform by saying, ‘Oh look, we're complying with the law.’”
But the law the Church should be complying with is canon law, said Msgr. Brian Ferme, the new dean of the canon law school at Catholic University of America.
“The [canon] law is that when someone is accused — and the most extraordinary thing is it's never done — there must be a preliminary investigation,” said Msgr. Ferme, former dean of canon law at the Lateran University in Rome. The preliminary investigation is simply to establish whether there is any credibility for the accusation, he said, and then there are canonical steps to follow after that.
Unfortunately, though, the Church has “done everything but what it should do — apply canon law and get on with it,” he said. And in most instances, canon law is more rigorous than civil law.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Who Teaches With the Church? Georgetown Won't Tell Parents DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Which Georgetown theology professors teach in communion with the Church?
The question is on parents' minds after an incident at Georgetown's graduation this year. When a Vatican cardinal's words so offended a Georgetown theologian that she walked off the stage in protest (see page 17).
During the next several months the Register will publish its ongoing investigation of Catholic colleges and universities featured in U.S. News and World Report's college guide and ask the question: Are parents allowed to know whether those who teach theology even intend to teach in communion with the Church? Or has the opposite happened — is the canon law mandatum being used to protect dissenters?
Starting in 1983, canon law required that a theologian teaching in a Catholic university receive a mandatum from the local bishop, showing his intention to teach with the Church. When it became clear that Canon 812 was being overlooked by many dioceses, Pope John Paul II in 1990 brought it to the front of the debate again with the apostolic constitution for Catholic colleges and institutions, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church).
Now it's 2003, and some parents say the mandatum is being used as a way to hide dissenting professors, not expose them.
During his meeting with the U.S. cardinals last year, Pope John Paul II said parents “must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
Parents say that many bishops and universities won't tell them whether or not theologians are committed to Church teaching.
The nation's oldest Catholic university, Georgetown is ranked 24th among national doctoral universities by U.S. News and World Report's America's Best Colleges 2003.
According to Chester Gillis, theology chair at Georgetown, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick met with the 25 full-time theology department members last spring and invited them to apply for the mandatum.
But today, neither the administration, the archbishop nor theology faculty members will say which have received mandatums.
“It's a confidential matter,” Gillis said.
Ex Corde Ecclesiae (From the Heart of the Church) “treats it as a confidential matter between the ordinary and the individual professor,” he said.
The situation at Georgetown University is, in this matter, representative of the majority of Catholic colleges and bishops in the United States. Most Catholic colleges and their bishops refuse to tell who has a mandatum. They claim that the mandatum guidelines require that it be a private matter between the individual theologian and the bishop.
But some bishops disagree. Omaha, Neb., Archbishop Elden Curtiss told the Register that all 35 theology faculty at both Creighton University and the College of St. Mary in Omaha received the man-datum. He told them he would publicly name those who refused.
Chicago's Cardinal Francis George told the Register that “A mandatum is a public reality, like getting a degree from a university. It's a fact that a bishop has given a particular faculty member a mandatum that they are teaching in communion with the Church. That is a public matter. Whether to publicize it or not is a private matter.”
“It's a personal act,” he added, “but personal acts are sometimes public, like receiving a sacrament.”
While the U.S. bishops' guidelines don't explicitly address the question of whether mandatums should be known to the public or not, they are unequivocal about one thing: Every Catholic theology professor has to have one.
“All Catholics who teach theological disciplines in a Catholic university are required to have a mandatum,” it continues.
Canon 812 uses similar language, without specifying Catholics: “It is necessary that those who teach theological disciplines in any institute of higher studies have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority.”
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1990 instruction “The Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian” explains the reason for the mandatum when it says that one who has become a Catholic theologian has “freely and knowingly accepted to teach in the name of the Church” (No. 38).
What's a Parent to Do?
Asked how a parent or student might be able to determine whether a theology faculty member had received the mandatum, Gillis said it would be at the discretion of the individual professor.
Parents, on the other hand, said such knowledge would be very helpful to them when choosing a college such as Georgetown.
“Our aim is eternal life,” said Pat Hain of Wilmington, Del. “We want our children to be rooted in something solid and in truth. I am very aware of the sad reality that at many Catholic universities there is much teaching going on that is not faithful to the magisterium. It's a difficult decision for any Catholic parent.”
Hain's son, Raymond, was considering Georgetown, the University of Notre Dame and Christendom College.
Lacking the minimum knowledge to help him make a judgment, Raymond said he pored through the college course descriptions to try to help determine which college would be “both challenging and orthodox.”
In the end, he and his parents settled on Christendom, a school whose theology professors have all applied for mandatums.
Hain said that whether their son attended a Catholic university that wasn't detrimental to his faith was “a great concern.”
A recent Higher Education Research Institute study conducted by the University of California-Los Angeles showed that Catholic students' moral views were weaker, rather than stronger, after four years on Catholic college campuses.
The fact that Christendom was upfront about its support of the mandatum played an important role in their decision.
“I don't know if the Catholic theology professors realize the power that they have to bring unity to the Church — and what a wonderful way to do this, through the mandatum,” Hain said.
Students Feel Lost
Knowledge of the mandatum, stated 2002 Georgetown theology and philosophy graduate Stephen Feiler, would have been important to him in his studies.
“I would have appreciated knowing which faculty members did and did not have the mandatum, so that I could have chosen my classes accordingly,” he said. “The mandatum does little good if there is no way to differentiate between professors teaching — or not teaching — authentic Catholic theology.”
“In the name of ‘academic freedom’ many professors are highly suspicious of any Church involvement,” said Feiler, who works as a communications specialist with the Knights of Columbus. “I believe that a small number of faculty members, specifically Jesuits, have requested the mandatum, but I have no way of knowing for certain.”
Neither Cardinal McCarrick nor Georgetown President John DeGioia commented on how the mandatum is being implemented at Georgetown.
“Georgetown University's position is that the mandatum is a personal issue between theologians and the local ordinary,” university spokeswoman Gloria Lacap said.
“Cardinal McCarrick is working directly with the theologians on implementation,” said Susan Gibbs, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Washington. “He has not released anything publicly but is moving forward on it.”
Gibbs suggested that if parents contacted the cardinal's office they would not be told who has received the mandatum.
“There wouldn't be a list,” Gibbs said. “It would be more appropriate for them to check with the individual professors.”
Whether or not a professor has been granted the mandatum appears to make little difference on campus.
“It will not affect their employment at Georgetown,” Jesuit Father William McFadden, a theology professor, told the university newspaper The Hoya. “We're not even allowed to ask if somebody's Catholic or not.”
Students and parents still hold out hope for schools like Georgetown.
“Under President DeGioia's leadership, Georgetown has made significant strides in enhancing and celebrating its Catholic identity,” Feiler said. Still, others think the struggle must be met with prayer.
“Those who see this struggle have a great responsibility to continue to pray,” Hain said. “Prayer will unite the Catholic universities that publicly support the Church. There is no shame there. Once the Catholic universities begin to do this, our Church will become stronger and more united.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Georgetown Faculty Offended by Cardinal's Speech
WASHINGTON — A Vatican cardinal repeating Catholic doctrine during commencement exercises at a Catholic university does not seem a recipe for controversy.
Yet when Cardinal Francis Arinze explained Church teaching at Georgetown University on May 17, students and faculty complained. One Georgetown theologian, Theresa Sanders, walked off stage in protest during the ceremony.
Sanders teaches such Georgetown courses as “Religion and Film,” “Saints in Film” and the popular general-education theology course “The Problem of God.” She did not return the Register's calls for comment.
“In many parts of the world, the family is under siege,” said Cardinal Arinze in the section of his speech that appeared to have offended Sanders and students who walked out of the commencement exercises. “It is opposed by an anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. It is scorned and banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions and cut in two by divorce.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a letter protesting the speech was signed by about 70 faculty members and delivered to Jane McAuliffe, dean of the university's school of arts and sciences. McAuliffe, a specialist in Islamic studies, invited Cardinal Arinze, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to speak at the school's graduation ceremonies.
In the only public comment made by the university, McAuliffe stated, “A number of students and faculty members have been in touch with me to express their reactions, both negative and positive, to Cardinal Francis Arinze's address at the college commencement [May 17]. As an academic community, vigorous and open discussion lies at the heart of what we do and there are many different voices in the conversation.”
Ed Ingebretsen, a professor of English at Georgetown and an openly homosexual priest in a schismatic “Catholic” church, told Cox News that Cardinal Arinze's remarks seemed out of place during commencement. A professor at Georgetown since 1986, Ingebretsen offered a course in 1995 titled “Unspeakable Lives: Gay and Lesbian Narratives.”
“These things are exactly what he's paid to say,” Ingebretsen told Cox News. “[But] it's a graduation; why he decided to do the pro-family thing no one seems to know.”
Stephen Feiler, a 2002 graduate of the university, thought the speech was “spectacular.”
“Cardinal Arinze's address was one of the finest that I've heard at Georgetown in some time,” Feiler said. “While some were deeply offended by Cardinal Arinze's speech, Ex Corde Ecclesiae reminds us that ‘a Catholic University must have the courage to speak uncomfortable truths which do not please public opinion but which are necessary to safeguard the authentic good of society.’”
Cardinal Arinze also received support from the Archdiocese of Washington. “Here was a Catholic cardinal speaking about a Catholic topic at a Catholic university. It does seem appropriate,” said Susan Gibbs, director of communications for the archdiocese. “His message was, ‘Turn to God. Put your faith first.’ That's a wonderful message for graduation.” Danielle DeCerbo was one of at least two graduates who walked out during Cardinal Arinze's speech.
“American Catholicism is kind of different from where Cardinal Arinze is coming from,” DeCerbo said of the Vatican cardinal. “It seemed to me that he was associating pornography with homosexuals. I felt like it was an inappropriate thing to say at a graduation.”
DeCerbo, who identifies herself as Catholic, currently works for the New York City Council.
“I have worked for the past two years — as someone having a gay or lesbian identity — to offer services to all students at Georgetown,” DeCerbo said. “Cardinal Arinze's comments weren't in line with the dignity aspect that the university is trying to integrate into the Georgetown experience.”
Dean McAuliffe held a meeting May 23 in response to the student and faculty protests. According to 2002 graduate Feiler, who was in attendance, approximately 40 students and faculty were present.
“Students are going to have a variety of opinions,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Falls Church, Va.-based Cardinal Newman Society, a national organization dedicated to strengthening Catholic identity at Catholic colleges and universities. “The major issue is the faculty.”
“Faculty are coming out publicly suggesting that discussing Catholic doctrine doesn't belong at a Catholic university,” Reilly said. “Even at Georgetown, which has a myriad of problems regarding Catholic identity, we're not giving up on Catholic identity and surrendering to the mission statements of individual faculty members. Georgetown still has a mission statement that identifies it as a Catholic university. If faculty members have a problem with that, they don't belong there.”
— Tim Drake
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Youth Mission Evangelizes on the Streets of San Francisco DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:SAN FRANCISCO — When Jehovah's Witnesses knock on the door or pass out literature, most Catholics get frustrated. But David Mees was inspired by them and decided that Catholics, too, should evangelize their neighbors.
“I got the idea for doing missions in the mall from the Jehovah's Witnesses, so I bought some materials from Catholic bookstores, filled out the appropriate paperwork at the mall and began giving away Catholic materials and rosaries,” said Mees, a parishioner at St. Mary's Church in Walnut Creek, Calif. — a suburb of San Francisco.
After working on his own for about a year, Mees joined forces with Youth for the Third Millennium, a Maryland-based apostolate that engages in door-to-door Catholic evangelization and is just getting started in the Bay Area.
Mees said he has seen the work he does deeply affect people's lives.
“There was this teen-age boy who got into trouble with the law,” Mees said, and “he noticed the table and came across and asked for prayers.
“What was touching,” Mees added, “was to see the look on his grandmother's face because [it was] Catholics [who] were doing this.”
In another instance, four teen-agers came over and one asked for information on the Catholic faith for his boss. Mees said the boy explained that his boss was constantly asking the young man questions such as, “Why do Catholics worship Mary?”
Mees gave the young man a tape by Scott Hahn — a prominent Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism — and various pamphlets from the organization Catholic Answers that would help the boy's foray into apologetics.
Recently the group has even taken its message from the malls in the suburbs to the streets of San Francisco.
The city's historic Union Square — surrounded by upscale department stores and restaurants — might seem like an unlikely place for Catholic missionaries, but this and other shopping areas are prime grounds for evangelization, according to Mees and others involved in Youth for the Third Millennium.
Youth for the Third Millennium members have not only set up tables with Catholic materials in Union Square but have also even gone door to door to spread the Gospel on the scenic streets of San Francisco. They give out Catholic Answers' booklet-form introduction to the Catholic faith, Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth, and copies of the Register, Mees said.
The missionaries — usually young lay people — receive basic catechetical instruction from a priest before setting out. They attend Mass and pray together as a group while they are together.
Michael Garibaldi, a youth minister at St. Luke Parish in Foster City, near San Francisco, found most people the missionaries encountered in Union Square were polite and many were supportive.
It was a low-key approach, he said, with people able to come up to the tables if they wished. The missionaries would ask people if they had any prayer intentions and, if they were Catholic, would encourage them to go to confession. Priests took turns awaiting penitents at the nearby Daughters of St. Paul bookstore.
“One man on the opposite side of the square made an obscene gesture, but that was it in terms of negative reaction,” Garibaldi said.
In April, Youth for the Third Millennium did a mission weekend at both the square and St. Finbar Church near San Francisco State University.
“We made some wonderful contacts, including a Protestant minister to whom we gave a Scott Hahn conversion tape,” said St. Finbar's pastor, Father Lawrence Goode. “People came out of Macy's to get rosaries as word got around.”
Door to Door
After manning the tables in Union Square, the Youth for the Third Millennium missionaries went door to door based on a list of parishioners provided by Father Goode. The parishioners on the list — mostly young people — were invited to come the next day to an event held in the parish hall after the 10 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Finbar. Several dozen people showed up for the event, which featured a Christian rock band.
One house had a sign warning non-Catholic solicitors not to knock, he said. The missionaries decided this was a great place to visit even if it was not on the list. It turned out that a man in the household was very ill, but the parish had not been informed. As a result of the visit, Father Goode was able to give the man the sacraments before he died.
Growing Nationwide
“The number of local mission coordinators has grown dramatically in the last year,” said Paul Bernetsky, executive director of Youth for the Third Millennium in Bethesda, Md.
Since July, Bernetsky said, there have been more than 90 Youth for the Third Millennium missions, some outside the United States, with more than 950 youth participants.
Garibaldi, who participated in the San Francisco mission, said he and many others view the missions as invaluable.
“It's important that people who understand their faith are out there and are at least planting seeds,” he said.
As for Father Goode, he said he sees a great deal of potential in the Youth for the Third Millennium missions in his area.
“I didn't know much about it before,” he said. “I'd be happy to do it again.”
He thinks future missions will be even more successful. And until the missionaries return to St. Finbar, according to Mees, they will continue to go to a mall at least once a month.
Andrew Walther is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Church on Contraception Made Her Say 'Ah-Ha!' DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:She is the assistant director of the Diocesan Development Program for Natural Family Planning, Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities. She is also a doctoral candidate in the department of Church history at Catholic University of America.
She spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake while preparing for Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, July 20-26.
Where are you from originally?
I grew up in Belleville, N.J. I'm the second oldest and have two sisters and one brother. My father worked at Kennedy Airport as a port steward for Pan American Airways. My mother was a stay-at-home mom.
I'm the product of Catholic school education except for college. I attended a former convent Catholic high school — Villa Walsh Academy in Morristown, N.J.
So you have always been Catholic?
Yes. We were very active in our parish, St. Anthony of Padua. My mother volunteered to clean the church. Consequently my siblings and I spent Saturday mornings helping her — removing wax from candleholders, polishing the altar rails and doing the linens. I know how to iron and starch a corporal perfectly!
I caught my real deep love of the faith from my father. He loved to talk about what he believed. As a member of the Holy Name Society, he had a key to the church and would pray a Eucharistic adoration holy hour whenever he could. I learned the practice of the faith from my mother and the substance from my father. Living in such a world, it didn't dawn on me that the rest of the world was not Italian or Catholic until I was much older.
What led you to continue your religious education?
One of my professors in the religion department, a Methodist minister by the name of Robert Streetman, said, “Your Church needs you. You need to study theology.” I wasn't confident and didn't think I was smart enough, but he really encouraged me to go on to graduate school.
For a few years, when I was first teaching art in a public grammar school and then religion in a Catholic high school, he would send old papers of mine to a theology professor in California. The professor was very encouraging and eventually, I applied and was offered a scholarship by Pacific School of Religion at the Graduate School of Religion at Berkeley. It was a very rich, wide experience theologically.
How did you first come to learn of natural family planning?
My graduate work wasn't focused on marriage and family life. I was interested in Church history and ecumenism. In fact, after two years at Berkeley, I did a year of intensive study at the Angelicum in Rome. But God had other plans!
In the summer of 1984, just before attending graduate school, a priest-friend introduced me to Msgr. James McHugh, who at the time was the director of this office, and I began working with him as a secretary. One of the first things I remember him saying to me was, “We live in a promiscuous society.” I thought he was a bit “over the top,” but he also sounded a lot like my father, so I listened.
How did that experience change you?
At the time I knew nothing about the Church's teachings on birth control. Quite frankly, moral issues bored me. I thought they were nobrainers — abortion is wrong, so don't do it. What I didn't realize is how much the culture had already worn down my own sensibilities. Msgr. McHugh would talk about these things with me in a matter-of-fact way as we did our work. He also gave me a great deal to read — mostly Church documents. Eventually, I realized the messages our culture sends were not based on anything solid and in fact were deceptive! It was as if I had been asleep, and Msgr. McHugh woke me up.
By 1987, I came to know some of the natural family planning teaching couples. They were so free in expressing their experiences of living the Church's teachings in such lovely, exciting and holy ways that I felt an “ah-ha” feeling. Even though I was a single woman, I understood that what they were saying was really true. So, instead of studying ecumenism in the Church, you can say I'm examining the idea of Christian unity within the context of marriage and family life, the unity of husband, wife and God.
Your dissertation is focusing on the 1930 Anglican Lambeth Conference, where contraception was first embraced by a major Protestant church. What seemed to be at the root of the Anglican Church's acceptance of this issue?
There were several things that were happening. The modern birth control and eugenics movements were very strong in the early 1900s in England. There was also the effect of industrialization — more people moving away from their extended families and into the cities, more women working outside of the home, and with these changes there was a rise in promiscuity.
Within the Anglican Church of the time, there was not a strong moral tradition, a fact that many scholars have noted. Nor was there a clear understanding of the Anglican bishops' own spiritual authority or a theology of magisterium. So in the midst of these currents several British physicians were able to influence the bishops, and in particular Bishop Theodore Woods, who persuaded the others on this issue.
When the decision was made public, many Christians were scandalized by the Anglican position. As a result, letters to the editor were written that said things like, “If the bishops do this in 1930, what will we hear next? Will we read that Lambeth 1980 has proclaimed that doctors will be allowed to kill their patients in some cases?”
Christians of the time understood the life connections. They recognized that the acceptance of birth control would lead to other moral evils — promiscuity, abortion, easier divorce, the breakdown of the family and assisted suicide.
Natural family planning seems to be the Church's best-kept secret. Why isn't the word getting out more?
Too many priests remain silent about Church teaching on birth control and natural family planning. In fairness, the majority are simply not comfortable with the topic. Priests often like to speak out of knowledge or experience. With natural family planning, they don't typically know the details of methodology, and they're men, they don't “cycle,” so the information is at best unfamiliar to them. Because they are not married it's also difficult for them to speak out of their own experience. I try to encourage priests to be confident — they can articulate the Church's teachings on responsible parenthood and they can connect with a natural family planning user or teacher to provide them with the details.
Doctors are also silent. Frankly, most do not have this information. Natural family planning research is strong but not making its way into the textbooks. One answer may be that the contraceptive industry has such a stranglehold on the books.
There is a huge world of opposition to natural family planning because of ignorance and silence.
Tell me about your office's new campaign to raise awareness of natural family planning.
The campaign uses upbeat, optimistic images and messages to provide a hint of how good it is to live this truth in marriage. During Natural Family Planning Awareness Week we ask dioceses to offer talks in parishes, to display brochures and posters, and to ask priests to preach on natural family planning.
Are you hopeful for the future?
Oh yes. You just have to have terrific patience with this ministry. I'm convinced that it is God's will for humanity and that the Catholic Church has it right. I'm grateful for those people who feel that God has called them to do this work. They have been doing the hard work, many of them for almost 35 years!
There are many signs of hope. There are plenty of young scientists doing more work in natural family planning. I'm extremely encouraged by seminarians and young priests. They have read Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, they have heard natural family planning witness talks in their classes and many have become friends with natural family planning couples. And most important, they are comfortable with the topic!
Of course we must continue to find ways within the Church that are creative and systematic to teach God's vision of human sexuality, conjugal love and responsible parenthood. Eventually people will get it. This is nothing short of a new and better sexual revolution, and it's going to happen. The messages of the secular world are false. People are not happy, and eventually they are going to start looking elsewhere. So we move forward with the Church's teachings and natural family planning education. That's all we can humanly do and woe to us if we do not rise to the occasion!
Tim Drakes writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Theresa Notare attributes the start of her faith to her family -- and the start of her theology studies to a Methodist professor. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drakes ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Fathers and Sons Make Connections Through New Apostolate Kepha DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW ORLEANS — It's 2 o'clock in the morning. Fourteen-year-old Chris LaFleur kneels beside his father, Andrew, and a dozen other fathers and their sons, all dressed in purple T-shirts as they kneel before the Son of God.
All of the men are tired, but fatigue is a price they're willing to pay for what they get in return. They're taking part in overnight Eucharistic adoration, otherwise described by the men as “Yawns for Christ.” It's only one of the activities that characterize the growing father-son New Orleans-based Catholic apostolate, Kepha. The group's motto: “Play hard, pray hard!”
The apostolate has sparked an interest among fathers looking for a way to bond with their sons. With members in six states — and interest in several others — the organization appears poised for growth. Its leaders see promise in the fact that it has achieved its gains mainly by word-of-mouth, with very little active recruiting or promotion.
Kepha was hatched six years ago in the mind of Brent Zeringue of Destrehan, La.
“It was a one-year experiment,” said Zeringue, a former educator and hardware-store owner. “I challenged a group of eight boys to learn Bible verses that defended specific Catholic doctrines each month. They also had to raise money for the pro-life movement, say morning prayers and the Divine Mercy chaplet every day, and practice acts of self-mortification such as giving up sweets or taking a cold shower.”
In exchange for their sacrifices, Zeringue promised the original group a retreat to Colorado at the end of the year.
The eight boys met the challenge and then some.
Today Kepha has approximately 80 active fathers and sons in Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Mississippi and New York.
Zeringue said fathers in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Minnesota have also expressed an interest in starting chapters.
Kepha is defined by five charisms — apologetics, brotherhood, charity, mortification and prayer. These are modeled after the lives of the group's three patrons, Venerable Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St. John Bosco and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.
In fact, Blessed Frassati in particular inspired several of the group's mottos. These include “dynamic orthodoxy, infectious joy,” “verso l'alto” (to the top) and the group's slogan, “The Brotherhood of the Iron Will.” This is taken from a quote popularly attributed to Blessed Frassati: “I beg you to pray for me a little so that God may give me an iron will that does not bend and does not fail in his projects.”
Scouts of the Spirit
The group hosts monthly father-son retreats that are often combined with First Saturday Eucharistic adoration. In May, 23 fathers and their sons held a retreat at St. Peter's Catholic Church on Staten Island, thanks to Andrew Smith, a staff member of Priests for Life, who is establishing a chapter in New York. In addition to “Yawns for Christ,” the members picketed an abortion clinic with the Franciscan Friars of Renewal, carried a cross in a silent procession to “The Grunt Padre” (Father Vincent Capadanno) monument and played games such as egg toss and dodge ball.
“It's something like Catholic Boy Scouts, but the emphasis is spiritual,” Zeringue said.
The boys, ranging in age from 8 to 16, pledge to make morning prayer and either the Divine Mercy chaplet or the rosary part of their daily routine. The average age is 13. Younger boys, the ones age 6 to 8, are active in the pre-Kepha group, Saints Squad.
Members routinely raise money for charitable causes and perform good deeds, such as serving meals at the soup kitchen run by the Missionaries of Charity in Baton Rouge. The group's constitution mandates that half the money the boys collect for their retreats must be donated to charity. In five years, the Kepha members have donated more than $20,000 to various charitable organizations.
In addition, the group is characterized by a love for the Holy Father. Its trademark shirts read, “Where Peter is, there is the Church” and also “Roma locuta, causa finita est” (When Rome speaks, the matter is settled). They recently held a Proud of the Priesthood banquet that drew 170 lay people and more than 30 priests and seminarians.
In recent years, group members have made pilgrimages with the pro-life Crossroads team, attended World Youth Day and traveled to Rome.
Kepha sometimes takes Zeringue and his sons away from home. But Karen Zeringue isn't complaining.
“I remember the times when Brent didn't have friends,” explained the mother of nine. “Now Brent has brothers. With these men, he can go and talk with any of them. They are all spiritually connected through prayer.”
Hearts Ablaze
Some members travel great distances to participate. Brandon White, 16, regularly travels nine hours from McKinney, Texas, to New Orleans to participate in the retreats.
“Before Kepha I never really thought about my faith or had a reason to think about it,” he said. “Now I find that daily morning prayer and the Divine Mercy chap-let have caused me to grow deeper in my relationship with God.”
Before the chapter was started in Oklahoma, Father M. Price Oswalt brought information about the group to Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius Beltran. His response?
“He said, ‘You not only have my permission, but you [also] have my blessing and prayers,’” recalled Father Oswalt, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Kingfisher, Okla.
Father Oswalt first met the group at a convention of the Couple to Couple League in June 2002.
“They were all wearing purple T-shirts,” Father Oswalt said, “and the more they spoke, the more I was impressed with what they were doing.” The young men's commitment impressed Father Oswalt even more than their words.
“We had a couple of meals at a restaurant together,” Father Oswalt explained. “While we were eating chips and salsa, one of the teen boys mentioned that he had given up chips that week. Another one had given up soda. And it wasn't even Lent. I wondered what possessed these young men to do this when no one is doing this. It was interesting and I wanted to learn more.”
Last October, the Oklahoma chapter held its first retreat.
“We hoped to get at least 25 fathers and sons,” Father Oswalt said. “We had 87.”
Father Oswalt served as the spiritual director for Kepha's Rome retreat and has been asked to become the program's national spiritual director.
“These men are highly dedicated to the gospel of life and the Eucharist,” Father Oswalt said. “One of the fruits we will see from Kepha is vocations.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Santorum as Popular as Ever
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 22 — After weeks of attacks in various media — and by prominent Democrats and homosexual Republicans — Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., seems to be still unscathed — at least in his home state.
Commenting on a Supreme Court case in an interview published April 22, Santorum remarked that overturning sodomy laws would undermine the legality of laws prohibiting polygamy and incest.
Santorum's constituents seem untroubled, according to the Associated Press. An independent poll released May 22 showed that the senator had the same 55% approval rating that he was earning in April, before all the publicity concerning his comments, according to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
The AP speculated that some undecided voters might have been turned against Santorum, boosting his disapproval rating from 20% to 33%.
“The folks back home in Pennsylvania are largely unconcerned about Sen. Santorum's remarks about homosexual activity,” commented Clay Richards of the Quinnipiac Institute.
Some 58% of respondents to the same survey said homosexual activity is wrong, while 27% considered it acceptable and 14% were undecided.
Archbishop Criticizes Prime Minister
In a confidential letter reported in The Ottawa Citizen on May 29, the archbishop addressed the issue. He referred to the letter from the pulpit at Notre Dame Cathedral.
“It has to do with his remarks recently about Bush,” the archbishop told congregants. “He threw in the abortion issue as something we could be proud of.”
The archbishop has in the past called for Catholic voters to “raise a stink” every chance they can get concerning government funding of abortion.
The Citizen reported that more than 2 million abortions have been performed in Canada since it was legalized in 1969.
Bishop Wuerl Says Boston Posting is ‘Speculation’
The Boston daily reported June 8 that some Church officials considered Bishop Wuerl the most likely candidate for the post. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop in the midst of last year's sex abuse scandal.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Bishop Wuerl has long been said to be among the top choices to replace Cardinal Law because of his “documented determination to remove known child molesters from ministry.”
The Pittsburgh daily noted that “Vatican decorum” prevents a bishop to say whether or not he is about to be appointed to another diocese. “However, the subtleties of Church diplomatic parlance are such that a bishop who knows he is about to be named to a diocese normally says he ‘can't comment’ rather than dismissing leaks as speculation,” the paper said.
Bishop Wuerl did not use those words, however.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Massachusetts Bishops Read Letter to Parishioners on Same-Sex Marriage DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — In a joint letter to Catholics read at parishes May 31-June 1, the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts restated Church teaching on marriage. The letter was a response to a same-sex marriage case soon to be decided by the state Supreme Court.
In the letter signed by Bishop Richard Lennon, the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Boston; Bishop Daniel Reilly of the Diocese of Worcester; Bishop Thomas Dupre of the Diocese of Springfield; and Bishop-Elect George Coleman of the Diocese of Fall River, the clerics reiterated to congregants the Church's teachings on homosexuality and marriage.
The bishops highlighted a 1996 statement of the national episcopal conference on homosexual marriage.
“We oppose attempts to grant the legal status of marriage to a relationship between persons of the same sex,” the letter stated. “No same-sex union can realize the unique and full potential the marital relationship expresses. For this reason, our opposition to ‘same-sex marriage’ is not an instance of unjust discrimination or animosity toward homosexual persons. In fact, the Catholic Church teaches emphatically that individuals and society must respect the basic human dignity of all persons, including those with a homosexual orientation. Homosexual persons have a right to and deserve our respect, compassion, understanding and defense against prejudice, attacks and abuse.”
In the case currently before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, seven homosexual couples are challenging the state, arguing that the commonwealth's constitution gives them the right to marry.
According to Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which is arguing for the homosexual couples, “The suit argues that the right to marry the person of one's choice is protected under the state constitution and, further, that the state cannot justify excluding gay and lesbian couples and their families from the institution of marriage and the hundreds of protections it provides.”
The state Supreme Court heard arguments March 4.
Legislators in Massachusetts have reacted to the Goodridge case with the introduction of the Marriage Affirmation and Protection Amendment. In their letter, the bishops asked Catholics “to write, call or e-mail your state senator and state representative, and get your friends to do the same” in support of the legislation.
Daniel Avila of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference — to which the bishops directed people for more information — praised the bishops for taking advantage of “a teaching moment” and said calls, e-mails and letters coming into his office suggest the effort was not in vain — and has not been subject to a backlash.
“Feedback here indicates that the statement was received quite well,” he said. “Our intent was to put this on the radar screen of the people in the pews. People are aware now. They know [same-sex marriage] is not just some abstract debate.”
Confrontation
Not unexpectedly, the bishops' letter was not received well by everyone.
National news coverage of the letter focused on protesters at Boston's Cathedral of the Holy Cross. As the Associated Press reported: “At the mention of the statement, about a dozen people, mostly men, stood up and faced the back of the church. Most of them then walked out, with three men walking out at the end of the homily.”
Ann Hagan Webb, a psychologist and New England co-coordinator of Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, was one of the protesters.
“The letter written by the Massachusetts Roman Catholic bishops and read at many local parishes last Sunday is nothing more than Catholic propaganda designed to increase homophobia and divert attention from the continuing sexual-abuse scandal,” she told the Register.
“How the bishops can rationalize that gay marriages are a threat to heterosexual marriage escapes me,” she added. “Do they think that if gay marriage is legal there will be a mad rush of straight couples to get divorced so they can marry same-sex partners? The Catholic Church has a right to any rules it wants to impose for the sacraments within its own religion, but it should not try to impose those beliefs on the secular community. The Church also doesn't recognize divorce, but it is not calling its faithful to lobby to have divorce laws revoked.”
The AP also quoted one of the people who walked out: “I feel angry,” said Mark Murphy, 25, of Somerville. “I have to turn my back to the altar. I shouldn't have to do that. The Church has to clean up its own house before it sets foot in mine.”
Murphy walked out with his same-sex partner, Carl Sciortino, 24, according to the wire service.
But despite the protest and negative depiction in the press, many Catholics, both inside and outside Massachusetts, consider it progress.
One Catholic political strategist said of the letter: “The Church in Boston needed to find its public voice eventually — this issue is important, timely and in need of clarification by the Church. From a strictly pragmatic point of view, the Church's position is one with a great deal of support among the faithful, the audience with whom the hierarchy most needs to reestablish trust.”
Even officials from Voice of the Faithful, a group formed after the scandals broke in 2002 that has often been a harsh critic of the bishops and has been accused of fostering dissent in the Church, would not criticize the statement. A spokeswoman directed the Register to the group's mission statement, which says it agrees to “accept the teaching authority of our Church, including the traditional role of the bishops and the Pope.”
“My impression is that pro-gay marriage forces in Boston are doing their best to use the Church scandal to discredit the Church's ability to speak to this issue,” said Stanley Kurtz, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a frequent writer on the issue of same-sex marriage. “In many ways, the press played up the scandal and played down the gay element in it just so they could discredit the Church on issues like this. This is the first test of how well they will succeed.”
“The people who will attack the Church for its position on gay marriage would do so regardless of the current scandal atmosphere,” he added. “They should not be given the power to silence the Church.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Vatican's Navarro-Valls: Pope Doesn't Know the Meaning of 'Weekend' DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — What keeps Pope John Paul II going so intensely at age 83?
In this interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, adapted and translated from its original Italian by Zenit news service, Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls reveals details of the Pope's life and some of the Holy Father's major concerns.
A few years ago, before 2000, you said that John Paul's pontificate was one of ascent. Would you still say the same now?
With what parameter can one judge the direction — ascent, descent — of the pontificate?
I don't see anything other than his papal mission: the opening of far-reaching prospects, of goodness and of responsibility to our time. And from this point of view I would reiterate that we are in an ascent that tends to become even more rapid.
It is curious, but after 25 years of pontificate, John Paul has not exhausted the repertoire of topics. Even less so has he consumed the patrimony of pastoral initiatives.
As one of the people closest to John Paul, could you describe a normal day in the life of the Pope? Shouldn't he rest more?
His usual day includes a volume of work that is much greater than would be normal for a 20-year-old youth.
Every day there are audiences, meetings, speeches — naturally in many different languages. There are also hours of work with his collaborators or interdicastery meetings to study some issue that needs greater attention.
In addition, there are the lunches and dinners, another form of work, where new issues are studied in an informal atmosphere. And it is like this every day, including Saturdays. On Sundays, long ceremonies are frequently planned in [St. Peter's] Square, such as canonizations.
At times I have told the Pope, although he speaks English brilliantly, that he doesn't know the meaning of the word “weekend.” I think the trips, despite the effort they entail, perhaps represent a relief from these usual days, which also include hours — in the plural — of personal prayer. It is precisely from these hours the strength is drawn that gives serenity and good humor, of which the Pope is not lacking, to the rest.
Some months ago, theories of resignation circulated. The Pope has made it clear that he will continue his mission as long as God wills it. Is this determination still true?
These theories had no objective justification. I have never heard the Holy Father speak, directly or indirectly, in this sense.
The pontificate is not comparable to other ministries or functions. Moreover, although theoretically the issue can be studied in the abstract at the academic level, I do not see the reasons that would pose the problem at the practical level.
We were saying earlier that this is an ascending pontificate; for this year, five trips abroad are already planned in addition to the visit to Pompeii.
For weeks a special chair has been used to alleviate the problem of the Pope's right knee. How was it possible to convince the Holy Father to use it?
One of the most extraordinary and moving things in these years is the way that the Pope has accepted the inevitable physical limitations.
What could have been an impediment, an obstacle in the development of pastoral work has, instead, been integrated perfectly in his activity. It could almost be said that the ailments have become more of an instrument than a limitation.
In his letter to the elderly, written some years ago, the Pope said, “Despite the limitations that age has brought upon me, I still feel the zest for life.” With such a spirit, of what consequence is a chair?
Some years ago, after a prosthesis was implanted and he had difficulty moving, a bishop visiting Rome said to the Pope: “Holy Father, don't worry, the Church is not governed with a leg.” This comment made the Pope laugh.
So something similar could be said: The Church is not governed with a chair but can be governed from a chair.
We have seen with how much anguish and forcefulness the Pope tried to avert the war in Iraq. Judging from his words, it seems that from the Great Jubilee until today, his concern for the future has been accentuated. Are there grounds for this perception? What feeds the Pope's anxiety?
Concern about the future and the present. Throughout the world, also beyond the Catholic realm, the Pope is seen as the highest moral authority.
This can be seen every time an important ethical issue faces present-day humanity. In the case of the war — of the wars, because there is more than one — there are those who say that as the war was not averted, one must speak of defeat. But this is not so.
The validity of ethical judgments must not be measured in utilitarian terms. Ethical judgments are necessary, very much so, to sensitize the moral conscience. They contribute to the truth of things.
The Pope often returns to the great issues of violence because these feed his anxiety: violence to human dignity, violence to unborn life, violence to the fundamental right of freedom of conscience, violence in no matter what form it manifests itself — which is not always in situations of war.
You have been by John Paul's side for years. Could you tell us about an incident that seems particularly significant?
Last year, after the extenuating trip to Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, and after that to Poland, the Pope had some days of relaxation at Castel Gandolfo. He then reopened a “closed chapter” — as he had called it — of his life: poetry. And he began to write in this literary form.
Undoubtedly, he used images, impressions and especially reflections that he had accumulated earlier. And the book Roman Triptych was the result, which is being published in different languages.
For me, this return of the Pope to poetry is significant. It moves me, because he uses new expressive resources not for purposes of literary experimentation but to manifest in another way the same message of which he is brimming.
A Pope, an elderly man, with some ailments, with very little time for himself, who takes pen and paper in hand and writes poems! Bold, rich poetry that speaks of human love as if he were a minstrel and of the love of God as a mystic. I repeat: This moves me. I think it is something extraordinary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Vatican Wants Christ in EU
BBC, May 31 — The Holy See is outright angry that its repeated pleas have been ignored, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported, and that the new proposed European Union Constitution makes no reference to the continent's historic religious background — Christianity.
Such references have been replaced by vague citations of Europe's “spiritual impulse.” But the Greco-Roman and Enlightenment heritage of the continent receive explicit mention.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the constitution's architect, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, said he could not single out Christianity for fear of offending other religious believers.
“We could not mention it more explicitly because, otherwise, we should have mentioned the other religious traditions present in the continent, from the Jewish one to the Muslim one,” Giscard said.
Vatican press spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls called for the next draft of the document to include exactly such a mention of the region's predominant religion.
“This omission would be very important and serious, even from a purely historical point of view,” he said. The Vatican position has been backed by Romano Prodi, European Union commission president.
Earlier in the same week, Vatican officials expressed anxiety at the prospect of opening the EU to include Turkey — effectively making that country's porous border with the Middle East the last frontier separating millions of Islamic migrants from life in wealthy, underpopulated Europe.
Key Cardinal Dies at Age 78
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 1 — Pope John Paul II's former special envoy to the Soviet Union, Cardinal Francesco Colasuonno, died May 31 in Puglia, Italy. He was 78.
John Paul wrote a telegram expressing his regrets and his admiration for Cardinal Colasuonno, who had helped him minister to the Catholics of the one-time “captive nations” behind the Iron Curtain and oversee the religious revival that followed the fall of communist regimes.
The Holy Father lauded the cardinal's “intense and patient work as an apostolic nuncio, especially during his service in the countries of Eastern Europe during a particular and difficult period in the history of those nations.”
The AP noted that his death reduces the number of voting cardinals in the College of Cardinals to 111.
Pope Meets with Cardinal Law
Church officials offered no hint as to the meeting's purpose or agenda. They said it was a private audience, which means its subject matter is traditionally not revealed to the press. The cardinal was in Rome on business with Vatican congregations on which he still serves. He also attended the celebration of the Tridentine Mass at the Basilica of St. Mary Major on May 24.
Cardinal Law was long considered one of the Pope's favorite cardinals, the daily noted. He now keeps a low profile, the paper said, serving as a chaplain to a group of nuns outside Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Blessed John XXII: An Unforgettable Witness to Peace DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II paid tribute to one of his predecessors, Blessed John XXIII, during his general audience June 4, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of the death of Pope John XXIII. John Paul beatified Pope John XXIII on Sept. 3, 2000.
Speaking to more than 20,000 pilgrims who gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Holy Father recalled the evening of June 3, 1963, when a similar crowd of thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square to attend a Mass celebrated for the ailing pope. Pope John XXIII died as the Mass ended.
Pope John XXIII, the Holy Father noted, offered his entire life as a priest for Christ and for his Church. He recalled Pope John XXIII's words: “This bed is an altar; the altar needs a victim. Here I am; I am ready. I offer my life for the Church, for the continuation of the ecumenical council, for peace in the world and for Christian unity.”
John Paul said Pope John XXIII was truly a witness and prophet to the world of God's peace. He pointed out that John XXIII's most famous document was undoubtedly his encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth).
“My venerated predecessor, who left his mark on history, also reminds men and women of the third millennium that the secret of peace and joy is in profound and constant communion with God. The heart of the Redeemer is the source of love and peace, of hope and joy,” the Holy Father noted. “May he intercede in paradise so that we, too, like him, might confess at the end of our lives that we have sought only Christ and his Gospel.”
It has now been 40 years since our beloved and venerated Pope John XXIII died, whom I had the joy of beatifying — together with Pope Pius IX — on Sept. 3, 2000.
Instinctively, I think back to Monday, June 3, 1963 — to that afternoon when the pilgrims and faithful of Rome gathered by the thousands in St. Peter's Square so that they could be as close as possible to their beloved father and pastor, who was departing from this world after a long and painful illness.
At 7 p.m., the pro-vicar of Rome, Cardinal Luigi Traglia, began the celebration of the holy Mass in the square of the Vatican basilica while the Pope consummated his spiritual sacrifice — the sacrifice of his whole life — from his bed, which had become an altar.
From St. Peter's Square, where a huge crowd had gathered, the Church's prayer rose up to heaven in one accord. We seem to be reliving those moments of intense emotion when the gaze of all mankind was fixed on the window of the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. The end of that Mass coincided with the death of the “Good Pope.”
His Union with Christ
“This bed is an altar; the altar needs a victim. Here I am; I am ready. I offer my life for the Church, for the continuation of the ecumenical council, for peace in the world and for Christian unity” (Discorsi, Messaggi, Colloqui del Santo Padre Giovanni XXIII, V, p. 618).
“Ecce adsum!” “Here I am; I am ready!” This peaceful thought of death had accompanied Pope John XXIII throughout his life, and, at the hour of his departure from this life, he looked upon the hopes and the future of the people of God and of the world. With heartfelt emotion, he stressed that the crucifix, which he scrupulously kept at every moment in front of his bed, was the secret of his priesthood. “In long and frequent conversations during the night,” he observed, “the thought of the world's redemption seemed to me more urgent than ever.” He added: “Those open arms say that he died for all, for all; no one is denied his love and his forgiveness” (Ibid., p. 618).
It is not difficult to perceive in these brief words the meaning of his priestly ministry, which was entirely dedicated to making known and loved “that which is worth most in life: our blessed Jesus Christ, his holy Church and his Gospel” (Ibid., p. 612). This longing was vibrant in him until the end. “My earthly sojourn is ending,” Blessed John XXIII concluded, “but Christ lives and his Church continues her task; souls, souls: ut unum sint, ut unum sint …” (Ibid., p. 619).
Commitment to Peace
Less than two months before, on April 11, Pope John XXIII had published the most famous document of his magisterium, the encyclical Pacem in Terris, which I have had the occasion to recall several times this year. The entire life of this unforgettable pope was a testimony of peace. His pontificate proved to be a prophecy of peace from on high, which was expressed most fully in Pacem in Terris, which is almost like his public and universal testament.
“All believers in this our world,” he wrote, “must be sparks of light, centers of love, and life-giving yeast for the dough. To the degree that they are, all the more will it be possible for them to live in communion with God in their innermost being. In fact, there will be no peace among men if there is no peace in each one of them” (Part V: Acta Apostolicae Sedis, LV [1963], p. 302).
To be sparks of light, we must live in permanent contact with God. My venerated predecessor, who left his mark on history, also reminds men and women of the third millennium that the secret of peace and joy is in profound and constant communion with God. The heart of the Redeemer is the source of love and peace, of hope and joy.
In this way, our memory of the beloved Pope John XXIII is transformed into a prayer: May he intercede in paradise so that we, too, like him, might confess at the end of our lives that we have sought only Christ and his Gospel.
May Mary, whom he loved to invoke with the beautiful aspiration, Mater mea, fiducia mea!, help us to persevere by word and example in our commitment to be witnesses to peace, so that we might contribute to building a civilization of love.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Ireland Flip-Flops on Cloning
The Irish Examiner reported that the government doesn't back the ban, which includes prohibiting the cloning of embryos for research, because it would set back scientific advancements on major diseases. This decision conflicts with the Irish Constitution's firm protection of unborn life, asserted Dana Rosemary Scallon, an Irish member of the European Parliament.
The government stance was also criticized from the left, by Green Party parliamentarian Patricia McKenna: “We would be very concerned about this development, and it wouldn't be the first time the government has given a public impression of being conservative about something like this when behind the scenes they are privately backing it,” she told The Irish Examiner.
Scallon warned that the Irish government might even challenge its nation's constitution in order to allow therapeutic cloning in Ireland.
Jerusalem Patriarch Calls for End to Occupation
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, May 30 — The Latin-rite patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, has called on Israel to withdraw completely its troops from the Palestinian territories as a means to stop terrorism.
Their presence in the territories, he said, was actually encouraging violence rather than damping it. He said that because Israel was the far stronger party in the conflict, that nation had the responsibility to “to take the first step to stop the cycle of violence,” the French news agency reported.
“The occupation of the territories is nourishing terrorism,” he said. “The situation has led to economic and social strangulation.”
Speaking at Kirchentag in Berlin, the ecumenical gathering of German churches, Patriarch Sabbah said Palestinians “are living constantly in a situation of injustice.”
Cardinal Joins Queen for Jubilee
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 2 — The leading Catholic churchman in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, joined other leaders of different faiths June 2 for a thanksgiving service marking the 50th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II, Independent Catholic News reported.
The queen and her husband, Prince Consort Philip, rode through central London to Westminster Abbey to the tolling of church bells. While the 1953 coronation was strictly Anglican, this anniversary service was ecumenical, including as lectors Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor and several low-church Protestant ministers.
Present were all senior members of the royal family, as well as Sir Edmund Hillary, who finished his climb of Mount Everest on the very same day 50 years ago.
The queen's remarks on the occasion included the following: “Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings and to put my trust in God.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: L.A Times in the Mirror DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:We have a guest editorialist this week. In place of our usual weekly editorial, we thought readers might like to see a memo on abortion and liberal bias by Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll recently sent to his paper's staff.
The memo, in its entirety, follows.
To: Section Eds
Subject: Credibility/abortion
I'm concerned about the perception — and the occasional reality — that the Times is a liberal, “politically correct” newspaper. Generally speaking, this is an inaccurate view, but occasionally we prove our critics right. We did so today with the front-page story on the bill in Texas that would require abortion doctors to counsel patients that they may be risking breast cancer.
The apparent bias of the writer and/or the desk reveals itself in the third paragraph, which characterizes such bills in Texas and elsewhere as requiring “so-called counseling of patients.” I don't think people on the anti-abortion side would consider it “so-called,” a phrase that is loaded with derision.
The story makes a strong case that the link between abortion and breast cancer is widely discounted among researchers, but I wondered as I read it whether somewhere there might exist some credible scientist who believes in it.
Such a person makes no appearance in the story's lengthy passage about the scientific issue. We do quote one of the sponsors of the bill, noting that he “has a professional background in property management.” Seldom will you read a cheaper shot than this. Why, if this is germane, wouldn't we point to legislators on the other side who are similarly bereft of scientific credentials?
It is not until the last three paragraphs of the story that we finally surface a professor of biology and endocrinology who believes the abortion/cancer connection is valid. But do we quote him as to why he believes this? No. We quote his political views.
Apparently the scientific argument for the anti-abortion side is so absurd that we don't need to waste our readers' time with it.
The reason I'm sending this note to all section editors is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.
I'm no expert on abortion, but I know enough to believe that it presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.
Let me know if you'd like to discuss this.
John
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Got Soul? DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Regarding “Embryonic Ensoulment” (Letters, June 1-7):
Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk says: “We know exactly what the embryo is, namely, a human being, a being that is clearly and unmistakably human. It is not a zebra type of being, a plant type of being or some other type of being. This is a scientific affirmation which does not ultimately depend on religion, value systems or imposing anything on anyone. It is a simple matter of empirical observation.”
Now, if it is described as human, it must be because it has a soul that makes it human, not because we simply name it as such. I have always maintained that the moment of conception is the moment of “ensoulment” or “personhood.” We have that dignity from God himself, as we are made in his image.
That dignity, that image of God, does not depend on the status of development of the individual. Science may be able to measure just when conception takes place; the immaterial nature of the soul is beyond scientific capability to measure, except from its effects. The early Church Fathers' disagreement on this was probably because they were trying to understand it from what meager scientific knowledge they may have had.
TED HICKEL
Portland, Oregon
Heart and Soul
According to Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, the moment of “ensoulment,” when God puts a “soul” into a body, remains an open question (“Embryonic Ensoulment,” Letters, June 1-7).
In defense of this astounding concept he cites the 1974 “Declaration on Procured Abortion” of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Father Pacholczyk further says that “the human embryo must be treated as if [his emphasis] it were already ensouled, even if that might not yet have happened”!
As if? If that is true, why could not the human embryo be treated as if it were not already “ensouled”? And what is a “soul” — a thing that we “have”? If that is true, then what are “we” — just bodies that “have” souls? When I die my body dies. My soul enters eternity. Do I then cease to exist — or do I enter eternity? — in which case I am the soul.
When I was a little boy, I often wondered what my soul looked like. I imagined it to be a floating white filmy thing upon which, as the sisters told us, sins made ugly marks. Confession made our souls white and shiny again, and confirmation made “a beautiful mark.”
The fact is, we don't have souls. We are souls. What we have is bodies. As Aristotle and Aquinas taught, the soul is the life principle of the body, not a thing put into our body. Someday our bodies will die. We, who are immortal “persons” from the moment of conception, will not.
Father Pacholczyk's statement is uncomfortably close to the words of Justice [Harry] Blackmun [in Roe v. Wade]. In the majority decision, Blackmun wrote: “The heart of the matter is that somewhere, either forthwith at conception or at ‘quickening,’ or at birth, or at some other point in between, another being becomes involved. … It is not for us of the judiciary, especially at this point in the development of man's knowledge, to speculate or to specify when life begins.” (A middle-school science text could have helped the august justices.)
Sadly, we can expect such nonsense from the current court. But surely the Church can do better than the court. The Church should drop the pre-scientific terminology of “ensoulment” and teach the people that at the moment of conception we are endowed with life which, through the gift of God, is immortal.
JOSEPH COLLISON
Norwich, Connecticut
The writer is director of the Office of Pro-Life Activities for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn.
Latin Rites
I write in response to “New Rumors About the Old Mass” by Father Raymond J. de Souza (Vatican View, May 25-31).
The author makes the following statement: “Furthermore, the number of priests ordained in the last 30 years who are able to celebrate the current Mass in Latin is minuscule.”
In Canon 249 of the New Code of Canon Law, we read: “The Charter of Priestly Formation is to provide that students are not only taught their native language accurately but are also well versed in Latin …”
What are we to make of that? Certainly if a priest told you he was well versed in German you would assume he could say Mass in German. So why is the number of priests (presumably well versed) who can say Mass in Latin “miniscule”? Is this a case of a Churchwide disobedience of canon law? Or is the Church writing canons just for the heck of it? What is one to think?
ANDREW MESZAROS
Miami
Lazy on the Liturgy?
Regarding “Kansas Church Films Liturgy to Teach Changes” (Media Watch, May 25-31):
I did not appreciate the fact that it was stated “the congregation will stay standing until the last person receives the Eucharist” as though that was licit. The article should have pointed out that the most recent General Instruction of the Roman Missal approved by the bishops' conference and the Vatican states in No. 43, paragraph 2: “In the United States they should kneel after the Sanctus until after the great Amen, the faithful kneel again after the Agnus Dei unless the diocesan bishop determines otherwise, and they may kneel or sit during the religious silence after Communion.”
I would hope that the Register would report the authentic norms on the liturgy as found in official Church documents and not give air to those that dissent from it.
TERESA KAISERSKI
Columbus, Montana
Mandata for Priests?
When sending our children to Catholic universities, it is only right that we have absolute assurance that their professors of Catholic theology teach in full communion with the Church (“Mandatum Cover-Up?” June 1-7).
But what about our parish priests? Should we expect anything less from them? The question seems ridiculous. Of course our priests are in full communion with all the teachings of the Church … aren't they? And of course our priests won't hesitate to publicly state so … won't they?
When I start hearing not-so-subtle digs against infallible Church teachings during homilies that are then defended during follow-up conversations — and when I am told during those same conversations that every Catholic (including priests) picks and chooses to some degree what to believe — I have to wonder: How far and how deep does this rebellion go?
If we are to trust Christ to have done what he said he'd do, then he started a Church with teaching authority. If the Church has teaching authority, then what it teaches must be correct. Since it must be correct then it is divinely protected from teaching error, which means it must be infallible in matters of doctrine. Christ can be trusted and that is why all Church doctrinal teachings can be trusted, every jot and tittle. What can be more central to our faith than to know that what it teaches and has always taught is true?
When priests chink away at the Church's doctrinal authority, they unwittingly undermine their own authority. Why should parishioners accept all their pastor teaches if the pastor doesn't accept all the Church teaches? Perhaps this “picking and choosing” cafeteria-style of faith is more pervasive than we'd care to believe.
I can't believe that this is acceptable in the priesthood. And what about us, the parishioners? Are we to be a just a bunch of passive bobble-headed followers nodding along as we and our children are led down the slippery slope of unfaithful teaching? Maybe it is not such a bad idea for parishioners to ask their pastors to publicly answer a simple, direct question with a Yes or a No: “Are you in full communion with all doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church?” You may be surprised by the response.
BILL ORLAND
Moore, Oklahoma
‘Voice of the Faithful’ Response
In response to your “Voice of the Faithful Correction” of May 25, let us supply a few facts which will bring the matter into clear perspective.
First, the view that Cardinal [Francis] George provided an “open door” to Voice of the Faithful stems from what is clearly an erroneous report from the April 1 issue of the Chicago Tribune.
Second, Catholic Citizens never stated or implied that the cardinal supports Voice of the Faithful nor do we even believe that to be true.
Third, it is clear that Dr. James Muller, co-founder of Voice of the Faithful, misstated the cardinal's position. We are firm in our belief that largely through a slanted Tribune story and ambiguous statement by the archdiocese — as well as our unsuccessful efforts to reach proper archdiocesan sources — a misconception occurred. Prime fault was Dr. Muller who sought to build an agenda for his organization at the cardinal's expense and distorted reportage in the Tribune.
Catholic Citizens of Illinois is not responsible for the twisted interpretation of events that came from Dr. Muller and the Tribune. It would be helpful if you would so inform your readers so that the record can be corrected.
As the first organization to defend Cardinal George when, early in his tenure, he was assailed by a group of dissidents, we are proud to be in support of his leadership and wish to be so recorded.
THOMAS F. ROESER
Chicago
The writer is chairman of Catholic Citizens of Illinois.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Praying for Priests DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Regarding “Novena for Priests: May 31 is Day One for Pentecost Project” (May 25-31):
I have distributed more than 1,000 copies of the Novena for Priests, which I obtained from www.novenaforpriests.com. Many priests are truly appreciative of this initiative to pray for them across the world. In our parish we are praying it, along with our Novena to the Holy Spirit, in preparation for the feast of Pentecost.
I think we could extend this praying for priests by encouraging people to pray daily for them, even after the novena is completed. I have requested, especially the young, to offer three Hail Marys at the completion of the Mass, for the priest who celebrated the Mass they attended. Many are doing this. Without priests, many parishes across the globe are shutting down. This pleases Satan a great deal as the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and confession, are not available that easily for the faithful.
I thank and praise God for the movement of the Holy Spirit in our Church. The Holy Father is truly a great inspiration to all of us, for he is a man of intense prayer and holiness. I love my Catholic Church and would do anything in my power to bring many to understand its richness, its teachings and especially the wonderful grace of meeting Jesus in the sacraments.
MARIANNE
Sri Lanka
I think [the Novena for Priests] is the best common-sense approach for healing the hurt of the scandals. My extra concern is that I am not hearing (from the pulpit) concern for the victims and their families.
I hear excuses for the clergy and blame of the news media. My former pastor dumps the situation as something that the news media stirred. He calls it solely anti-Catholic and anti-priest bashing. We lay people are hurting as much as the priests because our beautiful Church has been damaged, and we don't like seeing our own hurt.
The bishops who met in Dallas last June didn't really seek a corrective. I saw mostly a defense mechanism. One of the participants at that meeting was surprised at the aloof attitude of the bishops. So, as I see it, there is a broad swatch of damage needing healing.
JIM DOTY
Greenacres, Florida
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Virtue or Vice? Depends on Your Rituals DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:The Washington Monthly went with “The Bookie of Virtue.” Newsweek picked “The Man of Virtues Has a Vice.” Everyone focused on the person involved: Did Bennett really avoid spending “the milk money,” as he claimed? Did he, as we delicately put it, “have a problem,” or was he just having fun? But I wasn't thinking about the person — or even the action of gambling, which Bennett has announced he will cease — so much as the place.
Gambling can happen in all kinds of settings. Columnist Maggie Gallagher learned to play poker from her father at their kitchen table. Friends of mine bet on the Oscars every year. But gambling at big-time casinos isn't quite like other kinds of gambling, because casinos aren't quite like other places.
Casinos are carefully designed to foster gambling to the point of addiction: no clocks, no windows, free drinks. In many casinos the machines near the door, teasingly, pay out more than the machines further in. The concentration of casinos in Las Vegas creates a special culture — from the moment you step off the airplane, you're conditioned to feel like you're stepping into a different world.
That feeling is thrilling — and dangerous. That feeling of leaving the everyday world behind is how rituals begin. The rituals of the casino world are meant to coax you into forgetting your tight finances and your self-imposed limits. At their worst, the casino rituals are meant to draw you into addictive gambling.
As Catholics, we usually think of rituals as beautiful and useful. The rituals of the Mass remind us where we are, draw us away from distracting everyday concerns and pull us into relationship with Christ.
But there's another kind of ritual: the rituals of addiction and sinful habits. I recently read the section in Elyse Fitzpatrick and Carol Cornish's Christian counseling handbook Women Helping Women on counseling addicted women. The book pointed out the ways in which all sins strive to become like addictions: Sins want to become, first, recurring temptations, then habits and then finally addictions that control our lives. And so sins use rituals in order to sink their claws in deep.
We often surround our addictions and sinful habits with a cluster of rituals: We go to particular places, perform particular actions. An addicted smoker might go out on the balcony and tap the cigarette against the pack; an adulterer might turn the family photograph against the wall so the spouse won't “see.” The rituals ease us into a behavior pattern that feels set, unbreakable, intensely familiar. Instead of focusing us and drawing us into a closer relationship with Christ, in the rituals of sin we're trying to lose ourselves, so that we don't have to think too hard about what we're doing. Instead of a ritual of love, we're drawn into a ritual of separation and self-destruction. Sin rituals are meant to muffle the conscience and blank out the mind.
These rituals also play on our love of fate and the inevitable — our flight from responsibility. We frequently hate freedom of choice, because it imposes the difficult responsibility of choosing rightly. Our self-destructive rituals make us feel like the culmination of the ritual — the sin itself — is inevitable. It's much harder to stop a ritual process midway than to avoid the process entirely, because rituals, like the casinos, are set up as conveyor belts meant to draw us deep into a particular mind-set.
This idea has several practical consequences. If you want to exploit ritualized sin, you work hard to create an atmosphere in which sin seems inevitable, normal, easy. If you want to avoid sin, on the other hand, you need to first recognize which rituals you use to ease the path to sin. Then, figure out ways to avoid or disrupt those rituals.
For example, say you find yourself getting drunk in a local bar after work. There are a lot of questions you need to ask — are you drinking because you're lonely? Because you haven't found a good way to relax? Because work upsets you? But you should also take action to disrupt what is fast becoming a ritualized sin. Why not drive out to a park after work and take a walk instead or go to church to pray?
Women Helping Women suggested, among other things, making a “who? what? where? when? why?” list describing the circumstances in which you habitually give in to temptation. The list will help you understand the roots of your recurring temptations. It can also help you devise ways to disrupt sinful patterns and replace them with patterns that focus you on Christ rather than draw you to sin. Through self-knowledge, you can get off the conveyor belt and leave behind the willful blindness of ritualized sin.
Former Register staff writer Eve Tushnet is known for her popular blog, www.eve-tushnet.blogspot.com.
----- EXCERPT: When news surfaced that Book of Virtues author and devout Catholic William Bennett was a ``high roller" at Las Vegas casinos, the snarky headlines seemed to write themselves. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eve Tushnet ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Freedom After Sept. 11 DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Even our best presidents have made mistakes.
John Adams, Washington's successor, defied his own party to keep the young United States out of a potentially disastrous war with France. For many historians, however, Adams' statesmanship is blemished because he signed the tyrannical laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Fearing the influence of French agents within the United States, Congress in 1798 gave President Adams power to deport any foreigner whom he believed to be politically dangerous and to prosecute any citizen who spoke critically of the president or Congress.
The public backlash was so strong that it led to Thomas Jefferson's victory in what became known as the democratic revolution of 1800. (The Alien Act even sparked a 1799 riot at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Historically, anti-immigrant legislation was often aimed at Catholics, and St. Mary's parishioners were largely Irish.) Adams' folly left such a foul aftertaste that nothing similar was attempted by the next 102 Congresses. Then came Sept. 11 and the USA Patriot Act.
This time the suspicious elements were Arab terrorists rather than French provocateurs (although, interestingly, the French again opposed the policies of the American administration). The part of the Patriot Act relating to aliens (immigrants who are not naturalized citizens) is similar to the 1798 law: Suspicion of anti-American connections can lead to detention for any length of time, even if no crime has been committed, and to deportation at the government's discretion.
As in 1798, the sedition portion of the Patriot Act affects American citizens as well as aliens. It differs from its infamous predecessor, however, by not attacking free speech per se. Instead, the act undermines the Fourth Amendment ban on unlawful search and seizure. Search warrants can now be obtained — from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts — upon mere suspicion of involvement in terrorism.
Another difference is that the Alien and Sedition Acts came with an expiration date: the end of the Adams administration. Ominously, the Patriot Act doesn't expire, though it allows Congress to review its provisions after five years.
Listening Library?
The Patriot Act came home to me recently when I had to explain to my student employees at a university library that they must cooperate with federal agents who come looking for information on what our library patrons like to read. Librarians are also required to reveal information on patrons' Internet usage when available. We have always had to surrender such records when presented with a search warrant, but under the Patriot Act, warrants are much easier to come by.
Will the Church have a similar awakening when the feds come snooping around the confessional?
Mind you, none of the rights listed in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution are absolute. The courts have always held that free speech, the right to bear arms and other rights may be abridged when the common good demands it. Felons may not carry weapons, for example. It is unlawful to yell, “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
When Catholicism was the established religion in many countries, the Church encouraged the state to root out errors and seditions in the name of the common good. In the 20th century, however, faced with states that deployed new technologies of power against religion, the Church re-emphasized the dignity of the human person.
Thus Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World taught that “the order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way around.” The council fathers specifically mentioned the person's “right to act … to safeguard his privacy” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 26). The rights of the person “are prior to society and must be recognized by it,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms. “If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects.”
Under the principle of subsidiarity, not only persons but also associations must be protected from undue interference by the state. “The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism,” the Catechism says. “It sets limits for state intervention” (No. 1885). The common good is still the object of politics, but governments must not trample personal life in the name of state interests. This applies especially to family life and, by extension, family dwellings.
In a country where a lunatic can parade a kidnapped girl wearing a burqa around the streets of a major city for months without being questioned, perhaps the government should be more nosy. But only in well-defined situations when the general welfare requires some interference with individual rights.
Lincoln Unlawful?
During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, under which a person cannot be detained indefinitely unless he is charged with a crime. Lincoln insisted that during wartime, it was necessary to abridge certain liberties in order that liberty itself might be retained. “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”
Here Lincoln echoed St. Thomas Aquinas, who recognized that legitimate authorities “have the power to dispense from the laws” — such as the Fourth Amendment — if it should happen that “the observance of that law would be hurtful to the general welfare.” It is permitted to “act beside the letter of the law” in cases of necessity, as Thomas puts it, since “necessity knows no law” (Summa Theologica I-II, qu. 96, art. 6 resp.).
But Lincoln maintained that only the executive (not Congress) should act in this manner, out of his prerogative as commander-in-chief. Congress' role was to declare war, and once the war ended, all normal constitutional rights would resume.
This is more or less how our government should have treated the current crisis situation. Rather than passing an act abridging rights indefinitely, Congress should have declared war on those nations and organizations involved in terrorism, defining specific war aims. It would then have been understood that the president had the power to suspend Fourth Amendment rights until those war aims were met, but no longer.
Individuals would no doubt have suffered in the short term. But in the long run, both personal rights and the common good would have been preserved.
I do not believe the USA Patriot Act will last indefinitely. Our culture is so firmly committed to individual rights — obsessed with them, rather — that the law will eventually be struck down in court or repealed by Congress. Of course, when detainees are not allowed to speak with lawyers, as has frequently happened under the act, court challenges become more difficult. But like the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Patriot Act will someday become a cautionary tale, a blot on an otherwise respectable presidency.
At least, I hope so. Marx notwithstanding, history does not always repeat itself. Unlike the 1798 laws, the Patriot Act has not produced much of a hue and cry.
Any of you patriots out there remember how to start one?
Scott McDermott is the author of Charles Carroll of Carrollton: Faithful Revolutionary (Scepter, 2002).
He writes from Nashville, Tennessee.
----- EXCERPT: Of Aliens, Seditions and Patriots ----- EXTENDED BODY: Scott Mcdermott ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Truth on the Scaffold: Jayson Blair, Journalism and Reality DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:A simple cross marks his grave and speaks to prayerful onlookers with the words, “All my words for the Word.” The once-flamboyant journalist, Eddie Doherty was, at the height of his career, the highest-paid journalist in America. His own story of his conversion, his marriage to the baroness Catherine de Hueck and his priesthood is better than any of those he penned for the Chicago Tribune or incorporated in his many novels.
I once stood before the simple cross that bears that simple but profound message. “Whatever is not eternal is eternally out of date,” C.S. Lewis wrote. Journalism carries a dateline. It is anchored to the moment.
The Catholic journalist, in wedding the jour of the moment to the toujours of the Gospel, captures something of God's eternal word. He bears in his own multitude of words the truth that cannot pass away and has no dateline.
Here, I thought, is the perfect encapsulation of the Catholic writer's vocation. As a wordsmith, he is dedicated to the larger truth the world buries under an avalanche of information, whose bits and pieces might or might not be true. Our information glut and data smog obscure the higher truth. Edna St. Vincent Millay saw the problem most clearly, long before the information superhighway made its appearance in the contemporary world:
Upon this gifted age, in its darkest hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts … they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric.
In this context, the hullabaloo about Jayson Blair's prolific series of journalistic fabrications while with The New York Times seems at first blush, somewhat puzzling. Today, it is not unusual for journalists — caught up in the frenzy of the moment and often working under the pressures of meeting unreasonable deadlines — to lie, distort, deceive and dissemble. Peddling disinformation today is practically a way of life. And commercials almost always lie. In the battleground of “spin wars,” truth is often the first casualty.
By comparison, how comforting is the remark of St. Thomas Aquinas, who once said nearly all of his knowledge comes from two sources that cannot lie: nature and Scripture.
Gary Dunford, a journalist for the Toronto Star, for example, had this to say about the Holy Father during World Youth Day in Toronto last summer: “I acknowledge the Pope as I do Billy Graham, Osama bin Laden, the Dalai Lama, Jimmy Swaggart and Ronald McDonald — all celebrated for their singular tunnel vision” (July 25, 2002).
The New York Times, for whom Blair spent his brief but tempestuous tenure as a journalist, has justly earned the reputation for printing, “All the news that fits.” It would not publish novelist Walker Percy's letters to the editor for the ostensive reason that they came from a National Book Award winner who was too pro-life.
When it carried the obituary for Jerome Lejuene, it made sure of mentioning that the great geneticist was guilty of the now politically incorrect habit of smoking cigarettes. The day after the Vatican released Donum Vitae (The Gift of Life, a notification on bioethics), the Times saw to it that maverick Daniel Maguire's evaluation of the document, “Born into obsolescence,” appeared on the front page.
The secular press has a great deal of latitude for unchastized villainy.
Blair's antics have been sensationalized because they are an embarrassment to the liberal world. His case depicts the liberal establishment falling on its face while attempting to do what it holds dearest. Blair demonstrated journalistic incompetence, a secular sin.
He lied about graduating from the University of Maryland's College of Journalism, another secular sin, though perhaps not as egregious as a football coach embellishing his resumé. He was the beneficiary, as an African-American, of affirmative action. And he aroused in his employers that unforgivably distressing feeling of white guilt. The New York Times is making it difficult for the National Enquirer not to cultivate a superiority complex.
Moreover, Blair appears unrepentant — “I fooled some of the most brilliant people in journalism.” In fact, he is threatening to cash in on his notoriety by writing a book. In the secular world (how can we forget Monica Lewinsky?) the wages of sin are not death but higher wages.
Words are cheap. Yes, they are, when they do not serve the truth. And even truths are cheap if they do not serve the ultimate truth. “Woe to humanity,” Pope John Paul II warns, “should it lose the meaning of truth, the courage to seek it and the confidence of finding it.”
One gratifying lesson emerges from the Blair fiasco. In “the unmasking of a counterfeiter,” as another journalist puts it, we realize that despite such current trends as deconstruction, radical subjectivism, relativism and skepticism, even the secular world will not tolerate a steady diet of lies. This is a most heartening realization, for the small truths, after all, are the initial steppingstones leading to that ultimate truth, which is also called wisdom.
Don DeMarco teaches at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: In the tiny town of Combermere, Ontario, which is best known for being the site of Madonna House, there is a cemetery that houses the remains of Eddie Doherty. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Don DeMarco ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Rule, Not An Exception: A Catholic Dad on Openness to Life ... DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:I have a nightmare about capital punishment. In my nightmare I overhear talk of “electric chair” and “lethal injection,” indicating that people are trying to decide about the method to use for an upcoming execution. Terror strikes when I discover a jury has decided that I am the one to die. Compared with that enormous decision, a discussion about which method to use is only a minor detail. On the way to the execution, I suddenly wake up in a cold sweat.
My nightmare reminds me about Pope John Paul II's teaching on capital punishment. Governments may use execution as a last resort to protect the common good. Nevertheless, in the event that an execution becomes necessary, the dominant emotion should always be profound regret: “I wish we did not have to do this.”
I see an analogy with contraception, when a couple decides to avoid having another child.
At first sight, readers might think that I have made a mistake in the last paragraph: Surely I really meant “an analogy with abortion.”
But there is no mistake. I submit that a serious moral issue arises from the very nature of contraception.
Couples who choose to contracept typically discuss methods, some moral, others immoral. But even the most moral discussion distracts attention from the major decision that is really at the heart of the matter: the contraceptive decision. That decision in itself is actually an enormous one for a married couple. Why so? Because it negates God's plan for marriage: “Be fertile and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Neither our first parents' fall from grace nor the devastation of the flood altered God's plan (Genesis 9:1).
God's View
Scripture describes clearly God's view of children: “Behold, children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3). And “your wife [is] as a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home; your children [are] like olive plants around your table. Behold, thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord” (Psalm 128:3-4).
Vatican II states: “…children are the supreme gift of marriage and greatly contribute to the good of the parents. … True married love is directed to disposing spouses to cooperate valiantly with … the Creator, … who through the couple will increase and enrich his family from day to day” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 50). Of course, married love also has the purpose of unifying husband and wife. But the unique aspect of marital love is children.
Scripture encourages couples to look to the relationship between Christ and the Church as a model for their marriage (Ephesians 5:22-33). And how does Christ relate to the Church? The Catechism says: “The Church is the Bride of Christ … He has made her the fruitful mother of all God's children” (No. 808). This raises the following question: What aspect of Christ is the couple modeling when they practice contraception? It is inconceivable that Christ practices “spiritual contraception” with his bride, the Church.
God knows perfectly what each couple can handle in terms of family size. After all, he knitted both husband and wife in their mothers' wombs (Psalms 139:13) and gave to each certain talents. He has not forgotten those talents when he asks each couple: “Will you take care of these children until I come?”
In the most literal sense, a pro-life couple says to God, “We accept whatever you have planned for us, because we trust that you will provide for our needs like a good Father.”
Vatican II teaches in ringing terms: “Whenever Christian spouses in a spirit of sacrifice and trust in divine providence carry out their duties of procreation with generous … responsibility, they glorify the Creator and perfect themselves in Christ” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 50).
In light of the statements God and the Church have made about the blessings of children, I cannot understand why Catholic couples preparing for marriage are being instructed about family planning as a matter of course. I emphasize the phrase “as a matter of course.”
Regretful Parents
Of course, the Church recognizes that if a couple has just reasons for avoiding children temporarily, natural family planning is available (Catechism, No. 2368). But the dominant emotion experienced by a couple that is in a position of temporarily needing to avoid conception should be heart-felt regret. There may be good reasons for the decision, but the overall approach should be: “I wish we did not have to do this.” Family planning is not a cause for celebration.
Because of this, the couple should pray that the time period when they need to avoid the conception of a child is only temporary. The couple should be looking forward to a time when they will again celebrate the normal state of marriage.
And what is that normal state? Pope John Paul II has spoken about this loud and clear. In Washington, D.C., in 1979, the Pope said: “Americans are known for generosity to your children. And what is the best gift you can give your children? I say to you: Give them brothers and sisters.”
It's hard to describe the uplift my pregnant wife and I felt when we heard those stunning words from the Pope's mouth. Although we had been married for nine years at the time, we had never heard such a forthright call to openness to life. The Pope encouraged us to lift our eyes on high and put our trust in the great generosity of God our Father. When our son was born a few months later, we christened him John Paul.
The words of this Pope who has spoken forthrightly on all manner of life issues are the authentic teaching that God offers to families in our day and age: Openness to children is the rule rather than the exception.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dermott J. Mullan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: ... And His Wife's 'Response': Cheerios and the Kingdom of God DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Gazing into my fourth cup of tea that morning, I felt like I was searching in vain for past dreams of marital bliss. With Cheerios crunching underfoot and dirty dishes in the sink, I thought back to our wedding day five years earlier, where we had vowed love to each other and had promised to accept the children God would send.
Now he was sending them, and I was coming unglued. As one toddler gummed those Cheerios under my feet, a newborn wailed upstairs and another child was bellowing somewhere where he had gotten stuck. The fourth of my pre-schoolers was creatively utilizing the carpet outside the bathroom while shrieking for the potty that she could plainly see inside the bathroom.
I prayed: “Lord, here we are with four children in five years. Do you want me to be overwhelmed or so overtired that I am almost ready to quit? Lord, I know you want me to be open to life, but I need some inspiration to help me here.”
God had ignored my dream to become the poster child for natural family planning, and he had sent us children anyway. At the end of my rope, I learned from a spiritual friend about one of the best-kept secrets of Catholic spirituality: the concrete use of the graces specifically associated with the sacrament of matrimony. My friend Bev taught me that, whenever a couple experiences difficulty in marriage, sacramental graces can be accessed for application to their family.
And if the couple is at odds about something, even something so basic as openness to life, one spouse can pray with Christ to give the necessary graces to the other.
Wide Open
To be sure, there may at times be a just cause for a couple to plan to avoid conception temporarily. But human nature is quick to find excuses, so it is best to decide about family planning with the assistance of a competent spiritual adviser. The Legionaries of Christ provide excellent spiritual direction for such decisions.
Lack of openness to life can be the cause of great disharmony in the home, leading even to separation, extramarital affairs, disrespect among the children or confusion of gender roles in spouses or children. Many modern-day problems can be traced to this root cause.
In our fifth year of marriage, my husband and I, in a search for guidance that had not been given in our pre-marriage preparation, turned to Church documents and biblical verses. Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) and the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (Church in the Modern World) were especially inspiring. I read Psalms 127 and 128 daily to counteract the anti-life mentality I now found within and around me.
However, nowhere in those readings was there any practical help with the day-to-day struggles associated with raising children. But one day, another godsend arrived on my doorstep, accompanied by her four preschoolers. My friend Billie, then mother of 8, now mother of 15, spoke to me that day with words that transformed my life and the lives of other women with whom I have shared them.
Billie told me: “Each month that a couple is open to life, they offer God a unique palette from which to paint a child that he will never again be able to create. Never. If God so desires, he can make a special and irreplaceable individual during that particular month. Being open one month is not the same as having been open the previous month. That was a different child. And being open next month is a different child again. Once such an opportunity is lost it is lost forever. Please stay open to life! It's an adventure!”
From the moment I heard those words, I felt I had been introduced to a vast cosmic plan. I now knew that God wanted to cooperate with my husband and me, and with other couples, in a unique way. To be sure, I still would have soggy Cheerio days, but now with statues of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph in my laundry room, I could do an extra load of laundry on rough days. I could pray or cry or complain he had the wrong woman for the job, but still, I could go on.
Greatest Gift to God
The greatest gift a couple can give to each other and to the Kingdom of God on earth is openness to life. Then we are allowing God free rein — free reign — here on earth to build what he wills.
Imagine if the mother of Jan Tyranowski, the first spiritual director of Pope John Paul II, had not been open to life in a certain month? Jan was the one who, under the very noses of the Nazis, invited the young Karol Wojtyla and others to his apartment to participate in a secret organization based on the living rosary. Jan also introduced the future Pope to St. John of the Cross. Without Jan, Wojtyla might have succumbed to discouragement under the onslaught of Nazism and communism in his country. Instead, thanks to a mystical layman who had just the God-given talents for the job, we now have a Pope who leads us to God.
Or what if your parents had not been open to life the month you were conceived? Or if your spouse's parents had not been open in that particular month?
Or what if the Blessed Virgin Mary had not said her “Yes”? All of creation pauses and waits for our “Yes” just as the angels and saints waited for Mary's “Fiat.” God never forces himself on anyone. How can we refuse such a kind and gracious God?
Sue Mullan writes from Elkton, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sue Mullan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: 'Every Diocese Should Teach Natural Family Planning' DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:“The moment has come for every parish and every structure of consultation and assistance to the family and to the defense of life to have personnel available who can teach married couples how to use the natural methods,” said Pope John Paul II in a 1996 meeting with natural family planning teachers in Rome.
The following is a translation of the Pope's address, which was given in Italian.
Once again this year the Catholic University's Study and Research Center for Natural Fertility Regulation is offering a course to train teachers in the natural methods. This meeting is particularly significant because it is being held during the 20th year of this center's activity, an event recently celebrated with a congress of international importance significantly titled “At the Sources of Life.”
On this occasion I am pleased to renew my sentiments of appreciation and esteem for the work you have done, which is better and better understood by the ecclesial community and by medical and scientific circles.
The scientific validity of the methods and their educational effectiveness makes them increasingly appreciated for the human values that they presuppose and strengthen, when they are taught and presented in a suitable anthropological and ethical context, according to the wise directive expressed in Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae and so many times explained in subsequent documents of the magisterium.
Their humanizing character is all the more obvious from the fact that using the natural methods requires and strengthens the harmony of the married couple, it helps and confirms the rediscovery of the marvelous gift of parenthood, it involves respect for nature and demands the responsibility of the individuals. According to many authoritative opinions, they also foster more completely that human ecology that is the harmony between the demands of nature and personal behavior.
At the global level, this choice supports the process of freedom and emancipation of women and peoples from unjust family-planning programs that bring in their sad wake the various forms of contraception, abortion and sterilization.
‘I recommend that bishops [and] parish priests promote this valuable service.’
But more immediately, your work each day is valuable and sought after in parish communities and in diocesan centers for the pastoral care of the family and life. In this regard, I wrote in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae that “an honest appraisal of their effectiveness should dispel certain prejudices that are still widely held and should convince married couples, as well as health care and social workers, of the importance of proper training in this area. The Church is grateful to those who, with personal sacrifice and often unacknowledged dedication, devote themselves to the study and spread of these methods, as well as to the promotion of education in the moral values that they presuppose” (No. 97).
The moment has come for every parish and every structure of consultation and assistance to the family and to the defense of life to have personnel available who can teach married couples how to use the natural methods. For this reason I particularly recommend that bishops, parish priests and those responsible for pastoral care welcome and promote this valuable service.
With this hope, as I ask the Lord to constantly accompany your untiring work, I sincerely bless you and with you the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, whose faculty of medicine and surgery promotes and supports your work, which is worthy of the highest esteem and well-suited to the tasks and role of a Catholic university.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Pope John Paul II ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Real Catholics Don't Just Sit There
Just before Christmas 1999, my eldest sister, Nancy, was diagnosed with breast cancer. Until then, no one in my immediate family had been seriously ill, so I had never really given much thought to death.
My spiritual life before my sister's illness was also casual. What's sad is that I thought I was a fantastic Catholic. I thought this because I attended Mass every Sunday, fed the homeless from time to time and went to confession at least once a year.
Nancy's illness changed me, though. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realized my spiritual life needed to deepen. There was no burning bush. No visits from an angel.
All I remember, during the first few months after my sister's diagnosis, was being very scared — not only for her, but also for myself. I became aware, for the first time, how little control I had over my own life and how little I really knew of my own faith.
During this time, my wife and I were living in New York City. I was working at the New York Times, doing research for an op-ed columnist. One of the subjects my boss wrote about was abortion. Like most liberal journalists, he was in favor of it. As a practicing pro-life Catholic, I was always deeply troubled by his pro-choice views. But I was making good money, the Times was a prestigious place to work and my boss was very personable. So I never once thought about leaving my job.
In other words, I was a Catholic pretending to be Catholic.
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, put it a little more poetically: “A man who professes an external law is like someone standing in the light of a lantern fixed to a post. It is a light all around him, but there is nowhere further for him to walk. A man who professes the teaching of Christ is like a man carrying a lantern before him on a long pole: The light is in front of him, always lighting up fresh ground and always encouraging him to walk further.”
Reflecting on that insight, I knew I had to embark on a spiritual quest.
As the months went by, I began to read dozens of books by and about faith-filled Catholics. I read the Bible. My wife and I went on pilgrimage to Lourdes. I prayed and, in the fall of 2000, found the courage to quit my job. I discerned that God wanted me to apply my talents to teaching poor youths, so I headed to Harlem to do that.
Then, last July, my 79-year-old father, who lives near Tampa, Fla., suffered a stroke.
I flew down to see my parents and was only going to be in town briefly before heading home to New York. More tests, however, revealed that my dad was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer's. My wife and I were faced with a choice: Do we live far away or do we move closer since my mom doesn't drive and her health is starting to decline as well? Nancy lives the closest to them, in Miami, but her cancer has now spread to her liver.
Recognizing that sacrificial loving is the heart of Jesus' message on the cross, we made our decision based on faith: We moved to Florida.
Now we live close enough to help take care of them. I'm happier now, knowing that I'm doing what God wants and not just going through the motions. I'm happier because I have the faith and trust that his love for me will be like a lantern on a pole illuminating the way to heaven.
Carlos Briceno writes from Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Our Lady in Lebanon DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Ya Aadra — “Oh Virgin.”
That's the spontaneous plea cried out by Lebanese Christians in moments of distress.
The fact that the entreaty is heard so often in this land of 3 _ million — 70% Muslim, 30% Christian — is testimony to the fervent devotion to Our Lady found here.
“When American Protestant missionaries began arriving in Lebanon in the mid-19th century, the Lebanese Christians realized that the Protestants didn't share Lebanon's love for Our Lady,” explains Jesuit Father Martin McDermott, an American who has served in Lebanon for 31 years. “The Protestants thought of her as an ordinary woman, so their mission has had very limited success in Lebanon.”
Most of the Christians here are Maronite Catholics. That explains why the tiny country — it's only about the size of New Jersey — has at least 3,000 churches, chapels and shrines dedicated to the Blessed Mother.
By far the most-visited tourist site in Lebanon is the Shrine of Harissa, Our Lady of Lebanon. Located 16 miles from Beirut and perched atop Mount Lebanon, and topped by a beautiful Marian statue rising 1,886 feet above sea level, the site is breathtaking. It affords spectacular views of Lebanon's countryside and the Mediterranean Sea.
“What a beautiful horizon!” That was how Pope John Paul II reacted at Harissa as he gazed at the sunset and the sea of Lebanese youth gathered to be with him on May 10, 1997.
The shrine's origins trace to Maronite Patriarch Elias Boutros El-Hoyaek and Msgr. Carol Duval, who decided in 1904 to commission a token of grateful devotion to Mary on the 50th anniversary of the dogmatic proclamation of the Immaculate Conception. The statue was consecrated in May 1908 upon the 50th anniversary of Our Lady's apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France. This first Sunday in May has since been Our Lady of Lebanon's feast day.
The statue was crafted in Lyon, France, of molten bronze and painted white. The 65.6-foot-high stone base, with steps spiraling up to Our Lady, was designed by French architect Gio in the shape of a trunk, like that of a cedar tree. Our Lady towers over this pedestal; she stands 27.8 feet high, 18 feet wide.
Inside the base of Harissa is the lovely “Mother of Light” (Oumm En-Nour) chapel. Crafted stone-by-stone in the old rustic Lebanese architectural style, it has but a handful of pews, offering a quiet oasis for prayer. The altar's crucifix, tabernacle and “Mother of Light” statue are all carved from Lebanon's cedar wood, known as Arz al Rab — “God's Cedars.”
“She stands up majestic like the cedars in Lebanon,” reads the inscription above the chapel's entrance. For the pilgrim, standing high above the sea and nestled under Our Lady's outstretched arms, with the sky as her blue mantle, it's easy to feel a childlike sense of peace and security.
Nearby, the adjacent basilica hovers over Harissa. Architect Pierre El-Khoury's design was inspired by the Lebanese cedar tree and Phoenician ships. Construction began in 1970 and continues, although it looks completed. Inside the basilica, Harissa's shrine is framed within the church's massive window (137.8 feet tall). It seems a reminder that Our Mother is always with us. The basilica seats 3,500. When Pope John Paul II visited, tens of thousands of youth overflowed this huge church; the crowds spilled onto the grounds of Harissa and down the mountain road.
Miracle Worker
During my first visit to Harissa, I was amazed how many people climb the 110 steps of Our Lady's pedestal barefoot, sometimes even on their knees. Even more impressive are the youth groups who make the pilgrimage on foot from villages sometimes more than 35 miles away during May. It's just a 10-minute drive from Jounieh at sea level to the 1,886-foot summit of Harissa. Hoofing this steep road could challenge even a seasoned mountaineer. Yet, as I witnessed just last month — May, Mary's month — walking is the preferred mode of travel, even among the elderly, for those who make this popular pilgrimage.
Harissa averages about 3,400 visitors per day. That number soars up to 20,000 during May and on the feast of the Assumption.
I was surprised to see that Muslims, who also have a devotion to Our Lady, make up a good number of pilgrims. “In the Koran, they consider Our Lady the best woman in the world,” Father Hannoun Andraos, superior of Harissa, told me. “She is Jesus' mother, And Muslims do believe that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.”
While I was meeting with Father Andraos, a trio of gentlemen from Sri Lanka and India came to visit. I thought of the Three Kings: their names in English mean “money,” “king” and “sultan.” They were planning a procession of Our Lady of Sri Lanka from Beirut to Harissa. With childlike enthusiasm, they summed up their devotion: “We are Muslim and Hindu, but she is the mother of us all. We love her.”
Father Andraos added that, in the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in pilgrims from Iran — sometimes as many as 300 a day. They come in tour buses, spending one day in Lebanon. Harissa is at the top of their itinerary.
Countless miracles have been reported at Harissa, such as cures of illnesses and handicaps. Babies born after years of childlessness are especially common. One of my friends believes she is still alive today because of Our Lady of Harrisa. When she was a child, she and her family were on their way to the shrine. This was before the safe highway road was constructed. On one of the dangerous hairpin turns near the summit, their car tumbled down into the deep valley. Miraculously, they all survived the accident.
To mark the centennial of Harissa next year, a footpath called “The Way to Heaven” (Darb Essama) is being built. It will go from Jounieh up to Harissa and feature seven stations for praying for specific intentions, including the family, the elderly and poor, the culture of death and unity in the Church.
If you've been considering a pilgrimage to a faraway land in which Our Lady is revered with special passion, maybe Harissa, Lebanon, is your place and 2004 is your year. You'll be far from home, but right at home with your mother.
Doreen AbiRaad writes from Bikfaya, Lebanon. She hosts a weekly program for children, in English, on Lebanon's “Voice of Charity” radio. It can be heard Fridays at 9 a.m. EST at www.radiocharity.org.lb on the Internet.
----- EXCERPT: The Marian Shrine of Harissa, Lebanon ----- EXTENDED BODY: Doreen Abi Raad ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Dark Secrets of the Matrix DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:The Matrix movies are important cultural artifacts of our times. They have achieved a rare status: They are huge financial hits as well as subjects of a passionate intellectual cult.
The original Star Wars trilogy struck a similar zeitgeist chord for an earlier generation. Much like George Lucas, Matrix creators Larry and Andy Wachowski have concocted a compelling mixture of epic sci-fi narrative, fashionable spiritual notions and hi-tech, special effects-driven action. But the Matrix series is much darker, racier, edgier and more violent than Star Wars. It's definitely not for children.
The Matrix Reloaded, the second of the trilogy — which has now racked up close to $250 million in box-office receipts — picks up where its predecessor left off. Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) has a day job as a computer programmer. In his spare time he's also a skilled computer hacker with the moniker of Neo. A rebel band of freedom fighters recruits him into its ranks, and its charismatic leader, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), opens Neo's eyes to the true secrets of the universe. (Gnosis, anyone?)
In the 21st century, mankind produced a strain of artificial intelligence that rose up and conquered its human masters. But this race of machines depends on people for the bioelectric power to survive.
Humans are kept alive in a tank-like embryo. Their minds are plugged into a computer called the Matrix which keeps them blissfully ignorant that they've been enslaved by machines. They live in a simulated, collective reality that looks just like our contemporary world.
Morpheus believes Neo is a messiah-like figure destined to liberate humanity from its oppressors. The first Matrix film dramatizes Neo's awakening to this destiny and his awareness of his special powers. Reloaded explores Neo's quest to understand the specific nature of his special task, and it takes us deeper into Zion, the city where the humans liberated from the Matrix live.
The first Matrix film is exhilarating to watch despite its violence and loopy philosophical conceits. We are constantly being surprised.
Reloaded is a let-down on this basic level of popular entertainment. The filmmakers' passion and inventive skills are once again on full display, but both the visuals and the plot twists seem familiar. For those turned on by the Wachowskis' vision, this probably doesn't matter. But others may wonder why Reloaded looks and feels like just another Hollywood comic-book movie.
The first Matrix film married the conventions of Asian martial-arts movies with the most advanced computer animation techniques. These eye-popping, “bullet-time” sequences were interspersed with clever philosophic musings that referred to Buddhism, a Gnostic version of Christianity and post-modern French nihilism. An imaginative, well-constructed story line welded them all together into a seamless whole.
Reloaded's narrative falters badly in its depiction of Zion, the blessed city, and the story's different elements fly apart.
Zion is meant to be the ideal embodiment of freedom, but, in the Wachowskis' hands, it turns out to be nothing more than a politically correct, hippy-dippy commune. Its notion of spiritual celebration comes off like a cross between a rave party and an orgy.
Zion's supposedly wise counselors (led by real-life Princeton philosopher Cornel West) begin to look foolish as they exchange pretentious platitudes like: “Comprehension is not requisite for co-operation.”
The personal conflicts generated within Zion as they prepare for battle look like they're lifted from the outtakes of an old Star Trek episode. In these moments, the movie's magic vanishes, never to return, and we begin to ask hard questions that dog us throughout the rest of the narrative. Even the main characters — Neo, Morpheus and the rebel female warrior Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) — begin to seem like clever archetypes without individuality rather than living personalities.
The plot unfolds like a $100-million video game. Each twist depends on Neo besting his evil attackers so he can proceed to the next level of understanding. We watch him move from the Oracle (Gloria Foster) through the nasty Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) to the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) who can unlock more of the secrets of the Matrix.
Because we never doubt that Neo will prevail, the well-staged action scenes are drained of all suspense. Dependent on special effects to hold the viewer's interest, they play like the bloated action sequences of the later Bond films.
At the end, the humans in Zion are even facing the same threat that terrified them at the conclusion of the first Matrix film. The machines are still trying to exterminate them and only Neo can save them. There's no narrative progression.
Yet the movie's images continue to haunt. The rapid technological advances caused by the computer are overwhelming and Reloaded, even with its flaws, dramatizes our sense of powerlessness in this environment better than any other current pop-culture product.
In its final sequences, Reloaded begins to deconstruct some of the Gnostic premises of the first film, partially undermining our confidence in the wisdom of the Oracle and Morpheus and in the reality of the messiah-like role to which Neo aspires.
But the movie's view of religion remains pluralistic and syncretic. There is no absolute truth or transcendent moral code, only shifting human perceptions. In this, it reflects the way religion is now being taught at many of our prestigious seminaries. It should be no surprise that the Matrix series is proving to be as popular in the faculty lounges of Princeton and Harvard as it is in our suburban multiplexes.
John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: The Matrix Reloaded continues to bust the box office. Why? ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Frequency (2000)
A time-bending action-thriller with a life-affirming, pro-family heart, Frequency begins with a premise so simple, yet so powerful, that it could practically carry the story by itself: A Queens cop (James Caviezel) whose firefighter father (Dennis Quaid) died heroically 30 years earlier has an unexpected and mysterious opportunity to communicate across time with his father on the eve of the fatal fire. This simple premise becomes the basis for heartfelt reflection on fatherhood and family. Above all, Frequency evokes the profound human longing to escape the constraints of time, to see the wrongs and mistakes of the past somehow redeemed. Caviezel and Quaid are note-perfect and their relationship is emotionally persuasive.
Eventually the film falls back on standard-issue time-travel complications in which something has gone horribly wrong, and father and son must collaborate across time to stop a serial killer who's inadvertently been given a new lease on life. This subplot is handled smartly and cleverly, with some interesting applications of the movie's time-bending rules. A great movie for fathers and (above a certain age) sons — especially if they're baseball fans.
The Mission (1986)
A Vatican film list honoree in the religion category, The Mission is now available on DVD, with wide-screen presentation and a director's commentary. Written by Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons) and gorgeously photographed by Chris Menges (The Killing Fields), The Mission stars Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons in a fictional account of a historical struggle between Jesuit missionaries and Portuguese slave hunters in a disputed South American region. Three distinct acts highlight three different moral crises.
First, there's a slave hunter's struggle between despair and redemption.
Then comes the sad, foregone investigation of a papal legate nominally sent to inspect the Jesuit's work, but who will really rubber-stamp plans to abandon the missions.
Finally, there's a choice to be made between futile guerrilla resistance and martyrdom.
Few films have more stunningly depicted redemption and forgiveness, or more thoughtfully explored religious duty and obedience. One priest justifiably breaks holy obedience in order not to endanger souls; another wrongly does so in order to resist a military enemy, violating ancient tradition against priests fighting as soldiers — as well as the just-war requirement of reasonable hope of success. A beautiful, difficult film that deserves thoughtful reflection.
Sahara (1943)
One of the best WWII movies, Sahara is a thoroughly entertaining war actioner starring Humphrey Bogart as a tough American sergeant commanding a tank crew in the Libyan desert.
Joined by a handful of British troops and a Sudanese soldier (Rex Ingram), saddled with a pair of POWs, one Italian (J. Carol Naish) and one German (Kurt Kreuger), Bogie helms his rugged M3 tank Lulubelle through the African waste, retreating before advancing Nazi lines until he makes his last stand at an inhospitable oasis.
As might be expected, Sahara celebrates valor and sacrifice, but it also goes beyond many war pictures in weighing exigencies of war against the moral regard that is due the life of an enemy soldier, in balancing patriotism with cooperation among soldiers of various nationalities (including Ingram's dignified African) against a common enemy, and in a theological dimension that more than once indicates whose side God is on.
There's also a humorous discussion between the Sudanese Muslim and an American from Texas: After listening to the Muslim's defense of polygamy, the Texan comments laconically that his own wife wouldn't like such an arrangement — whereupon the Muslim is forced to admit that it's the same with his one wife.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: A Notre Dame Father's Lasting Legacy DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:ERIE, Pa. — The mystery of grace, working powerfully in the relationship of fathers with their sons, shines like the sun reflecting off the golden dome of Notre Dame's Sacred Heart Basilica in the lives of Edward “Moose” Krause and his eldest son, Holy Cross Father Edward Krause.
The elder Krause is a true Notre Dame legend. In fact, the day after his death at age 79 on Dec. 11, 1992, former Notre Dame football coach Gerry Faust remarked, “I think the true legend of Notre Dame has just died. They talk about Gipper, Rockne and the Four Horsemen, but I think he was the true legend.”
The younger Krause, ordained a priest in 1967, is an assistant professor of moral theology and liberal studies at Gannon University in Erie, Pa. He also is pastor of Immaculate Conception, a predominantly black inner-city parish. He serves on the board of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and the Scholars for Social Justice and is a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
The story of the two Krauses speaks of the fulfillment of Christian manhood cultivated at the University of Notre Dame. It is also the story of how faith is passed from one generation to the next.
‘Moose’
Beginning in 1930, when he was recruited by Knute Rockne himself just months before the great coach's tragic death in a plane crash, Edward “Moose” Krause towered over Notre Dame athletics in a gentle, humble, fatherly and faithful manner unlike no one who preceded or has succeeded him.
As an athlete, a two-sport star in football and basketball, he was a formidable force. At 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, he combined brute strength with rare agility for a man his size. Later, he served as Frank Leahy's line coach in football, was the head basketball coach and became the No. 1 worldwide ambassador for the Fighting Irish during his many years as athletic director at the University of Notre Dame.
As for the man himself, his character, Krause's soul, was formed through the twofold virtues: his love of the Catholic faith combined with a burning, selfless loyalty to the university.
“Daddy,” according to 62-year-old Father Ed Krause, “although he was not trained to be a theologian, had a deep, intuitive understanding of our Catholic faith.”
Most importantly, his son said, in all areas of his life, he lived what he believed. To properly understand how seriously Krause viewed his commitments, one need not look beyond the family and his role as husband and father.
On Jan. 21, 1967, just two weeks after the Krause family experienced the joy of Father Ed's ordination to the priesthood in Rome, Mrs. Elise Krause was involved in a near-fatal automobile accident on a snowy night in South Bend that left her bedridden, only a shadow of her former self.
At the time, the Krauses had been married for 29 years. Following the accident, the couple's fulfilling married life, which they had so happily shared, was changed forever.
In many ways, Moose Krause lost his spouse, his soul mate and the woman who kept so much of his life orderly.
He described the accident as “a veritable crucifixion for both of us.” Yet he refused to become a victim of self-pity. Instead, he drew on the strength of his faith and the grace that flowed from his marriage vows.
For years, until his wife's death in 1990, Krause visited her two, three times a day in the nursing home. He spoon-fed her at mealtime, supported and carried her when she attempted to walk and sang songs to her at night when she had difficulty sleeping.
Being human, the ordeal took a toll on Krause. He fell victim to alcoholism but, once again reaching deep down for spiritual strength, admitted his weakness and his powerlessness and overcame the disease, living soberly and helping countless numbers of people with a similar problem.
Father to Son
Moose Krause's greatest legacy lives on far removed from the arena of athletic competition, with its fleeting thrills and fading applause. The promises of baptism blossoming in the sacrament of marriage found fulfillment in Christian family life.
It was amid such a cradle of grace that Father Ed was born in 1940 in Worcester, Mass. At the time, his “daddy,” as he lovingly still calls him, was an assistant football coach at College of the Holy Cross who at the same time barnstormed all over New England as a semipro basketball star, earning as much as $100 a game during the pre-George Mikan and preNBA era of the game.
Father Ed's priestly ministry is rooted in his awareness that his life is a gift from God. “The heart of my ministry,” he said, “is God's radical, eternal and infinite love for each one of us.”
In Father Ed's case, sacramental theology opens a door to that divine love. “That means understanding the Mass and the Eucharist; the mystery of transubstantiation and the Real Presence,” he said. “The mystery of the Eucharist is the extension of the Incarnation in history.”
How, you might ask, can anyone properly respond to such an unmerited gift? Father Ed believes the answer is contained within the name “Notre Dame.”
“Our response to the mysteries of our faith must be one with the response made by our mother, Our Lady,” he said.
Speaking of Notre Dame, Father Ed, who himself is a 1963 graduate of the university, remains awed when he thinks about the founding of the school by Father Edward Sorin in 1842.
“Just think,” he said, “about the fact that Father Sorin built the beautiful Basilica of the Sacred Heart and a glittering golden dome in the middle of the woods in Indiana.”
The elder Krause was a member of both the Knights of Columbus and the Knights of Malta.
“He was most proud to be a ‘double knight,’” Father Ed said. He is proud his dad is known as “Mr. Notre Dame,” the title of a book written by Jason Kelly about his father.
Edward “Moose” Krause was buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery along Notre Dame Avenue at the edge of the campus. Following the committal prayers, Father Theodore Hesburgh, president emeritus of Notre Dame, broke the silence by softly singing, “Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame …”
Spontaneously, all in attendance joined in the singing of the remainder of the Victory March as a final tribute to Edward “Moose” Krause: “… Wake up the echoes cheering her name / Send a volley, cheer on high / Shake down the thunder from the sky / What though the odds be great or small / Old Notre Dame will win over all / While her loyal sons are marching / Onward to victory.”
Wally Carew, author of Men of Spirit, Men of Sports, as well as a forthcoming book on the storied 90-year Boston College vs. Holy Cross football rivalry, writes from Medford, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: How to Love Wisdom and Adore Its Author DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Philosophy 101 by Socrates
by Peter Kreeft
Ignatius Press, 2002
149 pages, $10.95
To order: (800) 651-1531
or www.ignatius.com
“Socrates is to philosophy what Jesus is to religion.” So says Peter Kreeft, Boston College philosophy professor and popular Catholic thinker, in introducing his primer on Socratic thought.
It quickly becomes evident that Kreeft takes both Socrates and Jesus seriously. In fact, in some ways, he's like the early Church Fathers, who saw in ancient Greek philosophy what they called “seeds of the Word” — pagan reasoning that is, in many ways, compatible with Christian faith.
It's equally clear that he is a true philosopher — a lover of wisdom. As such, he is an apologist for philosophy as well as for the Catholic faith. Here's how he responds to the common contemporary conceit that “philosophy is impractical”:
“‘Philosophy bakes no bread,’ says the cynical cliché. To which Socrates would reply, as another wise man once did to the temptation to prefer ‘practical’ things like bread to wisdom, ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ That man also uttered the most practical sentence ever spoken: ‘What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?’ That is Socrates' point, too: Our most practical need is to be more than a pragmatist.”
To inspire in his readers a love for faith and philosophy — or for a philosophical faith, or a faith-based philosophy — Kreeft avoids telling about philosophy. Instead, imitating Socrates' methods, he shows how philosophy is “done.” It's not that Kreeft wants to produce clones of Socrates: The master knew his limitations; indeed, “knowing what you don't know” is Lesson One. For only when you're ready to jettison your intellectual baggage and admit your ignorance can you be a philosopher.
By way of showing what a philosopher does, Kreeft prepares us to engage in the philosophical enterprise ourselves. Being a philosopher is, after all, inescapable.
“To be human is to be challenged to philosophize, and if we respond by not philosophizing, then that is our philosophy, a bad one,” he writes. “Once Romeo proposes to Juliet, she is no longer innocent but involved, whether she answers Yes or No. Once we are rational, philosophy proposes to us, and we are no longer innocent.”
What a marvelous crash-course this is. It kept making me think back 25 years, to the days I sat in Philosophy 101. We got an anthology that dealt with philosophy's main problems. Each topic had five or six readings, culled from conflicting schools of philosophy. Instead of learning how philosophy is done, we got the impression that philosophy is a cacophony of conflicting opinions advocated by ideologues detached from real life. If only then we'd been exposed to a philosopher who left us at semester's end with the “outcomes objective” of learning how to think.
Hubris, you say? There's no putting the philosophical Humpty Dumpty back together again? Socrates' world was also marked by philosophical pluralism. As Kreeft points out, today's “modernists” have much in common with the pre-Socratics, while yesterday's Sophists and today's postmodernists and deconstructionists share real common ground. “There is nothing new under the sun,” he writes. “The Greeks invented just about every school of philosophy that would appear for the next two millennia.”
Meanwhile, it's not as if Kreeft quotes Socrates uncritically: He could hardly be a Socratic disciple if he did. He recognizes the problems in Socrates' depreciation of the body and his misunderstanding of death. He knows the dictum “evil is ignorance” can be misused. And he sees the problems in how Socrates speaks of the relation between the divine will and morality. But he also appreciates the man's panting after wisdom like a deer pants for water. And he's certainly well aware that we don't worship wisdom — we bow before its author.
Want to know how to be a philosopher? Read this book. Know a student heading for Philosophy 101? Put this book on his required reading list.
John M. Grondelski writes fromWarsaw, Poland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Catholic Identity
While mainstream Catholic colleges debate their religious mission and worry about lost Catholic identity, the Sun noted, “there is no such angst at colleges such as Ave Maria, which proudly proclaim their orthodoxy.”
“The paradigm has shifted,” Jesuit Father Harold Ridley, president of Loyola College in Baltimore, told the newspaper. “We have to be willing to articulate our Catholicity … more energetically than in the '70s, when we were looking more to being accepted within … the higher-education scene.”
Stealth Pro-Choicer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 22 — Lost in the controversy about journalist Chris Matthews' commencement address at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., was the presence of another pro-abortion honorary degree recipient, philanthropist Iris Cantor.
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts urged Catholics to boycott the ceremonies because, the wire service reported, Cantor has funded women's health care centers, which perform abortions and distribute birth control.
Accreditation
SS. CYRIL AND METHODIUS SEMINARY, May 30 — The Byzantine Catholic seminary in Pittsburgh has been authorized by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to grant both master of divinity and master of arts in theology degrees.
The seminary, which has been training priests for Byzantine Catholic dioceses in North America since 1950 on a non-degree-granting basis, said it will also seek accreditation from the Association of Theological Schools.
Good Advice
NEPA NEWS, May 19 — Actor James Caviezel, who plays the lead role in Mel Gibson's upcoming movie, The Passion, told this year's graduating class at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to “make a commitment to pray, fast, go to confession and attend holy Mass” and to use their gifts “for God's purpose,” not their own.
Caviezel also told the graduates about the time he took his grandmother's rosary to an audition at the home of director Terence Malick. He wound up giving his cherished rosary to Malick's maid after learning she had lost a rosary blessed by Mother Teresa.
The audition resulted in a part in The Thin Red Line, a milestone in his career — but not one he ascribes to his acting talents alone.
Power Sharing
To be a member of one of the committees, a professor must have a core “competence” such as academic affairs or university planning.
However, faculty power remains limited, especially regarding how money is spent. Jesuit Father Paul Locatelli, Santa Clara's president, said the faculty should be looking at “strategic issues,” not assuming day-to-day decision making.
Many other institutions have studied the Santa Clara model — in place since 1995 — but only one, Loyola University of Chicago, also a Jesuit institution, has decided to implement it.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Sacred Heart Novena Starts June 19 DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as we know it, began about the year 1672. On repeated occasions, Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun, in France, and during these apparitions he explained to her the devotion to his sacred heart as he wanted people to practice it. He asked to be honored in the symbol of his heart of flesh; he asked for acts of reparation, for frequent Communion, Communion on the First Friday of the month and the keeping of the holy hour.
When the Catholic Church approved the devotion to the Sa-cred Heart of Jesus, she did not base her action only on the visions of St. Margaret Mary. The Church approved the devotion on its own merits.
There is only one person in Jesus, and that person was at the same time God and man. His heart, too, is divine — it is the heart of God.
There are two things that must always be found together in the devotion to the Sacred Heart: Christ's heart of flesh and Christ's love for us. True devotion to the Sacred Heart means devotion to the divine heart of Christ insofar as his heart represents and recalls his love for us.
In honoring the heart of Christ, our homage goes to the person of Jesus in the fullness of his love. This love of Christ for us was the moving force of all he did and suffered for us — in Nazareth, on the cross, in giving himself in the Blessed Sacrament, in his teaching and healing, in his praying and working. When we speak of the sacred heart, we mean Jesus showing us his heart, Jesus all love for us and all lovable.
Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God's infinite love. The human nature that the Son of God took upon himself was filled with love and kindness that has never found an equal. He is the perfect model of love of God and neighbor.
Every day of his life was filled with repeated proofs that “Christ's love that surpasses all knowledge” (Ephesians 3:19). Jesus handed down for all time the fundamental feature of his character: “Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). He invited all, refusing none, surprising friends and rivals by his unconditional generosity.
The meaning of love in the life of Jesus was especially evident in his sufferings. Out of love for his Father he willed to undergo the death of the cross. “The world must know that I love the Father and do just as the Father has commanded me” (John 14:31).
The love that Jesus bore toward us also urged him to undergo the death of the cross. At the Last Supper he said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends” (John 15:13).
The heart of Jesus never ceases to love us in heaven. He sanctifies us through the sacraments. These are inexhaustible sources of grace and holiness, which have their source in the boundless ocean of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Novena Prayer
The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is June 27 this year.
Divine Jesus, you have said, “Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.” Behold me kneeling at your feet, filled with a lively faith and confidence in the promises dictated by your Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary. I come to ask this favor: (Mention your request).
To whom can I turn if not to you, whose heart is the source of all graces and merits? Where should I seek if not in the treasure that contains all the riches of your kindness and mercy? Where should I knock if not at the door through which God gives himself to us and through which we go to God? I have recourse to you, heart of Jesus. In you I find consolation when afflicted, protection when persecuted, strength when burdened with trials and light in doubt and darkness.
Dear Jesus, I firmly believe that you can grant me the grace I implore, even though it should require a miracle. You have only to will it and my prayer will be granted. I admit that I am most unworthy of your favors, but this is not a reason for me to be discouraged. You are the God of mercy, and you will not refuse a contrite heart. Cast upon me a look of mercy, I beg of you, and your kind heart will find in my miseries and weakness a reason for granting my prayer.
Sacred Heart, whatever may be your decision with regard to my request, I will never stop adoring, loving, praising and serving you. My Jesus, be pleased to accept this my act of perfect resignation to the decrees of your adorable heart, which I sincerely desire may be fulfilled in and by me and all your creatures forever.
Grant me the grace for which I humbly implore you through the Immaculate Heart of your most sorrowful Mother. You entrusted me to her as her child, and her prayers are all-powerful with you. Amen.
Offering
My God, I offer you all my prayers, works, joys and sufferings in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for the intentions for which he pleads and offers himself in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in thanksgiving for your favors, in reparation for my sins and in humble supplication for my temporal and eternal welfare, for the needs of our holy Mother the Church, for the conversion of sinners and for the relief of the poor souls in purgatory.
(Text from the Web site of the University of Notre Dame.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Q My wife and I recently applied for a credit card and were surprised to find that there were a number of problems listed on our credit report. Actually, each of the problem items was an error on the part of the credit-reporting company. How can we get those companies to correct these errors?
A Your question is a good one and I would like to deal with it in two parts. Many people are unaware of the service that credit-reporting agencies offer, so, in this article, I'd like to provide background information on what they do, as well as discuss how their reports are used. Then, in my next column, I'll show how you can resolve the problems you mentioned.
Credit bureaus serve the business community by providing information about consumers — where they work and live; how promptly (or slowly) they pay their bills; whether they've been sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy. Practically speaking, before you will be provided a consumer loan, granted insurance or given a new credit card, your credit record will be reviewed.
While there are many local credit-rating organizations, there are only three major national credit bureaus: Equifax (800-685-1111 or www.equifax.com), Experian (800-682-7654 or www.experian.com) and Trans Union (800-916-8800 or www.transunion.com).
It is important that you keep up-to-date with the information the credit bureaus are maintaining on you. Even if you think your credit is stellar, errors are fairly common and can impact how businesses make decisions regarding the issuance of credit. The best way to obtain the information the credit bureaus are sharing with others is to periodically request a copy of your credit record. The credit bureau is obligated to provide you with all of the information in the report — including, in most cases, the sources of the information. They must also provide a list of everyone who has requested your report in the last year (two years if the request is employment-related).
A free report is available if you request your report within 60 days of a company taking adverse action against you. You are also entitled to a free report if you can prove that 1), you're unemployed and plan to look for work within 60 days; 2), you're on welfare; or 3), your report is inaccurate because of fraud. Otherwise, you can expect to pay up to $8 per report.
Once you receive your report, you'll find that it includes key information for each of your credit accounts. This will include the creditor, type of account, terms of credit, amount of the original debt, credit limit and the current balance outstanding. There will also be a payment profile documenting whether you have been timely in meeting your obligations. You will need this information in order to track down the errors that you mentioned. We'll discuss what steps you should take to correct these next time.
God love you!
Phil Lenahan is director of finance for Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: About Your Credit ... ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Teen pregnancy rates have been falling for a decade, but the news isn't all good. According to a survey released May 19 by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about 1 in 3 teens say they have been in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually. Also, contrary to popular perceptions, boys face more peer pressure to have sex than girls do. One in three 15- to 17-year-old boys say they feel pressure to have sex, compared with 23% of girls.
Illustration: Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Teach Those Teens ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Saints for Fathers DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Father's Day is a great time to think about holy men whom the Church has acknowledged either for their own heroic fatherhood or their courageous support of family life.
St. Joseph (Christ's Father)
St. Joseph, a simple hardworking carpenter, was chosen by God to be the father of Jesus on earth. As such he was the guardian and defender of Jesus and Mary. According to Pope Leo XIII, “St. Joseph, by his work, regularly earned what was necessary for Mary and Jesus' nourishment and clothing.” When an angel appeared to Joseph warning him that Herod sought to kill his Child, St. Joseph guarded Jesus and Mary and led them to Egypt. In Nazareth Jesus obeyed St. Joseph and was subject to his paternal authority.
St. Joachim (Christ's Grandfather)
St. Joachim was the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Tradition holds that Joachim and his wife, Anne, first lived in Galilee and then settled in Jerusalem, where Mary was born to them in their latter years.
Since St. Joachim was the grandfather of Jesus, he is considered a patron saint for grandfathers.
St. Thomas More (1478-1535)
St. Thomas More tried to be a Carthusian monk, but, after discerning that he was called to be a family man instead, he married Jane Colte in 1805. Together they had three daughters and one son — Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia and John.
After his wife died in childbirth, he married Dame Alice Middleton. As a politician, he defended the sanctity of marriage and would not support King Henry VIII's plan to divorce Catherine of Aragon.
Unwilling to compromise his religious beliefs, he was imprisoned. From his cell he wrote letters to his children. In one missive to his daughter Margaret, he said, “Therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.” When he was beheaded in 1535 his final words were: “The King's good servant, but God's first.”
Venerable Ralph Milner (16th Century)
Venerable Ralph Milner was born in England. Since he could neither read nor write, this father of eight children supported his family by manual labor. Raised an Anglican, his conversion to the Catholic faith led to his being imprisoned. His good behavior charmed the jailer into frequently letting him out on parole and he even received the keys to the prison. For a while he escorted priests to the jail to administer the sacraments to other prisoners. But when others discovered his liberties, he was placed under close confinement in Winchester, where a judge pleaded with him to attend a Protestant church and give up the Catholic faith. He refused, even when he was offered one last chance for life as his own children were brought before him at the gallows. Rather than give up his faith, he blessed his children, saying he wished them “No greater happiness than to die for a like cause.” He then died peacefully.
Blessed Edmund Rice (1762-1844)
Blessed Edmund Rice, an Irishman, married Mary Elliott when he was 23. His wife became pregnant and in her final weeks of pregnancy was thrown from a horse and died. A doctor managed to save the child and, throughout his life, Edmund provided for his daughter, Mary, and even made sure she was provided for after his death, which came in 1844.
Blessed Nikolaus Gross (1898-1945)
Blessed Nikolaus Gross was a German editor for a miner's newspaper. He married Elizabeth Kock, with whom he had seven children. When he became a member of the Nazi resistance, he was advised to stop for the sake of his family. He replied: “If we do not risk our lives today, how do we then justify ourselves before God?” While he was imprisoned he wrote to his family, assuring them that he had entrusted them to God's care. He was hanged in 1945.
St. Manuel Morales (1898-1926)
St. Manuel Morales, a Mexican father of three, failed in an attempt to save an imprisoned priest during the religious persecution in Mexico. As a result, he was publicly insulted by government authorities and taken outside the city. A priest pleaded for the officials to spare Manuel for the sake of his family. But Manuel responded, “I might die, but God does not die. He will take care of my wife and my family.” Moments later, he was martyred.
Blessed Peter To Rot (1912-1945)
Blessed Peter To Rot was a native of Papua New Guinea. He married Paula la Varpite and they had three children together. Blessed Peter bravely defended the sanctity of marriage when he strongly opposed polygamy, which the Japanese had legalized on his island. Because of this, he was arrested, taken to a hut, held down and martyred by lethal injection.
St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941)
St. Maximilian Kolbe gave his life so that a father could live. For this reason, the Franciscan priest is considered a patron saint for fathers. Because of his work as an editor for a controversial religious publication, St. Maximilian was arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in Warsaw in 1941.
When Francis Gajowniczek, a father with young children, was chosen to die at the camp, Maximilian volunteered to take his place so that the father could look after his family.
Blessed Frederic Ozanam (1813-1853)
Blessed Frederic Ozanam, founder of the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, married Marie-Josephine Amelie-Soulacroix in 1841. They had one child together, Marie. Though devoted to helping the poor, Blessed Frederic always found time to spend with his lovely daughter.
Blessed Luigi Quattrochi (1880-1951)
Blessed Luigi Quattrochi, an Italian lawyer and civil servant, married Maria Beltrame in 1905. They had three children during the next four years.
When his wife had a difficult pregnancy with their fourth child, he was advised to have the baby aborted. However, he and his wife chose life for their child. Both the mother and child survived. Three of their four children entered religious life. He and his wife were the first couple ever to be beatified together.
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: Remember Dad June 15 ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Profile: Moving Men Into Catholic Men's Movements DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:This Father's Day, Kevin Lynch might pause to recall his sales and marketing job at Proctor & Gamble. He'll think back to the early-morning meetings, the long hours and the constant pressure to perform.
But he'll only linger in those memories for a moment. For today, the 63-year-old retiree is leading other men in a different direction. Not only on Father's Day, but every day.
Twenty years ago, he and three other men began gathering on Saturday mornings for prayer and support. It led to a dramatic upset in his list of priorities as work sunk to the bottom and Jesus Christ rose to the top. His spiritual life was transformed — and so was his family life.
“I ran scared for 20 years with the sense that, if I didn't perform, I could be out of a job,” says Lynch, who resides in Cincinnati. “[Careerism] wreaks havoc on the spiritual life because by the time you start thinking about it, you fall back in bed exhausted. Now I start my day thinking of what matters most — my faith.”
Today 70,000 men are part of an organization Lynch co-founded called Catholic Men's Fellowship. The group has a national office and runs the Web site of the National Resource Center for Catholic Men, which offers support materials for starting an affiliate. The Greater Cincinnati Catholic Men's Fellowship has about 185 groups throughout the region that meet in local parishes. Catholic Men's Fellowship has spread to 22 other states from New York to California.
Marianist Father Ken Sommer, one of the co-founders of Cincinnati's Catholic Men's Fellowship and its spiritual director, challenges the men to adopt a four-part approach to enriching their spiritual lives: pray one hour a day, fast regularly, seek spiritual direction and prayerfully share personal concerns with other brothers in the Lord.
Catholic Men's Fellowship is part of a wider phenomenon of men's spirituality groups that are rising up across the nation. Like St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers and similar groups, Catholic Men's Fellowship is helping men “recognize the need to get their priorities straight,” according to Lynch, in order to have greater impact on their families, their parishes and society.
“Men recognize that there is more to life than what they're experiencing and they need to grow in order to survive in today's society,” says Maurice Blumberg, executive director of the National Catholic Men's Fellowship in Gaithersburg, Md. “They look around and see the breakdown in our cultural values and they see a lot of evil arising, and I think it scares them.”
The Family Man
It is common for men to feel isolated and unable to do anything about the wider culture, Blumberg adds, so the idea of male fraternity and fellowship emboldens them. Male fraternity groups, like the 800-year-old Holy Name Society, are also showing signs of new growth. All of these groups have a sacramental element that Catholic men missed in evangelical-Protestant movements such as Promise Keepers, which helped rejuvenate the men's movement. Catholic Men's Fellowship has an annual conference that attracts as many as 9,000 men from all over the country who come for Mass, talks and the sacrament of reconciliation. More than 100 clergy from the Cincinnati Diocese as well as the archbishop and bishops come to hear confessions.
Lynch says participants are experiencing great healing and reconciliation. The movement is bringing Jesus into their lives in a more meaningful way and, when that happens, he points out, the Mass and the sacrament of reconciliation become more meaningful.
Chris Knueven of Madeira, Ohio, joined a group eight years ago at the prompting of his wife, Julie. More than anything, he says the group has helped him build relationships with other men that he never would have met otherwise and to more fully appreciate the sacraments. Confession is now a regular part of his life, after 13 years of nonparticipation. He also attends daily Mass whenever he can.
“I felt [the group] would be a bunch of guys sitting around hugging and talking about spirituality and I wouldn't have any connection to that,” Knueven says. “It really was about a bunch of men facing the same doubts, challenges and frustrations that I was, and putting that in relation to the Bible.”
A common topic that brings out more emotion, says Lynch, is a man's relationship with his father. Father Phillip Merdinger, founder of The Brotherhood of Hope, a Boston-based religious community of brothers and priests believes that issue, which he calls “the father wound” is at the heart of the movement.
“As men, our fundamental vocation is to reveal God the Father as revealed to us in the life of Jesus,” says Father Merdinger. “One of the most important pieces of revelation that [Jesus] came to give was that he was the son. And one of the reasons men find God the Father so distant often has to do with their relationship with their own father. If this issue is reconciled or healed, then you can open [men] up to a greater imitation of Jesus.”
“It's a gateway issue,” he adds. “The Catholic Men's Fellowship addresses the issue and raises people's consciousness, which is always a prelude to social change.”
Icons of Discipleship
As a member of the Bishop's Committee on the Family, Bishop Carl Moeddel of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has studied the men's movement for the past five years and says it is growing nationally in unexpected ways through the Holy Spirit.
“This ought to be something that the Church hierarchy should not try to control because it was given birth as a lay movement,” says Bishop Moeddel. “We should be supportive of it and monitor it to make sure it stays under the umbrella of Roman Catholicism and beyond that, to let the Holy Spirit grow it.”
Dr. David Pence, a radiologist at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, has a different take on the men's movement. He is a member of the Holy Name Society at his parish in Lakeville, Minn. Holy Name is a fraternity of Catholic laymen started by a Dominican friar in the 1200s. It started to die out in the 1950s but is showing signs of rebirth.
“The Holy Name Society was a very large part of the immigrant Catholic culture,” says Pence. “And it wasn't built on the idea of small faith-sharing groups but that there is a faith and we need large groups to proclaim it. The idea of large groups has broken down in recent decades as psychological ideologies have replaced the theological.
Pence recently published a book on the subject of fraternity and manhood, called Apostles, Knights & Founding Fathers (for more info, e-mail mpls97@aol.com). Its premise is that men learn how to be men from other men in male groups.
“What we're trying to create with men is a big group that can do the work that has to be done and worship God,” explains Pence. “This is why we form big groups to get big projects done. The Church is built on a male group, on the apostles, and the bishop and his priests are an icon of Christ and his apostles. We as a male fraternity are also an icon of this, and this is the missing icon of our age. As laymen, our job is to go out into the culture, politics and the workplace — and the priests are to go back into the priesthood — and rejuvenate it.”
Sounds like a Father's Day gift from fathers.
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Focusing on the Faith of Our Fathers ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 06/15/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 15-21, 2003 ----- BODY:Miracle Baby Grew in Liver
BBC NEWS, May 23 — A South African baby has survived after developing in her mother's liver instead of in her womb. The baby, Nhlahla, whose name means “luck” in Zulu, is only the fourth baby ever to survive such a pregnancy. In all, there have only been 14 documented cases of a child developing in this way.
Nhlahla was born after specialists performed a difficult operation to deliver her. She had to be put on oxygen after her birth but was breathing without aid within two days.
Doctors said Nhlahla and her mother, Ncise Cwayita, were both doing well.
As an embryo, Nhlahla must have implanted in the fallopian tube and fallen out, implanting in the liver, which is a rich source of blood.
Contraception Aborted
BBC NEWS, May 24 — Boldly defending unborn life, Argentine Judge Cristina Garzon de Lascano has ruled that oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices are “abortive” and banned their production and sale. She has also ordered the destruction of existing supplies. Abortion is illegal in Argentina and can be punishable by prison.
The Argentine health minister attacked the decision as “absurd,” saying it went against international norms.
In 2001, the same judge defended life when she banned the so-called “morning-after pill.”
Baby Survives Illegal Abortion
The baby's mother was 30 weeks pregnant. On May 9 she paid an obstetrician, Dr. Charles Rossmann, for an abortion. Rossmann apparently induced labor and left the woman all alone in the office. She delivered her son and then called 911.
Police have tried to serve a warrant on a charge of criminal abortion to Rossmann, but he cannot be found. Georgia law states that a third-trimester abortion may only be done when the mother's health is at risk.
UNFPA Takes a Hit on the Hill
CATHOLIC FAMILY & HUMAN RIGHTS INSTITUTE, May 22 — The U.N. Population Fund tried to halt pro-life ads from running in an influential political publication, but pro-life forces have prevailed.
In April a global coalition of pro-life and pro-family groups sponsored advertisements in CQ Today, the daily news brief published by Congressional Quarterly. The ads detail the population fund's involvement in coercive population-control programs in the developing world.
In a letter to CQ Today, the fund challenged the claims in the ads and called on CQ to print a retraction. The publication refused to do so when its legal advisers determined that the charges laid out against the fund in the ad had been sufficiently substantiated.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Bishops Apologize to Mel Gibson Over The Passion DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:HOLLYWOOD — Mel Gibson's upcoming film on the passion of Christ was designed to be dramatic. After all, a film spoken entirely in Latin and Aramaic, with few subtitles, needs a lot of action to be better understood.
But even before the production crew finished packing up their equipment in Italy, where they filmed The Passion earlier this year, a drama of a different sort had begun.
A group of scholars reportedly affiliated with the Anti-Defamation League claimed to also be affiliated with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. After spiriting away an early version of the film's script, they called it potentially anti-Semitic.
Gibson, who is directing the film and whose Icon Productions is producing it, threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League and the bishops' conference in early June. At issue, at least in part, was the fact that the criticisms were based on a stolen copy of the screenplay.
The bishops' conference released a statement June 11 distancing itself from the “scholars group” that criticized the film.
“We regret that this situation has occurred and offer our apologies,” said Mark Chopko, general counsel for the [bishops' conference], in a press release. “I have further advised the scholars group that this draft screenplay is not considered to be representative of the film and should not be the subject of further public comment. When the film is released, the [bishops' conference] will review it.”
The release said the scholars' report was neither reviewed nor authorized by the bishops' conference.
The Register obtained a copy of Chopko's letter, which refers to the “scholars group” as individuals who were working with the Anti-Defamation League and a “staff member” of the bishops' conference. In another letter also obtained by the Register, Chopko asked members of the “scholars group” to return of all copies of the screenplay, as Icon had requested.
Zenit news service reported May 30 that the scholars group was assembled by Eugene Fisher of the bishops' Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs committee and Rabbi Eugene Korn of the Anti-Defamation League and issued its report May 2.
Even prior to the bishops' statement, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver had warned against a rush to judgment of the film.
“I find it puzzling and disturbing that anyone would feel licensed to attack a film of sincere faith before it has even been released,” the archbishop wrote in the May 28 issue of the Denver Catholic Register.
Can't Trust Bible?
The issue raised by the scholars group centered on aspects of the screenplay that it saw as antiSemitic, explained Jesuit Father William Fulco, a Loyola Marymount University linguist and historian from Los Angeles. Father Fulco translated the screenplay into Latin and Aramaic for Gibson and has worked closely with the director on the project.
“A movie rarely ends up being like the starting script,” Father Fulco said.
The criticism implied that the New Testament was written in such a way as to try to exonerate the Romans and shift blame to the Jews because the Christians were being persecuted by the Romans, he said. The point seemed to be that “you can't trust the New Testament,” Father Fulco said, adding that he saw such claims as ludicrous.
One of those who have worried that the film might be anti-Semitic is Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. In an open letter to Gibson, Foxman wrote, “[We] would like to be assured that [the film] will not give rise to the old canard of charging Jews with deicide and to anti-Semitism.”
But charges that Gibson is anti-Jewish are nonsense, Father Fulco said. Gibson was sensitive to the input of the several Jewish people on the set of the film, he said.
“When he was asked by the media who was responsible for Christ's death, [Gibson] said, ‘We are,’” Father Fulco explained. The priest added that the “Pietá scene” — where the Virgin Mary holds Christ in her arms when he is taken down from the cross — clearly evokes the sentiment that the blame for Christ's death lies with every human being because of our sins.
Icon's press release on the flap quoted Mel Gibson at length on the question.
“To be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic,” said Gibson, pointing to the record of his 25 years in public life. “Nor do I hate anybody — certainly not the Jews. They are my friends and associates, both in my work and social life. Thankfully, treasured friendships forged over decades are not easily shaken by nasty innuendo. AntiSemitism is not only contrary to my personal beliefs; it is contrary to the core message of my movie.”
Holy Cross Father Willy Raymond, who runs Family Theater, a Catholic film production company in Hollywood, attended a screening of The Passion in its notfully-edited form in early June. He said calling the film anti-Semitic was a stretch, and added that he does not believe Gibson to be antiSemitic.
According to Father Raymond, the plan is for the film to be cut down to 90 minutes — which means that it still needs significant editing. He said there were some scenes he thinks could be edited out to allay some of the criticism, but he noted that viewed “with a proper Catholic theological background” there should be little problem with the film.
He added that some of the scenes in the movie were stunning, and it was very well made and easy to follow. He said he was particularly moved by the scenes of Pilate's washing his hands and by one of Christ's falls on the way to Calvary, which cuts away to a scene of Christ falling as a young child.
“I don't think people will come away [with anti-Semitic feelings],” Father Raymond said. “There is the role that the Jewish leaders played; it's right there in the Bible.” Like Father Fulco, Father Raymond emphasized “the death of Jesus was caused by sin, humanity's sin.”
Andrew Walther is based in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholics Fleeing New Iraq DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Archbishop Sleiman Says Fear Overshadows Hope
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The challenge facing the Catholic Church after the Iraq war is to keep Christians from fleeing their homeland, said Latin-rite Archbishop Jean Sleiman of Baghdad.
“Christians are afraid [of the religious fanatic groups] and want to escape to other countries. It's not politically correct what I'm saying, but it's the truth,” Archbishop Sleiman said. “If Iraq were to lose all Christians, it will lose something vital for Iraq and the entire Middle East region.”
The archbishop, a Discalced Carmelite, spoke to the Register while visiting Our Lady of Mount Carmel monastery in Beirut on his way back to Baghdad from Rome in mid-June.
Archbishop Sleiman said that, prior to the war, he had witnessed Muslims and Christians sharing in funerals and weddings together. Now, however, both are feeling intimidated by the fundamentalist extremists.
It is especially dangerous at night, Archbishop Sleiman said. The most urgent problem facing Iraq is security.
“There is no control over thieves, murderers and fanatics,” he said. “There are no police, no judges. And no fuel available in a country rich in oil.
“Without security, there is no possibility of helping people. I can't emphasize enough the need for President Bush to really install security in Baghdad,” Archbishop Sleiman said.
Ambassador Paul Bremer, director of the Coalition Provisional Authority charged with reconstruction of Iraq, said in a news conference in Baghdad on June 12 that the coalition has completed the first phase of the “reconstitution” of Iraq. That phase has focused on “getting basic services delivered, utilities turned on and providing better law and order for everybody,” he said. Long lines for gasoline and cooking gas have almost disappeared, he added.
Bremer told reporters the authority now is turning its attention to restoring economic activity in the country.
For his part, Archbishop Sleiman said “the problem is rebuilding the peace.” Catholics around the world can help in that regard, not only with money and relief services but also by educating the Iraqi people, by “sharing something of life outside,” he said.
Many Iraqis have never been exposed to anything of life from abroad, the archbishop said. For one thing, they had only two regime-controlled TV channels under Saddam Hussein. The Baath Party also controlled education for the last 30 to 35 years, and now there is an opportunity for the Church to build schools and prepare teachers, the archbishop explained.
“Freedom is a reality now, but many people in Iraq have never been free before,” Archbishop Sleiman said.
He explained how professionals — doctors and teachers — had dedicated their lives to their country and in return received a monthly income. Now, these people, even the middle class and the upper-middle class, have nothing. When a shipment of used clothing arrived from France, it was quickly snatched up, even by those who were working professionals before the war.
Archbishop Sleiman arrived in Iraq from his native Lebanon in 2001, when Iraq was still suffering from sanctions imposed as the result of Saddam's failure to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions. He said he decided to preach a message of hope in the midst of the people's suffering.
“Christians in the Islamic world have always faced violence and revolutions,” he said. “Still, we must have hope.”
Carmelite ‘Miracle’
Another well-known Carmelite helped give Iraqi Christians hope on the eve of the 2003 war.
When the relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux visited Bagdhad in November, the Iraqi Christians viewed this development as a miracle, especially as the threat of war came closer.
“When the relics of St. Thérèse came to Iraq, it was good news for the country,” said Archbishop Sleiman. “Many thought her presence there would be a channel to stop the war. But what the Iraqi people encountered was a woman who knows suffering. Even if she did not stop the war, she gave us an interior peace that we can survive the war. As a result, many people learned that they must live with hope.”
Archbishop Sleiman said one could see the hand of God in the war.
“There were fears that 1 million people would be killed,” he said. “This war was like a devastating earthquake, but the casualties were not.”
“I experienced God's providence,” he continued. “Near my cathedral the military base was completely destroyed, but there were no casualties.”
Doreen AbiRaad writes from Bikfaya, Lebanon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Doreen Abi Raad ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Ave Maria Pulls Out of St. Mary's In Michigan DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:ORCHARD LAKE, Mich. — Ave Maria University had two goals when it took over St. Mary's College in 2000: to save it financially and to improve Catholic higher education by developing a curriculum in line with the vision of Pope John Paul II.
Now, three years later, Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria has ended its relationship with the school in order to put its finances toward the creation of a new campus near Naples, Fla. Monaghan had hoped to build the university on Dominos Farms property in Ann Arbor, Mich., but was turned down by the township.
The pullout has affected hundreds of students, faculty and staff, and the reaction has varied from confusion and disappointment to understanding and optimism.
In the meantime, Madonna University in nearby Livonia has stepped in to absorb St. Mary's, which was founded in 1885 by a Polish priest, Father Joseph Dabrowski. It will become Madonna's eighth college.
Sister Rose Marie Kujawa, president of Madonna, said it will retain the courses unique to St. Mary's, especially the integrated Catholic core curriculum, for which many students and faculty came to the school from all over this country and more than 20 other countries.
“I am confident that over 200 of St. Mary's 370 students will transfer to Madonna, and I am hoping for 300, “ she said. “As far as the faculty, we had them all fill out applications as soon as possible, and we have hired over half of them. The transition has been difficult, but I sense more optimism every day.”
“The greatest challenge is with scholarships,” she continued. “Our policy is to only offer them if we know where the money is coming from. We won't be able to offer as many, or as much funding, as St. Mary's did, but we are working with private donors to try to get more funding for the students than is currently available. We hope to know by June 18 how many donors will step up to the plate.”
To assist the transition to Madonna University, Ave Maria has pledged $1.2 million during the next three years mainly to support the core curriculum. The money will go toward technology, a new library, faculty support and some scholarships.
But it is the overall decrease in scholarship money available that has left many of St. Mary's students in limbo, waiting to hear when and how much funding they will receive so they can decide if they will be able to afford to stay at the school.
Josip Golub came from Croatia on an $8,000-per-year scholarship and says he won't be able to continue his senior year if that is substantially reduced.
“Nobody has told me or the other students yet how much, if any, money we will receive,” he said. “They say they will let us know as soon as possible. I am not losing faith, but I am concerned and worried.”
“Ave Maria pulled the rug out from under us so suddenly that it left us in a tailspin,” said Sarah Summerlin from Louisiana. “There is a great sense of sadness and confusion, and not many positive feelings toward Ave Maria. There was something great happening on this campus, but now an opportunity has been lost. We don't see the same thing continuing at Madonna. Though much of the curriculum will carry over, the teachers who have a heart for it won't be there.”
And for Molly Cameron, residence director at St. Mary's, it's more of the same.
“This is a small school, and we have worked hard on building a Catholic program,” she said. “Though Madonna has done the best they can, we are afraid that the mission and commitment will die out. And it looks like those who do receive scholarships will only get about one-eighth as much as before. That's especially hard for international students who aren't allowed to work off-campus and can only work 20 hours per week.”
Some of the St. Mary faculty have been hired by Madonna, some have found jobs elsewhere and some, like Kelly Bowring, are waiting, just like their students. Bowring, who taught sacred theology and catechetics at St. Mary's, was interviewed by Madonna in early May but so far has not been contacted about a job.
He sums up his feelings this way: “When I was hired three years ago, I was given reassurance by the administration that this was a stable situation, and that they would take care of me and my family of seven who moved here from Corpus Christi, Texas, regardless of how things developed with the merger.
“The news that Ave Maria would no longer support St. Mary's came as a shock to all of us here. Ave Maria University did not notify St. Mary's of the separation until mid-December 2002, and faculty did not find out until January. Anyone in academia knows this is too late to begin looking for an academic position for the following year.”
To this, Nick Healy, president of Ave Maria University in Florida, responded, “at the time of the agreement, it was made clear that we could exit after three years if the deficit was becoming more than projected, which it did. Our decision was strictly a financial one. The charge about competition is absolutely not true. We are still giving money to Madonna. Why would we fund our competition?”
He was addressing the charge that Ave Maria pulled out of St. Mary's College was the success of St. Mary's in drawing students to its core curriculum and catechetical institute — thus becoming a source of competition to Ave Maria College and Ave Maria University in attracting students.
Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, which monitors the orthodoxy of Catholic higher learning institutions, gave the school the benefit of the doubt.
“It's a sad situation as far as the human toll, especially for all the families and students who relocated,” he said. “At the same time, I don't think Tom Monaghan would deliberately leave St. Mary's in a position where its Catholic identity could be gutted. We will be watching closely to see that as a part of Madonna University, St. Mary's will retain its Catholic flavor, curriculum and identity.”
Another organization affected by the separation of Ave Maria from St. Mary's is the Institute for Pastoral Theology, which was under St. Mary's so that any master's in theology studies degrees offered by the institute would be accredited. It also serves five other colleges in the nation. According to David Twellman, an associate director of the institute, it is in negotiations to continue at Madonna.
“The vision that Tom Monaghan has is wonderful and is something we should pursue,” he said. “Sometimes change is necessary and is set in motion by things not under our control. We are prepared to face the adversities. And we have found that when the situation is explained to our students, they are happy and as optimistic as I am.”
Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Horning ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Shopping Mall Confessionals Draw Customers DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Joe Ambuul faced a dilemma.
He wanted to go to confession, but his parish, Corpus Christi Catholic Church, hears confessions for only a couple of hours in mid-afternoon on Saturday when he often works.
So, instead of going to church, Ambuul hit the nearby Citadel Mall. There, located just two doors down from Mervyn's department store, the Capuchin Franciscans offer daily confession at the Catholic Center.
It's part of a small but growing trend among both Catholics and Protestants to bring the faith to consumers at their local shopping malls.
Ambuul said that, “It's convenient and it's nice to have the sacrament readily available,” he said.
In the past six months alone, the center has served more than 22,437 people, hearing more than 2,200 confessions.
The Mid-American Province of the Capuchin Franciscans is one of about a half-dozen apostolates that offer the sacraments at various shopping malls across the United States.
In the spring of 2001, the Capuchin province leadership approached Bishop Richard Hanifen in Colorado Springs seeking a new type of ministry. Bishop Hanifen suggested opening a chapel in a mall. On Nov. 23, 2001, the Catholic Center was born.
The storefront features a receptionist, two small rooms that serve as confessionals and a recently expanded chapel. The original chapel seated only 15. Last November it was enlarged to accommodate 65.
On any given day approximately 17 individuals receive the sacrament of reconciliation and at least 73 people attend the two daily Masses held in the chapel.
“That is a 30% to 40% increase over the numbers we served last year,” said Father Gene Emrisek, one of the four priests — affectionately known as “mall monks” — who serve at the center.
“The diocese is strapped for priests,” Father Emrisek explained. “People come because they know that a priest is always going to be there, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday.”
“We have a good number of people who haven't been to confession for some length of time,” he added. “We have had people who have been away for as long as 25 or 30 years.”
Father Emrisek estimated that it costs approximately $135,000 to run the center annually. That amount is covered through individual donations, fund-raising appeals, the Knights of Columbus, the diocese and the Capuchin province.
Another mall apostolate that features the sacraments is the Franciscan Place in Syracuse, N.Y.'s Carousel Mall. Its chapel and gift shop have been open since October 1999.
There, as in Colorado Springs, Mass is celebrated in a chapel twice daily, and three friars offer the sacrament of reconciliation. Unlike the Catholic Center, the Franciscan Place is the only mall apostolate that is owned, funded and operated by two religious communities — an order of Franciscan brothers and an order of Franciscan sisters.
“Our greatest gift is availability,” said Conventual Franciscan Brother Joseph Freitag, director of the Franciscan Place. “The reason a lot of people come here is because they aren't going to go ring a doorbell on a rectory. So many more lay people are active in their parish that they feel awkward going to confession to the one priest who knows everyone's voice.”
In addition to the sacraments, the Franciscan Place also serves other community needs. It answers questions about the faith, provides information on becoming Catholic and shares information on individual parishes and Mass times.
“If someone comes in needing a sandwich, we refer them to a food pantry or Catholic Charities,” Brother Freitag explained. As an additional benefit, the Franciscan presence in the mall provides greater exposure for religious life.
“People aren't coming to church, so we need to do something different,” Brother Freitag said. “This is where we need to be.”
However, Brother Freitag noted there is also a potential negative aspect to mall churches.
“Many of these mall operations become Mass factories or alternative churches for disgruntled Catholics,” he said. “We don't want the pews any emptier than they already are. Our whole point is to get people back to church.”
Whether or not they are doing that, the numbers served are impressive. Brother Freitag estimated the Franciscan Place receives approximately 100 to 150 visitors every day, hearing between 50 to 60 confessions daily.
Franciscan Sister Laurine McDonald, a receptionist at the Franciscan Place, tells the story of one chapel visitor.
“This big guy came in who was physically and verbally handicapped,” she said. “A few minutes after he went into the chapel I heard him shouting, ‘Take care of my grandfather!’ When I went in I found him with his hand on the tabernacle, continuing to shout, ‘Take care of my grandfather.’ As I walked him out of the chapel he asked, ‘Do you think God heard?’ I told him that if I could hear him out front, I supposed that God could hear him, too.”
As it turned out, the man's grandfather had died in Florida 10 years earlier and he was unable to say goodbye.
“I like to think that those moments in the chapel helped him to deal with his grief,” Sister McDonald said.
Chapel of Love?
Some Protestant denominations nationally and internationally are also exploring the concept of mall churches.
But mall religion, of course, is not an entirely benign reality. At the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., the Chapel of Love, located next door to Bloomingdale's department store, performs 10 weddings per week. Clearly, the endeavor is more retail-oriented than religious. The chapel offers one of three ceremonies — Christian, spiritual or civil — for $269.
Since the chapel first opened nine years ago, it has had more than 4,000 ceremonies performed in it. Five ordained Lutheran and Methodist pastors perform the ceremonies, 85% of which are Christian.
“The person who is getting married at the Chapel of Love is looking for a nondenominational, traditional ceremony,” manager Susan Mills said. “People don't necessarily want to jump through the hoops of organized religion.”
Pastor Chris Reinertson came to his chapel's defense. “You can get married at the mall,” he said. “You can get just about anything you want at the mall. God wants a positive commercial for him at the Mall of America, too.”
Internationally, Scotland has also entertained the concept of mall churches. In response to census data that show 27.5% of Scots are of “no current religion,” the (Anglican) Church of Scotland has begun considering renting space in shopping malls as a means of attracting the younger generations.
During their March visit to Rome, Pope John Paul II told the Scottish Catholic bishops, “We may observe that in Scotland, as in many lands evangelized centuries ago and steeped in Christianity, there no longer exists a Christian society.”
“Shopping is the new family activity on a Sunday,” said Elisabeth Spence, a chaplain in Scotland. “I think young people especially would see that the church can have relevance for them.”
One thing is for certain. When you're bringing the sacraments to the people in an unconventional setting, you have to have a sense of humor.
Father Emrisek recalled one of the initial reactions to the Capuchin friars in the Citadel Mall.
“Within our first month, a young child saw the friar on duty,” he said. “He called him a Jedi.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Frank Talk From a Chinese Bishop DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun of Hong Kong has been outspoken in defense of the rights of the roughly 7 million people of the territory that has been under Beijing's control for six years.
As bishop of Hong Kong since September, he has spoken out against proposed anti-subversion laws that, some observers warn, could be used against the Catholic Church. Those laws could be enacted next month.
A member of the Salesian order, Bishop Zen was ordained in 1961. He has taught in seminaries in Hong Kong and, before being named coadjutor bishop there in 1996, in seminaries throughout the People's Republic of China. Those seminaries are under the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which appoints bishops without regard to Rome.
In a two-part interview, Bishop Zen spoke to Register correspondent Thomas Szyszkiewicz by phone from Hong Kong.
Having taught in seminaries throughout China from 1989 to 1996, you must know the situation of the Church there quite well.
Oh yes; that was a wonderful experience because by living there I could see and hear many things. Actually, I enjoyed much freedom in teaching at the seminaries. … Especially satisfying was to find that even the priests and the seminarians in the so-called official Church — they are just as we are. The government prefers them, but in their hearts, they are all loyal to the Pope.
Is there any kind of rivalry or bitterness from the people in the “underground Church” toward those in the “Patriotic Church,” which was set up in the 1950s?
The situation differs from place to place. For example, in Shanghai there is a strong underground church and there is a strong official church. But we may say that fundamentally, they coexist peacefully. Then there is, for example, the situation in Xi'an, where there is no real underground church, but the official church is led by a very good bishop. He was one of the first to be recognized by Rome. So though he is a member of the official church, now in his heart he is just like the one underground.
Then there is the situation in Wuhan — both the underground bishop and the official bishop … are Franciscans; they both have an agreement; the Holy Father recognizes the official one and they cooperate together.
But that is not [the case] in other places like Shijiazhuang, where there is very strong opposition between the official church and the underground church. But also not completely, because, for example, in the seminary, which is the official church seminary, even Mr. Liu Bai Nian — the one whom we call the “pope” of the official church — sometimes said there is no real official church; they are all underground. He meant that even in the official church, many are of the same sentiments of the underground.
Interesting statement for him to make.
An interesting thing is happening in Shenyang. The bishop has a big cathedral, but he also has a small chapel. He functions in the big cathedral and allows the underground church to use the small chapel.
By now you know the great majority of bishops in the official church have already been recognized by Rome.
Yes, I understand there are about two-thirds or so who have reconciled with the Holy See; at least that's the report in the United States.
That's why the government is very nervous and is trying to exert pressure on these bishops and priests.
What kind of pressure?
You remember the campaign against the canonizations [of the Chinese martyrs, Oct. 1, 2000]? According to me, that was just for this purpose. They did not react strongly to the announcement of the canonizations, but when the date approached, they started a political campaign, and I'm most sure the purpose was to force the official church to declare its loyalty.
As part of the handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic, China drew up a mini-constitution for Hong Kong to have a so-called one country, two systems principle. Article 23 of this “Basic Law” deals with security issues like subversion and treason, and you have spoken out against the proposal. At what stage of the process is Article 23?
Article 23 was inserted into the Basic Law after the [1989] Tiananmen Square incident. But then after that incident several years passed before the handover and by that time everybody could see Hong Kong was peaceful, so they didn't have to be worried. So for the first five years nobody talked about that [law]; there was no urgency to make that the law — and because we have the [People's] Liberation Army [in Hong Kong], nobody would dream of a revolution.
But now, after six years, they start proposing a very bad law. It's very comprehensive and vague, so everybody can fall into one of those crimes.
Little by little everybody was made conscious of the dangers of this legislation. And we also have to be very grateful to the barristers for trying to show where the dangers are.
After three months of consultation, there were a lot of people who opposed the legislation, and in December, before the end of the consultation, there was a big rally with 60,000 people [against the legislation], which exceeded every expectation.
Then both the local boys and the international opinion asked for a white-paper draft. That means an exact formulation of the proposed law so people can make more exact comments on it. But the government refused that. Very soon, though, they published a blue paper — that means it's already in the legislative council. Now they are discussing this in the commission before it goes to the full assembly.
The commission happens to be a very big commission because everybody was so concerned about this. Out of 60 legislators, 50 joined the commission, so the blue paper draft is still in the commission.
But they're pushing it. Everybody says the aim is to have the law pass in July, because that's the time before the summer recess.
The way the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region discusses it on its Web site, Article 23's laws against sedition, secession and treason all look pretty normal. The part about foreign entities not being able to establish in Hong Kong is worrisome, though. Is that the one part of the law you are most concerned about?
There are many general points that are threatening because of the very vague way they put the description of those crimes. So even your speech may be classified as treason, sedition. Even to possess a book, for example, with a title How to Succeed in a Revolution — you are already guilty.
The mass media are very much concerned because of the texts about state secrets. In China, everything can be classified as a state secret, so it is very dangerous for the mass media.
But we Catholics — and also the [Buddhist meditation movement] Falun Gong — see danger, especially in this mechanism by which they can proscribe the association in Hong Kong just because it is declared as endangering state security in China.
So this connection is very dangerous. This brings everything from mainland China to Hong Kong and is threatening the “one country, two systems” principle.
We don't feel they are going to use this against the Catholic Church in Hong Kong in the next year, but surely when they pass the law — then we will feel threatened and surely our people will not dare to do the normal things we are doing now; we would have to change, both the official and the underground church.
There seems to be an all-out effort from the government to say to the people of Hong Kong, “Look, this Article 23 isn't as bad as people are saying, so don't worry about it.” Is that having any effect on the debate?
As I said, at the very beginning the people were not very alarmed about all this. I think even now the great majority of people may think surely they will not be targeted by the law because they don't make any protest against the government; they're just quiet citizens.
But there are a lot of people who are angry at this, people from rather vast categories. First of all, the barristers, then several Catholic and Protestant groups, many scholars, mass media, university students, even librarians and the people of the business sector because they are very much concerned about the limitation of information, because business depends on information. It is very difficult to calculate how much of the people are working against it, but a considerable number are.
Do you sense that if the law passed, you would have to go underground?
No, no, no, it's not that serious. But everything's possible. Maybe in five years' time, but not in the near future. But probably they are going to use it against Falun Gong.
Do you consider it part of your pastoral duties to speak out against Article 23?
Oh sure. Actually, when I was appointed, I didn't expect to have such a role. But little by little, it was clear the Catholic Church must take a stand and must speak out. It started so as to have the right of a vote and there are many other things connected to that, like the schooling of the children without [Hong Kong-issued identity] cards, the arson case where people went to immigration and a fire broke out in that office and seven people were condemned very, very harshly; and then the Falun Gong business, and the campaign against the canonization, now this Article 23, and in a few days' time, the schools, the change of the system of the management committee for the schools — and we have so many schools. All those are issues on which we must speak out.
There are people, not only outside the Church but also in the Church, who don't understand that nowadays the Church must be concerned not only about what happens to the Church itself but also about human rights, about freedom, about justice. So I think it should be obvious that this is part of our faith.
In your sermon at your installation, you quoted from St. Gregory's
I feel that fundamentally, yes. But maybe in some details, the way I say things I could do better, but I think I need to address the subjects on which I talk.
You told
Oh, if I go to the mainland, I would like to visit the seminaries, meet some bishops, some priests, my friends. But surely at this moment they will not allow me to do that.
Because they're afraid of what you might say?
Yes. The Beijing government is used to being more tolerant with people who speak outside China; but inside China, it's much more serious.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Not Your Father's 'Kumbaya': Catholic Music Finds an Eager Audience DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:GREEN VALLEY, Calif. — As a mother of four, Karen Turner appreciates contemporary Christian music as a pleasing alternative to the sometimes-unsavory offerings currently topping the pop charts.
But Turner, of Green Valley, Calif., also worries about the potential long-term impact of non-Catholic Christian music on her 10-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
“I don't want to compromise their faith,” she said. “I want something [to listen to] that does not contradict Church teaching.”
The contemporary-Christian category, she knows, is overwhelmingly dominated by evangelical Protestant performers.
She also needs to know: That paradigm is shifting.
Until recent years, Catholic music distributors primarily geared their offerings to the tiny liturgical-music marketplace. Today the leading contemporary Catholic music distributor, Heartbeat Records, based in Donnellson, Iowa, offers CDs from more than 50 contemporary artists.
The growth of the category is not limited to the United States. In Europe and Latin America, Catholic performers headline music festivals nearly every month. One of the largest, the Song of Songs Festival, is held in Poland annually at the end of June.
“I feel [the growth] is mostly due to the Holy Father's love and attention to the youth, and the increase in Catholic television programs oriented to youth,” said Heartbeat chief executive Susan Stein.
Unity Award-winning Catholic musician Greg Walton views his contemporary Catholic rock music as a ministry.
When he's not teaching theology full time at Father Ryan High School in Nashville, Tenn., Walton performs approximately 50 concerts per year, playing at camps, confirmation retreats, diocesan youth rallies and parish concerts.
“Teens are in such a fragile state regarding holiness,” Walton said. “They are going the world's way. God's heart pours out to young people. Through my music I try to encourage them to plug into Christ, the Church and its teachings.”
Walton recalls his encounter with one teen-age girl whose story shows the power of music to change lives: “My wife and I had played a concert and spoke about abstinence and my conversion. A year later, we went back with my band to the same location. While there, a girl told me, ‘I was at the first talk that you gave. I'm a cocaine addict. I've been clean for six months and have been trying to clean up. I wanted to thank you.’ That is the crux of what my music is about.”
Hidden Talents
Artists and recording executives agree that an unprecedented opportunity is opening up for contemporary Catholic music. The challenge is getting the attention of the vast potential audience.
“Young people don't go into Catholic bookstores,” Walton pointed out. “So how do we reach them? It's a catch-22. Radio stations don't want to play you unless you're in the stores and stores don't want to stock you if you're not on the radio.”
One band that has been able to surmount that hurdle is a Nashville, Tenn.-based Celtic rock band called Ceili Rain. The band has had success not only among Catholic distributors but also with major Christian distributors such as Crossdriven, Lemstone and Lifeway/Providence. The band is currently negotiating with a mainstream secular distributor, Compendia, to have its records carried in stores such as Borders and Tower Records.
Like Walton, Ceili Rain also performs at many diocesan youth rallies. Most recently, the band played in Wilmington, Del., and Charleston, S.C. The band has also performed at the National Catholic Youth Convention and World Youth Days in both Rome and Toronto.
Ceili Rain differs from some of the other bands in that it does not actively proselytize.
“They bring us in when the youth just want to rock. Yet the adults want them to do it in a way that isn't harmful,” explained lead singer Bob Halligan Jr.
Halligan also said he thinks contemporary Christian music has had a domino effect on Catholic music.
“I get the feeling that the Catholics and evangelical Protestants are infecting each other more than we all realize,” Halligan said. “The increased enthusiasm among Catholic youth for matters of faith … is somewhat attributable to seeing their friends attend contemporary Christian music concerts. I really believe that there are ways in which the two sides can complete each other.”
Other industry insiders aren't so sure.
“The biggest problem for Catholic artists is finding a stage,” Heartbeat executive Stein said. She told of a recent Catholic youth congress in Miami that had hoped to bring in the contemporary Christian band Jars of Clay.
“If you're having a Catholic event, you want to send the youth away as better Catholics,” Stein said. “You can't do that if the people presenting do not know the faith.”
Eventually, the band backed out and Stein was able to send two Heartbeat groups to the event. She noted that, at the end of the congress, the event organizers said, “We didn't know we had this kind of talent in the Catholic Church.”
The Catholic Key
Unlike contemporary Christian music, Catholic music automatically gets assigned into one of two distinct sub-categories — liturgical and nonliturgical. And never the twain shall meet.
“In the beginning, we found that there was a fear that contemporary music might replace liturgical music,” Stein said. She said such fears are unfounded.
“Contemporary music is aimed at the person on the street,” Stein said. “It's merely a tool of continual evangelization that can open a person up to the enjoyment of traditional worship music. It is not meant to replace but enhance.”
Heartbeat was the first company to embrace contemporary Catholic music nearly 19 years ago, signing Dana Scallion, the popular Irish singer who went on to run for her country's high office in 1997.
Daniel diSilva, lead singer and songwriter for the Catholic funk band Crispin, based in Dallas, said he's encouraged to see the rise of contemporary Catholic musicians.
But he doesn't see Catholic music rising to the place of prominence enjoyed by its evangelical-Protestant counterpart — for one very good reason.
“We'll never get as excited about our music and prayer as the Protestants, because we have the Eucharist,” diSilva explained. “We have the same kind of excitement for the Eucharist. Catholic music points us toward that. If Catholics ever get as excited about praise and worship music as the Protestants do, then we will have lost something. Good Catholic music should point people to the Eucharist — and there, before Christ, the music is going to be silence itself.”
Tim Drake writes from
St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Santorum's C-SPAN ‘Miracle’
It seems that in 1998, as he fought a losing battle to outlaw partial-birth abortion, Santorum was moved to give a final, seemingly futile speech to the empty Senate gallery — and to the C-SPAN cameras. The speech lasted more than 90 minutes and didn't change a single vote.
But, the senator recalled, “five days later, I got an e-mail from a young man at Michigan State University … [that said], ‘Senator, on Thursday night I was watching television with my girlfriend. We were flipping through the channels and we saw you. … After a while I looked down at my girlfriend, and she had tears running down her face. And I asked her what was wrong, and she looked up at me and said, “I'm pregnant, and tomorrow I was going to have an abortion, and I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm not going to have an abortion now.”’”
Santorum said the next April, a little girl was born and given up for adoption. She is now 4 years old.
Princeton Hosts Anti-Catholic Art
CATHOLICLEAGUE.ORG, May 30 — The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University is hosting an art exhibit called “Ricanstructions” by Juan Sanchez, which contains sacrilegious artworks — including scapulars and images of the Virgin Mary arranged in a circle, naked female torsos arranged in the shape of a cross and a display of “torn-up images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights reported that several students of various faiths complained to the administration about the works, which the Princeton dean defended by noting that they had previously been exhibited at a Catholic school, St. Bonaventure University in New York.
Recent Convert Part of Business Scandal
At the same time, Belnick was converting from Judaism to Catholicism, under the guidance of an Opus Dei priest in Washington, D.C. He appears to have given most of the money he actually collected — some $2 million — as gifts to Catholic causes. These included the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C.; Thomas Aquinas College in California; Opus Dei; and the Eternal Word Television Network in Alabama.
The paper reported that Belnick, former president of his local synagogue, was received into the Church shortly before the scandal broke.
A key player in that conversion, according to the Journal, was occasional Register Columnist Opus Dei Father C. John McCloskey, who runs the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.
“Mr. Belnick joined an elite fraternity of Father McCloskey's converts,” the paper stated, which includes economist Lawrence Kudlow, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, conservative political columnist Robert Novak and ex-abortionist Bernard Nathanson.
The news story printed private e-mail conversations about the faith between Belnick and Father McCloskey, raising concerns.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: What's the Matter With Kids Today? Study Prompts Discussion DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Sexual activity among teens leads to depression, lower self-esteem and, in some cases, suicide. That was the conclusion reached in a report issued June 2 by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy research and analysis institute.
The report also appears to reaf-firm the positive effects of abstinence education among teens.
Drawn from data published in the 1996 National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, Wave II, the report asserts that in addition to about 3 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases each year, as well as an estimated 120,000 teen abortions and 240,000 births to single teen mothers, teen-age mental health is also suffering from the effects of early sexual activity.
Based on the Wave II survey of 6,500 boys and girls between ages 14-18, the report concludes that sexually active teen-age girls are more than three times as likely than abstinent teen-age girls to be depressed — 25.3% compared with 7.7%. They are also almost three times as likely to attempt suicide, 14.3% compared with 5.1%.
For teen-age boys, according to the report, the numbers are worse. While only 8.3% of teen-age boys report feeling depressed most or all of the time, it is still far higher than the 3.4% of virgin boys who reported the same feelings. When it comes to attempted suicide, 6% of sexually active boys reported an attempt within the previous 12 months, a number more than six times higher than the 0.7% reported by boys still sexually innocent.
The Heritage Foundation report, by researchers Robert Rector, Lauren Noyes and Kirk Johnson, also notes that 63% of sexually active teens regret beginning sexual activity, with 55% of boys and 72% of girls in agreement. Overall, 48% of those surveyed reported being sexually active before the legal age of consent.
While psychologists agree with the Wave II data, they disagree on their relationship, describing early sexual activity as a characteristic of depression among youth.
“Teen-agers who are depressed engage in impulsive behavior,” said Dr. Jim Thomas, a counselor and spokesman for Catholic Community Services in the Archdiocese of Seattle. “I see the behavior as a result rather than a cause.”
Thomas said increased attention to depression among teen-agers is demonstrating that risky or inappropriate behavior is caused by depression's impact on judgment and critical thinking.
“It affects how you react to things,” he said. “There's a whole series of faulty beliefs that people will have more often than they would when they are not depressed. Teen-agers are being told that sex is something they should experience, and they are less able to think about the consequences.”
Dr. Susan Bettis, director of counseling for William Temple House, an independent social service and counseling agency based in Portland, Ore., agrees with that assessment only to an extent.
“You have to differentiate clinical depression, which is a medical condition, from adolescent anxiety and ‘blue funk,’” she said. “I would guess that only about 7% of teens are clinically depressed. However, the number who say, ‘I'm down because of life’ is out of control, accounting for about 20% of teens.”
She describes her experience with the teen-age clients of William Temple House as demonstrating a widespread problem with depression and anxiety, with sexual activity as well as drug use as leading symptoms.
“I think being a teen-ager right now is a living hell,” she said.
“They are being pressured toward drugs and sex, and at the same time, they lack anything to challenge them to build a sense of real competence,” Bettis said. “We have a celebrity culture and it's especially rough on the kids. Expectations are so high, and they know in their hearts that they can't keep up.”
She said teens who don't believe they are capable of dealing with life or adversity won't believe they can restrain themselves.
“When kids are not asked to inhibit anything, it all goes,” she said. “If they aren't expected to inhibit sex, they won't inhibit anything else and you see anger management and other behavior problems.”
For youth ministers, the causes and effects of teen depression and sexual activity are immediate and highly visible.
Dario Mobini, director of youth ministry for the parish of St. Joseph in the Portland suburb of Vancouver, Wash., agrees in part with both the Heritage Foundation report and the psychologists.
“More kids are likely to become sexually active because they're depressed,” she said, “but it isn't just depressed teens who are sexually active.”
All of them are worse off for the experience, Mobini said. “Early sexual activity outside the committed relationship of marriage destroys for them the true meaning of love and the true purpose of sexuality.”
Meanwhile, Jim Mains, director of the Extreme Youth Ministry at nearby Our Lady of Lourdes parish, points to the deterioration of family life as the underlying cause of both teen-age depression and early sexual activity.
“There was a study that showed that kids who have dinner with their family have a higher rate of staying sexually abstinent than those who don't,” he said.
Mains said media and peers have an increasing influence on teen-agers because parents have less, and the media's influence is self-serving and causes depression and anxiety.
“They feel their parents either don't care or their parents aren't there,” he said, “such as in the case of divorce.”
“Overall, kids feel unworthy and that brings on depression,” he added. “Girls especially are depressed, and when they are giving sexual gratification they feel for a moment that they are in control. But the next day, they are as bad off, or worse, than they were before.”
“Popular culture keeps kids busy with an ideal that can be achieved buying new clothes or new cars or whatever,” Mains said. “It raises them up by destroying a true sense of self-esteem.”
“The first step toward making these kids again feel worthy is for their parents to let them know that somebody loves and cares for them,” he said. By setting standards and providing challenges, he said, parents build a real sense of selfworth that overcomes the despair that fuels the depression.
“Yet in too many cases, this isn't going to happen because so many parents also feel unworthy,” Mains said. “They are dealing with their own depression and they are not able to help their kids.”
Philip S. Moore writes
from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Why Does Pope John Paul II Travel? The Centrality of Mass... DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — The image of Pope John Paul II celebrating Mass in public squares around the world has become one of the most characteristic features of his pontificate.
As the Holy Father finished his 100th trip abroad in Croatia on June 9 and looked forward to his next trip, Zenit news service spoke with Bishop Piero Marini, for 15 years master of papal ceremonies, on the meaning of these celebrations.
Why does this Pope travel so much?
The Pope goes to confirm brethren in the faith, proclaiming the Word and celebrating the sacraments. He says this in his last encyclical: The Eucharist builds the community.
When it is presided over by the bishop of Rome, the universality of the Church becomes visible. In the Eucharistic celebration, the Pope exercises his ministry in the fullest way. Therefore, the Mass is at the heart of every trip — otherwise, its civil aspect would predominate. Only thus can one understand his desire to visit even the most remote islands.
What do you remember of the first trip in which you participated?
It was April 1987 and it was a baptism of fire.
We were in Chile, in O'Higgins Park. It was supposed to be the Mass of reconciliation and it turned into the Mass of the guerrillas. From the start of the Liturgy of the Word, they fired on the tents. Then they knocked down the journalists' platform. The police arrived in armored cars.
The Pope saw the stretchers going by with the wounded bleeding. At times, gusts of tear gas reached the altar. It was a truly difficult Mass. At the end, the Pope pronounced those famous words: “Love is stronger.”
One of the aspects of these Masses in international trips is the encounter with cultures.
They reflect well what the reform of the Second Vatican Council has been.
We have gone from a liturgy proper to the Church of Rome to a liturgy open to the world: languages, local cultures have entered the celebration, maintaining the same structure for the whole Catholic Church.
This liturgy has enabled the Pope to celebrate in all the countries: The universality of the presence of the Successor of Peter has been expressed in all the celebrations incarnated in the different local churches. This encounter is easier than it seems. Very little, in fact, is required: The songs, musical instruments, body movements at times are enough.
I remember the trip to Cameroon, when a woman carried the Gospel on her back, according to her tradition. Or the Mass in Gulu, where a man carried a youth astride who showed everyone the Gospel.
They are elements that speak directly to the people's culture, without altering the rite. I must also say that we have come a long way. During the last trip to Mexico, I was impressed by how well the elements of the Indian culture have been integrated in the celebration.
How is the preparation for these Masses undertaken?
It is a serious moment, as there is the risk of falling into folklore. We ask the episcopal conference to appoint a responsible priest. Together, we evaluate what is or is not acceptable.
In Indonesia, for example, they wanted to do the aspersion with coconut milk, which for them is a symbol of life. “But, with what do you baptize the children?” I asked. An aspersion has no meaning outside of the recollection of baptism.
It is important that these elements not hide the signs of the liturgy: If there is a procession with the Gospel, the Gospel must be seen. The Eastern rites with flowers are beautiful, but they must allow the Word of God to emerge, as our faith is based on it.
How are the venues chosen for the celebrations?
It's not easy: The crowds call for open spaces. The worst solution — but at times it's the only alternative — is airports. It is difficult to create a community in them. One's gaze is lost in the horizon.
It is better in stadiums: There is the possibility for the people to be close. However, a square in the city is the ideal. People feel at home. They can say: The Pope has come here and has celebrated Mass with us.
The Pope has also celebrated Mass in places marked by the wounds of history.
I remember a celebration in Africa, full of people mutilated in war. The Pope is also an element of hope where there is no hope. Suffice it to think how he was awaited in Iraq.
In Sarajevo we crossed a city full of destruction. It was terribly cold during the Mass, and the Pope endured great difficulties. At the end, speaking with him, I said: “What a pity that the cold made you suffer a bit.” He answered me: “It was nothing compared with what these poor people suffered.”
We are all witnesses of the exhaustion that these trips entail. What makes the Pope continue?
Transport, climate and change of time zone are difficult for him. People realize this and perhaps this is why they participate even more.
He continues because he feels his ministry consists of this; he has taken seriously the mandate to confirm the brethren in the faith, especially through these trips.
At present it is seen more clearly. Many things have been simplified — the ceremony at airports, the speeches. But the Eucharistic celebrations continue unaltered: The Church is built with the Eucharist.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Little Missionaries Visit Pope
FIDES, June 6 — Thousands of child members of the Pontifical Missionary Childhood Society were scheduled to pay a call on Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica on June 14, reported Fides, the Vatican missionary news service.
On Jan. 6, the Holy Father sent a letter to children members of the society encouraging them in their missionary activity. He urged them to listen to the words of Jesus, take part in Mass and show their solidarity with less fortunate boys and girls. He asked them to pray a Hail Mary every day and the older ones to pray a daily rosary.
The Missionary Childhood Society, one of the four Pontifical Missionary Societies, aims to educate children to a missionary spirit and to cooperate, with the offering of prayers and material aid, in meeting the needs of less fortunate children in mission countries. As part of the June 14 festivity, the children were to gather before the Pope to renew their promises to serve as missionaries to their peers.
New Israeli Ambassador Visits Vatican
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, June 2 — Oded Ben-Hur, the new ambassador of the State of Israel to the Holy See, presented his documents to Pope John Paul II on June 2.
In his response, the Holy Father said, “Your presence today is a testimony to our common desire to work together to build a world of peace and security, not only in Israel and the Middle East but [also] in every part of the globe, for all peoples everywhere.”
The Pope noted that the desire for peace “is probably nowhere more acutely felt than in the Holy Land. There is absolutely no question that peoples and nations have the inherent right to live in security. This right, however, entails a corresponding duty: to respect the rights of others. Therefore, just as violence and terror can never be an acceptable means for making political statements, neither can retaliation ever lead to a just and lasting peace.”
He also noted “difficulties that the Catholic faithful in the Holy Land face on a daily basis. Many of these problems, such as access to Christian shrines and holy sites, the isolation and suffering of Christian communities [and] the dwindling of the Christian population due to emigration are in some way connected to the current conflict but should not discourage us from seeking possible remedies now, from working now to meet these challenges.”
Sainthood for Pope John Paul I?
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 9 — He wasn't Pope for long, but his sanctity is still remembered. That's the growing consensus on Pope John Paul I, the Italian Pope whose reign lasted only 33 days in 1978.
The Associated Press reported that the case is building to make John Paul I a saint. His native diocese in northern Italy has begun to compile a dossier to promote his cause, according to Father Giuseppe Bratti, secretary to the bishop of Belluno-Feltre, who has appointed a priest in Rome as postulator for the cause.
The AP noted that some 300,000 Catholics have signed letters of support for the cause.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pope John Paul II Reflects on His Trip to Croatia DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II reflected on his June 5-9 trip to Croatia during his general audience with 13,000 people in St. Peter's Square on June 11. The Holy Father pointed out that this trip marked his 100th apostolic trip.
“I give heartfelt thanks to the Lord, who has opened before me the roads of the world and of its nations 100 times so that I might be a witness to him,” he said.
The Holy Father touched upon the various highlights of his trip. The beatification of Sister Maria Petkovic, founder of the Daughters of Mercy, on June 6 provided him with the opportunity to address a special message to the women of Croatia, encouraging them to make their spiritual and moral contribution to the Church and to society.
During his Mass at Osijek the following day, he reflected on the call of every Christian to holiness. “Only those who are motivated by a strong faith and a generous love can be apostles of reconciliation and moral reconstruction where the wounds of a painful and difficult past remain open,” he said.
On Pentecost Sunday, he prayed for a renewed outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the Christian families of Croatia and of the world and gave special emphasis to the role of the family in today's world.
“It seemed useful to me to confirm the primary social value of the institution of the family by urgently requesting that special attention be given and concrete steps be taken to promote its establishment, development and stability” he recalled.
The Holy Father concluded by assuring the people of Croatia that they would always have a special place in his heart and in his prayers.
----- EXCERPT: Register Summary ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pope John Paul II Reflects on His Trip to Croatia DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Today, as on the first Pentecost, Mary continues to be present in our Church community. She is a humble and discreet presence yet a stimulus for prayer and life in the Spirit.
Today, I would like to speak briefly with you about my trip to Croatia, the theme of which was “The Family: The Way of the Church and Its People.”
This was my 100th apostolic trip! I give heartfelt thanks to the Lord, who has opened before me the roads of the world and of its nations 100 times so that I might be a witness to him.
I returned to the noble land of Croatia in order to confirm the brethren in their faith. I wanted to take a message of peace and reconciliation to all of them, and I was granted the joy of beatifying Sister Maria Petkovic.
I wish to express my cordial gratitude to the bishops for having invited me and for welcoming me with kindness and love. I also extend my gratitude to the president of the republic and other civil and military authorities for their courteous support and thoughtful collaboration. Lastly, I thank the Archdiocese of Rijeka, as well as its seminary, for its hospitality to me and to my collaborators.
A Message to Women
My first stop was the ancient and glorious city of Dubrovnik, which is proud of its history and its tradition of liberty and justice. There I celebrated a Mass, during which Sister Maria Petkovic, who was an illustrious daughter of the Church in Croatia, was beatified. She was a woman who had a heroic desire to serve God among her poorest brothers and sisters, and she founded the Daughters of Mercy of the Third Regular Order of St. Francis in order to promote the knowledge of God's love through spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
In the aura of this admirable figure, I addressed a special message to the women of Croatia and encouraged them to make their spiritual and moral contribution to the Church and to society; I especially asked women religious to be eloquent signs of God's loving presence among the people.
The following day, at Osijek in the northeastern-most area of the country, in the dioceses of Djakovo and Srijem, I had the pleasure of presiding over the solemn conclusion of their second diocesan synod and of commemorating the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the ecclesiastical province of Zagreb.
A Call to Holiness
At that time, I reflected at length on holiness as the vocation of every Christian, one of the central teachings of the Second Vatican Council. In particular, I invited the laity among the faithful to fully appreciate the grace of baptism and confirmation. Only those who are motivated by a strong faith and a generous love can be apostles of reconciliation and moral reconstruction where the wounds of a painful and difficult past remain open.
In Djakovo, I was able to stop briefly at its beautiful cathedral, where I greeted the seminarians and their professors, as well as a large group of women religious.
The Value of the Family
During the Mass at Rijeka on Sunday, June 8, the feast of Pentecost, I prayed for a renewed outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the Christian families of Croatia and of the world. I placed all of them under the special protection of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Moreover, it seemed useful to me to confirm the primary social value of the institution of the family by urgently requesting that special attention be given and concrete steps be taken to promote its establishment, development and stability.
In the afternoon, I went to the Shrine of Trsat, which is located on a hill in the city of Rijeka, to unite myself in spirit with those pilgrims who venerate the Mother of God there. In fact, according to a pious tradition, the Holy House of Nazareth was briefly located there before it arrived in Loreto.
Mother of the Church
The last stop on my trip was Zadar, in Dalmatia, a city rich in history. In the shadow of the Cathedral of St. Anastasia, a martyr from Sirmio, I celebrated the sixth hour of the Liturgy of the Hours on the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. On this Marian feast, which occurs during the solemnity of Pentecost, we were able to experience once again the atmosphere of the Upper Room. Today, as back then, Mary continues to be present in our Church community. She is a humble and discreet presence yet a stimulus for prayer and life in the Spirit. She is a contemplative presence, who is capable of calling the shepherds and the faithful to the primacy of the spiritual life and of listening to and assimilating the Word of God, which is an indispensable condition for a proclamation of the Gospel that is convincing and effective.
During this trip I was also able to see how much Christianity has contributed to the artistic and cultural development of Croatia and its people, but above all to its spiritual and moral development. It is on this solid base that now, at the start of the third millennium, the beloved nation of Croatia will be able to continue to build its unity and stability and integrate itself harmoniously in the partnership of the peoples of Europe.
May God continue to bless and protect Croatia! It will always have a special place in my heart and in my prayers.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Assisted-Suicide Case Sparks House of Lords Debate in England DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:LONDON — There is mounting pressure to loosen Great Britain's stricture against assisted suicide. In an impassioned House of Lords debate June 6, 22 members spoke in favor of a bill that would legalize it and 25 members spoke against.
Even before the debate, Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, a leading Catholic voice in the United Kingdom on bioethics issues, weighed in on the issue.
In a June 2 letter to members of the House of Lords, Archbishop Conti noted that assisted suicide as practiced in the Netherlands has paved the way to involuntary euthanasia and a lack of alternative care for the terminally ill. He also noted that the British Medical Association, Help the Aged and the Disability Rights Commission of the United Kingdom all opposed changes to the law.
“To permit assisted suicide is to overturn a long-settled conviction that as suicide is itself wrong — and until recently a criminal offense — assisting the act is nefarious,” he wrote. “It is also subversive of the implicit trust placed in the medical profession by patients.”
The Patient Assisted Dying Bill, sponsored by Lord Joel Joffe, would allow competent adults who suffer from a terminal disease or an incurable illness to request a doctor's assistance to die. Two doctors would have to confirm the diagnosis. Every alternative would have to be analyzed, including hospice or palliative care, and the patient would have a period to reflect after the request is made. The stated desire to die must be witnessed by a solicitor, who could confirm the patient's mental health, and a commission would monitor every assisted suicide.
For doctors opposed to euthanasia, there is a provision to opt out on grounds of conscience.
Joffe, a retired human-rights lawyer known for his defense of Nelson Mandela in the 1963 Rivonia trial, said the current law is defective because it results in “grievous, prolonged and unnecessary suffering to a significant number of patients, who are denied the right to remain in control of their lives.”
“It is ignored by many caring doctors who, moved by compassion, assist their patients to die, which results in grave risks to those doctors' careers,” Joffe continued. Those who assist a suicide face up to 14 years in prison.
Joffe tried to gain public sympathy for the cause by discussing the cases of two people who suffered from motor neuron disease — Diane Pretty and Reginald Crew.
But Dominica Roberts, president of the Pro-Life Party, the political arm of the United Kingdom's Pro-Life Alliance, said that as with abortion, “the very rare and very hard cases have received a lot of attention.” Motor neuron disease affects two people in every 100,000, she said, and most of those afflicted “continue to live and want to.”
In the Diane Pretty case, a woman wanted her husband to help her commit suicide. The courts of the United Kingdom and the European Union ruled against the request in 2001. Pretty died naturally in 2002. Crew took another route, flying to Switzerland in January for an assisted death at the clinic Dignitas in Zurich. According to Roberts, this same clinic helps people with schizophrenia commit suicide.
“The law prohibiting assisted suicide in the [United Kingdom] is fairly tight,” said Ronald Convery, spokesman for Archbishop Conti. “People ask for the right to die in the courts. It's usually fairly emotive. But no progression has been made. Any doctor would be prosecuted.”
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society of the United Kingdom was optimistic regarding the House of Lords debate.
“Some House members, previously against euthanasia, are now coming out in support,” said spokeswoman Tamara Langley.
Langley claimed that regulation is important because people commit assisted suicide no matter what the law says, and “there's no excuse for this to go on behind closed doors.”
For many years, the Netherlands tolerated assisted suicide. And then the practice became legal.
Less well known, Swiss law since 1942 has prohibited assisted suicide for “self-seeking” motives, and some “death with dignity” groups have been taking advantage of the law's wording to carry out “altruistic” assisted suicides.
Martin Foley, clerk to the All Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group at the House of Lords, charged that Joffe was being “used by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society to front for them.”
“After the Diane Pretty case lost,” Foley said, “[Voluntary Euthanasia Society] shifted emphasis from the courts to Parliament.”
Opposition to the bill includes a wide range of groups and individuals outside the usual pro-life associations such as the Royal College of Physicians, Disability Awareness in Action, Anglican archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the country's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.
And there is widespread disdain of euthanasia in the British medical community. According to leaders of the pro-life movement, three-fourths of the country's doctors said they would refuse to do it if it became legal. Many fear a change in the law would put undue pressure on the elderly and terminally ill.
According to Roberts of the Pro-Life Alliance, the bill is significant because it “implies that some people's lives are not worth living.”
The experience of euthanasia in Holland has also kept the United Kingdom's pro-life movement on guard. “We see in Holland the slippery slope, from voluntary to involuntary euthanasia, where it is practiced against patients' wishes,” Roberts said. “Last year in Holland, 3,000 patients were euthanized by doctors. One-third of these were done without any request. The slippery slope is inevitable.”
Since Tony Blair came to power, the government made it legal to withdraw artificial feeding and hydration to people in comas. His Labour Party is officially pro-abortion and has passed legislation that would allow nonreproductive cloning and embryo research.
The bill is now in the committee stage. It could either die there or proceed to the next and final reading. If it passes in the House of Lords, it then moves to the House of Commons, where the process begins all over again.
“This bill is the first shot in a long-running battle,” Foley said, “which is why we are making sure it loses. We don't want them to get a propaganda victory.”
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi is based in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Radio María Launches in Mexico
CATHOLIC RADIO UPDATE, June 7 — For decades, anticlerical legislation prohibited almost all religious broadcasting in Mexico. With the new conservative government there, however, such laws have been pared back, and religious radio has undergone a renaissance.
Up to now, that renaissance has been limited to evangelical Protestant stations. Now a powerful Catholic station will go on the air in Mexico for the first time in living memory.
Radio María México has begun operations in Guadalajara, Jalisco, according to the online newsletter Catholic Radio Update. It will broadcast 24 hours a day, with a peak signal of 10,000 watts.
The station's headquarters were blessed on May 31 by Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez of Guadalajara.
Bishops Appeal for Mention of God in EU Constitution
EU BISHOPS’ CONFERENCES, June 5 — Bishop Josef Homeyer, president of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, wrote on June 5 to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the European Convention, calling for references to Christianity and God in the preamble of the new EU Constitution.
The bishop's statement reads, in part: “My brother bishops and I have read with great interest the keenly awaited draft preamble of the EU Constitution. I … should like to express my astonishment that the preamble includes a list of important elements in European civilization but does not refer explicitly to Christianity. Without wishing to detract from other contributions, no other religion or philosophical movement has inspired Europe as much as Christianity.
“Allow me also to renew our proposal for a reference to God in the constitution. A reminder of the limits of human power and of responsibility before God, humankind and creation would be an important sign that public power is not absolute. The union would thus explicitly recognize that its citizens, be they Christians, Jews or Muslims, are free to invoke God. This recognition would represent a guarantee of the freedom of the human person and would help many citizens to identify with the values of the European Union and the future constitution. That such a reference need not be discriminatory is demonstrated clearly by, for example, the German and Polish constitutions.”
Even Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski, an atheist, has denounced the “godless” tone of the constitution, according to London's Daily Telegraph. “There are no excuses for making references to ancient Greece and Rome, and the Enlightenment,” he said, “without making references to the Christian values which are so important to the development of Europe.”
‘Choose Life’ Planned for Trafalgar Square
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 6 — People of all faiths will be gathering for a massive pro-life rally in Trafalgar Square on June 29, Independent Catholic News reported.
The rally will be followed by a walk to Parliament Square, leaving a candle outside Methodist Central Hall in memory of the unborn.
Further events and services will include the newly composed Requiem for the Innocents by Joseph Estorninho and Mass in Westminster Cathedral.
The event has wide patronage, including the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor; the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams; and England's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Reconsidering Iraq DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Months after Liberation Day in Baghdad, as Robert Royal points out on the opposite page, it is entirely appropriate to revisit the decision to go to war with Iraq.
Before the war, faithful Catholics felt torn between the Pope's position on Iraq and the president's. The Vatican maintained that Iraq had not yet been shown to be an imminent threat, and that we had not exhausted all other means of addressing its weapons of mass destruction. The president assured us that Iraq was an imminent threat, and that war was a last resort.
Catholics took comfort in the fact that what was at stake was a prudential decision, and that the ones responsible for making the decision were the public authorities, not the Vatican. Most Catholics were willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt, in the hope that the administration had access to intelligence that it was unable to share at that time.
Many hoped that subsequent events would vindicate that trust. Our current feeling, however, is not one of trust vindicated.
Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, was a big proponent of war in Iraq. He is surprised that the weapons of mass destruction haven't materialized. “I hope they are found, but I'm very skeptical,” he said on Fox News on June 8. “We have interrogated a lot of people and we haven't found a single person who said he participated in disposing, destroying the stock of weapons of mass destruction. Or in hiding them.”
Kristol added that he still believes that Operation Iraqi Freedom was just and prudent, “But it is fair to say that if we don't find serious weapons of mass destruction capabilities, the case for urgency … is going to be undercut.”
But just-war principles demand that the case be urgent.
How much of an imminent threat to the United States were Iraq's weapons programs? Were they really worth a war? Shouldn't our failure to turn up weapons of mass destruction at least alert us that we didn't exhaust all other means of putting an end to the threat?
Leaving weapons of mass destruction aside, what about the war on Iraq as part of the war on terror? Again, our current feeling is not one of trust vindicated.
All the answers aren't in yet, but even after Baghdad fell, the big victories against Al Qaeda continue to happen in Pakistan, not Iraq. And there is still no evidence of an Iraqi connection to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
In fact, the threat of terrorism, if you go by Homeland Security Alerts, has been made worse by the war decision. It is instructive to remember that our show of force in the first Gulf War did nothing to slow terrorism. The first World Trade Center bombing came shortly after the first Gulf War, and after that, Al Qaeda activity skyrocketed.
American Catholics should learn from the Iraq war that we can trust in the Holy Father's wisdom on war questions. He knows from experience about totalitarian regimes and how to oppose them.
The United States helped free his native Poland from the Nazis, and then we left. Decades of misery followed under the communists, until John Paul helped rescued his own homeland — using peaceful means. Now, the United States has freed Iraq, and we will leave. Who will rule Iraq then?
If we want to bring democracy to Iraq, there's only one way: Iraq first needs the prerequisites for democracy, the belief that God has gifted men with rights, and the knowledge that the natural law is part of God's law.
These are the ideas that the Pope patiently planted in Poland under the eyes of the communists; ideas whose consequences he could reap later.
We can't do that by military force or any other shortcut. Force is likely to raise defenses against these ideas.
In the new Iraq, violence is driving out the only Christians there. The new situation could put an effective end to one of the world's most ancient Christian communities, the very people who could have helped get the real job done.
When the next such decision comes, will we listen to the Pope?
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Cardinal Arinze's Courage DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Hooray for Cardinal Francis Arinze (“Cardinal Arinze's ‘Un-Christian’ Speech,” Inbrief, June 1-7). If what you quoted were his exact words, I say: “Well done, Cardinal!”
How can the truth be un-Christian? I might ask that English teacher who apologized for the cardinal's remarks. As for the theology professor who walked offstage in protest, he needs to learn to respect the opinions of people with whom he might disagree. For myself, I would give the cardinal a great, big, gold star for excellence in good thought and courageous speaking.
JEAN FOORD
Sunnyvale, California
Eucharistic at Boston College
I am most grateful to you for running the story on the all-night Eucharistic vigil at Boston College (“Eucharistic Adoration Is Enduring Boston College Tradition,” June 8-14). God bless your paper and the writer of the article, Wally Carew.
There is just one item that is incorrect in this article. These Eucharistic vigils are held monthly on the first Friday of each month from 9 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Saturday. These vigils started June 9-10, 1972, and have been held on the first Friday of every month ever since.
These vigils are for reparation and atonement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The vigils open and close with Mass. I am most grateful that this apostolate has survived for 31 years, and that I have the privilege of coordinating these vigils.
Next month we will have the vigil at Holy Rosary Church in Winthrop, Mass., on First Friday, July 4, beginning at 9 p.m. with a Mass of the Sacred Heart. This vigil will end with Mass of the Immaculate Heart at 5 a.m.
Once again, thank you and it is my prayer that Eucharistic adoration will continue throughout the United States.
BARBARA KEVILLE
Lowell, Massachusetts
Modesty in Motion
Modesty must be in the eye of the beholder. A couple of the poses struck by the , tween models in the “Pure Fashion” show (“Modesty en Vogue,” June 8-14) might have been provocative if the models were old enough to have curves.
Maybe a better way to encourage modesty is to let young girls in on a little secret: You don't have to dress like a tramp to attract boys — just be healthy.
Vices hurt your looks. Makeup clogs your pores. But eating a healthy diet, drinking water and working up a good sweat with regular exercise will leave you with a clear complexion and a healthy body. You'll be, as Genesis 29:17 puts it, “well formed and beautiful.”
DON SCHENK
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Up With Mothers
Thank you for the wonderfully inspiring interview with Marie Bellet (“Playing Life by Ear Takes Faith,” Inperson, June 1-7).
How true it is that “the message of sacrificial love as a mother and a wife … has been obscured in American culture.” Mothers who, like Marie Bellet, live this message of love — and stay home in spite of our culture — not only support other mothers and pass on the message of love to their children, but they also find joy and fulfillment in marriage and family life.
In a society that promotes self-indulgence, it is not surprising that even Catholic mothers can be heard saying things like, “I need to work because I'd go crazy at home,” “these kids drive me nuts,” “I can't believe she's wasting her degree and staying home” and “I deserve a break.” Whether they seek refuge at the office, on weekend getaways or at the beauty parlor, fast-paced mothers of today avoid lifestyle choices that might “tie them down.” Yet freedom of movement fails to give these mothers the fulfillment, peace of mind or true freedom they are looking for. Too often they end up frazzled and unhappy.
Fortunately, the Catholic Church has answers for mothers. The Church teaches that it is by losing your life that you find it. This involves a free, voluntary gift of self. Before becoming pope, [then Cardinal] Karol Wojtyla in Person and Act argued that self-mastery, not self-assertion, is the index of a truly human freedom. It is this freedom through which the person-I-am grows closer to the person-I-ought-to-be.
To a non-Christian, changing diapers, feeding and comforting small children may seem like insignificant, menial tasks that easily could be done by a babysitter or day care provider. From a secular point of view, getting someone else to care for the children frees up the mother for more materially lucrative work and social contributions. In this arrangement, the children learn that a mother's role in the home is expendable. They come to understand that they are essentially a burden until they can be “useful.”
In sharp contrast to this, the Catholic mother responds to the needs of her children herself, out of love. She believes children are a gift from God. She considers the tasks of motherhood to be her unique responsibility and sees small chores — though often unappreciated, even unnoticed — as opportunities for personal sanctity.
Please continue to recognize and hold up experienced stay-at-home moms as mentors for those of us just beginning families. This is tremendously encouraging for mothers who can feel alone and overwhelmed in this anti-child culture. The Pope goes so far as to say, “the advancement of women requires that a clear recognition be given to the value of their maternal and family role, by comparison with all other public roles and professions.” How important it is, then, to help mothers emulate Our Blessed Mother, who, after saying “Be it done unto me according to thy word,” gave up everything for the sake of marriage and family!
CLARE MCCORMACK
Villa Park, Illinois
Inspiring Singer
I really enjoy reading the thoughtful articles and editorials in the wonderful National Catholic Register each week. A favorite feature is Inperson. The recent interview with Marie Bellet was very insightful in showing how this singer-songwriter practices her art while raising eight children. So inspiring! Her work is a good example of “good news” in a largely bad-news world.
MARY JANETATOS
Falls Church, Virginia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: 'Catholic' Colleges? DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Your excellent series on mandatun secrecy is, hopefully, opening the eyes of many Catholic families who are looking for a college (“Mandatum Cover-Up? — Parents Feel Left in the Dark About Professors at Catholic Colleges,” June 1-7).
Georgetown University refuses to disclose which professors have a mandatum? Fine. Cross it off your list. By the way, how can a professor of theology not [receive] the mandatum and remain on the faculty?
The day of the old, established “Catholic” universities has, for the most part, passed. They long ago compromised their Catholic identities in their rush to embrace the world. Look to the many excellent smaller Catholic colleges, where orthodoxy is not a term of derision.
It is incredible that it has taken 20 years for the Pope's wishes on the mandatum to actually be put into effect. This passive resistance by the U.S. bishops speaks volumes about their lack of submission to the Holy Father. Is it any wonder the U.S. Church is in deep trouble?
F. DOUGLAS KNEIBERT
Sedalia, Missouri
Apparently the mandatum required of religion/theology professors in Catholic universities by Ex Corde Ecclesiae requires these professors to refrain from teaching anything as Catholic truth that, in fact, is not. This is well and good, but do these professors also have no obligation to teach the fullness of the Catholic faith — e.g., that abortion, euthanasia and other actions are serious moral evils?
It appears quite evident from the commencement walkouts at Georgetown and St. Joseph's universities, where some moral evils were mentioned by the speakers, that some professors are not teaching and feel no obligation to teach certain moral truths.
JOSEPH MOYLAN
Omaha, Nebraska
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Inter-Communion Isn't Yet Possible DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:My Aunt Mary, a staunch Baptist, loves having a nephew who's a priest.
At 70, and in spite of her arthritis, she insists on going to see me celebrate Mass when I'm home visiting my mom and dad. Before Mass, I normally remind her in a tactful way to refrain from receiving holy Communion.
There's never a problem. She understands. Yet not all Christians are like my aunt; not all understand or accept the Church's directive discouraging inter-communion. In fact, many Catholics and Protestants see nothing wrong with receiving communion in each other's churches. A few high-profile incidents confirm the practice of this belief.
For instance, back in 1998, President Bill Clinton, a Baptist, and his wife, Hillary, a Methodist, decided to receive Communion at the Regina Mundi Catholic Church in Johannesburg, South Africa. A spokesman for Clinton said the president had no regrets about receiving Communion. He understood that any baptized Christian could receive Communion. The late Cardinal John O'Connor, archbishop of New York at the time, kindly informed the president that his understanding was erroneous.
Then there's the case of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, an Anglican, until 1996 would take Communion with his wife, a Roman Catholic, while attending Mass. He stopped when Cardinal Basil Hume sent him a letter advising him not to do so. Saying he didn't mean to offend anyone, Blair promised not to receive C o m m u n i o n again but added: “I wonder what Jesus would have made of it?”
Not only do Protestants appear to be confused on the issue of inter-communion but some Catholics do as well.
Take the example of Mary McAleese, president of Ireland and former secretary of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference. As one of her first acts of office, she chose to receive communion at Christ Church Cathedral, an Anglican Church, in Dublin.
All of this raises two key questions: Where did the idea of Catholics and Protestants taking communion together come from? And why does the Catholic Church oppose it?
To answer the first question, we need to look at a popular Protestant practice called Eucharistic hospitality. This pastoral policy holds that any baptized person may receive communion in any Christian church. Many Christians, including some Catholics, like the sound of this.
The reason is evident: At first glance, it appears ecumenical.
Where's Corpus Christi unity?
Episcopalian pastor Samuel Lloyd III, rector of Trinity Church in Boston, agrees. “The understanding in the Episcopal tradition, and broadly among the more Protestant traditions,” he says, “is that the Eucharist is the family meal of the Christian community and all it takes to come to that meal is to be a baptized Christian.”
Eucharistic hospitality comes from a Protestant ecumenical theology. It downplays the importance of doctrine in favor of mutual pastoral concerns among Christians such as peace, social justice and environmental protection. In 1995, in an official visit to the Holy See, Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, stated to Pope John Paul II what the aim of ecumenism should be. He told the Pope that churches should abandon old theological disputes over dogma and unite to confront shared pastoral challenges.
In brief, Raiser argued that Christian unity should be understood not as a unity based on doctrine but based on what he calls a “unity as process.” In other words, pastoral pragmatism takes priority over Christian doctrine. Within this theological framework, Eucharistic hospitality, for many, makes perfect sense. Then why does the Catholic Church oppose it?
John Paul answers this question. In his encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, released in April, he points out that the Eucharist “cannot be the starting point for communion [among Christians of different faiths].” Why? “Precisely because the Church's unity, which the Eucharist brings about through the Lord's sacrifice and communion in his body and blood, absolutely requires full communion in the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and ecclesiastical governance.”
For this reason, the Pope says, “The Catholic faithful … while respecting the religious convictions of [their] separated brethren, must refrain from receiving the communion distributed in their celebrations, so as not to condone an ambiguity about the nature of the Eucharist and, consequently, to fail in their duty to bear witness to the truth.”
Put another way, for inter-communion to take place between Protestants and Catholics they should hold to the same truth about the Eucharist. On one hand, most Protestants see the bread and wine used for holy communion in their celebrations as mere external symbols of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Catholics believe, in view of sacred Scripture and Tradition, that the bread and wine used for holy Communion in the Mass becomes after the consecration the very body and blood of Jesus Christ.
To dismiss these differences in favor of an inter-communion based on convenience rather than truth, in my judgment, would create a false unity.
The feast of Corpus Christi this year should remind Christians that Christ prayed at the Last Supper that we “may be one.” May our oneness come from the truth of Christ's body and blood of Christ in the holy Eucharist.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair
teaches at Mater Ecclesiae
in Wakefield, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Revisiting Iraq: Four Lessons DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:I was one of the American Catholics who publicly disagreed with the Vatican's contention that a war to disarm Iraq would not be just. On the whole, I still think war was right. But since we've failed, so far, to find Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, I feel obliged to address some questions — though not the most common ones at the moment (Saddam was definitely in Iraq at the start of the war, too, and we have not found him yet, either).
We need much better thinking on this war than we are getting at the moment. And it would be a good idea if we reflected deeply now, in relative calm, before we are faced with another decision about going to war.
Briefly, there's the frequent and false charges that the Bush administration deliberately misled the American people by distorting intelligence data. In the 1990s, Iraq's own government told the United Nations that it had about 2,000 gallons of anthrax and several tons of the nerve agent VX. U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix reported to the Security Council early in 2003 that there was no “convincing evidence” that these weapons had been destroyed. In previous years, President Clinton, his CIA director, secretary of defense, Vice President Al Gore and even French President Jacques Chirac said essentially the same thing.
Germany, which opposed the Iraq war, published an intelligence assessment in 2001 warning that Iraq was close to building both nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching Europe. So even if the Bush administration chose to highlight data that supported its case, the case has widely been recognized as valid.
Like everyone else, I don't know what became of these weapons. I am certain that Saddam, who developed and held on to them despite a high international price, would not destroy them lightly — or without some benefit. But I do know what this means for the view that we should have given inspections more time: If American troops in full control of the country have had little success in finding these weapons, U.N. inspectors wrestling with an uncooperative government would never have found anything at all. This is a lesson to keep in mind not only about Iraq but also about similar situations in the future.
We have been slow to acknowledge this lesson, I think, because we are afraid to fully recognize the new nature of the threat weapons of mass destruction pose. My judgment about the Iraq war hinged on one basic fact: The just-war tradition needs to be developed in our time to deal with situations it has never faced before. St. Augustine or St. Thomas, both sharp observers, would have regarded the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of people with a proven willingness to use them as alarming facts needing special and extensive treatment.
Many have argued — in line with past just-war thinking — that nothing should have been done in Iraq until that threat was imminent, that a vague threat does not justify “pre-emptive” warfare. But this approach does not really meet the new challenge. When all we had to worry about were conventional arms buildups and troop mobilizations, it took a lot before action became necessary. Now, inaction may be even more immoral than pre-emptive action. If we do not want to leave ourselves with some truly terrible all-or-nothing options, we need to start developing some new criteria now to help us sort out when going to war is “pre-emptive” and wrong, and when it might be prudential and right.
Such decisions might not be far off. Iran and North Korea, unlovely regimes whatever you think about how to deal with them, are openly developing nuclear programs. North Korea privately says it already has nuclear arms. Responsible secular and religious leaders need to review — now — what this might mean in the near future.
I was new to Washington in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. At the time, it seemed to me way beyond anything the just-war tradition allowed. I was wrong. If Saddam had had nuclear devices the past 20 years, the Middle East and the world would have been even far more terrifying. After Sept. 11, Gregg Easterbrook, a science writer with no particular taste for war, warned that if a terrorist nuclear device were to go off on American soil, “at least 300 million Muslims would die” in the response that would follow. All of us who care about peace and human well-being need to discuss all this creatively if we are to avoid such eventualities.
It would be a good idea to reflect before another decision to go to war.
So let me start the conversation by advancing some tentative theses in the hope that we will be better prepared for the decisions we will face:
1. Since we will not be able to tolerate developing weapons of mass destruction threats until they are beyond all remedy, we need to make clear where and when the line will be crossed.
Wherever they now are, Iraq's weapons were a threat to the Middle East and, like the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, inevitably would have become a threat to the United States as well. So we may do some useful thinking here: At what point does a developing threat need to be faced before it becomes, as it may already have in North Korea, weapons-of-mass-destruction blackmail? Do we need better intelligence confirmation of the threat than was the case in Iraq? But remember: No one, including the anti-war movement and the press, argued before the war that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Facts and analysis will take us to a certain point; prudence and wisdom will ultimately have to decide.
2. Sanctions and inspections might play a role, but the use of force has to be a real option. We can debate both the place to draw the line and the standard of evidence that would allow the use of force. But the need to be able to do both is clear. In fact, the G8 countries meeting in Evian, France, in early June announced that they — France and Germany along with Britain and America — would not rule out a military response to nuclear proliferation. There are many tools that may be used first, but for Korea-like regimes one such tool has to be the threat of harsh, including military, consequences. Far from provoking wars, such policies might prevent them.
3. The use of force in these circumstances, even unilaterally, may be the most humane and selfless choice the world's sole superpower may make. Our deep desire for peace sadly cannot eliminate the need for war in present circumstances.
Modern Catholic social teaching encourages us to build up a world community that will replace the rule of force with the rule of law. But we are a long way from that system and the one we have has actually made things worse on occasion. Peace advocates will ask: Isn't there a less brutal way? Often, no. Catholic moral realism has to face that fact. We rightly worry about the easy resort to or excessive use of force. But in our world, we also need to worry about slow or inadequate response to threats.
Many Americans — I count myself among them — thought the first attempt on the World Trade Center the work of isolated fundamentalists. Those who warned us that this was just the tip of a worldwide terrorist iceberg seemed as fanatical as the people they were denouncing.
But after Sept. 11 we have to admit: They were right, we were wrong. Functionally, the United States, with its willingness to act and democratic mechanisms for assuring that its leaders do not act rashly, will be a better bet than any of the available international alternatives for the foreseeable future.
4. But that does not mean other paths cannot be found if people who take just-war theory seriously recognize their obligation not just to avoid wrong but to do right.
I have seen a deep reluctance on this point both here and in some European countries. It's easy to criticize America, but what is your answer to restraining evil in the world? There aren't many alternatives, unless you simply refuse real responsibility. Let's not forget that if the German Christian Democrats had won the elections last year, France would have been the only major country to oppose the Iraq war, and even it might have come around.
The people who will eventually have to fight and die if things go wrong also have the prerogative to make them go right. If others want to shoulder this responsibility, they are welcome to try. We will all be happy to help if we can, but in the meantime, show the same courtesy, okay?
Robert Royal is president,
of the Faith and Reason
Institute in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Royal ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, Like Gods DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:I read David Mills' column on converting evangelical Protestants to purgatory using C.S. Lewis (“If C.S. Lewis Went to Purgatory, He Wasn't Surprised,” April 27-May 3).
Before I was halfway through, I immediately conceived an important addendum.
As Mills noted, Lewis regarded purgatory as quite rational. “I believe in purgatory,” Lewis declared, because “our souls demand purgatory.” Commented Mr. Mills, “Our souls demand purgatory because we do not want to be let into heaven in such rotten shape. … We want to be cleaned up, even if it hurts.”
I take friendly issue with that royal “we” because it is a “we” too royal to apply to most of us. In another sense, however, it is not royal enough.
Most of us do not want to be cleaned up precisely because we are convinced that we are not dirty, and part of our blindness is that we've no idea of the blinding-white cleanliness that eternal holy bliss demands. Our souls would indeed demand purgation, even if it hurts, if we were blessed either with the recognition of our own rottenness or an inkling of heaven's unbearable splendor. But, alas, we are poor middling creatures.
Therefore, on behalf of the lukewarm and the less-than-honest, those of us with great beams in our eyes in regard to the actual state of our own character, those of us who shy away like bats from the searching light of self-examination but who have eyes like eagles for the faults of others — in short, those who are like me rather than like Lewis — I offer another, less royal road to purgatory.
Even though it is quite difficult to realize that we need to be cleaned up, most of us have no trouble at all with the recognition of the dirt smudging everyone else's soul. We see it all too clearly, and a sure way to grasp the great necessity of purgatory is to imagine yourself to be the gatekeeper of heaven, suddenly in charge of the eternal destinies of all those who approach. You have only two choices: either send them into heaven, where they will experience unimaginable bliss for eternity or send them to hell, where they will suffer unimaginable torment for eternity.
Your first day on the job and who should show up but one of your coworkers, Fred, the generally friendly but irritating office gossip. To the flames? Into eternal bliss? He isn't really evil; he's more like a slightly grating noise that, while not loud, distracts and agitates until it seems to fill the room. With Fred, forever, in heaven? The thought makes you shudder.
And isn't that your neighbor Heather Finwinkle? Oh, what a hell heaven would be if you had to listen to her drone on and on about her petty problems, world without end. That tedious, whining voice! That theatrically doleful look of hers, continually glancing to see if you're properly sympathetic! An eternity next to her? You can't even stand being next door!
And here comes Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, the ruin of every family gathering! Should they be let into heaven as is? An eternity like last Thanksgiving? Or the Christmas before last, decked with their same old fights, deep-rutted grievances and fingernails-on-thechalkboard peccadilloes poisoning the holiday air? A few hours with them twice a year feels like an eternity. You break out into a cold sweat.
A horrifying exercise, isn't it? What does it reveal?
If we are really honest about other people, we would not want them in heaven. We rightly grasp that nearly everyone we know is an unfit companion for eternity. We can't really consign them to eternal torment, yet with their annoying habits, tangle of little vices, tiresome concerns, tedious self-absorptions and lack of depth, we'd like to excuse ourselves politely from them and live forever on the far side of paradise.
Now we're ready for the painful part of our imaginative exercise. If we could be really honest about ourselves, we would realize that we are one of those people for someone else, perhaps nearly everyone else.
We are the ones who would spoil someone else's eternity because we are not fit companions. We, too, are fit neither for heaven nor hell and are just as blind to that fact as all the others — didn't we presume that we, the gate-keepers in the above exercise, would also walk through the pearly gates as is?
Fit neither for hell nor heaven. A quite apt description for most of the human race. It is not only that we are, if truth be known, riddled with rot of a thousand petty sins. Even more, we are not profound enough, deep enough of soul, majestic enough in vision and character to be an object of sustained interest to anyone for very long, let alone for eternity.
We have, so it seems, the need of a third place, a place not only of cleansing of even the most petty and irritating of sins but also a place of profound transformation. In regard to the latter, we may return to C.S. Lewis, who once remarked that, if we were by some grace to be brought face to face with a resurrected human being straight from heaven, our first and most natural response would be to fall down in worship and awe-filled fascination. Such is the greatness to which we are called that we would naturally mistake this resurrected being — luminous and terrible, glorious in feature, effulgent with blinding joy and depthless wisdom — to be a god.
Fred, luminous? Heather, glorious? Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, become like gods? Let us hope and pray that it be so, for the only other alternative is hell — and that goes for us as well.
So we are back with Lewis, demanding “purgatory because we do not want to be let into heaven in such rotten shape. … We want to be cleaned up, even if it hurts.”
We add, however, that it is not just that we should want the dirt taken off, but even more, that we desire to be transformed and have divinity put on. In heaven, we are not only clean but also “partakers of the divine nature,” superhumanly happy because we enter “into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1721), a far more royal ending to our journey than we could imagine.
Benjamin Wiker writes from
Steubenville, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Helping Iraq's Catholic Refugees DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Ramzy and Rajaa Hermez recall the visit of St. Thérèse's relics to Baghdad in November.
“She gave us peace in our hearts,” Rajaa Hermez said.
The Iraqi family is living in Beirut now. They are some of the 4,000 Christian Iraqi refugees in Lebanon and one of the families Archbishop Michel Kassarji of the Chaldean Church of Beirut is trying to help. Most of these refugees came two months before the war started.
“These people have nothing to go back to,” Archbishop Kassarji said. And, he added, they have escaped to a country in the midst of a severe economic depression, where few jobs are available.
Without official residence papers, the refugees are not eligible for medical care and are not able to work. As the archbishop explained their plight, a delivery of donated food items was leaving his church on its way to refugee families.
The Hermez family — which includes children Simon, 15; Sandra, 11; and Renaldo, 3 — fled Baghdad just one month before the war started. They said they had little choice, as their home was located near principal Iraqi government ministry offices.
“We knew there would be bombs,” Rajaa Hermez told the Register.
They now have no home to return to and it is not likely Ramzy Hermez could find a job like the one he had before the war. The biggest obstacle preventing their return, they said, is security.
“Even if my husband found a job, he wouldn't be able to go to work every day because there are no policemen and it is very dangerous,” Rajaa Hermez said. “If there was security in Iraq, I'd go home right now.”
Their children are home every day in their sparse two-room apartment in one of Beirut's poorest neighborhoods. Simon and Sandra would prefer to attend school, but they arrived too late in the school year to enroll.
Their father is working in a car rental agency earning just $200 a month. After the $150 needed for rent, there's little left for food. They depend on donations of basic foodstuffs from Archbishop Kassarji's church.
But despite their uncertain future, there is a sense of peace in the Hermez home, where prayer is a vital part of family life.
In late July, Archbishop Kassarji is scheduled to embark on a one-month fund-raising visit to the United States. His first goal is to raise $100,000 for a medical clinic for the refugees while they are still in Lebanon and to raise funds for them to eventually go home.
He plans to visit Chaldean churches in Detroit and San Diego, he said, “and anywhere else I'm invited to visit.”
— Doreen AbiRaad
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: An Hour with Jesus on Corpus Christi DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:This Sunday, as I spend time before the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi, I will think back to a time when I found myself doubting the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Concerned, no doubt, about my spiritual welfare, someone sent me a book about Eucharistic miracles. It worked. Not only did the accounts dispel my doubts, but they also transformed me. I had been a Catholic who just goes to Mass weekly. Now I became a person who lived the Eucharist — the source and summit of the Christian life — every day.
Over the past two and a half years, this renewed commitment to my faith has included weekly Eucharistic adoration. With only a few exceptions, I have visited Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament each week ever since. But, even though adoration has by now become part of my normal routine, my quiet time with the Lord will have special meaning on this great feast of the Body and Blood of Our Lord.
The Gospel reading to be used that day will recount the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. The passage reminds us of the awesomeness of the gift Christ gives us at every Mass. We're so accustomed to hearing the words of consecration spoken by the celebrant, but do we recognize their impact?
I'm thinking specifically about how beautifully and brilliantly Christ uses the humble liturgy to fulfill his promise: “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
And I think of the apostles. They ran scared the next day — but, later on in their lives, they suffered the horrors of martyrdom rather than deny that Jesus is the Christ. They had hope in their hearts and proof on their altars.
What a great and mysterious gift God gave that night — and gives at every Mass! Yet, regardless of when I come to visit Jesus, few people are there. It is too often just the two of us. Still, I am grateful the flexibility of my schedule affords me this great privilege each week. As I think about this, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by Christ's peace — and unworthy to be in his presence.
I often meditate on this Gospel reading at adoration. It reminds me that, although every visit may not feel fruitful, I am not alone in my weakness. Christ's own apostles failed him on their first holy hour.
They couldn't stay awake and pray with Jesus. They couldn't honor his request to “keep watch with me.” Sacred Scripture records how they fell asleep. I am reminded that, on occasions, I, too, have dozed off at times before the Blessed Sacrament. By faithfully going to adoration, I can make up for the times I have been there in body but not in spirit.
Peter, our first pope, denied he even knew Christ three times. Yet Jesus called him a “rock” and picked him to lead the Church. As I recall all this, I pray for the man who now sits in the chair of Peter.
And I pray: Jesus, by not reaching out to others in need, how often have I denied you? Lord, truly present on the altar, forgive me for times I have not done what I could have done for others. Forgive me for the times I have been judgmental or harsh when viewing the actions of others. Help me to love them as you love me.
This feast of Corpus Christi, will you take the opportunity to recommit your life to Christ — and to renew your love for the sacrament of his body and blood? Can you spend an hour a week with him?
Bill Zalot writes
from Levittown, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bill Zalot ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Corpus Christi in Southern California DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Blessed Sacrament Church, Twentynine Palms, Calif.
It took us nearly three hours to drive eastward across Southern California, heading for Joshua Tree National Park from coastal Orange County.
Thanks to the fields of white windmills and the small towns we occasionally sped through, it was an interesting drive. Inside the air-conditioned car, the climate was certainly comfortable enough.
But, by the time we reached the dusty outskirts of the national park, things had changed. I was tired and sweltering — and it wasn't even 10 a.m. When I spotted the immaculate white tower of Twentynine Palms' Blessed Sacrament Church, I wondered briefly if it could be a mirage.
Unexpected sight though it was, this mission-style church is real. In fact, it's a vital part of the desert community that surrounds it — and, thanks to the Eucharistic emphasis of its very name, a wonderful place to pray June 22, feast of Corpus Christi.
Blessed Sacrament celebrated its 50th anniversary on Christmas Eve 1998, but there has been a Catholic presence in Twentynine Palms for more than two centuries: Father Francisco Tomás Garcés, the Spanish missionary, traveled into Alta California (the part of California that's now part of the United States) with Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza's 1774 expedition, which established an overland route into northern California. (According to some accounts, it was Father Garcés' travels that inspired de Anza to journey to northern California — and Father Garcés who guided the expedition across the desert.)
Eventually Father Garcés decided to separate from the expedition so he could better minister to the people of the area the soldiers were exploring. He left with only a mule to carry his provisions and a Chemehuevi Indian boy, Sebastian, to guide him to the native villages.
“Perhaps,” local author Margot Spangenberg speculated in an article about the parish's fiftieth anniversary, “the kindly priest stood under the stately palms of the oasis [of Mara, now inside Joshua Tree National Park] to celebrate the first Mass ever in Twentynine Palms.”
The desert community's population surged after the First World War, as veterans were sent west to recover physically and spiritually from shell shock. Locals asked the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for a priest to serve the veterans, but, due to a priest shortage at the time, the request went unfilled.
Local Catholics were considered part of the Palm Springs parish of Our Lady of Solitude, from which priests traveled on alternating Sundays to say Mass at various locations — hotels and businesses, private homes and even a local swimming pool. (Where else but in Southern California?)
Spiritual Oasis
In 1940, Bishop Charles Buddy set boundaries for a new parish, to be known as Blessed Sacrament. (Bishop Buddy was the first bishop of San Diego; the Diocese of San Bernardino, of which Blessed Sacrament is a part, was not established until 1978.) The first Mass for this new parish was celebrated at a local swimming pool, but parishioners were quick to begin efforts to build a permanent home. One local man donated not only the property for a church and rectory but also the sum of $10,000 to get the ball rolling. In the end, the cost of the church was $45,000.
Today Blessed Sacrament is the hub of a humming Catholic community whose members include students at the parish school. Simply decorated, the church is a serene oasis in the heart of the desert, its domed bell tower a desert landmark. Two mature palms flank the church building, and to the east stretches a serenity garden with low native plants and a birdbath.
These desert trappings may make it seem an atypical home for the faithful, but, inside, Blessed Sacrament is a traditional Catholic church.
Stained-glass windows blaze with images of the community of saints, spangling with color the whitewashed walls and the wooden ceiling from which very necessary ceiling fans hang. The Stations of the Cross are framed paintings that draw in the visitor, bringing him face-to-face with Jesus along the path to Golgotha.
It isn't long before the visitor's eye turns from these lovely images to the centerpiece of Blessed Sacrament: the altar. It is as simple and elegantly functional as the rest of the church. The priest's seat and the cathedra flank the altar, which stands one step above the nave, and a wooden crucifix hangs on the otherwise bare wall behind the small altar. It's all framed by a simple arch and lit by two stained-glass windows that shine onto the crucifix and the altar itself.
Finding Blessed Sacrament so unexpectedly was like coming upon a spring of cool water after enduring a brief, but intense, drought.
After stopping in the church's welcoming silence for a few moments of prayer and recollection, I was ready to head back into the blinding sun and into the wilderness of Joshua Tree Park — knowing that, should I need it, I could always return to this oasis for spiritual refreshment.
Elisabeth Deffner writes from
Orange, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elisabeth Deffnera ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Not the Divine Comedy DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Bruce Almighty looks for God's love in all the wrong places
The moral and spiritual implications of Bruce Almighty provided the topic of the hour at a recent press get-together.
Catholic director Tom Shadyac sat down with an array of religious journalists whose affiliations ranged from Catholic News Service to Christianity Today.
A number of pointed questions about the film were asked, and answered. Why does the movie depict the hero and heroine cohabiting outside of marriage? Why does God (Morgan Freeman) seem to tell Bruce (Jim Carrey) to stop “looking up” — to stop looking to God for help — and to rely on himself instead? What exactly is the message of the film, anyway?
I was unsatisfied with Bruce Almighty, and I didn't find much in the director's answers to enthuse over, either. I'm sure some pious moviegoers will enjoy Bruce Almighty, in part simply for its subject matter. Despite a recent bubble of religious themes at the movies, it's still relatively unusual for Hollywood to treat God, prayer and faith without open mockery. Christians may be so hungry for these elements that they'll take what they can get, whether the movie is good, bad or indifferent — and even whether the treatment of religious themes is commendable or iffy.
And Bruce Almighty does have some good intentions. It takes seriously the idea of surrendering to God's will. It depicts prayer as commendable, while deriding self-centered prayers. It also critiques the sort of passive fatalism that sits around blaming God rather than taking action to change things.
Yet the movie goes to the opposite extreme from passive fatalism by suggesting that we need to look to ourselves and not to God. In one key scene Bruce watches as God climbs a ladder to heaven, leaving him behind. “But what if I need you? What if I need help?” Bruce calls.
My first thought was that God would say something like “I'll always be with you.” Then, when I remembered that God still had the “prayer beads” Bruce had thrown away earlier in the film, I expected God to drop the beads down to Bruce, as much to say, “If you need my help, try praying.”
Instead, God says: “That's your problem, Bruce — that's every-body's problem. You keep looking up.”
“Don't pray for a miracle,” the movie emphasizes in so many words: “Be the miracle.” Make a difference. Give blood. Take the high road. Care about people. Forgive. Be satisfied with what you have. Is that what we'd be doing, if only we'd stop “looking up”?
Asked about this, Shadyac explained that the point is that we shouldn't keep looking up, looking only to God to change things without being willing to do what we can ourselves. Summing up his position, Shadyac said, “I hope people will look up, but don't just keep looking up.”
That may be less problematic than what the movie actually says. But, unfortunately, the movie does-n't say it. The movie agrees that it's good to pray, but it doesn't have much interest in what good it is — why prayer matters or why God might want us to pray in the first place.
Part of the problem is that the movie conceives of prayer exclusively in a petitionary mode, in terms of what we ask of God — as opposed to, say, prayers of worship or adoration, or even thanksgiving or repentance. Sometimes the prayers are selfish, sometimes selfless, but always people pray only to ask God for help. The idea that one might ever have anything to say to God that didn't involve what we want or need at the moment — that, in a word, it might be both possible and desirable to pursue a relationship with one's maker — has no place here.
Part and parcel of this is the typical movie picture of God as a deity who wants us to be good and happy but is nothing remotely like the object and goal of our being, our holy obsession, our life and our all. He's a sort of kindly manager or superintendent — just the sort of deity you might happen to pray to when you want something, but would never think of turning to just to spend time with him or to ask forgiveness for your sins.
Speaking of sin, that's another notion that's pretty much absent from the film. Not that there's anything wrong, for example, with telling a story about a shallow, naïve man who is living in sin instead of married. The real question is: When the man meets God and God cross-examines him about his life, why wouldn't the Almighty find a moment to express a preference for marriage over cohabitation?
Shadyac's spin on this, which he stressed as “my personal opinion,” was: “In God's eyes maybe Bruce and Grace were married from the first time they were together.” Apparently misremembering or misunderstanding the Gospel story of the Samaritan woman at the well, Shadyac claimed that Jesus had told her, “Ah, you've been married this many times already; you say you haven't, but you've been married this many times already.”
Here is what Jesus actually said: “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly” (John 4:17-18). So far from implying that cohabiting couples may be married “in God's eyes,” Jesus contrasts the woman's previous legal marriages with her current cohabitation. In any case, Catholic sacramental teaching requires valid vows, not just sex, to make a marriage.
Of course Bruce Almighty is a Hollywood comedy, not The Divine Comedy. We're not looking for anything approaching theological precision. It's just a movie — a lightweight comic parable about letting God be God and trying to make a difference. I'm willing to give the movie its premise. And on the whole I don't mind its depiction of God as a dignified, humorous Morgan Freeman.
It's harder, though, to overlook the film's determination to aim as low as possible in so many other respects. Bruce Almighty is excessively preoccupied with nose-picking and dog urination (one of Bruce's triumphant “be-the-miracle” moments is when he finally trains his dog to use the grass instead of staining the furniture). In the film's lowest gag, Bruce uses his powers to make a monkey appear out of a man's posterior — then, as the man struggles to get away, the monkey forces his way back in again.
I wish one of the religious journalists at that junket had asked Shadyac what he was thinking of at that point.
Steven D. Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from
Bloomfield, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:National Geographic: Inside the Vatican (2002)
Respectful and often fascinating, Inside the Vatican offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the life, history and inner workings of Vatican City, the world's smallest sovereign state and spiritual capital of the world's 1 billion Catholics. Though the documentary plays like a “day in the life” at the Vatican, National Geographic filmmakers actually spent three months in Rome amassing footage and interviews. The result is a well-rounded portrait, or series of portraits, of Vatican life. Vignettes include the ordination of a bishop, the restoration of a priceless tapestry, the swearing-in of a Swiss Guard soldier, receptions of world leaders and a race to digitally preserve disintegrating documents. Footage of the Vatican's secret archives includes Henry VIII's rejected divorce petition, and there's a look at the enclave process by which a new pope is elected.
The film touches on the origins of the papacy in Jesus' call of Peter, Peter's martyrdom in Rome and burial at Vatican Hill, site of St. Peter's Basilica, and the 20th-century discovery of Peter's grave and bones.
Episodes in papal history, glorious and otherwise, are discussed, from Pope Leo X's financial mismanagement to Pope John Paul II's role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
The most widely appealing of the Star Trek films, The Voyage Home is also the most idiosyncratic. There's no traditional antagonist such as Khan or the Klingons and no big fight scenes or starship shootouts. Instead, the plot revolves around an endearingly goofy conceit: A mysterious alien vessel is approaching earth, attempting to make contact-with by-then-extinct humpback whales.
Somehow the probe is wreaking havoc on the earth and will destroy it unless it makes the desired contact.
This provides the excuse for a crowd-pleasing trip back to the 20th century to recover a pair of humpback whales.
The Voyage Home is also the conclusion to the “Spock Trilogy” begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. Heroically sacrificing himself at the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock was fortuitously rejuvenated in Search For Spock, but the return of this beloved character would have seemed abrupt and unsatisfying if the series hadn't allowed a kind of readjustment period for him and his friends. The Voyage Home meets this need while also providing some of the most humorous and humane moments in the Trek canon.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The zaniest, most delightful, most romantic screwball comedy of them all, Bringing Up Baby features Katherine Hepburn at her effervescent best and Cary Grant in a marvelous performance combining stuffiness and injured dignity with his usual debonair charm. Grant plays a bookish paleontologist unfelicitously engaged to his even stuffier assistant (Virginia Walker); Hepburn's a flighty, madcap socialite who bursts into his life on the 18th fairway and is very soon literally driving him to distraction. Grant's meticulously assembled dinosaur skeleton perfectly embodies the ossified, dead-end direction his personal life is currently taking and contrasts strikingly with the much livelier and more formidable (not to mention quirkier) beast he meets in Hepburn's company — a Brazilian leopard with old-fashioned taste in music.
In a performance reportedly inspired by silent comedian Harold Lloyd, the bespectacled Grant does the slow burn beautifully. And Hepburn's battering-ram personality and non-sequitur repartee are irresistible rather than irritating.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, JUNE 22
The Real Jason and the Argonauts
Discovery Channel, 8 p.m.
Greek mythology tells of a quest for golden fleece by a Jason and his crew of heroes. Is there any nugget (pun intended) of history in the story, and do finds at Late Bronze-Age sites in Greece shed any light? This documentary examines possibilities.
SUNDAY, JUNE 22
Emeril Live: Fall River
Food Channel, 8:30 p.m.
In “Fall River Memories” at 8:30 p.m., Chef Emeril Lagasse goes home to Massachusetts and fixes Portuguese meals with Hilda, his mom, and her friend Ines. In “Back Home in Fall River” at 9 p.m., Emeril visits with friends from his youth. Also: At 10 p.m., “Childhood Memories Unwrapped” looks at kids' favorite treats and toys.
MONDAY, JUNE 23
America's Walking: Women and Heart Disease
PBS, 2:30 p.m.
This documentary follows a young woman's recovery from a heart attack and spotlights Dr. Nieca Goldberg, head of cardiology rehab and the women's heart program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Dr. Goldberg's book Women Are Not Small Men is a guide to heart health and cardiology care for women.
MON.-FRI., JUNE 23-27
EWTN Gallery:
St. Josemaría Escrivá
EWTN, 4:30 a.m., 6 p.m.
St. Josemaria (1902-1975) founded Opus Dei to foster, in Pope John Paul II's words, “the universal call to holiness and apostolate” and to help people sanctify their work and live the faith in daily life. His feast day is June 26, and EWTN celebrates with these daily half-hour “Gallery” shows as well as related programs at other times.
TUESDAYS
The Bedbug Bible Gang
Familyland TV, 3:30 p.m.
These half-hour shows for kids are from the ecumenical publisher Creative Communications for the Parish. The cartoons, 3-D computer animation and puppets tell Bible stories and give lessons about animals, counting and how everyday things work.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25
Cincinnati Pops: Patriotic Broadway
PBS, 8 p.m.
The U.S. Army Herald Trumpets and Field Band Soldiers' Chorus join the Pops and various artists in show tunes by Cohan, Gershwin, Berlin and more recent songwriters.
THURSDAY, JUNE 26
Grizzlies of the Canadian Rockies
Discovery Channel, 5 p.m.
Set in scenic Banff National Park in Alberta, this hour-long documentary, made in 2000, follows three bears for a full season and spotlights “large carnivore conservation.”
SATURDAY, JUNE 28
Face to Face with a Cougar
Discovery Channel, 11 a.m.
Learn all about these dangerous predators and how to defend yourself from them.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Med Students Re-Examine Hippocratic Oath DATE: 06/22/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Eleven newly-graduated medical students in Michigan recently took the Hippocratic oath — an oath almost all medical schools have discontinued in the past generation.
For 2,400 years physicians had traditionally subscribed to the Hippocratic oath as a way of pledging to uphold moral principles in their practices. Now it is being replaced by codes that reflect the culture's changing mores and that no longer refuse such things as abortion, euthanasia and sexual activity with patients.
The fourth annual Hippocratic Oath Banquet on May 29 in Ann Arbor was hosted by the Catholic Medical Association's Lansing, Mich., guild and the Christian Medical Association. The 11 students represented three nearby universities — primarily the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor but also Michigan State University in Lansing and Wayne State University in Detroit.
“Taking this oath at the banquet allows me to fellowship with and receive the support of physicians who are doing what I believe in” said Eric Achtyes, past president of the Christian Medical Association at the University of Michigan.
Along with Achtyes and the other new doctors, 24 local physicians took the oath as well as 13 first-, second- and third-year medical students. More than 100 friends and family members were also present.
“Being surrounded by believing physicians like this is important for me,” he continued. “I spent two years in a Christian mission hospital in India, and we prayed for patients right from the beginning. We saw some amazing things, including some patients — who we thought wouldn't last the night — end up getting better.”
Erosion of Morals
Edmund Pellegrino, a Catholic and professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., noted in his keynote speech and in an earlier interview the reasons for the demise of the Hippocratic oath and what should be the Catholic response.
“When I became a physician in 1944, I was expecting big changes in medicine but not big changes in how doctors view their profession,” Pellegrino continued. “We have lost the religious notion that being a doctor is a vocation, not an occupation. It used to be that if someone violated the Hippocratic oath they were thought to be a social pariah and were subject to blame and shame.”
Pellegrino said he is glad there is a group of medical students who are courageous enough to take the Hippocratic oath and live by its code.
“That personal witness of a pro-life physician, along with prayer and political action, are the best way to affect the current situation,” he said. “We need to be consistently pro-life, whether it is assisting a woman who is considering abortion, helping the poor, eliminating the death penalty or dealing with a just-war situation. Every time human life is threatened, we need to protect it.”
Pellegrino, who has written and spoken extensively on ethics and philosophy in medicine, mentioned three of Pope John Paul II's encyclicals as must reading to help counter the opponents' position: Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason, 1998), Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth, 1993) and Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life, 1995).
“The Holy Father said at the beginning of his pontificate that he wanted a dialogue between Church and culture,” Pellegrino said, “and these documents deal with the most pregnant issues of our culture today — those coming out of the bioethics field.”
Meaningful Oath
William Chavey, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan and emcee of the May 29 banquet, invited Pellegrino to speak at the banquet. When he informed the dean of the University of Michigan medical school about it, the dean asked that Pellegrino also speak at the medical school's commencement May 30.
Chavey was also influential in founding the Hippocratic oath banquet, which has now spread to New Jersey, Georgia and California. He said barring any dramatic shift in our culture, those taking the oath will remain a minority.
“However, it would be worth it if just one person were to take it,” he said. “It allows the physician at the earliest point of [his] career to make a profession that reflects [his] core values, and to do it amid the support of community physicians.”
For Karen Saroki, president of Catholic Medical Association at the University of Michigan, where she just finished her second year of medical school, the Hippocratic oath is a reminder of what being a doctor is all about.
“The service aspect of being a physician is primary,” she said. “The gifts, desires, and enjoyments in this profession that God has given me are to serve him and others.”
The oath administered at the banquet was restated by the late Joseph R. Stanton, M.D., and is copyrighted (1995) by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. Stanton made a couple of revisions to the oath written by Hippocrates in about 400 B.C. but maintained the basic principles.
“For instance, we don't swear to a Greek god,” Chavey said, “and we no longer say that ‘we won't cut a stone.’ Removing kidney stones was something they weren't qualified to do. We have updated the language and say that we won't do anything beyond our competence.”
Though the banquet attracts mostly Christians, that didn't matter to Saroj Chowdhury, a Hindu from India and a graduate of Wayne State University.
“When I received the invitation to the banquet,” he said, “I realized that I believe the same as they do, and I wanted to be part of it and receive the support of the group.”
Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Information
Hippocratic oath banquet:
Lansing, Mich., Guild of the Catholic Medical Association (734) 930-7480
cmalansing@rc.net
Dr. Rich Watson at RAWatsonMD@aol.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Horning ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Reality Check for Feminist Fixers DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:FEMINIST FANTASIES
by Phyllis Schlafly
Spence, 2003 264 pages, $27.95
To order: (888) 773-6782 or www.spencepublishing.com
Feminism, it would seem, is collapsing from self-inflicted wounds. Today's generation of young women reject not only the lesbianism and abortion advocacy that characterize hard-core feminism but also the cost to their own happiness it threatens to extract for its goals. Young women crave what they know feminists scorn: loving marriages and fulfilling family life.
Though feminism has done much damage to men and children, it has hurt no one more than women themselves. Phyllis Schlafly details how in her new book, a compilation of columns selected from 30 years as feminism's No. 1 enemy. Schlafly doesn't jest, shock or exaggerate. On topic after topic — from the “wage gap” to women's studies programs, from pornography to family violence — she drives home her points with a battery of facts that simply cannot be argued away.
One of the most enlightening entries is the 1972 column that launched the successful movement, led by Schlafly, against the Equal Rights Amendment. “What's Wrong With Equal Rights for Women?” answers the feminist “woe-isme” lament about the raw deal done to American women with multiple examples of why we are, in fact, blessed among women. Schlafly points out that, in other civilizations, men hunt and fish and dress in feathers and beads while the women do all the hard physical chores, from tilling soil to carrying water. By contrast, “In America, a man's first significant purchase (after a car) is a diamond for his bride, and the largest financial investment of his life is a home for her to live in.”
In 1998 Spence released another book on feminism, a tour de force titled Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism, by lawyer F. Carolyn Graglia, who made the case that feminism's true target was never men but rather the happily married housewife. Many of Schlafly's articles echo this theme, making both books essential for navigating today's discussion on the brave new family.
While radical feminism has few new followers, this book soberly makes clear it has made its mark on culture. Consider that Schlafly herself stopped the ERA in the 1970s by pointing out that the amendment would, among other things, require military service of young women. Yet, without the order of the ERA, we witness today female prisoners of war and future mothers killed in combat.
Schlafly gamely tackles this subject in a section “A Gender-Neutral Military?” “When we look back on the Gulf War, one of the images that are seared into our memory is that of tearful soldier-mothers saying goodbye to their 2-month-old breast-feeding babies,” she writes. “How did this unnatural event happen? There was no shortage of able-bodied men to ‘man’ those posts in the Middle East. Those unhappy cases were the result of a deliberate Pentagon policy to acquiesce in the feminist doctrine that men and women are fungible, that military assignments must be made without regard to the sex of the individual, and that the U.S. armed forces should be an instrument of social experimentation to demonstrate total sex equality.”
Today's image is 19-year-old supply clerk Jessica Lynch, who joined the Army for an education and found herself ambushed in Iraq, taken prisoner and suffering a head wound, fractures in her right arm, both legs, her right foot and ankle, and a back injury.
While America is engaged in war, even feminist critics seem reluctant to take up the topic of women in combat — but it needs to be looked at soon, with seriousness. Schlafly's book is a good first shot.
Ellen Rossini writes from
Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Peter's Primacy
He made the comments while in Baltimore to receive an honorary degree from St. Mary's Seminary and University.
“We have no problem with the primacy of Peter,” Patriarch Mesrob said in an interview with the Baltimore archdiocesan newspaper.
To achieve Orthodox-Catholic unity, he proposed “a patriarchal synod [council], which would be chaired by the Pope himself as the chief patriarch.”
Chairman Hahn
PONTIFICAL COLLEGE JOSEPHINUM, May 28 — Scott Hahn has been appointed the Cardinal Pio Laghi chair for visiting professors in Scripture and theology for 2003-05 at the pontifical college in Columbus, Ohio. A well-known convert and apologist, Hahn also teaches at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.
The chair is named for the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education who earlier served as the Vatican's apostolic nuncio to the United States.
Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the current apostolic nuncio and chancellor of the college, announced the appointment.
Truly Free
“You are liberal in the original sense of that word,” Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, prefect of the Vatican's congregation for the laity, told the graduates.
“You are free,” he told the graduates, because, by finding truth in their studies, they had “also found freedom.”
The cardinal urged graduates to avoid the perception that science can answer all things.
“The technological, mechanical mind-set,” he said, “can never answer the mystery of being.”
Florida Bound?
AVE MARIA LAW SCHOOL, May 26 — The three-year-old Catholic law school in Michigan has graduated its first class, a group of 67 new lawyers.
With the school's parent, the Ave Maria Foundation, gearing up to move the undergraduate Ave Maria College to outside Naples, Fla., some in the media have wondered about a possible move by the law school to the same area.
Bernard Dobranski, dean of law school, told Catholic News Service that school officials are conducting a feasibility study on a possible move but cautioned that such a major change would require the approval of the American Bar Association.
Expanding Southward
The Jesuit college plans to offer 22 undergraduate and graduate courses at Cardinal McCarrick High School in South Amboy during the next year.
“There is a sizable Catholic population in that area,” according to Sister Jeanne Gilligan of the college's office of academic affairs, forming a key portion of a “potential pool from which we can draw.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Actions Shout
My husband takes our young sons on a hunting excursion twice a year. Without exception, they do not attend Sunday Mass during the outing. There is a church nearby, but my husband says it would be too inconvenient and disruptive. Is this reasonable, or should they make a greater effort?
This is a classic case where actions speak louder than words. It doesn't make a difference one iota what we teach our children orally if we aren't consistent in backing it up with our own behavior.
The Catechism says that missing Sunday Mass is grave matter. Whether or not this instance is a fully culpable mortal sin is not for us to decide. But we do know that to take the trouble to go to that Mass would teach your child a lesson with the potential to reorder his priorities for a lifetime.
Kids are like global positioning systems when it comes to zeroing in on hypocrisy. If your kids are taught that we are obligated to attend Mass every Sunday, and you attend 50 out of 52 weeks of the year, guess what your kids will remember? They won't get the message that Mass is obligatory; they'll learn that Mass is something we do unless something better comes along. In other words, it's optional. And if it's optional, it can't be that important.
We know that Mass is not only important — it is the central activity of our faith as Catholics. If our relationship with the Lord is at the center of our lives, and Mass is the central act of our faith, then it follows that the most basic activity of our lives is the celebration of the Eucharist. Living this truth consistently matters infinitely more than words.
Tom: To illustrate this, I am reminded of the family vacations we used to take when I was a boy. Every summer, we would spend four weeks on the road, driving from Omaha to Los Angeles and everywhere in between, visiting relatives and sightseeing. After two long days driving across Nebraska and Wyoming, we would end up spending Saturday night in Salt Lake City. Sunday morning, we would hit the road again early.
Every year, my dad made sure that we got to Salt Lake City early enough to make it to the Saturday evening Mass at the one Catholic church in town. He was never one to be preachy, so going to Mass was never a matter of discussion. He and my mother simply made it a priority for our family, period. As a result, after years of never missing Mass even on these grueling road trips, I got the message loud and clear. There are no words a parent can utter that carry more power than the simple act of living the message.
This is a pivotal area of concern for your sons in their faith formation, and one on which you and your husband absolutely must be in total agreement. Your sons will be impacted far more permanently not by the 50 routine trips to Mass every year but by the two times that it would be so easy not to go. These are the times they'll remember how important the Eucharist is.
Tom and Caroline McDonald are family-life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom and Caroline Mcdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Doogs: How They Teach Families About Love DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Many a saint would tell you: A dog can help you find your way to heaven.
St. Hubert of Liege, the patron saint of dog bites, sheltered homeless hounds and placed a sign of the cross on their foreheads to protect them from rabies.
St. Francis of Assisi tamed the Wolf of Gubbio, talking privately with the wild canine and promising him a regular supply of food if he would stop terrorizing the town.
St. Dominic is frequently portrayed with a dog at his feet, clinching between its sharp teeth a flaming torch of truth.
It's worth considering, then, what role a canine companion can play in our lives.
Lauri Baker, a Catholic from Alton, N.H., who has been training dogs for more than 22 years, helps families forge constructive bonds with their dogs.
Last summer she taught dog agility to youths who were part of a program called Appalachian Mountain Teen Project. Each of the children had lost one or both of their parents.
“I wanted to keep it fun and positive for them,” says Baker. “They all shined with the positive reinforcement they were getting.”
With Baker's help, the kids urged their dogs to crawl through tunnels, walk on planks and jump through multicolored hoops. By doing so, she says, the children assimilated confidence to overcome their own personal obstacles.
Donna San Antonio, director and founder of the Appalachian Mountain Teen Project, teaches adolescent development and adjustment at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
“The children in [this group] often have had such a severe breach of trust in their relationships with people they are supposed to depend on that they have a hard time in their relationships with their peers and teachers,” she says. “They begin to realize how much their dogs love them, trust them and want to please them. They and their dogs feel great about doing new ‘tricks’ well. The dog smiles, the teen-ager smiles. It is wonderful.”
Brother Christopher from the Monks of New Skete Monastery in Cambridge, N.Y., where men have raised and bred German Shepherd dogs since 1968, shares an observation that might explain what helps children grow while training their pets.
“Interestingly enough, a relationship with a dog also helps us know ourselves better,” he explains. “A dog is guileless and utterly honest. It becomes a unique mirror reflecting us back to ourselves, if we pay attention.”
That point of view is not inconsistent with the Catechism (No. 2416): “Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory [cf. Matthew 6:26; Daniel 3:79-81]. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.”
At the Monastery of Poor Clares in Santa Barbara, Calif., three German Shepherds — Belen, Tasha and Siena — keep the nuns mindful of the simple wonders of God's creation. Sister Chiara Marie has contemplated their dogs' behavior and written a small booklet called O Jesus, I am Your Doggie, in which she parallels the relationship between us and God with that of a dog and its owner. She says the book is for spiritual beginners.
Dogs Can Teach Families How to Love Without Limits
Unconditional Love
‘When a dog is corrected it doesn't sulk, brood or turn in on itself, rather, it is always ready to get up, wag its tail and carry on with life.’
In the presence of their owners, dogs are happy, whether the owner talks or is silent, she adds. She compares this to our own natural state of contentedness in the presence of God. “Fidelity and devotion are doglike qualities, and they stand out whether or not the master is speaking or silent,” says Sister Chiara. “It's enough just to be in the Master's presence. In our case what presence is better than the Lord's?”
David Plaskow, manager of special projects at St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J., says pets can teach us how to love unconditionally. “Our pets love us whether we're black or white, rich or poor, healthy or sick.”
‘When a dog is corrected it doesn't sulk, brood or turn in on itself, rather, it is always ready to get up, wag its tail and carry on with life.’
— Sister Chiara Marie
Plaskow believes that humans learn not so much from the dog itself as through the bond that develops between a person and a companion animal. “We find that children at the earliest of ages can learn empathy and compassion for living things,” he says. “They can see that just as there are differences in animals, there are differences in people and that's okay.”
Good dog behavior evolves from the bond developed between owner and pooch, says Baker. “Once a dog has trust in you as a trainer or owner, you can ask for behaviors that you never thought were possible,” she says.
She ought to know. The American Kennel Club named her dog Kava the No. 1 Australian Cattle Dog in agility for the year 2000 and a top-10 finalist in the AKC agility nationals in 2001. Her husband's dog, Reef, is an agility trainee.
Prayer and Pets
She and her husband, George, an altar boy throughout his childhood, pray before every competition.
The spirit can be contagious. Lauri's mother, Millicent (Mitzi) Varrichione, says that she sometimes reaches for her rosary after watching Lauri, George, Kava and Reef practicing agility in the field.
Even Lauri's father, Frank Varrichione, who played pro football for 11 years for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Los Angeles Rams, has been known to bow his head after seeing the canine capers of Kava and Reef.
But perhaps the Varrichione's most satisfying prayers are those said silently as they observe families developing, thanks to their dogs, a special bond with one another — and with God, who made them all.
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
Information
(Voluntary offerings accepted)
Monastery of Poor Clares 215 East Los Olivos St. Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Lauri and George Baker bark@worldpath.com
“Raising our Dog with the Monks of New Skete” video (518) 677-3928
monks@newskete.com
St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center
www.sthuberts.org
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Heart of a Priest, Mind of a Scientist DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Growing up on the family farm in Beecher, Ill., young Jerome Kish had the same kinds of goals and dreams as most of his friends. Marry. Launch a career. Raise a big family.
With a strong desire to teach, he graduated from the University of Illinois-Chicago and then went on to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering. It was not until near the end of his educational career that he heard God calling him to be a priest.
Coming from a good Catholic family of seven — five boys and two girls — Father Kish, fifth in the stream of siblings, was well formed in the faith. But, in his years at the University of Illinois, he decided he wanted to go deeper with God. He began attending Mass at the school's Cardinal Newman Center and reading, meditating and praying more. He dived into the epic memoirs of St. John Bosco, working his way through the first nine volumes. Father Kish was greatly inspired by this saint's dedication to youth. Before long, he found himself volunteering to teach the catechism at his parish and tutor fifth- and sixth-graders in math, a program sponsored by Opus Dei.
“Ironically enough, I'm the only one of our family not to have attended a Catholic school,” says Father Kish. “In fact, even though my brother had attended seminary high school, I had made a definite decision not to be a priest. But while I was at the university, questions just came bubbling up inside of me.”
At the same time, Father Kish became acquainted with Father Peter Armenio, a priest with the prelature of Opus Dei. Father Armenio became his spiritual director, guiding Father Kish in refining his prayer life and enriching his faith. Eventually the two became good friends. When Father Kish began experiencing uneasiness about his future vocation, Father Armenio helped him to sort things out.
By steeping himself in prayer and the writings of the Catholic spiritual masters, Father Kish worked things through. He discovered that teaching was what he loved most. But he didn't want to teach just anything — he wanted to teach the Catholic faith. That's when he realized that doing so would bring him even greater joy than teaching science. Before he made his final decision, Father Armenio advised him to wait a year.
“It was during graduate school and in his general pursuit of holiness that he realized God may be calling him to the priest-hood,” recalls Father Armenio. “It was a crisis for him — to choose a vocation as a priest or a vocation as a holy layman. He was about to receive his doctorate and he wanted to be pretty sure God was calling him to the priesthood before he renounced that.”
It's been five years since Father Kish's ordination and all of them have been spent at St. Joseph's Church, a 2,000-family parish in Downers Grove, Ill.
The parishioners there have been delighted with his pastoral guidance. According to one, Bob LeMay, not only is Father Kish an admirable priest, but he's also a member of the family. LeMay's wife, Bonnie, and Father Kish are cousins. Father Kish was an altar server at their wedding. Today he impresses the LeMays with his continued service at the altar and his consistent reverence in all his priestly duties, especially during holy Mass.
“It's obvious that he's in awe of what he's doing,” says LeMay.
Another parishioner, Anne Marie Schuster, comments: “He has such a love and reverence for the holy Eucharist that it's attractive and compelling. When he distributes Communion, you feel his awe and it just makes you that much more passionate about the Eucharist.”
The LeMays also commend Father Kish's homilies because he's not afraid to tackle controversial topics that they feel many other priests are unwilling to approach. They admire and appreciate his fidelity to the magisterium. He has a way of reaching out to people, they say, by sharing his personal experiences and tying together what's going on in society today with the timeless message of the Gospel.
Schuster attributes this to Father Kish's ability to appeal to both young and old. “He has an overall presentation of humility and sensitivity,” she says. “He relates to others on a very personal level and reaches you where you're at.”
His Parents' Son
That's obvious in the many ministries in which Father Kish is involved. In addition to administering the sacraments, he visits the sick and elderly, prepares couples for marriage, conducts “Theology on Tap” sessions and other adult spiritual formation programs, plays sports with the youth at St. Joseph's Grade School and entertains at the parish's annual Family Fun Fair.
Although being a priest is always a joy for Father Kish, it isn't always easy. He is pained by the lack of harmony he sees in the Church. He says he tries to foster more deeply the unity in the Church that's already there. He turns to the words of Pope John Paul II for exhortation and draws on his family background for encouragement.
“I owe it to the influence of my parents,” says Father Kish. “I witnessed their generosity and married love. They lived their baptismal priesthood, which taught me how to live my sacramental priesthood.”
Father Kish draws a great deal of consolation from prayer, beginning with the holy Eucharist, which he lets “overflow into the rest of the day” with extra prayer and contemplation before the Blessed Sacrament.
He is also very attached to the Virgin Mary. Recalling a time when the traveling statue of Our Lady of Fatima visited his childhood home, Father Kish says: “One night, I led the prayers in front of the statue. Suddenly, everything welled up in my heart and all I could think of was that I wanted to put everything into her hands. Suddenly, there was a moment of peace within me. It's not a mystical experience, but it deeply affected me.”
Moving On
This month, Father Kish is leaving St. Joseph's for Sts. Peter and Paul parish in Naperville, Ill. He isn't verbose in talking about the move, but it's clear from his demeanor that, exciting as the new opportunity is, he'll be genuinely saddened to leave his present parish family behind.
If his past priestly works are any indication, the people of Sts. Peter and Paul will soon have a deepened appreciation for Christ in the sacraments. And that education he worked so hard to complete a few years back? That will come into play, too: He wants to create a science camp for middle- and high-school students.
“We have a desperate need for Christian scientists,” he says. “We have all this wonderful technology out there and it's being so badly misused. I want to foster a sense of wonderment and respect for God.”
In other words, it'll soon be back to business as usual for Father Jerome Kish.
Marge Fenelon writes from Cudahy, Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marge Fenelon ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 06-22-2003 12.00.00 PM CATEGORY: June 22-28, 2003 ----- BODY:Canada: Remember the Unborn
CANADA's PARLIAMENT, May 29 — Legislation is pending in Canada's Parliament to create a Children's Memorial Day — and one representative has proposed that unborn children be included among the memorialized.
“About 100,000 unborn children die in Canada each year by way of abortion,” said Maurice Vellacott, a member of the Canadian Alliance party, in a statement posted on the Web site of Canada's Parliament, www.parl.gc.ca. “Sadly, the rhetoric and the politics involved in the issue have not allowed people to recognize the emotional trauma women face when it comes to abortion. … Canadians want to remember the deaths of those unborn children rather than having them dismissed as insignificant and meaningless.”
Consensus: Life at Conception
WORLD NET DAILY, June 2 — The percentage of Americans who consider a fertilized egg human life has reached 58%, according to a Newsweek online survey. The survey also found that a comfortable majority of Americans — 66% — believe that a fetus should have the same legal rights accorded children and adults.
Dangerous Bias Exposed
U.S. NEWSWIRE, June 4 — A medical journal has exposed bias against the epidemiological evidence of the link between abortion and breast cancer.
The president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, Karen Malec, announced the publication of her article, “The Abortion-Breast Cancer Link: How Politics Trumped Science and Informed Consent,” in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
“[O]ur opponents can't dismiss the [Association of American Physicians and Surgeons] and their efforts to protect the health of women as ‘pro-life scare tactics,’” said Malec in a statement. “The article demonstrates that the abortion-breast cancer link is not a dead issue in the medical community, despite the false-hearted efforts of the National Cancer Institute's leaders to put it to rest.”
Methodists for Life
If approved, the resolutions would be forwarded to the national denomination's top legislative body, the General Conference. Though the General Conference might not approve the resolutions when it meets in Pittsburgh next year, the number of pro-life resolutions in the N.C. Conference signals a growing disenchantment with the denomination's support for legal abortion.
Rev. Paul Stallsworth, a pastor who edits a pro-life Methodist newsletter, submitted a resolution calling on the denomination to delete a sentence from the denomination's “Social Principles” that says, “We support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures,” and a resolution calling on two agencies within the denomination to withdraw their membership from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Up Next: Seminaries and Root Causes DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:ST. LOUIS — A year ago, the U.S. bishops met in Dallas in the heat of a media storm about their handling of sexual abuse of minors by priests. The question then was: What will you do? This year, in St. Louis, another — lower-voltage — media storm asked the question: Was it enough?
The Register asked bishops and critics in St. Louis about three issues:
a coming audit of bishops' scandal response,
Vatican-ordered seminary investigations, and
a proposed plenary council on root causes.
Chicago Cardinal Francis George defended the bishops' record at one press conference.
“It not a question of credibility, it's a question of what has happened,” he said. “And when you hear someone say, ‘Well, the bishops have done nothing,” when in fact, how many hundreds of priests have been removed? How many files have been gone over for how many years in the past? How many victims have been listened to? To come along and say the bishops aren't doing anything — it's an outrageous statement. It's totally unjust.”
The abuse crisis defined last year's meeting of U.S. bishops in Dallas; this year it registered only a single-line item on an agenda that included a new national directory for catechesis, a directory on the permanent diaconate and changes to the group that translates the liturgy into English.
However, two events put the abuse issue in the spotlight. First, Frank Keating, former governor of Oklahoma, resigned his post as chairman of the national review board June 16. Then, Phoenix Bishop Thomas O'Brien resigned in connection with a hit-and-run accident two weeks after making a deal to avoid penalties for reassigning abusive priests.
Auditing the Bishops
The bishops hope an audit of their performance from their Office for Child and Youth Protection will show they are facing sex-abuse problems better than secular institutions are.
The audit to measure compliance with the abuse policy began in some dioceses in late June and will continue through the next few months, with a final report to be prepared and made public by the chairwoman of the Office for Child and Youth Protection, former highranking FBI official Kathleen McChesney.
“I'm feeling very good and feeling much more compliance than I felt perhaps six months ago,” said national review board member Robert Bennett. “And if we don't get the compliance, this board will identify the bishops [with]in our board who do not comply.”
A second study — to examine the scope and causes behind the crisis — will consist of two parts, Bennett said. The first part will be based on interviews with “lots of people,” he said, and will be released by January.
The study will address homosexuality in the priesthood as a factor in the abuse crisis, he said.
“We will deal with all these issues,” Bennett said. “We may not be able to resolve them, but we will discuss them as best we can.” The second part of the study will be more statistical in nature and will be released later, he said.
That survey was discussed by the bishops in a three-hour executive session, which included a presentation by survey designers from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
The survey will be descriptive rather than investigative, and so there will be no names in the report, McChesney said. It will include the total numbers of victims, offenders and instances of abuse, categories of abuse and total amount of money expended in settlements, therapies for victims and offenders, and attorney fees, she said. Those numbers will be set in a context of abuse cases in society at large, she said.
During the executive session, only a minority of bishops expressed reservations about how the survey would be done, Bennett said.
Cardinal Roger Mahony, who had initially backed off from conducting the survey in the Los Angeles Archdiocese because of concerns that some identifying information could violate California privacy laws, will now participate with agreed-upon changes, said national review board member Paul McHugh.
“Nothing was changed in the substance of the survey,” McHugh said.
In fact, Cardinal Mahony said, the survey designers liked the California bishops' suggestions for privacy protection so much they will re-enter the same “secret process code” for the other dioceses so the information will always remain confidential.
Seminaries?
Seminaries have been widely regarded as the breeding grounds for the Church's abuse problems. The Vatican ordered an apostolic visitation of seminaries in April 2002. The bishops mentioned it in last June's national policy. But the visitations haven't even been planned yet. What happened?
“There has been progress in that area,” said Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., the bishops' conference president. “Because it is an apostolic visitation, that initiative has to come from the Holy See. We have been in dialogue with the Holy See, proposing names of bishops who would be available to assist with that visitation, and we anticipate the outline within the next year.”
Cardinal George of Chicago acknowledged that he had not thought about the visitation in months.
“We started the conversation, but we haven't gotten a response back as to what they plan to do,” he said. “Maybe it's because to a great extent the Holy See has been much more interested in trying to move the trials along more quickly — the canonical trials for men accused of [abuse] but who deny it.”
Plenary Council
A proposed plenary council would look at the sex-abuse crisis and its doctrinal causes in more detail. The idea was raised informally last summer by eight bishops who were quickly joined by others. They formed a formal study committee, chaired by Archbishop Daniel Buechlein of Indianapolis, last year.
If the idea reaches fruition, it would be the first plenary council of U.S. bishops since 1884.
At the November bishops' meeting, the study committee drew up a list of 11 concerns that could be addressed at a plenary council, Archbishop Buechlein said. Based on responses of 226 bishops, the three most pressing of those concerns are the need for catechesis, the role of laity and the contemporary cultural milieu, and the identity and spirituality of priests and bishops. Those three topics formed the theme of the bishops' day of recollection, held in private June 20 at the St. Louis conference.
While there is momentum for a plenary council, some bishops have proposed regional synods as a less costly, more immediate way to address concerns. Archbishop Buechlein said he expects a clearer direction to emerge in June 2004 at the bishops' extraordinary assembly — a spiritual and educational conference that replaces the usual vote-taking spring meeting every three or four years.
Bishops Face Victims
In press conferences and interviews, bishops insisted they have responded well to their policy to protect young people from clergy abuse. But victim/survivors' groups say bishops are still retaining abuser priests and giving poor treatment to victims.
“In Dallas we thought, based on what we were told, that we could expect to see in the bishops a change of attitude, a change of heart, a change of approach,” said Mark Serrano, a member of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We thought we would see a greater involvement on the part of the laity and greater accountability on the part of bishops. In case after case across the country, we don't see that.”
He did not specify which bishops are not following through on the charter.
Serrano said he is disappointed the bishops have not met with his group since last year. In a press conference, Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis said he would be open to dialogue with victims' groups as long as they are out of the media spotlight.
“It's better on a local level in an environment of healing, an environment of conversation,” the archbishop, who is chairman of the bishops' conference's Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. He said his committee has met with individual victim/survivors whenever asked.
“The bishops have spent a great deal of time on this,” Cardinal George said. “We have a common policy and we have taken out every abuser against which there has been a credible accusation made up to this point. That is a remarkable record in one year.”
Bishops are doing a better — if not perfect — job of reaching out to victims/survivors, Archbishop Flynn said. “A year ago we met in the midst of perhaps the worst crisis in the history of the Church in our country. Since that historic meeting … a monumental effort has been made to fulfill the promises of that [child-protection] charter,” he said. “We do not take too much comfort in that. There is still a long road ahead of us.”
Some bishops reacted with frustration to accusations that they have failed the charter.
Worcester, Mass., Bishop Daniel Reilly said he has released files to law enforcement, met with individual victims — “more victims than anybody here” — and cooperated with his local review board, but that is “never enough” in the eyes of some victims' groups.
“I just wish we would be given a fair shot in the media about how well the Church is doing in responding to this,” he said. “I think there's a great deal of misuse of that whole word of ‘cover-up.” I think there's a lot of slander going on.”
Ellen Rossini filed this story from St. Louis.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bishop: "I'm Not Going to Rush" In Appointing Keating Successor DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:ST. LOUIS — Bishop Wilton Gregory said he is in no hurry to replace the straight-talking former Oklahoma governor who headed the U.S. bishops' review board on sexual abuse until his resignation June 16.
Frank Keating, who has long been known in political circles as a loose cannon with a mouth that gets him in trouble, resigned three days before the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathered in St. Louis for their semiannual meeting. Keating said he had planned to quit after a year of service, but he also left with a parting shot at bishops who, in his view, failed to cooperate with investigations into the causes of clerical sexual abuse.
While not directly criticizing Keating, Bishop Gregory, the bishops' conference president and bishop of Belleville, Ill., said that under the emergency circumstances of last year's abuse crisis he might have been too hasty in his selection of the governor for the lay panel.
“It's very much like quarterbacking a game on Monday and quarterbacking a game on Saturday afternoon. Your Monday-morning calls are always much more effective,” Bishop Gregory said at a press conference June 19, the first day of the bishops' three-day meeting.
This year, he said, he will take more advice from more bishops and the board itself, and he will also take more time.
“I'm not going to rush to do that,” he said. “We have a board in place. It functions well.”
Keating's no-holds-barred talk about the abuse crisis occasionally scandalized Church leaders since he was named chairman of the newly created board last June.
Most recently, the former FBI agent and federal prosecutor raised the hackles of Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, and some fellow members of the review board when he compared some U.S. bishops to “La Cosa Nostra” — the murderous Sicilian-American crime organization. Cardinal Mahony suggested Keating step down.
“In talking to a lot of bishops, he seems to have lost so much credibility that one has to ask, is it able to be recaptured?” Cardinal Mahony told The Washington Post on June 14. “I personally think it would be almost impossible.”
“The problem with inflammatory statements is that they put a barrier between the board and the bishops,” Robert Bennett, a Washington lawyer who serves on the panel, told the Register on June 20. “While we are monitoring the bishops, for us to have an adversarial relationship with the bishops does not help us accomplish the goal of protecting children.”
The national review board is mandated with monitoring the implementation of the bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Cardinal Mahony
Keating had been particularly critical of Cardinal Mahony, whom he said has obstructed the review board's efforts to complete a $250,000 research project designed to determine the “nature and scope” of sex abuse among clergymen. The bishops' conference called for the study during its historic meeting in Dallas in June 2002. About twothirds of the nation's 195 dioceses have returned the board's questionnaires, and Keating has said others are obfuscating and foot-dragging in a deliberate effort to stall progress.
California bishops objected to the original survey questionnaire, voting in May to call for an immediate halt to the study because it would have caused them to violate state laws that protect privacy and confidentiality. Bishops expressed concern for the privacy rights of victims and the accused.
Recently, however, Cardinal Mahony said he and other California bishops have worked out modifications with researchers from New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which the board contracted to conduct the survey, and will be able to provide the needed data.
But Dan Mahoney, a longtime spokesman for Keating who works with the former governor in his new position as president of the American Council of Life Insurers, indicated that his boss felt powerless to conduct his responsibilities while up against Cardinal Mahony's opposition.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, however, said in an interview at the bishops' meeting that the open disagreements between Keating and Cardinal Mahony did not directly cause Keating's resignation, which he understood had been planned for months.
But, he acknowledged, “Anytime you have a public altercation of that nature, conversation is made more difficult. That's unfortunate.”
In an interview with reporters outside the bishops' meeting, Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis-St. Paul said review board members also had asked for Keating's resignation.
Confrontations
Keating's string of confrontational comments began the day he was appointed as chairman of the board June 14, 2002, when he told the Register and other reporters that bishops who mishandled past sexual-abuse allegations in their dioceses should resign or get fired by Pope John Paul II and that he would do all he could to make it happen. He said some bishops should not only be fired but should be prosecuted as accomplices to rape.
His comments drew criticism from ranking members of the Church hierarchy, who said Keating was mistaking his charter as review board chairman with his former role as a federal prosecutor and FBI agent. Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia told the Register that a bishop's resignation is strictly an issue between the bishop and the Pope. Keating continued calling for the heads of bishops, however, and publicly pushed for more lay control over the Church.
In a move that only added fuel to the concerns of his critics, Keating told the Register early in his tenure that Martin Luther, leader of the 16th-century Protestant revolution, was right in trying to get lay members of the Church to lasso control from Church leaders and the Pope in the interest of reform. He said local diocese review boards should consist of men and women who would make sure clergy “p-r-a-y and not prey, p-r-e-y.”
Robert Royal, leader of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C., criticized Keating for suffering from “mission creep” and not fully understanding canon law and his role on the board. Keating has never disputed those who claimed he tried to cross boundaries and expand his role beyond what bishops asked him to do.
“It's true that Frank Keating wanted to go beyond the charter to some extent, out of concern for the welfare of the Church,” Dan Mahoney said.
As for statements that offended Catholic leaders, Mahoney said that's just his boss' style.
“Frank Keating tells the truth,” Mahoney said. “Unlike other politicians, Frank Keating does not conduct polls and consult with focus groups before speaking his mind. The result is that he sometimes says things that people don't want to hear, but it's blunt, it's candid and it's refreshing. It's truth.”
Cardinal Mahony, however, doesn't see truth in Keating's most recent statement about bishops. In a statement, the cardinal referred to the mafia comments as “irresponsible and uninformed.” Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said: “Comparing the Church to an organization that kills people and deals drugs — that is just way out of line.”
But Dan Mahoney said it was Cardinal Mahony who was out of line, causing problems for the entire Church by refusing to assist in a discovery process the bishops had asked for.
“Most bishops complied with the process and were happy to do so,” Dan Mahoney said. “But having a few bishops failing to go along with the process wasn't an option. When you have the leader of the largest archdiocese in the United States not complying, that's a problem. Without the cooperation of the Los Angeles archbishop and without full support of the rest of the board, [Keating] feels that he can do more good from the outside. He will continue to work toward Church reforms outside of the official process, in his own way.”
In his resignation letter to Bishop Gregory, Keating defended his “Cosa Nostra” statement.
“I make no apology. To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away — that is the model of a criminal organization, not my Church,” Keating wrote.
During his tenure, Keating helped establish the Office of Child and Youth Protection. Under his leadership, the board also made progress on the bishops' call for a full accounting of “causes and contexts” of the sex-abuse crisis.
The leader of an organization of adult victims of past sexual abuse by priests said members are disappointed over Keating's resignation.
“We feel that Gov. Keating was acting too cautiously most of the time, but we admire his courage to stand by his words,” said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We think it's sad that Cardinal Mahony is the one who's obstructing but Keating is the one who has resigned.”
Blaine said her organization has formally requested that Bishop Gregory appoint someone with a law-enforcement or prosecutorial background to replace Keating.
“Bishop Gregory has listened to us in the past, and we're hoping he'll do the right thing now,” Blaine said. “We're confident he'll at least consider our request.”
Illinois Appellate Court Justice Anne Burke, the review board's vice chairwoman, will serve as interim chairwoman until the bishops' conference makes a formal appointment.
Wayne Laugesen is based in Boulder, Colorado. (Ellen Rossini in St. Louis contributed to this report.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Roe v. Roe? Too Late, Texas Judge Says DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:DALLAS — It's too late.
That was Judge David Godbey's answer to Norma McCorvey after she sought to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's abortion decision that she had helped to bring in 1973.
McCorvey in recent years publicly identified herself as the anonymous “Roe” in the original case, joined the prolife Operation Rescue movement and became a Catholic.
Godbey, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled June 19 that McCorvey's motion was not made within a “reasonable time” after the 1973 decision.
“Whether or not the Supreme Court was infallible, its Roe decision was certainly final in this litigation,” Judge Godbey wrote in a ruling issued June 19, just two days after McCorvey filed her motion at the Earl Cabell Courthouse in Dallas.
It was in this courthouse in March 1970 that McCorvey, her identity concealed as “Jane Roe,” signed the affidavit that would lead to the striking down of all state laws restricting abortion.
Her current lawyer, Allan Parker, said his client likely will ask the court to reconsider. “I think the judge has misunderstood the case,” Parker said. “This is not a case of newly discovered evidence, which must be brought in a short amount of time. It's a case of changed factual conditions and law.”
Indeed, McCorvey's action — called a “rule 60 motion” — was a civil procedural rule that allows a federal court to reopen a case if changes in facts or laws make it unfair for the court's previous judgment to continue to be applied, Parker said.
There is no time limit on the rule, he added.
Godbey disputed that, saying such requests must be made weeks or months after the original judgment.
But Parker said that in a 1997 churchstate case, the Supreme Court reversed its own ruling 12 years after its original judgment.
McCorvey's motion was considered a long shot, though some pro-life leaders saw it as a teaching moment.
For three years McCorvey has worked with the attorneys from the Justice Foundation in San Antonio to bring her case back to court — which she has a right to do as party to the original litigation, Parker said.
The changes in facts and laws cited by Parker include: the harm that abortion has caused to women, which he said could not have been known in 1973; the “Baby Moses” laws, through which Texas and 40 other states have taken on the burden of unwanted children, thereby eliminating the need for a pregnant woman to have an abortion; and new scientific evidence of the humanity of the unborn child.
“What Norma McCorvey will teach the court is that abortion is a totally unworkable solution,” Parker said.
He had hoped the court would read the 54-page motion and its 5,400 supplementary pages of sworn testimonies from experts and more than 1,000 post-abortive women to be considered by a federal district judge.
Cathleen Cleaver, spokeswoman for the U.S. bishops' prolife activities office, thought McCorvey's motion was “a very clever approach,” and that its filing was a “testament to the real experience women have with abortion.”
“Women's lives have been torn apart by abortion,” Cleaver said.
On the day she filed her motion, McCorvey was joined at a press conference by 60 women from eight states and Canada, many of them holding signs saying, “I regret my abortion.” Several told tearful stories of the psychological and emotional havoc that followed their abortions.
“Even if someone only sees a woman [on television] holding a sign that says, “I regret my abortion,” that introduces a whole new side to the abortion issue,” Cleaver added.
Darla St. Martin, associate executive director of National Right to Life, agreed that the more women speak out publicly about their actual experiences of abortion the better. But she was skeptical of the motion's success.
“Roe v. Wade will be overturned when we have five Supreme Court judges intellectually honest enough to recognize the Constitution does not contain a right to abortion,” she said. “It could be overturned in a number of different ways.”
What makes this case different from others that have come before the court is that it does not nibble at the edges of the ruling but takes it on in its entirety, said Ellen Dorn, a Dallas attorney and the civic action director for the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas.
“In all the other cases, the judges' choice to completely overturn [Roe] would have been really surprising,” she said. “Judges tend to not want to completely overturn something. The genius of this is that this puts the decision square in front of them. They don't have the option to narrow it. They're being asked to throw it out, the actual case itself.”
The challenge is that the lawyers are asking the judges to rule very broadly and liberally on procedural grounds, Dorn said.
“The way judges work, they really construe things narrowly,” she said. The motion is “beautifully crafted and it makes a great case. But it's asking the court to do something it's really not inclined to do.
“What is the downside of asking? There's not really much. They've given God a really nice tool to do a miracle.”
Kate Michelman, president of the pro-abortion organization NARAL Pro-Choice America, dismissed the motion as “another sad anti-choice publicity stunt.”
“Instead of leaving private medical decisions up to a woman and her doctor, anti-choice forces want the government to decide,” a NARAL statement said.
St. Martin countered the “women and her doctor” approach to abortion laws.
“You're talking about a human being,” she said. “In general terms, in terms of our society, there are tremendous consequences if your method of solving problems is to kill human beings rather than to find more positive solutions to your problems.”
For post-abortive women, the consequences become very deep and personal, she said.
At McCorvey's announcement, a dozen women told their stories of harm from abortion, ranging from physical injury and breast cancer to years of substance abuse, promiscuity, attempted suicide and subsequent abortions to cope with the emotional and spiritual pain of having chosen the death of their unborn children.
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said the power of McCorvey's motion is not in its likelihood of overturning Roe but rather its cultural significance.
“A case whose plaintiff has changed her mind is psychologically weakened. In the cultural war over abortion, these symbolic and psychological aspects play a very big role,” he said.
Father Pavone, who is a personal friend of McCorvey, said this step is very meaningful for her.
“It may surprise people to know that from the very day Roe v. Wadewas decided, Norma did not feel any sense of victory,” he said. “She was not celebrating on Jan. 22, 1973. From the beginning, she knew she had been used and that the decision was a sad day for America. Now she has found healing in Christ and in the Church, and her action in presenting this motion is precisely a sign of her healing. In her strength, she is fighting back against this decision, which wounded her so much.”
Ellen Rossini is based in Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Canada Redefines Marriage: Is U.S. Next? DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:TORONTO — Two men got married in Canada on June 10, hours after an Ontario court ruled that the country's prohibition on homosexual marriage was unconstitutional.
Michael Leshner and Michael Stark, two prominent homosexual activists who have been a couple for 22 years, were issued marriage licenses, as ordered by the court, and wed in a highly publicized courthouse ceremony.
The homosexual marriage was a first not only for Canada but also for North America. And it came immediately in advance of an imminent ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is widely expected to legalize same-sex marriage in that state.
The Ontario Court of Appeal declared “the existing common-law definition of marriage to be invalid to the extent that it refers to “one man and one woman” and redefined the common-law definition of marriage as “the voluntary union for life of two persons to the exclusion of all others.”
The court ordered the provincial government of Ontario to immediately recognize homosexual marriages in all provincial statutes that deal with marriage, including laws pertaining to the adoption of children.
On June 17, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ended speculation that his Liberal government might appeal the Ontario ruling — and another recent pro-homosexual marriage ruling in British Columbia — to the Supreme Court of Canada. Instead, he announced that legislation to codify the new marriage standard for all of Canada would be introduced into the federal Parliament.
Chrétien, who is Catholic, said churches and religious organizations would have the freedom to choose whether or not they wanted to accept the “evolution.”
Bishops' Response
In a June 19 letter to Chrétien, Bishop Jacques Berthelet of Saint-Jean-Longueuil, the president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, forcefully denounced the government's actions.
Bishop Berthelet wrote: “Marriage understood as the lasting union of a man and woman to the exclusion of others pre-exists the state. Because it pre-exists the state and because it is fundamental for society, the institution of marriage cannot be modified, whether by the Charter of Rights, the state or a court of law.”
U.S. Implications
American supporters of homosexual marriage hailed the Ontario court decision.
“This is another significant ruling in what is becoming obvious to more and more people every day,” Mary Bonauto, civil rights director for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and lead attorney in the pending Massachusetts case, said in a statement.
In the week following the Ontario decision, 12 homosexual couples were granted marriage licenses in Windsor, Ontario — including three couples from the United States who crossed the border from neighboring Detroit, the Associated Press reported June 19.
Hoover Institution fellow Stanley Kurtz said the situation does not bode well for traditional marriage in the United States.
“Now,” he predicted, “legal gay marriage in Massachusetts is even more likely than it already was.”
The Massachusetts decision is expected before the end of July.
Canada's recent moves place marriage on a slippery slope throughout North America, said William Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Project, a project of the Catholic University of America, in agreement.
Along with opening the door to cross-border homosexual marriages and potentially influencing the pending Massachusetts decision, “this enshrines a very peculiar notion of marriage into Canadian law,” Duncan said. “Essentially it posits marriage as a purely personal relationship but one to which the government must give its approval so as to avoid “demeaning” the “dignity” of the individuals making the choice.”
And, Duncan said, “it signals an absolute contempt for self-government bordering on democraphobia. A parliamentary committee has been holding public hearings throughout the country on same-sex unions and activists have been furious that this has uncovered large portions of the populace with serious reservations about redefining marriage. The court seems to have felt it must give its decision immediate impact lest the unenlightened decide the issue a different way. “
Judicial Power
Jason Kenney, a member of the Canadian parliament for the opposition Canadian Alliance party, said he is not surprised by the Ontario court ruling. However, he said, the Chrétien government should have rejected this judicial incursion into the democratic process instead of embracing it.
“The Ontario gay-marriage decision is the culmination of a decade-long trend in which Canadian courts have become drunk with judicial power and have lost any sense of deference to the democratic process in Parliament,” Kenney said. “The Ontario court decision represents a judicial coup d'etat, and the Liberal government should immediately appeal it to the Supreme Court.”
Opinion polls suggest Canadian public opinion is deeply divided on the issue. And the province of Alberta has already declared it is prepared to use the rarely used “notwithstanding clause” of the Canadian Constitution, which allows governments to declare themselves exempt from the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to protect itself from any effort to apply the Ontario court decision in Alberta.
“If there is any move to sanctify and legalize same-sex marriages, we will use the notwithstanding clause, period. End of story,” Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said in a June 13 report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Additional effects of the ruling could include moves for judicial reform.
“We do not have the same level of accountability of judges in Canada as exists in the United States; appointments are made in secret, without public scrutiny,” said Neil Seeman, a Toronto lawyer and senior policy analyst at the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, a public-policy think tank. “There is an increasing agitation for judges to make themselves accountable to the people, which will only rise with this decision.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From a Kansas Pig Farm to Capitol Hill DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Elected U.S. senator in Kansas in 1996 to finish Sen. Bob Dole's unexpired term after he ran for president, he was re-elected in 1998. He has co-sponsored several pro-life bills, notably to end partial-birth abortion and to make all cloning illegal. He and his wife, Mary, have five children and live in Topeka, Kan.
Brownback spoke to the first graduating class of the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, Mich., and then spoke by phone with Register correspondent Bob Horning.
Your bout with melanoma in 1995 was a turning point both in your career and in your life. What happened?
When you hear those words “you have cancer,” something grabs you at that moment and it tells you that there's an end to the physical existence here and it may come sooner than you want it to.
I deem it a great, great privilege and a great, great blessing that God let me stare at the end of life and work back from that at a relatively early age, to be able to see that what I was pursuing at that time was not something that was going to last. And that while I might achieve a position, I was not going to do anything that was lasting; that I was pursuing things that just weren't worthwhile. It caused a radical departure and a radical change.
In what way?
Prior to that, I was pretty much a standard, how-far-can-I-climb politician, wanting to get to the top for I guess no other reason than it's there. I saw that my objectives were carnal, not eternal. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” I was able to draw near to God and saw that he loves me — and all of us — incredibly. Though it was a time of mental anguish, it became a beautiful time. Suffering brings on glory. It was one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me.
You know that old saying, “You can't take it with you?” It's true in an earthly sense. If we play for earthly things, they just don't last. But in the spiritual sense you can take it with you. You can trade in wanton mammon for the eternal. In the parable of the good and faithful steward, he was rewarded for his work by being given rule over a number of cities. What we do here can be put into an eternal bank.
Are you completely free from cancer now?
I am. We were fortunate to catch it at an early stage. I still go in for a checkup every year to make sure all is clear.
How did growing up on a pig farm in Parker, Kan., prepare you for a career as a public servant?
Being raised on a farm helped instill a work ethic and a strong desire to serve. It was a small family farm, which my dad and brother (I have two brothers and a sister) still operate today.
How did you get from agriculture to law to politics?
I was involved with Future Farmers of America and expected to go back to the farm after school. Law was a profession that I thought I could do to support the farming. But my wife didn't want to go back to the farm. From law to politics is a natural move because you already understand the law and are now switching to writing laws. [Brownback became the youngest secretary of agriculture in state history in 1986].
You aren't able on Capitol Hill to say the same things you can now to Catholic readers. How do you express your faith in Washington?
Eternal principles don't change no matter whom you are talking to. Fortunately we can put them into the language of the day. For example, you can rephrase “to whom expected,” and people will know what you mean even if they don't know it's from the Bible.
Does an eternal perspective work in Washington?
Sure. Talking to a person's spirit and soul rather than to his flesh is much more powerful. For instance, we could discuss the usefulness of the NASA program within the framework of national security. That leads to endless debate. Or we can discuss it from the point of view that one of man's purposes is to soar and to discover. Almost everyone will agree with that.
When you are speaking to a group of people, you know when you are able to lift their souls. This country needs things that focus on the soul and cause it to soar. Sure, we have to care for the physical, but we need also to engage the soul of this country. The greatness of our country at this time is that it can and must help others and stand for their dignity. Look at Iraq. One of the enduring pictures there is seeing liberty on the faces of the women in Baghdad.
It's important for American Christians to pray for their leaders. What else should we be doing?
There is a grace that comes with being a senator, but we need prayer, too. Prayer moves the hand of God. He put us in charge here, and he wants us to ask him for help.
Let me tell you a little story the necessity of prayer. When she spoke to us in Congress, what she said most of the time was, “Pray for the sisters, pray for the sisters.” And I thought at the time that this was kind of a throwaway line. Why would you say that, why don't you ask us for something tough like a billion dollars? I'm thinking in legislative terms — but she was asking for the most powerful thing we could give her. And I ask it from you. Pray for us in Washington. Pray for the leaders of your country. It's the most powerful thing you can do.
I must say I was a bit disappointed at the time because I was hoping for one of her great one-liners. Afterward, as I put her in her car, she took my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said three words four times. “All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus. All for Jesus.” I received the wisdom of the universe right there.
The second thing is to repent if we have walked away from God; likewise to repent of our wayward actions, individually and corporately. We need to identify with our sins and walk away from them. In recent years we have gone away from the protective hand of God, but now we are moving back to our motto, “In God We Trust.” It is still our motto.
And whatever we do, it has to be encased in love, or it will be counterproductive.
Bob Horning writes from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: Sen. Sam Brownback converted to the Catholic faith a year ago. ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Democrats Petitioning for Recognition Within 'Party of All' DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson and 17 House Democrats petitioned the Democratic Party in May to include a link to the Democrats for Life of America Web site. Since then, media coverage has brought attention once again to the group's yearand- a-half-long battle for recognition within the party.
In a May 14 letter to Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, pro-life House Democrats such as Bart Stupak of Michigan and Jim Oberstar of Minnesota claimed pro-life Democrats have been “ostracized” from the party.
“Democrats for Life of America has repeatedly requested that a link to its Web site be placed on the Democratic National Committee list of links. To date, the request has been ignored,” the House pro-life Democrats said.
The Democratic National Committee currently provides links to 279 organizations. All five that deal directly with abortion support Roe v. Wade.
Democrats for Life of America has been petitioning the Democratic National Committee for a year and a half, and its persistence might finally be working.
“Back then they weren't even returning my calls,” said Kristen Day, the group's executive director. “Then I finally got through and they said, “No.”
Roll Call, a newspaper widely read in political circles, ran a story about the controversy June 2. Then conservative pundit Bob Novak mentioned the story June 4 on CNN's “Crossfire.”
“Democrats have always prided themselves on being a party that welcomes all kinds of oddballs and deviants,” Novak said. “It still does, with one big exception … Democrats for Life.”
Novak then asked Paul Begala, who worked on President Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, if the Democratic National Committee had made a mistake to not include a link to the Web site.
“Well, it is the party of the big tent,” Begala said. “That is a mistake; you're right to raise it. There are a whole lot of Democrats out there who are pro-life and have a place in the Democratic Party.”
The Democratic National Committee did not return calls for comment, but spokesman Deborah DeShong told Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, “The request is under review.”
David DiMartino, a spokesman for Nelson, said his boss wrote the letter on behalf of pro-life Democrats across the country.
“The senator is obviously prolife,” DiMartino said. “His philosophy is that the Democratic Party ought to be a party of inclusion. Linking to this Web site would be an act of inclusion to pro-life Democrats, and there are a number of them out there.”
The support of pro-life Democratic members of Congress has aided the cause of the Democrats for Life of America, the executive director said.
“I met with the woman in charge of women's issues and she said that they would look at this issue,” Day said.
The current Democratic Party platform states: “The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual consciences of each American on this difficult issue [abortion], and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party.”
“I'm not asking for a platform change,” she said. “It's time the Democratic Party says, “Yes, we're a big tent and we respect people who disagree.”
But the Democratic Party's actions have often spoken louder than its words. Pro-life Democrats readily recall the 1992 Democratic National Convention as an example of abortion extremism in the Democratic Party.
The late Bob Casey, then governor of Pennsylvania, said the Democratic Party had always been “the voice of the powerless and the voiceless — workers, women, minorities, the poor, the dispossessed. They have been our natural constituency.”
“Let us add to this list the most powerless and voiceless member of the human family: the unborn child,” Casey said.
But the Democrats not only rejected a pro-life plank to their platform, they also refused the sitting two-term governor a chance to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
In his place, the Democrats invited a Republican abortion activist from Pennsylvania to speak.
Former Pro-Lifers
Other Democrats have jettisoned their pro-life views in order to join the leadership of the Democratic Party. Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich were once pro-life and are running for president in 2004 as abortion supporters.
Gephardt abandoned the pro-life cause just a little before his first presidential run in 1988, whereas Kucinich formally abandoned his pro-life views in announcing his run for president in January.
Other Democrats such as Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy all professed pro-life views during the 1970s.
In 1971, Kennedy said, “Human life, in its earliest stages, has a certain right, which must be recognized — the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.”
But today, Democrats such as New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Kennedy demand that all judges appointed to the federal bench promise to defend Roe v. Wade as “settled law.”
“Nominate ideologues willing to sacrifice the interests of many to serve the interests of a narrow few, and you'll have a fight on your hands,” Schumer said. “It's that simple.”
Day said the party's absolutist position on abortion might be the reason Democrats lost close Senate races in Missouri, Georgia and Minnesota in the 2002 elections.
“There's no reason they shouldn't link to a group of loyal Democrats,” she added.
Ray Flynn is chairman of Catholic Alliance, a nonpartisan group that educates Catholics about current political controversies. Flynn, a Democrat, served as mayor of Boston before becoming ambassador to the Vatican during Clinton's presidency. He regretted that the Democratic Party hasn't linked to Democrats for Life of America's Web site.
“This is supposed to be the party of the small person, so at least we should protect the least [powerful] among us,” Flynn said. “They should allow the pro-life Democrats the space on the Web page. Thirty-seven members of Congress consider themselves to be pro-life Democrats.”
Pro-life Democrats stung by Kucinich's recent flip-flop and upset that all nine announced candidates are abortion supporters have hope Bill Devlin will enter the race.
Devlin, a Democratic urban activist from Philadelphia, has not announced intentions to run. But he did release a recent statement, saying, “It is the Democratic Party that has historically demonstrated a strong commitment to assisting those in need.
“As an urban politically active Democrat since 1992, I believe it is imperative that our party uphold that standard of compassion and care, and advocate for the safety of children when they are in the womb, when they are born and throughout their lives.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Memorial Service Held for Gregory Peck
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 16 — Los Angeles' new Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral hosted a June 16 memorial service for screen legend Gregory Peck, who died June 12, Independent Catholic News reported.
Peck, who was 87, died in his sleep at home, leaving Veronique, his wife of 48 years, four children and several grandchildren. The frequent movie hero starred in 52 films.
Peck was born in La Jolla, Calif., in 1916. At age 10, he entered St. John's Roman Catholic Military Academy in Los Angeles, where he briefly considered becoming a priest.
In his second film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), Peck won an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a Scottish priest working as a missionary in China.
Pulitzer to Holocaust Denier Might Be Revoked
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, June 11 — In 86 years, no Pulitzer Prize for journalism has ever been revoked — but that might soon change, according to the Associated Press.
The most controversial Pulitzer ever awarded was given in 1932 to New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who covered the Soviet Union and doggedly denied the forced famine imposed by Josef Stalin on the Ukraine, which killed approximately 7 million people.
In April, a Pulitzer subcommittee launched its review of Duranty's prize. The 1990 book Stalin's Apologist documents the charge that Duranty knew about famines but did not report on them, fearing it would cut off his personal access to Stalin, whom he famously interviewed years before.
The Times' credibility has been in the spotlight since the Jayson Blair affair earlier this spring. Catholic Eye, a weekly bulletin published by the National Committee of Catholic Laymen, reminded readers May 29 that when Cardinal Bernard Law resigned, the Times editorialized the Boston archbishop had presided over a “disgraceful cover-up.”
But the “newspaper of record” had its own Cardinal Law, Catholic Eye intimated — editor Howell Raines, whose “imperial meddling, diversity obsessions and mercurial management style all made Blair possible.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Fidelity of 'Voice of the Faithful' Group Comes Under Scrutiny Again DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:NEWTON, Mass. — New questions about the fidelity of the reform group Voice of the Faithful have arisen following a one-day meeting June 7 of 45 Boston-area Voice affiliates.
According to a June 7 press release from the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, keynote speaker Paul Lakeland, professor of religious studies at Connecticut's Fairfield University, told the Newton gathering that Catholics were “suffocating from structural oppression” and advocated the abolition of the College of Cardinals, the ordination of women as deacons and lay participation in the election of bishops.
And, Lakeland predicted, future priests would consist of “some married, some not; some straight, some gay, some women, some not.”
The Catholic Action League said Lakeland's comments serve as “further compelling evidence of the hypocrisy of Voice's claim of fidelity to the Catholic religion.”
In an interview June 18, Lakeland confirmed the Catholic Action League's reporting of his comments was substantially accurate. But Lakeland said he was expressing only his own opinions in his keynote address — which dealt primarily with the future role of the laity in the Church — and not the opinions of Voice of the Faithful.
And, Lakeland said, the comments singled out for criticism do not challenge Church doctrine but rather Church practices that are open to change.
However, Lakeland acknowledged during the interview that he remains a proponent of the ordination of women as priests, even though Pope John Paul II definitively ruled against women priests in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (On Priestly Ordination). And, when asked if he agreed with the Catechism of the Catholic Church's statement that homosexual orientation is intrinsically disordered, Lakeland replied, “No, I don't.”
History of Controversy
Voice of the Faithful was formed in January 2002 in the Boston area, shortly after the revelations of the mishandling of clergy sexual abuse that triggered the nationwide abuse scandal and eventually led to Boston Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation.
From its inception, Voice of the Faithful has said “structural change” to democratize Church structures is key to addressing the abuse crisis. However, Voice's Web site explanation of “structural change” states Voice of the Faithful “does not seek any change in Church doctrine.”
And in its “Policies and Positions” section the organization states, “We do not advocate the end of priestly celibacy, the exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood, the ordination of women or any of the other remedies that have been proposed across the spectrum of Catholic thought.”
Voice of the Faithful's critics have challenged these claims of doctrinal fidelity, pointing out that dissenters frequently are assigned prominent roles at the group's meetings. At a major Voice gathering in Boston last July, for example, featured speakers included Debra Haffner, a former official of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, and several theologians who have publicly challenged the authority of the Church's hierarchy.
Voice of the Faithful vice president Ann Carroll, who served as chairperson at the Newton meeting, said there was no intention of promoting dissenting views by inviting Lakeland to speak. She said one reason Lakeland was selected was because he holds a faculty position in the religious studies department of a well-known Catholic university, which Carroll said indicates that his views accord with Church teachings.
“Our No. 1 criteria was we wanted a theologian, and a theologian from a noted Catholic university,” Carroll said. “We aren't a dissident group.”
After that event, a Voice of the Faithful spokesman sought to refute charges it was dominated by dissenters. But Lakeland's keynote address shows that Voice remains sympathetic to dissent, said C.J. Doyle, president of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
“Now we know what [Voice of the Faithful] means by structural change in the Church — Protestant church government, a weakened papacy and women priests,” Doyle said in the Catholic Action League's statement. “The notion that [Voice of the Faithful] is faithful to anything remotely resembling Roman Catholicism is an insult to the intelligence of Catholics.”
(Register correspondent John Mallon contributed to this report.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Archbishop Myers and Cardinal George Raise Concerns About Group DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:What do the U.S. bishops think of Voice of the Faithful?
While two top U.S. bishops have recently raised concerns about Voice of the Faithful, others are cautiously allowing them to meet on Church property.
Newark, N.J., Archbishop John Myers recently wrote a letter to a member of the group. In the letter, which was made public April 21, Archbishop Myers said: “While certain members of the organization still insist that [Voice of the Faithful's] goals and objectives are not determined, other literature and other factors clearly indicate that it is aligned or being aligned with groups in the Church that are clearly in dissent from Church teaching. I think it would be a serious mistake for the Church to promote in any way an organization that is counter to its own teachings.”
The letter was written in response to a letter from a Voice of the Faithful member inviting the archbishop to a May 13 meeting at which Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the Bishops' Office of Youth and Child Protection in Washington, D.C., was a speaker.
The meeting took place outside of the archdiocese because Archbishop Myers has banned Voice of the Faithful from meeting on Church property.
“Archbishop Myers felt from all of the information that he had — and it was fairly comprehensive — that he had some very serious concerns,” spokesman Jim Goodness said. “It looks as if many people who are involved in that organization who are setting policy and in leadership positions are also working toward other positions that are contrary to Church teaching and tradition.”
Voice of the Faithful president Jim Post denies that any bishop has reason to oppose his group. He told The Hartford Courant in a March 30 article the decision of some bishops to ban Voice from meeting on Church property is “so morally wrong that it is difficult to reconcile that behavior with Christian teaching.”
In an interview last month with the Register, Post said the position Archbishop Myers took in his April 21 letter was unfair and “highly inconsistent with his pastoral responsibilities.” Before taking such an action, Post said, Archbishop Myers should have provided hard evidence that Voice of the Faithful was acting against the interests of the Church.
“When an affirmative action is taken to injure another party … The party who acts in that way bears a burden of proof,” Post said. “It's a simple principle in American jurisprudence.”
At least two bishops have softened their stances recently on Voice of the Faithful. In early May, Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn rescinded his ban on Voice meetings on Church property after discussions by his representatives with local Voice members met his satisfaction.
And on June 12, the Dayton Daily News reported that the Dayton affiliate of the Voice of the Faithful would hold its first meeting on Church property June 19, following a decision by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati to lift the ban he instituted last year.
Cardinal George
Archbishop Myers is not the only bishop who still sees problems with Voice of the Faithful's ambiguous message. Several continue to ban Voice of the Faithful meetings on diocesan properties, and others are refusing to meet with the group's representatives until it is clear Voice is not promoting dissent.
In April, the Register reported on a posting on the Catholic Citizens of Illinois Web site headlined, “Voice of the Faithful” Meets with Cardinal George,” referring to a March 31 meeting between Cardinal Francis George of Chicago and Voice co-founder Jim Muller.
Following the meeting, a Voice chapter Web site reported that Cardinal George had “agreed to meet with the Chicago leadership of Voice of the Faithful. … Our target date is mid-June.”
Cardinal George subsequently contacted the Register to correct the record. He said he did not discover that Muller was involved with Voice of the Faithful until the March 31 meeting was well under way, and he denied he had ever agreed to meet with Voice representatives.
“It is simply false,” Cardinal George said of the reported meeting. “I can't support an agenda that seems undefined … until they're willing to say what they're for, why would you meet with them?”
(Register correspondent John Mallon contributed to this report.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Poles Optimistic EU Membership Will Not Harm Country's Faith DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:WARSAW — “Do not be afraid” is one phrase Pope John Paul II has used over and over in his 25 years as the successor of St. Peter. It was certainly the message he gave his fellow Poles as they were set to vote on membership in the European Union in June.
His exhortation might have made the difference. In spite of concerns that Poland would be swallowed up by an increasingly secularized Europe, turnout for the vote was heavy, and approval for joining the bloc approached the 75% mark.
The Pope, learning of the results while visiting Croatia on June 9, expressed his hope that Poland's entry into the European Union (EU) will enable it to contribute its spiritual, moral and religious values to the continent, according to Zenit news service.
In the weeks following the June 7-8 plebiscite, Polish delegates to the European Convention did contribute their homeland's values — by continuing the fight to have Europe's Christian roots mentioned in the nascent EU Constitution.
The debate over whether to mention Christianity — or merely Europe's Greek and Roman roots and Enlightenment history — had fueled EU opponents, such as the Polish Catholic radio station Radio Maryja, before the vote.
Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno, Poland, does not dismiss other fears those groups had expressed. He admits there is pressure from secularism, a trend that could “come from outside” Poland.
But Archbishop Muszynski, who represents the Polish Episcopal Commission on the European Council of Bishops, is optimistic.
“We have made a very important step,” Archbishop Muszynski said after the vote.
Secularism is a charge often directed at the European Union, with its directives and emphasis on “rights.” It leads Archbishop Muszynski to insist that his country “will defend [our Christian heritage] here inside Poland. We will try to give testimony to our Christian and Catholic faith in the new reality of a free Europe and the EU.”
His use of the word “free” might perplex some in the Church who believe the European Union's emphasis on rights does not constitute freedoms or equality but claims by one party on another and a general decline in Christian values upheld by established structures. Of particular concern is the European Union's willingness to enforce legislation allowing such practices as abortion, euthanasia and same-sex marriage.
But the threat does not seem to lessen Archbishop Muszynski's optimism to any large degree, nor does he believe it jeopardizes Poland's sense of nationhood, which is strongly based on Christian principles. “Article 37 of the EU,” he said, “accepts the priority of the rights of nations so we believe the important thing is to have national rights with respect to life.”
This is in contrast to Radio Maryja. The station and other anti- European Union campaigners have long argued that the European Union is against nationhood as it cannot be consistent with its supranational agenda. The European Union, it says, therefore attacks what makes for a strong nation, namely traditional morals as espoused by Christianity.
But for Father Mark Muszynski, a secretary of the Polish bishops' conference, there is “really no fear about joining the European Union because most people believe Poland's stable moral principles will withstand any outside pressure.” He says there is some concern that youth will grow up in a nation with a weakened moral framework, but he is confident the European Union offers no real danger to the nation's population, 90% of whom are Catholics.
Dominican Father Stanislaw Tasiemski sought to qualify that statistic.
“Ninety percent are baptized Catholics,” said Father Tasiemski, who works in the Polish section of Vatican Radio. Secularism, which has been steadily increasing year by year, is a “challenge” to Poland, he said, but “there are also visible attempts to live our traditions and to live our faith.”
The Church in Poland is vibrant, according to Archbishop Muszynski, with many vocations to the priesthood.
“Many young people are trying to live a very holy personal life in small groups in the Catholic Church, and it's very dynamic,” he said. “For example, in my diocese, we had a meeting of young people, mostly students. More than 100,000 people came and we had a vigil for Pentecost — the whole night we prayed together and it was very impressive.”
The Church also still holds considerable influence in matters of state. So could Poland, with its strong Catholic tradition, act as a possible counterweight to secularism in the European Union?
“I don't know how great will be the influence of Poland,” Archbishop Muszynski said, “but the important thing is that we, as Poles, and also the Polish government, are ready to defend Christian values in Europe.”
For Father Tasiemski, a major factor in Polish life the country could offer Europe is its heritage and traditions, particularly those related to agriculture.
“People in Poland used to work close to the earth in a certain way,” he explains, referring in particular to Poland's strong agricultural base. “The Church was closely linked to this old pattern. When the Pope was in Croatia, he spoke about the loss of the link between the earth and patrimony, where people were born into a whole tradition.”
“Traditions help one to live one's faith,” he continued. He believes those traditions will be threatened by joining the European Union, but he hopes Poland can positively influence Europe in this area, “thanks to the patrimony of Poles.”
Both Archbishop Muszynski and Father Muszynski, who are not related, believe the bloc also has much to offer Poland.
“Some people fear the EU will represent a new form of communism, but it will bring new possibilities to develop, especially in the economic sphere, and for young people,” Father Muszynski said. He said for the last 20 years Polish industry has not developed.
To many Poles, the economic benefits of joining the European Union are very much to the fore, and the possible dilution of the nation state takes second place.
Archbishop Muszynski remains both wary and hopeful.
“We are hopeful because it's a great chance and a great challenge at the same time,” he said. “It depends on how we deal with the new challenges that face us.”
Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope Calls Refugee Situation “Offense Against God”
Independent catholic news,June 16 — Speaking to pilgrims from his study window overlooking St. Peter's Square on June 15, Pope John Paul II spoke of the forthcoming World Day of Refugees in light of Trinity Sunday.
John Paul noted that “God is not solitude, but perfect communion,” according to Independent Catholic News. From this divine source, he explained, “derives the vocation of all of mankind to form one great family, in which different races and cultures meet and enrich each other reciprocally.” Because of this, “every situation in which persons or groups of people are forced to flee their own land to seek refuge elsewhere is a serious offense against God and all men.”
The Holy Father called upon the “the international community to commit itself to taking care of not only the symptoms but [also] above all the causes of the problem: that is, to prevent conflicts by promoting justice and solidarity in every sphere of the human family.”
Indian Nationalist Rebuked for Criticizing Pope
The minister had responded to Pope John Paul II's insistence on religious freedom for every Indian — including those who choose to covert to Christianity. In defense of her state's anti-conversion laws, she said the Holy Father “has no business to comment on a law passed by democratically elected governments in our country.”
Bishop Pappusamy said Jayalalithaa, who had promoted the law, was fanning “hate politics.” He insisted the bill “violated … basic human and religious rights” and summed up her attack as showing “her immaturity and bias.”
The bishop noted that the rights of Indians were protected by international declarations and agreements, which the Pope, as a head of state represented in the United Nations, had every right to invoke. He further warned that Christians would be forced to launch political demonstrations if she did not withdraw her antipapal remarks.
Vatican Observatory Summer School
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, June 13 — The Ninth Vatican Observatory Summer School in Observational Astronomy and Astrophysics will take place in the summer papal residence at Castel Gandolfo from June 15 to July 11, Vatican Information Service reported.
This year's focus is “Observations and Theoretical Understanding of Galaxy Evolution: From the Local Universe to the Distant Universe.” Some 26 young scholars from 20 developing countries will be in Rome for the 2003 summer session, led by Vatican Observatory director Jesuit Father George Coyne.
Each of the scholars has received a scholarship that covers at least 75% of school costs including travel, room and board. The school is meant to help promising scholars from poor countries begin their careers in research on the cosmos.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Archbishop: Suffering Iraqis Want to Live DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — On his recent visit to Iraq, Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes realized what citizens want is stability for the sake of their future.
The president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, who is responsible for coordinating the work of the Church's charitable institutions, visited the postwar country from May 28 to June 2 as a papal envoy. In the following interview with Zenit, a Rome-based news service, he talks about the enormous reconstruction work facing Iraq.
What is it like right now in Iraq?
The road to normality still seems very long. People want light, water, food. At this time, they do not see the political problems — they must think of living.
The first thing to ensure, the first conquest, then, is stability, indispensable to address with the necessary serenity the problem of the political order and to avoid the risks of a theocratic drift or of a confrontation between Christians and Muslims that, inevitably, will not be able to be resolved without great harm to the former.
The conclusion I came to is that the military administration will not be able to be brief — in fact, quite the opposite.
Why did you go to Iraq?
Pope John Paul II himself wanted the mission; he asked me to go down there to assess the situation personally.
In Baghdad and in other Iraqi cities I met with Christian communities — in keeping with the intention to cooperate loyally in the reconstruction of the country — and with representatives of the allied forces and those of the United Nations.
Are you worried?
Let us say that there is no lack of reasons for concern. I fear the model of democracy the United States would like to export is not, in fact, applicable there.
America is a great democracy formed by parties and based on numbers: one man, one vote. Unfortunately, it does not seem to me to be transferable to a nation with different cultural dynamics, such as Iraq.
I think the Americans will understand that it is an inapplicable model, that instead it is necessary to think of something that takes into account Iraq's history.
But aren't the Americans aware of this?
Those that I met were in agreement with this judgment. And for this reason, it seems to me, they also foresee staying in Iraq a long time.
Hence, it will not be something brief. The future state structure will not be seen tomorrow. And there is also a risk in this, because the longer that which the Iraqis see as a military occupation lasts the more the little favor on which it has been able to count on until now is weakened.
And how do the Christians live in this situation?
There are some positive signs. At Mosul, in the north of the country, I saw, for example, that the present city administration, which was installed after the collapse of the regime of Saddam Hussein, also includes the presence of some representatives of the Christian religion.
Thus, as I was also able to see in many areas, there is great appreciation for the Pope and the action he undertook.
But in a nation where Muslims, 60% of whom are Shiites, constitute the great majority of the population, while Christians represent only 4%, the risk of a drift to theocracy is very strong.
In the whole of the Middle East the emigration of Christians represents a very great problem.
Were there signs there might also be a mass exodus of Christians from Iraq?
No, I did not have this impression. Rather, on the contrary, it seems to me the intention is to make themselves available to the country to offer their own contributions to the human, civil and material reconstruction.
Very beautiful, in this respect, is the document the Iraqi bishops published last April 29, in which, precisely, they forcefully underline this intention and this willingness. However — and here we refer to what was said earlier — it is necessary to ensure specific guarantees for the minorities.
How can Iraq be helped in this difficult situation?
The first thing, absolutely indispensable at present, is to guarantee stability and security. The primary needs of the people are still the supply of water, of food and of electricity. And then there is the problem of security, which continues to be critical.
Just think that some time ago an entire convoy of aid that left Amman destined for Baghdad was robbed of everything in the middle of the desert and, fortunately, the robbers were kind enough to give the drivers the trucks to be able to make the return journey to Jordan.
In these conditions, the activities of the humanitarian agencies are not possible. Because of this, I repeat, stability and security must first be ensured; this will be better for everything and for everyone.
What is your judgment today on the war?
War does not create peace and, therefore, cannot be considered the means to destroy the evil that is in man's heart.
I would like to add, moreover, that that which was said to justify this conflict was revealed not to be true, and now I wonder why an alternative was not tried all the way to the end.
Fortunately the war was brief and did not cause widespread destruction. If we think of what could have happened, and what many feared, one cannot but rejoice.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Marriage Reflects God's Covenant with His Chosen People DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II resumed his teachings on the songs and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours during his general audience June 18 with a teaching on a canticle found in Isaiah 61:10-62:5. More than 11,000 people were on hand for his audience in St. Peter's Square.
In the canticle, the Holy Father said, the prophet “tries to portray the rebirth of Jerusalem, for which a new era is about to begin. The city is depicted as a bride who is about to celebrate her wedding.” He said the imagery of the bride and the bridegroom is often used in Scripture to evoke the covenant of love that exists between God and his people.
“The symbolism of the bride and the bridegroom, which appears with force in this passage, is one of the most intense images used in the Bible to exalt the bond of intimacy and the covenant of love that exists between the Lord and his chosen people” the Pope pointed out.
After being united with God in a covenant, Zion changes its name to Jerusalem, just as a bride changes her name and assumes her husband's name, the Holy Father explained. “Assuming a “new name” is almost tantamount to assuming a new identity, undertaking a mission and a radical change in lifestyle.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Marriage Reflects God's Covenant with His Chosen People DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:The wonderful canticle we have just heard, which is included in morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, begins like a Magnificat: “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul” (Isaiah 61:10). The text is found in the third part of the Book of Isaiah the prophet, in a section scholars attribute to a later period when Israel, having returned from the exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C., had resumed its life as a free nation in the land of its forefathers and was rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple. It is no accident, as we shall see, that this canticle centers on the Holy City, whose future is full of light and hope.
A Nation Reborn
The prophet begins his song by portraying a nation that has been reborn and that is clothed in splendid garments, like a couple engaged to be married and ready for the great day of their wedding celebration (see verse 10). Immediately afterward, reference is made to another symbol — the shoot of a plant — that is an expression of life, joy and newness (see verse 11).
The prophets refer in various ways to this imagery of the shoot in order to portray the messianic king (see Isaiah 11:1, 53:2; Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12). The Messiah is a shoot that is fruitful and that renews the world, and the prophet makes clear the deep meaning of this vitality: “So will the Lord God make justice and praise spring up …” (Isaiah 61:11). In this way, the Holy City will become like a garden of justice — of faithfulness, truth, law and love. As the prophet said shortly before, “You shall call your walls “salvation” and your gates “praise” (Isaiah 60:18).
The prophet continues to speak out forcefully: His song is unrelenting as he tries to portray the rebirth of Jerusalem, for which a new era is about to begin (see Isaiah 62:1). The city is depicted as a bride who is about to celebrate her wedding.
God's Chosen Bride
The symbolism of the bride and the bridegroom, which appears with force in this passage (see verses 4-5), is one of the most intense images used in the Bible to exalt the bond of intimacy and the covenant of love that exists between the Lord and his chosen people. Her beauty, which consists of “salvation,” “justice” and “glory” (see verses 1-2), will be so wonderful that she will be able to be “a royal diadem held by your God” (see verse 3).
The decisive element is the name change, which also happens in our days when a young woman gets married. Assuming a “new name” (see verse 2) is almost tantamount to assuming a new identity, undertaking a mission and a radical change in lifestyle (see Genesis 32:25-33).
The new name of Jerusalem the bride assumes and that will represent all of God's people is illustrated in a contrast the prophet states very specifically: “No more shall men call you “forsaken” or your land “desolate,” but you shall be called 'my delight,” and your land “espoused.” For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse” (Isaiah 62:4). Names that referred to the city's prior situation of abandonment and desolation — the devastation of the city by the Babylonians and the long drama of the exile — are now replaced with names that denote rebirth and renewal and that are terms of love, endearment, celebration and happiness.
At this point, attention is focused on the bridegroom. Here is the big surprise: The Lord himself gives Zion her new married name. The final sentence is especially amazing since it picks up the theme of the love song the people sang: “As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you” (verse 5).
United in Love
The song no longer exalts the marriage between a king and queen; rather, it celebrates the profound love that unites God and Jerusalem forever. The Lord finds the same happiness in his earthly bride, which is the holy nation, which a husband experiences in his beloved wife. God, who was distant, transcendent and a righteous judge, is now replaced by a God who is nearby and loving. This symbolism of a wedding is used in the New Testament (see Ephesians 5:21-32) and was taken up and developed by the Fathers of the Church. For example, St. Ambrose reminds us that in this perspective, “the bridegroom is Christ and the bride is the Church, spouse because of love, virgin because of intact purity” (Esposizione del Vangelo secondo Luca: Opere esegetiche, X/II, Milan-Rome, 1978, p. 289).
In another of his works he goes on to say: “The Church is beautiful. This is why the Word of God says to her: “You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you” (Song of Songs 4:7), because the fault was submerged. … That is why the Lord Jesus — moved by the desire of so great a love, by the beauty of her dress and of her grace, given that in those who have been purified there is no more filth of any guilt — says to the Church: “Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm” (Song of Songs 8:6). In other words, you are adorned, my soul, you are all beautiful, nothing is lacking in you! “Set me as a seal on your heart,” so that your faith may shine forth in the fullness of the sacrament. Your works will also shine forth and reveal the image of God, in whose image you were made” (I misteri, nn. 49.41:Opere Dogmatiche, III, Milan- Rome, 1982, p. 156-157).(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Hong Kong Bishop: China Needs to Hear of Concern for Human Rights DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun has been the bishop of Hong Kong since September 2002. A priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco, he holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Salesian University in Rome, and he has taught in Salesian and diocesan seminaries in Hong Kong.
Register correspondent Thomas Szyszkiewicz spoke with Bishop Zen, 71, by telephone May 23. In this second of a two-part interview, the Shanghai native speaks about the Church's relationship with the Chinese government and efforts to spread the faith in Hong Kong.
There have been some rumblings in the Vatican about closer ties between the Vatican and Beijing, and one of the thoughts is that the Holy See would have to drop its recognition of Taiwan. Does that concern you?
It was peaceful for many years already. The Vatican already for several years said there's no problem to drop Taiwan. And the Chinese know that very well. So they know that this is not the problem.
Now, if you ask my personal opinion, I find it still to be a problem because that will be to abandon a friend unilaterally, and it's never happened before. But Beijing understands and also the hierarchy in Taiwan understands that to give some more freedom to so many people, so many Catholics in mainland China, the Holy See may have to do such a thing.
So the problem is that the Vatican would also accept something in return. But the Beijing government is not ready for that. They are not willing to make any concessions. That is what we have seen from their internal documents — they are not going to grant anything to the Church. I think the Vatican knows that, so nothing is going on at this moment.
What would Rome want? Authority over naming its own bishops?
Yes, the appointment of bishops. Even on that, the Vatican is surely ready for some compromise. But it seems that Beijing wants full surrender — that's impossible. It's very frustrating.
What are your major concerns for the people of your diocese?
We are not a small diocese. We are 250,000 local Catholics and we have a little less than 60 parishes. The problem is, I cannot understand why in such an active community — the people are very active, the young people also do many things for the Church — the vocations are few. The priests are getting old, getting sick; the average age is about 60. … So we have started combining the parishes — very painful. I think the vocations are what worry us.
But then we also had a diocesan synod, which lasted two years. And there, we had many directions that we were trying to follow. One very important [aspect] was about marriage and the family, because the situation here is very bad. So we are organizing all those groups and agencies who were already working very well on this and we are trying to coordinate. … It's difficult to spread the right conception of marriage and family and to help all those people in difficulty now.
That's a small percentage — 250,000 Catholics in a city of 7 million. Are there evangelization efforts or plans for them?
We are always doing that, and every year we have 2,000 adult baptisms. … But then also in the diocesan synod, we have deliberated to have a mission year, or evangelization year. It would start from Mission Sunday this October and last a little more than a year.
What kinds of things do you expect your people to undertake during this mission year?
First of all to catechize our people, to say that everybody has the duty to evangelize … start with people in your families, because there are so many families where there are Catholics but there are other members who are not Catholics. And then to bring your friends to church to listen to the Gospel, to join the singing; maybe they will feel attracted. And then we will have some big gatherings where we share our faith and invite everybody to join, etc.
Is there some way Catholics here in the United States can help Catholics in mainland China or Hong Kong?
I think we should talk more to the American audience about what is happening in China and Hong Kong. I don't think we are giving too much information. Especially nowadays people are worried about many other important things, like … Iraq and North Korea.
And sometimes they don't get balanced information. There may be people who are too optimistic because they have been in China, they see the Church is open, the choir singing very well, and they say there is full freedom. But then also there are other people who may be a little imbalanced on the other side …
There are some people here in the United States who have called for a boycott of Chinese-made products because of any number of reasons: Tibet, forced abortions, the one-child policy, the human rights situation in general. If that boycott were to spread, do you think that would have any effect on Chinese behavior?
I really am not sure, because it's just like an embargo. You don't know who you are really punishing: Are you punishing the government or you are punishing the people? It's very difficult to say. Especially now with the entry into the [World Trade Organization], I think it's also very difficult to boycott.
Everybody should encourage the [U.S.] government to let the [Chinese] government know that we care for human rights; to tell the government that the government should not only care for business. I think that would be more positive. And then China may change.
I know they are doing that with Beijing and they seem to have regular dialogue on human rights, on rule of law, etc. I think the United States should do that.
There is the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and China annually makes it to the list of countries of particular concern.
And it doesn't surprise me that they do that. Carry on, because, although the Chinese sometimes say they don't care, they are not afraid, still they care; they care for world opinion.
The complaint from China is always, “You're interfering in our internal affairs.”
But little by little they accept the discussion on human rights now.
So there is change, but little by little, you say.
Yes, so never give up.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Scottish Anglicans Accept Women Bishops
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, June 13 — The Scottish Episcopal Church by a large majority voted at their general synod ending June 14 to accept the consecration of women as bishops, ending a tradition that dates back to the foundation of that Protestant body.
The Church of England has not yet decided to make this concession to feminist requests; this would make the Scots the first church in the United Kingdom to grant women the miter, according to Independent Catholic News.
Out of 153 votes cast by leading churchmen, 124 voted Yes, including all seven bishops. It was only in 1992 that the Church of England admitted women to its priesthood.
Now, the news site reported, one out of every five of its priests is a woman.
New Book Tells Tale of Catholic Activism
The book examines the work of Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne and Labor Party leader B.A. Santamaria. It recounts how the Australian labor movement was split when secular activists objected to the Christian principles promoted by the two Irish émigrés.
Fitzgerald points to the work of a group of Melbourne Catholic lawyers who founded the city's Campion Society and published its edition of The Catholic Worker. The group fought hard in the wake of World War II to keep the unions free of communist domination and drew on the Church's assets in the hope of “completely transform[ing] the leadership of the labor movement” and “implement[ing] a Christian social program.”
In the long run, the effort failed, and the labor movement in Australia became secular and progressivist, much like its American counterpart, which was once infused with elements of Catholic social teaching.
Abuse of Language Threatens Sanctity of Life
FIDES, June 13 — Leading Catholic bishops in Europe met at a conference June 11-14 promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Family, opened by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the Vatican missionary news agency reported.
The cardinal called the position of family in Europe critical, noting how secularization threatened its very structure. The cardinal said legislation in some European countries could only be described as evil, showing no respect for the rights of the individual, the family or for life itself.
He explained that the abuse of language to obscure traditional moral distinctions regarding life issues was a major weapon used by enemies of the family and pointed to a countermeasure issued by the pontifical council: its lexicon of 78 ambiguous terms often employed to cloud the debate on issues such as abortion, contraception and euthanasia, a document that is now being translated from Italian.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Editorial DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:A year after the U.S. bishops set their new national sex-abuse policy in Dallas, the bishops met in St. Louis. Commentators jumped on the opportunity to judge 12 months' worth of progress on the crisis.
Much of the commentary has been unhelpful. There seems to be an irresistible temptation for Catholics to assess the bishops harshly.
Too many Catholics react too quickly to emerging news about how bishops are handling the crisis. For instance, when California bishops balked at aspects of the review board's study questionnaire, uninformed and intemperate remarks were aired in the media and on the Internet.
When the facts were known, the California bishops' concerns were seen to be not only legitimate but also an enrichment of the review board's process.
The judgmental tone of poorly informed fault-finders in this and numerous other contexts illustrates a contemporary paradox. Commentators feel free to exercise a harshness toward the bishops that they would be the first to condemn if it were reciprocated.
If we balance the limitations of men and the severity of the problem, we can assess the bishops' progress more fairly and accurately.
Have the bishops done all things perfectly? No. As we have pointed out often before, the rights of accused priests need to be better taken into account in sex-abuse cases (many have been falsely charged). And many Catholics still say they feel like they are dealing with an impenetrable bureaucracy when dealing with their local bishop.
But have bishops ignored the problem altogether, engaging only in meaningless quick-fix solutions? No, that isn't true, either. An enormous effort is being made to solve this problem. Fairness demands the bishops receive full credit for it.
Two major things remain undone, however:
The Vatican-ordered seminary visitation.
When Pope John Paul II met with U.S. cardinals last year, he ordered an apostolic visitation of seminaries.
It's no wonder. Too many seminaries have been contributing to the very problems they are supposed to prevent.
The bishops had fair warning that this would happen, in a 1961 document that Pope John XXIII gave his authority to. Called “On the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders,” the document spells out the dangers of allowing sexually incontinent candidates to become priests. Its teaching was echoed by the Second Vatican Council, which said in “On the Training of Priests” that the seminary's purpose is “to inculcate self-control.”
But more than a year after the cardinals' summit, seminary investigations have yet to be scheduled. It is vital that this be done soon.
A plenary council of bishops on root causes.
We said last June that there were signs that the springtime of the faith was permeating the bishops as well. Those signs became more obvious when a small group of bishops, soon joined by much greater numbers, proposed a plenary council that would address the root causes of the scandal.
What are those? John Paul spelled them out in his meeting with U.S. cardinals last year when he said American Catholics “must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
In St. Louis, bishops discussed three questions a plenary council would address: the need for catechesis, the role of laity and the spirituality of priests and bishops. These may not be the topics the media understand best, but they go to the heart of the crisis.
We applaud the plans to pursue seminary investigations and the plenary council. We hope that, by next year, there will be tangible progress to point to. In these initiatives, the bishops can find the lasting answers that will prevent today's bad headlines from being repeated again tomorrow.
----- EXCERPT: A Year After Dallas ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Madness of Merck DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:I wish to thank you for noting in your Pro-Life Victories section that Human Life International and Children of God for Life had called a pharmaceutical behemoth on the carpet for its use of fetal tissue to develop its vaccines (“Pro-Life Purchase Power,” May 18-24).
I do need to offer an important correction, however. The piece said that Merck had used “fetal stem-cell lines” to produce its vaccines. In actual fact, Merck used the very flesh of aborted babies to develop a culture in which to grow some of its vaccines. It was complicit in the deaths of 27 babies to get the tissue samples that they were looking for, even naming their Rubella vaccine “RA 27/3,” indicating the third tissue sample from the 27th aborted (A) baby. These abortions took place in 1966, when abortion was still illegal in the United States.
This critical issue goes beyond the current stem-cell debate to the very heart of the culture of death and in which massive companies like Merck are mired. For more than 30 years Merck has profited from the destruction of innocent human life in a way that resembles Nazi experiments committed on humans in their concentration camps and the scandalous “profit” that they reaped from them. Laboratories and abortion clinics are the new scenes of crimes against humanity, and the destruction of innocent lives is only slightly less alarming than the destruction of souls that accompanies it.
A good example of this spiritual degradation was seen in Merck's corporate defense against our proposal to the Security and Exchange Commission. Merck did not deny that babies were killed to get the cell lines but claimed that what we were objecting to was part of “ordinary business operations.” This is a classic case of legal absolution of corporate unethical behavior.
A Human Life International donor gave us a small amount of Merck stock last year with the knowledge that we would bring this issue to the attention of their stockholders through a corporate resolution. We did that very thing at the annual stockholders meeting in April despite Merck's best efforts to suppress it. Since that time Merck has initiated punitive actions against Human Life International by removing us from its list of designated charities for its employee matching-gift program. Our acceptance of the generosity of Merck employees was an opportunity for us to save more babies. However, Merck does not seem to be in the business of saving babies but rather of punishing conscientious objection to its unethical actions. This practice is not a thing of the past, either; Merck recently used the retinal tissue of an 18-week baby to develop its highly-touted HIV experimental drug.
Now we are bringing the issue to a wider audience and calling for a boycott of Merck products. Interested persons can see the Web sites of the two organizations (www.hli.org and www.cogforlife.org) or call (800) 549-LIFE for more details. We are also asking current Merck stockholders to join us in voting next year to hold Merck's giant feet of clay to the fire of truth.
REV. THOMAS J. EUTENEUER
Front Royal, Virginia
The writer is president of Human Life International.
Inspired to Act
Congratulations to Tim Drake for his welldeserved Bernardin-O'Connor Award for Pro- Life Journalism (“Register Wins Pro-Life Award,” Inbrief, June 8-14). His articles, however, don't just win awards — they inspire.
Seven months ago, I wrote this newspaper praising Drake's article on Catholic efforts to elect pro-life officials. I wrote that his article “inspired me to organize, or join, a group of Catholic grass-roots activists in California, and hopefully nationwide.” Wondrously, several others from all walks of life developed the same idea at almost exactly the same time. And now, it is consummated. Your Catholic Voice (www.yourcatholicvoice.org) is officially online. With the motto “Cultivate Your Faith, Activate Your Voice,” the group is working toward the long-term goal of changing hearts and the short-term goal of influencing elections.
Thank you, Holy Spirit, for the inspiration — and thank you, Tim Drake, for passing it on.
RAYMOND J. TITTMANN
San Francisco
Zygotic Ensoulment?
The title “Embryonic Ensoulment” (Letters, June 1-7) is misleading. We begin as a zygote, not as an embryo. God speaks the words: “Now let us make man” to that first cell, that single cell, that totipotent cell that is formed at the time of fertilization. We change the name form zygote to embryo at the time of fertilization. Being a retired professor of moral theology, I believe that we learn well when we distinguish well.
In his letter, Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk cites correctly the Church document of 1974 — but this is 2003! Ever since 1992, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has been teaching what Father Pacholczyk inexplicably ignores: “The human body shares in the dignity of the image of God: It is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit” (No. 364).
Note the teaching: If it is a human body, then it is a person, a temple of the Spirit. That should terminate musings about non-personal human beings. Pope John Paul II nailed the coffin shut when he said later: “The distinction … between “human being” and “human person” … is an artificial distinction with no scientific or philosophical foundation” (Address to the Pontifical Academy of Life, March 1, 2002).
What had the Church learned between 1974 and 2002? She learned from science that human life is one continuum whose beginning is fertilization. There is no evidence of a subsequent switch from being human to being a person. Science sees no such change. The Pontifical Academy of Life has been saying this at conventions held at the Vatican since its founding in 1994. There simply is no evidence of ensoulment at some time after a human life begins. See especially the 458-page book of the Proceedings of the Convention held in February 1997. The Church, not yet sure of itself in 1974, is now certain.
May I add my own reflection? The zygote has before it the task to build a human brain, with its 100 billion interacting neurons. It is a monumental [feat] of biotech engineering. The schedule is tight: about nine months. The Lord would not entrust the job to an amateur — to an animal soul, for example. We do not allow monkeys to pilot commercial airliners; nor do we begin our lives with animal souls.
FATHER ANTHONY ZIMMERMAN
Nagoya, Japan
The writer is a retired professor of moral theology. For more on the subject, see his Web site, Catholicmind.com.
Editors Note: Father Tad Pacholczyk is writing a column-length response to reader's concerns.
Corrections
In “House Okays Partial-Birth Ban; Will Courts?” (June 15-21), we wrote that Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, “remained confident the court would find this bill to be constitutional.” This statement was not accurate: Johnson said he couldn't predict what the Supreme Court would do.
Also: The Register Ratings for two movies were transposed in our June 1-7 edition of “Now Playing.” The correct ratings:
The Lizzie McGuire Movie
Register Ratings
V 0 P 4 N 0 S 0
Bend it Like Beckham
Register Ratings
V 4 P -1 N 4 S -1
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Couples Open To Life DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:I was pleased to see that you chose to print an excerpt by Pope John Paul II immediately following the commentary by Dermott and Sue Mullan, “The Rule, Not An Exception: A Catholic Dad on Openness to Life … And His Wife's Response: Cheerios and the Kingdom of God” (June 15-21). While their commitment to have as many children as possible may be God's will for them as a couple, it is by no means the position of the Church that all couples should feel compelled to have very large families.
John Paul's wish to “have personnel available who can teach married couples how to use the natural methods” in every diocese is a testimony to the great faith the Church places in the ability of couples to prayerfully discern the size of their family.
In addition to the many other licit reasons the Church allows for a couple to postpone pregnancy, the physical and emotional toll of bearing children on a woman's body is not something to be taken lightly. Our merciful God allows mothers displaying symptoms of postpartum depression or other physical or emotional strains the means to avoid a tragedy of Andrea Yates proportions. I would encourage the Mullans to consult Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader edited by Janet E. Smith.
We must avoid the misguided assumption that causes us to judge families who may have fewer children as being not open to life. This subtle form of pride may cause couples to feel that they should have as many children as that oh-so-peaceful mother of 15 when they may not be physically, emotionally or fiscally capable of taking care of the children they already have.
As someone who is pro-life and anti-contraception, I applaud the Mullans on their generosity in accepting a large family. There is no doubt that children are a blessing and that families receive many graces when they conceive a child. It should be noted, however, for those who fear taking the step to eliminate contraception from their marriage, that the decision to have a very large family is as much the result of prudent and prayerful reflection as the decision to postpone pregnancy.
ELIZABETH DUFFY
Indianapolis
We write in response to Dermott and Sue Mullan's articles regarding marriage and children (June 15-21).
Mr. Mullan begins by comparing a couple's decision to “contracept” with a government's decision to execute a criminal. This comparison seems to be overly harsh and betrays a confused notion of family planning. He speaks of “moral and immoral methods of contraception,” presumably putting natural family planning into the “moral” category. Natural family planning is not a form of contraception, for it does nothing to prevent an act of marriage from achieving conception. In Catholic teaching, there is no such thing as “moral” contraception, but there is the decision made for a just and serious reason to abstain. This is not contraception; it is self-control.
Mr. Mullan cannot understand why Catholic couples preparing for marriage should be instructed in family planning as a matter of course. We have worked in the trenches of marriage prep for years, and it may surprise the Mullans to know that the majority of Catholic engaged couples are already contracepting before their weddings and desperately need to learn about the sacrament they are entering and its call to holiness and chastity. A decent introductory class in natural family planning will often be the first time they hear this challenge to change.
Mrs. Mullan, feeling overwhelmed with four babies in five years, is encouraged by her friend, a mother of 15, to be constantly open to life. We are in awe of any couple who cheerfully raises 15 children but know that most couples are not equipped to do so. For the rest of us, we look to the Church's teaching on responsible parenthood (Humanae Vitae 10, Familiaris Consortio35, Pope John Paul II's general audiences of Sept. 5, 1984, and Aug. 1, 1985) to see that the Church understands human limitations and is quick to promote the study of natural methods of birth regulation. It is also crucial to note the freedom of conscience, as couples make decisions informed by the teachings of the Church.
Of course, natural family planning can be used with a contraceptive mentality, and Catholic couples must pray to be free of such motives. But there are many couples who have both generous hearts and serious reasons to avoid another birth. For them, the natural methods of self-mastery are a blessing that allows them to celebrate their mutual love.
MARK AND JENELLE VAN BRUNT
Tempe, Arizona
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Families, Defend Your Rights! A Fourth of July Call to Arms DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Not that you would want to. Maybe I'm just projecting, but each time election season rolls around, part of me says, “Aren't there people better equipped, mothers at a more appropriate stage in life, women who have fewer children, who have more money, who have more help, who are younger, skinnier, more organized (fill in the blank)? These are the folks who need to step up to the plate and ensure protection for the family — and my family.” Then I realize which side of me is talking: the cave-dweller side.
And I remember that everyone can fill in the blank with something.
Meanwhile, who's out there articulating a compelling vision that inspires our entire nation to work together as a community of families? Who's working hard to elect those wise leaders who also vote for laws and judges supportive of the vision? Who will argue against decriminalizing pedophilia, as the American Psychiatric Association is now discussing? Who will stand up on the floors of Congress and argue against late-term and partial-birth abortion, abortion for our children or any callous practice that purports to empower the strong at the expense of the weak?
Who in the media will insist modern feminists are demolishing what is beautiful and strong in authentic femininity? If not you and me, who?
I remind myself why I got involved a long time ago to help elect pro-life women to public office. When I worked on Capitol Hill, I remember what it felt like and how unreasonable it was that woman after woman stepped up to make a speech about how American women “deserved” abortion. Where were the women saying, “We deserve better than abortion!”?
No one understands this or articulates it better than the head of the Christian family, the Holy Father: “Families should be the first to take steps to see that the laws and institutions of the state not only do not offend but also support and positively defend the rights and duties of the family … and assume responsibility for transforming society; otherwise families will be the first victims of the evils that they have done no more than note with indifference” (Familiaris Consortio, The Family in the Modern World, No. 44).
Our obligation couldn't be clearer. And yet, if you look at the data from the census and voting records as the Susan B. Anthony List has recently done in a handful of states, you'll see cave dwellers as far as the eye can see. In a test program launched in the 2002 election, the Susan B. Anthony List found that hundreds of thousands of pro-life women in just a handful of states are not regularly voting. Not voting! And certainly not “transforming society” in the public sphere. The great beauty of the American political system is that each of those votes matters. Look at Missouri, Louisiana and Minnesota. In key Senate races in each of those states in the 2002 election, fewer than 25,000 votes decided each outcome.
Clearly, failing to vote can have serious consequences.
This July 4, we can take a cue from the founding fathers that our great system of democracy works. The American experiment only works if our moral underpinnings remain sound. Each one of us, along with those hundreds of thousands of women voters — and the millions more the Susan B. Anthony List plans to track down and contact in the rest of the United States — is responsible for helping maintain that foundation.
There is power in one vote. And when each one who votes also takes some step beyond that, however small, we begin to transform the culture into a civilization of justice and love. It's simple and it works. Thank you, founding fathers and suffragist Susan B. Anthony.
Emily's List, the largest political action committee in the nation (richer than the American Medical Association and the National Rifle Association), understands this well. Emily's List elects Democratic women who support abortion. Ten years ago, it began a voter-identification project along the same lines as the Susan B. Anthony List.
In the year 2000, Emily's List won three key U.S. Senate races after targeted voter-identification and get-out-the-vote campaigns aimed at 8 million women in 12 states that could easily tip either way on the abortion issue. They raised $33.7 million in the 2002 election cycle and are coordinating with other groups to raise $45 to $50 million for elections in 2004. A liberal estimate of the budget on the life-affirming side? About a tenth of that number.
They have more money, yes. Defenders of the family and unborn children have savvy leaders, many volunteers, good organization and the determination and generosity that is rooted in the truth about the human rights of God's creatures.
We are like the lean and scrappy revolutionary army declaring on July 4 that they would face down a vast empire.
The history of our founding shows we can prevail.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is a mother to five children and serves as chairman of the board of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to involve pro-life women in the political process.
----- EXCERPT: You can't stop it. Election 2004 is coming. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marjorie Dannenfelser ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Indulgences: Intrusions From Another Dimension DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:What happened to the things I did yesterday? Have they simply vanished, or do they still exist?
Some might say such questions are nonsense. However, we Catholics believe that things we do today can affect events “in the past.” In confession, old sins can be forgiven and indulgences can remove the after-effects of past sins.
Sins have after-effects: They leave behind “broken windows” in the spiritual world. The Church's teaching on penance and indulgences indicates that God provides a mechanism to mend those spiritual “broken windows” in our past.
But how can anything be mended if it does not exist?
Einstein Time
I suggest science might provide a helpful answer.
Einstein considered space and time as linked in such a profound way that a new word can be coined to describe the medium in which all the events of our lives occur: space-time. Physicists have found Einstein's suggestion fits our world with phenomenal precision.
The “space” part of space-time is easily understood. From any point in space, I have three options for moving: left-right, forward-back and up-down. Because these cover all possible motions, scientists say we live in three-dimensional (3-D) space.
Now what about the “time” part of space-time? What sort of motions can I perform in time? I do not have a choice to sit still: I must move in one direction only, from past to future, and that's it.
Nevertheless, despite this distinctive property about time, Einstein suggested we live in four dimensions. Three dimensions describe how objects move in space, while the fourth dimension describes how objects move in time.
Space-time describes this fourdimensional (4-D) world we live in. Einstein's insight was that we are all 4- D creatures, occupying not only a certain region in space but also a certain region in time.
This helps us to address the question, where did yesterday go?
To demonstrate this concept, let me refer to a whimsical but insightful book called Flatland. This book, written in 1884 by Edwin Abbott, describes a world where people live entirely within the confines of a flat surface (such as a table top). The Flatlanders can move left-right and forward- back. But they cannot move updown. Why? Because, in contrast to ourselves (who live in 3-D), the Flatlanders live in two dimensions. They have no way to relate to a third dimension.
But then one day a strange object arrives from a place called Spaceland. The only way for Flatlanders to see the object is to have the object pass through Flatland from above to below. The Flatlanders experience the stranger as a succession of 2-D slices through the object.
For example, suppose the object from Spaceland happens to be a pencil. What will the Flatlanders see? At first, a tiny point of graphite will suddenly appear in Flatland — this is the writing tip of the pencil. As the pencil moves downward, the Flatlanders will see the graphite circle eventually surrounded by a thin ring of wood — the “slice” of the pencil they now see is passing through the wood, which holds the lead in place. After some time, the graphite and wood will be replaced by a circle made of a rubbery material — this is a slice through the eraser. The rubber circle will retain its shape for a while, and then it will disappear when the pencil finally leaves Flatland.
The only way for Flatlanders to appreciate a solid (i.e. 3-D) object is to have it somehow pass through the 2-D world of Flatland. If this happens, the Flatlanders will experience the 3-D object as a succession of 2-D slices.
However, even though the Flatlanders can see only one slice at a time, it is crucial to realize the pencil retains at all times its “real” shape in three dimensions.
So what does all this have to do with “Where did yesterday go?” Well, according to Einstein, the “real me” is a 4-D creature “passing through” the 3-D world just as the 3-D pencil passed through 2-D Flatland. The 3-D world sees only a succession of slices of the real me. I first appeared in our world as a tiny point (a single cell), which then grew and took on different layers of complexity. At the point we call death, I will disappear from the 3-D world.
However, throughout all of this process, by analogy with the pencil in Flatland, the real me continues to exist as a 4-D individual in Timeland. God gave me a well-defined beginning and end in the time dimension: “My days were limited before one of them existed” (Psalm 139:16). And God arranges the process of my passing through the 3-D world: He holds me in the palm of his hand (Isaiah 49:12).
Time Out
Now let us go back to penance and indulgences. By the grace of God, who lives outside of time, I am permitted today to perform actions that reach outside the 3-D world back into the fourth dimension. In this way, God allows me to “fix” wrongs I did years ago.
Admittedly, it is hard to imagine what a 4-D creature looks like. But that is what each of us is. And all of the things I did yesterday still exist, just as the pencil from Spaceland continued to exist even after the Flatlanders could no longer see it.
In his book Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven, Peter Kreeft asks, “What will we do in heaven?” He suggests we will review our earthly life by “Godlight,” i.e. from God's perspective: “We will review our past life with divine understanding and appreciation of every single experience, good and evil.” This again suggests that every single experience in our life is still available “somewhere” for inspection.
St. John writes, “We are God's children now; what we shall later be has not yet come to light. We know that when it does come to light, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). In what sense will we be like God? Well, there is no past or future for God; he is outside of time. (That is why the offering of Christ at Mass can be truly one and the same sacrifice as on Calvary.)
If I could see myself from God's viewpoint, I would see myself as never before, with all the moments of my life in a single entity.
So, where are all those things I did yesterday? The answer is: They still exist as a part of the real me in 4-D Timeland. Through God's generous design, as long as I am in this 3-D world, I may perform works of penance and gain indulgences to fix up the damage that I unfortunately introduced by my sins into God's world. But until I perform such penance, the damage remains, at various locations, in the real me.
Dermott Mullan writes from Elkton, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dermott Mullan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Does Freedom Mean Getting Your Own Way? DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Freedom means getting what you want. This idiosyncratic notion of freedom is tightly intertwined with the sexual revolution.
“Reproductive freedom” is one of the most egregious examples of this redefinition of freedom. Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, recently alluded to this freedom. Shortly after the U.S.-led coalition liberated Iraq, Feldt argued, “If we are fighting for freedom in Iraq, then most surely that freedom should extend to women globally and in the United States. The most fundamental freedom is the freedom of reproductive self-determination. … Reproductive health care is an essential part of any health care package.”
Let's think about this for a moment. “Reproductive freedom” as the most fundamental freedom? This will surely surprise those Iraqis recently freed from Saddam Hussein's prisons. The Iranian students protesting in the streets of Tehran are more likely risking their lives for the right to have fair elections and jury trials than the right to contracept and abort. And those poor souls caught trying to flee Fidel Castro's prison camp of a country: What could they have been thinking? Their “most fundamental freedom” to abort is perfectly safe and legal in Cuba.
Quite apart from its grotesque overstatement, Planned Parenthood's position is utterly illogical. No government can possibly guarantee “reproductive self-determination.” This would have to include a right to “pregnancy on demand” that would correspond to “abortion on demand.” Even with the most sophisticated reproductive technology, no one can be assured of a pregnancy precisely on her own terms.
Our freedom does not depend on the development of a technology that completely masters the giving and the taking of life, with or without the messy intervention of actual sexual contact with a person of the opposite sex.
“Reproductive freedom” is really a euphemism for a right to sexual activity without pregnancy — it is only the right to say No to children. But this one-sided kind of freedom would be a right to suspend the laws of cause and effect in order to obtain what we want. Pregnancy is one of the natural consequences of sexual activity. “Reproductive freedom” is a claim that we are entitled to avoid this natural consequence.
Americans don't usually think of freedom in these terms. We don't think freedom of movement means the right to jump off the Golden Gate bridge and not die. Freedom of assembly isn't an entitlement for an entire fraternity to actually fit inside a telephone booth. Freedom of speech can't mean the right to say anything we want and still have friends. No court of law could grant such rights. But the lifestyle left demands the “right” to have only the consequences of sex that we choose.
Here is another way to look at it: One can argue that eating is a good and necessary thing and that everyone is entitled to eat. It does not follow that each and every person is entitled to eat anything they want and never get fat. No one has a constitutional right to eat just as they please without ever getting heart disease, high blood pressure or other natural consequences of overeating. You cannot coherently claim that every person has a constitutional right to eat without getting fat and call it “gastronomical freedom.” (Although, considering the number of overweight people waddling around America, maybe people do think this.)
Note that my argument here does not depend on any particular view of the proper role of the state or the proper scope of its guarantees.
Advocates of the welfare state might well argue that everyone has a right to food, at state expense if necessary. It does not logically follow from this that everyone has a right to eat nothing but butter and never get heart disease.
Advocates of more minimal government might argue that people have every right to such food as they can obtain through fair market exchanges and gifts. But no libertarian would claim that people have a right to eat without consequences. No legislator in his right mind would attempt to pass a law guaranteeing such a thing.
The very idea is reminiscent of a state legislature's notorious attempt to pass a law declaring the value of pi to be an even 3 rather than that irrational number with lots of pesky decimal places.
Likewise, it doesn't make sense to claim a right to unlimited sexual activity with a government guarantee of never becoming pregnant. Calling it “reproductive freedom” doesn't alter the underlying biology. Yet we have come to believe we have exactly such an entitlement.
Probably many Americans regard contraceptive technology as the greatest thing since sliced bread. But this technology just changes the probability that conception will result from a particular act of sexual intercourse. It is illogical to insist that we are entitled to actually achieve our reproductive goals.
We don't think economic freedom means getting the amount of money we want. We don't think political freedom means having our preferred candidates win every election. But we have convinced ourselves that “reproductive freedom” means getting the reproductive outcome we want rather than just playing the game by a set of known rules that apply to everyone.
Few Americans would accept “freedom means getting my own way” if stated as a general proposition. But if we allow the term “reproductive freedom” to go unchallenged, we are in danger of accepting the illogical beliefs of a handful of political extremists and malcontents. Normal people don't believe freedom means getting whatever you want.
Most of us believe freedom means the opportunity to make choices and accept the consequences of those choices.
Jennifer Roback Morse is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work (Spence Press, 2001).
----- EXCERPT: Modern America has created a peculiar new concept of freedom. ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. R. Morse ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Apostolic Majesty Down East DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Some parish churches are easy to overlook, but hard to forget once you've visited. Maine's SS. Peter and Paul fits neatly into that category.
For Mainers and others within driving distance, it's a fitting stop June 29 — solemnity of the two great Apostles.
Although it serves a regular parish in the city of Lewiston, Peter and Paul is larger than many a cathedral. In fact, it's the biggest Catholic church in the state and the second largest in New England.
The size surprised me because the church is located in somewhat of an inner-city neighborhood just a few blocks from the downtown area. Driving into the city, expecting to have to do a little searching for the church, my wife and I knew enough to look for twin granite steeples, each topped with four spires.
It turned out to be an easy assignment: The bell towers soar 163 feet into the sky and form a good part of the façade. They introduce the chiseled granite edifice that's 110 feet wide, stretches over 315 feet long and seats 2,200 in the main church. Yet, up close, the massive church has such graceful lines that its awesome size doesn't overwhelm. Indeed, it's an appropriately homelike palace for our Heavenly King.
The church's size speaks eloquently of the devotion of the people who have filled it. French Canadians came to Lewiston to work the booming textile mills that once dominated the area. They built this parish, the first Franco-American enclave in Maine. These people must have had great faith and tenacity, for they built this edifice over a five-year period in the middle of the Depression. After they saw SS. Peter and Paul dedicated on Oct. 23, 1938, their numbers grew even larger. By 1950, more than 15,000 names were on the parish register.
Admiring the exterior, we thought the magnificent Neo-gothic church must look today as it did on the day it was dedicated. We learned that a massive restoration project had preceded our arrival. The granite, quarried from North Jay, Maine, has been returned to its original shade of light gray.
Dominican Dynamism
The church rises on a massive granite foundation to form a cross. This tall foundation, which looks like a gigantic pedestal, acted as the lower church beginning in 1906. Today it's still regularly used as a daily church.
High in the façade, the stunning rose window is made of many petals that are as delicate as a doily, thanks to the exquisite tracery. Higher still, near the top of the peaked central gable — we really had to walk back to street level to get a good view — is a delicate stonework canopy that shelters a statue of the Blessed Mother. She watches over us, and over Peter and Paul under their own stone canopies to either side of the main doors below.
Inside, the church gave us another surprise. The architect Noel Coumont, who happened to live in Lewiston at the time he designed the foundation, purposely “bent” the church ever so slightly to the left. The idea was to reflect the tilt of Jesus' head as he suffered upon the Cross.
In the entrance, we examined the sweeps of oak panels carved by workers from the Cassavant Organ Co. in Canada. After they finished installing the organ, they were going to be without work: The Depression was in full swing. But the Dominicans who administrated the parish came to the rescue. They hired the craftsmen to stay and hand-carve the red oak and the cedar from the forests of Maine into sumptuous woodwork worthy of a basilica.
The Dominican crest is fixed in the floor here. It's a gentle reminder of more than 100 years of dedicated service the Order of Preachers gave to SS. Peter and Paul. They ran the parish from 1881 to 1986, then turned it over to the diocese.
Rosary Refractions
The Cathedral at Chartres obviously inspired the architect from Boston who later joined the project. The wondrous stained-glass windows are definitely inspired by the ones at that world-famous place of pilgrimage. They were added a decade after the church's dedication and called the Rosary Windows because each intricately designed window is filled with multiple scenes that, together, form the mysteries of the rosary.
These brilliant glass works prompt deep reflection on the Gospel. Take one trio in ascending order. The bottom scene depicts Mary's Dormition. Above it, angels accompany Mary for her Assumption. At the top, Jesus presides at her Coronation.
Windows also honor Our Lady in several of her titles, such as Our Lady of the Rosary and Queen of Angels. The huge rose window above the choir loft again imitates Chartes. Depending on the sun, it's a jewel gleaming in dark reds, pinks, light yellows and light blues. The clerestory windows high along the nave add their own colorful pastels colors. And the Holy Family window finds an honored place high in the sanctuary.
The lumber and limestone came from Maine, the marble floors from Vermont. One of the few materials imported from outside New England is the Italian marble for the altars and for the new baptismal font carved of one piece and located at the main entry. The white marble images of Mary and Joseph in their 25-foot shrines to the sides of the sanctuary are of Italian origin. Likewise the wood statues that include St. Dominic and St. Catherine, the ever-present reminders of the faithful Dominicans.
The new altar came from the same company in Italy that made the high altar. This original altar remains at the back of the sanctuary. Its tabernacle reserves the Blessed Sacrament.
The new altar has a mosaic of a pelican medallion and stands on spiral columns with Corinthian capitols. Since the pastor happened to be in the church while we were there, he was able to fill in a few details. For example, this altar consists of part new marble and part original marble from the old side altars — new botaccino marble combined with lovely pink rosa. The old altar includes onyx, too.
The intricately carved wooden choir stalls at the back of the sanctuary were originally reserved for the friars only and called the Monastic Choir.
The Dominican crest that's carved below the apse's stained-glass window remains a tribute to the decades the order ministered here. The accompanying motto reads “Laudere, Benedicere, Praedicare” — to praise, bless, preach.
On the day we were visiting, workers were fine-tuning the new console for the magnificent Casavant organ. The main organ has four keyboards; its 5,200 pipes make it the largest organ in Maine.
It's a fitting instrument for a historic parish that has applied to be named a minor basilica — possibly another first in the Pine Tree State.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: SS. Peter and Paul Church, Lewiston, Maine ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Spirit & Life DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Dear Lance and Adrienne,
There are many differences between your generation and mine. One of the most obvious is our comfort with the cell phone.
For me, the cell phone is a useful tool. My boss can find me when I'm away from the office and I can find mom when I can't remember which of you I'm supposed to pick up after school. There are all sorts of features on my phone that I neither use nor understand.
You, at ages 11 and 17, are members of the cell-phone generation. You are comfortable with the gadgets and understand all the special features, including those video games I can't figure out.
But out of respect for our Catholic faith (and with regard for the welfare of the human race in general), our two generations (and any other generations lurking out there) should agree on a few points of behavior. In doing so, we'll be acting in accord with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which offers the following with regard to how we use the channels of social communication: “It is necessary that all members of society meet the demands of justice and charity in this domain.”
We'll also be following the advice of noted theologian Germain Grisez, who writes, “Since all communication should further community, a person should be appropriately receptive to efforts to communicate but should resist abuses of communications.”
Perhaps you think I'm stretching a bit to connect the proper use of cell phones to the Catechism and theology, but I think the connection is clear. Let's consider some basic rules that would, as they say in corporate America, align our theory and practice.
Rule One: Don't drive a car while holding a cell phone to your ear. It simply isn't safe and could cause you to violate the commandment not to kill. Contrary to what you may have observed people doing (or attempting to do), it isn't wise to drive a car, talk on the phone, apply makeup (or shave) and drink a cup of coffee — simultaneously.
Rule Two: It you are talking with someone face-to-face, don't suddenly ignore them when your cell phone rings and leave them standing there in mid-conversation. This communicates to the “live” party that they aren't as important as a ringing phone, which means, as your generation would say, you are “dissing” the person.
Rule Three: If you are going to carry a cell phone, don't bother to give anyone the number unless you are going to either answer the phone or promptly reply to your voice mail. Promptly is defined as a couple hours, as opposed to a couple days, weeks, years or centuries.
Rule Four: Listen to your voice mail and erase old messages so your in-basket doesn't fill and refuse to accept new messages.
Rule Five: Turn off your cell phone in such obvious places as church, theaters, funeral homes, hospitals, sit-down restaurants and schools. The consecration during Mass should be accompanied by an altar boy ringing bells, not a cell phone playing theme music from a television sit-com. Rule Six: When you must make a call in public, step out of the crowd and keep your voice low.
A cell phone is a wonderful tool that can help us stay in touch with people. But we shouldn't be rude — or unchristian — to others in the process. A cell phone is a lousy substitute for a living, breathing human.
Jim Fair cell-phones his column in from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: Christian Cell Phoning ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Fair ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Virtual Tennis, Anyone? DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Computers have reinvigorated the market for games. Actually, this is not a new development. I remember taking breaks while studying in school to play Minesweeper or Solitaire. These were included with all Windows packages.
Much later, a family visited our monastery and the children introduced me to the included pinball game as well. I was impressed by the realism of the game, having formerly played pinball machines in arcades. Everything was there — flippers, flashing lights, rings and buzzes. You even had an option for “nudging the table” like in the real game to get the ball to go your way.
If you have children, I'm sure you have many additional games loaded onto your computer. A couple of years ago, my brother-in-law told me he was having problems with his computer. It didn't take me long to discover the problem. One of his three sons had loaded up his hard drive with all the computer games it could handle.
Now it's not true that all computer games are purely recreational. Justin has a flight simulator that allows him to virtually pilot an airplane. He can specify all kinds of details — the type of plane to fly, airport designations for takeoff and landings, and so on. He sees and controls most of what a pilot would see in the cockpit of a real plane. And as Justin is “flying,” the scene out the cockpit window changes to reflect the airplane movements. He even hears the control tower talking to him.
To make things even more realistic, Justin acquired a force-feedback joystick so that he feels the vibration and resistance of plane movements through it. Justin may never become a real pilot, but he certainly is learning much about piloting.
Hollywood often spins off videogames from its most popular movies. In The Matrix Reloaded, Jada Pinkett Smith plays the supporting role of Niobe, a hovercraft pilot. In the video game spinoff Enter the Matrix, she is the star. Both game and movie were released at the same time in May, a first for Hollywood. Previously, a video game would require actors to reread a few lines or submit to a scan. Smith had to memorize game scripts several times longer than their film equivalents and endure six months of extra motion capture, face mapping and full-body scanning. She stars in an additional hour of the movie, which will appear not in a theater but as cutscene interludes in the game.
It turns out the creative force behind the Matrix juggernaut, the Wachowski brothers, are avid gamers. They're also shrewd merchandisers who know an ideal opportunity to cross-sell products when they see one.
The Internet has further expanded the use of computer games. Not only can you play games on the Internet, but you can also play against someone sitting at his or her computer anywhere in world. I read an article some time back about an Asian country, I believe Korea, where fans followed computer- game opponents like we follow our sports teams. And it seems this is starting to catch on in America as well.
In March, Samsung Corp. announced a series of 300-plus qualifying events around the United States to kick off the American portion of the Samsung World Cyber Games, the world's largest e-sports competition. Serious gamers can compete in qualifying competitions held at 20 CompUSA locations across the country from May through July. In the press release to promote the event, Samsung talks about bringing its World Cyber Games “closer to all of America's 140 million gamers.”
The national final will be held in August. Winners advance to the World Cyber Games 2003 Grand Final in Seoul, South Korea, set for Oct. 12-18. Don't think this is all fun and games — U.S. finalists will win a computer graphics card and monitor valued at $2,000 along with a free trip to Seoul. And the grand finalist will win a $400,000 prize pool, according to the competition Web site at wcgusa.org.
On our site, I have Brother John's Online Checker Match, Mouse Click Fun, Mystery Number, Paint a Picture and Five-in-a-Row games. My checker match draws people of all ages. I have rarely lost, even though I'm not really playing — it's totally automated. These games not only provide fun, but they also may be the avenue of leading people to other aspects of our site that are faith-building.
Some games I have modified for that very purpose are Patron Saints' Quiz, Sliding Tiler Thingy, Jigsaw Puzzle, Unhangman, Catechism Quiz, Random Gospel Passage and Crossword Puzzle.
I know some of my readers are just dying to check these games out — at least for curiosity's sake. Just go to our main page at monksofadoration. org and click on the Games/Stuff/Donations link. Don't worry — donations are not required to play (though they certainly are appreciated!).
Computer games, like the human need to play itself, are here to stay.
And the Internet has brought gaming to a new level. Perhaps playing is part of our being children of God. Will there be Scrabble in heaven? I'll let the theologians ponder that one. Right now I have a game to get back to.
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration, writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: Computer games come of age ----- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:At the Web site of Divinity Religious Publications (catholic games.com), you'll find two free online games — Bible Challenge and Catechism Challenge. You can buy and download the full version of the games here, too.
Catholic Doors Ministry has a number of interesting Catholic games at catholicdoors.com/games; favorites include Ask Jesus!, Help Baby Jesus, Hidden Word, Tic-Tac-Toe and Wipe the Glass.
The Society of the Divine Word has made available some simple games. Go to svd-ca.com/games.
The Memorare Web site has a section called Catechism Funhouse. It's at memorare.com/games/index.html. I like this quote from St. John Bosco found at the top of this page: “Enjoy yourself as much as you like — if only you keep from sin.”
The Catholic Community Forum has a couple of games: Who wants to be a Saint? and Bingo. They're at www.catholic-forum.com/games.html
The Daughters of St. Paul have My Friend Fun & Games page at myfriendmagazine.com/games/index.html. Here you will find both interactive and printable games with three levels of difficulty.
— Brother John Raymond
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Based on screenwriter-star Nia Vardalos's one-woman stage show, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the sleeper hit of 2002, with its broad, fond satire of old-world family values in a newworld setting. The premise is pure sitcom — culture clash when uglyduckling daughter of ultra-Greek family has surprise romance with hunky non-Greek — and the supporting characters, in keeping with their stage-show origins, are painted in broad, cartoony strokes: overbearing but indulgent paterfamilias, tacitly manipulative matriarch, obnoxious brothers/cousins, etc.
Yet what it lacks in depth, it makes up in breadth of appeal, wholesome humor and affectionate celebration of tight-knit extended families, with all the tradition and history and turbulence that goes with them. Endearing eccentricities, such as Toula's father's improvisational Greek etymologies and his reliance on Windex for a range of external-use medicinal purposes, help humanize the characters.
From a moral-spiritual perspective, the film has two unfortunate flaws: It takes an indulgent view of the couple's premarital intimacy, and it depicts the groom-to-be's Greek Orthodox baptism in purely cultural terms.
Romero (1989)
The first feature from the Paulist Fathers' moviemaking division, Romero tells the true story of Latin America's best-known and most revered modern martyr, Archbishop Oscar Romero, a man whom Pope John Paul II described as a “zealous pastor who gave his life for his flock,” and at whose tomb in San Salvador the Holy Father has prayed.
Like Richard Burton in Becket, Raul Julia's Archbishop Romero is a man morally transformed by office and responsibility. Yet where Becket becomes a new man virtually overnight, Archbishop Romero goes through a more organic, gradual process, responding to specific crises.
Like The Mission, Romero raises the issue of “liberation theology” but rejects what is unacceptable in some forms of that school of thought: class warfare, guerrilla tactics, priests taking up arms.
Archbishop Romero was killed in the very act of offering the sacrifice of the Mass, almost in the act of elevating the Eucharistic elements. Simply by portraying this event essentially as it happened, Romero presents the archbishop's life and death as a sacrifice in union with the sacrifice of Christ.
Destry Rides Again (1939)
Destry Rides Again is a classic satirical actioncomedy Western, pitting mild-mannered lawman Jimmy Stewart, a reverse type of the two-fisted straightshooting John Wayne, against a lawless town full of swindlers and murderers where sheriffs wind up dead.
The son of a feared sharpshooter, Destry quickly becomes the laughingstock of Bottleneck when he steps off the stagecoach holding a parasol and canary cage for a female passenger.
But he bides his time and chooses his battles, and it's not long before he begins to make an impression on the wild and wooly town.
This twist was already a cliché when the movie was made, but Destry has its own tricks to keep things interesting.
Destry believes firmly in going by the letter of the law, and at times this puts him at odds with the old sheriff (Charles Winninger) who just wants to get the bad guys.
Marlene Dietrich stars as that other cliché, the bad girl with a heart of gold.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Thomas Aquinas Mourns Loss of Student Who 'Devoured Life' DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:SANTA PAULA, Calif. — Last Christmas season, Jared Kuebler returned to his residence hall at Thomas Aquinas College to find a CD left by his “Kris Kringle” — a “secret Santa”-type of tradition at the small, Catholic liberal arts school.
A computerized voice on the CD led Kuebler on a weeklong, elaborately planned scavenger hunt. He scoured books at the library, read a poem in front of the entire lunch crowd and, following the voice's instructions, wrote notes to teachers — called “tutors” at the college — expressing his thanks and appreciation for their hard work.
Before the school dance where Kris Kringles were unmasked, Kuebler composed a song relating how his secret friend had taught him about love and friendship.
His Kris Kringle, Kuebler learned that night, was John Marie St. Francis, a lively senior known for his complex fusion of personalities: sophisticated prankster, talented artist, skilled athlete, “Renaissance man” and devout Catholic with a passion for the Latin Mass.
“It was amazing; he spent so much time planning all of that,” Kuebler later said. “But that was John Marie — he loved to make people do exciting things they normally wouldn't do.”
Around 10 p.m. June 8, St. Francis died when his 1970 BMW plunged over an 800-foot cliff at an especially dangerous curve on the Big Sur Coast in California. Less than a month before, he was among 77 graduates to receive a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Thomas Aquinas College and planned to teach English in Poland for a year. He was 22.
The same young man who was known for rearranging ceiling tiles in the kitchen to spell a message for the cook also leaves behind a range of eclectic interests and memories of deep conversations.
Falconry, architecture, piano, art, languages and fencing — he was a two-time gold medalist at the Junior Olympics — all held his attention to varying degrees. St. Francis also taught fencing to tutors' children and planned to pursue it again at tournaments in Europe while teaching.
“He just loved life,” Valana Stevens said of her son five days after his death. “He had so many interests and he wanted to do everything. He loved nature and books and fencing and everything. He just devoured life as if he thought he was running out of time.”
The same could be said about his faith. Friends at the small, Catholic liberal arts college noticed changes in the past year; St. Francis often served at daily Mass and talked with some about a possible calling to the religious life. On a questionnaire given to all seniors before graduation, he wrote that he wanted to spend a year in a Benedictine or Norbertine monastery or a seminary to discern his vocation.
“He had a lot of questions about God and Mass, but it's like he really started to believe there was an answer,” Kuebler remembered. “He still wondered about things, but it was a satisfied wonder.”
St. Francis' funeral Mass was celebrated June 16 at San Buenaventura Mission in Ventura, where he often attended Mass. Mourners gathered at the college the evening before to pray the rosary and hold an all-night vigil.
After a childhood described by friends and family as “not easy,” St. Francis struggled with questions of religion for a long time.
“He was really angry for a lot of years,” said his mother, who named her first-born son after John, the beloved, and Mary, the Mother of God. “But he was letting go of a lot of this. I just noticed a difference when I would see him again in the summer and holidays, and I know that the college is responsible.”
The college's role in St. Francis' life and death started when his uncle attended Thomas Aquinas more than 30 years ago. From that point, his mother said, there was never any question where her children would go. His sister, Fiona Stevens, 17, will attend Thomas Aquinas this fall. His brother, Peter, is 14. The family has even asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the school.
Tutors learned of his death before anyone else. Unable to find information about relatives, the coroner's office turned to materials found among pictures of friends in St. Francis' vehicle.
The call came June 8 just as the college's 8:30 a.m. Mass was beginning, and that Mass was offered for John Marie. By 11:30 a.m., news had spread and the small chapel was overflowing as a second Mass was said for St. Francis.
Comfort arrived as details emerged. The morning of the accident, people soon learned, St. Francis had attended Mass and reconciliation at St. Mary Margaret parish in Oakland. He had been visiting his uncle in Pleasant Hill before leaving for San Diego, where he planned to stay with friends for a month until traveling through Europe with his sister, then stay in Poland to teach.
“It's a great loss,” his uncle Francis Poon said in a press release from the school, “but you have to believe in Divine Providence. He's in God's hands and he's happy now in a way that no one could be happy or loved in life.”
Dana Wind writes from Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The 'Muslim Bible' in Light of Ours DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:THE BIBLE AND THE QUR'AN
by Jacques Jomier, OP
Ignatius Press, 2002
130 pages, $10.95
To order: (800) 651-1531 or www.ignatius.com
Since Sept. 11 there has been an understandable increase in the number of books about Islam. Although Islam and Christianity are the two largest religions in the world and their relationship is now nearly 1,400 years old, the number of popular titles comparing the two is quite small. Although written more than 40 years ago, the reprinted The Bible and the Qur'an fills in part of the gap, providing both an overview of the Qur'an and a unique look at the Bible.
Father Jacques Jomier, a Dominican priest who lived for many years in Cairo, approaches the topic from a wealth of personal and scholarly experience. He writes with a commendable objectivity, even sympathy, about the Qur'an, never losing sight of the serious differences between the sacred books at hand. The book does not attempt a detailed analysis of the Qur'an, noting instead key texts and the issues they necessarily raise.
The opening chapters focus on the origin of the Qur'an and the stages of development the book went through. Shorter than the New Testament, the Qur'an was written in Arabic in the early 600s and composed in about 20 years. One telling chapter focuses on the “universal mission” of Mohammad. According to the Islamic faith, he was the last of the prophets, sent to mankind on a mission that will last until the end of the world.
There have been several different legislations of the one true religion, as Jomier explains: “Muslim tradition also regards Judaism and Christianity as true religions that were forms of the one true religion, valid for a special period of history. For Muslim tradition the missions of Moses and Jesus were limited in time and space. God sent Moses and Jesus only to the children of Israel, but Mohammad came with a mission to the whole world.”
As this key belief is at the heart of the Qur'an, Jomier spends much of the book examining it. He presents the references to the Bible found in the Qur'an — indicating the Qur'an's apparent respect for the Bible — noting the tensions that exist between the two, as well as the fact that most Muslims have never read the Bible. The serious differences between Islam and Chrisianity are all discussed: the Islamic rejection of supernatural grace, the Incarnation, the Trinity and the redemptive death of Christ on the cross.
Jomier describes the Qur'an as “a book of apologetics,” for it is very concerned with addressing the person of Jesus Christ. “On the one hand, the Qur'an speaks of Jesus with great respect; several statements suggest His holiness very clearly,” he writes. “But on the other hand, the Qur'an mentions Jesus in an apologetic context to show that He is just a mere creature.”
Jesus (as well as Mary) is described as being a creature of exceptional purity — but only a creature: “[The Qur'an] rejects clearly the mystery of the Incarnation.” The idea that God could have become incarnate is incompatible with the Islamic understanding of God's “unity and transcendence.” Although the Qur'an does refer to Jesus as “the Word,” the “Christology of Islam … is rather like that of the Judeo- Christians who looked upon Jesus as a prophet in the chain of the prophets sent by God to restore the natural religion with its belief in God, Creator and Providence …”
Other topics covered include the Last Judgment, salvation, the saints and Muslim law. The appendix contains recent Catholic documents from Vatican II and Pope John Paul II about Islam, along with Archbishop Fulton Sheen's essay, “Mary and the Muslims.” Originally written in French, The Bible and the Qur'andoes not always read smoothly, and many chapters end quite abruptly. Still, this is a balanced, crucial — and timely — overview of the subject at hand.
Carl E. Olson, editor of Envoy magazine, writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Faith Without Reason Is Folly DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:THE TWO WINGS OF CATHOLIC THOUGHT: ESSAYS ON
edited by David Ruel Foster & Joseph W. Koterski, SJ
CUA Press, 2003
232 pages, $19.95
To order: (800) 537-5487 or cuapress.cua.edu
The transatlantic navigator who makes an error of a fraction of a degree may land many miles away from his intended destination. Faulty philosophy can have similarly serious consequences.
You don't need to look far to find evidence of the latter. Relativism, skepticism and radical individualism have helped “shape” a world in which parents go to court to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from their children's schools and powerful lawyers quibble about what the meaning of “is” is.
Once, philosophers prided themselves on their rationality and looked disparagingly at religion as superstition. However, as one of the co-editors of this volume, Jesuit Father Joseph Koterski, notes: “Reason has fallen on hard times in this era of postmodernism and so now … the pope, the very symbol of faith, is busy defending reason against unreason.”
Fides et ratio, Pope John Paul II's 1998 encyclical on the interdependence between faith and reason, elicited a flurry of commentary in the secular press and continues to provoke discussion, even among non-Catholic readers. Professor David Foster and Father Koterski, who collected these essays on the encyclical, are convinced that the Holy Father struck a chord in the zeitgeist. “The presumption inherited from the Enlightenment, that faith and reason follow divergent paths, runs very deep in modern culture,” they write.
In response to the over-specialization and fragmentation of Western intellectual life, the Holy Father is calling for faith and philosophy to “recover their profound unity, which allows them to stand in harmony with their nature without compromising their mutual autonomy” (No. 48). In doing so he challenges that bit of received wisdom that allows those with a secular mind-set to hold religion and its claims at arm's length.
The contributors to this volume include two bishops, three Jesuits, a nun and three laymen. All are educators who (with the exception of Cardinal Avery Dulles, a theologian) have taught philosophy in Catholic seminaries or universities.
The editors assigned the topics to correspond with the main subdivisions of the encyclical. The lead essay is a survey of the 20th-century debates as to whether there is or can be such a thing as a specifically Christian philosophy. The next two contributions elaborate on areas in which the Christian faith has enabled philosophy to make great advances: metaphysics and the nature of the human person.
The essays in Part Two examine the implications of the encyclical for the New Evangelization and for Catholic universities. In the latter, co-editor Foster cogently argues that Fides et ratio provides a rationale for academic freedom (properly understood), and thus complements the Pope's teaching Ex corde Ecclesiaeon Catholic higher education.
Each chapter in Part Three analyzes and amplifies the encyclical's treatment of a historical period of philosophy (biblical wisdom literature, the Middle Ages, the modern era). The volume also includes a summary outline of Fides et ratio, several helpful indices and an excelent bibliography.
John Paul did not write his encyclical on faith and reason for specialists. It is not so much an abstract treatise as a study of Christian anthropology — a timely guide to a truly holistic humanism. Like the Catechism, though, it is the product of great learning and can make for difficult reading.
The essays in this volume provide a straightforward introduction to and commentary on Fides et ratio. All the contributions are textbook examples of clear thinking and good writing.
This volume will help make the wealth of insight in the Holy Father's landmark encyclical accessible to a wider range of university and seminary students, faculty and administrators.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Students' Murder Charge
Prosecutors did not speculate on the students' motives for allegedly setting the blaze in a student lounge. Another Seton Hall student, Santino Cataldo, and several of Lepore's relatives were charged with obstructing the investigation.
The Times article was accompanied by a photo of the crucifixtopped free-standing bell tower that is on the campus as a memorial to those who were killed.
Extra Seminary
THE ARCHDIOCESE OF OMAHA, May 30 — The Nebraska archdiocese's Institute for Priestly Formation is enjoying a record enrollment of seminarians for its 10-week summer program that began May 26 with 105 students coming from 51 American dioceses.
The program is designed to assist in the spiritual formation of future diocesan priests, especially through the cultivation of a serious life of prayer.
The institute's inaugural session in the summer of 1995 drew only six seminarians.
More Catholic?
Fordham is credited for retaining as much of 96-year-old Marymount's identity as possible, including its name, its status as an independent undergraduate college and its single-sex mission, making Fordham the only Jesuit institution to have a women's college.
The merger might also strengthen Marymount's weakened Catholic identity. At “Fordham's insistence,” the Chronicle reported, “birth control and other contraceptives are no longer distributed at Marymount.”
Orthodox Dean
The school includes St. Mary Seminary, making Magie one of a half-dozen women in the United States to head an institution that educates priests. Magie's doctorate in theology is from the Alphonsian Academy in Rome.
“This is exactly the position of authority in the Church that women can fill,” said Mary Catherine Sommers, the director of St. Thomas's Center for Thomistic Studies, in a statement released by the university. Holy Ghost Father Tom Byrne, who taught with Magie at St. Thomas, said the new dean “will be orthodox as well as practical.”
Winning Choice
ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY, June 9 — The New York university has received a $30,000 grant from the NCAA to launch “Winning Choices,” a series of student-led initiatives to reduce alcohol abuse.
With an athletic theme, the program builds on the fact that some 85% of students participate in organized sports. The university also acknowledged that its students have also shown above-average drinking patterns.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Sibling Quibbling
Q My twin sons are 10 years old. They bicker and battle about one third of the time they're together. Is this normal? What can I do about it?
A Actually, one third sounds a little low. My guess is that typical brothers and sisters wrangle about half the time they're within eyesight of one another.
The experts call your situation “sibling rivalry.” For me, that's too psychological.
Sibling quibbling seems the better term. It more clearly puts across what is really going on. Two or more incompletely socialized, partially mature human beings are living together and learning ever so slowly how to get along. Of course they're going to clash.
Your sons don't seem to bring out the absolute worst in each other. After all, they don't bicker about two thirds of the time. Of course, I'm assuming this is conscious time you're talking about. I doubt they bother each other when they're asleep.
At times, the baiting, teasing, arguing and free-for-all-ing that erupts when siblings get too close to each other (“too close” is defined as “on the same continent”) can get so nasty that you wonder if either feels an ounce of affection for the other. Actually, brothers and sisters can battle heavy and long and still be normal. They may sound scary, but the sibling bond can bend nearly in half before it breaks. If it's true that you always hurt the ones you love, then the mutual love of some siblings knows no bounds.
What breeds all this friction? The reasons are almost as varied as kids themselves. Sharing parents, rooms or possessions. Competing for perks, privileges and stuff. Breathing the same air. Searching for tattle-worthy crimes — serious offenses like talk-burping, looking at each other or squirting a beverage through the teeth. Perhaps most simply, some kids just consider their brother or sister a tag-along who can't wait to run to mom and tell in order to earn some brownie points.
If you wonder how much bickering is too much, ask yourself these questions: How often do the kids really fight? Are their quiet times slipping by you unnoticed? It's easy to hear only the noise and not the silence. Are they playing even as they fight? In other words, they can't live with each other but they can't live without each other. How long has the squabbling been their style? It's not unusual for siblings who were once friends to pass through stretches of weeks, months or even a few years when they don't seem to have much in common. In good families, maturity works magic. Most kids eventually realize that brother Benedict isn't a total turncoat after all.
As normal as sibling quibbling is, that doesn't mean it's right or good. Kids need to learn that brothers and sisters are as worthy of respect as anyone else. Family ties don't excuse nasty treatment. So you'll need a few ideas to teach respect — or, at least, to limit disrespect. Stay tuned to this space next month for some of those ideas.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author. He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Fact of Life DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:New research shows that women pregnant with boys consume 10% more calories a day than those carrying girls — yet they don't gain more weight. The finding helps explain why boys average 3.5 ounces heavier than girls at birth. It also suggests that signals between the fetus and the mother drive the appetite during pregnancy.
Source: British Medical Journal, June 7
(Register Illustration by Tim Rauch)
----- EXCERPT: Beefing up Boys ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Three Catholic Patriots DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:This Independence Day finds many Americans entertaining mixed feelings about the state of their nation.
Yes, the United States is, on whole, the wealthiest and most comfortable society the world has ever seen. But we're also a nation that permits the killing of millions of unborn children. Yes, our health care system is technologically sophisticated — so much so that our mean life expectancy is now pushing 80 years for both sexes. But many of our fellow citizens can't afford, or lack access to, primary-care services.
How do Americans balance their love for their country and their distress at her problems? Just like we always have: We follow the example of patriots who love their country and work for her welfare.
Here are three modern-day examples.
Esther Schaeffer
Esther Schaeffer, executive director of the Washington-based Character Education Partnership, defines patriotic duty as “more than just saluting the flag or reciting a pledge of allegiance. Good citizenship is assuming responsibility for and caring about others. This is 100% compatible with Christian teaching.” Her group's mission is to develop moral character and civic virtue in America's youth “as one means of creating a more compassionate and responsible society,” according to its Web site, www.character.org.
For parents who wish to instill the virtues of patriotism and good citizenship in their children, Schaeffer advises that there's no better teacher than a good example. “People say that young people today are cynical, and that's why they're not politically involved,” she says. “But I think that if kids don't value good citizenship, it's because their parents don't.”
Parents can teach their children the values of civic duty and social responsibility if they demonstrate a willingness to participate in community life themselves, adds Schaeffer. She encourages parents to inform themselves about political issues and then discuss them with their children in language they can understand. “Don't shy away from ethical and moral issues at the dinner table,” she says. “If you ask people why they are civically engaged, most of them will tell you that they grew up in a home where their parents actively discussed and took part in political issues.”
This Fourth of July, as the fireworks fly and the parades roll by, Catholics are called to celebrate all that's good about America — while at the same time considering what they can do to make their nation more pleasing to God. The problems are many, but the possibilities for patriotism are endless.
Colonel Charles Gallina
Retired Marine Corps Col. Charles Gallina of Washington, D.C., is another citizen who balances, with inspiring effectiveness, his love of country and his love of God. “I think the two go hand in hand,” he says.“Serving God and country go together. The principles on which this nation was founded are the principles of the Christian faith.”
Gallina believes that his 30 years of service in the Marines and his Catholic upbringing both have led him to “maintain a higher ethical standard” in his personal life and his political convictions. As a member of the Knights of Columbus, Gallina is active in pro-life ministry as well as charity work for the mentally disabled.
His Catholic principles have occasionally compelled him to make some difficult choices, however. For example, he once decided to revoke an honorary charity chairmanship from a well-liked communiby ty leader after learning of the man's intentions to run for state office on a pro-abortion platform. The decision was neither politically popular nor socially celebrated, but, according to Gallina, “It was the right thing to do.”
Though he is proud of his history as a U.S. Marine, Gallina does not consider military service the most generous way for Catholics to serve their country. He believes that Catholic Americans, if they love their country, will take time to inform their consciences and carefully consider how they vote in political elections.
“The more Catholics are informed, the better citizens they become,” he says. “A Catholic voter has to apply the principles of the Catholic Church. That's what a good citizen does.”
He believes that, because they have access to the teachings of the Church, American Catholics have all the tools necessary to make educated political decisions. As an example of informed decision making, Gallina refers to the recent military operations in Iraq.
When he learned that President Bush was sending troops to Baghdad, Gallina immediately consulted his copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He researched the just-war theory and discerned that he could support the president's actions. He has respect, however, for informed Catholics who opposed the war and does not question their patriotism.
“I know of many Catholics who researched their decisions and who disagree with me,” he says. “They want what is best for their country and they are patriotic in their desire for peace.”
Father Frank Pavone
Rather than seeing our nation's imperfections as an excuse to abandon our duty to our country, Father Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, sees them as a call to become more politically involved. “Love of one's country bears some similarities to love of one's family,” he says. “Family members may have some grave faults and sins. Love may lead us to admonish them but does not lead us to abandon them.”
Just as we owe loyalty and devotion to our parents for the benefits we have received from them, adds Father Pavone, so too do we owe loyalty to our homeland for the benefits it affords us.
“Patriotism,” he says, “is that virtue by which, as we journey to our heavenly homeland, we give thanks for the homeland through which we travel now.”
Father Pavone explains, however, that loyalty to our country must be given proper priority: behind loyalty to God and the Catholic Church. This is particularly resonant with regard to the issues of abortion and euthanasia, where the government fails to protect innocent human life.
“All earthly authority derives from God,” Father Pavone points out. “If there is ever an instance — and there are many — where the laws of one's nation contradict the laws of God, we must obey God rather than man. This should make us active citizens who use the political process to the full order to correct the errors that exist.”
Father Pavone suggests that an important part of becoming an active, informed citizen is learning our nation's history. Once we understand the foundation of our nation's government, we are prepared to involve ourselves more completely in its political processes.
He says he is convinced that the most important part of our patriotic duty is registering to vote, making informed decisions and actively participating in the political process. “Do so,” he urges, “as one who places loyalty to Jesus Christ above loyalty to any political party.”
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: For Post-Abortive Parents, Songs to Heal By DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Michael John Poirier had long been singing about forgiveness when, in 1990, his 79-year-old grandmother was murdered. Then, he recalls, he felt he had to put his words into action: Forgive the killer or have his soul tormented by anger and vengeance.
Through a series of fateful events, Poirier's music is now helping thousands of post-abortive women and men address a similar type of torment as they work through the process of grief and forgiveness in their lives.
One of those events was meeting his wife, Mary, in 1993. She told him in their first conversation that she had had three abortions and felt called to talk about song “Forgiven.” Ironically, that song was written years earlier when “out of the blue,” Michael got the idea of a child from her, and it brought him to tears. Mary had this very experience in 1988 when a priest in Medjugorje led her through the sacrament of reconciliation and had her name each of her aborted babies. Afterward, Mary recounts, she looked up at the clouds and heard three small voices in her heart say, “We love you Mommy!”
“I thought, how could they love me after what I did?” she says. “But all I could feel was love and joy. It was truly my little ones embracing me.”
Michael and Mary Poirier have two children of their own today and together are spreading the mercy of God through their full-time ministry, Holy Family apostolate in Edmond, Okla. Combining Michael's music with Mary's testimony, the apostolate offers concerts, recorded music, retreats and conferences.
The Poiriers believe God's mercy, especially the Divine Mercy message conveyed by St. Faustina, is flowing into the pro-life movement — and is crucial to the movement's success.
“It feels like the pro-life movement was setting down roots for years and now it's beginning to blossom, and mercy is the fragrance of that blossom,” says Michael. “It's going to get the attention of the world because nothing can stop mercy.”
Out of nine CDs he's recorded, the songwriter thinks his latest, Healing After the Choice, could be his most important. Its 17 songs follow an abortive woman's journey to forgiveness and healing. The CD includes a number titled “Kathryn, John and Mary,” a song Michael wrote to honor Mary's aborted children.
The CD jacket includes Mary's testimony. Clearly, her story has inspired her husband's work.
“I think back to my early years in the pro-life movement to where I am now, and I know I actively withheld mercy,” says Michael. “We all have to examine the spirit with which we work for unborn life. Am I defending unborn life and at the same time rejecting the woman and man who have lost children to abortion? Will I be guilty at the judgment that I aborted [their attempts] to come back to God?”
“A More Merciful Time”
Michael says post-abortive outreach is necessary if the pro-life movement is to succeed. With 42 million children aborted, there are at least 60 to 80 million grieving parents in America, he says, and it is their stories that will change hearts — and laws.
Mary says that, after giving her testimony, many women can't even look her in the eyes, but she knows it's an opportunity for them to examine their hearts. “There are so many people walking around thinking they can never be forgiven,” she says. “There's a lot of anger and emotion involved, but the Holy Spirit is leading the [pro-life] movement into a more merciful time.”
The Poiriers have set up a Web site for post-abortive outreach. Healingafterthechoice.com offers resources for post-abortive ministries and provides three ways for parents to memorialize their child or children. Michael's music can also be purchased through the site.
The main goal for the Healing CD and Web project, says Rebecca Even, is to provide a musical journey to the truth of God's mercy, love and forgiveness — and to provide a place where eyewitnesses to abortion can share their stories and help change hearts and minds. Even, former director of communications for the U.S. attorney's office in Phoenix, Ariz., assists the Poiriers with marketing and communications.
In deciding on the concept for the site, Even says she kept coming back to the story of Genesis and man's choice. “A sin is a sin — God hates it all,” she says. “The word “choice” in our culture goes right to abortion, but choice is anything that separates us from God. We all need healing from the choices we've made.”
The Web site and the CD feature an artist's rendition of the Garden of Eden showing two directions that women with unplanned pregnancies can go — before the choice and after the choice.
Monika Rodman, director of After the Choice, a post-abortion outreach program of the Respect Life Office in the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., collaborated with Even on the CD project. After meeting her at a Holy Hour retreat given by the Poiriers in the diocese, Rodman was surprised to learn that Michael's music was not widely known. She had been using the music for years in her post-abortion programs and found it to be a very powerful tool in ministering to the women. She and Even selected the songs for the CD based on Rodman's experiences with post-abortive women.
“God uses many different tools to bring a person to a point where they can recognize truth,” says Rodman. “I think [Michael's] music has a role in that. It has been a gateway for many participants in our program to be open to God's healing touch.”
At press time, the CD and Web site were to be launched at the Rachel's Vineyard national retreat and training conference in Oklahoma City on June 24. The CD distributor, World Library Publications, is offering copies of the CD to tax-exempt pro-life groups involved in post-abortion healing at a special wholesale price for resale, to help raise funds for their work.
Michael says Mary's greatest impact on him was her powerful conversion, which has inspired his own conversion. He hopes the CD will do the same for others.
“It's like God is telling me that all these years you've been so concerned about your ministry, how do you know that I haven't been preparing you all this time to support Mary and her ministry?” he says. “I would love to do whatever it takes to get her story out. It's not the kind of story that anybody in their right mind would want to tell, so it has to be God's mercy at work.”
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 06/29/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: June 29-July 5, 2003 ----- BODY:Cloneless in Carolina
SOUTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE
ONLINE, June 6 — Without opposition, the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act (H 3819) has passed the South Carolina House of Representatives and moved to the State Senate. Passage of the bill, which bans all cloning of human embryos, is believed to mark the first time pro-life legislation has ever made it through the chamber uncontested.
Grant Challenged
The state Department of Health and Human Services applied for the $100,000 grant in 2002 to establish a “Teen Clinic Pilot Project” with Lincoln Planned Parenthood and Hastings Family Planning. The clinics were to hold “Teen Nights,” during which youths would receive information about birth control, pregnancy tests, pap smears and tests for detecting sexually transmitted diseases.
In a written opinion, Assistant Attorney General Jason Hayes said the grants conflicted with a state law that says “no funds appropriated or distributed under this act shall be used for abortion, abortion counseling, referral for abortion [or] school-based health clinics. … Nebraska Health and Human Services System did err in awarding the grant … and the grant is void as a matter of law.”
Marrow Cells Boost Immunity
CANADA.COM, June 9 — Researchers have uncovered a type of stem cell in bone marrow that could strengthen immune systems weakened by cancer treatments or transplants, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine.
Instead of shooting stem cells into the bloodstream, which is the standard method, scientists at the University Health Network in Toronto injected a bone-marrow stem cell directly into the bone marrow of mice. These stem cells began to produce new white blood cells about two weeks sooner than blood-producing stem cells injected into the bloodstream.
People undergoing chemotherapy or recovering from transplants are at high risk following treatment because their medications severely impair their immune system. “If you can reduce the amount of time that a patient is without a functioning immune system, that is an important discovery,” said Dr. Michael McBurney, director of research for the Ottawa Regional Cancer Center.
Pediatric Heart Patients Live
ROME — The Vatican tried to avert a U.S. war with Iraq in late February as the United States prepared to introduce a resolution to the U.N. Security Council authorizing war with Iraq. In response, the Bush administration continued to try to talk theology to the Holy See.
Pope John Paul II met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Feb. 22, capping a week of meetings with world leaders and key diplomats such as Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Pope has been a key voice for months in the effort to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Holy Father's new representative at the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, addressed the Security Council on Feb. 19, saying that “to resort to force would not be just” in eliminating the threat of weapons of mass destruction attributed to Iraq.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, denied the Holy See is pacifist at all costs. The Vatican, he said, “admits legitimate defense on the part of states.”
But the Holy See is always peace making, as it “works intensely to prevent the outbreak of conflicts,” Cardinal Sodano said in an interview published Feb. 18 by the Italian newspaper Avvenire.
The cardinal noted the Pope dispatched veteran diplomat Cardinal Roger Etchegaray to meet with Saddam Hussein “to explore every possible way directed to overcoming the present tension.”
The French cardinal said the object of his meeting on Feb. 15 was to ask Saddam to do everything possible to avoid the war. Archbishop Migliore, speaking at the United Nations, affirmed the cardinal handed the Iraqi leader a papal message calling for faithful compliance with U.N. resolutions on disarmament.
For its part, the United States took the extraordinary step of sending an American theologian to Rome to justify military action against Iraq. The Vatican has warned that a preventive war to disarm Saddam would not be acceptable under just-war theory. But the theologian, Michael Novak, argued that Saddam is a threat and a war would be in self-defense.
Register correspondent Sabrina Arena Ferrisi spoke Feb. 20 with James Nicholson, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, about the effect Novak's talk has had on Vatican officials.
The Holy See is engaged in very intense diplomatic efforts for peace. What does it say about the role of the Church in the world?
It says a great deal about the respect and moral authority of the Pope. You see so many engagements: people coming to see the Pope and others being sent out by him. The Pope is a profound moral megaphone listened to by a billion Catholics and far beyond that. The position of the Vatican is relevant because of that.
What is the ideal resolution to the Iraq situation?
The position of my government is that there needs to be a regime change. Either all of these weapons of mass destruction are removed or the leader of the regime goes. Either of those two would fulfill the regime change. The hope of the government is that it can be done peacefully. The president has shown great patience given what he knows about the dangerous weapons of mass destruction and this man.
Do you think Novak's speech helped to change some attitudes within the Vatican and elsewhere regarding the U.S. position — that an attack on Iraq falls within just-war theory?
I don't know if it changed anyone's mind, but Novak presented strong new thinking on the subject.
The logic of his argument was that the war in Iraq never ended. So it is not an ad bellum argument. It is in bello because he [Saddam] violated the conditions for peace given in 1991. He was to disarm his country of weapons of mass destruction and allow for the monitoring of inspectors to see if he had maintained this. He is in violation of the resolutions of 1991. Those resolutions still apply as lawful resolutions of the United Nations.
Novak's argument is that there is already a basis for the United Nations to take action against Saddam. He [Novak] stimulated us with the argument that for the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is the responsibility of duly elected public authorities to decide whether or not to go to war.
I don't want to characterize Novak's visit as one to convince the Vatican. He was coming as a respected theologian/philosopher, one who is well known to the Vatican, to discuss this great dilemma, with its moral and civil implications. We had that in ways that exceeded expectations. He spoke with senior people in the Vatican, the Italian government and the media. Throughout his time here, Novak expressed a profound respect for the Pope and the Holy See.
If you take some statements of the Vatican on Jan. 13, which was the Pope's message to the diplomatic corps, the Pope said that war is not inevitable and that war should be used only as a last resort. That is totally consistent with the position of President Bush. There is no divide.
Some statements [from the Vatican] seem to imply that all war is immoral. Since [the Novak speech], that has been toned down. Now they say that war is a last resort. This implies that war, bad as it is, may be required. People in the Vatican are students of history. They know what appeasement costs. I don't know if Novak's speech affected this, but it seems to have come full circle in the last six weeks. Cardinal [Angelo] Sodano [Vatican secretary of state] gave an interview a few days ago where he said that the Holy See is not pacifist.
What was your role in organizing the Novak speech?
I have known Michael a long time. We are friends. I have heard him lecture many times. When I was the chair of the RNC [Republican National Committee], we worked on issues together. And by the way, I do not know if he votes Republican or not. So I asked him to come over and discuss the morality of war in the context of Iraq. We paid for his transportation under the State Department's program for public speakers.
Many high Vatican officials have made strong public statements recently for the cause of peace. Given these statements, it almost seems one must be a pacifist at all costs to be Catholic. What are your thoughts on this?
The Pope is a man of peace, and war is hell. I'm a veteran of a war and can attest to it. Peace-loving people and civil society take war very seriously. The United States, being a nation of peace with equal protection for each person, takes it very seriously. History shows that we don't just jump into war.
The Pope, being a man of peace, is a man who knows the Catholic catechism well. In that catechism is the fundamental position of the Catholic Church that spells out that there are times when war is justified. It points out that the ultimate decision is for public authorities. It is their responsibility to not go to war or go to war.
I don't think the American people, or Catholics around the world, understand that. This is why I asked Novak to speak about it. It is revela-tory to many Catholics that duly selected public authorities may have the moral obligation to go to war and protect peoples. I am pleased this was enforced by Cardinal Sodano.
Some say there is an element of anti-Americanism within the pacifism exhibited both inside and outside of the Vatican. Can you comment on this?
I am not seeing or experiencing any really anti-Americanism in the Vatican. I think there is a heightened sensitivity to try to make sure that they are not painted with that brush. The fact that they might want to engage a very important issue does not make them anti-American. Trying to explain the U.S. position does not make us anti-Holy See. There is lots of mutual respect.
The anti-Americanism [outside the Vatican] is troubling. Why is this? I think it is because the United States is the single superpower. There is jealousy and resentment and concrete disagreements over Iraq.
It is so unjustified. If you look objectively at the United States, we are the most generous and compassionate country in the world. We provide 70% of food to the World Food Program. We provide the vast majority of medicines pro bono to those who treat AIDS victims in Africa. We provide more foreign aid than any other country. And President Bush just decided to double foreign aid. President Bush has also decided on an additional $10 billion for AIDS sufferers. This is a tripling of assistance to AIDS sufferers from $5 billion to $15 billion.
We are the country that has come to the aid of so many nations in distress: in World War I, World War II, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo. And we never ask for anything in exchange. The only thing we have ever asked for was land to bury our dead.
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes from Rome. Zenit news service contributed to this report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Life and Death in the Lab: New Method Ends Lives DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:HOUSTON — A new method of making test-tube babies is increasing the role of a doctor as giver of life and death in the lab.
A pioneer method of in vitro fertilization is designed to reduce the risk of multiple births, but it also increases the likelihood that fewer human embryos fertilized in the lab will ever live within their mothers’ wombs.
Like the more common method of in vitro fertilization, the new method violates the dignity of these tiniest humans, Catholic bioethicists say.
With the technique known as “blastocyst transfer,” fertility doctors observe the growth of human embryos, artificially fertilized in a petri dish, for five days instead of the usual three, said Dr. Timothy Hickman, whose Houston in vitro fertilization clinic has performed the method since it opened in 2001.
Then, instead of transferring multiple embryos into the mother's womb, in hopes of having at least one successfully implant and grow to birth, the doctor transfers a single one judged most likely to implant. The remaining viable embryos are frozen, and those that fail to grow are discarded, Hickman said.
The method was reported recently in the Wall Street Journal as an effort of a small but growing number of fertility clinics across the country. First performed in the late 1990s, blastocyst transfer is reportedly as successful in producing a viable pregnancy as the three-day method — a range of 30% to 70%, depending upon the clinic and factors such as health and age of the mother. But the five-day method avoids the risk of health complications for mother and child with multiple births.
According to Catholic bioethicists, however, blastocyst transfer comes no closer than any other kind of in vitro fertilization to respecting the human dignity of the newly conceived lives, most of whom do not survive the laboratory procedure.
“All of this is against Catholic ethics, whether you do it in three days or five,” said Richard Doerflinger, associate director for pro-life policy development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Instead of putting several in the womb, you're putting fewer in the womb and more in the freezer. It's designed to provide babies instead of to destroy babies, but there are lots of embryo losses.”
Hickman and other reproductive endocrinologists maintain that many embryos are lost anyway throughout the natural reproductive life of a married couple.
“When we harvest eggs, we see that of those mature eggs probably 70% will fertilize. Of those that fertilize, only a certain amount go on to divide and progress, which we are sure is what is happening naturally,” he said. “If you take a fertile couple that's trying to conceive monthly, they only have a pregnancy one out of three months. We're seeing the same thing in the lab … fertilization may or may not occur and if it occurs, you may not have progression.”
Whether embryo loss in nature is equal to embryo loss in the lab cannot be known, Hickman acknowledged, calling it the “black box” of reproduction.
Dr. Robert Saxer, president of the Catholic Medical Association, said even if the losses were equivalent, it has “absolutely nothing to do with the debate” about the morality of in vitro fertilization.
“That's not our problem [if embryos are lost naturally]. We're not intentionally doing that; that's nature, that's God's province,” he said. “We are not responsible for that, but we are responsible if we're sitting behind a microscope and saying which ones live.”
‘Scoring System’
According to Hickman, the new in vitro fertilization process of evaluating the tiny human embryos uses a “blastocyst scoring system” to determine which ones are most likely to survive and implant.
“Two things we look at are the growth of the cells in the culture and the rate of their growth, and then we look at the degree of fragmentation that we see within the embryo,” he said. “If it's very clear, with even cells, it is a higher-quality embryo — that is better than irregularly shaped cells and fragmentation inside.”
“Those that are not transferred we continue to grow, and if they are viable embryos at Day 5 then we suggest that the couples freeze these embryos for later use,” an option, he said, which couples choose “almost completely.” The majority of the embryos stop growing and are discarded, he said.
An interesting phenomenon has been observed among the couples who ask the lab to freeze their embryos, said Marie Davidson, Ph.D., a staff psychologist for Fertility Centers of Illinois.
“If they feel their family is complete and all they can handle, they tend to defer” the decision of what to do with the frozen embryos, she said. “There's been some research suggesting that people have an odd way of just forgetting.”
It was worldwide news a few years ago when a fertility lab in the United Kingdom announced that parents needed to confirm they still wanted their frozen embryos or the tiny humans would be destroyed.
“There were a lot of people who couldn't be found,” Davidson said.
Another study indicated that many parents who thought they might want their frozen embryos destroyed after a period of time later changed their minds, Doerflinger said.
“A lab asked parents, ‘What do you want done with the embryos that are still frozen after three years?’ Quite a few said to discard them. Then, when three years came up, 59% said, ‘No, wait,’” he said. “When push comes to shove, parents know there's something there.”
Although the effort to provide healthy pregnancies for otherwise infertile couples is “well intentioned,” the new in vitro fertilization seems to be a form of eugenics, which the Church has always opposed, said Conventual Franciscan Father Germain Kopaczynski, director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.
“Basically the Church teaching is that IVF is an affront to human dignity because it puts the embryo at risk, for one thing, but it also is a demeaning of the holiness of the conjugal act,” he said. “It's interesting that we find that the Catholic Church is one of the great defenders of good old-fashioned sexual congress.
“Human beings should come about as a result of their parents’ love rather than by technical means. Human beings should be born in the warmth of love rather than being put in the deep freeze.”
The first Church document to specifically declare the immorality of in vitro fertilization was Donum Vitae (On Respect for Human Life), published in 1987 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Church does not rule out all technological assistance for couples desiring children but states the assistance cannot replace the conjugal act, Father Kopaczynski said.
The teaching of life-giving love is reinforced in Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).
“This particular Pope has been spending a lot of his pontificate urging people to be aware of the dangers of the technological imperative,” Father Kopaczynski said. “If you have the technology to do something, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's a good thing to do. We have a world of technical titans but moral midgets.”
Implantation?
Some Catholics remain unaware of the Church's opposition to in vitro fertilization, and there are Catholic couples among the parents of the more than 1 million “test-tube” babies worldwide.
“I'm not sure that the message has gone out in a clear voice from the pulpits,” Father Kopaczynski said. “When the trumpet is uncertain the troops don't know how to rally.”
One justification given for in vitro fertilization is the notion that human life does not actually begin at conception but at implantation — a very convenient argument for in vitro fertilization supporters, Catholic Medical Association's Robert Saxer said.
“The terms are beginning to change,” he said. “If you say that life begins at implantation, then you can do anything you want to this little creature. If you fertilize it outside the mom, that little creature has no rights, no value.”
Hickman of the Houston clinic said after struggling with the question of when life begins, he decided it begins at implantation. Otherwise, he said, he could not understand the loss of possibly “hundreds of embryos” throughout a fertile woman's reproductive life.
“I've kind of come to that conclusion, right or wrong — it's the one that made sense to me,” he said.
Saxer, however, said there is no denying life begins at conception, which is just another name for fertilization.
“It's a beautiful, magnificent concept,” he said. “At conception, when sperm penetrates the egg, you are a complete human being. The blueprint of your whole life and the builder is all there. The only thing that you depend upon your mom for is shelter and some nutrition. You don't depend upon any outside force for your growth and development; you're self-contained.
“This little thing that is smaller than the period at the end of a sentence is the whole deal. It's all there.”
Couples at the fertility clinics also wrestle with questions about when life begins and with their responsibilities to their embryonic children, according to psychologist Marie Davidson.
“It's not uncommon for me to meet with couples who are talking about moral and ethical concerns,” she said. “It's not just Catholics; evangelical Christians are also concerned. And [also] just sort of plain old folks who don't necessarily come from a religious position but are uncomfortable pushing on the natural boundaries of reproduction. People vary a lot in their level of comfort.”
There are couples who come to the clinics eager to have children but stop short of in vitro fertilization, she said.
“Some patients, to their great credit, really,” Davidson said, “after talking with the doctor or perhaps to me will decide, ‘Enough. I've done this, I've done that, and I'm not comfortable with the next step. We can do good things in the world and be a family whether or not we directly parent children.’”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
How the Church Views In Vitro Fertilization
The challenge of infertility drives many couples to seek whatever means possible to achieve the joy and promise of a child.
Not all means are moral, however, nor are all possible: Even after spending up to $10,000 per in vitro fertilization procedure, for example, 50% to 70% of couples still leave with empty arms.
For Catholics, the moral guidelines for assisted reproduction are contained in the document Donum Vitae (On Respect for Human Life), released by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1987. In summary, any method used to enhance a couple's ability to conceive must ensure that a child be conceived in the context of the marital embrace, befitting his human dignity and the meaning of the marital act.
Additionally, it must be recognized that however desirous a couple may be for a child, the child is a gift, not a right, of marriage, said Conventual Franciscan Father Germain Kopaczynski of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston.
Compatible with Catholic teaching are such measures as: Eobserving the natural signs of fertility and timing intercourse accordingly;
Emedical evaluations of both spouses;
Etests examining post-coital fluids; Eimaging techniques such as ultra-sound;
Eappropriate surgery to open the fallopian tube.
Other technologies are permitted for now but are the subject of theological debate. The question of how to evaluate new technologies was addressed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's prefect, upon the release of Donum Vitae.
“When the discussion is still open and there is not yet a decision by the magisterium, the doctor is required to stay informed, according to classic theological principles and concrete circumstances,” he said. A physician must “make a decision based on his informed conscience.”
One of these controversial but for now allowed forms is gamete intra-fallopian transfer. According to “Reproductive Technology Guidelines for Catholic Couples” on the Web page of the U.S. Bishops’ Pro-Life Activities office, the technique works in this manner: Nearly ripe ova are obtained from the woman's follicles by ultrasonically guided aspiration techniques. But one ovum, separated with an air bubble from a prepared seminal fluid sample, is immediately reinserted with a plastic tubing into the woman's fallopian tube so conception will occur within the body. Sperm are retrieved by intercourse using a perforated condom, which allows retrieval while not preventing natural procreation.
Like in vitro fertilization, gamete intra-fallopian transfer can cost $6,000 to $10,000 per procedure, with a similar success rate.
Another method under study is intrauterine insemination, which uses semen obtained during normal intercourse that is then technologically enhanced or “washed” to improve fertility and injected into the uterus.
Some theologians consider gamete intra-fallopian transfer and intrauterine insemination to be merely assisting natural reproduction and therefore allowable. Others disagree, suggesting the technology, not the conjugal act, becomes the sufficient cause of the uniting of the sperm and ovum.
On the subject of infertility, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting from Donum Vitae, has this to say: “The Gospel shows that physical sterility is not an absolute evil. Spouses who still suffer from infertility after exhausting legitimate medical procedures should unite themselves with the Lord's cross, the source of all spiritual fecundity. They can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others” (No. 2379).
— Ellen Rossini
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Radio Host Al Kresta Fighting a Battle for His Life DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As a former Protestant pastor-turned-Catholic evange-list and national talk-radio show host, Al Kresta has faced some pretty tough battles. But none compare to the one he's currently facing — his desperate fight for life.
The host of the three-hour “Kresta in the Afternoon” program, produced by Ave Maria Radio in Ann Arbor, Mich., and heard live throughout the country, was diagnosed as having “flesh-eating” bacteria — necrotizing fasciitis, a rare bacterial infection that can destroy skin, fat and tissue that covers muscles. The condition can lead to organ failure and, sometimes, death.
Kresta was in stable condition at press time.
He went to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ypsilanti late on Feb. 17, complaining of severe leg and back pain along with swelling in his limbs. The next day, doctors had to amputate Kresta's leg.
“The medications that Al is on seem to be working, but his condition remains critical,” said Bill Koshelnyk, director of public relations for the Ave Maria Foundation.
Kresta's wife, Sally, developed similar symptoms and was diagnosed with a different strain of the same bacteria. At press time, doctors were optimistic about her recovery.
Friend and fellow Catholic apologist Steve Ray visited Kresta in the hospital twice. Shortly after Kresta was admitted, Ray said, “he squeezed my hand and tried to talk. I told him, ‘Keep fighting, Al. Don't give up.’”
On a Feb. 23 visit, Ray said, “Al's appearance was much better and Sally was in very good spirits.”
According to Ray, Kresta's physicians are uncertain how Kresta contracted the infection. It apparently can enter the body through any type of cut or abrasion. Ray did not think Kresta had an injury on his leg prior to the infection. The infection can travel through the bloodstream and manifest itself at points other than where it enters the body. The infection has the ability to travel about an inch per hour.
The Catholic response to Kresta's condition has been swift. Catholic leaders such as Crisis magazine publisher Deal Hudson, Catholic psychotherapist Gregory Popcak and many others quickly spread the news online, forming spiritual “bouquets” and asking others to pray for Kresta and his family.
“We are witnessing the mystical body of Christ in action,” said Mike Jones, vice president and general manager for Ave Maria Communications. “We have received thousands of e-mails, letters and telephone calls from many Catholic apostolates and numerous religious orders assuring us of their prayers. Spiritual bouquets, rosaries and Masses are being offered. It has truly been overwhelming.”
During the crisis the family has drawn great strength from their faith. Their parish priest, Father Ed Fride of Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor, gave Kresta the sacrament of anointing of the sick prior to his operation.
“He's been there every day since,” Ray said of Father Fride.
“Al is one of the most brilliant thinkers I know,” Ray said. “He has a loving pastor's heart. If you called him at 2 a.m. he would get up and talk to you. He cares about other people and the Church. That's why there has been such an outpouring of love and concern for him.”
Kresta is the author of Why Do Catholics Genuflect?, published last year by Servant Books of Ann Arbor. Kresta's conversion story was told in the book Surprised by Truth and in his year 2000 Register Inperson interview.
An achiever in school, Kresta became directionless after high school.
“I was a musician and I wanted to pursue my music and a hedonistic, self-centered lifestyle,” he told the Register. “In 1969 I left home and became homeless by choice. I lived on the street, slept in vacant apartments, stayed on the beach in the Florida Keys and bummed off of friends. After some hallucinogenic LSD experiences, I hitchhiked along the eastern seaboard looking for someone who could help me make sense of my hallucinations. I ended up in a New Age group.”
In 1974, he became an evangelical Protestant and helped start a crisis pregnancy center in Detroit, a Christian library and study center, and a Christian theater group.
Ray has known Kresta since 1983. The two met when both were still evangelical Protestants. Ray watched Kresta perform in a Christian play and approached him afterward. A close friendship followed that meeting.
Twice a month, the Rays and the Krestas would gather their families together on Sundays. With children of similar ages, the two families got along very well together. That is, until 1992, when Kresta announced that his family was going to enter the Catholic Church.
“The Church's unity was supposed to be one of the marks of the Church,” Kresta told the Register in his Inperson interview three years ago. “As I looked at the various evangelical Protestant groups, I began to see that they were divided over silly reasons. I asked myself, ‘How does this bear witness that the Father sent the Son?’”
At first Kresta's decision caused tension in his friendship with Ray.
“We decided not to talk about it,” Ray recalled. “We thought we would give them a year. We figured that later they would come to regret their decision. When the year was up, we asked Kresta about his decision. I said to him, ‘Well, your decision was a big mistake, right?’ to which Kresta responded, ‘It's the best thing that our family has ever done.’”
That provoked Ray to take the Catholic faith seriously. The Ray family came into the Church in May 1994.
Between 1997 and 1999, both the Kresta and Ray families reached out to Protestants in “bridge groups” they created. Nearly 200 people either returned to or came into the Catholic Church through the groups.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Protest School to Campus: San Francisco's Campion College DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:SAN FRANCISCO — The University of San Francisco might argue about how its next-door neighbor, Campion College, came into being, but there's one thing it can't argue about: Campion's student-teacher ratio.
Fresh into its second semester, with 25 students and 13 faculty members Campion can boast of having the best student-teacher ratio of any Catholic college and perhaps any college in the country. (Campion College plans to debut its Washington, D.C., campus soon.)
Campion was born only one year ago in response to the restructuring made to the University of San Francisco's St. Ignatius Institute. The university fired former Institute director John Galten, leading to the resignation of several former institute staff and the creation of Campion. Galten now oversees Campion as president.
“Considering that Campion was started last February and that we had only six months to get things up and running, I would say that we have been outrageously successful,” said Mark Brumley, vice president of the college. “We received more students than we expected, and the crop of students that we have is phenomenal.”
Modeled after the original St. Ignatius Institute, Campion is a two-year college with an integrated Catholic liberal arts/great books curriculum designed to prepare students to transfer into a four-year university or to pursue other educational options. The curriculum comprises 64 units, providing students with a foundation in philosophy, theology and Western heritage.
From the outside it might appear little has changed between the former Ignatius Institute and Campion. The professors and the curriculum remain much the same. Yet on the inside, the differences are noticeable.
Campion does not have a campus per se. Its seminar and lecture classrooms are located in the McAllister Street neighborhood of Ignatius Press. Furthermore, the male and female students reside in separate gender-specific households blocks apart but also located in the neighborhood. Formed into small ecclesial communities, the students often study, eat, socialize and pray together.
Although Campion is not yet formally accredited, it has established affiliation agreements with Ave Maria University, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, and the pontifical International Theological Institute of Gaming, Austria, whereby graduates will be accepted for transfer at those institutions. They are also working to pursue similar agreements with other institutions.
Campion has received support from prominent Catholics such as Cardinal Chistoph Schönborn, Father James Schall and Father Benedict Groeschel.
“The founding of Campion, as a number of Catholic colleges in this country, is the beginning of the reform,” Father Groeschel said. “Campion will provide a foundation amidst the cultural wasteland that we are in.”
The First Class
“The University of San Francisco has changed the St. Ignatius Institute in such a way that most of the students that would be attracted to Campion would not be attracted to the revamped institute,” Brumley said.
That is certainly true for freshman Margaret Perry. She had hoped to attend the St. Ignatius Institute prior to the restructuring. Instead, following the controversy, Perry attended Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. Originally from Napa, Calif., she transferred to Campion last fall.
Surprisingly, the college's first class drew students from across the United States.
“We expected that most would have come from California,” said president John Galten. “Instead, the majority have come from elsewhere. They're from as far away as North Dakota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Arizona and Texas. We only have three or four from California.”
“To start something like this requires a pretty big leap of faith,” Galten admitted. “All I could promise the students was a good education and an adventure. Their cooperation and sacrifice has set a wonderful tone for the other classes that follow.”
The college's faculty includes St. Ignatius Institute veterans Ray Dennehy, Stephen Córdova and Kim Summerhays as well as a host of additional scholars. All serve as adjunct faculty members, teaching only one course per semester.
Córdova, who teaches part time at both Campion and in the philosophy department at St. Mary's College of California in Moraga, said he has been impressed by the enthusiasm of the students.
“Last semester, while reading of the death of Hector in Homer's Iliad, four of the female students came dressed in black veils mourning the loss of Hector,” Córdova said. “These students, if anything, want more reading assignments rather than fewer. Their desire for reading, and to know things, is compelling. It makes me want to go to work every day.”
Hurdles
As a first-year school, Campion has faced some hurdles. It continues to struggle for accreditation, and at one point last September six of the male students were crammed into a home with a nun, who works with the college, while renovations were being made on the men's house.
“These are the troubles that you expect in any new situation,” Galten said. “The most difficult hurdle has nothing to do with anything material. It's the question of doubt. One must face that and react with faith that this is something that the Church wants and that the Church can use.”
While some outsiders worry the school is too small, Campion's students and faculty disagree.
“We are in the middle of a fantastic city,” Perry said. “There is so much culture and so many opportunities here.”
The city serves as the students’ classroom. Last semester students attended World Series baseball games, the symphony, the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Jazz Festival and Strictly Bluegrass in the Park.
“Because we're students we can get $175 tickets for just $15,” Perry said. “There is always something to grab our attention.”
“I think that one of Campion's strengths is the guarantee of a small class size,” Córdova added. “We know each student and have a direct and personal commitment to them.”
In addition to the prominent intellectual pursuit, the spiritual component also plays a vital role at Campion. Córdova, for example, begins each class with a prayer, and Mass is offered throughout the week.
Student Nick Schneider described the Catholic culture of the school as its highlight.
“Four evenings a week we have Mass at this great Spanish mission-style Carmelite chapel,” said Schneider, who came to Campion with a music degree from the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. “We've had Franciscan, Carmelite and diocesan priests. It's wonderful to see the charisms of the different orders.”
“In addition,” he explained, “every first Friday we have all-night adoration, and once a month we have evenings of reflection where a priest comes to give a talk and hear confessions.”
“There is something unique and beautiful about living in community life with a group of people that are living an active Catholic life,” Schneider continued. “Recently, the sister of one of the male students was going in for surgery on her heart. We gathered and prayed the Liturgy of the Hours and the rosary for her. It's nice to be in an environment where that flows and happens naturally.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sometimes, the Truth Kills: Two Doctors' Dialogue DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:For 10 years, Dr. Joel Brind has been in possession of a bombshell piece of information: Abortions can increase the risk of breast cancer. Dr. Angela Lanfranchi believed him.
As president of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, which educates women on how to reduce the risk of breast cancer, Brind received — along with Bishop Emeritus Vincent De Paul Breen of Metuchen, N.J. — the 2003 Pro Vita award presented by the Metuchen Diocese.
Brind is a professor of biology and endocrinology at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Lanfranchi, a New Jersey breast surgeon, spoke with him for the Register about the abortion/breast cancer link.
When did you first become aware of the abortion/breast cancer link?
I became aware that a full-term pregnancy reduced the risk of breast cancer in 1982 while doing a literature search for a grant proposal. In response to a 1992 article in Science News on pregnancy and breast cancer, I did another literature search and became convinced about the abortion/breast cancer link. I also became convinced that the results of these studies were being suppressed. I began to give presentations to other scientists on this subject.
Could you explain how abortion increases a woman's risk of breast cancer?
The link between abortion and breast cancer is based on the same two principles that account for 90% of all other breast-cancer risks. Those principles are: 1) excess exposure to estrogen, and 2) the maturation of the breast from type 1 and 2 lobules to type 3 and 4 lobules.
Every pregnant woman knows that soon after conception her breasts start to enlarge and become tender. What is happening is that the number of type 1 and 2 lobules is rapidly increasing in number in response to the marked elevation in estrogen.
Estrogen levels rise by 2,000% by the end of the first trimester. Type 1 and 2 lobules are known to be where cancers start. These increased numbers of type 1 and 2 lobules would increase her risk of breast cancer if they did not mature to cancer-resistant type 3 and 4 lobules after 32 weeks of her 40-week full-term pregnancy.
So if the woman's pregnancy is prematurely terminated through abortion before full maturation, she is left with more type 1 and 2 lobules than she had at the start of her pregnancy, where cancer can arise.
What were the reactions of your colleagues to those presentations?
A well-known cancer researcher with Strang-Cornell [a breast center and cancer prevention institute] in New York City, Leon Bradlow, who was a friend, expressed disbelief until he confirmed the data with other colleagues who had confirmed it in their own work.
One negative reaction came in 1993 by then president of Beth Israel Medical Center, Dr. [Robert] Newman. After he had read a quote by me in The Lancet, a British medical journal, I lost my appointments as the research investigator at Beth Israel and as an adjunct faculty member at Mount Sinai Medical School.
How did you try to publicize the abortion/breast cancer link?
I went to Washington, D.C., in 1993 to educate congressmen on this issue with the hope that there might be legislative initiatives that would get the word out on an important public health problem.
Dave Weldon, a congressman and a physician, told me that a meta-analysis was necessary before I could hope for any support.
A meta-analysis is an evaluation of all the studies done on a particular topic. By pooling the results of the studies, one is able to get a more accurate appraisal of the data evaluated.
So in 1996, with colleagues from Pennsylvania State Medical School, I did a comprehensive review and meta-analysis of abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer. This was published in a British medical journal. It showed an overall 30% increase in breast cancer risk with 18 of 23 studies showing an association.
Why do you think this is a vital issue for the pro-life movement?
This is an issue that transcends the question of abortion per se. It is important in reaching those who believe themselves to be pro-choice. It can help them to consider the damage abortion causes not only to the unborn but to the mother as well. It could lead some to reconsider their positions.
Most importantly this information can help protect women and their children. This information is needed to have full informed consent before the choice is made that can lead to cancer and even death. It is just one of the many ways that abortion hurts women physically.
It is also vital information for women who have already chosen abortion. They need to understand their need for breast cancer screening, which may need to be started before the recommended age of 40 if they had an abortion at an early age. By finding a cancer early through screening, the chance of survival increases.
This information can also help to bring about a culture of life by exposing a lie that rests at the foundation of the abortion industry — that abortion is safe. It is far from safe and, in fact, is often lethal to the mother.
What has encouraged you to continue educating the public on this issue?
One source of continuing encouragement is that people such as pregnancy counselors have told me that the information I have supplied has convinced women to choose life.
Also, last July, at the urging of 28 Congressmen led by New Jersey Congressman Chris Smith, the National Cancer Institute took down its inaccurate Web page denying the abortion/breast cancer link.
What is your hope for the future? What is your goal?
My hope is that through the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute we will be able to educate the public and the medical profession about the abortion/breast cancer link and other lesser-known risks such as birth control pills so the incidence of breast cancer will actually be reduced.
There are at least 10,000 cases of breast cancer a year attributable to abortion alone that could be eliminated. The scientific truth of the matter cannot be suppressed forever with growing numbers of women who are aware of it.
Dr. Angela Lanfranchi is a breast surgeon practicing in Somerset County, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Pro-Life Legislation Making Progress in Several State Legislatures DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:RICHMOND, Va. — Richard Black sent his colleagues in the Virginia House of Delegates a package containing a plastic model of an 11-week-old fetus. With it, Black included a letter asking, “Would you kill this child?”
“Abortionists kill most babies at this stage of development,” he wrote, referring to the well-developed and “unmistakably human” first-trimester fetus. “The struggling infants are chemically scalded or slashed apart with jagged knives.”
Some of the 40 members of Virginia's Senate complained about Black's Feb. 3 missive. One argued it created a “hostile work environment.”
But Black, a Catholic, is unapologetic. He said in the letter that he believes abortions will end within the next 10 years and Virginia will “lead the way in restoring the sanctity of human life.”
Recent developments give him good reason for optimism. The Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly has been considering an “unprecedented” number of pro-life bills, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Feb. 6.
Black is the sponsor of a number of them. Two of the bills have passed both houses: one that would require parental consent for abortion, the other seeking to ban what it calls “partial-birth infanticide.”
While much of the attention of the pro-life movement is focused on the U.S. Congress, with its own partial-birth abortion bill and competing measures on cloning, there has been a groundswell of pro-life legislation on the state level across the nation.
Mary Balch, director of state legislation for National Right to Life, explained that more pro-life legislators have been sent to statehouses this year.
“It looks very encouraging that more states will pass pro-life protective language,” she said.
Calls for comment from National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League Pro-Choice America were not answered.
But a Jan. 31 message on its Web site said in the 13 years the pro-abortion group has been tracking state legislation, it has never seen the volume “or voracity with which anti-choice state legislators in the 2003 legislative session are trying to both ban abortion outright and to restrict access so severely that the right is illusory.”
‘Looking Good’
From her perspective, Balch noted that Virginia, West Virginia and Georgia are “looking good.” And Washington state has “gotten further than [it has] in many years, managing to pass a pro-life bill out of one house. That would indicate we have a stronger presence in that legislature.”
And, she added, “we fully expect to have continued success in Utah.” She said even one of the most difficult states, New Hampshire, shows glimmers of hope.
“New Hampshire is the most unchurched state in the nation,” said state Rep. Barbara Hagan, a Republican. “While we are looked at as being conservative, it's only regarding money. It is sad to say we have not yet been able to break through the stronghold that pro-abortion forces have had here.”
A bill she sponsored, which would have recognized that life begins at fertilization, was defeated in the New Hampshire House of Representatives on Feb. 6.
Rep. James Craig, a Democrat, criticized the “strong” language” of the bill and questioned its constitutionality, according to the Associated Press. States must follow the U.S.
Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, he insisted.
But Hagan also blamed the state's Republican leadership, which she thinks “wishes the issue would just go away.”
“They sneer when they see pro-life bills coming. They don't want to deal with it. It's really unfortunate that it's the money, the money, the money. That's all the leadership cares about,” she said, referring to the focus on the state budget and budget cuts.
Nine pro-life bills were introduced in New Hampshire this session, including a safe-haven bill and a parental-notification bill. The safe-haven bill, which would implement procedures for a hospital or other “safe haven” to assume temporary care and control of an abandoned child, passed the House on Feb. 6 by a wide margin.
Educating Voters
Virginia's Black wants people to better understand the pro-abortion position of Gov. Mark Warner, who has signaled his intent to veto the parental-consent and partial-birth abortion bills in April.
There is a slight possibility the governor's veto could be overridden “if all of our senators hold,” Black contends. “But there will be enormous money and power to try to sway one vote the governor's way.”
It was an attempt to help solidify Senate votes that Black sent his letter with the baby model.
Warner is “very passionately pro-abortion, but the interesting thing is, the public is not keenly aware of it because he has not had to confront this in the open,” Black said. “We hope to get a couple of these bills past his veto. But in any event, even if we don't, we will at least clearly label Mark Warner, and people will understand what his positions are.”
Nearby, West Virginia is also making progress. Its “Women's Right to Know Bill” has a “good chance of passage,” according to Balch.
But a similar measure might not fare as well in Georgia. The “Woman's Right to Know” bill there faces opposition by powerful Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Sponsored by Sen. Don Cheeks, a Republican, the legislation would require women wait an additional 24 hours before getting an abortion, allowing women time to read prescribed educational materials on the procedure. The bill passed a Senate committee 7-4 on Feb. 3, but Rep. Calvin Smyre, a Democrat, has warned he will make it difficult for the bill to get out of his committee.
For the pro-life movement, it's an uphill climb. But every step forward is cheered.
“The pro-life movement has done very well in the states this past election cycle,” said Balch, speaking of Georgia, West Virginia, Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Utah. “While we may not get an actual win in all the states, we will move closer to getting those laws because of the gains we've made. If we continue in this direction, we will ultimately pass protection legislation in all the states where we've had these pro-life gains.”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Scalia: Judge Selection Has Become Too Political
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 13 — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a University of Pennsylvania audience the selection of judges has descended into the political arena, to the detriment of legal scholarship and honest constitutional interpretation, the Associated Press reported.
The culprit, according to Scalia, is the recent notion that the Constitution should be periodically reinvented to suit contemporary attitudes. Pointing out that approximately six of 13 federal courts are operating at less than full strength, Scalia lamented the politicization of judicial nomination and confirmation proceedings.
Calling himself an “originalist,” Scalia insisted the Constitution's literal, original meaning is the one judges should seek to discover and apply. If more judges took that approach, he said, politicians would be less intrusive into the judicial realm.
“We're not looking for good lawyers anymore,” Scalia said. “The most important thing we look for are judges who will read into the Constitution the rights that we like and read out of the Constitution the rights that we don't like.”
Scalia, a Catholic, has cited the Roe v. Wade decision as an example of judicial activism.
Group Targets Pro-Abortion Speakers at Churches
AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, Feb. 13 — The Crusade for the Defense of Our Catholic Church, a project of the Catholic pro-life group American Life League, released a new public service ad focused on pro-abortion speakers who appear at Catholic churches.
The ad was sparked by Feb. 9 talk given by Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton at a Chicago parish during Mass.
The full-page ad ran in the Washington Times and several other newspapers. It was aimed at Catholic pastors and featured a picture of Sharpton with the caption, “Al Sharpton is not a Catholic priest!”
Also shown were five other pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidates: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.; Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.; and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democrat.
The ad explained that these candidates’ positions on abortion meant they should be “disqualified from delivering homilies.”
According to American Life League, a copy of the ad has been sent to the entire U.S. hierarchy of bishops.
Columnist Calls for Lay Preachers in Church
In a recent column, Keeler suggested the lack of “prudence” and “justice” displayed by some bishops in handling abusive clergy — plus the fact that “talent is randomly distributed” — meant that talented laymen should sometimes be dubbed to deliver homilies, a practice forbidden by canon law.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bioethics Workshop Tackles Moral and Legal Issues of Catholic Hospitals DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:DALLAS — Every two years the National Catholic Bioethics Center holds its “bishops’ workshop” to examine some of the more difficult issues in bioethics.
This year the workshop — one of the largest regular meetings of bishops, aside from episcopal conferences — was held Feb. 3-6 in Dallas. Although numbers were slightly down this year, almost 150 attended from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Philippines.
“The ministry of Catholic health care is based on a rich anthropology,” the Boston-based center's mission states. “The care of the whole person, body, mind, soul and spirit is the distinguishing characteristic of an authentically Catholic health care ministry.”
The conference this year focused on the “The Challenge of Cooperation in a Pluralistic Society” and took up the complicated moral and legal issues that arise from cooperation between Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals.
Dr. John Baker, a law professor from Louisiana State University, warned that legal advice and insurance company demands can often put Catholic doctors and hospitals in danger of cooperating in evil acts.
For example, he warned that in the era of “wrongful birth” lawsuits, insurance companies might tell doctors they are legally obliged to inform patients about the option of abortion in the case of fetal abnormality.
“That's not the law, besides being morally impermissible,” he said.
Catholic doctors could avoid such suits with a simple disclaimer, signed by all patients, that makes it clear that abortion information is not provided.
“Such a doctor may lose some patients,” Baker said, “but that is the cost of being a Catholic doctor faithful to the moral law.”
Other workshop presentations sought to develop the fundamental approach Catholics should adopt in presenting Catholic moral teaching on bioethical issues. Speakers also addressed issues drawn from recent events, such as the ethics of vaccination programs aimed at countering bio-terrorism and pastoral care for the victims of sexual assault.
The bishops’ workshop does not produce resolutions or policies but serves as a forum to bring bishops up to date on the latest developments in bioethics. The costs of the bishops’ workshop are underwritten by the Knights of Columbus.
“A Catholic approach has to take into account that secular humanism is powerful and claims to provide an immediate solution to human problems,” argued Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who serves on the National Catholic Bioethics Center board of directors. The president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center is Dr. John Haas, a former Register columnist.
“Yet its limits are evident, not least in the current malaise in our society and its fears about the future. … The transformative power of the cross has to be brought to bear on the human situation through the holy lives of ordinary Catholics,” Cardinal George said.
The “transformative” power of grace was also the theme struck by Father Romanus Cessario of St. John's Seminary in Boston. He argued that it does not serve a bishop well to engage in fine moral arguments about dubious practices in Catholic hospitals if the result does not present a robustly Catholic view to the culture.
“When someone walks into a Catholic hospital and knows that there are abortions being done on the fifth floor, it does not help very much to say that that part of the hospital is outside the bishop's jurisdiction,” Father Cessario said, alluding to some of the complex arrangements worked out between Catholic hospitals in joint ventures with hospitals that do abortions and sterilizations.
“Bishops may wish to think of Catholic hospitals more in eucharistic rather than managerial terms,” Father Cessario added, explaining that the Eucharist is the greatest “transformation” possible, and so too Catholic hospitals can transform their environments. “Is this pie-inthe-sky thinking? Not if we take seriously Pope John Paul II's call to transform culture.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza filed this story from Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Saddam Has the Will to Avoid War, Cardinal Etchegaray Says DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:BAGHDAD, Iraq — Cardinal Roger Etchegaray believes his oneand-a-half hour meeting Feb. 15 with Saddam Hussein helped to open new possibilities for peace in Iraq.
“I believe that this visit may contribute to lift somewhat the black clouds that have gathered over Iraq's sky. I think I have done everything I could as messenger of the Pope and witness of his action of peace,” the cardinal said at the apostolic nunciature. He repeats it in the following Zenit interview.
What impression do you have from your meeting with one of the most unapproachable, mysterious and feared politicians of the world? What meaning do you attribute to your visit?
The Iraqi president, as is known, grants very few interviews. The fact that he received me for an hour and a half is, therefore, a sign of recognition of the moral authority of the Pope.
Saddam Hussein seemed happy to receive the personal message that John Paul had given me. He seemed to be a man in good health, seriously aware of the responsibilities he must address before his people. I was convinced that Saddam Hussein today has the will to avoid the war.
What is the meaning of your visit? Is there a Vatican mediation that could somehow divert the conflict?
I can understand the great expectations that a meeting of such importance would arouse, but the spiritual nature of my mission gave my words a particular tone.
The Church has its own way of speaking about peace, about making peace, in the midst of those who, with a different right, work for it today with such tenacity. I would like to recall, quoting John Paul II, that the Church becomes the spokesman of the “moral conscience of humanity that desires peace, that needs peace.”
Can you summarize for us the meaning of the meeting you had with Saddam Hussein?
We addressed, of course, some concrete questions that I cannot mention out of respect for the one who sent me and for the one who receives me. It was an effort to see if everything possible had been done to guarantee peace, re-establishing a climate of confidence that will allow Iraq to find its place again in the international community.
Present at the heart of our meeting was the whole Iraqi people, proof of whose aspiration for a just and lasting peace I had from Baghdad to Mossoul, after so many years of suffering and humiliation, a suffering for which the universal Church and the Pope have always shown themselves to be in solidarity.
How can a climate of confidence be established concretely within Iraq and how can foreign countries trust Iraq?
I have not come as a politician; my task is not to prepare concrete actions, but I am convinced that, at this moment, it is fundamental to restore a climate of trust — basis of all the efforts that are being made.
The reconstruction of confidence is a great work and requires time; it begins with little gestures. Moreover, it is important to have confidence in the work of the U.N. inspectors.
You have wished that “a place be given again to Iraq in the international community.” Does this mean that, if the disarmament of Iraq is concluded and verified, the Holy See will request an end to the embargo?
Without a doubt. But it is not I who say it; the Pope has spoken out several times against the embargo.
Don't you think that to stress the sufferings of people ends by serving as an excuse for what are the regime's responsibilities?
It might be but, given a population that has suffered so many years to survive, one cannot speak of excuses; there are no excuses.
Therefore, what is the priority?
On behalf of the Pope, I wish to appeal to the conscience of all those who, in these decisive days, can influence the future of peace. Because in the end, it is conscience that will have the last word, stronger than all strategies, all ideologies and also all religions.
Demonstrations, debates, prayer vigils for peace are multiplying in these days. Is a new awareness arising in world public opinion about peace?
The world needs gestures that express the desire for peace. I think it is necessary that public opinion influence the decision of the men who have responsibility, but it is necessary that it be a well-formed and informed opinion, because there is — I speak in general — the danger of manipulations.
A well-formed and informed public opinion is a necessary condition, although not sufficient, for peace. The Iraqi people have a natural goodness of spirit, but after two wars and the embargo they have been knocked in all aspects of their life and do not have the possibility to be informed.
Your visit, which has been primarily pastoral, ended [Feb. 16]. What kind of Church did you find in Iraq?
A Church that is alive and profoundly affectionate with the Pope. In few parts of the world is there such a contagious feeling, almost palpable, for a Vatican representative — an affection that stems from the complex situation of a minority that lives seeking unity with Rome.
Moreover, after the two-day visit to Mossoul, I would like to stress its ecumenical aspect. An ecumenism made of concrete solidarity between Catholics and Orthodox: On Sunday they exchange churches and the two communities help one another financially to construct their buildings of worship. It is something admirable that must be stressed.
Are you concerned about the fate of Iraqi Christians?
Here, Christians are Iraqis above all, and they will suffer the same condition as the rest of the country. With the exception of rare cases of intolerance between Muslims and Christians, on the whole there is osmosis in daily life. Christians are considered as authentic Iraqis and they will follow their country's fate.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Vatican Might Renounce Taiwan Ties
The communist government persecuted Catholics, setting up a schismatic “patriotic church” to corral believers into obedience to the state. The vast majority have refused to join it and make up a lively underground Church. In return the Holy See has always refused to recognize the communist government and retained ties to Taiwan, which still claims to be the legitimate ruler of all China.
This may change soon, according to the Catholic bishop of Hong Kong. Bishop Joseph Zen told The Straits Times that Rome might be willing to renounce its ties to Taiwan in return for renewed legal contacts with Catholics on the mainland.
“The Vatican has made it clear that it is ready for a compromise, ready to renounce diplomatic relations with Taiwan,” Bishop Zen said.
The chief obstacle is Rome's insistence on the right to appoint bishops in China, a right it possesses throughout the rest of the world.
The bishop said that “the bishops in Taiwan [would] understand” if the Vatican broke ties with their government. “We don't know if all the priests or the faithful understand.”
Religious Leaders Meet to Promote Peace
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE, Feb. 11 — The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue organized a symposium in Rome on Jan. 16-18 on “Spiritual Resources of the Religions for Peace” with 38 participants from 15 countries, representing most major world religions.
The Final Declaration was made public in early February. It said, in part: “[T]oo many people see and employ religion as a force of divisiveness and violence, rather than a force for unity and peace. … We hold that the scriptures of each religion teach the path to peace, but we acknowledge that our various sacred writings have often been and continue to be used to justify violence, war and exclusion of others. …
[W]e must all recognize the need for new, contextual studies and a deeper understanding of our various scriptures that clearly enunciate the message and value of peace for all humanity.”
Moscow Joins Rome in Plea to EU
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, Feb. 16 — The Russian Orthodox Church has joined the Holy See in asking the European Union to make an explicit recognition of the role of religion in its new constitution, reported Independent Catholic News.
Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk wrote former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who now chairs the committee drafting the constitution, calling for “a reference to the Christian heritage of the European Union, as well as to other religious traditions and secular thoughts and ideas. … The proposed provisions of the constitution of Europe leave aside the tremendous layer of religious culture, which inspires minds and hearts. A Europe that renounces religion, and especially Christianity, as one of its fundamental life-giving forces cannot be the fatherland for many people who live here.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Pope's Lent DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:A glance at the agenda of any given day in the life of Pope John Paul II belies the intense activity that fills every one of his 17-plus waking hours.
For what the media report on and what the public reads about are the events on the Holy Father's daily calendar between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. when he ends the public part of his day, usually to lunch with several invited guests to pick their brains and expertise on a myriad of topics.
The Pope's day has started with an early morning Mass in his private chapel, breakfast, often with guests, and a thorough reading of press clippings put together by the Vatican's secretariat of state. He is also briefed on documents that need his immediate attention and on the groups or single individuals he will meet in audience during the public part of his morning.
A papal calendar is planned well in advance and, unlike the agenda of the average mortal, surprise events do not often figure in the equation. John Paul's calendar for March 2003 is filled with traditional, perennial, papal events.
Rome's seminary. On March 5 the Pope will welcome the seminarians and staff of the Major Roman Seminary, Our Lady of Trust, founded in 1565. The current chapel bears the name of Our Lady of Trust, which, it appears, became the seminary's patroness at about 1837, on the occasion of a vow taken during a severe cholera epidemic.
Roman pastors. Another March event is the Pope's annual encounter with the pastors of Roman parishes. What is noteworthy about this encounter is that the Holy Father has already met most of the pastors — and even outlived a goodly number! In the nearly 25 years of his papacy, as bishop of Rome, John Paul has visited all but a handful of the parishes in his diocese.
Also on his March agenda is the annual audience with members of the Apostolic Penitentiary. This is not, as many people have thought, a prison in the Vatican, but rather it is the tribunal of the Church that has supreme authority over the sacrament of penance.
Ash Wednesday falls on March 5, and there is the traditional procession on Rome's Aventine Hill from the Benedictine-run church of St. Anselm to the Dominican-run stational church of St. Sabina where the Pope will receive, as well as distribute, ashes.
The Pope's six-day Lenten retreat starts four days later, on March 9. The Holy Father and ranking prelates of the Roman Curia will hold their retreat in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. Archbishop Angelo Comastri, prelate of the Shrine of Loreto, will be the retreat master this year. The retreat concludes the morning of March 15, and that evening the Pope will pray the rosary with Rome's university students. Every Friday during Lent, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, delivers a Lenten sermon to the papal household.
The feast of St. Joseph is March 19 and a holiday in the Vatican. It falls on a Wednesday this year so John Paul will preside at the usual weekly general audience. In the past he has marked this feast by visiting Italian dioceses, ordaining new bishops and granting audiences to groups of workers.
On March 23, the third Sunday of Lent, the Pope will preside at a eucharistic celebration in St. Peter's Basilica for the beatification of Servants of God Pierre Bonhomme, Maria Dolores Rodriguez Sopena, Maria Caridad Brader, Juana Maria Condesa Lluch and Lazlo Batthyany-Strattman. On March 27 the Holy Father will welcome Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg and on March 29 he will receive President Gloria Arroyo Macapagal of the Philippines.
Former Register Rome bureau chief Joan Lewis is now with the Vatican
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God Does Not Forsake Us DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II offered a meditation on the canticle of the three young men from the Book of Daniel during his general audience on Feb. 19. He characterized the hymn as a magnificent hymn in praise of God's transcendent glory.
“Even when they faced extreme danger as the flames licked their bodies, they found the strength to praise, glorify and bless God,” the Holy Father noted. “They were certain that the Lord of the universe and of history would not abandon them to death and nothingness.”
He said the canticle is “like a flame that lights up the darkness of a period of oppression and persecution, a period of time that has often been repeated in Israel's history and even in the history of Christianity itself.”
John Paul said the canticle evokes the holiness and power of God, who dwells among his people in his holy Temple in Jerusalem. He added that the canticle prefigures the coming of the Son of God, who made his dwelling among us.
“He fully revealed his love by sending his Son among us to share in every way, except for sin, our condition, which is characterized by trials, oppression, loneliness and death,” he noted. He said the canticle is a song of gratitude for God's merciful love, which guides all of history to its appointed end.
“Then these three in the furnace with one voice sang, glorifying and blessing God” (Daniel 3:51). This sentence serves as the introduction to a fundamental passage from the famous canticle that we just heard. It is found in a part of the Book of Daniel that came down to us only in Greek. It was sung by these courageous witnesses to the faith, who did not want to bow down and adore the king's statue but preferred to face a tragic death by martyrdom in a burning furnace.
It is the story of three young Jewish men, whom the sacred author places in the historical context of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty Babylonian ruler who destroyed the holy city of Jerusalem in the year 586 B.C. and deported the Israelites “by the rivers of Babylon” (see Psalm 137). Even when they faced extreme danger as the flames licked their bodies, they found the strength to praise, glorify and bless God, and were certain that the Lord of the universe and of history would not abandon them to death and nothingness.
God fully revealed his love by sending his Son among us to share in every way — except for sin — our condition, which is characterized by trials, loneliness and death.
A Light in the Darkness
This biblical author, who was writing a few centuries later, cites this heroic event in order to encourage his contemporaries to hold high the banner of faith during the persecutions of the SyroHellenistic kings of the second century B.C. It is precisely at this period in history when the Maccabees fought courageously for the freedom of their faith and their Jewish traditions.
This canticle has traditionally been called the “canticle of the three young men.” It is like a flame that lights up the darkness of a period of oppression and persecution, a period of time that has often been repeated in Israel's history and even in the history of Christianity itself. Indeed, we know that persecutors do not always appear as violent and gruesome oppressors; often they delight in isolating the righteous through mockery and irony, asking them sarcastically, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:4, 11).
A Tapestry
All creatures play a role in the blessing that the three young men raise to the Almighty Lord from the crucible of their trial. They weave a sort of multicolored tapestry where the stars shine bright, where the seasons flow by, where animals move about, where the angels appear and, above all, where the “servants of the Lord” and the “holy men of humble heart” sing (see Daniel 3:85, 87).
The passage that was just proclaimed precedes this grandiose reference to all creatures. It belongs to the first part of the canticle, which refers instead to the glorious presence of the Lord, who is transcendent yet so near. Indeed, God is in heaven, he “who [looks] into the depths” (see Daniel 3:55), but he is also “in the Temple of [his] holy glory” of Zion (see Daniel 3:53). He is seated on “the throne of [his] Kingdom” (see Daniel 3:54), which is eternal and infinite, but he is also the one who looks “from [his] throne upon the cherubim” (see Daniel 3:55), in the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Jerusalem.
The Fullness of His Love
He is a God that is over us, capable of saving us with his power; but he is also a God who is near to his people, in whose midst he wanted to dwell in his “glorious holy Temple,” thereby manifesting his love. It is a love that he fully revealed when his son, Jesus Christ, came and “made his dwelling among us … full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He fully revealed his love by sending his Son among us to share in every way — except for sin — our condition, which is characterized by trials, oppression, loneliness and death.
The praise of the three young men to God our savior continues in various ways in the Church. For example, St. Clement of Rome inserted a long prayer of praise and trust at the end of his Letter to the Corinthians that weaves together themes that are reminiscent of the Bible and that probably resound the ancient Roman liturgy. It is a prayer of gratitude to the Lord who, despite the apparent triumph of evil, guides history to a happy ending.
Here is a passage from it: “You enlightened the eyes of our heart (see Ephesians 1:18) / so we might know that you alone (see John 17:3) / are highest among the highest in the heavens / the Holy One who reposes among the holy / who puts an end to the pride of the arrogant (see Isaiah 13:11) / who frustrates the designs of peoples (see Psalm 33:10) / who exalts the lowly and humbles the haughty (see Job 5:11). / You are the one who makes poor and rich / who brings death and gives life (see Deuteronomy 32:39) / the sole benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh / who looks into the depths (see Daniel 3:55) / who observes the works of men / who helps those who are in danger / and the savior of those without hope (see Judith 9:11) / the creator and guardian of every spirit / who multiplies the nations upon the earth / and from among all you have chosen those who love you / through Jesus Christ, your beloved son / through whom you have instructed, sanctified and honored us” (Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, 59:3).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Non-Jewish Immigrants in Israel Face Dilemmas Regarding Marriages DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:JERUSALEM — Boris, a professional in his 30s, emigrated from Russia to Israel under the country's Law of Return three years ago. The law permits anyone with at least one Jewish parent or grandparent to immigrate and, if they exist, to bring along his or her spouse and children regardless of their religion.
Not long after moving to Israel, Boris, who asked that his last name not be published, found a good job as well as the woman he wants to marry. Although the couple would like to wed in front of their relatives and friends in Israel, this is not an option.
That's because neither Boris nor his fiancée has a religious affiliation, according to Israel's population registry, a fact that will prevent them from marrying within Israel.
Boris’ father is Jewish, but his mother, a non-practicing Christian who defines herself as “Russian,” is not; therefore, according to Jewish law, Boris cannot be classified as a Jew. The same is true for his fiancée, whose grandfather was a Jew.
According to Jewish law, a Jew is someone with a Jewish mother or someone who converted to Judaism. As with other cases of mixed ancestry, the government defines Boris and his fiancée as “non-Jews.”
Like hundreds of thousands of other Israeli immigrants with this classification, Boris and his fiancée live in a kind of religious limbo. In order to marry within Israel, the couple will have to officially convert to a recognized religion.
That's because Israeli law permits only religious — not civil — marriages, which must be carried out by one of the country's many authorized religious authorities. In order to be married in a church, for example, an Israeli citizen must first be recognized by the Israeli authorities as a Christian.
Although this presents no problem for Israel's indigenous Christians, the vast majority of who are Arabs, it is a major obstacle for many of the 250,000 to 300,000 non-Jewish immigrants of Jewish ancestry who have moved to Israel, mostly from the former Soviet Union.
Non-Jewish Immigrants
Though the obvious answer is conversion, immigrants who claim a Jewish parent or grandparent and then convert to Christianity or another religion risk being deported. Those with Jewish ancestry who wish to immigrate under the Law of Return but who are practicing Christians or Muslims, for example, generally lie about their religion for fear of being turned away.
Although an Israeli citizen is free to practice any religion he chooses, government officials often suspect a person who converts shortly after immigrating lied about his status and could thus be deported. Non-Jewish children and spouses — those with no Jewish ancestry — who arrive with the immigrant, however, are free to practice any religion they choose.
Israeli officials defend the law's stringent guidelines on the grounds that they are the only way to ensure that Israel — a tiny, embattled nation created after the Holocaust to ensure the continuity of the Jewish people — will be able to maintain its Jewish character.
The officials also note other countries have even stricter immigration policies based on their own set of criteria.
“Israel was established so that Jews would have a homeland,” said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If you welcome millions of non-Jews there will be no Jewish majority, and Israel will cease to be a Jewish country. Israel's very reason for being will be destroyed.”
“If we admit everybody, in the end you will have a country where Jews are a minority of the population. That's not what the forefathers and -mothers had in mind,” said Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, an organization devoted to improved relations between various faiths.
Although the Law of Return has governed Israeli immigration for decades, it is only since the large-scale wave of Russian immigration, mostly brought about by the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1989, that people have begun to question its principles.
Protection for Citizens
Whereas religious Jewish parties in the Israeli Knesset have demanded the Law of Return be limited only to people who are Jewish according to Jewish law, others insist the immigrants’ problems can be solved through civil marriage and liberalized immigration laws.
“The Law of Return needs to be changed,” said Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Center, which has filed many lawsuits on behalf of immigrants and non-Orthodox Jews seeking a non-Orthodox alternative to marriage, burial and conversion.
“We need a more modern immigration law that not only takes into account Israel's needs but also the humanitarian needs of immigrant families and foreign workers,” Hoffman said. “I'm not saying we should accept everyone by taking in the entire Third World, but we must have a more humane system.”
Ilya Adzhiashvili, director of the Association of Mixed Families in Israel, believes the law must protect all citizens and their spouses, regardless of their religion.
“I have a friend, a good, decent man, who moved to Israel with his wife, who is Jewish,” Adzhiashvili said. “They had a child in Israel. Recently, she told him she'd found another man and then filed for divorce. She informed Interior Minis-9try of the divorce proceedings, and he's received a deportation notice.”
His friend has not yet received citizenship and is therefore vulnerable, Adzhiashvili explained.
Father Shawki Baterian, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, said the various churches are in a bit of a bind.
“This issue is very sensitive,” he said. “Immigrants come here because their own countries are very poor and they're seeking a better life. We are trying to help and give hope to everyone who asks for it.”
That being said, the local Catholic Church does not receive many pleas for help, Father Baterian said. For one thing, “if people say they're Christians they could lose their benefits.”
The government provides immigrants with a generous package that includes preferential mortgage terms and the right to buy appliances and furniture tax-free.
Although Adzhiashvili said the government has ultimately rescinded every deportation order once it was fought, he insists that “a permanent solution must be found to ensure that families aren't torn apart.”
The government official agrees. “The large influx of non-Jewish immigrants raises issues that the country has not adequately addressed. We've been dealing for so long with the existential issues of the country's survival, we have put all other problems on the back burner.”
But, he adds, “That doesn't mean it's not cooking.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Italian Catholics Can Get ‘Unchristened’
ZOOMATA.COM, Feb. 17 — Disaffected Catholics might soon be able to renounce their baptism legally, according to the Italian news site Zoomata.com.
The Italian Bishops’ Conference has outlined a formal procedure for adult nonbelievers to note officially that they are no longer practicing Catholics, to be noted alongside baptismal information in parish records. The procedure was set up under pressure from anticlerical forces, according to the site.
Some 98% of Italians are baptized, while only 36% attend Mass regularly and 14% never attend. It is unknown how many Italians will take advantage of the new procedure, which has no sacramental significance, according to Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the bishops’ conference.
“You can't cancel a sacrament,” he said, “any more than you can cancel the act of being born.”
Chinese Government Seizes Faithful Priest
VOICE OF AMERICA, Feb. 12 — Another Catholic priest has been imprisoned for saying Mass, according to Voice of America, an international broadcast service funded by the United States, and the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a human-rights organization and advocate for the underground Catholic Church in China.
He joins the dozens of priests and bishops currently imprisoned for loyalty to Rome, the organizations reported. Communist officials arrested the 37-year-old Father Dong Yingmu in Baoding en route to saying last year's Christmas Mass.
Some 4 million people take part in the schismatic “patriotic church” loyal to Beijing, while it is estimated millions more remain faithful to the underground Church that answers to Rome.
According to the news service, a representative of the Chinese government has insisted the arrest never happened.
Korean Bishops Call for Peace
FIDES, Feb. 14 — The Catholic bishops of Korea issued a statement addressing the proposed U.S. war in Iraq and the burgeoning development of nuclear weapons in North Korea, according to Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency.
“Peace is the task par excellence for humanity,” the statement said. “Today the whole world trembles at the threat of war about to break out before our eyes. … Peace is not reached with arms or with international decrees; it is built with a firm decision to stop the production of weapons. If powerful nations assigned only 1% of their military expenses to solving the problem of world hunger, this would lead to peace. It is not right to sacrifice the lives of thousands of innocent people in the name of ‘war on terrorism.’
“We fail to understand why the United States wants to go to war with Iraq. War produces nothing but war. We unite with the Pope, the bishops of the United States [and] our brothers in the Middle East to say: ‘We want peace not war!’
“We implore North Korea to renounce its threat, which will only worsen the situation and create greater tension instead of helping to solve the crisis through dialogue. We must find a way to live as brothers and sisters and we must reach peace for the good of all.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: EDITORIAL DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Rosary War Effort
Terrorism. Iraq. Church scandals. A culture that could yet become a culture of life. With all of these consequential issues swirling around our Church and our nation, it is providential that Pope John Paul II declared the year from October 2002 to October 2003 as the Year of the Rosary.
John Paul began his pontificate saying the rosary was his favorite prayer. He credited Our Lady of Fatima with his rescue from death by an assassin's bullet. He asked shortly after 9/11 that we all pray the rosary every day for peace, and he has repeated the request many times since.
Now, in declaring the Year of the Rosary, he has asked that Catholics promote the rosary urgently, far and wide.
Register readers have done just that. Our special Year of the Rosary issue was an enormous success. Our supply of the original issue sold out within four days of publication. We printed 12,000 additional copies of a special reprint version and these quickly sold out, so we printed 10,000 more copies. Requests continue to pour into our office.
Readers told us that the meditations we provided inspired them to begin (or return) to the rosary. We've heard from people who say our rosary issue helped them fall in love with Christ all over again. A group in Mexico had the meditations translated into Spanish and printed as an insert in a national, secular newspaper. Seminaries and convents have asked for the meditations so they can help form new priests and religious with them. Protestants wrote to say it helped them discover the richness of the Church. One reader asked us, “Do you have any idea of the eternal benefits this special issue will cause?”
We've begun developing a Register rosary booklet that will be compact enough to carry in your pocket or purse and filled with the same colorful artwork that you saw in the paper. Each mystery will be presented the same way it was in the Register.
Think of it as a two-pronged war effort: one at home, the other abroad. We first want to promote daily rosaries for peace: John Paul's petition for “an end to terrorism and war.” And, if war begins, we want to pray for a minimal loss of life and an outcome that brings peace to the Middle East. But, second, we also hope to bring the rosary right to the front lines in the Persian Gulf.
It is a tragedy that, because of a lack of military chaplains, many of our Catholic service people will go into harm's way without benefit of the sacraments. The rosary is hardly a substitute, but it can help inspire and form military Catholics spiritually with its meditations and Scripture readings. It will sustain them in their faith and comfort them in a time of extreme stress.
We want to see a specially sized, durable booklet version of the Register rosary in the hands of every deploying and deployed Catholic service member of our armed forces. For many Catholic soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, this booklet may be their only exposure to Scripture and Catholic spirituality.
In order to provide copies to the military, we need the generous support of our readers.
The rosary is a very powerful prayer. If we can inspire more Catholics to turn to it, we can have a deep effect in their lives.
Just as importantly, as John Paul pointed out, Our Lady has called urgently for rosaries. When she appeared to the shepherd children in Fatima, she said that it's necessary to say many rosaries to change hearts in our time and avert international catastrophes. The Register rosary booklet is a response to her call and the Pope's.
To join in the Register war effort contact: Mike Lambert, Director of Development, National Catholic Register, 432 Washington Ave., North Haven, CT 06473; mlambert@circlemedia.com; (800) 356-9916.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Real Unity
Regarding “Standing Up (And Not Kneeling) For the Church” (Jan. 26-Feb. 1):
I had been waiting for the publication of the new General Instruction of the Roman Missal with hopeful anticipation. Unfortunately, it appears that rather than restoring elements of our traditional liturgical roots, it continues the process of minimizing the Mass.
Particularly troubling is the prohibition of kneeling for Communion and discouraging genuflecting prior to receiving. I personally do not receive Communion on my knees; however, prohibiting that posture seems to be tainted as a sort of punitive measure against a certain group of conservative Catholics. Ironically, we are told that it is for the sake of unity.
If the concept of “unity” is to be plausible, perhaps the American bishops could mandate Communion on the tongue rather than having Communion in the hand as an option. Also, Vatican II stated that the “Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”
This has been repeated many times in other Church documents and by Pope John Paul II. For the sake of unity and obedience, it would seem that Gregorian chant should be mandated to be sung in every American parish.
LARRY RUTHERFORD
Black Forest, Colorado
Affirmative Fairness
Regarding “Time Running Out for Affirmative Action?” by Scott McDermott (Commentary, Feb. 9-15):
I believe affirmative action has run its course in American society. I would even go so far as to say it has begun a reversal of what the policy was supposed to accomplish. Affirmative action does not embrace true diversity. As Justice Lewis Powell stated, “‘Genuine diversity’ would embrace people of differing ideologies, nationalities, religions and social classes.” Any more, affirmative action has had but one focus. That focus is race. So a strong point in opposition to affirmative action rests in deciphering what is fair and what is equal.
When judged by race, I do not believe America will be equal anytime in the near future. Not everyone can have the same opportunities in life. I do believe American society can be fair. This means everyone will be judged simply on the merits of their character rather than their race. One way to achieve fairness is to abolish affirmative action. The policy simply combats fairness by promoting racist methods of hiring and admission.
NICK DOLAND
Dubuque, Iowa
The Pro-
After affirming my absolute and unequivocal belief for the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, I have to say the enthusiastic support of Steve Mosher, John-Henry Westen and Camille De Blasi for President George W. Bush as expressed in the editorial “The Sitting President” (Feb. 16-22) is both puzzling and troubling. He is the man who, as governor of Texas, has signed the most death warrants in the history of the country. He is the man who is taking the country to an unnecessary war that is going to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent lives. Is this a real pro-life stance?
We cannot be cafeteria pro-lifers supporting someone who, so far, has only given lip service to the value of human life. As the editorial says, let's wait and see what he does in the next two years. So far, in my opinion, he only deserves a very negative mark.
SALVADOR MIRANDA
Miami Beach
Spirituality a Marriage-Saver
I am writing in support of “Couples Need More Awareness of Spiritual Dimension of Marriage, Pope Tells Annulment Tribunal” (Feb. 9-15). In the culture we live in today, it is not uncommon for couples to divorce. Our society has an astonishing number of marriages that end in divorce, resulting in broken families. I believe one main reason is because of the view of culture and media. Too often, media glorifies unfaithfulness and downplays the importance of the covenant of marriage. All over TV and movies, the message of unfaithfulness is blared to everyone who can see. The Pope has addressed the issue by pushing for more spirituality in relationships.
It is the job of the entire society to look at the attitude toward marriage and encourage a more respectful portrayal. Also, parishes must encourage the spiritual and religious bond between couples. This bond can be formed prior to marriage that it may grow and develop as the relationship matures. It should also be promoted within an already formed marriage. Marriage is a sacred bond and should be viewed as such. This article does a great job of bringing this crisis to the awareness of the public. Hopefully, our culture can recognize where changes are needed and promote greater connections between spouses.
ERIN DEMMER
Dubuque, Iowa
Pray for the Pakistanis
I am alarmed at the conditions Pakistani Christians face, as their safety is reported to be in jeopardy because of a possible invasion of Iraq ("Christians Fear Backlash From U.S.-led War on Iraq,” Feb. 9-15).
The issues related to war in Iraq are complex and, while our American bishops and the Vatican doubt that the conditions of the Church's just-war tradition have been met and oppose American military action, some conservative Catholic thinkers like George Weigel and Michael Novak have been making a case that an American strike on Iraq is validated by the tradition.
All Catholics and other Christians should be allowed to carefully weigh the situation without being subject to threats. The fact that Islamic militants targeted Pakistani Christians in attacks because of the American removal of the Afghan Taliban regime — a war that was deemed acceptable by nearly all thinkers in the just-war tradition — is evidence enough that the problem is militant Muslims, not the conduct of Pakistani Christians or the American military.
Pakistani Christians should not feel they have to openly oppose American military action if they have not reached such a genuine, heartfelt conclusion. We should support our Pakistani brothers and sisters in faith, not by reflexively opposing war in Iraq but by demanding that they have the right to carefully consider the issue without intimidation, and that we make the fanaticism of certain Muslims the central, clearly defined and unavoidable issue to be dealt with.
ROBERT BARNETT
Minneapolis
Great Job on Guns and War
Muchas gracias for a great editorial “Anti-War, Not Anti-American” (Feb. 9-15) and a balanced article on gun control and self-defense, “Despite Snipers, Some Still Struggle with Church Teaching on Self-Defense” (Feb. 9-15).
I have circulated the editorial to many people with a note describing it as “a compelling and thorough examination of the Iraqi crisis and threat to world peace,” with an invitation to share reactions with me. The other article represents a first, as I've never seen a fair, accurate and balanced report on the subject of gun control and self-defense in a Catholic newspaper or other print medium.
I expect you will receive many letters on both sides of gun control and self-defense, which is good, and I hope that you can print some of them to help shed further light on the topics.
K. DALE ANDERSON
Randallstown, Maryland
Just War and the United Nations
Regarding “Anti-War, Not Anti-American” (Editorial, Feb. 9-15):
Well, you were doing pretty good until you hit the 11th paragraph. But first back up a bit. In the eighth paragraph, you stated: “This means [the United States] should only attack Iraq with solid, just-war reasons.” Fair enough. But then you fell into the trap of the Left. In the 11th paragraph, you said: “[I]t would be unjust for us to intervene without their (the United Nations’) consent.”
Now, a war is either just or unjust. If it is just, will the United Nations’ disapproval make it unjust? Conversely, if it is unjust, will the United Nations’ consent make it just?
Remember, this is the same United Nations (mostly Western European secular-ists) that allowed Libya to head the human rights commission and allowed the Sudan to slaughter up to 1 million non-Muslims over the last 10 years. Not a very good moral force to consult with, is it?
MIKE MC GLONE
Laguna Hills, California
Editor's note: A war is just when a national defends itself against an aggressor. Even if the United Nations opposes such a war, it is just. A war can also be just when a nation defends the community of nations against an aggressor. But in this case, a legitimate authority of the community of nations must be consulted. This is the situation in Iraq. The United Nations is consulted as an international body, not as a “moral force.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Crusades As Seen From A Suit of Armor DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:It is hard to imagine a contemporary novelist who would do justice to the Crusades.
The reason is simple: Who these days would treat the Crusaders as real people, as individuals rather than mere puppets representing Western brutality, hypocrisy, ignorance, racism, “judgmentalism” and imperialism — everything that fits the modern secular-ist's definition of “sin"?
Even many Catholics are ashamed of the Crusaders. Whenever Muslims or Eastern Christians condemn the knights of the cross, Catholics are ready to chant, “Mea culpa, mea culpa.”
But the obvious fact is that the Crusaders were like us: individuals who justified their actions to themselves, who were neither entirely villainous nor entirely good. In short, they were real people, not caricatures. A true historical novelist would convey this reality. And one of the great, and now sadly neglected, historical novelists of the 20th century is Alfred Duggan — a writer admired by Evelyn Waugh — who does just that.
Duggan, who was born in 1903 and Oxford educated, did not begin his career as a novelist until his 40s, after extensive travel in the former empire of the Byzantines. His first novel, and his most famous, is Knight with Armour: A Novel of the Crusades, recently returned to print by Cassell Military Paperbacks and distributed in the United States by Sterling Publishing.
It is a book I highly recommend. In it, one meets a young, not terribly well-to-do — but very well-meaning — Norman knight who leaves England to serve in the First Crusade. He is a good man but no great shakes as a knight. He fails at romance (to the point of wishing he had taken holy orders) and his courage fails him on the battlefield (his courage is more than once shored up by brave priests). He is in many respects an everyman — the perfect sort of man to make the Crusades real to us.
Through him we get the confidence of the Normans, men who “can march into any strange land, conquer it and settle in it no matter what the customs of the people.” We also see how alien the Eastern Christians were to the Catholics of the feudal West. Catholic Europe was a Europe of oaths — of personal loyalty and reciprocal obligation, of rights and privileges, of Catholicism seeking to create and defend Christ's Kingdom.
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Authors who touch on Catholic themes
But the Christians in the East are not suffused with “active” Western Christianity or with oath-bound obligations. They have no knights. They have soldiers, men who serve for pay. They have no feudalism. They are “oath-breakers” — men whose relationships are determined exclusively by the cash nexus. They are men who do not believe in and do not seek a universal Christendom.
As a Catholic priest in the novel notes: “The Greeks say that an infidel will never turn away from his idolatry, but it only shows that they don't try hard enough to convert them. They don't preach, and they won't trouble to learn the local language; in fact, I don't think they really want anyone to be saved who is not a subject of their emperor.”
Though the Crusaders come to defend the Eastern Christians, the Eastern Christians treat them with disdain, as distasteful mercenaries to be kept at arm's length, not as “pilgrims” such as the Crusaders think of themselves. While the crusading knights serve lords (and above them, kings, and above kings, the pope), each of whose authority is inherent, the Eastern emperor has in the Easterners’ own view, “no more right to his throne than [anyone else]. … He had won it in battle and would hold it until he was overthrown by a stronger. No wonder these Easterners needed Normans to defend them, rebels, schismatics and oath-breakers that they were.”
After a slow prelude in England, in which the author's learning is a bit heavily worn, Knight with Armour becomes an excellent account of what it was like to serve in the First Crusade.
We meet knights out to enrich themselves by colonizing the East as feudal lords; knights who are ne‘erdo-well adventurers; and idealistic knights — and common infantry — questing to serve God, rescue their fellow (if schismatic) Christians and reclaim the Holy Land from the infidel.
Every male Jacques and female Juliet among them is a fully drawn individual.
One learns why the staircases in castles curve the way they do (it has to do with attack and defense), feels the physical discomforts of a medieval campaign, and hears musings on the practical and theological pros and cons of wife beating.
Knight with Armour is written with great insight, wit and wisdom. Read it, pass it to your sons and give a copy to any Catholic who would condemn the “pilgrims” who suffered so much and fought so hard in defense of our faith at the pope's command.
H. W. Crocker III is the author of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History.
His comic novel, The Old Limey, has recently been reissued in paperback.
Knight with Armour is available for $9.95 (paperback) in bookshops nationwide.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: H.W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Six Reasons to Welcome the Stranger DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Before being named a bishop, I served for 14 years as a priest in Texas. George W. Bush was governor for some of that time, and I found it easy to understand why the state's Hispanic voters supported him so strongly in the 2000 presidential election.
Bush had earned a reputation as a decent and capable man, a leader with good will and good instincts toward Latinos. His election to national office seemed to promise a new, healthier relationship with Latin America, especially Mexico.
It also implied a new opening of t h e Republican Party toward the fastest-growing minority in the United States.
Bush saw the future earlier and better than most. Today, every prudent candidate knows that Hispanic voters and Hispanic concerns matter in a big way. Latinos recently passed African-Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the country. Like the Irish and Italians a century ago, Hispanic Americans are the “tomorrow” of the United States.
They can't be ignored by any political party — at least, not if the party hopes to have a successful national agenda.
Since most Latinos trace their roots back to traditional Catholic cultures with strong family and religious identities, the Hispanic vote seems like a natural recruiting pool for Republican organizers. And it could be, except for one very big problem: Republicans are dead wrong on immigration. Worse, the Bush administration seems blind to this mistake, and it will cost the party bitterly in the coming decades.
America the Nativist?
The United States is a nation built on immigration. That's one of our great strengths. It's also why nativism — “Americans for the Americans” — never works. Nativism assumes America's economic pie is small and its culture is set in cement, and we need to protect both for the people who already live here. But our history shows just the opposite. Immigrants make the pie bigger. They create wealth, bring new energy and ideas, and keep our country competitive. They also take the jobs that nobody else wants.
The more successful we are, the more we draw people from abroad seeking to build a new life among us. That's logical. It's also a good thing. We needn't fear it. As President Bush said in his State of the Union address this year, “Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.”
Central to human freedom, as the Church repeatedly reminds us, is that people have a God-given right to move and travel freely to sustain themselves and their families. Interfering with that right without very good cause violates human dignity. We couldn't stop it even if we wanted to, and while it's certainly reasonable to regulate our immigration policies to ensure public well-being, the line separating a fair concern for national security and the unfair mistreatment of newcomers can be very thin.
The truth is, in the United States in 2003, our economy depends on the labor of millions of undocumented immigrants, many of them Latin American. In many places, agriculture couldn't survive without the work of their hands. The overwhelming majority pose no threat at all to national security. They simply want to earn a livelihood in jobs already suffering from a severe labor shortage. For most Mexican “illegals,” the issue is very simple: America needs workers, and they want to work.
Why is it so unreasonable to extend to these workers reasonable protection under the law?
As the U.S. bishops have pointed out, legalizing our undocumented immigrants makes sense in several key ways.
Legalization would help, not hurt, national security. Bringing undocumented workers in from the margins would enable the government to keep far better track of who is in the United States and why.
The Republican Party, with a majority in both houses of Congress, has the power to seize a unique, historic opportunity with Latinos.
Legalization would not steal jobs from the native born. On the contrary, it would help people who are already contributing to our economy.
Legalization would help keep families together and support the well-being of U.S. citizen children. Most undocumented families include at least one child who is an American citizen and other children and parents who are not. Policies which target the undocumented worker inevitably also attack U.S. citizen children.
Legalization would help further development and stability in Latin America. Immigrants in the United States sent back $20 billion to their home countries in 2000. Many of those immigrants are Latin American, and their resources are vital to Latin American economies.
Legalization need not reward lawbreakers nor harm immigrants already waiting in line for visas. Current U.S. policies actually invite undocumented immigration by imposing upon the spouses and children of lawful permanent residents at least a five-year wait in reuniting with their loved ones. This is self-defeating and unrealistic. There's no logical reason why policies cannot be crafted that would assist both immigrants seeking visas through normal channels and undocumented immigrants.
Finally, legalization would bring U.S. immigration into conformity with U.S. economic policy. We can't reasonably encourage freer interaction with Latin America through treaties such as NAFTA, which encourage immigration, and then crack down on immigration when it occurs.
Where does this leave us? Crises abroad, like Iraq and the war on terror, run the risk of short-circuiting our common sense and real needs at home. Americans currently face a choice that seems to recur throughout our history: to be true to our national ideals by seeing the bigger picture, thinking creatively and welcoming new possibilities along with our newly arrived immigrants; or retreating into fear and selfishness, and punishing immigrants for trusting in the very ideals we stand for.
The Republican Party, with a majority in both houses of Congress, has the power to seize a unique, historic opportunity with Latinos. President Bush certainly has the decency and intelligence to see that. Whether he has the courage to act on it remains to be seen.
Most Reverend José H. Gomez, S.T.D., is the auxiliary bishop of Denver.
----- EXCERPT: Immigration Policy: Thinking Clearly About the Future ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bishop José H. Gomez ----- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: We Can't Afford to Forget the Place 'Where Bad People Go' DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:One thing I always looked forward to as a novice in 1985 was teaching CCD — catechism class.
But I wasn't prepared for this. Weekly, I had a chance to teach at a nearby parish. To prepare my confirmation class for Ash Wednesday that year, I talked about the four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. I started the class by asking the kids this question:
“What happens to our soul after we die?” All hands shot up. I called on a girl in the back row of the class called Cathy. She replied with an air of authority:
“We all go to heaven to be with Jesus.”
“Thanks Cathy,” I said looking around the room, “Are there any other possibilities where our souls might go?” No hands.
“Not everybody at once.” All the kids laughed nervously. A chubby kid named Mark slowly raised his hand.
“Yes, Mark.”
He spoke in a secretive tone, pointing down at the floor:
“Bad people go down there, Brother?”
“Down where?”
He smiled at me and yelled: “Hell!”
Everybody burst out in laughter. Smart kid.
Yet those of us who know something about hell know it isn't a laughing matter. Hell is serious. Nonetheless, it is something we rarely talk about nowadays.
Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday. It's an excellent opportunity to reflect on hell. Here's what you need to keep in mind:
Hell exists. It has nothing to do with the bogeyman. Jesus himself taught the doctrine on many occasions. The word hell appears 15 times throughout the Gospels. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms the fact that “Jesus often speaks of ‘Gehenna,’ of ‘the unquenchable fire’ reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims he ‘will send his angels, and they will gather … all evildoers and throw them into the furnace of fire,’ and he will pronounce the condemnation: ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!” (No. 1034).
The problem most people have with hell is not its existence. According to a Gallup poll last year, 71% of adults nationwide believe in hell. The difficulty with hell is so few want to hear anything about it.
Our existential outlook on life can explain this. What's important is the here and now. Tomorrow is uncertain. Enjoy life. If there is a hell, we will deal with it when it comes. Harvey Cox Jr., a religious historian and professor at Harvard Divinity School, says, “There has been a shift in religion from focusing on what happens in the next life to asking, ‘What is the quality of this life we're leading now?’ You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week and you'd be startled even to hear a mention of hell.”
Then there's consumerism to keep us distracted from thinking about the possibility of hell. We use our time thinking about how to make more money. Larger homes, better cars, longer vacations and successful careers top the to-do list, not avoiding hell. The watering down of hell has affected not only Catholics but also members of mainstream Christian denominations.
Bruce Shelley, senior professor of Church history at the Denver Theological Seminary, put it this way: Hell is “just too negative. Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding.”
Before people write off hell completely, they should know something:
Hell is eternal. There's no parole or early release for good behavior. The catechism defines hell as “definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.” This definitive self-exclusion is not the equivalent of solitary confinement. It's much worse. The eternal loss of God triggers an indescribable agony in body and soul beyond anything we could ever imagine.
The Bible describes hell in terms of fire. Yet we shouldn't understand the term fire in a material sense. Jesus uses the term fire to stress the incomprehensible suffering in hell. This truth about hell raises a question everybody wants to know:
Who goes to hell? The Church holds that those who die in mortal sin without repenting merit damnation. Furthermore, Jesus has this to say to those who dismiss the demands of charity and justice:
“Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink. I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me … Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help? … I tell you solemnly, insofar as you neglected to do this to one of he least of these, you neglected to do it to me.”
Does all this talk about hell mean that our faith is based on fear? No. It simply means we are accountable to God's love by keeping his commandments.
Many pastors don't preach on hell in their homilies. Our CCD programs also tend to sidestep the issue of hell. Kids grow up thinking hell is something imaginary, like the bogeyman. It's certainly much easier to talk about God's fatherly love, his mercy and his kindness. Nonetheless, it's only fair that we know the whole truth about our faith.
And that includes hell.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Studies in
Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Mcnair Lc ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Checking my God-ometer DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:God took away my speedometer the other day. I was rounding a curve when the needle began buzzing and bouncing around like a kid who's eaten an entire chocolate cake all by himself. It was the first time I've gone from 40 to 120 mph without having had a second cup of coffee.
My immediate solution: Choose a driver who looks conscientious and keep apace of him or her. The problem with that approach, I quickly learned, is the lack of drivers who look conscientious — or, at least, like they were paying full attention to their driving.
And imagine my frustration when, a little further on, there were no other cars on the road. There I was, thinking I was flying along when up from behind me came a whirring pack of cars whose drivers left me in the dust in no time flat. I found that, at certain points, if I was savvy enough, I could gun it and coast along in a fast driver's tailwind.
Thinking back, I'm intrigued by the fact that this incident occurred just as Lent is approaching. This is the time, I've decided, to delve into the gadgets and gizmos of what makes me tick and evaluate where I am in my spiritual formation.
I often find myself attempting to manage my spiritual life in much the same way that I attempted to drive with a faulty speedometer. When I see people way ahead of me in spiritual formation, I try to race ahead to catch up with them, placing more and more demands on myself and hoping that I'll get caught up in their momentum. In the end, I have to slam on the brakes because the Heavenly Father sends a traffic jam to warn me that I'm moving too fast.
On the other hand, there are times when I'm drifting totally on my own. I think I'm developing at a good pace when suddenly I get sideswiped by someone who's really clipping along. I realize I've been putzing along without really getting anywhere.
At other times, I find myself trying to merge into the spirituality of those who tend to cluster together, pumping the brakes so as not to take on too much. This only makes me miserable because I feel stifled and tethered. Regardless of the speed, if it's someone else's, then it's not right for me.
In order to find my personal pace, I have to put aside my laziness, desires and fears and pay careful attention to the gauges that God has placed before me in my life.
He is the ultimate speedometer. With gentle signals, he lovingly controls my speed through the sacraments, the Scriptures, the spiritual advisers and the saintly examples he has provided me. He speeds me up through the apostolates that call upon me to meet the needs of others. He scoops me up in the tail winds of world events. He hums me along via my connections with my husband, my children, my work and the thousands of little occurrences that happen throughout each day. He slows me down in the depth and quietude of my heart. And he brings me to an idle when my soul cries out for peace and nourishment.
As I receive ashes on Ash Wednesday and begin my long journey through the 40 days of Lent, I realize that I'm actually grateful that my speedometer went on the blink — even though it cost me a bundle to replace it. The day it went on the fritz was a sharp reminder that, right now, my focus needs to be on my internal spiritual speedometer and not on the progress of the rest of the vehicles on the road.
By maintaining the speed that the Heavenly Father has designated for me, I will indeed become a useful vehicle for him on the highway of his divine plan.
Marge Fenelon writes from Cudahy, Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: Spirit & Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marge Fenelon ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Capital Catholicity DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Located just two blocks from the White House, the Catholic Information Center is situated close to the political heart of the world's only remaining superpower.
As I learned on a recent visit, it's also close — in a spiritual sense — to the heart of the Church.
The center offers a myriad of services and opportunities for Catholics who find themselves in downtown Washington. With a beautiful chapel, extensive bookstore and
opportunities for spiritual direction and reception of the sacraments, it's an oasis of orthodox Catholicity in the very seat of American governance.
The center was established in 1957 by Redemptorist Father James Coen. His aim was to not only support his order's works in D.C. but also to establish there a presence for people interested in exploring the Catholic faith. Although originally situated in small quarters and run on something of a shoestring budget, the center continued under the direction of the Redemptorists for 35 years. Hundreds of inquirers were received into the Church and thousands of others received ministry and aid.
In 1992, the Catholic Information Center became an official agency of the Archdiocese of Washington, placing it under the auspices of Cardinal James Hickey. Since that time, the work of the center has been entrusted to the priests of Opus Dei — first under the leadership of Father Michael Curtin and then under the center's current director, Father C. John McCloskey III.
Well known in circles far beyond the reach of the center, Father McCloskey is often associated with his ministry to high-profile politicians. A prolific author and media figure in both the Church and secular worlds, Father McCloskey seems to be just as at home when answering questions for Fox News and CNN as he does on EWTN. When he refers to himself with a laugh as a “Catholic crossover artist,” he's only half kidding.
When articulating a vision for ministry, however, he pushes all jokes aside. He notes that, although he appears to be a very public figure, he offers a very personalized ministry. “The most important thing I do is come in to the Catholic Information Center each day,” he says, pointing out that Mass is offered daily here, confessors are available throughout the day and the Eucharist is exposed for adoration every afternoon.
“My desire is that everyone who walks through the doors be treated as a son or daughter of God and get what they need for their spiritual journey,” he says. “Everything else is peripheral to that.”
A Wise Investment
Since assuming responsibility for the Catholic Information Center in 1998, Father McCloskey has over-seen a number of initiatives and two moves, including the one that brought the center to its present location.
Physically, the center is an inviting facility housed on the first floor of the historic Investment Building, which was built in 1924 and recently renovated, the building has a classic Renaissance-Revival exterior and a thoroughly modern interior. Its attractive new décor, prime location and historic underpinnings all contributed to its being awarded a special Star Award for Excellence from the Washington Building Congress in 2001.
The Catholic Information Center is home to tasteful meeting rooms, bright offices and the city's largest Catholic bookstore. This fits well with Father McCloskey's stated goal of establishing “the best Catholic bookstore in the United States.” The book selections are strong in terms of both quantity and quality. For those who need suggestions, Father McCloskey has developed a “Lifetime Reading Plan” that consists of 100 recommended titles. The plan is available free of charge at the center and is also posted on its Web site, www.cicdc.org.
All of the recommended texts are available in the bookstore; a third of them are also available in Spanish. For further direction, Father McCloskey plays the part of the good doctor. He is willing to dole out personal suggestions for reading, inscribed on a page from the thick “spiritual reading prescription pad” that sits on his desk.
St. Escrivá’ s Emblem
The Catholic Information Center has always housed a chapel — but now it's got an especially unique one: the only sanctuary in the United States dedicated to St. Josemaría Escrivá, canonized last Oct. 6.
St. Josemaría is well known as the founder of Opus Dei and for his strong articulation of the teaching that members of the laity are called to lives of true devotion and holiness in the midst of their everyday world. He believed that all members of the Church have an important role to play in transforming the prevailing culture for Christ. This message seems to be particularly timely during this era — and well suited for a chapel located in the nation's capital.
The chapel itself is well appointed. A beautiful gold tabernacle serves as the chapel's centerpiece and focus. Lovely statues of St. Josemaría and St. Catherine of Siena are located on either side of the altar. St. Jean Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, is featured in a stained-glass image that serves as a reminder of the center's pastoral mission to all who visit.
Meanwhile, a complimentary image of St. Thomas More, patron of politicians, calls to mind the center's outreach in the heart of our nation's government.
The chapel, which can accommodate 100 people, hosts a steady stream of visitors stopping in daily for reflection and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The noontime Mass typically draws a crowd of 75 or more, consisting of both visiting travelers and local regulars.
During my visit, I found the Catholic Information Center to be an amazing weave of both contemplation and activity. In addition to its regular offerings, the center also hosts what seems like an endless stream of special events: book signings by some of the nation's most prominent Catholic authors, screenings of movies with special appeal to Catholics, evenings of recollection for men and women, and an ongoing lecture series on a variety of topics. The week I visited, C-SPAN, the cable public-affairs channel, had already covered one event and was scheduled to return for another.
An invaluable resource for spiritual seekers, the Catholic Information Center is a must-stop for the Catholic traveler who finds himself in the nation's capital on business or for pleasure.
Patricia A. Crawford writes from Winter Park, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: Catholic Information Center of Washington, D.C. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patricia A. Crawford ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:DAREDEVIL (20th Century Fox). Director: Mark Steven Johnson. Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell. (PG-13)
Take One: Dark, gritty superhero tale is faithful to ‘80s comic-book stories of blind hero Daredevil, his lover-antagonist Elektra, crime-boss Kingpin and assassin Bullseye. Take Two: With sometimes unnecessarily rough violence and an indifferent depiction of a nonmarital affair, this isn't kid fare; other drawbacks include weak casting and an anticlimactic final act.
Final Take: Adult fans of the source material will appreciate the film's better-done aspects; others may want to take a pass (see “Spotlight: Daredevil“ for more information).
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (Paramount). Director: Donald Petrie. Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey. (PG-13)
Take One: Romantic comedy in which Hudson tries to drive McConaughey to dump her so she can write about the experience for a magazine, while McConaughey tries to woo Hudson so he can win a bet with his boss.
Take Two: Hudson's behavior is insufferably obnoxious, while McConaughey endures misery and humiliation that induce more squirms than laughs. These two aren't having any fun, so why should we?
Final Take: Unpleasant premise is only aggravated by embarrassing sex-related dialogue and an implied nonmarital affair.
CHICAGO (Miramax). Director: Rob Marshall. Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere. (PG-13)
Take One: Big-screen adaptation of cynical Fosse musical uses fantasy and imaginative set pieces to tell story of “jazz slayers” Zellweger and Zeta-Jones playing the system with shyster Gere's help.
Take Two: Another decadent musical on the heels of Moulin Rouge, but without that film's idealism, Chicago revels in its naughty anti-heroines but has no admiration for its lone innocent character.
Final Take: Is it a cynical caution-ary tale about justice and responsibility in mass-media culture — or simply morally nihilistic and heartless? Chicago doesn't commit.
THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 (Disney). Director: Steve Trenbirth. Haley Joel Osment, John Goodman, Phil Collins. (G)
Take One: Another lightweight sequel to a classic Disney cartoon, JB2 revisits Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and Shere Khan, along with the young village girl glimpsed at the end of the original.
Take Two: Looking and feeling exactly like direct-to-video fare, JB2 has no new story ideas, no memorable new songs and no fewer than three renditions of “The Bare Necessities.”
Final Take: Original it isn't, but at a time when a movie as dicey as Kangaroo Jack can be fobbed off as “family fare,” there's something to be said for a movie that will entertain children and not offend adults.
SHANGHAI KNIGHTS
(Touchstone). Director: David Dobkin. Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Fan Wong. (PG-13)
Take One: Master of martial-arts comedy Chan re-teams with Wilson for this London-based sequel to kung-fu Western Shanghai Noon, which boasts the longest and most elaborate stunt sequences of all Jackie's Hollywood films.
Take Two: Action sequences aside, the humor is weaker — and more objectionable — and the story lamer than its predecessor.
Final Take: Jackie's buoyant, stylized action comedy remains the draw. But, despite a couple of brilliant tributes to Gene Kelly and the Keystone Cops, only dedicated Chan fans will want to sit through this outing.
Steven Greydanus is editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com.
----- EXCERPT: A Register's-eye view of five current box-office leaders ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Spotlight: Daredevil DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” says Matt Murdock (Ben Affleck), also known as Daredevil. But Father Everett, a sympathetic priest who knows Matt's secret, chides him, “You don't come to me for forgiveness, you come to me for permission — and I can't give you that.” In spite of this, eventually the priest reluctantly gives Matt absolution, but not without a parting shot: “And I don't like the costume!”
Despite the horns he wears, Matt Murdock tries to be on the side of the angels. In childhood, an accidental shower of mysterious chemicals blinded him but heightened his remaining senses to superhuman acuity and gifted him with a unique “radar sense.” Writer-director and long-time comic-book fan Mark Steven Johnson successfully conveys the experience of super powers and Daredevil's perception of the world to the audience — especially the radar sense effect, which can be strikingly beautiful.
Johnson is less successful at opening the mind or the heart of the character, who remains as inaccessible as the Bruce Wayne of the Batman movies, in contrast to the more human heroes of Spider-Man and XMen. More seriously, Johnson compromises the character's moral center: This Daredevil chases and fights a bad guy onto train tracks and then lets him get run over — something his comic-book counterpart would never have done.
As this suggests, the violence in the film can get rough — sometimes unnecessarily so — and the line between justice and vengeance isn't as clear as the movie itself would like it to be. Given the violence, and a sexual encounter between the hero and his girlfriend, Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), this is one comic-book movie that's decidedly inappropriate for young viewers.
Despite these drawbacks, adults who grew up reading the original comic-book stories will find Daredevil a triumph of movie adaptation and well-conceived effects over weak characterization and uninspired casting. As to how casual viewers will feel about it — I have to admit I probably have too many Daredevil comic books in my closet to be a reliable judge of that.
— S.G.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
A top-10 pick on the U.S. Bishops’ Office of Film & Broadcasting list for 2002, Greek Wedding has grossed more than any other independently financed film in history. Co-produced by Tom Hanks and his Greek-born wife Rita Wilson, it has built up an enthusiastic following primarily through word-of-mouth. Actress Nia Vardalos expands her one-woman stage show into a loosely structured feature film of comic sketches held together by its sure-footed tone and solid performances.
Toula Portokalos (Vardalos) has never felt completely at home in either her family's ethnic world or her contemporaries’ all-American one. Well past the age when most Greek girls marry, she falls in love with Ian Miller (John Corbett), a WASP high-school teacher. The rest of the movie chronicles their romance and the culture clash between their two different backgrounds. Writer Vardalos and director Joel Zwick choose situations and gags with such universal appeal that members of almost any ethnic group will enjoy them.
The Desert Rats (1953)
During World War II, desert warfare meant tanks — and some of the conflict's key turning points were decided by armored combat in conditions similar to what we may face in Iraq. This classic film chronicles the bravery of the 9th Australian Division in defending Tobruk in 1941. A Scottish commando, Capt. MacRoberts (Richard Burton), is put in charge of an Australian battalion that must stave off savage assaults from the legendary Field Marshal Rommel (James Mason) for 242 days while the British Army regroups in Cairo and prepares for a counterattack.
A strict disciplinarian, Mac-Roberts doesn't consider his troops up to the task. But an enlisted man (Robert Newton) turns out to have been one of MacRoberts’ favorite teachers in school and, in a series of lively, comic confrontations, he helps change his former pupil's mind.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Mothers Living and Learning -- and Earning a Degree DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:OMAHA, Neb. — A stroll down one of the corridors of the College of St. Mary's Walsh Hall quickly reveals living quarters that are far from a typical university residence hall.
Elaborately decorated boxes with tiny slots for valentines adorn the entrance to each room. Crayons and play structures replace the pool tables and pop machines found in most dormitory lounges. A bright yellow rubber ducky or two might even be found in the community shower areas.
As part of Mothers Living and Learning — a program designed to enable single mothers to pursue a college degree — Walsh Hall is home to 28 women and their young children. The program provides year-round campus housing for women and their children under age 10.
It also includes community-building activities and educational demonstrations on parenting, car maintenance, nutrition, money management and the like.
According to Tara Mieras, director of resident life at the Omaha, Neb., women's college, many people question the existence of such a program at a Catholic institution.
But to Jared Goulding, assistant director of admissions at St. Mary of the Woods College near Terre Haute, Ind., such a program naturally flows from a faith-based school.
“An institution that has a religious background sees the world a little bit differently,” Goulding said. “It sees the importance of family and the growth of the human being in general.”
St. Mary of the Woods — the nation's oldest Catholic liberal arts college for women — opened a Student Mothers program in 1990.
Mieras said a common question is, “This is a Catholic college. Why are we supporting this?” In response, Mieras emphasizes that “what we're supporting is that these women are choosing life.”
Programs for single mothers in higher education prevent women from feeling forced to choose between the baby and the books, Mieras said. They also provide a better future for their children.
According to the National Center for Single Mothers and Higher Education at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., female-headed households constitute only about 10% of all households, but at the same time they also account for nearly one-third of the poverty population, according to the book In Defense of Single Mothers by Nancy Dowd.
For most single mothers, the way to avoid joining these statistics lies in a college degree, Mieras said.
“In any way we can help women succeed, we want them to excel and gain leadership,” she said. “Studies have shown that with a degree these women can get better-paying jobs to support their children.”
Patty Richards-Eckleberry, a 35-year-old mother of two enrolled in the Omaha program, agreed. Although she left a high-paying job in office management to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse practitioner, most of her classmates aren't so fortunate.
“A lot of us are underemployed,” Richards-Eckleberry said. “They're at that stage where they'll be making $7 to $8 an hour if they don't go back to school. It's a matter of providing for our children, and this is an opportunity for us to be able to do that.
“Without this program I couldn't have gone back to school.”
Mieras and Goulding said time is probably a single mother's biggest obstacle to reaching her goals.
“It's just all a matter of time,” Goulding said. “Once the child comes, the time just seems to disappear. The time to study, go to class, the alone time that we all need to keep the balance in life.”
For Richards-Eckleberry, the day begins at 5:20 a.m. She dresses her two sons, drives them to school and eats breakfast all before 7:30 a.m.
“There goes my day … class after class,” she said. “We get into our routine of dinner, baths and stories, and then the boys have to go to bed so I can study. There's no way I could've done this keeping up a home, a full-time job and school.”
The mothers also benefit from the support system created by living in a campus residence hall.
“If you ever have a problem there's always someone who's going through the same thing you are,” Richards-Eckleberry said. “If someone needs to study a little more, someone else will take the kids for a little while.”
The children benefit as well, she said.
“My 6-year-old now says he wants to live here forever,” she said. “There's always kids available for him to play with.”
“You form a kinship with these people,” she said. “They become an extension of your own family. I never had a sister before, but now I have a bunch. I've met some friends up here that I will probably have forever.”
In addition to the support of her fellow classmates, Richards-Eckleberry said the support of professors and school administrators has been crucial to her success.
“This is probably the hardest thing I've ever done,” she said. “I don't know if we could make it if they weren't there rooting us on and seeing in us things we didn't see in ourselves before we came here.”
Goulding said benefits continue long after the mothers receive their degrees.
“It's a legacy they can pass on to their children,” he said. “The kids can see the sacrifice Mom made, and it can inspire them when it's time for them to go to college.”
Kimberly Jansen writes from Lincoln, Nebraska.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kimberly Jansen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Gate Is Narrow, the Way Difficult DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH?
Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas Our Sunday Visitor, 2002 170 pages, $10.95 To order: 800-348-2440 or www.osv.com
“I grew up in a ‘Catholic ghetto’ of the 1950s and ‘60s,” writes Father Peter Stravinskas. “I did not have a non-Catholic friend until seventh grade.” So begins his book about the classic — and controversial — phrase, Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church, no salvation").
Father Stravinskas is no longer a stranger to non-Catholics; today he is one of the finest apologists and ecumenists working and writing in the United States. His staunch Catholic upbringing, he suggests, prepared him for the difficult work of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, since “confidence breeds openness.” It is a refreshing point of view, free from the mushy thinking that too often informs such endeavors.
Salvation Outside the Church? is meant for a learned but popular audience and is well suited for undergraduate work or an RCIA program. It opens with a theological analysis of the Church's teaching on salvation, provides an excellent overview of ecumenical history and then examines nine key Church documents, including the Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), Pope John Paul II's Encyclical on Commitment to Ecumenism (Ut Unim Sint) and the more recent document — widely criticized and wildly misunderstood — Dominus Iesus, which declares the “unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church.” There is also a chapter on anti-Semitism and the Christian Bible, in which Father Stravinskas mounts a point-by-point response to propositions about the New Testament put forth by the Jewish-French historian Jules Isaac.
Father Stravinskas writes with great conciseness and clarity, and he is not afraid to address difficult or controversial points — which he does with firmness and charity. He believes deeply in “the unicity of Jesus Christ; the uniqueness of the Catholic Church as the sacrament of salvation; and the importance of rejoicing in the truth wherever it is found and in whatever degree it is found,” and these beliefs result in a work of true ecumenism, dedicated to honest dialogue and truth-seeking.
For 2,000 years the Church has grappled with difficult and interrelated questions about the possibility of salvation for those outside her visible communion and those who have never heard the Gospel. Father Stravinkas shows that the Church, the “universal sacrament of salvation,” is not optional — but there are varying “degrees” of relationship one can have to the Church, even outside her visible boundaries. In the words of St. Augustine: “Many who appear to be without are within, while many who appear to be within are without.”
Recognizing that many Catholics embrace the false notion that all religions are equal and that Catholicism is just one option among many, Father Stravinskas includes the entire text of Dominus Iesus. He writes, “I cannot recall any other ecclesiastical text to raise such a brouhaha” since Humanae Vitae in 1968. All the fuss tended to ignore that the document said nothing that hadn't already stated by the Church and that the vast majority of the document represented material from Vatican II. It provided, once again, consistent evidence that the Catholic Church continues “affirming the same two basic doctrines … : the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the necessity of the Church.”
As this helpful book shows, conviction leads to evangelization and confidence leads to true ecumenism — vital truths necessary for the hard work of proclaiming the Gospel.
Carl Olson, editor of Envoy magazine, writes from Heath, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:‘Leadership for What?’
A spokeswoman for St. Mary's conceded that it was “the wrong conference to choose,” but added, “I'm sure the intention was to expose students to Washington,” and to show them “how to become involved in lobbying and leadership.”
“They're learning leadership for what?” Bishop D‘Arcy asked when contacted by the newspaper. “To become leaders that support pro-choice causes?”
Teams Cut
CHRONICLE.COM, Feb. 10 — Fairfield University will eliminate its varsity football and men's ice hockey teams at the end of the academic year, making it the third member of the mostly Catholic Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference to drop football this year, said the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
University officials said budgetary concerns drove the decision, not conformity with Title IX, the 1972 law banning sex discrimination at institutions.
However, Fairfield will now easily comply with the strictest standard of the law, which requires colleges to have roughly the same proportion of female athletes as female undergraduates.
No Mention
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 — The university's annual national survey of the attitudes and behaviors of college freshmen was widely reported in the media for such findings as a slight decline in student drinking and growing support for both military spending and same-sex marriage.
Neither the extensive coverage nor the university's own press release reported on attitudes about legalized abortion, which saw an almost two-percentage-point drop in support in two years (55.0% in 2001 to 53.6% this year).
When asked by the Register, a spokeswoman for UCLA said the change was not especially significant because it represents a continuation of a trend that has been in place since 1979 — a slow but steady decline in freshmen approval for legalized abortion, which peaked at 78.8% in 1969.
New Dean
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Feb. 6 — Msgr. Brian Ferme has been named dean of the university's School of Canon Law in Washington, D.C., the university announced.
Dean of the canon law faculty at the Lateran University in Rome since 1999, Msgr. Ferme is an expert in medieval history and canon law. He was ordained in 1980 as a priest of the Diocese of Portsmouth, England.
A former professor at Oxford University, Msgr. Ferme is a consultor for the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts.
Gearing Up
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, Feb. 13 — The Jesuit-run university announced it is one of five Washington, D.C.-area colleges to share in a $13.9 million grant from a federally funded program called Gear Up, which helps prepare low-income high school students for college. Gear Up will also fund programs at Catholic-run Trinity College.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Movin' Out
Q My husband has been offered a much better job across the country. We're hesitant to move, especially since I am expecting and we live in a town near both our families. Can you offer any advice?
A We faced this matter ourselves once. Our relationship was founded away from home. Nebraskan Tom met Alabaman Caroline at college in Ohio. So, upon discerning that the Lord was calling us to marriage, it was only natural that we should move to … Texas?
We had grown accustomed to living away from our families, so a move to Dallas, where Tom would attend grad school and where we knew no one, seemed exciting. And so it was. Beginning our life together, we enjoyed all the benefits and culture of a large metropolitan area, making friends and a home for ourselves there. Our families were missed, but visits were regular.
Then a funny thing happened on the way to parenthood: When our first child was on the way, we suddenly, mutually felt the need to be closer to family. While the status quo was great for the two of us, we were moved to ask: What is best for our family — especially our children? We realized that our children would do best if they not only had parents who lived out their faith but also the kind of support system that only relatives can provide. We wanted our children to grow up surrounded by godly grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as cousins who were being raised in a manner akin to the way we were bringing them up.
In short, we wanted our children to be raised in a setting where faith in Christ and love for his Church was the norm, not the exception. Either of our families could have been that model, but the job opportunity landed us in Alabama, so we packed our things and headed south with a 7-month-old. Do we miss our friends in Dallas? Of course. Do we regret moving? Not at all. Whenever we see our sons’ faces light up at the prospect of going to visit Grandma and Grandpa, or our 5-year-old's cries when it's time to say goodbye to his cousins for the day, its hard to imagine family life any other way. It's a comfort knowing that every minute our kids spend with their relatives will be time in which our faith and values are reinforced.
Let's be clear: Just because God called us to this decision does not mean he will call you to the same. Our point is this: If your extended family is one that will be reaffirming of your faith and loving to your children, that is a consideration not to be taken lightly. Our culture is so hostile to virtue that Catholic parents can't expect to impart good character in their kids on their own. It becomes a priority to seek out loving support. A Christ-centered, supportive family structure is the best environment in which to take on this vitally important task.
You may need to ask yourself: Is the opportunity across the country so good that you'd leave the support system of your extended family for it?
Tom and Caroline McDonald are family life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom And Caroline Mcdonald ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Sanctified in the School of Suffering DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:It's Ash Wednesday. Do you know why your suffering is?
Suffering causes us to reflect on life in a way no other experience can. Where is God in my suffering? Did I do something wrong? What will be the quality of my life from here on out? Simply, we want to make sense out of that which doesn't seem to make sense.
Understanding the meaning of suffering became an urgent personal concern for me not too long ago when I began to develop excruciating pain in my neck and arm. I discovered after repeated visits to the doctor that the cause of my pain was a split disk in my neck, and I would need a cervical spine fusion. Prior to my injury, I was well acquainted with the Catholic Church's teaching on redemptive suffering — but I found that, in the midst of my pain, my clear theological understanding was reduced to sloppy, emotional and inconsistent application.
To say the least, I wrestled day and night with this issue, disappointed with my level of courage and trust in God. After months of prayer, questions and many books, my quest for answers led me right into the very heart of the Holy Trinity. It was only then, when my heart was in union with God, that my suffering took on significance.
Through this experience, I came to see how an academic study of suffering could only go so far. Only by living through real pain can we more fully understand its redemptive power.
When we survey human history, it becomes evident that suffering is an inextricable part of the human condition. It's not a matter of whether we will suffer during our lives, but when. And more specifically, how will we suffer: poorly or well?
When we fail to find meaning in our suffering, we can easily fall into despair. But once we find meaning in our suffering, it is astounding what we can endure, both mentally and physically. The key is not the suffering itself but the meaning found within it. At the beginning of my ordeal my faith was inconsistent, focusing more on myself than the opportunity Christ had given me to join myself to him. As the months rolled on, I spent more time before the Blessed Sacrament, more time in prayer and study. I longed for answers that would make my suffering meaningful. I desperately wanted a revelation of the meaning of suffering that would result in one of those “aha” moments. I was not disappointed.
The hurdle I had to overcome was a longtime question of mine: Didn't Jesus suffer so that we wouldn't have to? No doubt Jesus suffered and died that we might become a part of the family of God, spiritually healed and sharing in his nature. But he didn't eliminate suffering here on earth. In fact, the Gospels record very few people healed by Jesus.
In his 1984 apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering), Pope John Paul II speaks of two types of suffering — temporal and definitive. We experience temporal suffering, both moral and physical, as a consequence of sin. But there is a suffering that goes much deeper than depression or cancer, a definitive suffering. Concerning this definitive suffering, the Holy Father says, “Man perishes when he loses ‘eternal life.’ The opposite of salvation is not, therefore, only temporal suffering, and kind of suffering, but the definitive suffering: the loss of eternal life, being rejected by God — damnation. The only-begotten Son was given to humanity primarily to protect man against this definitive evil and against definitive suffering.” In temporal suffering, he writes, “there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace” that acquaints us with pure love — the love that defeats fear and definitive suffering.
The work of Christ does not guarantee an escape from suffering. Instead, he has changed the meaning of suffering. We are now joined through baptism with Christ in his death and resurrection, and we have become intimately united to him, so much so that we are his Mystical Body. Because of our union with Christ, even our suffering is changed; it becomes redemptive. Because Christ loves us so much, he invites us to participate in his redeeming work by allowing us to offer up our sufferings in union with his.
John Paul continues: “[I]n the cross of Christ not only is the redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.” In other words, our suffering is changed and is worth something if it is in union with Christ. Every time we suffer, we have an opportunity to either run from Christ or embrace the suffering as an opportunity to love and walk as he walked.
If the weakness of the cross — the point at which Jesus was emptied and lifted up — was confirmed by the Resurrection, then our weakness is capable of being infused with the cross’ power. St. Paul experienced much weakness and suffering, but when he prayed about it, Christ answered: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” As a result, the apostle could proclaim, “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
St. Paul understood that our life is a cooperation with the work of Christ. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,” he wrote, “and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24). Think about that: Paul said that something is lacking in Christ's afflictions. What could possibly be lacking in Christ's afflictions? Our part!
Our part may be miniscule compared to his. Nevertheless, as the Holy Father said in Salvifici Doloris, our sufferings are “a very special particle of the infinite treasure of the world's redemption.” This is how our suffering can take on meaning: When joined to Christ, suffering is changed and actually becomes fruitful. We participate with Christ in redeeming the world by joining our hearts, our minds and, yes, even our suffering to him.
Today, Jesus tells us that if we are to follow him we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily (see Luke 9:23). Our lives become an imitation of and participation in the love of the Trinity when we offer up our complete lives in union with Christ.
I have discovered that it is in the midst of suffering that I experience most deeply the love of God. I enter the very heart of the Trinity, and it is there that I come to know God. By the end of my ordeal, I understood that Christ was allowing me to participate in his cross because that is his means of allowing me to share in the very inner life of God.
The fact that Jesus suffered and died does not mean that we won't suffer. In fact, we are told that we can expect some measure of suffering if we follow him (see Matthew 16:24). By being united to Christ, we are enabled by him to love as he loves. Our suffering, like his, becomes a means of loving. During the holy sacrifice of the Mass, we have the best opportunity to join ourselves with Jesus and “offer up” our pain.
If you are suffering now, do not despair. This is your opportunity to draw close to Christ and entrust yourself to God (see 1 Peter 2:23 and 4:19). It is by taking up your cross and following Christ that you come to know that indeed “all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). I have indeed learned that, through suffering, I'm given a wonderful opportunity to walk as Jesus walked, in self-donating love. This understanding of suffering has changed every aspect of my life and it has taken much of the fear of suffering from me. It has made me a better husband, father and friend. I can now honestly say: Thank you,
Jeff Cavins, co-author of Amazing Grace for Those Who, welcomes e-mail at jcavins@relevantradio.com.
The book can be ordered at ascensionpress.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Jeff Cavins ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Kinetic Champion of Pastoral Pursuits DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:Hospital chaplain, chaplain to two fire departments, spiritual director to the Missionaries of Charity of Detroit — working with a pastoral plate so full, it's a wonder Father John Hedges finds time for his demanding duties as pastor of a sizeable suburban parish.
Yet manage he does. In fact, the energetic pastor of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Wyandotte, Mich., is even able to squeeze a little R&R time into his schedule. Among his favorite ways to kick back and recharge the old batteries? Visiting his grandmother on her farm or hunting deer in the woods.
Father Hedges grew up the third of nine children in a rural part of the Great Lakes State. His father worked as a security guard and his mother stayed home to care for her children. “We were a very close family and we still are,” he says. “We had the custom of the family rosary growing up every night.”
Ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1987 by Cardinal Edmund Szoka, who now serves at the Vatican, Father Hedges remembers beginning to hear God's call early on in his life. “When I was about 3 years old, I was attracted to a little shrine my mother had in the bedroom,” he recalls. “I also felt a very strong inclination of wanting to do what the priest did in the parish church.”
Today, he's thankful for his present assignment at St. Stanislaus Kostka, whose parishioners he describes as “close-knit, warm and devout.”
“I credit most of that to the close family structures that are here — and to family prayer, which I think is really at the heart of this parish,” he adds. “Everything that is brought into this parish originates in the home and starts with the mother and the father and the grandparents.”
It's not hard to ferret out testimonials from St. Stanislaus parishioners whose lives have been changed by regular contact with Father Hedges. All you have to do is ask.
Greg and Cheryll Kowalsky, who began attending Mass here three years ago, say Father Hedges inspired them to delve deeper into the Church's eucharistic life and to practice true devotion to the Blessed Mother. “His devotion and passion for the Mass, and his love for God and his Church, really affected us, too,” Greg says.
Moved by Father Hedges’ example, Greg and Cheryll began a local chapter of the Fatima Family Apostolate. At the group's monthly meeting for November, which fell on the Solemnity of Christ the King, Father Hedges agreed to offer holy Mass and then lead prayers for holy hour afterward. “That's Father John for you,” says Greg. “He's a real spiritual dynamo.”
The Kowalskys are also members of the Oratory of the Blessed Sacrament, a support group for Catholic families educating their children at home. In addition to all his other responsibilities, Father Hedges somehow finds time to serve as the spiritual director for the oratory.
Father Hedges’ second highest-priority assignment from Cardinal Adam Maida is serving as chaplain at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital, a position he has held since 1996. It's a post that has him frequently on call for emergencies.
Of his work with the fire departments (of Wyandotte and Trenton, Mich.) he says: “My two youngest brothers are firefighters, so I have an affinity for the work they do.”
And then there's Detroit's community of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, whose sisters serve the poor in one of the country's most desolate urban areas. He travels there each week to lead the nuns in Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and holy hour. Serving the servants of the poorest of the poor, Father Hedges points out, gives him a chance to bring the Gospel to some of our society's most downtrodden individuals.
Oh, and Father Hedges also serves as the spiritual director for Holy Trinity Apostolate, a Detroit-area organization dedicated to teaching the catechism, promoting eucharistic devotion and piety, and supporting priests.
Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that, for all his frenetic activities, the aspect of priestly life Father Hedges most enjoys is celebrating the holy Mass. “It is the greatest event, the greatest experience,” he says. “There's nothing that even comes close to celebrating Mass.”
“Second is hearing confessions — being used by God in a way to give people pardon and forgiveness,” he adds. “And then it would be all of the events of the sacraments because in those events, I act in the person of Christ.”
Father Hedges’ tireless work for, and deep devotion to, Holy Mother Church have not gone unnoticed. Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Leonard Blair, a faculty member at the seminary Father Hedges attended, recalls the idealistic young seminarian — and states his respect for the priestly servant Father Hedges has become. “I have visited his parish on several occasions,” says Bishop Blair. “He shows a great love and enthusiasm for the Church, the people of his parish and the gift of the priest-hood.”
Father Hedges knows that all work and no play makes Father a dull priest, and he knows how to unwind between duties and dispatches. That's where the farm and the woods come in.
“Thankfully my 88-year-old grandmother is still able to do a lot of her own work,” he says. “Going out there, I can bond with her. It's like making a little retreat.”
And every autumn as soon as deer season opens, he travels to northern Michigan, toting firearms or a bow and arrow. “I love getting away and being out in the country or in the woods,” he says.
Asked what rank-and-file Catholics might do to help the Church in America through one of its darkest periods, Father Hedges doesn't hesitate. “Receive the Eucharist often. Make the Mass the center of your spiritual life. Get involved with perpetual eucharistic adoration,” he says. “And create an atmosphere of faith and prayer in your own homes.”
“Pope John Paul II has given us all the tools that we need for reform: the catechism, eucharistic devotion and piety, and new mysteries to contemplate with the rosary,” he adds. “He's just bringing us back to the basics, to the simple faith.
“We don't need any frills. The things we need to be close to God and to be reasonably happy in this world are the things we've always had.”
Anthony L. Gerring writes from Lincoln Park, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anthony L. Gerring ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 03/02/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 2-8, 2003 ----- BODY:No Gig for a Pro-Abort Gov
No Gig for a Pro-Abort Gov
Mercy High School of Farmington Hills planned to auction lunch with the governor at their annual “Night With the Stars” auction. Sister Regina Marie Doelker, president of the school, said the lunch was canceled after a few Mercy parents and alumnae said offering lunch with the governor would contradict the Catholic Church's pro-life teachings.
Unborn Models for Senators
TIMES COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS, Feb. 11 — Richard Black, a Republican delegate in Virginia's House of Representatives, says he has “no apologies” for sending state senators pink plastic models of unborn babies at 12 weeks’ gestation.
Black sent the life-size models, which are about 2.5 inches high, to the Virginia senators’ offices Feb. 5, along with a letter condemning abortion in which he asked senators: “Would you kill this child?”
Boycott for Buffett
LIFE DECISIONS INTERNATIONAL, Feb. 6 — Two pro-life women have launched a boycott against The Pampered Chef, a seller of high-end kitchen tools, to protest its being taken over by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which financially supports Planned Parenthood and is chaired by pro-abortion tycoon Warren Buffett.
The two women are former Pampered Chef associates.
Life Decisions International reported on its Web site that “Cindy” from Arizona and “Cathy” from Minnesota have worked with The Pampered Chef for years but have left it and are spear-heading the boycott. Buffett, estimated to be the second wealthiest man in the world, used his personal wealth to help get the abortion pill RU-486 into the United States.
Paternal Attachment Proved
The study, by Cherine Habib of Australia's Monash University, followed 116 first-time fathers during the first three months of their partners’ pregnancies and looked at how they felt about the profound life change they were facing. While some men were “emotionally and psychologically” involved in the very early stages of their partner's pregnancy, for others it was “an unsettling period in their lives.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture Of Life -------- TITLE: High Court Says Pro-Lifers Get Free Speech, Too DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 BODY:WASHINGTON — Protesting outside abortion clinics is not racketeering, the U.S. Supreme Court said Feb. 26.
The 8–1 decision ended a long legal battle between pro-life activist Joseph Scheidler and the National Organization for Women (NOW), an organization that promotes legal abortion.
Scheidler was relieved about the decision.
“It is refreshing to know that the Supreme Court understood just how ridiculous the whole 17-year-old fiasco really was,” he said.
Kim Gandy, president of NOW, vowed to find new ways to stop pro-lifers from protesting at abortion clinics.
“We are looking at every avenue, including the U.S.A. Patriot Act, in order to protect women, doctors and clinic staff from these ideological terrorists,” she said.
At issue was the way NOW and two abortion clinics tried to use the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The high court has previously said the 1970 law, designed to prosecute mobsters, could be applied to abortion protesters. But it determined last week it was wrongly used to thwart Operation Rescue and other abortion opponents.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority, said political activity did not qualify as extortion.
“[E]ven when their acts of interference and disruption achieved their ultimate goal of ‘shutting down’ a clinic that performed abortions, such acts did not constitute extortion because petitioners did not ‘obtain’ … property,” Rehnquist wrote. “[They] may have deprived or sought to deprive [the clinics] of their alleged property right of exclusive control of their business assets, but they did not acquire any such property.”
Justice John Paul Stevens, the lone dissenter, said federal extortion law was meant to be read more broadly.
Numerous public-advocacy groups worked on behalf of Scheidler and Operation Rescue, including the Thomas More Society of Chicago and the American Center for Law and Justice of Virginia.
“This decision is a tremendous victory for those who engage in social protests,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who served as counsel of record for Operation Rescue in the case. “The Supreme Court forcefully rejected the argument that pro-life demonstrators were racketeers engaged in extortion. The decision removes a cloud that has been hanging over the pro-life movement for 15 years.”
The decision means that Scheidler and Operation Rescue will not have to pay $250,000 in damages. A court-ordered nationwide protest ban has also been lifted.
Under the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act, however, any abortion protester still faces legal and fiscal penalties for clinic blockades.
James Raskin, a law professor at American University, told the Washington Post the decision has a large impact on how protesters are treated by prosecutors.
“Someone who commits civil disobedience has bargained for a charge of criminal trespass or disorderly conduct, but not for 20 years in prison as a federal felon,” Raskin said.
NOW's Kim Gandy called the decision “shocking.”
“Supreme Court justices placed a higher value on tangible property than on women's liberty,” she said. “Tony Soprano would love this decision — it says you can shut down someone's business as long as you don't take possession of their property.”
But several traditionally liberal organizations opposed prosecuting political protesters under racketeering laws.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Seamless Garment Network and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals all submitted written amicus briefs on behalf of Scheidler.
“This loose interpretation threatens PETA's aggressive advocacy for the benefit of animals and constitutes a dagger at the throat of all other movements where minor violence may accompany political action,” the animal rights group wrote.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's president is Martin Luther King III, whose father, the famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., founded the organization.
In its brief to the court, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference noted the dangers of considering speech to be racketeering.
“The nation is now better off because of the movements to abolish slavery and to end the Jim Crow law,” the brief states. “Both of these movements faced steep opposition from those who wished to maintain the status quo. The opponents of these movements could easily have crushed the protesters if the theory of extortion adopted by the court of appeals had been available to them.”
For his part, Scheidler said future protests outside abortion clinics will be peaceful.
“They will be mostly prayer vigils and counseling,” he told the Associated Press.
The decision was the second victory delivered by the court to the pro-life movement in recent weeks. On Feb. 24, it cleared the way for an Indiana state law that places restrictions on abortions, including requirements that a woman be counseled face-to-face about the risks and offered pictures of what her unborn baby might look like.
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Latinos Call U.S. Culture Hostile Climate For Faith DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:AUSTIN, Texas — You've come from a traditionally Catholic country to the land of freedom and opportunity.
But you also find it's the home of consumerism, secularized holidays and secular attitudes toward family. You see store-front churches, Mormon temples, Scientology and even Islam attracting other Hispanic Catholics, and then cringe when children come home from public schools with condoms in hand or dressed like gang members.
Mexican immigrant Tina Ruiz is surprised by the anti-family attitude she finds at a public health clinic where she goes for prenatal care.
Doctors and nurses at the clinic began insisting that the mother of five use contraceptives, even though she told them she is Catholic and it's forbidden. “But once I told them that, they insisted all the more,” Ruiz said.
After months of battling with doctors and nurses, she finally gave in.
“I took the condoms and the pills so they would stop harassing me,” she said. “But I never use them. I just throw them out.”
With the explosion of Hispanic immigrants in the United States, Ronaldo Cruz, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs, said the Church faces an “overwhelming” challenge since there are so few Hispanic priests. Father Miguel Solorzano, spokesman for the National Association of Hispanic Priests of the USA, agreed.
“The biggest problem we have is we don't have enough Spanish-speaking priests,” he said. “We're trying to promote Hispanic vocations among immigrants but it's very difficult because many do not speak English well, they don't have a high school diploma or they are illegal aliens.”
Many immigrants also struggle with loneliness and not feeling welcomed in their churches, said Capuchin Father Donato Lippert, administrative executive of the Shrine of the Sacred Heart Spanish Catholic Center in Washington, D.C. “American culture is very individualistic, so loneliness is a big thing.”
“The Church here in America is very cold to them and distant,” said Father Ovidio Pecharroman, director of the Spanish Apostolate of the Diocese of Arlington, Va. “Many say you learn the language first, then we'll tolerate you. But toleration is not a Christian word. … If you are in Argentina, you are welcome in any Catholic church because it is Catholic, it is universal. The same should be true here.”
In addition to a dearth of priests, immigrants are struggling with the temptations of American culture.
“Many get disillusioned about the material needs” and begin to question their faith and religion, Ronaldo Cruz of the bishops’ conference said, because “they live in a consumer culture that says they have to live a certain lifestyle.”
“Whether you want it or not, you start becoming more and more materialistic and your priorities start to change,” said Adrianna del Rincon, a Mexican immigrant living in Washington, D.C. “You are constantly bombarded by commercials and literature that is a constant reminder that you have to have a certain lifestyle. It's easy to get distracted with other things … and you want more and more things … so you have less time to pray and to care for other people than you did before.”
“Many families and friends find it very difficult because they are absorbed with work,” she said. “It's part of our weakness in our human nature to never be content and so you start creating needs … and then you want more and more things.”
That's another problem many immigrants face: taking care of immediate needs such as housing, jobs, medical care and obtaining legal residence status.
“Many have to work two and three jobs just to survive,” Cruz said, adding that Catholic Charities and the bishops’ Hispanic ministry regional offices in New York, Miami, San Antonio and Denver and the 150 diocesan offices are doing what they can to help meet these needs.
In north Denver, for example, Auxiliary Bishop José Gómez is establishing a center that will offer adult education and language classes and referrals for medical and legal assistance, along with teaching the faith and forming Hispanics to be leaders in the community.
And Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Sacramento, Calif., offers English and CCD classes in Spanish. Legionary of Christ Father Salvador Gómez, director, said the center publishes a bulletin that informs immigrants about how to make a successful transition to life in the United States as well as how to live a life that is closely in line with God's will.
In addition to personal outreach, a number of organizations are beginning to use mass media, particularly radio, to affirm and form the faith of Hispanics, said Alan Napleton, managing director of New Evangelization of America, which seeks to bring together communication initiatives across the United States and Latin America.
“We [as a Church] really don't do a good job utilizing communications, and this is a media culture,” he said. “We're seeing Christian Spanish radio, for instance, in Houston and Dallas, and guess what? It's coming to a city near you. While we're trying to get on the air, the Protestants have it figured out.”
One apostolate, Hombre Nuevo, a Catholic multi-media center based in Los Angeles, has had great success producing radio programs to promote the Catholic faith and human values among the Hispanic population of the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean.
New Evangelization's annual conference held in Dallas in February introduced such initiatives as ESNE, a Spanish-language media effort based in Los Angeles that offers 24-hour Catholic radio and live venue events drawing as many as 15,000 attendees.
Father Alberto Cutie, general director of Pax Catholic Communications since 2001, is making similar strides with Spanish radio in Miami.
“Different studies have proven that the Latino community listen to the radio more hours than the Anglo,” Napleton said. “It's an excellent medium.”
Despite their difficulties, many immigrants remain optimistic and see their culture influencing American culture for the better.
“Hispanic immigrants bring something very good to the Church in America,” said Carmen Peacher, a Georgetown, Texas, resident who comes from Guadalajara, Mexico. “We have very strong family values and do a lot of things as a family, even going to the supermarket, as well as a deep respect for life and love of the Church.”
Although Antonio Cruz, the Dallas father whose wife was counseled to abort, said he worries about his children being influenced in the public schools, his family “prays the rosary every day” and he teaches his kids about the “bad things that are out there,” like drugs and premarital sex, “and where they take you.” He said he knows that as long as they stay close to God, they will be okay.
Hispanic immigration also poses a great opportunity for the Church in America, said Father Lippert of Washington's Spanish Catholic Center.
“We face an incredible opportunity to re-evangelize the United States and we must capitalize on the Hispanic immigration to evangelize,” he said. “They have a natural love for Mary, a simplicity of faith and a youthful enthusiasm and vigor that can enrich our faith and our Catholic Church in the United States. If we join together the good of both cultures, we can enrich the United States as a whole. It is a chance to be more Catholic, more universal.”
Lisa Makson writes from Alexandria, Virginia.
Ellen Rossini contributed to this story.
----- EXCERPT: ... and some want to change that ------- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Makson -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Relic From St. Juan Diego's Tilma to Tour U.S. DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:A relic of a piece of the tilma of Juan Diego — the cloth that contains the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe — will be touring the United States soon.
The relic is on loan to the Apostolate for Holy Relics in Los Angeles for a pilgrimage to dioceses in the United States until Dec. 8.
The relic was given to Archbishop John Cantwell of Los Angeles by the Archdiocese of Mexico City in 1941. It is now in the archives of the Los Angeles Archdiocese and plans are under way to enshrine it in the new cathedral.
Some 12 million to 20 million people visit the shrine of Guadalupe each year. The relic's tour will provide an opportunity for those who cannot make the trip to share in the spiritual benefits.
With war looming, the tour will also promote devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of All America and Patroness of the original and new evangelization. The Tilma of Tepeyac Tour will actively encourage those who attend to continue such devotion by praying the rosary especially during this Year of the Rosary.
The Apostolate for Holy Relics is a non-profit, tax exempt, public benefit corporation located in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: St. Juan Diego's Tilma -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Soldiers Risk Lives, Not Souls, Thanks to Chaplains DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 09-15, 2003 ----- BODY:BURBANK, Calif. — As war in Iraq appears increasingly likely, the shortage of military chaplains is starting to be felt acutely.
“Without [our battalion chaplain] some guys would have lost it, mentally, even if they were Marines,” explained a former Marine Corps captain whose battalion fought nonstop for a month in the bloody battle of Hue City in Vietnam in 1968.
“I think it's important for soldiers to have a chaplain, especially in times of battle,” said Father James Melley, a priest of the Archdiocese of Miami who assists with Masses at St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church in Encino, Calif.
For a peacetime military, “it hits the consciousness that it's all about killing — it's a real wake-up call,” Father Melley said.
People who have been in “the chamber of horrors” of combat are often ready for a religious awakening, he said.
“God, in the person of Christ, has gotten dirty, has bled, has felt discouragement,” he said. Christ's suffering and the fact that “death is a door to eternal life” are “truths [combat soldiers] can believe in.”
The 58-year-old priest walked into an Army recruiting center in the Media Center Mall in Burbank and, echoing the Army's ad campaign, announced to the young recruiters: “I am interested in becoming ‘an army of one.’”
The recruiters were surprised — until they found out the man standing before them was a Catholic priest interested in becoming a chaplain in the Army reserve.
“They asked if I had prior military experience, and I explained that I had served for 20 years as a Navy chaplain and wanted to join the Army Reserve,” said Father Melley, a retired Navy commander.
Their attitude immediately changed, he said, and the recruiters gave him the business card of the sergeant in charge.
Father Melley said he hopes the Army will let him join despite his age.
If he were called upon to go to a war zone, Father Melley said he would accept. Priests usually aren't on the front lines, he noted, but stay in the rear and minister to the troops who are going to or coming back from the battlefield.
According to the Archdiocese for Military Services, there are 375,000 active-duty Catholics in the military. When their families are included, the number climbs to more than 1 million. But to serve them there are only 369 active-duty chaplains.
An additional 405 chaplains serve in the reserves and National Guard.
With such a shortfall, some chaplains in the reserves are being called up from their regular work in parishes or other work, and some retired chaplains such as Father Melley are seeking to volunteer for another tour of duty.
The Home Front
While the military — especially the Army — is short of priests, the calling up of reserve chaplains has put stress on the home front as well.
Father Edward Grice, pastor of St. Jerome Church in Kenner, La., also serves as a chaplain in the Army Reserve. On Jan. 16, he went on active duty for an indefinite period of time at nearby Fort Polk.
St. Jerome's has more than 2,000 families, said Clarisa Merle, the parish secretary. Now, with only one active priest and one retired priest in residence, it has not been easy.
“Father Ed gives the parish excellent pastoral service, so we miss him,” Merle said. “The good thing is that he will be helping the soldiers.”
Neither the U.S. Army chaplains’ office nor the Archdiocese for Military Services knew how many reserve chaplains have been called up or how many would be.
“Some [priests] have been called up, but I have no idea how many,” said Margaret Scuderi of the Chaplain Personnel Office for the Washington, D.C.-based Military Archdiocese, which is headed by Archbishop Edwin O'Brien and serves military personnel and families at 220 installations in 29 countries.
Rather than the Army's providing a list of activated chaplains to the archdiocese, each priest is supposed to call in as he is activated. According to Scuderi, while some priests do call in, others do not, making it difficult to keep an accurate tally.
More might still be called up. Navy Reserve chaplain Father Robert Kantor of the Diocese of Venice, Fla., just returned from his annual training in Bahrain, where he said Mass aboard the USS Milius in the Persian Gulf.
“They wanted me there as soon as possible in the new year to receive an orientation, should I be needed in the months to come,” Father Kantor said in an e-mail before heading to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., for a “drill weekend.”
Father Kantor, who works in the vocations office of the Diocese of Venice, said he was impressed by the faith of the Catholic servicemen he saw on his recent trip to the Gulf.
“I saw a fertile ground for vocations while on Navy duty,” he said. “There are many bright, young, faithful Catholics” in the military.
It is those Catholics whom Father Melley hopes to serve if he is able to join the Army Reserve.
With Americans and even Catholics divided over whether war with Iraq is just, Father Melley pointed out that the chaplains are there for the men and women, not to support every military policy.
“Certain bases I was on had pornography, and when the men went ashore in Thailand, the Navy passed out condoms,” he said, explaining that no chaplain could agree with everything the military does. “We're there for the soldiers.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Did You Know the Bacon Priest? DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Antonia Willemsen remembers “the Bacon Priest” as an “uncle” — and as the founder of the organization at which she's secretary-general.
Norbertine Father Werenfried van Straaten, who died Jan. 31 in Germany at the age of 90, was a cousin of her mother. She told the Register the story of this passionate white-clad man, who always had a story to tell, and a new initiative to help the poor. The name of the organization he founded describes his lifelong mission: Aid to the Church in Need.
What are your first memories of Father van Straaten?
Father Werenfried was a cousin of my mother. As he was a member of our family, I had often heard about him. After World War II, when he could safely pass between the borders of Belgium and Holland, he often visited us. I remember him as an impressive white-clad man, who always had very interesting stories to tell.
Before he became a priest, did he always come across as a man who was very concerned about the welfare of others?
As I was born in the year he was ordained a priest, I cannot answer your question from my own experience! I do know, however, that during his high school years, he became president of the alcohol abstinence program in the school. If he convinced somebody to take the “pledge,” he would promise to race against the candidate around the sports field. So, already at that time, he had a feeling for public relations.
Also, as a student in Utrecht he wanted to give an example of Christian charity to others. So, he invited an unemployed man to live with him and some other students.
I also remember hearing a story about him just before he was ordained in the abbey in Tongerlo, Belgium. One day, he decided to visit his parents. However, when he was alone at his home, a beggar who played the violin came to the door. Werenfried didn't have any money and his mother had taken her purse with her. Werenfried asked the man to follow him. He rang the bells of the other houses along the street and asked the neighbors to give the violin player some money!
How did World War II affect Father van Straaten?
He was living in the abbey in Tongerlo during that time and he experienced the war above all through the lives of other people, such as the people who were hiding in the abbey, people he knew who had been with the Germans or those who were against them.
At one point the abbey had to be evacuated and all the monks had to walk to a place in the French-speaking part of the country. They stayed in places together with the many other people who had fled. For Werenfried, the war was the beginning of his priestly life and the beginning of his pastoral ministry.
He knew people on both sides during the war but he was not interested in their political affiliations as much as their spiritual welfare. Could you tell me a little bit more about this side of Father van Straaten, and perhaps how he led people to God during those very turbulent years?
During the war Werenfried did not express a political opinion. He cared deeply for the spiritual welfare of people. He understood that atrocities were being committed on both sides and he tried to heal the wounds.
Once, a member of an anti-German group committed a mistake that led the group to believe that she had betrayed them. The leader of the group decided that she should be executed. He arranged it so that the girl who committed the mistake was behind a screen that was intended for target practice. Other members of that same group, not knowing that the girl was [behind the screen], were told to use the screen for such practice. The girl was killed. The boy who killed the girl went to Werenfried.
It was through stories like this one that helped Werenfried understand even more the madness of war and the absence of God in the hearts of people. It was also these experiences that made him a more convincing preacher after the war was over.
In his books,
The good Samaritan in the Gospel was Werenfried's example. According to Werenfried, if there is a need and you see that need, you are called to selflessly help in whatever way you can.
This Gospel was also the motivating factor behind Werenfried accepting only the minimum of bureaucracy, as experienced at the beginning of his work. He saw how the bureaucracy of well-established organizations often put obstacles in the way of helping others. In some cases, he said, there was only a structure left but no soul any more when it came to helping others and that charity seemed to become a business.
He often warned against placing “the business elements” as opposed to the needs of others in first place. He described organizations as only a “necessary evil” in order to channel the help from the benefactor to the person in need.
He became known as the Bacon Priest. How did he get this name?
One of his first actions after the war was to help starving refugees who had been displaced. So, in Flanders, he set about collecting bacon for them. His actions became well known and one day, as he entered a hall filled with peasant women, one of the women shouted out, “There's the Bacon Priest.” He liked the nickname so much that he kept it!
As a young child, what are your memories of Father van Straaten as the Bacon Priest?
I called him Uncle Phillip [his name of baptism]! I was impressed by his stories and actions, less by the fact that other people called him the Bacon Priest. He, however, loved and used his nickname. I do remember that my father and other members of my family had to organize meetings where the so-called Bacon Priest could speak and collect money and goods of all kinds.
Aid to the Church in Need evolved naturally from his concern for people. Why did Father van Straaten choose Eastern Europe as his next port of call?
After World War II and after the Treaty of Jalta, millions of Germans from former German regions were expelled and arrived in a devastated West Germany. Those were the people that Werenfried helped first. Through these people and their priests, he learned about their former home countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary. Through them, he realized that communism was now threatening Christianity in these countries and he decided to expand his help to behind the then Iron Curtain, and Aid to the Church in Need was born.
When and how did you become involved with Aid to the Church in Need?
I first became a teacher. But after one year, I felt a strong desire to work with people whom Werenfried had so often talked about. My parents were not very enthusiastic about the idea. But, still, I wrote a letter to Werenfried and two days later he came and took my sister and I to Tongerlo. Although it was only 42 miles from the place where we lived, I had never been there before.
My first impression of Tongerlo was overwhelming, to say the least. There, he had a warehouse filled to the ceiling with mountains of clothes and shoes, and there were men and women at a conveyer belt sorting all the items out. Trucks were continuously coming in with fresh materials.
They then took away bales and individual packages, which would be sent to Eastern Europe. Office walls were made out of cardboard and furnished with old tables and chairs.
Although I had never seen anything like this before, I knew that I wanted to work there. I began on Sept. 1, 1960, for one year. That's now more than 42 years ago!
What was it like for you then to be formally part of Aid to the Church in Need and to be working so closely to a man you deeply admired and respected?
During the first years I had a lot to learn, but it was the kind of learning that came by doing. Werenfried never became impatient or angry with me. I did my best.
I also knew that there were much better secretaries in the world than this ex-teacher. When it came to difficult or confidential matters, I would personally go to Werenfried and discuss them with him and he would tell me how to handle them.
After some years he started to take me on preaching tours to Germany and Switzerland. He would sometimes preach every night in a region for several weeks. During the day he would dictate letters and discuss office matters. He taught me about planning, new projects, people and budgets. He also asked my opinion so that I could better get an understanding of his criteria and how our work would help others.
Father van Straaten comes across as being a very determined man when it came to helping the suffering Church. Are there any particular stories that stand out in your mind that highlight this?
During the pontificate of Pope Paul VI, there was a general feeling in the Western world that communism would continue in Eastern Europe for the next 100 years.
As the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Casaroli had some official contacts with the communist leaders in Eastern Europe, he wrote to Werenfried requesting him to stop writing about the negative aspects of communism.
Werenfried was one of the few who regularly wrote in the Mirror - the bimonthly newsletter of Aid to the Church in Need — about the suffering Church in Eastern Europe. If he were to take the cardinal's suggestions on board, he felt he that he would be betraying the persecuted Christians in these countries. He asked for an audience with the Holy Father and explained the difficulty he was having at that moment.
The Holy Father answered him with the following: “As Pope, I have to use all means in order to ease the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe: The diplomatic way of Cardinal Casaroli is needed as well as your help. Please go on.”
Werenfried asked the Holy Father if he would then inform his secretary of state about this discussion and decision.
Father van Straaten was renowned for promising help in advance. Did that ever frighten you? Any story of where you thought such a promise of help being almost impossible to fulfill, yet it was fulfilled?
Personally, I never questioned his promises and I continue with that approach. But there were other people who would warn him about such an approach.
Between 1964 and 1975, when we had our office in Rome, Father Hugo, a confrere of Werenfried, was project director. However, toward the end of one of his years there, he told Werenfried that he, Werenfried, had been irresponsible in promising so much and that he was going to hand in his resignation.
“This time you have gone too far. We will not be able to fulfill all our promises … I will leave the organization at the end of the year,” he said. Werenfried tried to reassure him that December had always been a very good month and not to worry.
However, Father Hugo said that he had “calculated” that and even the fact that they had raised more money that year than the year before would be no guarantee in being able to fulfill all the promises that Werenfried had made. “I have taken all that into account,” he added, even any “unforeseen” donations. So, Werenfried asked him how much money needed to be in the account in order to fulfill all the promises. “One hundred thousand dollars!” was the reply.
Werenfried had to leave Rome on preaching assignments in Germany and Belgium. But a couple of days later Father Hugo called him with [news of] “an extraordinary event.” An Italian engineer sent the equivalent of $80,000. “We are saved!” proclaimed Father Hugo. But Werenfried remembered that they were still $20,000 short. However, he believed that money would come as well and he continued with his trip.
At the end of the trip, Werenfried went to Tongerlo. As the secretary there wanted to leave Werenfried's desk very tidy, she decided that she would open the mail and what she thought was a heavy package of books. You can't imagine her surprise to find, instead of books, the equivalent of $20,000 in Austrian banknotes.
Father Hugo withdrew his resignation. By the way, the thank you letter to the donor came back as “unknown.”
Do you remember Father van Straaten's reaction to the news that communism was collapsing?
It confirmed the vision he had preached for many years. He was prepared for it.
In March 1990, he organized a congress with the important leaders of the persecuted Church. Among the leaders were Cardinals Todea and Korec, as well as Bishop Kondrusiewicz and later Bishop Duka.
He underlined that the task to help the persecuted Church was not over by any means. Now, he said, it would be possible to help the Church even more to rise out of the ashes after 45 to 70 years of communism.
What do you think is the greatest lesson to be learned from such a great man?
Ora et labora [pray and work]! And, keep your humor and don't take yourself too seriously!
Father Werenfried's reasoning can be found in his Spiritual Guidelines: “Not only man, but God, too, is much better than we think. We can hardly ever go too far in trusting to His providence. From years of experience, we know that all the wonderful things that Christ has taught us about the goodness and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father are literally true. God has never disappointed our trust in Him. Again and again, He has helped us to fulfil the promises — often-rash ones from a human point of view — that we have made to the Church in need for His sake.
“This should not surprise us. It is perfectly natural. For the same God who plants in our hearts the desire to help the Church in need supplements with His almighty grace all that is lacking in us weak humans and, awakens in the hearts of the benefactors the love needed to alleviate the need. In drawing up our relief program, therefore, it is not what we can do but rather what we should do that must be decisive. For we can do all things in the power of Him who strengthens us.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Werenfried van Straaten -------- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: With Bad Economy and Deficits, Catholic Agencies Struggle to Feed Hungry DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:ALEXANDRIA, Va. — These are tough times for many Americans who have never known real poverty. They are also difficult days for the many charitable organizations — including national and local Catholic groups — who are struggling to keep up with rising demand for services even as their resources grow more limited.
A number of factors are contributing to the increase in demand for basic services, including the sluggish economy and the reluctance of many employers to hire. Many charitable organizations, which are being called upon to help people who previously didn't require assistance, have been hurt by a decrease in donations, state and federal budget deficits, and the ongoing uncertainty of world events.
Catholic agencies are doing their best to help as much as they can as well as increase awareness for the need for more volunteers, donations and help from the government. But the task becomes more difficult with the rise in the number of people who are seeking help.
“Even people who are working full time are falling more and more behind [in paying bills] every month,” said Sharon Daly, vice president of social policy at Catholic Charities USA in Alexandria, Va. “Lots of families with both parents working don't have enough money for food [after paying rent or mortgage and other necessary expenses] and they're bringing their children to eat at soup kitchens. There are people who've always been able to their pay bills who now can't.”
Catholic Charities agencies around the country try to help people understand what benefits they are eligible to receive, such as food stamps, welfare, unemployment insurance and Medicaid. The agencies have an elaborate network of emergency food pantries and they help the homeless find shelter.
“One thing we're doing is trying to get state and local governments and Congress to realize this is not the time to cut programs for the poor,” Daly said. “There should be greater investments for things like the development of affordable housing, food for pregnant women [and] funding for day care programs.”
Catholic Charities is also trying to raise money from individuals and organizations, but donations have been down in large part because of the tough economy.
“A lot of people are not donating the food or money we need,” Daly said. “More than half the agencies reported a decrease in donated income in November 2002 compared with the same month the year before,” the most recent figures Daly had available.
‘New Kind of Poor’
Christene Dykes-Sorrells, director of the emergency assistance department at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, said monetary donations are down “because most people are not where they used to be [financially] because the economy is bad.”
The department, which runs seven emergency centers in the Chicago area, fortunately has not seen a decline in food and clothing donations, Dykes-Sorrells said.
On the other hand, “many people who used to be givers are now coming in looking for services,” she said. “We're seeing a new kind of poor — not the people we're accustomed to seeing but people who are used to making a living.”
The seven emergency centers, which provide food, clothing and shelter, had been serving an average 3,500 people a month before July 1, 2002. Between then and late November 2002, the number increased to 5,000 a month, and a spokeswoman for the Chicago Catholic Charities said the situation has not improved and possibly gotten worse.
The organization's other programs, including a supplemental Food and Nutrition program for the elderly and a Mother and Child Food and Nutrition program for low-income women, infants and children under 6 years old, are also seeing greater demand. The Food and Nutrition program is a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is administered by Catholic Charities and other agencies.
Dykes-Sorrells said Catholic Charities is trying to work with other charitable organizations to “maximize the resources we have” and meet the needs of those coming in for help.
“One agency can't take care of everything; it takes several of us working together,” she said.
Other Catholic charitable organizations are also trying to keep up with demand for help and draw in additional volunteers.
“The agencies we work with all have waiting lists,” said Sister Rita Joseph Di Napoli, founder and former executive director of the Interfaith Volunteer Caring Community Faith in Action Program, who now works as an adviser to the group. “Making a quick response [to the needy] is not so easy anymore.”
The program, which serves people in Rockland County, N.Y., helps needy people connect with appropriate agencies. If a need can't be met by an agency the organization tries to provide it directly. Sister Rita Joseph said there are fewer volunteers for several reasons, including the fact that many older people who would be giving their time have gone back to work because they need the money.
Interfaith Volunteer Caring Community Faith in Action Program fortunately has a loyal and hardworking core of volunteers, Sister Rita Joseph said.
“We've been very blessed because we have tapped into people who are very giving and community-minded,” she said. The program is making efforts to draw in new volunteers, such as honoring and bringing attention to current volunteers who have made a difference in the community.
“The people who give are astounding people,” she said. “I think if we communicate more about them and show that they are heroes who are saving the lives of other people and should be looked up to, then others won't be so reluctant to get involved. For those who can give there is a tremendous sense of community.”
Individual parish outreach programs are also facing increased demand for their services at a time when funds are harder to come by.
“Normally we just see local people, but now they're coming from all over the place,” said Ann Druckenmiller, executive director of the Gerald Ryan Outreach center at Our Lady of Miraculous Medals Church in Wyandanch, N.Y., which provides food and shelter for the needy. The center feeds about 400 families and 1,000 persons a month on average.
“We depend on outside sources to keep the pantry full to handle these numbers,” Druckenmiller said, but these sources, such as funding from state agencies, have been declining. It's all the more important, she said, that people who are capable of giving reach out to the needy as best they can.
Bob Violino writes from Massapequa Park, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Violino -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:The Specter of a Primary Challenge
Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., hinted at such a run to a cheering crowd of supporters. Toomey, 41, is a convert to the solid pro-life position, Human Events noted.
“The truth is, when I was first a candidate and in my first term, I was still struggling with the issue of banning all very early-term abortions,” Toomey said. “Somewhere toward the beginning of my second term — after the birth of my daughter and after a lot of thought, reflection and prayer — I realized that the only way to be at peace with my conscience would be to be 100% pro-life, to support a ban on abortion from the moment of conception.”
Toomey has accrued a 100% pro-life voting record since 2000, according to the National Right to Life Committee.
Specter is remembered for helping block President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork in 1987. He is currently the strongest Republican supporter of human cloning.
Contraceptive Exemptions in Arizona
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 20 — The Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee decided by a 6–3 vote to pass along a bill that would spare Catholic employers a crisis of conscience, the Associated Press reported.
Currently, state law requires all employers in the state who provide prescription drug coverage as part of health insurance to pay for contraceptives. The 2002 bill did include narrow exceptions for religious organizations that “hire people of the same faith and provide goods or services related to their faith.” But this law still required Church hospitals, for instance, to pay for contraceptives sought by non-Catholic employees. Similar laws are being challenged in New York and California.
Ron Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, argued that this mandate was unjust. Republican Sen. Mark Anderson, sponsor of the new bill, said it would expand the current exemption to cover “any religious corporation, association, educational institution or society.”
National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day
AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE, Feb. 20 — Rock for Life, a youth outreach sponsored by the American Life League, is encouraging students to wear pro-life T-shirts to school on April 28 as part of National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day.
The campaign already tapped into teen-agers’ love of rebellion: A school official in Pennsylvania told a student to remove a pro-life shirt because its message was allegedly the equivalent of a swastika, reported the American Life League. In Ohio, a student was threatened with suspension for wearing Rock for Life's “abortion is homicide” shirt.
“Our goal is to have every pro-life student in America wear a pro-life T-shirt to school on April 28,” Rock for Life said. “You have a constitutional right to free speech in your public school. Exercise that right by making the sanctity of human life the dominant message in your school on April 28.”
To obtain a T-shirt, visit the group's Web site at www.rockforlife.org/special_events/tshirt_day.htm.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Jesica's Hope: Faith Helps Girl's Family Cope With Transplant Tragedy DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:DURHAM, N.C. — The same Catholic virtues of faith and hope that helped Jesica Santillán's family through her botched heart-lung transplant is helping them deal with the loss of the 17-year-old Mexican girl.
Jesica died Feb. 22 from complications caused by a second transplant.
“As you would expect, it's very devastating and it's been a hard ordeal for them,” said Franciscan Father Jacek Orzechowski, associate pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Durham who was called in to serve as the Santillán family's chaplain during the ordeal. “They had such high hopes over three years and when this happened, it's not easy to accept.”
“But they are people of faith,” he continued. “God will give them the strength to move on. They're beautiful people and they're not alone.”
The family's “faith, their Catholicism, has been their foundation through all of this,” said Renee McCormick of Jesica's Hope Chest, a charity founded to help Jesica's family pay for the operation.
McCormick had said soon after the second operation that the girl's mother had “gone through all of the saints and said the rosary at Jesica's bedside.”
On Feb. 21, even though Jesica's new heart and lungs were working well, the stress of the second operation was too much. The blood thinners that helped her survive until the new organs were found had caused her brain to start hemorrhaging. Although doctors tried to save her, neurological exams the next day showed she had no brain activity and Duke declared her “brain dead” at 1:05 p.m.
The family hoped something more could be done before the hospital removed Jesica from life support. But the hospital kept her heart beating only until after the family had one last chance to be with her and have last rites administered.
On Feb. 26 there were two memorial services held at the Louisburg College Chapel. Jesica's family was planning to bring her body back to Mexico for burial.
Chance for Survival
Jesica's story began soon after her second birthday on Christmas Day 1987 in Tamazula de Giordiano, a small town near Guadalajara, Mexico, when her parents, Magdalena Santillán and Melecio Huerta, began noticing that she was always getting tired. However, things were fine until she was 12, when she started passing out.
Doctors told the Santilláns that Jesica was suffering from restrictive cardiomyopathy — her heart ventricles that pumped blood from her weak lungs to her arteries were too rigid so only small amounts of blood were getting oxygenated — and if Jesica did not get a heart-lung transplant soon, she would die.
Since the waiting list for transplants was very long, family members in Mexico and the United States scraped together the thousands of dollars necessary for Magdalena and Jesica, then 14, to go to the United States so Jesica might have a chance of surviving.
“We arrived illegally,” Magdalena told Spanish TV station Univisión.
Although the mother and daughter were accosted by armed bandits who threatened to rape them if they did not give them all their money, they survived the dangerous 4,000-mile journey and arrived unharmed in Louisburg, a suburb of Durham.
Once they arrived, Magdalena used her time off from work to go begging on the street to raise money for Jesica's operation. But she did not raise much before turning to her church, Our Lady of the Rosary Mission, for help. Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Betty Bullen said the parish then adopted the Santilláns and worked desperately to raise money for her operation.
With the help of Sister Bullen, the parish was able to help them find housing, and she arranged with their landlord to provide them with heat because they could not afford it due to Jesica's medical bills.
In spite of all her suffering, “Jesica had a deep faith and was muy católica , very Catholic,” Sister Bullen said. “She was very close to the Church and would always call up her cousins and say, ‘Let's go to church! Let's go to church!’”
Anonymous Donor
Pretty soon the entire Louisburg community adopted the Santilláns because Jesica's Spanish teacher contacted the Franklin County Times, which published an editorial saying Jesica's family needed $10,000 for a medical procedure to keep her alive a little longer while she waited for organs to become available. A man who read the article anonymously donated the money.
The man turned out to be a devout Baptist, Mark “Mack” Mahoney, a local building contractor in town who had lost his 2-month-old son to a medical error during an operation to correct a kidney defect.
Mahoney then founded Jesica's Hope Chest Foundation. The charity helps provide aid to critically ill children and helps their families cope with the devastation of catastrophic illness by building houses with donated materials and selling them to raise money.
Then Duke University Medical Center doctors called to tell the Santilláns some good news — Jessica's three-year wait was over; they had a new heart for her.
On Feb.7 Jesica had the transplant operation, but something was wrong and Jesica's condition worsened. Surgeons then discovered that they had implanted a heart and lungs from a donor with the wrong blood type. Jesica's body launched a massive immunological assault on the foreign intruders that eventually caused a heart attack and a stroke.
Her family hoped for a miracle.
“We trust that the Virgin [of Guadalupe] will help her to survive and will rescue her,” said Jesica's aunt Isabel Santillán right after the second operation. Her aunt Ramona Santillán even “promised” that if Our Lady of Guadalupe would “help Jessica,” she would “take Jesica to her shrine in Mexico City” to thank her.
With hours to spare, their prayers were answered and a second set of organs was found.
“It's a miracle that she survived after the first operation,” said Jesica's uncle Transito Rojas from Tamazula de Giordiano at the time.
The whole ordeal has left the family emotionally spent.
“The family is very sad,” said Jesica's aunt, Rosario Santillán. “We are very grateful for every-one's prayers and financial assistance. Please keep our family in your prayers.”
Lisa Makson writes from Alexandria, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Makson -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Blair Worried by Pope's Opposition to War
This explains Blair's request — which was granted — for a private audience with the Pope. “The prime minister's robust Christian convictions and his readiness to take military action have always been intimately linked in his own mind … there is no doubt that he seeks authorization for war, as well as personal spiritual solace, in the Gospels,” the Telegraph wrote.
Officially, the audience was a courtesy extended privately to the prime minister's family because of Mrs. Blair's devout Catholicism, but it was also Blair's sincere attempt to win over the Holy Father, whom he deeply respects.
Rumors have long swirled that Blair might well convert to Catholicism after he leaves office.
The Telegraph noted that Blair has courted controversy by attending Mass, and “visitors to his study have been startled on occasion to see a well-thumbed copy of Paul VI's bull on human reproduction, Humanae Vitae.”
Pope Nominated for Nobel Again
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 19 — The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has received some 150 nominations for the 2003 award, according to the Associated Press and committee secretary Geir Lundestad.
Nominations are made by past laureates, committee members, select university professors and international organizations and are kept secret for 50 years, although sometimes nominators do announce their choices.
As happens virtually every year, Pope John Paul II was nominated for the Peace Prize — perhaps this time in recognition of his attempt to promote a peaceful resolution to the crisis over Iraq.
Other nominees included Cuban freedom activist Oswaldo Paya Sardinas; Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, who sits in an Israeli cell for exposing that country's atomic weapons stockpile; Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng; and former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who emptied that state's death row.
Other nominees include outgoing Czech president Vaclav Havel, France's President Jacques Chirac and U2's lead singer, Bono.
Ecumenical Progress With Orthodox Churches?
I MEDIA NEWS, Feb. 19 — Tensions persist between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church, but there are also some signs of ecumenical progress, Cardinal Walter Kasper told I Media News, a Rome-based news agency.
Cardinal Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, pointed to closer cooperative arrangements he has achieved with the Greek and Serbian Orthodox churches, and the cooperation of Orthodox and Catholic leaders in insisting that Europe's Christian heritage play a role in the nascent European Union.
Cardinal Kasper also pointed out that several autonomous Orthodox groups are drawing closer to the Holy See. He said ecumenical talks are “reawakening,” and that the patriarch of Constantinople has expressed interest in restarting stalled negotiations, as have Orthodox patriarchates in Greece, Serbia, Belarus and Bulgaria.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Let All Living Creatures Praise the Lord DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II called upon Christian communities to examine their consciences and make sure their liturgies reflect beauty and dignity, especially regarding music.
“The Christian community must examine its conscience so that the beauty of music and song will return more and more to the liturgy,” the Holy Father said. “We have to purify worship of sloppy style, careless forms of expression and of tacky music and texts that are not in keeping with the grandeur of the act that we are celebrating.”
The Pope made his remarks during his general audience on Feb. 26 with 10,000 pilgrims from around the world, in which he offered his reflections on Psalm 150.
John Paul noted that Psalm 150 is a festive hymn of praise in which every living being is invited to join in a song of praise and gratitude to the Lord for giving him life. He characterized Psalm 150 as an “amazingly simple and transparent” text that is a sort of channel of communication between heaven and earth.
“During prayer we carry out a kind of ascent toward God's light and, at the same time, we experience God descending to us and adapting himself to our limitations in order to hear us and speak to us, to meet us and save us,” he noted.
The Holy Father concluded by quoting St. Augustine, who thought the musical instruments cited in the psalm symbolize God's holy people.
“The best music is the music that arises from our hearts,” the Pope said. “It is this very harmony that God is waiting to hear in our liturgies.”
This is the second time that Psalm 150 appears in morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. It is a festive hymn — an alleluia that is sung to the rhythm of music. This is a fitting finale to the entire Book of Psalms, the book of Israel's praise, song and liturgy.
Its text is amazingly simple and transparent. We need only to let ourselves be drawn by its insistent call to praise the Lord: “Praise God … give praise … give praise!” At its beginning two fundamental aspects of God's mystery are presented.
There is no doubt that he is transcendent, mysterious and beyond our comprehension. His royal dwelling place is his “sanctuary” in heaven and the “mighty dome of heaven,” which is like a fortress that is inaccessible to man. Yet, he is very near to us. He is present in the “sanctuary” of Zion and is at work in history through his “mighty deeds,” which reveal and make tangible to us “his great majesty” (see verses 1–2).
Uniting God and Man
Therefore, a sort of channel of communication has been established between heaven and earth, where the work of the Lord and the song of praise of the faithful meet. The liturgy unites the two sanctuaries — the Temple on earth and the infinity of heaven, God and man, time and eternity.
During prayer we carry out a kind of ascent toward God's light and, at the same time, we experience God descending to us and adapting himself to our limitations in order to hear us and speak to us, to meet us and save us. Immediately the psalmist offers us some aids for this meeting in prayer — the use of musical instruments from the orchestra of the Temple of Jerusalem, such as the horn, harp, lyre, tambourine, flute and cymbals. Even taking part in the procession was part of the ritual that was used in Jerusalem (see Psalm 118:27). This exact same call is echoed in Psalm 47:8: “Sing hymns of praise [skillfully].”
Thus, it is necessary to constantly discover and live out the beauty of prayer and of the liturgy.
We need to pray to God not only in theologically precise wording but also in a beautiful and dignified manner.
Examination of Conscience
In this regard, the Christian community must examine its conscience so that the beauty of music and song will return more and more to the liturgy. We have to purify worship of sloppy style, of careless forms of expression, and of tacky music and texts that are not in keeping with the grandeur of the act that we are celebrating.
In this regard, the Letter to the Ephesians contains the significant call to avoid excesses and vulgarity and to leave room for purity in liturgical hymns: “And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another [in] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (Ephesians 5:18–20).
A Universal Prayer
The psalmist ends by inviting “everything that has breath” (see Psalm 150:6) — an expression that in Hebrew literally means “every murmur” or “every breath” and denotes “every living man” (see Deuteronomy 20:16; Joshua 10:40; 11:11, 14) — to join in this praise. The praise of God, therefore, involves first of all the human creature, with his voice and his heart. The psalmist then associates with him all living beings — all creatures in which there is a breath of life (see Genesis 7:22 — to join with him in raising a hymn of gratitude to their Creator for the gift of life.
St. Francis followed up on this universal invitation with his rather charming “Canticle to Brother Sun,” in which he invites us to praise and bless the Lord through all his creatures, which are a reflection of his beauty and goodness (see Fonti Francescane, 263).
All the faithful should take part in this song in a special way, as the Letter to the Colossians suggests: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (3:16).
The Music of the Heart
In this respect, St. Augustine, in his Commentaries on the Psalms, feels that the musical instruments symbolize the saints who are praising God: “You, saints, are the horn, the psalms, the lyre, the tambourines, the choir, the strings, the organ and the cymbals of joy that emit beautiful sounds, which play harmoniously. You are all these things. When you hear this psalm, do not think about things with little value, about those things that are fleeting or about the instruments on stage.” In reality, “every spirit that praises the Lord” is a voice of song to God (Esposizioni sui Salmi, IV, Rome, 1977, p. 934–935).
Thus, the best music is the music that arises from our hearts. It is this very harmony that God is waiting to hear in our liturgies.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: View From the Pew: Too Pacifist? DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:On the weekend of Feb. 15–16, the eternal city hosted a mammoth peace demonstration. The city claimed that 300,000 people marched. Organizers said the numbers were closer to 1 million.
Whatever the numbers, what made the march significant was that for the first time organized groups from within the Catholic Church found themselves marching alongside those who traditionally protest in Italy — namely, members of the country's labor unions and the political left.
Nuns in habit found themselves next to teen-agers with nose rings and tattoos. Members of the Community of Sant’ Egidio, a well-known lay movement that helps the poor and works on peace mediation around the world, were also there.
Many marched for the first time in their lives. Entire parishes were bused up from southern Italy for the demonstration. In the news, it was said that one pastor in Salerno told his parishioners if they did not go to the march, he was going to quit.
I knew when I arrived at my parish last Sunday that it was going to be a different sort of Mass. Perhaps what gave it away were the huge banners hanging from the parish house with the word Pace blazed across the colors of the rainbow. Once we settled in our pews, an announcement was made that parishioners could purchase these banners, which were being sold by Italy's Catholic Charities. Since Feb. 16, I noticed various families on my street did in fact buy them. The banners are now hanging from their balconies.
The head of the parish council spoke to us parishioners for 15 minutes prior to the Mass on the subject of peace. The gist of the talk was that war was never a solution, and there could not be peace without justice.
When the moment came for the homily, my pastor took his portable microphone to a group of children sitting in the front. He asked them to explain to us in their own words why war was a bad thing. A 6-year-old said, “War is bad because people die.” Then our pastor expounded on this subject further, continuing the discussion along the lines of the parish council president. At one point he said, “And who is the enemy of peace? Who is it? It is those who use war as a solution to problems.”
During the presentation of the gifts, various symbols of peace were brought up to the altar, including a cross, an enormous rosary, a broken chain and a basket of gifts. They had been hand-made by the parish's schoolchildren earlier that week.
As the only American member of my parish, I could appreciate that Italian culture is very pacifist, especially nowadays. But my parish seemed to impress upon us parishioners that one must be a pacifist at all costs or else one is not truly Catholic. The idea of just-war theory, of the conditions that permit the use of force and of the complexities of the issue at hand were completely lost amid the peace songs harmonized by our folk group.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “all citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war” (No. 2308). Thus, pacifists rightly remind those in authority about the evils of war.
The catechism also notes that “those who renounce violence and bloodshed … bear witness to evangelical charity” (No. 2305). Therefore the call for peace is a noble one. As the catechism concludes, Christ has declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (No. 2305).
The catechism goes on to say that “the strict conditions of legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration” (No. 2309). Some have argued, as American theologian Michael Novak did in a speech here Feb. 10, that a war against Iraq is justified because “it is the lawful conclusion to the just war fought and swiftly won in February 1991.”
“At that time the war was summarily interrupted,” Novak said, “in order to negotiate the terms of surrender with the unjust aggressor, Saddam Hussein.” Novak explained how the United Nations insisted that for Saddam to continue his presidency he had to disarm and prove it. For 12 years Saddam has flouted these obligations.
Novak went on to argue that the new brand of terrorism in the world since Sept. 11, 2001, will be used by Saddam if he is given the chance to continue his production of weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, Novak said, given Saddam's proven record in the use of such weapons and given his recognized contempt for international law, only an imprudent and foolhardy statesman could trust that these two forces — Saddam and these new terrorist groups — can stay apart forever.
As I sat in church, I found myself thinking, “Of course I want peace. But would the Iraqi regime disarm without the threat of force? Without the threat of war, what would be different?”
I began thinking that using every possible means to secure peace is praiseworthy, but perhaps because this is the year of the rosary the best thing we can do is pray — harder than ever.
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi has been living in Rome for the last three years.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi -------- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Chavez Rejects Bishops' Mediation as Venezuela Confrontation Heats Up DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:CARACAS, Venezuela — A nonviolence agreement between the government of Hugo Chavez and his opposition will not change anything in the months-long crisis in Venezuela, said the president of the country's bishops’ conference.
What is needed, Archbishop Baltasar Porras of Mérida bluntly said, is “a change of leaders.”
In fact, only 24 hours after the agreement on Feb. 19, while the media were still celebrating the first “breakthrough” in the stalemate between “chavistas” and “antichavistas” (those for and against Chavez), facts seemed to prove Archbishop Porras right: The bodies of three dissident Venezuelan soldiers and an opposition activist were found with bullet wounds and signs of torture.
The nonviolence agreement was reached between the government and the opposition after 100 days of harsh negotiations. It came after two and a half months of a national strike, which had severely interrupted oil production, and massive street demonstrations aimed at getting the leftist leader to step down. A failed coup last April briefly ousted Chavez.
“I was not surprised that Archbishop Porras was right in his prediction,” said Hilarión Cardozo, former minister of justice of Venezuela and a veteran in Venezuelan politics who has also been a congressman and senator for the Christian Democratic Party.
In fact, in the confrontation between Chavez and “anti-chavistas,” the president has rejected any attempt to bring in the bishops as mediators despite the Church's high level of credibility.
Chavez, a former paratrooper, was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000 for a longer period under a new constitution he tailored to his plans for a “new revolution.” He then promised to wipe out the corruption of previous governments and redistribute the country's vast oil wealth to the poor majority.
“Chavez is delivering a true revolution, but it is not yet bearing the desired fruits because of the corrupt alliance of powerful enemies,” said Congressman Willian Lara, a loyal “chavista.”
Asked if he thought the bishops were part of the alleged “corrupt alliance,” he responded: “At least I don't see them [the bishops] speaking against it. … They should be defending the revolution because it is deeply Christian.”
But Chavez's critics charge that his revolution has increased inflation 5%, raised unemployment 5% and increased poverty 9% since he took office.
“The only thing in which he has been efficient is in grabbing authoritarian control over the congress and the judiciary and splitting the country along class lines,” said Carlos Fernández, president of the Venezuelan Federation of Entrepreneurs “Fedecámaras” in an interview with the Register.
Three days after the brief phone interview, Fernández was arrested Feb. 20, accused of “sabotaging the economy.” Under the Chavez-controlled judiciary, he faces up to 20 years in prison for being one of the strike leaders.
Referendum
The opposition has gathered more than 4.4 million signatures to demand a constitutional amendment to cut Chavez's term from six to four years. Under the constitution, signatures of 15% of the country's registered voters, which would be about 1.8 million voters, are needed in order to force a referendum on the amendment.
Nevertheless, with the help of the federal judiciary, Chavez has already blocked a first attempt to hold the referendum in February.
Chavez cannot avoid an August referendum on his popularity according to his own constitution. But he has not yet made clear whether he will consider its result binding or insist on remaining in power until 2006.
“Positions are being exasperated in such a way that whatever happens in August, one faction of Venezuelans will blame the other side and a generalized explosion of violence is very likely,” Cardozo said. “And the bishops know that very well.”
In fact, on Jan. 27, in the midst of a climate of increasing violence and confrontation, the bishops’ conference started its 79th general assembly with a dramatic description of the situation.
“If a way to dialogue is not found, the consequences will be devastating,” Archbishop Porras said as he presented his yearly report.
In its final message, the episcopate indirectly referred to Chavez's stubbornness to justify his permanence in government with the constitution. “The written law can become a dead letter if it is not at the service of human beings,” the bishops stated.
“We want to recall Jesus’ message: ‘Blessed are those who work for peace, for they will be called children of God,’” they added. “Today, Venezuela is in urgent need of children of God, willing to come with brave, creative alternatives to the current course of confrontation.”
Mediation
The bishops once again offered Church mediation, despite the fact that a few days before their assembly, the Department of Religions in the Ministry of Justice sent them an official letter urging them to “refrain from partisan political involvement and political proselytism.”
“This is a not-very-subtle threat to our independent voice,” said Cardinal Antonio Ignacio Velasco, archbishop of Caracas, in a declaration to the local “Unión” Radio. “But we will not be intimidated by these tactics, and we will continue to contact all sectors in an effort to find a path for reconciliation.”
Since the bishops have been ruled out from the dialogue as “part of the opposition,” Archbishop André Dupuy, the Apostolic Nuncio in Venezuela, has been playing an unusually key role.
Archbishop Dupuy attracted national attention last December when he commented, “With all due respect, I believe that rules and laws have been created to serve the people, not the other way around.” The nuncio was making reference to Chavez's insistence that his constitution must be respected at all costs.
On Feb. 19, during the installation of José Morón Hidalgo as bishop of Acarigua, Archbishop Dupuy said that “mutual attacks and violent repression will not help in consolidating Venezuela's democracy.”
He also said the country “should be proud, when thousands of people go out to the streets to demonstrate peacefully,” thus contradicting Chavez's claims that even peaceful marches are a “disruption to democracy.”
“What will happen in the near future? I don't think anyone can answer that question now,” Cardozo said. “I can only say that the future looks quite gloomy.”
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Berm⁄dez -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Abortion Proponents Pressure Poland
KAISERNETWORK.COM, Feb. 14 — International activists are pressuring Poland to pare back its recently adopted legal protection for the unborn, according to Kaisernetwork.com, a health news service.
Some 150 “international reproductive rights, human rights, religious and women's groups” spanning 46 countries have colluded in a letter, sent on St. Valentine's Day to Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. It called on him to repeal Poland's 1997 law, which prohibits abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fetal deformity or health risk to the mother.
The law in question cut the number of legal abortions in Poland from 11,700 in 1992 to 124 in 2001. Pro-abortion groups allege the law has resulted in up to 200,000 illegal abortions each year — far more than the number of legal abortions previously performed.
The groups offered no explanation for this strange disparity in their numbers.
Jesuit Web Site Starts Novena for Peace
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, Feb. 24 — As war looms in the Middle East and threatens on the Korean peninsula, Sacred Space, an Irish Jesuit online prayer site (www.sacredspace.ie), launched a nine-day cycle of prayers for peace.
Independent Catholic News reported that the initiative was inspired by the 40th anniversary of Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), which he promulgated at the height of the Cold War.
“Many thousands of people pray at Sacred Space each day and the feedback from all over the world says that they want to be part of a worldwide prayer for peace,” said Jesuit Father Alan McGuckian, Sacred Space organizer.
The nine days of prayer started Feb. 23, and on each day Sacred Space highlighted a different reflection on a theme from Pacem in Terris and a prayer from one of the major world religions. Day 4 had a prayer from Jainism, a Buddhist religion.
Religious Freedom Group Closes
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE, Feb. 21 — Media Watch has frequently cited reports on religious freedom — and threats to it — from the small but influential Keston News Service, a project of the Oxford-based Keston Institute.
The news service focused on the post-Soviet world of Eastern Europe and Russia, regularly highlighting threats to minority religions by the governments of majority-Orthodox Belarus and Russia.
Now, after a policy dispute among its reporters and funders, the Keston Institute has ceased to publish the report, according to Religion News Service.
Religious freedom advocates have mourned its passing: “They were the ones reporting on the front lines,” said John Burns, a religious freedom lawyer in Canada.
Burns pointed to the powerful effect of a Keston reporter's presence at the recent trial of a Jehovah's Witness who faced 18 years in prison in Uzbekistan: “[The reporter] brought the human rights dimension into the court. The judge took notice.”
Disputes continue between pro-Orthodox Russian authorities and religious minorities — including Catholics — throughout former Soviet territory; Keston frequently reported on them.
Malkhaz Songulashvili, a Baptist leader in the Republic of Georgia, said: “After Keston was closed down I can't see any other agency taking on [its] role.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Holy Father Sends Envoy With Special Message to President Bush DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II stepped up his spiritual and diplomatic campaign against a possible war in Iraq, calling on all Catholics to fast for peace and sending Cardinal Pio Laghi as his “special envoy” to President George W. Bush.
During his Angelus address on March 2, the Holy Father said this year Ash Wednesday brings with it a “graver duty of fasting and prayer” because of the danger of war. On Feb. 23, John Paul announced that Ash Wednesday, already an obligatory day of fasting for all Catholics, should be a day of prayer and fasting for peace.
Cardinal Laghi was expected to depart Rome for Washington on March 3. According to a papal press spokesman, Cardinal Laghi was scheduled to carry a message for Bush from John Paul himself.
Cardinal Laghi, a longtime Holy See diplomat and curial official, is now retired but was likely chosen by the Holy Father for his friendship with the Bush family.
The Holy See announced the naming of the envoy on March 1, confirming reports that had leaked in the Italian press. However, no date was announced for the meeting, and it was not clear exactly how and when Cardinal Laghi would be received.
The U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Jim Nicholson, was not able to provide any details, leading to speculation that the Holy See had announced the initiative before complete agreement with the U.S. government.
The choice of Cardinal Laghi, 81, was based on his personal history rather than his current office, as he holds none. From 1980–90 he was the Holy See's apostolic delegate and then nuncio in Washington, during which time he negotiated the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the United States. Prior to the Reagan administration, there had not been diplomatic relations.
Cardinal Laghi also established a friendship with then vice president George H. W. Bush. The nuncio's residence and the official vice presidential residence were close to each other, and in diplomatic circles it was said Cardinal Laghi and the vice president played tennis together.
On Oct. 4, 2001, President George W. Bush sent his father to brief John Paul about the impending war in Afghanistan. After the papal meeting, Bush Sr. walked through St. Peter's Square with Cardinal Laghi on the way to the latter's apartment for lunch. It was a highly unusual and very public sign of Bush Sr.'s esteem for Cardinal Laghi.
The Holy Father is no doubt hoping personal history will persuade George W. Bush to consider seriously the anti-war message Cardinal Laghi will be carrying.
In the last month, the Holy See has waged an aggressive diplomatic campaign against an American-led invasion of Iraq, making both moral and practical arguments.
Catholic leaders — most recently Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., who was in Rome the last week in February — have said the putative war in Iraq does not meet the traditional criteria for a just war, for which there must exist the prospect of an “imminent attack.”
Practically speaking, the Pope's top official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, has put the question bluntly: “Do you really want a billion Muslims to be upset with you?”
Aside from the United Nations itself, the Holy See has likely been the busiest site of multilateral diplomatic action this past month.
On Feb. 27, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, the Holy See's “foreign secretary,” delivered a briefing to the entire diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. He outlined the Holy See's opposition to war and preference for continued multilateral action through the United Nations. During that meeting, he reported that John Paul's special envoy to Saddam Hussein, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, had insisted upon the obligation of Iraq to comply with the U.N. demand for disarmament.
In the meantime, the usual stream of diplomatic visitors to the Apostolic Palace has become a flood. In the last five weeks, John Paul has met with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and the leader of the Iranian Parliament, Seyyed Mohammad Reza Khatami, who is also the brother of Iran's president.
Diplomats here have been repeatedly told the Iraq situation must be resolved by the “force of law and not the law of force.”
Some diplomats — the Germans and Iranians — have come to reinforce that view. Others — the British and Spanish — have come to argue that an armed invasion of Iraq would be morally justified. And still others — such as Annan — have come to insist that whatever is done must be done multilaterally.
While the Holy See's anti-war position has become more widely supported in Europe since November and since the unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution No. 1441, commentators have also noticed a slight shift in the Holy See's position after months of diplomatic activity.
Recent comments from Holy See officials have emphasized more practical concerns rather than moral ones. High among them are the prospects of instability throughout the Middle East and the possibility of inflaming anti-Western elements in the Islamic world.
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic America Rising DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Is America's cultural climate hostile to Latino faith? Consider this American success story a cautionary tale: A legal immigrant comes to the United States from Honduras as a teen-ager, speaking little English. He learns the language, applies himself to studies, and one day graduates from Harvard.
As a successful lawyer, he unanimously receives the American Bar Association's highest rating. The League of United Latin American citizens express strong support for him. The president of the United States calls him up. He wants him to be a federal judge.
But that's where the success story of Miguel Estrada has hit a brick wall.
Democrats in the Senate threatened to filibuster Miguel Estrada's appointment to keep him from becoming the first Hispanic on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Why?
Because he believes what the overwhelming majority of Latinos believe about abortion. If Miguel Estrada were to renounce his religious beliefs on this one issue, he would be welcomed as a compadre by the Democrats and be seated as a judge.
Consider his a high-profile version of what our page-one story describes. Latinos are forced to assimilate — and to assimilate often means to reject their faith.
An aggressive push is underway to integrate Latinos into the worst aspects of American society. Contraceptives are forced on them. Misogyny is celebrated in the music our record companies push in their communities. The self-prostituting entertainment styles of Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera are encouraged; the two are awarded as exemplars of Latinas in the arts.
To gain the white man's acceptance, Latinos have to sell their souls, it seems. We should give them an alternative. They should be sought out as an untapped resource of the Catholic Church. They are tomorrow's Catholic America. Their faith, though often unformed, is strong. With direction, it could set a new tone for our country.
Those pastors who have had success with Latinos — big success, the kind that brings in the numbers, and attracts the immigrant community — have focused on a few important things.
The sacraments. Latino Catholics haven't “matured” in their faith to a point where they feel the sacraments aren't necessary. They're still as hungry for them as we all should be. Confession and the Eucharist bring them in.
Popular piety. Our Lady of Guadalupe is queen in the Latino community. And she's eager to share the rosary with them. Other practices — stations of the cross, Divine Mercy chaplets and novenas — are treasured in immigrant communities.
Real doctrine. Evangelical Christians have had great success preaching to Latino Catholics about the basics: Christ's saving act, the need for grace, the moral truths that should guide daily living. Catholics should feed this need for real Christianity even more.
It is not inevitable that Latino Catholics will fall away.
Jesica Santillán, the Mexican-American Catholic teen who died of a botched transplant operation, showed this. She used to call her friends to say “Let's go to church! Let's go to church!” Her family invoked the saints at her bedside.
Or one thinks of the news reports about the long line of pilgrims stretching through the new Los Angeles cathedral on its opening days. Made up mostly of Latino immigrants, the pilgrims were waiting in line behind the cathedral's realistic crucifix. Many were approaching it on their knees, weeping and kissing it.
News reporters complained that, when they interviewed them, these pious pilgrims knew little about the scandals in the Church, and weren't up on the latest news.
Perhaps, but they knew one very important thing: that Christ crucified is the center of the faith. The rest is easier to teach.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Iraq: Time for America to Attack? DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Archbishop Renato Martino suggests that the United States send a “beefed-up inspection team” as a replacement for bombs, believing that Saddam Hussein can still be dealt with by diplomatic means (“Former Vatican-U.N. Ambassador Calls for Alternatives to War With Iraq,” Feb. 9–15).
How many times does the United States need to be lied to by Saddam, a terrorist of his own people and the world, before we will realize that words cannot stop him? What good will sending more inspectors do? Get him moving his warheads around at a faster pace? Motivate him to lie a little more than he already does?
Further, he claims that war against Iraq on self-defense grounds was unjustified. The U.N. inspectors have, in fact, found harmful substances such as mustard gas, satellite pictures of moving warheads, tapes proving that they are hiding things from inspectors, etc., clearly demonstrating that Saddam is concealing information to fool the United States again, ultimately endangering millions of lives.
We know that Saddam is rallying his people and Muslims around the world to hate the United States. We know that he will stop at nothing to destroy his enemies as well as his people. Yet defense isn't justified? How many lives need to be lost, and people need to go without freedom, before we will step in and help?
MONICA BERGER Dubuque, Iowa
Iappreciate your pointing out that most of the loudest anti-war voices are not only anti-American, but even more so, anti-Bush (“Anti-War, Not Anti-American,” editorial, Feb. 9–15). These are voices that oppose the president mostly out of ideological differences and won't support him no matter what, especially the Hollywood crowd and many Europeans.
However, I disagree that our country is moving toward war with “unmoored moral standards, defined by its own military and economic might.” Many people insist that this war is unjust, but when I read the catechism on just war, I think it's clear that it is just. We have a Christian man as president, and he is not taking his responsibilities lightly. We need to have some faith that he and his advisers know a lot more about Iraq's weapons programs and plans then we do, and they are moving to protect America. I also take issue with the idea that we need to have United Nations approval.
The United Nations is an organization that heavily promotes abortion, forced sterilization, homosexual agendas, redefining and undermining the family and an aggressive secular humanist philosophy. Nations opposing the United States are not doing so out of concern for peace, but purely for self-serving economic and political interests. The United Nations is more of a danger to a just world than the United States is (at least under this president).
Finally, I pity the Christians in Pakistan who think protesting with the Muslims will stave off attacks on them. Those who bomb Christian churches will not be appeased by protests against the United States. They hate all who are “infidels” and will continue to hate, no matter what the United States and its allies do.
YVETTE M. SCHUE Andover, Minnesota
You had two articles in your Feb. 16–22 issue on the same page addressing the same topic that were quite disappointing. The basis of the first one (“U.S. Religious Criticize Embassy's Use of Theologian to Defend War”) was utterly untrue. In the first paragraph, it stated that theologian Michael Novak was invited by the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican to “defend the idea of ‘preventive’ war to Vatican officials.”
In an article published at National Review Online, Novak said this about Iraq and the need for the just-war theory to account both for war by non-state actors such as Al Qaeda and preventive wars: “But all that future work to be done is not needed today in the case of war in Iraq. The moral grounds for this war are quite traditional.” Novak was not in Rome to defend “preventive war”; nor was he there as the ambassador's “appointed theologian” — he was the featured speaker at a just-war symposium and debate.
In the second article, “Citing Inconclusive Evidence, Cardinal [J. Francis] Stafford Denounces Push for War,” the cardinal said, “The U.S. administration had failed to provide conclusive evidence of imminent danger to U.S. national security” and claimed that this “was essential to morally justifying military action.” First of all, as the cardinal should know (Catechism, No. 2309), it is not he who decides what evidence is conclusive (nor is he privy to much of the evidence available to the government).
The obligation to decide lies solely with elected officials. Secondly, Cardinal Stafford misstates the requirements of just-war theory itself. Imminent danger to national security is one justification but not the only one; others include the restoration and maintenance of international order and relief of the oppression of the innocent.
Iraq is indisputably in violation of some 15 U.N. resolutions; it threatens the stability (such as it is) of the entire Middle East which, by extension, threatens the economies of much of the world. It is as vicious and repressive a regime as exists anywhere on earth and is a direct threat to the United States should it choose to give its poisons to terrorists.
This topic deserves better treatment than was given by these two articles.
JOHN M. CABANISS Raleigh, North Carolina
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: President Lacking on Life? DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:After affirming my absolute and unequivocal belief in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, I have to say the enthusiastic support of Steve Mosher, John-Henry Westen and Camille De Blasi for Mr. George W. Bush, as expressed in the Register's editorial “The Sitting President” (Feb. 16–22), is both puzzling and troubling. He is the man who as governor of Texas signed the most death warrants in the history of the country. He is the man who is taking the country to an unnecessary war that is going to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent lives.
Is this a real pro-life stance? We cannot be cafeteria pro-lifers supporting someone who, so far, has only given lip service to the value of human life. As the editorial says, let's wait and see what does he do in the next two years. So far, in my opinion, he only deserves a very negative mark.
SALVADOR MIRANDA Miami Beach, Florida
Defeating Darkness
There is some very good food for thought in one of the items in the Feb. 9–15 Media Watch titled “Tolkien's Answer to Church Turmoil.” Author Nicole Stallworth found a few kernels of great wisdom by J.R.R. Tolkien, which all of us Catholics need to digest. She quotes The Lord of the Rings from the place where the good king succumbs to defeat because of depression about the scandal through the machinations of the dark power. Of course, this can easily be Catholics nowadays — and probably many of us are dangerously close to caving in to this dire temptation of the spirit.
It seems to me that, while we must seriously look at this in ourselves, we should also try to balance it with a remembrance of the corporal works of mercy. Not only must we not allow ourselves to give up and give in, but we are required at the same time to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant and remind the forgetful.
If we will keep going to Mass and receiving the sacraments regularly — getting the power (grace) to fight despair — we will be able to face the worst and not put our heads in the sand. Since we have been equipped with the truth of Jesus, we can instruct the ignorant about much. Each one of us is needed to pull on the oars of the Barque of Peter. Now is not the time to isolate ourselves and hope for the best. We must seek the Lord to find out how we can better pull on those oars. Be not afraid!
RETA TALLMAN Reno, Nevada
African, Not Black
Tim Drake's article “African, Black, Catholic, and Canonized,” in your Feb 23-March 1 issue, gives the impression that the geographical accident of birth in Africa somehow makes one “black.” The popes said to have been born in Africa — The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes doubts that St. Miltiades was — are not thereby automatically members of the Negroid race, as your illustrations depict. Roman North Africa was by no means a black region.
St. Martin de Porres was the first and to date the only black canonized saint of the New World, not “one of the first” as the article carelessly states.
Drake mentions saint-in-the-making Pierre Toussaint but overlooks Blessed Benedict the Moor from Sicily and Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi, the first Nigerian-born saint. There was also a beatified nun martyred in the Congo whose name I am unable to locate just now.
When I wrote the saints’ column for the Register, its historicity quotient was higher.
SANDRA MIESEL Indianapolis
Wowed by Bishop Weigand
Please pass on to Bishop William Weigand our support of his strong and correct stand on California Gov. Gray Davis and Communion. There can be no compromises on the issue of life.
Those who think there can be do not understand what God meant when he talked about the penalty for hurting a child.
Bishop Weigand, you are doing a great job. Keep up the good work, and know that the vast majority of us are behind you and support you (even though we don't do a good enough job of letting you know that).
God bless.
JOHN MCGOVERN Omaha, Nebraska
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: To: My Fellow Demon Re: Married Couple Mission: Damnation DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Dear Wordworm,
J.P. Zmirak
You have always been my favorite nephew. I have often looked in upon your progress, pulled your case file (I have that prerogative), and put in a kind word for you with the lower-downs. You have answered my kindness admirably, amassing a fine “kill rate” of souls. I've watched you grow up flush and full, a proud spirit whose black wings shimmer and red claws glint, nourished regularly on newly fallen fools.
I was frankly impressed with your exquisite work among the journalists — and not a few of the prelates — last spring in our campaign of managed hysteria aimed at the Enemy's priests. How many millions of dollars will now be diverted from cancer hospitals and pregnancy shelters to tort attorneys’ vacation cottages in Provence!
How many mortal fools will now justify their old apostasies with a lazy reference to half-skimmed newspaper accounts of sins committed decades ago, far away, perhaps long-repented, by men they will never meet, against boys they've done nothing to help!
The transport trains are packed so tight that they burst when we open them, and our tables are literally groaning. It was a very good year.
Your excellent work has won for you, nephew dearest, a very high honor. In recognition of your entrepreneurial ferocity, the lowerarchy have granted my request that you work — at last, after so many centuries — in tandem with me.
Be not afraid! I will not bite, unless provoked.
As part of a tactical experiment, you and I will work together on a pair of mortals who are themselves about to be linked in the so-called sacrament of matrimony.
As you know, this arrangement is fraught with dangers. The Enemy has made them for this. He has constructed their frail, decaying frames to join their enduring spirits in a bond that lasts at least until they come to meet us here. He is perversely fond of such spiritual contamination — the mixing of like with like, the fusion of souls, which are natural enemies and competitors.
The Demiurge manipulates his coupling creatures in ways we do not yet understand, to frustrate our work of formation. For instance, he stirs in the murky depths of their mixed psyches twinges of biologically superfluous fondness and affection. To watch them nuzzle and cuddle each other — the very sight is sickening!
Disclaimer: The reporter wishes to ensure the reader that, in following the C.S. Lewis literary device of letters from demons, he did not consult Ouija boards, crystals, mediums, séances or any other means incompatible with the First Commandment. Nor is the reporter, to his knowledge, possessed.
It's our task to stifle such impulses and render the spouses alternately coldly distant and lustful — preferably out of synch, to maximize frustration and resentment. Let him reach for her and receive a slap of annoyance; let her reach for him and find his hand welded to the remote control — and so on, till the lovers meet again in divorce court or here.
To suit his ends, the Enemy perverts nature differently in each of the sexes. In time, he mitigates the male instinct for variety (which our father planted at our first victory) with a quite irrational loyalty to a single female, despite the inexorable withering of her charms.
In turn, he transforms the female's broodsow appetite for safety and a reliable supply of feed into something different and much more sinister. The females of the species actually transform their inbred egoism so that it includes the best interests of the male himself, and of the little worldlings they produce.
We know, of course, that such a phenomenon is only apparent, that the real renunciation of one's self-interest is quite as impossible for this species as for any other, such as our own.
One objection only arises to this convincing hypothesis: the appalling case of She Whose Name is Unspoken. Alone among her sex, she resisted our every advance — leading some to hold that she was in fact an imposter, not really a human at all. This theory has been refuted and its advocates rendered (quite literally) speechless.
No, it appears to respectable opinion that That Woman was in fact a human, albeit one enjoying special privileges, in pursuit of her ghastly mission.
In my next correspondence I will discuss the particulars of the primates we have been assigned. They may seem insignificant at first — two ordinary adherents of the Enemy's religion, astray in a culture we've carefully crafted to eat it away. You may feel insulted to switch from advising hierarchs and opinion-makers to hunting such humble fare. Do not be deceived.
I have it from the lowest sources that these two anonymous Christlings are of great importance to the Enemy, that he sets great store by them and what they do. Consequently, we have been commanded (do you take the virtue of subservience as seriously as you might?) to pay them our special attention, to apply our advanced techniques to recruiting these two, and all of their offspring, for our father's kingdom and cafeteria. So read my letters carefully, more than once.
Set them aside as spiritual reading, and whisper them softly to yourself at idle moments. Your own fate could well rest upon what you learn from them.
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Screedbait
J.P. Zmirak is author of Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist (ISI Books, Wilmington, Del., 2001).
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: J.P. Zmirak -------- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: With Pope, World's Bishops Oppose War in Iraq DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:The Church teaches that all Catholics must act to avoid war. It also teaches that sometimes nations have a duty to go to war. Which war demands which response? And when practically all of the world's bishop speak with one voice on a war, how should Catholics respond?
The Church's language in describing its preference for peace has grown increasingly strong. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war” (No. 2307–8).
‘Pro-War’ Vatican
Does that mean countries can never defend themselves, according to the Vatican? Certainly not. The Catechism adds, “governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.” The Vatican is not reflexively against war. In the case of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Vatican officials acknowledged the justice of the American action.
“The father of a family who sees his own attacked has the duty to do everything possible to defend the family, the lives of persons entrusted to him, including, if need be, with proportional violence. Christian tradition on this point,” namely just war, must be updated, also keeping in mind “the new possibilities of destruction, of new dangers.”
… Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, asked about Operation Enduring Freedom in November 2001.
“We recognize that Operation Enduring Freedom is a response to the terrorist aggression against innocent civilians, acts that violated all international laws and humanitarian norms. Today we all recognize that the U.S. government, like any other government, has the right to legitimate defense, because it has the mission to guarantee the security of its citizens.”
—Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, Vatican secretary for relations with states, on Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001.
“It is true that, if someone has seriously wounded society, and the danger exists that if he remains free he might do it again, there is the right to defend the society one leads, even though this implies that the means used might be aggressive … Sometimes self-defense implies an action that might lead to a person's death.”
—Papal spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls, on Operation Enduring Freedom in September 2001.
‘Anti-War’ Bishops and Vatican
However, when it comes to the current situation Iraq, the Vatican and Catholic bishops around the world are vehemently opposed to the proposed U.S.-led war. Some of their quotes follow.
“No to war! War is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity; international law, honest dialogue, solidarity between states, the noble exercise of diplomacy: These are methods worthy of individuals and nations in resolving their differences. I say this as I think of those who still place their trust in nuclear weapons and of the all-too-numerous conflicts which continue to hold hostage our brothers and sisters in humanity. … And what are we to say of the threat of war which could strike the people of Iraq, the land of the prophets, a people already sorely tried by more than 12 years of embargo? … War is never just another means that one can choose to employ for settling differences between nations.”
—Pope John Paul II, Jan. 13.
“[Washington] has not offered conclusive evidence of imminent danger to its national security … [the] government of the U.S.A. has recently threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq. This is unworthy of the oldest representative democracy in the world. Furthermore, the government of the United States has compromised its own basic principles by implicitly endorsing the use of torture since Sept. 11, 2001.”
—Cardinal James Francis Stafford, head of Vatican's Council for the Laity, Feb. 3.
“Whom does it suit to confront 1 billion Muslims and run the risk of decades of hostility from the Muslim world?”
—Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, Jan 30.
“I would draw a parallel with the death penalty,” he said. “In the catechism there is an admission that the death penalty could be needed in extreme cases. But Pope John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae [the Gospel of Life] says that society now has all the means to render a criminal harmless who before might have been sent to the gallows. This could well apply to the case of war. Modern society has to have, and I think it has, the means to avoid war.”
Archbishop Renato Martino of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Jan. 28.
“As the calamity of war in Iraq looms on the horizon, we recognize that this conflict will have far-reaching and disastrous consequences for all our region. We share the concern of our Muslim brethren and all people of good will in expressing their total condemnation of this pre-emptive strike. We call upon President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to reverse their decision to wage war and, instead, to use other means to force Iraq to comply with the U.N. resolutions for disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. We also call upon Iraqi leaders and other world leaders to play their part in an all-out effort to avoid war and prevent untold sufferings for millions of innocent people who will be affected by a war.”
—Archbishop Lawrence Saldhana, president, Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Jan. 21.
“Let us ask God that the nations come to an understanding through the way of peace; war is not necessary; there are many ways to attain peace. Things cannot be settled by force or imposition.”
—Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Mexico City, Jan. 21.
“For years, the Iraqi people, most especially the children, have suffered atrociously from the consequences of the international embargo against that country. Let us not martyr them still more, while all the ways of dialogue have not been exhausted and the danger that the Iraqi dictator poses has not been proved. Moreover, we must be aware that a war against Iraq would ‘wound’ many Muslims and would certainly produce the contrary of the hoped-for effect, namely, a strong rise of the terrorist menace on the part of Muslim fanatics.”
Swiss Bishops, Feb. 5
“We respectfully urge you to step back from the brink of war and help lead the world to act together to fashion an effective global response to Iraq's threats that conforms with traditional moral limits on the use of military force.”
—Bishop Wilton Gregory, president, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sept. 18, 2002.
“Therefore, we call upon all people responsible to do everything within their power to prevent war in Iraq and, as Pope John Paul II put it, “to extinguish the ominous smoldering of a conflict, which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided.” In this hour, no one is allowed to show resignation or tactical opportunism and to submit to the seemingly unstoppable process. We point out emphatically that the international community will not be condemned to inactivity as it disapproves of the option of war. It is necessary to continue exerting pressure on the regime of the dictator Saddam Hussein and to practice the policy of firmly restricting his freedom of military action.”
—German Bishops’ Conference, Jan. 22.
Sometimes it's those closest to the problem who see it best. On the question of liberating the Iraqi people, what do Iraqi bishops think?
“I appeal to the whole world, to all men of good will, to join the Pope in praying for peace. And we pray that this peace will descend from the omnipotence of God. We ask for it with the strength of our faith, of our prayers, of our love. Thank you and pray for us. Do not forget us. We do not understand this war. It is a threat to our children, our elderly, our sick, our young people, who for 12 years have known nothing about their future. Where is freedom? Where is Christian charity? All are to blame. All have caused the past wars and this one, which is about to be verified. How can we define it as a just war?”
—Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Iraq, Jan. 9.
Archbishop Gabriel Kasab of Bashrah, Iraq, said Iraq suffers from a lack of drinking water, electricity and medical assistance — but not homelessness and unemployment. He added, “No one with a conscience can support a war. Contrary to many neighboring countries, Iraq, governed by the Ba'ath Party, allows almost 1 million Christians of different denominations, 80% of whom are Chaldean Catholics, to live without problems.”
Compiled by Bill Christensen.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Heroes in Roman Collars: Movie Priests Then and Now DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Movie legends Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, William Holden and Spencer Tracy at one time or another either played the role of a priest or played the role of a character impersonating a priest.
And whether these actors and many other notable film stars who portrayed priests during Hollywood's “Golden Age” were just doing their job or throwing themselves wholeheartedly into something they held dear to their hearts, is not only unknowable but also not important.
What is important is that either via fear of overstepping public levels of taste or a belief in doing good work, the roles of priests were almost universally positive. By positive I do not mean sugar coated and one-dimensional.
Some priest characters in these films were hot tempered, some were torn over their vocation, some had moments of grave doubts.
Granted, nothing stays the same and films like Keys to the Kingdom, BoysTown and On the Waterfront, have been usurped by films and television fair like “Priest,” “MASH” and “Nothing Sacred.”
Almost without exception, the character of priests portrayed in popular culture during the past 20 years has shown either outright predators, sexually repressed miscreants or pathetically weak comedic foils. In the “MASH” television series, the priest is more decent than the one in the movie, but he is also extremely timid and very very “safe.”
When the character does have his rare moment in the sun, it is almost always to stand up for some kind of obligatory theme of tolerance against a rigid figure of authority. In the thankfully short-lived television series “Nothing Sacred,” besides there being nothing sacred, all of the main characters were made interesting by the show's creators through their subtle and not-so-subtle disobedience, which was portrayed as a virtue not a vice.
The main theme of these “modern” portrayals of the priesthood is the absolute lock-step adherence to the general cultural push toward giving one's own personal conscience transcendence over a larger, moral paradigm. Can we all say magisterium? I knew you could.
Yes, Vatican II stressed the individual conscience when confronting moral dilemmas, but the other side of the Vatican II coin, which never quite seems to get the same air play, is that if your conscience finds itself in variance with revealed Church teaching, then you missed a step or two in your process and you are to go back to the chalkboard and work it out again.
The oh-so-modern premise that whatever one feels, is the truth has had a very large impact on art, and, believe it or not, the movies are sometimes art. But today, the “good” priest in movies and TV is the man who questions everything. The “bad” priest is the man who doesn't. Graham Greene was a great novelist and screenwriter and used Catholicism and the priesthood in many of his best stories. Few of the people in Graham Greene's stories were models of virtue.
They were full-bodied men of flesh and blood filled with doubts and sins and conflict. Greene's characters were not having problems because some all-powerful, unthinking, menacing “Church” was preventing them from finding their true selves. Greene's characters, especially the priests, were conflicted because their true selves were broken and in need of salvation.
The Gone With the Wind of priest movies in the so-called golden age is probably Going My Way. The priest that Bing Crosby plays is “modern” by 1940s standards but at the same time never represents an antithesis of Catholic teaching. He is a man of the world, yet he is a man who joyfully belongs to God. He was Vatican II before Vatican II — in the world but not of the world. When Crosby's character visits a young lady who is suspected of living with a man she is not married to — I know this may come to a shock to some, but that was actually quite a scandal in those days — Crosby's Father O'Malley isn't embarrassed, titillated or timid.
He is wry and sophisticated, but, more importantly, he is a defender of Catholic moral teaching and very interested in the young lady's avoidance of the near occasion of sin. This is not to say he comes down like a ton of bricks on the young lady in the movie. His tactics are subtle, but the message he delivers about the unsatisfactory nature of a potential cohabitation rings loud and clear.
Although not being sure or not having a sense of faith in the teachings of the Church seems to be the template for the modern portrayals of priests and Catholics in movies and television, it's not all dark and dire. A few years ago a small film about Damien of Molokai was made that was not saccharine while at the same time not afraid to be Catholic either.
There are Catholic writers guilds popping up and even a Catholic screen-writing organization out here in the secular wilderness otherwise known as Los Angeles.
One of Pope John Paul II's favorite phrases is “be not afraid.” If more Catholic writers, producers and directors were to follow that advice and engage the television and movie industry, maybe the portrayals of religious people in movies and television will reclaim the respect they once held and which is now reserved apparently only for crooked cops and Mafia.
Robert Brennan is a television writer in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Brennan -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Marian Christianity DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Let's face it. Talking about the Virgin Mary with an evangelical or fundamentalist Protestant is not easy. Marian doctrine is an emotional issue and, sometimes, the discussion can get a bit heated.
Situations like these are uncomfortable and frustrating. It's enough to make you want to avoid the subject altogether.
Alas, avoidance is not the answer. The answer is to get the answers. It's not as difficult as you might think. Why? Because when it comes to any particular doctrine, there are always a few simple questions that come up time and time again. That means there are only a few basic answers that you will need to remember. Once you become familiar with how to present these an-swers, you will be able to lead many to the truth with confidence and love.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception says that Mary was preserved from sin from the time she was conceived in her mother's womb. Protestants will argue that this doctrine cannot be true because they claim it is not found anywhere in Scripture. To support this, they will most likely quote Romans 3:23 — ‘All have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.’
Ask them to consider if, when Paul uses the word ‘all,’ instead of making a definitive statement about all of humanity, he might have been generalizing about what is true of most of humanity. Let's look at the facts.
Have all people been born into sin? Only Adam, Eve were not. Are all people in our world capable of sinning?
Sinning requires the intention to sin and the capacity to reason. Clearly, some people — infants, the mentally handicapped, the comatose — are incapable of meeting either of those criteria. This simple fact proves that there are exceptions to St. Paul's point.
Next invite your questioner to take a very close look at the Annunciation. In Luke 1:28, the angel Gabriel greets Mary, saying, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.’ The phrase ‘full of grace’ is a translation of the Greek word kecharitomene.It is a perfect past participle. A participle has both the properties of a verb and an adjective. In this case it describes (in the past tense) an attribute of Mary herself: She has been perfected in grace.
At the time of the angel's greeting, Mary was already in possession of the grace the rest of us are born without because of original sin. She had to be in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence in order to merit the title ‘full of grace.’
Another objection you may hear regarding Mary's Immaculate Conception is derived from the Magnificat. Mary in her own words proclaims her need for a savior: ‘My soul rejoices in God my savior.’ The objection is: If she needed a savior, then she couldn't have been sinless. This might seem difficult to overcome, but it is really rather plain. God saved Mary from sin by providing her the grace never to fall into sin.
By far the biggest problem Protestants seem to have with Mary is that they presume her sinlessness somehow makes her equal to God or takes away glory from God. Your task is to help them discover how the reverse is actually true. Mary's Immaculate Conception and her sinless life glorify God. To show this, simply remind your questioner that we were created not to sin. It is when we sin that we fall short. When we do not sin, we are acting as were created to act.
God created the angels and then Adam and Eve without sin — and yet they were not equal to God. Why should it be any different with Mary?
Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Christina Mills -------- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: St. Maximilian Kolbe, Pray for Us DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Arbeit Macht Frei — work makes you free.
So says the main gate at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Oswiecim, Poland. Of course, the sign makes a tragically ironic statement, as thousands were literally worked to death inside these gates.
One who transcended the irony and proved the maxim true was St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose ‘work’ here freed his own soul and, potentially, those of countless others who have been moved by his story.
I knew little about this great Polish saint before going to Auschwitz this February. I traveled with a group of college students on a ‘peace pilgrimage’ to southern Poland. What better spot to pray for peace than the setting for the most horrendous example of the evils of war?
I have to be honest: I did not want to see Auschwitz or any concentration camp. I've seen war movies and holocaust pictures; I've read books on Hitler's ‘master plan’ and the atrocities he perpetrated in pursuit of his mad dreams. I wasn't interested in viewing any of this firsthand.
But then I learned a bit about St. Maximilian Kolbe. The Franciscan priest on our tour explained that St. Maximilian's focus was love, that this was the real essence of the man. I would see, promised our priest, that St. Maximilian's way proved that love is far more powerful than hate.
The snow was falling as our bus pulled up to the State Museum in Oswiecim, better-known as Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Once out of the visitors center, I was hit by the absolute stillness, the deathly silence of the place. The snow muffled my footsteps as I wandered the camp. The barbed wire and ‘Halt/Stoj!’ signs, with a black skull-and-crossbones, dramatically reminded me of the purpose of this ‘museum.’
Signs in Polish, English and other languages explained what I was seeing — the gallows erected near the roll-call area for hanging prisoners who helped others escape, the crematorium and gas chambers for gassing or burning hundreds of thousands, the ‘death wall’ for shooting prisoners. This is a living example of the phrase, ‘man's inhumanity to man.’
At the very back of the camp — past all the brick barracks where an average of 13,000 to 16,000 prisoners were housed at a time — I found what I was searching for. The last block of the camp. Here is Block 11, the ‘Death Block.’
Forced to Fast
Here is where St. Maximilian sacrificed his life so that another prisoner (a husband with children) could live. Here is where he was locked, naked, in a basement cell with nine others and given no food or drink. Here is where he worked to keep up the spirits of his cell-mates. Here is where he prayed and ministered, ignoring the abuses of the guards. Here is where he and his cellmates could hear fellow prisoners shot at the ‘death wall’ right outside the small cell window. Here is where, still praying after three weeks of deprivation, he raised his left arm for the fatal injection. Here is where St. Maximilian Kolbe did his final work for God.
This cell now has a lit victory candle and bouquets of flowers. It is a holy place, a place of prayer.
The stillness and peace of the cell gave me a glimpse of this ‘hero of Auschwitz.’ A church-like atmosphere reigned here in this dark and dank basement. In Cell 21, perpendicular to St. Maximilian's cell, there are scratchings in the wall that show Christ on the cross and Christ's Sacred Heart, scratchings made by a Polish officer at the time of St. Maximilian's internment in Cell 18. Cell 18 is the peace of Auschwitz — a reminder that God lives even in a place of such unspeakable evil.
Who is this man who would be beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and canonized by John Paul II in 1982?
Raymond Kolbe, born in a small Polish town in 1894, was an unre-markable boy whose mother despaired of him ever being able to stay out of trouble. At 10 years old, this future saint prayed to the Blessed Mother, asking her what would become of him. In a dream he saw Mary holding out two crowns — the white crown of purity and the red crown of martyrdom. When the Mother of God asked Raymond which he would choose, he chose both. He joined the Conventual Franciscans at 16, choosing the name Maximilian.
As a priest, Father Maximilian obtained two doctorates — in philosophy and theology — but never lost his love and reverence for the Mother of God. In fact, with six others, he founded the Knights of the Immaculata, a group dedicated to Mary Immaculate as a tool for the conquest of souls. In his own words, it was to be ‘… a movement that must enthuse souls, snatch them from Satan, and, won for the cause of the Immaculata, incite them to the apostolate of making the reign of Jesus Christ a reality.’
After a few years, he was given a plot of land near Warsaw, on which he built the ‘City of the Immaculata.’ Here he and his brother priests could do the work of this great apostolate. Niepokalanow, as it is in Polish, is a priory built to help spread devotion to the Blessed Mother and defend the Catholic faith through modern media. Still a Franciscan priory, this shrine is 23 miles west of Warsaw and may be visited throughout the year.
Zeal for Souls
Continuing in his vocation as a Franciscan, Father Maximilian traveled to Japan to convert souls. For six years he worked and prayed with the Japanese. Called back to Poland in 1936, he was appointed superior of the ‘City of the Immaculata.’ Three years later, Germany conquered Poland and deported him and 36 of his brother priests to a prison near Berlin. Released in 1940, he was again arrested and interred in Pawiak jail in Warsaw in February 1941.
On May 28, 1941, Father Maximilian was one of 321 prisoners transferred to Auschwitz.
Father Maximilian spent the next 10 weeks on heavy-labor squads. His chronic tuberculosis and poor nutrition never stopped him from his missionary zeal. He spent his time preaching to his fellow prisoners about the love of God and the beauty of offering pain and suffering to Jesus. He loudly, and proudly, proclaimed himself a Catholic priest and willingly suffered all humiliations and violence heaped on him by his Nazi guards.
Once, he was tortured so brutally that he had to be sent to the camp's infirmary. One of his fellow prisoners later testified that Father Maximilian often said, ‘For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.’
Stories abound about his many kindnesses — giving his bread to others, exhorting the men to bear up, always giving to others, allowing others to be served first. One prisoner explained that Father Maximilian whispered to him, ‘Hate is not creative; love is creative. Our sorrow is necessary that those who live after us may be happy.’
At the end of my visit to Auschwitz, I realized that the right kind of work does indeed make you free. St. Maximilian Kolbe preached love and peace, suffering for Jesus, the belief and trust in God's providence and, of course, his confidence in the Blessed Mother's many graces. It took another four years for the evil of Auschwitz to end. But the work done there for God indeed made many people free.
Thanks in no small part to St. Maximilian, this is the true and everlasting message of Auschwitz. It is a message our world, poised on the brink of war, needs to hear right now.
Mary C. Gildersleeve writes from Gaming, Austria.
----- EXCERPT: Cellblock 11, Auschwitz Concentration Camp ------- EXTENDED BODY: Mary C. Gildersleeve -------- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: A Time for War -- In Two New Movies, Too DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Henry Kissinger once remarked that American foreign policy debates sound like theological discussions.
He didn't mean it as a compliment. America has fought more wars than most of us realize and our attitude toward warfare is different than that of other nations. Realpolitik usually takes a back seat to idealism, however misguided.
Two recent releases examine some of the larger purposes that have motivated us. The Quiet American, based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel, casts a cold eye on the reasons for our involvement in Vietnam. Gods and Generals, a prequel to the 1993 hit Gettysburg, shows how religion and patriotism inspired both Union and Confederate soldiers during our Civil War.
The Quiet American, adapted by screenwriters Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan and directed by Philip Noyce (Patriot Games), is set at the beginning of our Vietnam commitment. Just before the French are defeated, the United States is engaged in a kind of nation-building that resembles our recent activities in Bosnia and Afghanistan — and may soon be replicated in Iraq. We are trying to do good, through the construction of roads, schools and hospitals, while at the same time taking firm control of all the instruments of force.
Both Greene's novel and the filmmakers view America's idealistic intentions with a world-weary skepticism that has much currency today. Donald Rumsfeld aptly characterizes it as “old Europe.”
The movie dramatizes this political message by means of a love triangle. Fowler (Sir Michael Caine in an Oscar-nominated performance) is a veteran British journalist who's in love with the same Vietnamese woman, Phoung (Do Thi Hai Yen), as Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an American aid worker who's also a CIA operative. Their romantic rivalry is meant somehow to parallel the Great Powers’ struggle for Vietnam.
Pyle advocates an American-led, democratic third force as an alternative to colonialism and communism. Fowler sees him as a dangerous innocent “impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.”
Pyle is masterminding our support for a South Vietnamese general whom Fowler believes is massacring peasants allied with the other factions. The filmmakers perceive America's goals as just as bad, if not worse, than the communists'; they justify Fowler's participation in the Viet Congs’ assassination of Pyle.
Even if one believes, as I do, that America's actions in Vietnam were a mistake and at times morally wrong, it's difficult to sustain the movie's point of view after what has happened since the fall of Saigon. The communists’ subsequent tyranny has brought us boat people, killing fields and forced reeducation camps.
Greene was as deluded about the Viet Congs’ true intentions as America was about the possibility of a democratic third force. But the filmmakers have learned nothing from the events since the novel's publication and persist in arguing his case.
Greene's Catholic faith, unorthodox though it may have been, raises his story above the level of a tired, left-wing tract in one regard. Fowler has a Catholic wife back in England who refuses to grant him a divorce. This prevents Fowler from marrying Phoung and complicates his romantic quest. His wrestling with his conscience also suggests a transcendent moral code through which we can view the nonstop political scheming and hedonism.
The action in Gods and Generals, based on Jeffrey Shaara's novel, is driven by men who are certain there's a divine order in human history. The story follows the same set of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War through three battles from 1861 to 1863 that precede Gettysburg: First Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Writer-director Ron Maxwell (Gettysburg) and producer Ted Turner (late of AOL Time Warner) have the courage to present a politically incorrect view of the Civil War in which religion is never mocked and both Unionists and Confederates are given equal time to articulate their causes. It is never the good guys versus the bad guys.
The central figure is the daring Southern general Thomas “Stone-wall” Jackson (Stephen Lang), whom Gen. Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall) calls “my right arm.” Jackson is depicted as an Old Testament warrior with New Testament beliefs. He prays often before battle — and not just for victory, but also to discern God's will. But his love of combat is palpable, and he delights in the righteous slaying of his enemies.
Stonewall sees himself as a defender of his homeland. “Just as we would not send any of our soldiers to march in other states and tyrannize other people, so we will never allow the armies of others to march into our state and tyrannize our people,” he says to his troops. “Though I love the Union, I love Virginia more.”
Opposing him is a man of equal charisma and gravitas, Maine's Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), who is the film's conscience. “I do question a system that defends its freedom while it denies it to others,” he says of the Confederacy's embrace of slavery.
Sadly, the filmmakers don't seem to know when enough is enough. Jackson, Chamberlain and Lee are given numerous overlong speeches that portentously explain the action. Civil War buffs may not mind because of the well-staged battles that follow. But many viewers will be bored.
Both these movies raise important questions about our nation's character. We may quarrel with their methods or their answers. But each in its own way can help focus the mind as we ponder our options in dealing with terrorism and rogue nations armed with weapons of mass destruction.
John Prizer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
This sequel to a satisfying-ly successful original imaginatively reworks these conventions to fashion a pleasant, uplifting family film. Writer-director Robert Rodriguez combines unhurried, offbeat humor with a playful visual imagination.
The teen-age Carmen Cortez (Alexa Vega) and her pre-adolescent brother Juni (Daryl Sabara) join the spy organization OSS, to which their parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) belong. The supersecret Tran-smoker device is stolen by mysterious villains who threaten to destroy the world. The quest to retrieve it leads the Cortez family and some superspy rivals to the Island of Lost Dreams, where a gentle but mad scientist (Steve Buscemi) has created a menagerie of dangerous mutant animals. Rodriguez subtly reminds us of the importance of family relationships and the occasional difficulties in sustaining them. Warning: Screenit.com says the movie is heavy in “bad Attitude” on the part of the kids.
Pope John Paul II: The Movie (1984)
Pope John Paul II: The Movie shows the way in which his tactics were a combination of boldness and flexibility, grounded in constant prayer.
The action begins in 1978 as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (Albert Finney) is called to Rome for the papal conclave and flashes back to 1938 when he's a student (Michael Crompton) in Krakow. Director Herbert Wise and screenwriter Christopher Knopf dramatize the young Pole's growing commitment to the Catholic faith.
During the Nazi occupation, he joins a secret group that studies St. John of the Cross and enrolls in an underground seminary. He also helps Jewish families escape to safety.
After the communist takeover, we watch the young cleric skillfully challenge the authorities, particularly in the construction of new churches. The movie ends with his installation as Pope. It's a moving portrait of an inspiring man, prepapacy.
The Farmer's Daughter(1947)
American political culture thrives on populist myths. So does Hollywood.
The Farmer's Daughter, adapted by Laura Kerr and Allen Rivkin from a play by Juhni Tervataa and directed by H.C. Potter, is a Capra-like romantic comedy with an unusual twist. The political role model is a woman.
Katie Holstrom (Loretta Young in an Oscar-winning performance) is a country girl who comes to Capitol City and works as a maid with the Morleys, a family of political kingmakers.
Sparks fly between her and the ambitious, unmarried son, Glenn (Joseph Cotton).
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Fourth-Graders Reading Plato? At Cardinal Newman School They Do DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:HOUSTON — A student arrives at school with a 12-inch quartz crystal — undoubtedly a calculated element of his parents’ garden — certain it would make a fine piece of jewelry. After all, his science teacher encouraged him to bring in rocks to polish in the tumbler.
But it wasn't meant to be. “Do you know how much that probably cost?” science teacher Dr. Stuart Murphy asked with a laugh.
“On the other hand, it's a good sign when they come to you every morning with something to tell you,” Murphy said of his young students. “You know you're getting through to them.”
At the Cardinal Newman School in Houston, which currently houses grades pre-K to four, that's exactly what they're trying to do. Its method, however, is unusual.
To get an idea of the school's approach to learning, mix a shoestring budget, teachers who prefer student-driven activities to rigid textbook structures, kindergartners learning Latin, fourth-graders reading Plato and teachers who regularly patrol Asian grocery stores in search of classroom materials such as giant squids.
It might sound novel, but it's not. Music teacher Kemper Crabb likens the school to those common in the latter part of the 1800s.
“We have taken a step back because we see it as taking a step forward,” he said.
Administrators founded the school on principles considered fundamental 100 years ago. They cite classical content, human formation and patriotism as integral.
“We are trying to teach students from the roots up,” reads one letter from school officials. “Our goal is to build an exceptional school according to a style once universal in the Western world.”
Subject matter is divided historically by grade. Second-graders focus on Egypt, third-graders on Greece and fourth-graders on Rome. Classes integrate culture, history and geography. Many of their textbooks are reprinted versions of older books, and all students read original texts such as Aesop's fables and Nathaniel Hawthorne's tales of Greek mythology.
Also central to the school's mission is the study and practice of Catholicism.
Basilian Father Jack Whitley describes the spiritual mission as giving the 30 students a “real good firm basis in the faith and teaching them to be truly obedient to the Church, the magisterium and the Holy Father.”
As part of the human formation element, each month the school focuses on one virtue, such as order, courage, charity or sincerity.
Do your grade-schoolers know their Plato?
Founded by lay people, the independent school is in the process of obtaining the permission of the bishop to operate in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston. Although only in its first year, the school next year will add at least six new teachers to accommodate the increased enrollment. By adding one grade per year, eventually the school will educate students up to the eighth grade while maintaining the 12 to 1 student to teacher ratio. Children as young as 3 are currently enrolled.
And they all study Latin. The youngest students concentrate on learning prayers and songs while older children go directly to original texts.
Parent Rudy Santa Cruz occasionally catches his 5-year-old son singing in Latin at home. He was first intrigued by the school's emphasis on Catholic knowledge and is now chairman of the fundraising gala, through which the school hopes to raise $100,000.
Tuition stands at $3,500 for one child and $3,000 for a second. Next year it could decrease, but teachers are still conscious of budget.
This restraint, though, encourages creativity. To outfit his science lab — which parent Kristine Perilla describes as one that “belongs in a high school” — Murphy scours the stalls of Chinese and Vietnamese markets for toads, squids and eels. Right now his classroom is home to a dead 24-inch squid, live crickets and mealworms, a giant toad and eggs in an incubator. One of his favorite purchases was a wooden dinosaur skeleton that cost $5 at Wal-Mart.
“Usually when you talk about grade-level science, you talk about general earth science and things like that,” said Perilla, whose two sons attend the school. “But they do real science in there.”
The best part about the science program, she said, “is that it's really not a program. He does what the kids want.”
Perilla had planned to home school her sons until a review of the school's curriculum changed her mind.
“A lot of the curriculum they were going to use was what I was going to use at home,” she said. “They had made some of the same decisions I had made in terms of good curriculum.”
She also liked the approach to religion. The school doesn't teach comparative religion, and Perilla's kindergartner is learning the rosary and prayers in Latin.
Father Whitley's involvement with Cardinal Newman School was originally minimal. A retired educator and principal who is now chief fundraiser for the Basilian Missions, he responded to an appeal for a priest to say Mass once each week at the school. That quickly became twice a week, then three times, and he was soon the school's official chaplain.
“I just felt it was what the Lord wanted me to do,” he said.
Sacraments remain parish-based, but Father Whitley makes sure to commemorate every first holy Communion with a special gift like a rosary. “I am dedicated and devoted to this school,” he said. “If you plant that seed deep and nourish it early in life, it will grow to fruition.”
Dana Wind is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind -------- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Rich in the Things of God DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:HAPPY ARE YOU POOR: THE SIMPLE LIFE AND SPIRITUAL
FREEDOM
by Thomas Dubay, SM Ignatius Press, 2003 177 pages, $12.95 To order: (800) 651-1531 or www.ignatius.com
Most American cities east of the Mississippi have magnificent, century-old Catholic churches that were built with the quarters and dimes of Irish, Italian, German and Slavic immigrants. During the 1960s and ‘70s, the pulpits of these churches often resounded with rhetoric about a “preferential option for the poor” and the plight of Third World nations. Today, one by one, these solid, old churches in working-class neighborhoods (and the parochial schools that go with them) are being closed.
No one planned it that way. But, amid all the activism, something was overlooked. Marist Father Thomas Dubay suggests that it was the ideal of Gospel poverty.
The title of his book comes from Christ's Sermon on the Mount. The author's aim is “to present the faithful with a clear, systematic understanding of the New Testament doctrine on our use of material goods.” His approach is theological and spiritual rather than sociological.
The teaching that he proclaims is needed today even more than it was in 1981, when the first edition of the book appeared.
Writing after 15 years of post-conciliar ferment, Father Dubay begins by challenging the reader to ask the question: Is Gospel poverty for me? “This book is radical,” he writes. “It is not in the least exaggerated, however. Its contents are simple enough for a schoolboy to grasp, and yet most adults go to their graves without a real feel for it. The message is austere, but at the same time it bears tidings of great joy.”
The author then painstakingly describes what evangelical poverty is not: destitution, impractical other-worldliness, mere inner detachment. After the Second Vatican Council, retreat masters were sometimes heard trying to redefine poverty as respect for the environment or availability to others. “In this concept, a person is poor when he gives to others his person, his talents, his time,” writes Father Dubay. “While this self-donation is no doubt praiseworthy, solving problems by changing definitions is hardly an honorable procedure. If we are not living evangelical teaching, it is we who should change, not the teaching.”
Father Dubay offers no pat answers or surefire formulas. Instead he sets forth the Christian principles proclaimed in the Gospel and points to the example of Our Lord himself and to the lives of his saints. Lists of questions, resembling an examination of conscience, help the reader to think things over, and the author repeatedly advises taking difficulties to the Lord in prayer.
The concluding chapters especially make clear that self-denial is not an end in itself; a Christian empties himself so as to make room for God in his life.
This book's appeal is broad enough that it should find a hungry audience among Christians of all stations — young and old, married and single, clergy and religious. Anyone who is “yearning for the undiluted message of Christ,” as Father Dubay puts it, will find great benefit in these pages.
Although a few of the allusions to the 1970s and the descriptions of mortifications practiced by some saints may seem strange, the author succeeds admirably in explaining “why evangelical poverty is so beautiful and freeing an ideal.” You'd be hard-pressed to find a more suitable message for Lent.
Michael J. Miller writes from Glenside, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller -------- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:42 for ‘Monologues’
CARDINAL NEWMAN SOCIETY — The Falls Church, Va.-based group said 42 Catholic colleges were scheduled to hold productions of “The Vagina Monologues,” a graphic play about feminist views of sexuality, in February and March.
The society, an organization that promotes Catholic identity in higher education, issued a press release to protest the productions.
Some of the colleges that planned to host the play this year included: Creighton University, Omaha, Neb.; DePaul University and Loyola University, Chicago; Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; St. Louis University; the University of Dayton in Ohio; the University of Notre Dame; and the University of San Francisco.
Pere Marquette
The retired head of the Anglican church in South Africa, Archbishop Tutu used the occasion to speak in opposition to a war in Iraq.
The Pere Marquette Discovery Award, named after Pere or Father Jacques Marquette, the Jesuit missionary and explorer, was first presented in 1969 to the crew of Apollo 11 — astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. In 1979, the award was presented to Jesuit theologian Father Karl Rahner, and in 1981 it went to Mother Teresa.
Play Ball
ST. BONAVENTURE UNIVERSITY, Feb. 20 — Franciscan Sister Miriam Cecil, 95, a former professional baseball player, received a distinguished achievement award during the National Girls and Women's Sports Day celebration at the Olean, N.Y., university.
A tomboy, Miriam Rohr played for the New York City Bloomer Girls and eventually earned $25 per game after joining a men's team that was built around her, Kitty Kelly's All-Stars.
After a 16-year career that included being hailed by Babe Ruth as the best female baseball player around, Miriam made a career change.
In 1941, she took the habit of the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, N.Y., and has served the Church for more than six decades.
Shock Prof
The e-mail was a reaction to students’ negative comments about Swissler, a freelance writer and editor, which had been posted on a Web site that lets students rate their professors while remaining anonymous.
The university, administered by the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., apologized to the students.
Bible Talk
FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY, Feb. 20 — A new summer institute on ancient and biblical languages will be inaugurated this year on the Steubenville, Ohio, campus and will include intensive courses in Latin and Greek and introductory courses in biblical Hebrew, the university announced.
The institute is designed to give students the opportunity to study and read classical, early Christian and biblical texts. They can earn 12 foreign language credits by completing the summer Greek or Latin programs and six credits for Hebrew.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen -------- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: K.I.S.S. Discipline Hello DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Q. You often suggest using the corner as discipline for pre-schoolers and writing an essay for older children. What are your reasons?
A. Simple — they're simple. Complex discipline approaches or fancy psychological tacks run headlong into an inescapable reality: human nature. There is a longstanding law of discipline. I made it up once while writing my column. It goes like this. The simpler the discipline, the more likely we are to do it. The more likely we are to do it, the better it works. The better it works, the less we have to do it.
Today's overpsychologized parenting landscape is buried in the idea that elaborate is better. “Get a 4-foot by 8-foot sheet of butcher paper. Divide it into 1,044 squares. Each square represents 15 seconds. If the child behaves well for 15 seconds, put a checkmark in the square. When he behaves well for 10 squares in a row, reward him with a banana sticker.
“Now, the trick to making this system really work …”
You get the idea: Who sticks with anything like this for any length of time? The only people with this kind of energy and stamina have no children. This is why refrigerators are monuments to dead sticker systems. How many parents have begun some daily sticker-reward system designed to, say, get Hazel to do her chores — only to have it work miraculously the first nine days and then fade into discipline oblivion?
Likewise, as children get older, the more complex our discipline, the more likely we are to exhaust, forget, relent or get confused.
Now, I'm not saying that fancy can't work, or that lots of different consequences necessarily breed inconsistency. But, overall, the dictum K.I.S.S. — Keep It Short and Simple — is wise advice for disciplining kids. It's easier on our heads (more certainty), our hearts (less guilt), our wills (greater perseverance) and our homes (blessed peace).
For instance, consider the basic corner. Corners are ubiquitous. They're everywhere. The average room has four of them. And, for those of us with large families, if we fill up one room, we've got others. Which is a chronic problem in our home, as corners can get backlogged. So I've taken a page from the justice system's manual. I hand the kids a sheet of paper that says, “Report next Wednesday at 2 a.m. You have corner time.” Also, to alleviate corner overcrowding, we've been forced to develop a halfway-couch program.
Essays, too, possess corner-like benefits. They can be assigned any time, anywhere, any length. You can choose the topic — talk about consequences fitting the crime. Essays are also a natural timeout. When you're thinking and writing, you can't be doing anything else.
Certainly you don't use the same discipline consequence for every offense. But having an everyday response for everyday misbehavior is smart discipline. Because another age-old law of discipline I made up in my old age is: A simple approach used well is far better than the most brilliant one used poorly and short.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author. He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Ray Guarendi -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Always Converting DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:For 38-year-old Scott Moyer, conversion doesn't mean switching religions. It means drawing closer to Christ.
A cradle Catholic, Moyer says that, after he got involved with his San Francisco parish's young-adult community, he stepped beyond his childhood faith to ask serious questions about how to put his faith in motion, such as, “What does it mean to work in the world?”
Moyer also decided to observe Lent more closely so that he could experience Easter more fully. “I wanted to challenge myself in all the aspects of my faith,” he recalls.
At a Dominican conference, he says, he realized what it means to be “called to participate in Christ's work.” Examining his conscience, he saw that he had been living his faith from a self-centered set of expectations. Now he was being converted — again.
“That [realization] struck a chord in me,” he says. “We do work with Christ and we do bring Christ into the world, whether we know it or not — whether in positive or negative ways, from the people we encounter every day to the life choices we make.”
Speaking in Rome recently, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger put it concisely: “Conversion never ends.”
The catechism tells us that baptism is the occasion of our “first conversion.” But, it goes on to say, “Christ's call to conversion continues to resound in the lives of Christians. This second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church” (No. 1428).
The first full week of Lent is a fitting time to consider this teaching and ask: What is conversion, anyway? And what do I need to do to undergo it?
Faced with those questions, Dominican Father Michael Sweeney, director of the Catherine of Siena Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo., points to Jesus’ instruction to “repent and believe the good news.”
Note well that things couldn't be the other way around, Father Sweeney says. “Our Lord doesn't say, ‘Believe the good news and repent.’” First, repentance calls for us to turn away from all that would keep us from God; then the good news — the Gospel — calls for us to turn to everything that is of God. “Jesus puts two tasks in front of us,” adds Father Sweeney. “Sometimes as a Catholic people we tend to forget the second.”
After the first moment of conversion, when we repent and turn toward Christ, we need to put on Christ, as St. Paul puts it (Romans 13:14).
“Our conversion is very much incomplete,” says Father Sweeney, “if we're just concerned about sin in our life.”
Most Catholics are aware of the need to do penance and struggle against sin, especially during Lent, says Father Sweeney — “but the second part, putting on Christ and therefore doing his work, often gets overlooked. To be truly converted is to enjoy the same relationship with the Father as Jesus does.”
As St. John the Evangelist says: “[A]s he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). “We're putting on Christ,” adds Father Sweeney. “We're living his life; we're taking up his mission and living it.”
Faith in Motion
It's important to keep in mind that conversion is a lifetime process, says Redemptorist Father John Connor of San Alfonso Retreat House in Long Branch, N.J. “We're always struggling, always falling back,” he says. “It's a day-by-day process — praying, striving, receiving mercy. Even at our best moments, we're beggars trusting in God's mercy to save us.”
He's quick to point out that not everyone is called to make such a radical change — but that all Christians are called to allow their interior conversion experience to bear fruit in the world as evangelization and catechesis.
The call of the Gospel, Father Connor points out, is to put faith in motion — as the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints have. “God is asking us to become more and more like him,” adds Father Connor.
A major component of Moyer's deepening conversion was discerning God's call for his life. After much prayer and contemplation, he ended up leaving his job as a partner in a software firm and accepting a position as director of adult faith formation at his parish.
To believe and live the Gospel is to enter into the work of Christ, proclaiming the good news, continues Father Sweeney. “It's to have the same joy in the presence of the Father and the same solicitude for others as Christ has.”
For laypeople, that means helping to renew the temporal order, he says, referring to Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on the Church.
How can we put our ongoing conversion “into motion”?
Begin by reading the Gospel accounts of the events leading up to Christ's Passion. Not once, but several times — and always with an open mind for new insights. “We need to let Jesus show us the Father, not let ourselves overrule him,” says Father Sweeney. “Be prepared to be contradicted. We have to prefer God's revelation even when it seems to contradict our experience.”
That seems a little tricky. How about an example to illustrate the point? “We often insist on seeing God the Father as judge,” explains Father Sweeney. Go back, he suggests, and read Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son as a study of the father, not the son.
Next, pray, give to the poor or needy, and fast. Specific acts of penance are fine, says Father Sweeney, “but we really want to get rid of the impediments to the work our Lord has called us to.”
The catechism spells out this point concisely. “Jesus’ call to conversion and penance, like that of the prophets before him, does not aim first at outward works, ‘sackcloth and ashes,’ fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion. Without this, such penances remain sterile and false; however, interior conversion urges expression in visible signs, gestures and works of penance” (No. 1430).
There's no time like Lent to get into — or reinforce — the habit of praying. “Make time for prayer,” says Father Connor. “Prayer is the intersection between faith and life.”
Then you need to do something to remind yourself of carrying the cross, he adds. This can mean “something that gets you to be kind to people, that gets you to help people.”
“You need to remain loyal to the Church and be part of the healing process by being a loving believer,” he continues. “Get to the sacrament of reconciliation during Lent. Go to church [more]. Add something on to get closer to God — make a parish retreat or mission.”
Such practices helped Janelle Bighinatti, a 23-year-old waitress in Seattle who began a journey of conversion five years ago even though she's faithfully attended Mass since childhood.
Taking part in her high school's living Stations of the Cross at different parishes “really helped bring the focus back to Jesus and the whole purpose of Lent,” she says. “Identifying with him and taking on our own cross is part of the conversion process.”
Attendance at World Youth Day boosted her ongoing conversion, too. It was “a catalyst for going to daily Mass and making my faith a part of every aspect of my life,” she says.
Bighinatti says daily Mass “has been huge, a real help in the deepening of my prayer life and also in realizing how much we are in community in church.” And she's excited where her ongoing conversion will take her next.
Conversion is no one-time deal, says Father Sweeney. “It's a lifelong task — and an adventure.” One that never ends.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Dispatches to (and From) Death Row DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Theresa Ellis believes the life of her pen pal on death row is as important as her own.
So does Ann Baker, who is obtaining clearance to meet her condemned correspondent. And Kent Peters collects donations for his friend on death row, whom he has visited with his 10-year-old daughter.
Ellis, Baker and Peters are San Diego County residents and members of California People of Faith Working against the Death Penalty (CPF), a statewide organization that strives to empower California's diverse faith communities to end the death penalty through advocacy, education and prayer.
CPF has about 15 chapters and more than 1,500 individual members from different congregations, according to Eric DeBode, coordinator of the southern California chapter.
The San Diego chapter hopes its letter-writing ministry “will expose the humanity of death-row prisoners, often demonized by the media,” says Peters, a 49-year-old father of five.
Contact between death row inmates and the 10 local CPF members who write to them has brought life-changing experiences to both groups. Chapter members have become more aware of life on death row and the needs of incarcerated people. Their confined pen pals realize that some people care about them and oppose the death penalty, says Deacon George Salinger, assistant chaplain of San Quentin State Prison.
Prisoners feel abandoned and isolated from their families who usually stop contacting them because it is so emotionally painful for the relatives, adds Deacon Dennis Merino, chaplain at California State Prison in Sacramento. “Some parents blame themselves for their sons’ crimes. Staying connected to the outside is a life-line to the inmates’ self-worth.”
Peters hopes he can provide a “lifeline” to his pen pal, who has no other outside contacts and has attempted suicide. “I'll do what I can to give him the will to live,” says Peters.
Support includes soliciting annual donations used to provide Mike Elliot, his pen pal, with a color TV and regular packages of items such as snacks, clothing, reading materials and art supplies. This outreach “completely staggered Mike, who has received little or no kindness during his lifetime,” says Peters.
Elliot includes drawings of a teddy bear and cartoon characters in his letters to Libby Peters, who also draws pictures in the notes she sends to him.
Salinger called this level of support for a death row prisoner “very unusual.”
“I learned so much about Mike in the 70 or so letters I have received from him during the past two years,” Peters says. He and Libby visited Elliot on Dec. 26, supervised by guards.
During Elliot's youth, he was repeatedly beaten by his mother and her boyfriend and sexually abused by family members and friends. He left home at 13 and supported himself by prostitution and robbing retail stores and an armored car of $50,000 — crimes for which he was imprisoned nearly a decade, Peters explains.
Elliot was convicted in 1996 of torturing, stabbing and shooting a woman in a Sacramento bar. Peters says Mike remembers pulling the trigger, but has no memory of the details because he was inebriated at the time. “He has strong feelings of regret because his victim was a woman who suffered before her death,” Peters explains.
But the horror of his pen pal's crime does not deter Peters from his ministry. “For the first time in his life, Mike is beginning to be open to the idea that God might care about him,” says Peters. “I feel very privileged to be a part of demonstrating God's love. Mike is worth it.”
Heavenly Mercy
Writing to condemned men has also strengthened other CPF pen pals’ commitment to end the death penalty. They are convinced that society can be protected from capital crime by life imprisonment sentences without the possibility of parole — a position repeated by Pope John Paul II and the U.S. bishops.
Ann Baker coordinates the letter-writing ministry and obtains names of death-row inmates from the California Appellate Project, which screens those seeking pen pals. Local writers do not give their home addresses, and mail is forwarded from the San Diego diocesan Office for Social Ministry, which sponsors the program and is directed by Peters.
Baker's pen pal was convicted in 1997 of assaulting his 68-year-old mother in Los Angeles and strangling her with a sock. Baker says he was born out of incest and was an accomplice in killing his mother. His anger stems from believing he should have been convicted of manslaughter instead of first-degree murder, she explains.
“Regardless of his crime, it is not my place to judge and condemn,” says Baker. “Only God has the right to take a life.”
During the two years Baker has written to her pen pal — a baptized Catholic who reads the Bible and religious magazines — she has seen the tone of his letters change from anger to trust that God will help him cope with death-row conditions. She says that, as a result, she's truly begun “to walk the walk against the death penalty instead of giving only lip service” to the dignity of human life, she adds.
Theresa Ellis also sees the humanity of her middle-aged pen pal, John, whom she describes as “peaceful, proper and patriotic.” She has no plans to visit him but writes him about her 23-year residency in Alaska. He often describes his hobby of creating charcoal drawings. John was convicted of killing a police officer in Orange County in a 1980 shootout, which wounded two other officers and two civilians.
“We share our experiences but not our personal lives,” Ellis says.
Ellis says that corresponding with John has deepened her dependence on God and strengthened her opposition to capital punishment, as displayed on her T-shirt: “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” She believes that life sentences “put the lives of prisoners in the hands of God instead of in the hands of society.”
Sixth Commandment
In Chowchilla, Calif., about a dozen women face execution, including a mother convicted of murdering her four daughters by setting fire to her house. One of the prisoners here receives letters from Marjorie McLaughlin, 70, a CPF member who also prays for the inmate.
Although the chapter participants focus on condemned criminals, they also extend their care to the families of their pen pals’ victims. Peters intends to locate the son of the woman murdered by Elliot.
Eudist Father Bill Rowland, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in San Diego, believes the CPF letter-writing ministry is “fantastic.”
“Connecting with prisoners on death row,” he says, “personalizes the commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
Joyce Carr writes from San Diego.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joyce Carr -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 03/09/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 9-15, 2003 ----- BODY:Vietnam to Ban Cloning
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, Feb. 16 — The Vietnamese government has approved a decree banning human cloning, surrogacy and all means of choosing the sex of human embryos. The decree stops short, however, of banning non-sex-selective reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization.
Ugandan Challenge
The Abortion/Cancer Link
In a letter to the Australian newspaper The Age, Dr. Angela Lanfranchi stated that she began to notice the link in 1993 after she included a question about prior abortions on her intake forms.
Lanfranchi, a breast cancer surgeon and clinical assistant professor of surgery at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, added that she experiences “paternalistic censorship” every time she tries to speak on the science supporting the abortion-breast cancer link.
“Women who choose abortions need to be aware that they are at higher risk, so they will have mammograms earlier and more regularly,” wrote Lanfranchi. “No woman should die of breast cancer because she was not warned.”
Tiny Preemie Goes Home
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, Feb. 14 — Michael Despain has spent his first full day home four months after being born at just 12 1/2 ounces.
Michael was released from the hospital weighing a relatively hefty 4 pounds, 9 ounces. His twin, Jennier, died shortly after they were delivered by cesarean section on Oct. 18.
Doctors had determined Michael and his twin had stopped growing after 22 weeks’ gestation. Janet Despain, 28, said her newborns were so tiny she could have held them in one hand when they were born one month later.
Doctors said Michael was less than half the size of a normal 26-week unborn child — but, though he suffered a collapsed lung at birth, he did not experience other problems that generally plague premature infants, including brain hemorrhaging, heart problems and infections.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Ash Wednesday Plea: Pope's Man Asks for Peace DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — A day before President Bush said at a White House press conference that only days remained to find a diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis, a special envoy sent by Pope John Paul II delivered one more plea to seek peaceful means to avert an impending war.
On Ash Wednesday, as Catholics around the world heeded the Pope's request to fast and pray for peace in Iraq and the Holy Land, Cardinal Pio Laghi met with President Bush at the White House and delivered a letter from the Holy Father concerning the conflict with Saddam Hussein.
At a meeting with reporters earlier in the day March 5, Cardinal Laghi said an American invasion of Iraq outside the context of the United Nations would be “illegal and unjust.”
John Paul has indicated his opposition to a war against Iraq at this time, and Cardinal Laghi made it clear the Pope's letter advocated peace.
“I cannot reveal what is in the Pope's letter for President Bush,” Cardinal Laghi said in his homily at an Ash Wednesday Mass celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, “but he said ‘peace is the noblest endeavor of the human race.’”
Cardinal Laghi, former apostolic nuncio to the United States and friend of the first President Bush, emphasized the importance of peace, saying, “For the Holy See — that is, for the Catholic Church — peace is built on four pillars: truth, justice, love and freedom. The Church's solicitude for peace has been a constant one and that is why she never tires in her work for the cause of peace.
“She believes in the power of the human mind and courage of the human heart to find peaceful solutions to disagreements, using the vast and rich patrimony of international law and institutions created for that very purpose.”
Before he left Rome, Cardinal Laghi said, “I will insist, on behalf of the Pope, that every peaceful avenue be explored. It is certainly necessary to obtain the disarmament of Saddam and of his regime, but insofar as possible, it must be achieved without the use of arms.”
At a brief press conference following the Mass in Washington, Cardinal Laghi said he met with the president for 40 minutes. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See James Nicholson also were present, he said.
Asked for Bush's reaction to the Pope's message, Cardinal Laghi said Bush “asked to have time to read it carefully. I did not expect an immediate answer.”
Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls said before the cardinal's meeting the latter would “illustrate the position and the initiatives undertaken by the Holy See to contribute to disarmament and to peace in the Middle East.”
Asked about Navarro-Valls' statement, Cardinal Laghi replied, “I also spoke with the president about the Palestinian-Israeli problem.” He said he told Bush, “We say, ‘First the crisis in Iraq, then
…' No, not then. We must solve [the Palestinian] problem now, sooner rather than later.”
He said Bush's assertion that peace and freedom will follow from a war against Iraq cannot be relied upon.
“We maintain that the consequences are not so clear,” he said. “There will be a disruption and certainly there will also be destruction. I think of all the children. … Look at Afghanistan. Certainly, they have done something, but the consequences are not so clear.”
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, at the side of Cardinal Laghi at the press conference, said, “There are always unintended consequences of anything as grave as a war. It doesn't mean there is never a reason for a defensive war.”
Cardinal Laghi cautioned that one of the possible consequences of a war would be a “great gulf” between Islam and Christianity.
“You have to realize that [Muslims are] as numerous as the Christians,” he said. “The Arabic family that professes Islam — it is very strong.”
Papal U.N. Address?
The 80-year-old cardinal seemed cool to the idea, proposed by the National Council of Churches USA and other groups opposed to the possible war, of the Pope's traveling to New York to address the United Nations.
“He met with the secretary-general of the United Nations 10 days ago,” he said.
“I believe that when peace is at stake, it is never too late for dialogue,” the Pope told a crowd in St. Peter's Square on Ash Wednesday. “We must pray and fast for peaceful coexistence between peoples and nations.”
It remained uncertain what effect the Pope's letter has had on the Bush administration. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said after the meeting that Bush told Cardinal Laghi, “if it comes to the use of force, he believes it will make the world better. Removing the threat to the region will lead to a better, more peaceful world in which innocent Iraqis will have a better life.”
American diplomats have continued their efforts to convince U.N. Security Council members to back a war, and Bush reiterated his policies during his press conference March 6.
There, he repeated that Saddam has failed to fulfill his obligations to get rid of his illegal weapons, even though he has had 12 years to do so. Bush indicated that war would come because Saddam has chosen not to disarm.
“The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul,” the president said, “the risk that somehow, that inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people.”
Joseph A. D'Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Three Nails, a Camera and a Cross DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — “Okay, cameras are rolling! Silence, please!” shouts the production assistant.
Mel Gibson is staring intensely at the monitors in front of his director's chair at Rome's Cinecittà Film Studios.
Actor Jim Caviezel (High Crimes, Count of Monte Cristo, The Thin Red Line) is dressed only in a loincloth. His arms are shackled to a low, granite pillar and he is dancing about in his bare feet on the cold pavement in order to keep warm between shots.
“The Scourging at the Pillar!” comes the voice again. “Scene 2! Take 3!”
After five hours of makeup, Caviezel's body is an oozing mass of lacerations and open wounds, a scary — and realistic — representation of a Roman flagellation.
“Aaaand … ACTION!”
In spite of his long and successful career, Gibson isn't treating The Passion like just another movie; it is the fruit of his unique spiritual experience — it's his baby.
“I have meditated a lot on the passion of Our Lord,” he told the Register. “When I was 35, I started praying the Prayers of St. Bridget and they really helped me understand what the Passion was all about. Now I want to share it with others.”
Last June, Gibson hand-picked the 34-year-old Caviezel to play the role of Jesus Christ. For the last six months, Gibson has been in Italy shooting a different kind of film. The Passion will show the final hours of the life of Jesus — from the Last Supper to the Resurrection.
And this movie will be quite different from anything Gibson — or any director — has ever done before: It is a Catholic film, starring a Catholic actor, about the quintessential Catholic subject.
In his Inperson interview with the Register last year, Caviezel showed what might have made him a candidate for the role.
“There was a point in my life when I got tired of being mediocre,” he said. “So I started praying the rosary really from my heart, not just lip service. The next day I went through this horrible darkness inside. It was very painful, like a purging process.
“After I went through it, I said, ‘If this is what will be necessary to get closer to God, I will go through it.’”
It was important training for his new role. Gibson wants realism, above all. He is striving for a perfect reproduction of the Passion — from the ancient languages spoken at the time of Jesus right down to the bloody wounds.
Blow by blow.
Standing behind Caviezel in the scourging scene are two Italian actors dressed as Roman soldiers. They are using authentic-looking whips studded with sharp metal chunks to scourge Caviezel. During the editing phase, the impact of each strike on Caviezel's back will be digitally added.
One of the acting coaches is standing off-camera with a couple blocks of wood, calling out the cadence for the whippings.
When the shooting begins, the coach claps the two blocks together loudly in unison with each blow of the soldier's whip.
“Three, two, one, CLAP. Three, two, one, CLAP,” the coach screams out, throughout the scene.
At each clap, Caviezel's body jerks forward, mimicking the pain that Christ must have felt with each strike.
One camera catches the Roman soldiers and their helpless victim. Another zooms in for a close-up on Caviezel's face as he reproduces the horror of each lashing.
Although The Passion might be considered too graphic for younger age groups, Gibson isn't pulling any punches when it comes to showing the reality of Jesus' suffering.
“There is no gratuitous violence in this film,” Gibson said. “Understanding what he went through, even on a human level, makes me feel not only compassion but also a debt: I want to repay him for the enormity of his sacrifice.”
Behind the Cameras
While it seems simple enough, the scourging scene took six full days to shoot, in large part because of Gibson's minute attention to details — a hallmark of the films he directs.
“He might have to repeat a mundane shot 50 times, but the minute he sees a good take, he doesn't have to think twice. He just knows instinctively what will look good and what will look bad on film,” says Jesuit Father William Fulco, the film's Semitic-language expert.
At this point in his career, Gibson's talent as an actor and director goes uncontested. But he is unique among Hollywood's mega stars because he hasn't allowed his fame to get to his head.
When a young actor asks for advice, Gibson is more than willing give him a few pointers. Between shots, he is often seen chatting with the extras. And he refuses to ride in the back seat of his black Mercedes, preferring to sit up front and chat with his chauffeur, Fabio.
Then there's the spiritual side of Gibson that few people see. He had a makeshift chapel installed on the set and goes to daily Mass, often joined by Caviezel and other crew members. He isn't afraid to share his faith with friends and co-workers. And even after a long day, he always makes time for his wife and children (he has seven) when he gets home.
Spiritual Impact
Although the major film distributors are, for the time being, politely keeping their distance from The Passion, Gibson has brought along a “coalition of the willing” from Hollywood and has no shortage of volunteers.
Bruce Davey, Gibson's partner at Icon Productions, is fully supporting the film. One of the best cameramen in the business, Caleb Deschanel, is on board (The Natural, The Right Stuff, The Patriot). And Gibson has tapped his long-time friend Steve McEveety (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers) as his producer.
What's more, the film crew of The Passion is not exclusively comprised of Christians. Members of the Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist religions also form an integral part of Gibson's team.
And the film is already reaping spiritual fruit, which in Gibson's mind is much more important than monetary returns.
“It's about changing lives and changing hearts,” he says.
One of the Italian actors has come back to the sacraments after a long hiatus. He now joins Gibson and his family for Sunday Mass. Another member of the film crew, an atheist, is exploring the Catholic faith.
But they are not the only ones affected by this film. During the scourging scene, tears welled up in more than one crew member's eye as the reality of Christ's suffering came to life.
“The attitude on the set has totally changed since we began this film back in September,” says McEveety. “People are more aware of the importance of kindness and working together — much more than I've seen on other productions I've worked on.”
Gibson concurs. “I think that the true horror of the passion will surprise people,” he told the Register.
The Passion is due for release in April 2004.
Gibson thinks the film will be a great success, in spite of Hollywood's initial shyness toward the project. “I doubt they will give us an Oscar for it — it's going to be a grass-roots thing — but it is still going to be a very good film and people will respond to it.”
And after all, what doth it profit a man to gain all the Oscars in the world if he loses his soul?
------- EXCERPT: On the Set of Mel Gibson's The Passion ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond Cleaveland ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Oregon Suicides on the Rise -- But Pain Is Not Their Reason DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore. — More people are having themselves put to death under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, but they are not the horribly suffering terminal patients the law's proponents predicted five years ago.
The results suggest Oregon voters were hoodwinked by the assisted-suicide movement when they first voted for the law and later reaffirmed their support of it.
The Oregon Department of Human Services reported March 5 that nearly twice as many people used the law to kill themselves in 2002 as in the previous year. A total of 38 people were reported to have died from a deliberate overdose of tranquilizers prescribed by a physician during 2002. That's 80% higher than the 21 who killed themselves under the act in 2001 and 11 people more than the previous high of 27 reported in 1999 and 2000.
During the first five years of legal physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, 197 people have received a lethal prescription and 129 people hastened their deaths under the act.
But they are a dramatically different group than the terminally ill and suffering people the act's proponents described in 1994, when 51% of Oregon's voters approved the act, or in 1997, when 60% of the electorate re-approved it.
Demographic data included in the report describe the average person seeking physician-assisted suicide as neither poor, old nor in severe pain.
Rather, 97% of suicide victims were non-Hispanic whites; 89% had a high school diploma or higher education; and 64% had private health insurance. Nearly half were married and 55% were male. The average age of victims was 69.
Among the reasons given for seeking to end their lives, 85% said they feared losing autonomy and 79% said they had a decreased ability to participate in activities that make life enjoyable.
Only 22% cited inadequate pain control as a reason for suicide. That ranked lower than concern over the loss of bodily functions (58%) and fear of being a burden on family or friends (35%).
Despite the steady increase in lethal prescriptions written under the act — from 23 in 1998 to 58 in 2002 — Oregon State Epidemiologist Dr. Mel Kohn said assisted suicide remains extremely rare. Almost all patients who took a lethal dose of medication under the act suffered from cancer, emphysema and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Yet they accounted for less than one-eighth of a percent of the 42,275 people who died from those diseases during the same five-year period.
The variance from the picture given Oregon voters — one of a person enduring extreme pain — doesn't bother George Eighmey, executive director of Compassion in Dying of Oregon, the Death With Dignity Act's sponsor and chief proponent. He doesn't agree the picture of suffering painted for Oregon's voters by his organization is at odds with the results of the act.
“Suffering is defined by the individual,” Eighmey said. “I'm not going to define it for them, and neither are the voters.”
“Doctors have been able to prevent pain,” he said. “However, over and over again, I hear people say that everything around them is gone. Everything they used to do, they can't do anymore. They are fiercely independent people who want the dignity to be able to choose.”
However, Dr. Kenneth Stevens, head of the department of radiation and oncology at Oregon Health and Sciences University and president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, said the decision of voters was based on a deliberate fallacy.
“The assisted-suicide movement has been great at the process of defining the issue as compassion,” he said. “The whole push was that people were dying painful deaths, and that was a myth.”
Stevens rejects both the definition of the victims of assisted suicide as “independent” and their act as dignified. He said fear and depression are the reasons for physician-assisted suicide.
“They are despondent and they fear future pain or disability,” he said. “Rather than helping them to overcome their depression, we're saying, ‘Sure, kill yourself. We can help.’”
In addition, Stevens dismisses the idea that the doctor is providing a choice.
“A prescription from a doctor is an order. Writing a prescription like this means the doctor is directing the patient to die. The promoters of this act say it's about autonomy and the right to die. Everyone dies and anyone can kill themselves,” he said. “This is about the power to kill. This law doesn't protect patients. It protects doctors and pharmacists.”
Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life, thinks implicit in the Death With Dignity Act is the idea that “some lives are not worth living, and some are not worth saving. If a sick 70-year-old has suicidal thoughts, the state is saying, ‘go ahead.’”
“We are dismayed to see the number of patients who have killed themselves and especially dismayed to see the reasons, since better psychological care and support could have prevented them,” Atteberry said.
Money Problems
The fifth anniversary of the act, implemented in 1998, comes at a time when the state government's and the medical profession's commitment to the elderly and handicapped is under fire from the media and advocates for senior citizens. Seniors are protesting health-care cuts while state officials are admitting that $244 million in federal Medicaid money was siphoned off to support other programs.
At a time of escalating health care costs and diminishing resources, the advocates say some lives are seen as less valuable than others.
Facing a $2 billion budget shortfall, the state has been curtailing prescription drug coverage provided through the Oregon Health Plan. Even further cuts are planned, leaving 9,000 elderly or handicapped Medicaid patients without lifesaving medications.
“While physician-assisted suicide is supported by Oregon Medicaid tax dollars,” Physicians for Compassionate Care said in a statement, “financial support for life-sustaining care for Oregon's medically needy is being significantly reduced.”
Philip S. Moore writes from
Portland, Oregon.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: How Christ's Agony Became His Passion DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Oscar-winning actor-director Mel Gibson is in Italy working on a film on the passion of Christ at the Cinecittà studios.
The movie focuses on the last hours of Christ's life and stars Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line, The Count of Monte Cristo) as Jesus. Gibson granted the following interview to Zenit, a Rome-based news service.
What made you decide to do this project?
It's been slowly coming on for about 10 or 12 years now. I'm a pretty old guy, but if you go back 12 years I was 35. That's when I started to investigate the roots of my faith. I had always believed in God, that he existed, and I was brought up to believe in a certain way.
But in my middle years, I kind of drifted, and other things took center stage. At that point, I realized I needed something more if I was going to survive. A closer investigation of the Gospels, of the story, of the whole piece, was demanded of me.
That's when the idea started to percolate inside my head. I began to see it realistically, re-creating it in my own mind so that it would make sense for me, so I could relate to it. That's what I want to put on the screen.
So many movies about the life of Christ have already been made. Why make another one?
I don't think other films have tapped into the real force of this story. I mean, have you seen any of the others? They are either inaccurate in their history, or they suffer from bad music or bad hair. This film will show the passion of Jesus Christ just the way it happened. It's like traveling back in time and watching the events unfold exactly as they occurred.
How can you be sure your version is so accurate?
We've done the research. I'm telling the story as the Bible tells it. I think the story, as it really happened, speaks for itself. The Gospel is a complete script, and that's what we're filming.
This seems like a switch from the usual Mel Gibson productions. Your specialty is action, adventure and romance. What made you decide to do a religious film?
I'm doing what I've always done: telling stories I think are important in the language I speak best — film. I think most great stories are hero stories. People want to reach out and grab at something higher, vicariously live through heroism and lift their spirit that way.
There is no greater hero story than this one — about the greatest love one can have, which is to lay down one's life for someone. The Passion is the biggest adventure story of all time. I think it's the biggest love story of all time; God becoming man and men killing God — if that's not action, nothing is.
Who will want to see a film like this?
I think everyone will. The story has inspired art, culture, behavior, governments, kingdoms, countries — it has influenced the world in more ways than you can imagine. It's a pivotal event in history that has made us what we are today. Believers and nonbelievers alike, we have all been affected by it.
So many people are searching for meaning in life, asking themselves a lot of questions. They'll come looking for answers. Some will find them, some won't.
So this film isn't only for Christians?
Gandhi was a blockbuster hit, but it wasn't just for Hindus. This film is for everyone. For believers and nonbelievers, Jesus Christ is undoubtedly one of the most important historical figures of all time. Name one person who has had a greater impact on the course of history.
But if this film is focused on bringing the Gospels to life, won't it be offensive to non-Christians? For example, the role of the Jewish leaders in Jesus' death. If you depict that, won't it be offensive?
This isn't a story about Jews vs. Christians. Jesus himself was a Jew, his mother was a Jew, and so were his 12 Apostles. It's true that, as the Bible says, “He came unto his own and his own received him not”; I can't hide that.
But that doesn't mean that the sins of the past were any worse than the sins of the present. Christ paid the price for all our sins.
The struggle between good and evil, and the overwhelming power of love go beyond race and culture. This film is about faith, hope, love and forgiveness. These are things that the world could use more of, particularly in these turbulent times. This film is meant to inspire, not to offend.
Even so, some people are going to think that you just want to “push your beliefs on others.” Is that true?
I didn't invent this story. I do happen to believe it. It's something that just gets inside of you and has to come out. I'm just trying to tell it well, better than it's ever been told before. When you're dealing with nonfiction, a director's responsibility is to make it as accurate as possible. Open-minded people will appreciate it for what it is.
What about the violence? Won't people find some of the more graphic scenes inappropriate?
Some people might, but, hey, that's the way it was. There is no gratuitous violence in this film. I don't think anyone under 12 should go see it — unless he or she is a very mature 12-year-old. It's pretty heavy.
I think we have gotten too used to seeing pretty crucifixes on the wall and we forget what really happened. I mean, we know that Jesus was scourged, that he carried his cross, that he had nails put through his hands and feet, but we rarely think about what this means.
Growing up I didn't realize what was involved in this. I didn't realize how hard it was. The full horror of what Jesus suffered for our redemption didn't really strike me. Understanding what he went through, even on a human level, makes me feel not only compassion but also a debt: I want to repay him for the enormity of his sacrifice.
What about the language barrier? You're filming in two dead languages — Latin and Aramaic — and you're not planning to use subtitles. Won't that be a turnoff?
Caravaggio's paintings don't have subtitles, but people get the message. The Nutcracker ballet doesn't have subtitles, but people get the message. I think that the image will overcome the language barrier. That's my hope.
I'm just trying to be as real as possible. There is something kind of startling about watching it in the original languages. The reality comes out and hits you. Full-contact. I know we are only re-creating, but we are doing the best we can to simulate an experience of really being there.
And I think it's almost counterproductive to say some of these things in a modern language. It makes you want to stand up and shout out the next line, like when you hear “To be or not to be” and you instinctively say to yourself, “That is the question.”
But if you hear the words spoken as they were spoken at the time, it can kind of stun you. I've seen that happen when we're working. It gets a clarity to it through the acting, through the nuances of the characters, the movement of the camera — it's the movement, it's the timing, it's everything. All of a sudden it's very, very clear to me. That's when I cut and move on.
When you finish this project, will it be a letdown to go back to less sublime subject matter?
No, it will be a relief to do something that's a little lighter. There is a tremendous burden of responsibility in this one, not to sell anything short. I just hope I can do justice to the story. You can't please everybody, but then again, that's not my goal.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mel Gibson ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Senate to Take Up Cloning Ban Amid Continuing Adult Stem Cell Success DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to outlaw all forms of human cloning Feb. 27 in what President George W. Bush hailed as a “re-sounding bipartisan vote [demonstrating] concern for the profound moral and social issues posed by human cloning.”
The Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003, sponsored by Reps. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), passed by a vote of 241 to 155. The Weldon-Stupak legislation was passed in the previous Congress, but the Senate failed to act on the companion bill sponsored by Sens. Sam Brownback (RKan.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
Bush has repeatedly called for a ban on all forms of cloning, whether “reproductive” (cloning to bring a child to birth) or “therapeutic” (cloning and destroying human embryos for medical research).
In his State of the Union address Jan. 28, the president asked Congress to “set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all hu man cloning.” After the House vote Feb. 27, he urged the Senate “to act quickly” and pass companion legislation, which he has vowed to sign into law.
The Bush administration, according to a statement Feb. 26, is officially opposed “to any legislation that would prohibit human cloning for reproductive purposes but permit the creation of cloned embryos or development of human-embryo farms for research.”
Weldon called the House vote “a resounding victory. … Any attempt at human cloning, for whatever purpose, is a gross form of human experimentation that the American people oppose.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Right to Life Committee hailed the passage of the Weldon-Stupak bill. Pro-lifers are hoping the Brown-back-Landrieu bill also will pass now that Re publicans have re gained control of the Senate.
But National Right to Life Committee legislative director Douglas Johnson warned the BrownbackLandrieu bill faces the threat of a filibuster from senators who want “to allow biotech firms to open up cloned human-embryo farms.”
The Senate companion bill also faces a rival bill, sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would ban “reproductive” cloning but allow “therapeutic” cloning.
An amendment to weaken the House bill was rejected by a vote of 174 to 231. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jim Greenwood (RPa.), would have legalized “therapeutic” cloning, which many scientists wish to pursue as a source of stem cells.
Therapeutic Value?
Stem cells have the potential to develop into various tissue types and are said to hold the key to curing a host of diseases and disabilities. They are present in bone marrow, umbilical cord blood and other fully developed tissues of the human body, but many researchers believe “adult” stem cells are not as useful as the embryonic ones.
The argument persists in spite of the fact that so far only adult stem cells have proven therapeutic value.
“The fact is that adult stem cells have already been used successfully in over 45 clinical trials to treat humans,” Weldon said in a statement Jan. 8. “[Adult] stem cells have already been used to treat cancers, restore vision to patients who were legally blind and treat multiple sclerosis. Researchers recently treated a 57-year-old man with Parkinson's using his own brain stem cells.”
Kansas State University researchers announced recently that a substance known as “Wharton's jelly,” found in newborn umbilical cords, is flexible enough to form nerve cells. Their study also indicates the substance can be used to create large numbers of new stem cells, undercutting the argument that cloning embryos is necessary to produce the quantities needed for clinical applications.
Church Teaching
The Catholic Church has repeatedly condemned the production of human embryos through in vitro fertilization or cloning and the destruction of embryos, in whatever way they are produced, for “therapeutic” purposes.
In a letter supporting the Weldon-Stupak bill Feb. 25, Philadelphia's Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua said in the midst of technological advances and competing claims about which source of stem cells is more promising, “the basic moral issue has not changed.
“Cloning dehumanizes human procreation, treating new human life as a mere laboratory product made to specifications. Whether used to bring cloned human embryos to live birth … or to exploit them as sources of ‘spare parts’ for other humans … human cloning diminishes us all.”
“The allegedly lofty goals proposed for cloning cannot outweigh the grim reality of the activity itself,” said the cardinal, who is chairman of the committee for pro-life activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Anti-Cloning Legislation
The Raelian UFO cult claimed during the Christmas holidays to have brought human clones to birth for the first time. Although the cult did not offer any proof and the claim was widely thought to be a publicity stunt, the announcement did set off a flurry of anti-cloning legislative efforts across the country.
USA Today reported Feb. 25 at least 48 bills to ban or regulate the practice were introduced in 22 state legislatures and Congress since the new year.
According to the bishops' committee for pro-life activities Iowa, Michigan and Virginia already have banned human cloning for any purpose. Louisiana, Rhode Island and California ban “reproductive” cloning, and Louisiana and Rhode Island have other laws that might be used to prohibit “therapeutic” cloning as well.
South Dakota has banned research that harms embryos, including cloned embryos, and five other states — Maine, Massa chu setts, Min nesota, North Dakota and Penn sylvania — have laws that might have the same effect, even though they do not mention cloning specifically.
Some of the proposed new measures ban only “reproductive” cloning, and other more comprehensive-sounding bans could have serious loopholes.
A bill expected to pass in New Jersey is being promoted as a ban on cloning even though it is actually intended to encourage “therapeutic” cloning. And as the Register reported recently, experts say the wording of the legislation would legalize the harvesting of body parts from full-term cloned babies — so long as the child is destroyed before it passes the “newborn stage.”
The Brownback-Landrieu bill has been reintroduced in the Senate and if passed would override state laws on cloning. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who controls the legislative agenda of the Senate, has indicated he supports a ban on all forms of human cloning.
David Curtin writes from Toronto.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Curtin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Groeschel Under Fire
Father Groeschel in 2002 published a book on clerical abuse and its media coverage, From Scandal to Hope. In it, he criticizes reporters who exaggerated the extent and seriousness of the scandal motivated, he suggested, by hatred of the Church's moral teachings.
The newspaper noted Father Groeschel runs Trinity Retreat, a center for clergy, which has treated hundreds of priests under fire for sexual misconduct, returning some 85, by his own report, to the active ministry.
The Morning News claimed leaders in the Diocese of Paterson, N.J., blamed three “unfortunate” reassignments on Father Groeschel's advice. Two of those priests were accused of subsequent misconduct.
In a response to the article, published on fran ciscanfriars.com, Father Groeschel said that the 85 priests were on leaves of absence, “not priests who had been accused of any misbehavior at all.”
Father Groeschel said that the paper “significantly misrepresented.” his role in the Paterson cases. And he said he never treated a priest of the Archdiocese of New York the article said he treated.
More Hispanics, but Fewer Are Catholic
The paper noted those Hispanic Catholics who drift away generally retain certain cultural and external practices associated with the Church, such as making the Sign of the Cross when passing churches, keeping rosaries in their cars and displaying images of the Virgin Mary.
As recently as the early 1990s, the paper reported, more than 65% of Hispanics in America identified with the Church. The new report puts that figure now at only 57%, even as the percentage of all Americans who claim no religious affiliation rose from 8% to 14%. Some 60% of Latinos between ages 18 and 25 claim no religion.
The survey was based on answers from 50,281 American adults, 3,000 of whom identified themselves as Hispanic.
New Hampshire Bishop Refuses to Step Down
The Washington Post reported the bishop promised the Diocese of Manchester would issue a companion report, offering the Church's “own honest analysis” of past policies toward abusive clergy.
He promised that anyone in ministry who has been credibly accused of abuse has now been removed from service.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Canadian Laws Pit Freedom of Religion Against 'Homosexual Rights' DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:OTTAWA — James Chamberlain was “thrilled” when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 7-2 in favor of his five-year struggle to introduce homosexual textbooks in his kindergarten and first-grade family life class.
Himself a homosexual, Chamberlain wanted to teach 5- and 6-year-olds about gay and lesbian families. So in 1997 he applied to include three readers — Asha's Moms, Belinda's Bouquet and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads — from a canon drawn up by the Gay and Lesbian Educators of British Columbia.
The school board, citing the moral and religious objections of parents, voted 4-2 to stop the teacher.
But Chamberlain took them to court, and last December, the Supreme Court ruled the board had “failed to consider the curriculum's goal that children at the K-1 level be able to discuss their family models and that all children be made aware of the di-versity of family models in our society.”
“One is never too young to learn tolerance,” wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin for the majority.
The ruling was one of several setbacks that drove a leading pro-family activist, Toronto lawyer Gwen Landolt, to predict it will soon be a criminal offense in Canada to express religious-based opposition to homosexual behavior.
“Tolerance is the code word for unconditional acceptance of homosexuality,” said Landolt, co-founder of the Real Women of Canada, a pro-family women's organization, on Jan. 18.
Homosexuals predicted the clash. Barbara Findlay, a lesbian lawyer in Vancouver, said in 1997 the “legal struggle for queer rights will one day be a showdown between freedom of religion versus sexual orientation.”
Free Speech?
In the federal Parliament, homosexual politician Svend Robinson of the left-wing opposition New Democratic Party is sponsoring two bills that lend credence to such predictions.
The first is an attempt to immediately abolish the legal distinction between homosexual and heterosexual marriage. The Minister of Jus tice, Martin Cauchon, has already asked the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to examine the pros and cons of homosexual marriage and make recommendations.
Robinson's second bill, C-250, would add “sexual orientation” to color, race, religion and ethnic origin in sections 318 (inciting genocide against an identifiable group) and 319 (inciting hatred) in the criminal code's hate-propaganda provisions.
The effect would be to criminalize criticism of homosexuality or “homosexual rights.” If convicted, a person could face five years for inciting genocide and up to two years for lesser hate crimes.
The bill passed second reading in Parliament last June and is also under review by the justice committee. If it goes through without amendment, said Vic Toews, a member of Parliament and justice spokesman with the Canadian Alliance, the largest conservative opposition party, the bill would have a severe “chilling effect” on free speech.
“While the stated purpose of the bill is to prevent the communication of hatred,” Toews said in a Jan. 28 press release, “it will have substantial negative consequences on the rights of Canadians to exercise free speech and to communicate and adhere to essential matters of faith.”
Robinson did not return calls for comment. But John Fisher, a spokesman for Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, said “sincere religious convictions” are exempted.
Section 319.3(b) of the criminal code leaves room for a person accused by a homosexual group to establish his innocence in court if he can prove his statements are true or “if, in good faith, he expressed or attempted to establish by argument an opinion on a religious subject.”
But this leaves a wide scope for harassment of faith-based organizations. Toews said private-interest groups would be in a position to mount civil lawsuits and other non-criminal proceedings.
An incremental strategy could start with “indirect attacks,” he said, such as stripping the charitable tax status from institutions; confiscation of literature by customs; even blackmail of hotels that carry Gideon's Bibles (which could be found to contain “hatred”).
Toews, a Mennonite from southern Manitoba, said homosexuals have already convinced public schools in his home province to boycott a popular youth camp because of its biblical behavior standards.
Freedom of Religion?
Across Canada, courts are rolling back religious freedom. An Ontario superior court last year forced a publicly funded Catholic school to allow a 17-year-old student to bring his 21-year-old male partner to the graduation prom.
The judge said for the school to allow the student to dance with his male date would not negatively af fect religious freedom. He cited the “di-versity of opinion within the Church” about homosexuality and the catechism's call for nondiscrimination.
This pressure on Catholic schools is what home-schooling parents such as Miriam Doylend, an Ottawa mother of nine (and grandmother of four), foresaw a generation ago.
As parents, Doylend said “many are now afraid for our own children and the right to provide education in the home because they may be at home being taught something that outside the home is illegal and which is being criminalized.”
Father John Horgan, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul parish in Vancouver, a city known for its high concentration of homosexuals, said, “Our sense is that clergy would be protected in the pulpit. But there are real concerns about other aspects of the Church's mission and ministry to teach [in schools and other institutions].”
In other cases, an appeals court upheld a human-rights tribunal that fined an evangelical Christian $5,000 for publishing “anti-gay” scriptural quotations. A public school teacher, also an evangelical, was suspended by his teachers college for criticizing the homosexual movement in letters to the editor written on his own time.
Iain Benson, a Catholic lawyer involved in most homosexual-rights clashes during the past decade, said Canada's top judges have been operating according to a “monistic” worldview that “conveniently seeks to bracket out religious perspectives while leaving in place those animated by agnosticism and atheism.”
Member of Parliament Toews said he expects Parliament will uphold the traditional definition of marriage later this year, and he is lobbying fellow committee members hard to amend the hate propaganda bill's “social ramifications — which many did not at first realize.”
However, he predicted, “The real fight won't be before the parliamentary committee or even in Parliament — but before the courts.”
Chris Champion writes from Ottawa.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Chris Champion ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Sustaining a Lasting Peace: Pacem in Terris and the New World Order DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — What guidelines for world peace can the Church offer amid the debate over Iraq?
For a perspective on the crisis, Zenit interviewed philosopher Father Jesús Villagrasa, who gave an address titled “Pacem in Terris, Dramatic Actuality and Permanent Endeavor” at the Regina Apos tolorum Pontifical University on the principles that sustain a lasting peace.
The present international situation seems very different from that of the beginning of the 1960s, when Pope John XXIII wrote the encyclical
Perhaps not so much. The euphoria of 1989 passed, when the Berlin Wall fell, symbol of the separation of the blocs confronted during the Cold War years and when Chateaubriand's famous phrase following the Napoleonic wars was repeated: “It might be said that the old world is ending and the new one beginning.”
In fact, the leaders of the victorious superpower proclaimed the dawn of a “new world order” in which “the reign of law and not the law of the jungle” was going to prevail. The grandiose plan of the new world order, founded on democracy, the free market and global security, seemed visible without the threat of nuclear terror and of communist oppression.
In his book The End of History, Francis Fukuyama looks forward to times of peace and prosperity with the triumph of democracy and the free market. This idyllic vision has not been realized. Freedom is more difficult to acquire and peace less certain than one might think.
What signs are there of the crumbling of the new world order?
The economy, politics and defense function in great disorder. The world economy has disconnected and impoverished those who have not known how or have not been able to be added to the global markets.
The financial crises of Mexico in 1994, Asia in 1997 and Argentina in 2001 have shown the weaknesses of the global financial system. Large business groups, at times created by mergers, have exploded like soap bubbles: Enron, AOL Time Warner, WorldCom.
In Iraq's crisis a political authority has been lacking capable of guaranteeing international law and peace; and the United Nations, NATO and the European Union reveal profound divisions. Relations among the great civilizations are threatened by fundamentalism in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Outbreaks of intolerance explode in the multicultural cities of the West.
The growing economic, technological and computer interdependence of the planet have also empowered the threats to global security. The attacks on the Twin Towers showed in all its crudeness the evil of an international terrorism that can strike without scruples and with awful cruelty and facility.
In a not-too-distant future, this terrorism could have at its disposal without much difficulty biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Given these new threats, recourse has been taken to the theory of the “preventive war,” which causes serious moral reservations in large sectors.
Why has the plan for a new world order not worked out, and why is the world in such a state of disorder?
The answer is simple but full of consequences. A moral order has been lacking that would direct and sustain the economic, political, cultural and military order. This is the relevance of the content of Pacem in Terris.
In his message for this year's World Day of Peace, which recalls the encyclical, John Paul has posed very serious questions: “What kind of order can replace this disorder, so that men and women can live in freedom, justice and security? And since the world, amid its disorder, continues nevertheless to be ‘ordered’ and organized in various ways — economic, cultural, even political — there arises another equally urgent question: On what principles are these new forms of world order unfolding? These far-reaching questions suggest that the problem of order in world affairs, which is the problem of peace rightly understood, cannot be separated from issues of moral principle.”
Without a moral order, great projects such as communism or unbridled capitalism are constructions that seem solid but which in reality are very weak because they don't have foundations; they are like the enormous statue in King Nebuchadnezzar's vision — of extraordinary brilliance and terrible countenance. His head was of pure gold, his chest and arms of silver, his abdomen and loins of bronze, his legs of iron, his feet part iron and part clay. But it was enough to strike his feet with a stone and it was pulverized like chaff on the threshing floor in summer, which the wind blows away without leaving a trace.
Concretely, what would be those moral foundations for peaceful civil coexistence and a new world order worthy of man?
Pacem in Terris proposes four: truth, justice, solidarity and freedom.
It states realistically that war is no longer an apt means to compensate for a violated right in the international realm and that differences that might eventually emerge among peoples and nations must be resolved through negotiations and agreements.
It postulates realistically that for the promotion of the “universal common good” the constitution of a public authority at the international level is necessary, which should not be instituted through coercion or force but through the consent of nations. It must not be a super-state but must respect the principle of subsidiarity and the authority proper to each state.
In other words, you are speaking about a preventive peace?
The dreams in 1989 of a universal peace were, perhaps, only that — dreams. Peace is a gift of heaven that must be prayed for, but it is also a “permanent endeavor,” a conquest.
Some agree with the saying “If you want peace, prepare for war.” It is more realistic, human and Christian to think, “If you don't want war, prepare for peace.”
Peace is much greater than no armed aggression. Peace, the last council said, is not the mere absence of war, nor is it reduced only to the balance of opposing forces, nor does it arise from a despotic hegemony, but with all exactness and propriety it is called the work of justice.
Can the Church do something other than teach moral principles?
The principal mission of the Church is evangelization and it includes the teaching of these principles. But it does more. The Church is mobilizing all its spiritual energies, especially prayer and penance for peace.
The Holy See is tirelessly deploying the good arts of its diplomacy. The Church does not formulate concrete solutions nor does it replace those who govern in making decisions.
It limits itself to instructing and enlightening the conscience of the faithful, especially the conscience of those who have the heavy duty, which cannot be delegated, to govern temporal affairs.
As Pacem in Terris did, it exhorts Catholics to participate actively in public life and to cooperate in the progress of the common good of humanity.
A Catholic who limits himself to lament the present disorder, to declare himself a pacifist at all costs and does nothing to give a Gospel input to temporal realities does not render a good service to the cause of peace, which is the work of justice.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Terrorist ‘Kingpin’ Aimed at Pope
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORP., March 3 — The mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States is in custody, according to the BBC. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in a combined CIA-Pakistani raid March 1 near Islamabad, Pakistan.
Other sources, including Reuters news service, have linked Mohammed with a reported attempt on Pope John Paul II's life in 1995. The suspect is said to have been part of a cell of radical Islamists who planned to use a suicide bomber to murder the Holy Father as he visited the overwhelmingly Catholic Philippines eight years ago — a plot foiled by local authorities.
Pakistan will continue to hold the 37-year-old Mohammed, although U.S. authorities are also involved in interrogating him.
The U.S. government has called Mohammed one of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden's “most senior and significant lieutenants.”
His bloodless arrest delighted President George W. Bush, who responded, “That's fantastic!” when told of the news.
Officials Prepare for Mother Teresa Beatification
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS, March 3 — Church officials say work is already moving swiftly on the scheduled October beatification of religious foundress Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Her order, the Missionaries of Charity, has created a Web site, www.motherteresacause.info, which supplies details on how to get tickets to the Oct. 19 ceremony, Agence France-Press reported.
Last year, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints accepted as miraculous the cure of an abdominal tumor, which an Indian woman in Bengal attributed to Mother Teresa's intercession. This made possible the early beatification — only six years after the foundress’ death.
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (later Mother Teresa) was born on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, to Albanian parents.
The French news service called the beatification “highly symbolic,” noting it falls near the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's installation and on the closing day of the year of the rosary.
For Italians, Religion Replaces Reality TV
REUTERS, Feb. 26 — Even as American television programs, “Survivor” knockoffs and action movies dominate entertainment in much of Europe, in Italy viewers are turning to religious programming, according to Reuters news service.
A TV movie on the martyr St. Maria Goretti drew some 10 million viewers in February — including 35% of Italian homes. Other religious shows also compete successfully against secular shows — and everything else except soccer, Reuters noted, pointing out that sociologists have found the trend surprising, since surveys show church attendance falling consistently in Italy.
Last year, Italian TV featured a film starring Ed Asner as the beloved Pope John XXIII, which drew viewers from more than 50% of Italian households.
TV programmers are currently planning projects on the lives of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Hero, Up Close DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:“Ailing Pope Slows Travel Pace.” “Pontiff May Resign Soon.” “Pope John Paul II Stricken with Parkinson's.”
The media seem to love these and similar headlines. For a dozen years they have zeroed in on the Pope's health like vultures circling a wounded antelope.
These articles used to sting me.
I am studying to be a priest, and Pope John Paul II is such a hero for me. I didn't want to believe what they were saying; I didn't like the reality of him aging before my eyes.
Then one evening I got the call.
“You are invited to Mass with the Pope in his private chapel tomorrow morning.” It was like an incredible shot of adrenaline. I didn't sleep much that night.
There I was bright and early the next day, with 25 other lucky invitees, ready to see my hero up close and prove everyone wrong.
Not more than two minutes after we were settled into the papal chapel, the Pope stood and put on his red stole and chasuble.
Then came the deep voice I knew so well: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
During the entire Mass, the Holy Father had his back to us. When he finally did turn toward us to give the final blessing, I was stunned.
Instead of the radiant World Youth Day face I expected, he seemed to reflect severe pain. The exhaustion was evident. I remembered Parkinson's makes you lose control of facial muscles. Looking at him I felt pain, too.
He turned around and sat back down. The group slowly filed out of the chapel, but I decided to stay. I was probably breaking some rule, but no one seemed to notice.
After a few minutes, John Paul tried to stand up. I say “tried” because he had to use his arms to lift his body out of the chair. He got about halfway up and fell back down on the cushion.
I started looking around.
He tried again, to no avail.
Then he started looking around. Help! I thought. Where was the secretary? Where was the sacristan? Somebody's got to do something!
So I did.
I went up to him, grabbed his arm and helped him stand.
Then I said the first dumb thing that came to mind: “Holy Father, how are you feeling this morning?”
“Oh Lord,” I thought to myself, “that was probably not the right question!”
All John Paul did was turn his head and look at me. He probably was thinking the same thing.
I helped him take his cane and I walked with him the length of the 20-foot chapel. I felt so sorry for him. It was as if he had a weight tied to each ankle. Each step was a sheer act of will and he literally had to drag his body forward.
And there I was, little old me, helping the Vicar of Christ walk forward.
We got to the door of the chapel and one of the secretaries appeared. He said a very diplomatic “thank you,” which I took as my cue and relinquished my post.
A few minutes later, to my utter amazement, the Pope walked into the room where we were waiting.
He slowly hobbled to the chair and plumped down.
Then he started to smile and take interest in each of us who knelt before him that morning.
He greeted the adults and gave out rosaries to the children.
His interest and smiles were genuine — no one doubted that — but I could tell he was still hurting, trapped inside that aging body.
And then it dawned on me.
At 82 years of age, he was up and out of bed early to pray his breviary and celebrate Mass. He didn't have to be there, but he was.
He took the time to greet all 25 of us that morning. He didn't have to do that, but he did.
And who really expects him to keep traveling? But he does.
No one would fault the Pope at this stage of his pontificate for wanting to sleep in, take things easier, cancel his audiences or stop receiving visitors (at least the nobodys who filled his chapel that morning).
He didn't have to be there that morning, but he was. Just like he is every Wednesday for the general audience. Just like he is at every Vatican event that calls for his presence and for every World Youth Day.
In spite of physical pain and infirmity, he is going forward with his Petrine ministry. “In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Colossians 1:24).
And maybe that is why he isn't as worried as we are about the media's predictions.
Presidents and politicians are concerned about polls and press coverage and appearances. A seminarian doesn't have to worry about the first two, but maybe he is concerned with the latter.
But the Holy Father is way beyond appearances. He is way beyond good or bad press coverage.
His smile isn't a response to the photo op, nor does he kiss babies to win good press. Neither does he try to hide his suffering out of shame or fear.
Like St. Paul, he is running the race and fighting the good fight right to the end. “And therefore I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12).
And that's the stuff real heroes are made of. The headlines don't matter anymore. More than ever, the Pope is at the top of my list.
Legionary of Christ Brother Raymond Cleaveland writes from Rome.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond Cleaveland, LC ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: We Are All Sinners DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II met with more than 6,500 pilgrims during his general audience on Ash Wednesday, March 5, and made another plea for world peace. Earlier the Holy Father had asked Catholics around the world to devote Ash Wednesday in a special way this year to fasting and prayer for world peace at a time when war is looming on the horizon.
“There is, then, a close link between fasting and prayer. To pray is to listen to God and fasting fosters this openness of heart,” the Pope pointed out. “We must ask God for a conversion of heart, in which every form of evil and every tendency to sin is rooted; we must pray and fast for peaceful coexistence between peoples and nations.”
The Holy Father ended his audience with a prayer entrusting this endeavor to Mary, Queen of the Rosary and Mother of Peace.
------- EXCERPT: Register Summary ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: We Are All Sinners DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Today, Ash Wednesday, the liturgy extends to all the faithful a strong invitation to conversion, using the words of the Apostle Paul: “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Lent is the best time spiritually to receive this exhortation, since it is a time of more intense prayer, penance and greater attentiveness to the needs of our brothers and sisters.
Through today's rite of the giving of ashes, we recognize that we are sinners, we ask God for forgiveness and we manifest a sincere desire for conversion. Thus we begin a journey that is austere and ascetic and that will lead us to the Easter triduum, which is the heart of the liturgical year.
Fostering Open Hearts
In keeping with the ancient tradition of the Church, all the faithful are obliged today to abstain from meat and to fast, with the sole exception of those who are reasonably prevented from doing so for reasons of health or age. Fasting is highly valued in the life of Christians and is something that the spirit needs in order to have a better relationship with God. Indeed, the external aspects of fasting, however important, are not the extent of this practice. They need to be accompanied by a sincere desire for interior purification, a readiness to obey God's will and a solicitous solidarity with our brothers and sisters, particularly those who are most poor.
There is a close link between fasting and prayer. To pray is to listen to God and fasting fosters this openness of heart.
A Plea for Peace
As we enter the Lenten season, we cannot help but be aware of the current international context in which the tension of a threat of war has been stirred up. We all need to consciously assume some responsibility for this and engage in a common effort to spare humanity from another dramatic conflict. For this reason, I wanted today, Ash Wednesday, to be a day of prayer and fasting to intercede for peace in the world. Above all, we must ask God for a conversion of heart, in which every form of evil and every tendency to sin is rooted; we must pray and fast for peaceful coexistence among peoples and nations.
At the beginning of our meeting, we heard some encouraging words from the prophet Isaiah: “One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again” (Isaiah 2:4). And yet again: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Ibid.). The sovereign presence of God, who judges men's choices, looms above the upheavals of history. Let us turn our hearts to him who “shall judge between the nations” and “impose terms on many peoples” (Ibid.) and beg for a future of justice and peace for all. This thought should encourage each one of us to persevere in unceasing prayer and in an active commitment to build a world in which egoism gives way to solidarity and love.
I also wish to extend once again the urgent invitation to conversion, repentance and solidarity from my Message for Lent from a few days ago, whose theme is that beautiful phrase from the Acts of the Apostles: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (see Acts 20:35).
In fact, it is only through conversion to this type of reasoning that we can build a social order that is characterized not by a precarious balance of conflicting interests but by an equitable and mutual quest for the common good. Christians, just like leaven, are called to live and proclaim a style of generosity in every realm of life, thereby promoting a moral and civil development of society that is genuine. In this regard, I wrote the following: “Depriving ourselves not only of the superfluous but even of something more by distributing it to those in need contributes to that denial of self without which there is no authentic practice of Christian life” (L'Osservatore Romano, No. 4, Feb. 7, 2003, p. 5).
May this day of prayer and fasting for peace, with which we begin Lent, be translated in concrete gestures of reconciliation. From the family circle to the international arena, may each one feel a sense of and make a commitment to mutual responsibility for building peace. The God of peace, who fathoms the intentions of our hearts and calls his children peacemakers (see Matthew 5:9), will not fail to repay us (see Matthew 6:4, 6, 18).
We entrust our observance to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Rosary and Mother of Peace. May she take us by the hand and accompany us during the next 40 days to Easter, when we will contemplate the risen Lord.
I wish everyone a good and fruitful Lent!
(Register translation)
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Philippines Bishop Bans Visibly Pregnant Brides
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORP., Feb. 25 — Bishop Jose Sorra of Legazpi in the Philippines has made a controversial ruling: He forbade visibly pregnant brides from having public weddings, the BBC reported.
Instead, he asked them to marry privately. The bishop noted that one of his priests had been performing a wedding only to be interrupted when the bride went into labor.
After that, Bishop Legazpi ruled that “brides who are conspicuously pregnant are to be discouraged and disallowed from having public weddings. They may be married in a private ceremony within the parish church or chapel (not in a house unless very sick or bedridden), or may postpone such Church marriage until after having given birth,” the bishop wrote to his priests, noting that pregnancy outside marriage was “a counter-symbol to the purity, chastity and beauty of the bride of Christ, the Church. … A white bridal gown over a conspicuous pregnancy is a contradiction of symbol or a ludicrous confusion of symbols.”
Australian Church Denies Marian ‘Miracle’
AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORP., Feb. 26 — The statue may well weep, but it's no miracle. That was the ruling of the Catholic archbishop of Perth, Australia, who recently declared a so-called “Weeping Mary” statue in nearby Rockingham was not necessarily miraculous.
A Church commission of inquiry has decided that earth-bound explanations for the phenomenon could not be ruled out.
Some thousands had flocked to that city to look at the fiberglass statue after it started shedding oily tears last year. They left behind tens of thousands of dollars in donations, the ABC noted.
“I'm personally satisfied that there was no trickery,” Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey told David Weber of the ABC. “The principal [people] that I deal with regarding the statue are all honorable people, so I don't suspect them.”
The archbishop said the money left behind had been accounted for — it had all been donated to a charity outreach in Bangkok, Thailand.
Vandals Damage Tomb of Old Testament Patriarch
WORLDNETDAILY.COM, Feb. 25 — Israeli officials have reported that one of their sacred sites on the West Bank, under nominal Arab control, has been desecrated by vandals, according to WorldNetDaily.com.
The tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph — a figure revered by Christians and Muslims as well — was left a pile of rubble last week. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the large stone marking the grave had also been destroyed.
Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky asked the foreign ministry to publicize pictures of the damaged site, which lies in the Palestinian town of Nablus, the biblical Shechem. “If we would have razed the grave site of one of the founders of Islam, billions of Muslims would have taken to the streets,” Sharansky said. “It's inconceivable that the world should not know about this travesty.”
A Jewish scholarly organization that once functioned at the tomb, the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, demanded “immediate safeguarding” of the tomb and asked for the Israeli government to reinstate it at the holy site.
The site is named in the Old Testament Book of Joshua, which states that “Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for 100 pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph's descendents.”
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Working to Stop the War DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:There has been a lot of talk of two camps of Catholics, one that is opposed to the war in Iraq and one that supports it. In fact there is a lot of unity on the question of a U.S. invasion of Iraq: The Pope, bishops around the world, and, it would seem, most of the world's Catholics oppose the war.
Especially in the United States, however, many Catholics have reasoned, thoughtful opinions which differ from the prevailing view of Catholic thought. This is their prerogative. After all, judging the moral legitimacy of military action “belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good,” teaches the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2309). The hierarchy won't make that judgment for the civil authorities, nor should it. American Catholics needn't choose between the president and the Pope.
But that doesn't mean Catholics can simply ignore what the Vatican is saying about the war. Quite the contrary. While the magisterium of the Catholic Church doesn't tell us which wars are just and unjust, it does teach clearly against unjustly waging war.
It comes in the Catechism under the fifth commandment: “Thou shall not kill.” War is not an exception to the fifth commandment — on the part of an unjust aggressor, it is a particularly egregious violation of the fifth commandment. By going to war unjustly, an aggressor sets off an abhorrent chain of death, destruction and woe.
“Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war,” says the Catechism (No. 2307), “the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.”
War does bring evil. Those in a war-torn country lose either their lives or their way of life, and they don't get to pick which. They may lose their families. They often lose their minds. War maims children. It maims soldiers. It fills peoples' minds with memories of death and fills soldiers' minds with memories of killing. It changes everything it touches, and it touches everything.
Nonetheless, military aggression is sometimes necessary — most notably, as a means of self-defense.
“The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing,” says the Catechism.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger explained in 2001 why the U.S.-led action in Afghanistan didn't violate the “do not kill” rule: “The father of a family who sees his own attacked has the duty to do everything possible to defend the family, the lives of persons entrusted to him, including, if need be, with proportional violence.”
Other Vatican officials agreed that Operation Freedom was a just war.
Just as killing the man who is trying to murder your family makes you a hero, not a murderer, defending your nation is a duty, not a sin.
But the converse is also true. If you intentionally kill when you don't need to do so, it is murder. And if you go to war when you don't need to do, it is gravely wrong — not for the troops, but for the ones who send the troops in.
No, the Church doesn't demand we believe that war against Iraq is wrong. But if we are Catholics, we will believe, with all our hearts, the principle that it is wrong to go to war unjustly. When a war is proposed by our nation, we will listen very carefully to what the voices of our Church say about that war.
The Vatican's position is not the extreme position of some who oppose the war. John Paul doesn't put President Bush and Saddam Hussein on the same level. The message a Vatican delegate brought to Saddam was simple: Disarm; don't bring evil onto your own country. So was the message to Bush: There are still peaceful avenues to seek to disarm Iraq.
What we are witnessing is our Holy Father doing what the Catechism tells us all to do, in No. 2708: “All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.”
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Register Makes the Rounds DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Mucho gracias for a great editorial, “Anti-War, Not Anti-American” (Feb. 9-15), and the balanced article on gun-control and self-defense, “Despite Snipers, Some Still Struggle with Church Teaching on Self-Defense” (same issue).
I have circulated your editorial to many people with a note describing it as “a compelling and thorough examination of the Iraqi crisis and threat to world peace” — along with an invitation to share reactions with me.
The other article represents a first, as I've never seen a fair, accurate and balanced report on the subject of gun-control and self-defense in a Catholic newspaper or other print medium. I expect you will receive many letters on both sides of gun-control and self-defense, which is good, and I hope that you can print some of them to help shed further light on the topics.
K. DALE ANDERSON
Randallstown, Maryland
Opportunity Missed?
I was sorry to read in your Prolife Victories column that Mercy High school of Farmington, Mich., cancelled a luncheon with Gov. Jennifer Granholm from its list of items to be auctioned off in a fundraiser (“No Gig for a Pro-Abort Gov,” March 2-8). The cancellation came after “a few” Mercy parents and alumnae said offering lunch with the governor would contradict the Catholic Church's pro-life teachings.
First, the fact that the item (lunch with the governor) was offered meant that Granholm has agreed to opening herself up to contact with constituents she knew would be pro-life. Second, the withdrawal was discourteous, as it had been offered as a fundraiser for a Catholic school. And third, institutions pandering to “a few” undermine the fortitude of the values the institution stands for.
These few have caused the school and the Catholic Church to be seen as insensitive, ungrateful and small-minded. This was an opportunity for open dialogue with a female politician about a very female issue. It could have been an opportunity for learning, on both sides. The governor is certainly entitled to her views, and the “few” parents and alumnae, theirs.
What a shame that the girls of Mercy High are being taught that polarization and rudeness are solutions! I envision the edition of the Mercy school paper involved with the governor in an open dialogue, leading to a series of articles that would educate young girls to what exactly abortion is and why the Church is against it, maybe tying in the latest research on breast cancer. Does the governor know about those latest statistics, as reported in the same issue of the Register?
Adults whose minds are [set] in concrete can damage the pliable, bouncing ball of an adolescent's questions.
RUTH M. TRUE
Salisbury, Massachusetts
Editor's note: Soon after our report ran, the school reversed its decision. See this week's Campus Watch for details.
Give Prayer and Fasting a Chance
Thank you for your coverage of the Pope's calls for peace in Iraq. The other day, I talked to a young Muslim girl who told me she had been praying and fasting for over a month so that there would not be another war in Iraq. She said that many of her relatives and friends had been killed in the Gulf War, and she did not want that to happen again. She went on to say that her family and friends here and in Iraq pray, fast and cry in the hope that there will be peace.
I think that many of us have not considered the terrible plight and suffering of the people in Iraq and what another war would do to their already ravaged country. Shortly after the Gulf War, Mother Teresa visited Iraq. She said that the devastation was unbelievable; so many little children and other civilians lost their lives. In spite of the fact that Saddam Hussein is one of the most vicious dictators in our world today, can we justify killing so many more Iraqis and our own soldiers — just to get rid of one man?
MADELINE FIORINO
Parker, Colorado
Clergy Abuse in Perspective
Thank you for a publication. I truly feel I can rely upon it for good journalism. I am the coordinator of our parish Scripture-study program. With every course, I hand out a list of references we rely upon. Your publication is listed on it.
I am writing to ask you to cover a topic that keeps coming up in our discussion groups. We have seen little published on it recently and do not know where to look for further information: What is the actual incidence of sexual misbehavior by priests?
It seems that the flow of accusations has slowed or stopped. Is this true, or has the media simply moved on? What are the current figures/statistics? It has appeared that the incidence, based upon earlier figures, was about 0.6% of all priests active in the last 40 years (340/48,000). Does this still hold? Certainly there must be a flurry of activity in the fields that study these things, and a better measure must be emerging.
Obviously, the only tolerable level is zero, but it would appear that the Catholic Church has already, according to the statistics we have seen, done better than many/most/all other groups. In the discussion groups of our program, and in other conversations with presumably well-read adults, it appears that there is an assumption that the numbers of priests in trouble is huge — when, in fact, the numbers available so far show otherwise.
So, I am writing to ask that you consider revisiting this topic, in light of the data which must be emerging, outlining the incidence in terms of comparisons that will help us to discuss the issue with a handle on the true scope. Unfortunately, as it stands now, too many Catholics, and of course non-Catholics, seem to think that a large proportion of priests are sexual predators. It would be good to get a current look at the facts. It would also be helpful, for future reference, to see what the reliable resources are.
PAUL KOWACI
Orange, Massachusetts
Editor's Note: Remember to distinguish between pedophilia and sexual abuse of minors. Occurrence of pedophilia is estimated at 0.3% (that is, 3/10 of 1%) of priests in research cited in Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis by Philip Jenkins (Replica Books, 2001). Research is ongoing as to the number of priests accused of abuse of minors. The New York Times recently did an exhaustive search of accusations — and found 1.8% of priests ordained during the past four decades were accused of sexual abuse of minors.
Don Bosco Behavior
I enjoyed your recent article about Don Bosco's educational system very much (“Making Them Behave: The Don Bosco Way,” Jan. 26-Feb. 1). As a Salesian cooperator in formation, I would like to add a few thoughts.
The educational system used by Don Bosco is called the “preventive method.” This was summed up into three words by Don Bosco: reason, religion and kindness.
Reason consists of making the rules known and dealing with the students respectfully. They are treated with trust and confidence. The preventive method seeks to remove and prevent opportunities for misbehavior. The educator always appeals to the students' better self in order to help them to see that hard work, good behavior and virtue are really in their best interests. It also seeks to prevent opportunities for falling into sin.
On religion, Don Bosco insisted that: “Frequent confession and Communion … are the pillars which must support the edifice of education.” We are mind, body and soul. You cannot just educate the mind without teaching the person's soul. The educator must set the example, lead a holy life, live the faith and encourage the students to do so as well.
Then there's kindness. In the preventive method, the teacher becomes a trusted friend. He/she takes part in activities, shows sincere interest in the students' interests and earns their confidence. Once educators know each student well and have developed a healthy and holy relationship with him, they are then able to more successfully influence a student and guide him to make wise choices.
The preventive method does require extra effort and great dedication on the part of the educator, but it is well worth it. It can be used in every situation and even by parents. The goal that Don Bosco set for this method was to help form faithful Catholic Christians and upright citizens.
BRITTANY HARRISON
Lake Villa, Illinois
Population Control Must Die
Regarding your ongoing coverage of the 30th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision:
In 1972, President Nixon appointed John D. Rockefeller III to look into “the overpopulation problem.” Rockefeller reported back that, if something wasn't done soon, a major catastrophe would ensue. Shortly thereafter, Roe v. Wade was legalized.
Abortion is what it has always been — a means of population control. To frame it as a women's issue is to put up a smoke screen. Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and all other frontline abortion-rights organizations are financed by the yankee dollar. Behind the scenes are the unnamed, unseen, untouched environmentalists. They are supported by the United Nations, humanists, socialists and all those foundations that buy into their philosophy. They are highly intelligent people and are well aware that abortion is premeditated murder.
Our only recourse is prayer, support of pro-life organizations and the defeat of the bought Democratic Party.
Peter Fiorillo
West Haven, Connecticut
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Billionaire Ted Turner's Wrestling Match With God DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Taking pleasure in the suffering of others is not exactly a Christian virtue. But, oh my, one is tempted, for Ted Turner just lost $8 billion!
Turner is a mixed bag. On the one hand he is a very serious man and a visionary genius. On the other hand, he has said some very silly and even ugly things.
The thing about Turner, mixed bag and all, is that his still-unfolding tale is practically biblical, one of Old Testament proportions. And we do not know how it will end.
Turner is a visionary genius for looking at plain things and seeing grand things. He inherited a regional billboard company from his father. With the profits he bought a tiny Atlanta television station.
And here was his vision: The new cable television industry whimpered hungrily for programming, so Turner programmed his tiny local station like a national network and offered it via satellite to the hungry cable operators who promptly ate it with a spoon and asked for more. Turner had created the cable television network.
Turner then cast his gaze to the network monopoly on television news. In those days, it was only NBC and CBS, with ABC in a weak third. In those days, a wink or a tear from Walter Cronkite meant peace or war.
Turner saw a 24-hour all-news cable network that would challenge the monopoly. The experts laughed. The network potentates called it the Chicken News Network. But when the bombs flew into Baghdad back in 1991, the American people's eyes — even Walter Cronkite's — turned to CNN.
After selling his cable television interests to Time Warner in 1996, Turner became the largest single stockholder, and overnight his net worth went from $2 billion to just more than $9 billion. In recent months, however, AOL Time Warner Inc. has become perhaps the largest merger failure in corporate history. Turner's net worth evaporated to his 1996 level of roughly $2 billion.
It is clear Ted Turner hungers for heaven.
He talks about it often enough.
While we take pleasure and reap benefit in Turner's creations, at least for now he disappoints. Oh, how we wish he were one of ours! Alas, he is not. For along with these aforementioned great things, he has done and said the awful and disgraceful.
Turner has given millions to questionable and even evil causes. He pledged $1 billion to the United Nations through his U.N. Foundation.
Among his first gifts was to a U.N. literacy program in Latin America, whose purpose was to teach women to read so they could “better understand their reproductive rights.”
In other words, not so they could read bedtime stories to their children, but so they could abort them.
During these past few years Turner has pledged and given millions to every left-loony cause available, including the now thoroughly discredited theory of population control. He once said he was sorry he had five children, wishing instead he had only two. He never specified which three he didn't want.
And Turner seems to possess a special animus for Christianity. He said Christianity was a religion for losers. He called Catholics wearing Ash Wednesday ashes “Jesus freaks.” He once told a hooting and hollering U.N. crowd that his childhood Christianity was intolerant.
And so some of us take pleasure that Turner has lost $8 billion. Fine. He can no longer give this money to causes that are inimitable to the faith and to bodies and souls. Good. But the Turner drama is far more interesting than his money, for it continues mostly within his own soul.
It is clear Turner hungers for heaven. He talks about it often enough. He recently guaranteed he is going there. Some suggest his intemperate comments about the faith come from the childhood trauma of his sister's death and that he is simply angry with God. I believe that. Moreover, I suspect a man so publicly angry with God is closer to him than the lukewarm and wishywashy sitting next to us at Mass on Sunday.
Some fights with God are puny affairs, where someone does not want to give up some silly sin. Others, like Turner's, are grand, even biblical.
It is rumored his former wife, Jane Fonda, became a born-again Christian after she listened to a tape left by her driver in the back seat of her car. If this is true, we must note the delicacy of God's arrival. A tape left in the back seat of a car?
Delicate, indeed, are the ways of God.
An Ethiopian rode out across the desert hungering for heaven. An angel directed Philip to find the Ethiopian and teach him. In his mega-rich and secular world Turner is probably more isolated than that Ethiopian. So who is riding out to meet him, to assuage his anger and show him the things of heaven?
Turner would be a good one to get.
Frequent contributor Austin Ruse runs C-FAM (the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute).
He can be reached at austinruse@c-fam.org.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Austin Ruse ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: St. Patrick's Long Line of Muddy Boots DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:By God's grace, I was born into a family in Ireland who passed on the “baton” of the Catholic faith to me. My parents had themselves received the “baton” from their own good parents, and they from theirs, and so on back to the time of St. Patrick (387-461).
For a Catholic parent, the business of passing on the faith to one's children is surely one of the most important tasks in life. If I as a parent fail in this one task, it matters little how successful I might be in other areas of parenting.
Passing on the faith has been likened to a relay race. The secret of winning a relay race lies in the efficiency with which the baton is passed from one runner to another. If that skill is not practiced to perfection, there is a real risk a runner may fumble the baton at the critical moment, thereby losing the race.
According to this analogy, if parents “fumble” during the process of passing on the faith, there's a real risk that the faith will not “take hold” with the children.
It is astonishing to consider how many “relays” there were in the “Catholic race” into which I was born. Almost 1,500 years had elapsed since St. Patrick's death, so allowing for roughly 30 years between generations on average, there must have been about 50 generations of Irish Catholics before I was born.
Apparently, the baton St. Patrick introduced to Ireland was passed on about 50 times without a fumble in a remarkable succession by people whose names are now known only to God.
Such a large number of successful baton passes are all the more remarkable because passing on the Catholic faith was sometimes very difficult for my ancestors.
The difficulties arose because parents can do only so much to pass on the faith to their children: As an essential accompaniment to the parents' role, there is a fundamental need for access to a priest. It is the priest and the priest alone who supplies the sacraments of confession and Communion, the “source and summit” of Catholic life. Without access to priests, the baton might be fumbled between one generation and the next.
Corradinna Catholics
Now it is a historical fact that, for several centuries, Irish priests were hunted relentlessly as criminals, and Irish Catholics never knew when they would next have a chance to attend Mass. For sure, there would be no Mass in the parish church.
And this is where my ancestors relied on “muddy boots” to make sure their children met a priest. To understand this, we must think about what going to Mass required.
During the centuries of persecution, when a priest would arrive in secret in my hometown, word would spread quietly among the Catholics to gather in a remote location for Mass, a place called Corradinna. It is a few miles south of town, up in the hills where a local dip in the topography provides protection from prying eyes. A group of men on the surrounding hilltops would give warning if the English approached. And out there, exposed to the elements, the hunted priest would risk his life by celebrating Mass on a large outcropping of rock. That outcropping became known as the Mass Rock.
I visited Corradinna a few years ago. It is a desolate spot, with reeds and heather growing in the peaty soil. There is barely enough grass to feed a few hardy sheep. The wind whips through the rushes and the heather, and the rain makes the ground soft. If a crowd of people comes tramping across the heather, the ground readily turns to mud. Families attending Mass at Corradinna would have done so in muddy boots.
Standing at the Mass Rock in Corradinna, it is striking to recall that some of my own ancestors probably stood right there, watching as the priest made his way through the well-known parts of the Mass. And at the consecration, when the priest would raise aloft the Body and Blood of Christ, even the lookouts on the surrounding hills would be able to see what they were living for. If I push my imagination a bit, I can almost hear the congregation singing the melodious hymns that expressed the great themes of Irish Catholic life: the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, Our Lady and the Pope.
Tough though it was, those families who gathered at Corradinna — and at other Mass Rocks around the country — were faithful to the call they had received from God. When the Blessed Mother appeared in Ireland in 1879 (at Knock), the apparition included a Lamb on an altar and St. John the Evangelist in bishop's robes. It was heaven's way of recognizing the Irish people's faithfulness to the Mass and to the Church during centuries of persecution.
And it is precisely because of that faithfulness, muddy boots and all, that I am Catholic today. Those men and women, with the help of heroic priests, passed on the baton of faith to their children down through the centuries until I arrived. And my mother and father passed it on to me by making it easy for me to go to confession and making sure I attended Mass every Sunday. When I was growing up, priests were allowed to celebrate Mass in our parish church. Our shoes weren't muddy any longer, but it was the same Mass as at Corradinna.
When my wife and I were blessed with children, we were living far away from Corradinna. But still the question is: Will I work as hard to pass on the baton as my ancestors did?
Some words of Christ have impressed me greatly in this regard: “Freely you have been given, freely you must share” (Matthew 10:6). The people who gathered at Corradinna in centuries past saw to it that I was provided with a priceless gift. Now it is my turn to pass it on. And although my wife and I can do some of this process at home, it is still essential for our children to have access to priests. So I try to make it easy for my children to go to confession regularly and to Mass every Sunday and holy day.
My children's shoes are usually clean at Mass, although I do not insist on this.
Now, whenever I attend Mass and the priest invites us to pray the Our Father, I find myself going back in imagination to Corradinna. In my mind's eye I see the priest at the Mass Rock and the hillside covered by crowds of men, women and children in muddy boots, all doing the same thing that makes us Catholic to this very day: calling upon God as father in the midst of the church. And in solidarity with those ancestors of mine, I like to recite the words of the Our Father in the Irish language.
It is a small token of my profound gratitude to them (and to St. Patrick) for passing on to me the priceless baton of the Catholic faith.
Dermott J. Mullan writes from Elkton, Maryland.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dermott J. Mullan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Why Rachel Weeps DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Lately, the evidence for post-abortion trauma has gotten harder to ignore.
Web sites such as the Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome Web site, www.afterabortion.com, allow hundreds of women to tell their stories. Some of the women there regret their abortions, while others believe it was the best decision they could make under the circumstances.
Some of the women think abortion should be illegal, while others believe it must remain legal. But all of the women have suffered due to their abortions. These women truly are the biblical “voice heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children.”
It takes great courage to say, “My abortion hurt me.”
Think of how much shame has to be overcome to say that: First, nobody likes to think about abortion. Even those who support it often find it ugly; their minds shy away from the grim facts. So it takes courage just to say, “I had an abortion.”
Then, to admit to emotional pain after abortion, a woman has to reject the pro-abortion movement's standard “relief” script. She has to say something she often believes will make both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” people turn away from her. And finally, she often has to admit she has not just made a mistake but committed a tragic wrong. It's amazing so many women have found the strength to stand up and tell the truth about abortion.
And now that more and more women are coming forward to tell their stories of post-abortive trauma, the pro-abortion movement has to change its talking points.
The new twist is the argument that women do feel guilt and sorrow after abortion, but that's because pro-lifers harass and shame them. This claim feeds into popular stereotypes of pro-lifers: the angry man yelling obscenities at women entering an abortion business, the guilt-ridden Christians always trying to make everyone feel bad, the Puritan types who, in H.L. Mencken's quip, suffer from “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
Here are three reasons to believe this pro-abortion claim is false.
First, even staunchly pro-abortion women often feel sorrow after their own abortions. Naomi Wolf is the most famous feminist to express her belief that abortion requires mourning; but I've read many women's accounts of their abortions, and mourning does not restrict itself to pro-lifers, Christians or people who grew up in pro-life families.
Second, both basic philosophy and technological advances should lead us to conclude the being growing in the womb is an individual human life. By the week a woman typically misses her period, her child likely already has a heartbeat, brain, lungs, and arms and legs have begun to take shape; by the time the child is aborted, he or she may already look much like a little human, not a “blob of cells.” In a world of ultrasound, it's hard for women to avoid realizing abortion takes a young life. Why would we ever expect that not to be a traumatic experience?
And finally, all you really have to do is listen to know the pro-abortion claim is wrong. I've been volunteering at a pro-life pregnancy center for a little more than a year now. I had heard all the claims about how post-abortion trauma is exaggerated, how women feel only relief after abortion, and I guess the drumbeat of pro-abortion opinion had sunk in. Despite my pro-life beliefs, I have to admit I was surprised to see how many women I counseled felt grief and pain after their abortions.
I remember one woman in particular. We had been talking for about 10 minutes when I asked if she had ever been pregnant before, and she mentioned she had had one abortion. I gently asked how she felt about it (trying not to push her one way or the other). She started to talk about how she still thought about it a lot, it still hurt her; and then she started to cry. What got to me was the expression on her face: The power of her grief, the fact that it was still strong after more than a year, startled her.
She wasn't expecting her tears.
These women never refer to pro-lifers harassing them. Sometimes they were raised in a Christian family; sometimes not. Sometimes they felt pressured into abortion; sometimes not. They aren't disabled by their grief. They mourn, they pray, they try to get on with life. Sometimes they are considering a second or third abortion despite the pain they are still going through due to the first one — they often feel they have no other choice. They don't fit into the easy generalizations of either pro-abortion or pro-life activists. But almost every woman I've counseled who has had an abortion has been hurt by it.
And the way post-abortive women talk about their pain is not the way people talk about things we do that we know other people abhor. As Emily, who runs the After Abortion Web log at afterabortion.blogspot.com, put it, “[C]onsider people who eat meat. There is no evidence that they experience anguish around this practice, even though they know of vegans who would want them to experience anguish. … The specific kinds of experiences and emotions reported by women who experience post-abortion distress are not the type of feeling you have when you learn that someone else disapproves, or would disapprove, of your conduct if they knew.
“Flashbacks, chronic depression, triggers, nightmares, numbness, replacement babies, self-loathing, suicidality, hatred of the father and more are quite different from the emotions we experience when we know that others socially disapprove of us.”
Not all women report emotional trauma after abortion. I've read accounts by women who say they really did feel only relief, and a couple of the women I've counseled similarly did not express any pain or regrets due to their abortions. Of the women who did express pain, some were clearly more resilient than others — as with any trauma, some people endure a deeper and more lasting pain than others. But it's impossible to listen with an open mind to the many women who do report post-abortion distress and come away thinking they only feel bad because a protester called them a murderer or because they know that many Americans abhor abortion.
The way they talk about their own experiences is much more consistent with the bumper sticker that reads, “Abor tion: one dead, one wounded.”
Former Register staff writer
Eve Tushnet writes from Washington, D.C.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eve Tushnet ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Sponsor a Child at a Catholic Mission. It's Affordable! DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Your opportunity to help a very poor child is much too important to miss. And Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA), an international Catholic sponsorship program, can show you the affordable way.
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When you sponsor, you&x0027;ll receive a photo of your child, information about your child&x0027;s family and country, letters from your child, and the CFCA newsletter. But, most of all, you&x0027;ll receive the satisfaction of helping a poor child have a better life!
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------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Disturbing Trend: Withholding Food and Water DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:BEND, Ore. — Barbara Jones thinks her mother was unjustly denied necessary food and water, which led to her death. Lida Jones, 93, died Sept. 11, 2001, at the Central Oregon Healthcare Center in Bend.
According to her health care providers, Lida Jones was in an irreversible coma brought on by a stroke three months before. Yet her daughter believed that, although unable to communicate or feed herself, her mother was conscious and aware of what was happening to her.
“She had a stroke, but her underlying illness was that she was old,” Barbara Jones said. “This was not humane, and it was not a ‘good death.’ They just withheld food and water and allowed her to die.”
Some think Jones' experience is becoming common, as quality-of-life evaluations become part of medical decision-making. Although the number of assisted-suicide cases in Oregon remains small — 129 deaths in five years — many times that number might have been killed without their knowledge or consent as a result of what Dr. Kenneth Stevens calls “a mentality that says either you're healthy or you're dead.”
Stevens, head of the department of radiation and oncology at Oregon Health and Sciences University and president of Physicians for Compassionate Care, is one of several people saying the application of the “quality of life” standard is leading the medical profession away from providing care and toward choosing who lives and who dies. Assisted suicide is only a small part of that trend.
Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Gayle Atteberry says her organization is concerned.
“We've heard a lot on the withholding of food and hydration,” she said.
Atteberry said more and more, people are “deciding that either this isn't a life worth living or that [the patient] is going to die anyway.”
Robert Castagna, executive director of the Oregon Catholic Conference, said the Archdiocese of Portland and Diocese of Bend have been an “exemplary follower of the Church's teachings on life-sustaining treatment, but one is not morally obligated to take measures where the burdens exceed the benefits of extraordinary life-sustaining treatment.”
Castagna said the Oregon Catholic Conference is concerned “state budgetary problems mean Oregon is not fully and adequately addressing the needs of patients.” He said Oregon's dioceses also hope the ruling against Attorney General John Ashcroft's December 2001 ban on use of prescription drugs for administration of assisted suicide, issued April 17, 2002, by U.S. District Judge Robert Jones, will be overturned this year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In his Feb. 24, 2002, address to the Pontifical Academy for Life, Pope John Paul II upheld all life as valuable, irrespective of qualities such as independence. The Pope said the belief in autonomy and individual freedom as giving life value “is a false interpretation, free from any reference to the truth of human nature.”
“Among the fundamental rights of man, the Catholic Church claims for every human being the right to life as the primary right,” he said. “She does it in the name of the truth about man and to protect his freedom, which cannot be sustained without respect for the right to life. Every human being, from the moment of his conception until the moment of his natural death, possesses an inviolable right to life and deserves all the respect owed the human person.”
— Philip S. Moore
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pay Attention, Mom DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:I am preparing dinner. This means, of course, that 18-month-old Stephen is firmly affixed to my leg, piercing my ears with a high-pitched whine similar to an emergency-vehicle siren.
In a moment of inspiration, I abandon the browning hamburger, gather up my screeching am bulance and plop him in his high chair with a bowlful of orange wedges.
I have bought myself some peace, but it doesn't last long.
Next 3-year-old Juliette and 4-year-old Ambrose come tearing down the stairs, each trying to out-shout the other in an effort to give me his or her own version of an argument first. “He won't share!” I make out. Then: “She's ruining everything!”
Still feeling inspired, I decide to distract them with some music: a recently purchased, still-exciting Veggie Tales CD to be exact. I ignore the fact that they are making faces at each other as I search out the CD. I ignore the fact that Stephen is giggling and feeding the dog his oranges as I plug in the player.
In the next minute, my two oldest children burst through the front door. “We're soaked,” they announce as they casually drop wet mittens by the door and leave a slushy trail through the living room, kicking boots in all directions.
Then, upon hearing a stomach-turning retch, I turn around to find the dog has vomited on the rug. Oranges. And I notice a smell of scorched hamburger coming from the stove.
I am no longer inspired. In fact, I am prepared to sit down next to the vomit and wallow in what I consider to be a fully-deserved moment of self-pity, when suddenly: kick-kick!
It is the smallest, quietest, and least demanding of my children who now gains my attention. This little person, not yet born, kicks and squirms and rolls. It's not so bad, his motions seem to tell me now. How bad can anything be when you have a little blessing like me hidden away in here?
Encouraged by these thoughts, I put the dog outside, clean up the mess and make macaroni for dinner.
Days later, we are running late. Wet snow falls steadily and collects around the tires as I urge my mini-van along an unplowed road. My fingers grip the steering wheel as my glance al ternates between the clock and my blissfully oblivious passengers in the back seat.
I focus on keeping the van's tires within the faint snowy tracks before me while in my mind I scold myself for not having left the house just a few minutes earlier.
Why is it that, no matter how organized I think I am, there is always one more shoe to find, one more trip to the bathroom, one more face to wipe before we can go anywhere?
I am thinking these thoughts and wishing the weather would allow me to drive just a little bit faster, when suddenly: kick-kick! It's Baby again.
Without saying a word, he questions my priorities. Slow down, he admonishes. There isn't any place in the world you could be going that's more im portant than keeping me and the other children in this car safe. I relax, take a deep breath and slow down. We arrive at our destination late but unharmed.
As we are lying in bed early the next morning, Baby kicks hard against my husband's hand pressed against my belly. “Definitely a boy!” his father declares. “He's trying to bust out of there!”
Maybe this little one is a boy, but I don't think by kicking he is trying to get out. He is simply fulfilling the temporary role God has given him: He is my sweet, silent messenger from heaven.
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Spirit & Life -------- TITLE: Pluck of the Irish in Portland DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:With its Italian Renaissance stone walls and towering Florentine dome, St. Patrick's Church is the most prominent visual feature of Slabtown, a section of Portland, Ore., that got its name from the massive slabs of lumber long stacked there.
Like the community it served, the parish drew its vitality from the European immigrants who had come west with the railroads to the farthest edge of North America.
In time, the immigrant families dispersed. Growing industries stretched out, consuming block after block of homes for factories and parking lots. Nicer houses could be had in the suburbs. A highway obliterated Slabtown landmarks and most of the old business district on Vaughn and Thurmon streets.
Yet St. Patrick's Church remains. Now standing in the shadow of an elevated highway on-ramp, the pride of Slabtown is the oldest surviving Catholic church in Portland.
Established in 1885, the parish was initially called Sacred Heart by Archbishop William Gross. To house it, the archdiocese built a plain, two-room structure on Savier Street, at 19th Avenue, adjacent to the current church site. For six years, the wooden building did double duty as both church and school for 130 students. That arrangement gave parishioners time to build a permanent edifice.
The Irish-born pastor and mostly-Irish parishioners of the period inscribed the cornerstone: “To the glory of God in honor of Ireland's Apostle, St. Patrick” and, when it was dedicated on March 17, 1891, St. Patrick's became an instant regional landmark. Father Patrick Gibney and his 400 parishioners had erected a towering, yet efficient, church and hall. It covered less than a quarter of a city block. They also built an adjacent rectory and church office in the simple Queen Ann style of the period.
Designed by Portland architect Otto Kleeman, the Greek-revival church was constructed of local materials, including basalt for the walls and foundation quarried at the nearby village of Boring. The opalescent windows are among the earliest work of Portland's Povey Brothers Studio, which went on to become a leading stained-glass maker for churches, public buildings and mansions throughout the West Coast.
Long, Slow Climb
As impressive as the church was from the outside, it would take another 23 years to finish the interior. The 50th anniversary commemorative history records that, “to build a church like St. Patrick's was too ambitious an undertaking, it seems, for the financial resources the parish then had available. The interior was left entirely bare, with the rough interior surfaces of the stone walls showing, and with rain and even snow, at times, drifting in upon the worshippers at services.”
In spite of a series of fund-raisers, even the walls weren't plastered until 1899. Meanwhile, additional work had to be done outside the church building, including replacement of the classic, pyramid-style stone steps with a more conventional, but safer, staircase.
It was 1914, the silver anniversary of the 1889 laying of the cornerstone, before the interior was substantially complete. Described by a contemporary newspaper account as “decorated more elaborately than any Catholic church west of Chicago,” the achievement benefits visitors and worshippers to this day.
While it took more than 25 years to finish St. Patrick's Church, it has taken another quarter-century to restore and preserve it. Isolated and deteriorating, with less than 60 registered families in the early 1970s, the parish and church have been rebounding in the years since, largely with the assistance of families who once called St. Patrick's their parish.
New families are also arriving, says Father J. Aidan Mayo, the church's current pastor. He celebrates Mass in Spanish and English each week to accommodate the new waves of immigrants. “In the 1970s and 1980s,” he adds, “as they began to come to Portland in quantity, St. Patrick's Church became a center for Hispanic ministry.
“Over the years, other parishes began offering services to the Hispanic community, too. So this is no longer the only place in town for the new immigrant population, but many continue to see it as their parish.”
Irish Interiors
For St. Patrick's visitors, the church's most striking feature is its newest — the front façade. The front steps and original portico, supported by four pillars, were condemned by the city in the early 1970s as unsafe. While the portico could not be saved, the painstaking reconstruction work has preserved the façade's architectural integrity and permitted construction of a circular stone staircase that matches the original stonework of the church.
The focus of the church's interior is on the domed sanctuary, capped by a stained-glass skylight. The high altar and tabernacle, flanked by frescos of St. Patrick and St. Bridget, are surmounted by a fresco of the transfiguration, painted by popular early 20th-century artist Phillip Staheli from European masterpieces.
Along the nave he painted 14 additional frescos, each depicting the principal saints of Ireland.
Restoration continues at the parish, with work on the church's plaster and frescoes and stained glass ongoing, as well as interior woodwork. At the same time, the parish continues to function as the parish church of northwest Portland.
In this capacity, 112 years after its dedication, St. Patrick's Church remains faithful to its mission to the Catholic Church, the archdiocese, immigrants and the community they played a major role in building on the continent's farthest shore. St. Patrick himself — feast day: March 17 — would be proud.
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
Planning Your Visit
Mass is celebrated Monday through Friday at 12:10 p.m. Saturday Mass in Latin and English is at 6:30 p.m. Sunday Mass is celebrated at 8:30 a.m. in Spanish and 10:30 a.m. in English. The church office, in the rectory, will open the church for special visits and tours, within reason. Given the high and steep stairs at the entrance, it bears mentioning that St. Patrick's is not easily accessible to the handicapped.
Getting There
St. Patrick's Church is at the corner of 19th Avenue and Savier Street. Southbound on I-5, take the I-405 exit, across the Fremont Bridge. Take the Vaughn Street exit and turn left onto 23rd Avenue. Turn left again at Thurmon and go to 19th Avenue. The church is on your right. From Portland International Airport, use I-84 to I-5 north and the I-405 exit to the Fremont Bridge and Vaughn Street exit. On-street and off-street parking is ample.
------- EXCERPT: St. Patrick's Church, Portland, Ore. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Little Flower on the Big Screen DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Several years ago, Catholic actor Leonardo Defilippis com mitted himself to his lar gest project yet, Thérèse: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love — a feature-length motion picture on the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
With the film finished and being shown in exclusive screenings around the nation, Defilippis told Register correspondent Philip Moore about the motivation behind, and the challenges involved in, making the film and finding its audience.
We're moving into different media, and this is good because we're trying to slowly build up. What we're doing is going to be much bigger. Our goal is rooted in Pope John Paul II's philosophy and his challenge to us as artists to embrace the new evangelization [so] that Christ is heard in the world. That is our mission and our vision, to create a Catholic presence and a Catholic identity. As the Holy Father reminds us, the word [evangelization] means to make Christ known, to do what the saints did and reach out to everyone, to the whole world.
What has it been like to transition from acting to essentially running a business?
St. Luke Productions is a nonprofit corporation, but we're creating, basically, a theatrical company that runs as a business, and that's one of the difficult challenges. God has chosen an artist to help do that, which is not always the best idea. I could have acted all the time, alone, and would have been happy doing that. But I realized that I had to do this in order to create an organization that can make these things possible — to give other artists, especially Catholic artists, opportunities where they would not have any other opportunities.
What made you choose St. Thérèse for your biggest project so far?
I chose to go to the heart of the Church, meaning that we let Christ be the center. From there, we take some of the greatest saints that have ever lived, because great saints are basically great heroes of our past ages. The inspiration for Thérèse was the Carmelite nuns who asked us to do a stage play about her life. We even traveled with the reliquary for a while during her centenary, performing the play. That was the inspiration, the driving force.
St. Thérèse didn't do anything heroic like Joan of Arc or Francis of Assisi or Maximilian Kolbe, but she's the most popular saint in the world because she is the person who takes us wherever we're at and makes sanctity available. Another thing about her is that she was a neurotic person who could have been really confused and God changed that. She was also a middle-class person. We have a lot of confused, neurotic, middle-class people — ourselves probably included — and we can make that switch where we become like her.
Right, we've made small steps, and that's only normal because Rome wasn't built in a day and still isn't. You're right in that Maximilian was a way of honoring him, but it's still one person — a tele-film. For St. John of the Cross, we added 65 people and did more, but it didn't qualify as a feature film. Then, when we did Thérèse, we really jumped into a full-length feature film.
This was a huge undertaking. We had to get involved in every aspect of filmmaking.
For me, I made a quantum leap. I was a director of the movie, which is a huge, huge responsibility and a lot more complicated than acting. What's interesting is that this will be the first nonprofit movie ever done for the big screen — the first movie done with donations.
We call this the “making of a miracle” because it has been a series of one miracle after another. It's the classic story of being in the middle of the shoot and there's no money left, then someone sends money right at that time.
This has really been a movie of the “Church of the people,” because everyone has given to this. Not only are monasteries giving to this, there are individuals, Church leaders, business people and Hollywood itself has donated a lot to this film.
St. Thérèse is the most popular saint in the world because she takes us wherever we're at and makes sanctity available.
— Leonardo Defilippis
This is why we are trying to persevere. Because of the negativity toward media, this is an incredible opportunity to show our Catholic faith in a glorious and positive way — not just here in our country but for the whole world.
I was surprised that you didn't follow the established pattern of going direct to video.
We were thinking about it, but the Holy Father [calls artists to strive for] the highest professional standards. So, we thought that it means in the movie industry to go to the big screen.
Another reason is because Thérèse is a really powerful movie in the big screen. That's true for any film because a movie is an artform that's meant to be experienced in the dark, in ways that you can't in your home.
When can we expect to see this in theaters?
We've had some exclusive screenings, but they were all to garner endorsement and financial backing. We're really hoping this will be ready for next October, for her feast day. One exciting thing that happened is that Cardinal Francis George saw it in Chicago and now is going to help bring it to the Holy Father. This will be coming full circle, since the idea for this all started with our Holy Father.
Philip S. Moore writes from
Portland, Oregon.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: ARTS & CULTURE -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:King Herod's Lost City (2002)
The treacherous King Herod the Great built a magnificent Med iter ranean port be tween 25 and 13 B.C. and named it Caesarea in honor of the Roman ruling family to whom he owed allegiance. It thrived for more than 1,000 years as a celebrated monument to ancient splendor. While under pagan control, Pontius Pilate left his mark and the apostles Sts. Peter, Paul and Philip visited to preach the Gospel. Eventually, it came under the sway of the Byzantine Christian Empire and then Islam until it was reconquered for the cross by the Crusader general Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099.
Caesarea's days of glory were ended in 1265 when the Mameluk sul tan, Baibars, laid siege to it. When its Christian defenders surrendered after being promised their free dom, the Muslim ruler razed it. It has been ruins and dust ever since. This 50-minute A'sE cable-TV documentary recaptures this col orful history through interviews with biblical scholars and the arch eologists who are excavating the site.
And Thou Shalt Honor … 2002
Millions of Amer icans provide unpaid volun teer care for their parents, spouses and friends. Their efforts save taxpayers and insurers hundreds of billions of dollars a year and help our loved ones remain at home as long as possible. This two-hour PBS documentary takes an intelligent and compassionate look at family caregiving, telling the stories of the caregivers, the people under care and the professionals who struggle with an often misunderstood system. There are on-camera interviews with those afflicted and those trying to help.
Narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, the program shows how caregiving can be sometimes fulfilling and rewarding but at other times demanding, unrelenting and lonely. Burnout is a danger. As baby-boomers face up to these challenges, experts are discovering new ways to cope and reinventing the whole of idea of nursing homes. Among the topics explored are Alzheimer's disease, long-term care, geriatric care, volunteerism and workplace caregiving.
In Which We Serve (1942)
War is often cruel to those who fight it. But we can be inspired by the loyalty of soldiers and sailors to their comrades and to the cause for which they are dying. This Oscar-nominated entry brilliantly captures this spirit. Based on the real-life World War II memoirs of Lord Louis Mountbatten, it begins with a handful of British sailors clinging to a life raft off Crete after their destroyer has been sunk. It uses flashbacks to contrast their harrowing combat experiences with personal home front stories.
Their ship is badly damaged earlier in the North Atlantic, with 30 crew members killed. It then helps rescue the entrapped British Army from Dunkirk. Its commanding officer and enlisted men fondly recall their courtship of their respective wives. Writer-director Noel Coward (Blithe Spirit) and co-director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia) effectively combine authentic shipboard locations with the use of real military personnel and well-designed studio sets.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: ARTS & CULTURE -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:All times Eastern
SUNDAY, MARCH 16
Dana Sings Ireland's
Classic Melodies
EWTN, 1:30 p.m.
This salute to the Irish people, their traditions and their Catholic faith is becoming a TV institution for St. Patrick's Day. The Irish singer Dana (Rosemary Scallon) — who is an eloquent and fearlessly pro-life European Union representative, by the way — sings beautiful Irish tunes and hymns, both new and old, in the fabled land of song and story.
SUNDAY, MARCH 16
Tasting Ireland
Food Network, 9 p.m.
Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, TV chef Bobby Flay visits the Emerald Isle to sample traditional food fare in his ancestral homeland.
MONDAY, MARCH 17
The Imprint of Dinosaurs
Discovery Channel, 10 p.m.
Scientists don't discover a completely unknown species of dino saur every day, but this show documents one such exciting find.
MONDAY, MARCH 17
Idaho: A Portrait
PBS, 10:30 p.m.
This magnificent aerial tour of Idaho's natural wonders, punctuated by brief stops on the ground, presents a scenic palette of mountains, lakes, plains, rivers, mesas, sand dunes and hills.
TUESDAY, MARCH 18
Nova: Sultan's Lost Treasure
PBS, 8 p.m.
Out in the South China Sea, six hours away from the Sultanate of Brunei, lies a shipwreck containing 12,000 intact pieces of porcelain from the 15th century A.D. Archaeologists explain what the trove indicates about ancient trading routes.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19
Joseph: The Man
Closest to Christ
EWTN, 5 p.m.
On St. Joseph's Day, be sure to watch this illuminating and inspiring documentary. Classic works of sacred art form the backdrop as Catholic priests, scholars and authors explore the virtues of the man whom God chose to head the Holy Family.
THURSDAY, MARCH 20
Frontline
PBS, 9 p.m.
A computer expert in India trains poor children to use computers, investigators probe charges of deliberate shootings of reporters by Israeli troops and a sudden opportunity arises for a glimpse of life inside tightly guarded communist North Korea.
FRIDAY, MARCH 21
Parris Island Drill Instructors
Discovery Channel, 10 p.m.
What does it take to make young Americans into physically and mentally fit, combat-ready U.S. Marines? Find out from this gripping look at the drill instructors who conduct basic training. Advisory: some intense situations.
SATURDAY, MARCH 22
Travel Tech: Fast Ships
Travel Channel, 9 p.m.
New technology is fast (pun in tended) changing the maximum speeds of various kinds of vessels.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Catholic Colleges Start Saying No to 'Monologues' DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:PORTLAND, Ore. — A campus-wide e-mail from Holy Cross Father David Tyson, president of the University of Portland, Ore., made it clear: “It is my judgment that the University of Portland is not a proper venue for ‘The Vagina Monologues.’”
The decision by Father Tyson marks the fifth time this year the controversial play — which in one scene depicts a young girl's recollection of being raped by another woman — has been rejected by a Catholic college campus.
“I have just read ‘The Vagina Monologues’ carefully and thoroughly,” Father Tyson said in his e-mail. “In conscience, I cannot approve of its performance on the campus. The play is offensive, questionable in its portrayal of vi o lence and not in keeping with the re spect accorded the human body in this institution's religious tradition.”
Marchilla Lucero-Miner, student director of the play, speculated that Father Tyson's decision could have been motivated by the Cardinal Newman Society, the Falls Church, Va.-based organization whose mission is to restore Catholic identity to Catholic colleges and universities.
She noted the organization placed names and phone numbers of each college president whose school was on the official list of performances on the Web site of VDay, an organization that coordinates college groups to put on the play.
The Web site initially listed 42 Catholic colleges, but five have since pulled the plug. Last year, 28 Catholic colleges allowed the play on campus.
Two New York Catholic colleges were among the first to ban the play. The College of New Rochelle told students Jan. 30 the play “is not an appropriate vehicle for the college.”
Iona College, also in New Rochelle, told students in De cember the play was inconsistent with the college's “history, traditions and community composition.”
At Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, the student organizer canceled plans for the play after the college refused permission to present it on campus. Rivier College in Nashua, N.H., also told a student the play could not be performed there.
Christian Jenner, a student at Georgetown University, a Jesuit-run school, said he wishes the play were kicked off his campus.
“On the days before the production, there was a table in the Leavey Center where women were hawking T-shirts saying ‘I *heart* vaginas,'” Jenner said.
He said two years ago an organizer of the event used a bullhorn to shout “vagina!” at unsuspecting students heading to class.
The Cardinal Newman Society encouraged people to contact the presidents of the five colleges that banned the play to “congratulate them on their sound judgment and leadership.”
In addition to the five cancellations, an additional eight Catholic colleges pledged that performances of the play would be cancelled.
But the Cardinal Newman Society noted 31 Catholic colleges would still have the play performed on their campuses.
“This kind of vulgarity has no academic or social value to students at a Catholic college, and it's spiritually destructive,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society.
Opposition to the play exists at non-Catholic colleges, too.
SheThinks.org, an online magazine written by and for female college students, placed several “free cupid” ads critical of the play's message in major college newspapers, such as the one at University of California-Los Angeles.
The ad reads: “Feminist groups are turning Valentine's Day into ‘VDay’ — a time to promote female victimology and tedious performance of ‘The Vagina Monologues.’ SheThinks.org says, ‘Take back the date!’ Wouldn’t you prefer to restore mutual respect and a dash of romance to your school on Valentine's Day?”
Susan Ceila Swan, a spokes-woman for V-Day, said women usually don't react to the play in the way SheThinks.org claims.
She defended the scene in which the young girl recalls being raped by an older woman, which she noted was based on a real-life experience of a woman interviewed by Eve Ensler, author of the play.
“While it is clear that the character feels her experience with the older was positive, the play does not judge this experience [or the woman's other experiences] as either positive or negative,” Swan said. “As in much art, there are ambiguities that cannot be comfortably or simply resolved.”
Kate Kennedy, associate editor of SheThinks.org, disagreed.
“So what is rape — is it good or bad? How can you have it both ways?” she asked.
Kennedy said the play has negative consequences.
“To paint a picture that all men are rapists, [that] all women will suffer violence at the hands of men, is a dangerous position to take,” she said. “Valentine's Day used to be about bringing the two sexes together, and we worry that the V-Day message drives a stake be tween the sexes with this underlying notion in their campaign: that all men are potential perpetrators of violence.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: What the Beloved Disciple Saw DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:ST. JOHN S GOSPEL : A BIBLE STUDY GUIDE AND COMMENTARY by Stephen K. Ray Ignatius, 2002 461 pages, $17.95 To order: (800) 651-1531 or www.ignatius.com
The Apostle John, St. Augustine wrote, “was one of those mountains concerning which it is written: ‘Let the mountains receive peace for thy people, and the hills righteousness.’” That great “mountain” and his writings have been explored and studied for 2,000 years, and they continue to reveal great riches. A recent example is author and apologist Stephen Ray's latest book, a work that mines the “pure and lovely” gold of the fourth Gospel while balancing scholarship, accessibility and spiritual insight.
“The Gospel of John is one of the richest veins,” Ray writes. “Of all literature, in all the world, through all of time, the Gospel of St. John rises to the top. … Meditating on the sacred text of [St. John's] Gospel draws us inexorably into a great cosmic love affair with God himself.” Over flowing with theological and spiritual wealth, St. John's Gospel is a complex work that can frustrate readers not familiar with the Gospel's structure, language and symbolism. Even knowledgeable readers can miss many of the subtleties awaiting those who possess the proper tools.
Ray's commentary is, as it claims, “a helpful tool for every miner's backpack.” Nearly 500 pages in length, it is thorough but never tedious. Filled with cross-references to the Old Testament, the catechism and scholarly works, it keeps the big picture of the great cosmic love affair squarely in sight.
Written with the ordinary, loyal Catholic in mind, it makes no attempt to date the Gospel in the third century or to ponder questionable theories about authorship. The introduction covers basic guidelines for studying Scripture and choosing a good translation; it also provides straightforward information about the authorship, audience and purpose of the Gospel. Ray likens the Gospel to an “exquisite symphony,” with the opening 18 verses being the overture. That opening hymn contains the main themes to be developed by the Apostle, in cluding Jesus as the logos, life and light, and the contrasts made between light and darkness, life and death, the flesh and the supernatural life of God. Rather than each section of commentary being a single, lengthy explanation, each paragraph focuses on a different aspect of the text. These include study questions, Old Testament connections, word studies, theological and doctrinal notes, historical and archeological information, and spiritual applications.
The section on John 1:1-2, for example, discusses the opening verses of Genesis, genealogies, parallelism, the logos, the incorrect translation of the Watch-tower Society, and Arianism. As Ray notes, the commentary draws from Catholic, secular, Jewish and non-Catholic Christian (mostly evangelical Protestant) sources in order “to provide background material, theological insights and historical information.” There are copious references to “the Fathers, Church documents, commentaries, the writings of saints and Doctors of the Church, and modern theologians and Bible scholars.” The catechism also plays a central role in bringing out doctrinal and theological concepts. All of this adds up to a study of the mountain of St. John that is engaging, informative and — most importantly — conducive to a deeper love of God and his Church.
Carl E. Olson, editor of Envoy magazine, writes from Heath, Ohio.
------- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Book -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Fruits of Fidelity
WMTW.COM, Feb. 25 — After a decade of rising enrollments, St. Joseph's College in Standish, Maine, will start work soon on the college's first new academic structure in 47 years — a $10 million office, classroom and meeting facility, reported the Web site of Portland, Maine's all-news radio station.
St. Joseph's enrollment has grown by a remarkable 54% since 1990 and stands at 970.
Though not mentioned in the report, St. Joseph's administrators have attributed much of the recent growth to a renewed emphasis on its Catholic identity.
Bow Tie Heaven
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 2 — Retiring Mount St. Mary's basketball coach Jim Phelan set a record March 1 for the most games coached in Division I college basketball with a 60-56 victory over Central Connecticut State University — his 1,354th game, the wire service reported.
Fans, announcers and opposing coaches showed up at the game in Emmitsburg, Md., wearing bow ties in imitation of a Phelan trademark, the AP said.
Coaches in at least six other games played that day around the country also sported the ties.
Phelan, 73, moved to the top of the most-games-coached list in 2000.
He won 830 games, trailing only Dean Smith of North Carolina and Adolph Rupp of Kentucky among Division I coaches. He lost 524.
Less Choice
NATIONALREVIEW.COM, Feb. 18 — The fact that the feminist play “The Vagina Monologues” was welcomed by smaller colleges — including Catholic institution the Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif. — is a sign of how American higher education has become increasingly less diverse, argued Winfield Myers on the Web site of National Review magazine.
“As small liberal-arts colleges adopted the pedagogy and scholarship of the big schools, they have traded away their birthright,” Myers said.
“Why should anyone choose to attend a small, relatively unknown school, Myers argued, “whose primary goal is to ape the worst features of its intellectual betters?”
Pieces of Silver
They objected to the governor's well-known pro-abortion views, reported Eric Czarnik in a column for the official undergraduate newspaper of Wayne State University.
In the face of media outcry over that decision, Czarnik said, the school “flinched” and reinstated the Granholm lunch as a prize.
“When the gavel fell,” said the student-columnist, “the value of Mercy High School's courage and dignity amounted to a grand total of $3,750.”
College Vouchers
CNN.COM, Feb. 27 — Under a bill recently introduced in the Colorado Legislature, the state would award each high school student about 66% of the average public college tuition, or $4,600 annually up to four years.
State Treasurer Mike Coffman said the plan — which directs resources toward students and not to institutions — would encourage competition and could set up the framework for state money to assist students at private colleges in the future.
Former Register Assistant Editor Joe Cullen writes from New York
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Book -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:I've just taken a new job; it is a promotion and I am afraid I have been promoted beyond my level of competence. I am also becoming discouraged by the number of new things I have to learn. Can you offer me any advice on how to cope?
Remember the “Peter Principle”? The theory was that everyone gets promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Talk about discouraging!
Did you know that optimism is a virtue? People usually think of optimists as those who are either blessed with a sunny disposition — or just naive. They assume that pessimists are the ones who are realists.
In reality, optimism is a virtue that can be cultivated. Optimism overcomes depression and downheartedness, and can even give us inner peace. We gain peace from being optimistic because we have trustful confidence in God, in others and in ourselves. Optimism is confidence based on reason.
Optimism consists in the ability to realistically assess each situation for both the positive elements to build upon and the obstacles to overcome. If we are fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses of our situation, then we will be able to take advantage of whatever may help us and face up to the challenges with feisty sense of competitiveness. This ability gives us confidence, which in turn makes us optimistic.
We view challenges and new situations facing us neither with rose-colored glasses nor with a gloomy outlook, but are able to rationally and calmly assess the situation vis a vis our own strengths and weaknesses. Here's a sports analogy: A successful basketball coach knows his opponent doesn't have a good “inside game” — they don't penetrate the area near the basket well enough to score a lot of layups and dunks. So he tells his players to focus on shutting down the opponent's perimeter shooters — the guys who can score jump shots from long distances.
Of course, this is easier said than done. In your new job, you are being hit with many new situations at once and the learning curve may be steep. It may be that you are anxious about your situation and are not realistically assessing it. Or maybe yours is a situation fraught with enormous tactical challenges, like putting out the fires of a burning oil rig. You will have to first calmly step back and realistically assess the situation. Analyze your own strengths and weaknesses as well as the challenges and expectations of the job itself, and the strengths and weaknesses of your co-workers.
Remember that the definition of optimism is confidence in God, ourselves and others.
Sometimes, when we are getting discouraged, it is because we are relying too much on ourselves and forgetting to place our trust in God. At those times it's not uncommon for us to forget to ask others for help, too. When we focus too much on the difficulty of the situation or merely on our own weaknesses, and not clearly enough on all the options for resolving the difficulty, our discouragement is all but guaranteed.
It may be, of course, that God is permitting this difficult situation to test our fortitude. However, it may also be that we are simply not trusting that God will never give us a cross too difficult to bear. If the latter is the case, we may need to pray hard to take a fresh look at the situation. The true challenge may be to have more confidence in God, in others and in ourselves to rise to the challenge.
Optimism is a virtue to be cultivated. It helps us focus on the strengths in every situation and then take advantage of those strengths, while bravely facing up to the challenges. Our co-workers, subordinates, supervisors and customers will need to see this virtue in us in order to lead with inspiration. This will make us valued in our jobs as one who possesses inner strength and confidence — trusting in God, ourselves and others.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha
Omega Clinic and Consultation Services
in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesday, Maryland.
------- EXCERPT: Confidence Is Key ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Babies born prematurely and with brain damage are not necessarily doomed to below-normal intelligence for life, according to a study published in the Feb. 12 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Children who received early intervention such as speech therapy, those from two-parent families, and those whose mothers had high levels of education were found to experience the greatest improvement in mental function by age 8.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Preemies Can Catch Up ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Husbands Who Hunger for Their Wives DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:This Lent, some 3,000 men from around the world are fasting for a very specific intention — the spiritual health and welfare of their wives.
The Carpentersville, Ill.-based apostolate E5 Men consists of married, single and celibate men who are attempting to live up to the words of St. Paul from Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The men register online (www.e5men.org), pledging to fast on the first Wednesday of each month for their bride, whether she is one's spouse, fiancé, future wife or the Church herself. In addition, the men offer their fasting not only for their own spouse, but also for the spouses of all the other E5 Men's brides, for women who have registered as an E5 Woman on the organization's Web site, and other women who have been sinned against by men.
“The E5 Men are sacrificing for the spiritual beautification of their wives and all women,” explained the apostolate's founder, Steve Habisohn, president of the Gift Foundation. Habisohn delivers a simple email message to the men each month to remind them of their obligation.
Catholic novelist Bud Macfarlane Jr. admits that, prior to E5 Men, he wasn't big on fasting. “I usually fasted only during Lent,” says Macfarlane. That was before Habisohn introduced him to the concept of fasting for one's spouse.
“Before E5 Men, I usually thought of fasting as something I would do for my own spiritual benefit,” says Macfarlane, “not as something I would do for another person or for a woman.”
Love without Limits
While the fasting concept is a simple one, it took a number of puzzle pieces to fall into place before it took hold. The idea for the apostolate first came to Habisohn nearly six years ago.
“When I was still friends with my future wife she mentioned a serious internal issue that she had been dealing with for years,” explains Habisohn. “Without telling her, I fasted for her. A week later she asked me if I had prayed for her. Apparently this long-term issue had been completely resolved and I was the only one she had told about it.” In October, Habisohn sent out an e-mail to about 2,500 people. That e-mail, along with word-of-mouth promotion from supporters such as Bud Macfarlane and Vitae founder Steve Thomas, has resulted in more than 3,300 men from 35 countries joining the effort in just four months.
“I was honestly surprised by the enthusiastic response by so many men, even men one might not say are fervent in their faith,” says Habisohn. The effort has also received a positive response from non-Catholic Christian denominations. “All educated Christians realize that fasting is part of the Old and New Testament. Therefore they have no real difficulty with the basic premise. It cuts across those lines so easily.”
Jeff Smith isn't married yet, but that has not stopped him from joining the effort. “This gives me a chance now to both participate in and prepare for my future vocation, married or priesthood,” says Smith, president of Smith & Associates, a software consulting firm in Hoffman Estates, Ill. “I can serve my bride now, even though I don't know who she is. Who knows what she is dealing with or the hurts she has gone through? When I realized that I could do something to help and protect her now, I didn't want to sit around waiting.”
Any woman of any faith can register to be an E5 woman. The role of a registered woman is simply to accept the gift of spiritual healing that is merited for her through the fasts of the E5 Men. E5 Women are encouraged to go to Mass the first Wednesday of each month to receive Jesus in the Eucharist as well as the grace that they need in their lives. To date, approximately 1,050 women have registered as recipients of the intentions of the E5 Men.
“Many of the women are in difficult marriages or not married at all,” says Habisohn. “Their humble reception, through a prayer of reception or by going to Mass, is their ‘Yes' to the gift they are being given.”
In just four months' time, the apostolate has already witnessed some wonderful success stories.
“We had an email from one woman who described herself as a “teeth-gritting feminist,” recalls Habisohn. “She was a former Catholic and she said that she could find no evidence that there were Christian men in the world. E5 Men, however, piqued her curiosity. She still has a ways to go, but she says she is on a circuitous route back to the Church.”
Although the Web site doesn't mention it, some of the women have been inspired to fast for their husbands, as well. Such is the case with 54-year-old Ellen Egan from Bowman, Ga. Divorced nearly five years ago, Egan walked out on her husband of 20 years. She admitted that during her life she's been in and out of the abuse of alcohol and drugs, and has committed nearly every sexual sin in the book.
Eight months ago, her estranged husband e-mailed her. As it turned out, during their separation he has lived chastely, lighting a candle for her after every Mass. Ellen said that she has come to understand that in the eyes of God she is still married.
“We both need healing that can only come through prayer and fasting,” says Egan. She learned of E5 Men through CatholiCity.com. At the end of January, both she and her husband began fasting for one another.
She said she's been overwhelmed by the sacrificial love displayed through the efforts of men she will never know. “It is so noble and Christ-like that there are Christian men out there who are praying and fasting for me and for all women hurt or abused or sinned against by men,” says Egan. “Through the gift that is being given to me by these men, I realize that Jesus is leading us all along the path of healing and that we truly are one body in Christ.”
Many of the men involved have gone from fasting once a month to fasting each week. Macfarlane began fasting for his wife during a difficult period in his marriage last August. By November, he was fasting every Wednesday. He says he has noticed changes in both his life and marriage that are very encouraging. “I am gaining more self-mastery in other areas of my life,” he says, “and it helps me to be a better husband, which, of course, helps my wife.”
“I think that a man is attracted to the idea of doing something spiritually powerful and chivalrous for a woman he loves, particularly his wife,” adds Macfarlane. “It's a gift to the woman. It's putting our body on the cross with Christ, and putting a wall of your flesh and his around the woman you love that evil can't penetrate.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: St. Joseph, Original E5 Man? DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:*** SIDEBAR TO START ON BACK PAGE, WITH ART OF ST. JOSEPH:
**** PAVEL CHICIKOV MAY SEND A PHOTO
St. Joseph, Original E5 Man?
In the Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5 — the inspiration for the new group E5 men — St. Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
It's a perfect message for St. Joseph's Day, March 19, because, as Matthew 1:19 says about Mary's pregnancy, “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.”
Huh?
How is a man's quiet divorce of his pregnant betrothed a sign of his willingness to sacrifice himself for her?
Mother Teresa — no biblical exegete, but a spiritual master — explains. In Joseph's day, a woman found pregnant before full marriage would be penalized by the law — stoning was once the sentence, but even if that had fallen out of favor, she would be ostracized by the community to some degree for her sin.
But Joseph, though he was “a righteous man,” a man who followed the law, didn't turn her in. We can imagine that he sensed the innocence of the immaculate one. Nonetheless, he wanted the law to be fulfilled. How?
Think about it. If a man slipped quietly away from his betrothed, and she was found to be pregnant, suspicion, and the law's penalty, would then fall on him — for impregnating a woman outside marriage and then abandoning her.
By quietly divorcing her, Joseph was deciding that he, not Mary, would be the one ostracized — or stoned, in the worst case — for Mary's pregnancy.
By this interpretation Joseph was the original E5 man, willing to suffer in his wife's place. It's a lesson that wasn't lost on his son.
— Register Staff
------- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: One of Pope John Paul II's Priests DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:When Father C. John McCloskey looks at Father Jay Toborowsky, he sees the future of the Catholic Church in the United States.
“He is a wonderful example of what I refer to as ‘Pope John Paul II's priests,'” says Father McCloskey, director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C. “These are young priests who are zealous for the new evangelization, fiercely faithful to the teaching authority of the Church and, at the same time, putting the sacraments and preaching at the center of their pastoral ministry.”
Together, he adds, they comprise a sort of “holy army” that will “transform the face of the Catholic Church in the United States over the next few decades.”
Father McCloskey ought to know. He has known Father Toborowsky, parochial vicar at St. James Parish in Basking Ridge, N.J., since the latter was student president at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md.
He had his work cut out for him then — and he still does. St. James is spiritual home to 3,300 families. Most are affluent, many struggle to live their Catholic faith in a culture that denigrates it and all must cope with the loss of 11 fellow parishioners who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Talking to Father Toborowsky, it becomes evident that his present assignment in leafy suburbia has made him sensitive to the spiritual challenges faced by the wealthy. “Many are used to dealing with contemporaries in upper management, giving orders and getting what they want,” he says. That may sound like a good problem to have — but a problem it can be, spiritually speaking. Yet, despite their privileged position in the upper echelons of modern American culture, the parishioners of St. James, says Father Toborowski, are “very generous” toward the Church.
What's the biggest trap the successful need to guard against? “Cafeteria Catholicism,” says Father Toborowsky. “Saturated in a secular, worldly culture, the narrow path of Gospel truth can become obscured by the normal highways traveled by the majority. As a result, many look for the paths of least resistance. In terms of doctrine, that means settling for partial truth or less than all that the Church teaches.”
“To some,” adds Father Toborowsky, “if the Catholic faith doesn't make you feel good or give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, you either stop coming to Mass or you go somewhere else where you can hear what you want to hear from a pulpit.”
Sometimes, he says, the best way to witness the faith to such souls is to “love them enough to let them go.” The parable of the prodigal son, anyone?
But the most important thing is “living what I preach,” he says. “And the only way I can achieve that is by doing all that I can, including making sacrifices, so that I will grow in holiness.”
From Politics to Priesthood
Father Toborowsky, a Garden State native, is an only child. His mother is a Christian; his late father was Jewish, a retired police officer who bought a tavern and operated it until his death. They divorced when he was 5. He attended a Jewish elementary school through the fifth grade and completed his secondary education in public schools. At 13, he celebrated his bar mitzvah. “I jumped through the hoops by doing what I was supposed to do,” he says, recalling his lack of focus despite the religious significance of the event.
After graduating from high school, he briefly enrolled at St. John's University. He intended to study art, but soon became disinterested in college life and dropped out. Always interested in politics, he met Joseph DeMarino, a candidate for reelection as mayor of Woodbridge, N.J. He went to work on the politician's campaign, started attending Mass and, at DeMartino's urging, enrolled in a nearby community college.
DeMarino won reelection and young Jay Toborowsky spent four years working for him. To this day, the two men share a bond. “He was always mature beyond his years,” says the former mayor. “He was extremely bright, dedicated, sincere and loyal. He could do anything. Believe me, he became one of my top staffers and I relied on him totally almost 70% of the time or more.”
Today DeMarino feels fortunate to have met his former protégé. “Father Toborowsky, just because of the person he is, inspires me to try and be a better Catholic,” says DeMarino. “We as a church are lucky to have him.”
Father Toborowsky recalls that he was as good as hooked on the faith as soon as he began attending Mass. “I felt my only option was to become a Catholic.” Soon after receiving the sacraments, he was invited by his pastor to become both a lector and an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist.
As his faith grew, Jay Toborowsky decided to test a calling he had experienced to the priesthood. He completed his seminary college studies at Seton Hall University and his theology studies at Mt. St. Mary's Seminary. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., by Bishop Vincent Breen on May 7, 1998.
‘Great Courage'
In May, Deacon Jim Bell will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the diaconate. Both he and his wife, Kathryn, who have been married for 52 years, have known Father Toborowsky since he first arrived at St. James more than four years ago. They couple praises him with one voice for his leadership and inspiration. “He is wonderful,” says Kathryn. “He is a priest of great courage. He is a true role model and we are blessed to have him.”
Adds Deacon Jim: “He is a joy to know and work with. Father Toborowsky is tremendously loyal to the true teachings of the Church and he goes out of his way to make himself available to everybody.”
Small wonder that Father McCloskey, one of the most influential priests in the United States, sees a bright future when he looks at Father Toborowsky. “From the ranks of young priests [like him] will come our bishops for the next 50 years,” he says. “And, because of their example, there will be an explosion of vocations to the diocesan priesthood. As a result, an inspired laity will receive the help needed to transform our culture.”
A higher compliment could hardly be paid a priest of any age.
Wally Carew, author of Men of
Spirit, Men of Sports, writes from Medford,
Massachusetts.
------- EXCERPT: Priest Profile ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wally Carew ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 03/16/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 16-22, 2003 ----- BODY:Nicaraguans vs. Abortion
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Feb. 25 — The bishops of Nicaragua have turned up the heat in a public debate set off by an abortion performed on a 9-year-old rape victim. “Is there any difference between a bus full of passengers that receives the impact of a car bomb and a metallic instrument that impacts the maternal womb to suck out a fetus?” the bishops asked in an open letter.
According to Associated Press, the document urged Nicaraguan congressmen to reject proposals to legalize abortion in their heavily Catholic country, where abortion is illegal with few rare exceptions. The bishops condemned the idea of “legalizing the abominable crime of abortion even disguised under supposed pseudo-humanitarian extenuating factors such as calling it therapeutic.”
Adult Stem-Cell Tryouts
REUTERS, Feb. 24 — Hundreds of heart-attack victims are to be given infusions of their own stem cells as part of a European trial to find out if the therapy can restore cardiac function, reported Reuters news service. Professor John Martin, head of cardiovascular science at University College London, said the study follows early work showing stem cells extracted from patients' own bone marrow can boost the heart's ability to pump blood. The trial will involve more than 300 people who have suffered a major heart attack in which the coronary arteries at the front of the heart become blocked. More than 30 medical centers in Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere will take part.
Mother Risks All for Baby
Beaton found out she was pregnant in late December. Doctors told her one of her anti-rejection drugs could harm her baby. “We were told the risks of going off the drug were my liver being rejected or kidney failure, but we thought it was worth the risk as this may be our last chance to have a family of our own,” Beaton said.
Abortion Alternatives in Ireland
BOSTON — John McKellar calls himself an “openly gay male.” But he has no desire to see the Supreme Court in Boston change laws to allow homosexuals to marry.
The court began hearing arguments in Goodridge v. Massachusettson March 4.
McKellar founded the Ontario-based Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism to combat efforts in Canada to adopt same-sex marriages through the court system. A major change in American law would have worldwide consequences, he says. In his opinion, society's efforts to protect marriage are based on common sense.
“Marriage is not an arbitrary convention and is not meant to change with the times,” he said. “We're not talking about music, fashion or art. We're talking about an institution whose four prohibitions — you can only marry one person at a time, only someone of the opposite sex, never someone beneath a certain age and not a close blood relative — have been grounded in morality and in law for millennia.”
McKellar was commenting on a Boston case in which when seven same-sex couples challenged Massachusetts in court for the right to marry.
After hearing about the arguments in Goodridge v. Massachusetts Depart ment of Public Health, Matt Dan iels, president of Alliance for Marriage, was pessimistic. Massa chusetts’ marriage law will be ruled unconstitutional this summer, he warned, and the ruling will set off a national debate over same-sex marriages.
Daniels, whose organization promotes marriage and addresses the issue of fatherless families in the United States, received a message from an attorney who observed the court proceedings.
“The judges were uniformly hostile from the beginning of the case,” the attorney, who did not want to be identified, told Daniels. “If I had to guess, I would bet we lost big. The judges kept harping on the ridiculous analogy to segregation in the South.”
This only confirms what Daniels said he has known for a year — that the Supreme Judicial Court will “destroy the legal status of marriage” in Massachusetts.
“If you take it to the courts, we lose. If you take it to the people, we win,” Daniels said.
But he took issue with the main arguing point in Goodridge — that current marriage laws are similar to desegregation.
“African-Americans and the Latino community absolutely reject these 'segregation’ arguments that proponents for gay marriage use,” Daniels said. “It's an argument that mostly only white people buy.”
He cited a Wirthlin Worldwide poll where blacks and Hispanics showed stronger support to protect marriage than whites. In the poll, 63% of Hispanics and 62% of blacks support marriage-law protection, compared with 57% of the overall population.
The poll, released March 3, has a margin of error of 3.1%.
“The whole thrust of this poll rejects their central argument,” Daniels said.
But advocates for same-sex marriage defend the use of the court system to claim what they say are their rights.
“It has always been the role of the courts in our system of government to say when a law draws the wrong line,” said Mary Bonauto, who works for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in Boston and argued the case for the same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses.
“This is the wrong line. Only ‘marriage’ conveys the love and commitment that others automatically understand and respect,” she said. “Equal marriage rights would strengthen these families and the communities of which they are an integral part.”
Meanwhile, two homosexuals are challenging the sodomy laws of Texas, one of only 13 states that still have statutes on the books prohibiting homosexual conduct.
Attorneys for the two men, Tyron Garner and John Lawrence, want the U.S. Supreme Court to expand the “right to privacy” used as the foundation of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that struck down most laws against abortion.
Oral arguments in Lawrence v. Texas are scheduled for March 26. It challenges a 1986 Supreme Court decision that said individuals have no federal constitutional right to engage in homosexual acts. Texas attorney Kelly Shackleford warned that a high court establishment of such a right would jeopardize, if not overturn, thousands of laws that have a definition of marriage embedded in them, from tax laws to custody laws, according to WorldNetDaily.com.
Not all homosexuals believe it is good to change the marriage code by lawsuits.
“As an openly gay male, I have no problem conceding that heterosexuality is and always will be the great human norm,” McKellar said.
“But I wholly reject the modern, feel-good, pop-culture mentality that facilely equates homosexuality with heterosexuality and asks no deep questions about human psychology beyond the superficial liberal-versus-conservative, freedom-vs.-oppression dichotomy,” he said.
“I'm utterly fatigued with the activist mantra that my dignity and my relationships are devalued because the state will not codify same-sex marriage,” McKellar added. “I'm not so insecure and so selfish to demand that marriage be redefined for everyone else.”
If Massachusetts’ high court scraps the state's marriage law, a debate over what marriage is will likely erupt in every state in America, said Robert George, professor of jurisprudence and politics at Prince ton University.
“It is certain that homosexual-advocacy groups will bring litigation to force other states to recognize Massachusetts’ same-sex ‘marriages.’ Their claim will be the ‘full faith and credit’ clause of the federal Constitution requires such recognition,” said George, head of the Faith & Reason In stitute, a Washington think tank.
The matter would ultimately have to be decided by the Supreme Court, unless the American people wanted to get involved, he said.
“When the Hawaii Supreme Court sought to redefine marriage in that state, the people responded by amending their state constitution to overturn the court's ruling. Hawaii, like Massachusetts, is a liberal state,” George noted. “It is possible that the citizens of Massachusetts will respond in the same way.”
But George said only one thing would settle the matter and ultimately protect marriage.
“I hope that the people of the United States as a whole will respond by enacting the Federal Marriage Amendment to protect marriage as a union of a man and a woman from judicial redefinition,” he said.
The amendment, which has been proposed by the Alliance for Marriage, would define marriage across the United States as only between a male and a female. It would prohibit federal or state courts from redefining marriage to include other groupings such as homosexual relationships.
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Day of the Unborn DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Day dawns on the feast of the Annunciation — the day God became man in the womb of Mary.
But before the celebration of the Incarnation comes a moment of mourning as a lone trumpeter's rendition of “Taps” echoes through Fort Pierce, Fla.
Jack Stong hopes it will send a powerful message, for today isn't just the feast of the Annunciation — it's the Day of the Unborn Child.
Like others participating in events dotted across the United States and throughout Latin America, Stong, a 70-year-old member of the Knights of Columbus, will observe the Day of the Unborn Child on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.
Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said, “The feast of the Annunciation reminds us once again that what we have learned through science can never contradict what has been revealed to us through revelation. The life of each human being, unique and unrepeatable, begins at the moment of his or her conception. Thus 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ at the Annunciation.”
The Knights’ Supreme Council unanimously approved a resolution declaring March 25 the Day of the Unborn Child at its 2001 convention in Toronto.
That resolution is propelling the observance's slow spread throughout the United States. But the day's origins date back several years and a continent away.
The story began on Dec. 7, 1998, when Carlos Sa˙l Menem, then president of Argentina, signed a decree making March 25 DÌa del NiÒo por Nacer (Day of the Unborn Child).
Argentine Church leaders urged other countries to follow suit, and as officials in the Catholic Church and leaders of the pro-life movement tell it, celebration of the day soon grew throughout Latin America.
In Chile, a campaign pushed by thousands of companies and several mayors resulted in the Senate's May 18, 1999, unanimous approval of an agreement that annually requests the president to set aside March 25 to honor the unborn.
Guatemala's Congress followed two days later, issuing a declaration stating the day was meant “to promote a culture of life and defense of the life from the moment of conception.”
It then hit Brazil and Peru, and in January 2002 it hit Nicaragua, where President Arnoldo Alem·n recognized the day in a decree that recognized: “The right to life, inherent to each one of the inhabitants of the nation and the world, constitutes the main axis of human rights and, therefore, deserves the determined attention of the state, its institutions and of the whole society.”
The Knights began modest celebrations of the Day of the Unborn in the United States last year as com memorations continued through out South America.
In Luling, La., the local council dedicated its Monument to the Unborn Child at St. Anthony Church.
At St. Helen Church in Vero Beach, Fla., about 125 gathered for a prayer service marking the new-found observance.
In all, thousands of Knights of Columbus chapters participated in 2002, according to Gary Morrissey, who oversees promotion of the day from the Knights’ New Haven, Conn., headquarters. There were volunteer programs, prayer services, rosaries outside abortion clinics — all part of the Day of the Unborn Child's inaugural celebration in America.
Still, many pro-life advocates in dioceses across the country are unaware of the celebration, and major right-to-life organizations have not heard of it either.
But the Knights’ involvement means Catholics will be marking the day in even greater force, Morrissey said. “It's more widespread this year by far.”
Worldwide Observances
Catholics will be back at St. Helen's in Vero Beach for an ecumenical prayer service. And the faithful will join in celebrations elsewhere, too, from Brasilia, Brazil — where about 30 people are expected at a modest service — to Albany, N.Y., where many more are expected to rally and pray outside the state Capitol.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a special radio program will mark the day. In New Haven, Conn., the Knights are organizing a prayer service at St. Mary's Church, to be televised live on the Eternal Word Television Network.
Back in Fort Pierce, Stong was expecting more than 300 at the outdoor event he was helping to organize. There will be exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on the make -shift altar, Knights in their regal garb, the faithful reverently praying the rosary.
It will end with that plaintive military tune, one that has marked the passing of uncountable lives.
Stong said it's a fitting end to a day that both honors the unborn Christ and recognizes the millions of other unborn children who never were given the opportunity to experience the world.
“Christ came into this world just like we do and his life wasn't any different when it started than anyone else's,” Stong said. “Society doesn't honor that. And when you think of that in that light, it sends chills up your spine.”
Matt Sedensky writes from Honolulu.
----- EXCERPT: Knights Lead March 25 Effort ----- EXTENDED BODY: Matt Sedensky ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Arming Troops With Faith DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:FRONT ROYAL, Va. — The McCloskey family understands the unique struggles and needs of military families. That's what has driven them to make a place where everyone can find a way to help our troops.
Judy McCloskey's second and third sons were born midway through her husband Robert's six-month deployments during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Five years ago, when she was pregnant with her sixth child, her husband, now a retired Navy commander, was called to 18 months of duty aboard the USS Washington.
“For two years, we saw him only on occasional weekends when he didn't have active duty,” McCloskey said. “You're living as a wife, but it's almost as if you were a single parent.”
That experience led the Mc Clos keys to create the Catholics in the Mil itary Web site (www.catholic mil.org), an apostolate to strengthen and support the nation's 1.5 million Catholic military families. The site is one of several burgeoning ministries that are attempting to fill the military chaplaincy gap by providing spiritual support and materials for military service members and their loved ones. The site receives approximately 10,000 unique visitors each month.
“Since Sept. 11, 2001, our work has increased exponentially,” McCloskey said.
The extensive Web site features news articles, an online Bible study, prayers, devotions and other features all designed to support military service members and their families. Some of its innovative features include the opportunity to ask spiritual questions or request a Mass intention, through Father John Echert, chaplain for the site and military chaplain with the Minnesota Air National Guard. Very soon, the site plans to put up a holy hour for the military that will include both vocal and silent meditations.
McCloskey hopes the site will help bring comfort to military families to help them understand the military calling as a vocation.
“Service to one's country belongs to the order of charity. It's a high calling,” she said.
The Web site's presence has caught the attention of other apostolates as well, making Catholic -mil.org a kind of brokerage for others seeking to help the military but lacking the avenue to do so. The site not only links to the military archdiocese, but it also forwards to them 10% of its donations to foster vocations to the military archdiocese.
Another one of the popular ministries the site supports is Sandbox Beads Ministry, an apostolate that is shipping individual Catholic care packages to military servicemen and women around the world.
Steeped in Prayer
The idea for Sandbox Beads Ministry came to Janet Houlton of Shorewood, Minn., one day last fall during eucharistic adoration.
“I was praying to Our Blessed Mother about having our school children pray the rosary,” Houlton said.
After she spoke with the principal from St. John the Baptist Catholic School, the first- through eighth-grade students not only said the rosary but also learned how to make rosaries. One thing led to another and before long the students had made 500 black- and brown-beaded rosaries to be distributed to the military through Father Echert, who had just returned from a three-month deployment in Qatar. After Eternal Word Television Network an -nounced the effort, additional requests for rosaries poured in.
Now more than 15 Catholic schools are participating by making rosaries. The handmade rosaries are included in the Catholic care packages along with a pocket-edition New Testament, a Catholic prayer book, a crucifix and medal, Catholic Answers’ booklet Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth, holy cards of the Divine Mercy and St. Michael, and a personalized letter either from a student or a loved one. To date, the organization has distributed more than 3,000 care packages.
Houlton has received many letters of thanks. One soldier wrote, “Thank you for the Catholic care package. It was so good getting mail out in the field. It is especially good to get a handmade rosary. I also like the St. Michael the Archangel card. I will tape it up inside my tank.”
As part of its rosary war effort, the Register has also contributed to the initiative. Following the Register's Dec. 29, 2002, Year of the Rosary issue, the newspaper printed an additional 22,000 copies to meet customer requests.
The Register is currently printing 100,000 of that issue's rosary meditations in booklet form, 25,000 of which are being designed pocketsize and with a special cover especially for the military. Sandbox Beads Ministry will include 9,000 of the booklets in its Catholic care packages.
Michael Lambert, director of development for Circle Media Inc., the Register's parent company, said the organization is receiving donations from Register readers to cover printing costs.
Spiritual Adoption
None of the initiatives is complete without prayer. To that end, Houlton has arranged for spiritual adoption between service members and families.
A Prayer for Soldiers
Father, hold our soldiers in your loving hands. Keep them from spiritual and bodily harm. Place them under the protective mantle of our Blessed Mother Mary and send St. Michael and the holy angels before them in every danger. Give them and their families courage, strength and hope. In your mercy, grant peace to all your children in every nation on earth.
We praise you and thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Another organization that is coordinating similar efforts on a large scale is the Adopt Our Troops campaign, an online initiative of the Tucson, Ariz.-based Presidential Prayer Team.
Adopt-a-Troop allows friends or families of troop members to register their loved ones and also allows anyone who is interested to adopt a member of the military for daily prayer. The initiative was started Feb. 8. Since that time more than 70,000 troops have been registered and more than 148,000 people have already adopted a military person for prayer.
“Once troops began deploying and reservists were being called up, many of our members started asking, ‘What can we do?’” explained John Lind, executive director for the Presidential Prayer Team and Adopt-a-Troop.
After consulting with former Chief of Staff John Adams Wickham and retired Army chaplain John Reed, Lind hit upon the idea of a virtual prayer network.
For security reasons visitors to the Adopt-a-Troop Web site are randomly provided with only the first name of a serviceman or woman. From the site they can print a prayer reminder certificate to encourage them to pray.
Lind's certificate sits underneath the glass top that covers his desk. It lists an Army soldier named Michael Gray.
“I pray for Michael, his wife, Laurah, and their child every morning,” Lind said. “We hope to have people praying for as many troops as we can get registered.”
Houlton, McCloskey and Lind all reinforced that their ministries are not trying to make a statement about the possible war with Iraq.
“We're not taking part in the debate,” Houlton said. “The correct response is one of prayer.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Groups Join the Battle for Hollywood's Soul DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:HOLLYWOOD — Across the street from one seedy gentleman's club and beneath a billboard for another, several young Hollywood professionals enter a nondescript, cement-block building that houses Family Theater Productions.
They are on the front line of the battle for Hollywood, and they come here once a month for Prayer and Pasta.
Holy Cross Father Willy Raymond, director of Family Theater, summarized their mission: “We are praying that the message of the Gospel and the Church will be more accepted in Hollywood.”
With Christian values often under attack by the entertainment industry, Father Raymond is fighting to save Hollywood's soul — trying to give Catholics in the entertainment industry the spiritual support they need to be true to the Church in their work and embracing non-Catholics in the industry who want to become Catholic. Prayer and Pasta, which brings Hollywood professionals together to pray, eat and talk, is the latest in Family Theater's arsenal of spiritual weapons.
Father Raymond and those who work with him also run an RCIA program for Hollywood professionals looking to convert — or revert — to the Catholic faith.
Family Theater “is a spiritual oasis surrounded by restaurants, nightclubs and strip clubs,” explained Brian Tyree, a writer and director who has attended a few of the monthly Prayer and Pasta meetings since they began eight months ago.
“On one of my first visits to Family Theater, the actual location struck me as a metaphor for the industry itself. It's an industry with a scandalous reputation, but one individual, or one company like Family Theater, stands out and can make a big difference,” Tyree said.
Family Theater was founded in 1947 by Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton, the “Rosary Priest,” who died in 1992 and was declared a servant of God in June 2001. Father Peyton worked with Hollywood legends such as Gregory Peck, Bob Hope, Loretta Young, Bing Crosby and Jimmy Stewart to spread a moral message, especially through radio. “Family Theater of the Air,” the radio show Father Peyton started, ran weekly for 22 years, making it the longest-running radio program in history. Family Theater also produces films and television shows.
At the Prayer and Pasta meetings, “the group usually says the rosary, or we will pray from prepared material in a vespers kind of format,” Tyree said. “It's like taking a retreat for a night and praying with other people who share similar interests in a sacred environment.”
At the last meeting, three priests and a half-dozen entertainment professionals made a holy hour before the Eucharist, invoked the help of the saints and prayed a decade of the rosary “for Hollywood” before sitting down to a meal of pasta.
Special Spiritual Needs
Prayer and Pasta is just one part of Family Theater's outreach to Catholics in Hollywood, according to Barbara Nicolosi, director of Act One, a training and mentoring program for Christian writers. Nicolosi also directs the RCIA program — hosted at Family Theater — for Hollywood professionals, with the help of Father Raymond.
Nicolosi used to run a parish RCIA program and said a separate program of catechesis for Hollywood professionals is needed because of the scheduling problems and distractions such people have.
One of the people in Nicolosi's RCIA group first went to a local parish and was immediately mobbed by job seekers. “Everybody brought head shots and wanted a job,” Nicolosi said.
Freed from such distractions and with a more flexible schedule to accommodate the stresses of a career in Hollywood, Nicolosi said the group is flourishing.
There are five people in this year's program, “two reverts and three converts,” Nicolosi said.
“[The program] is absolutely magisterial,” she said, but she added it is unique in the way it incorporates film and spiritual reading into the curriculum.
In addition to studying the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the group watches movies such as The Mission and reads several books, including St. Augustine's Confessions.
Father Raymond agrees the program is well suited to those whose needs “cannot be met by RCIA in the parish and who share our concerns about culture and the media.
“The Church should be in the middle of such a situation,” he said.
Nicolosi hopes the work she does forming young professionals through Act One and Family Theater will result in “people [in the entertainment industry] who want to do for God what the others are doing for money.”
And though some in Hollywood still “believe that inside every pro-lifer is a murderer looking to get out,” Nicolosi said things are getting better.
It is starting to become “cool to be Catholic,” Father Raymond said in agreement.
Moral Professionals
According to Nicolosi, one key to turning Hollywood around morally is to help moral people become professionally successful. She said when well-meaning people make mediocre moral movies they hurt their own causes.
“The Church's mission is not to make movies but to give artists a spiritual foundation and to help them figure out their vocation,” Nicolosi said. “We need millionaires to step forward and go after the artists,” investing in great moral movies.
“Father Willy helps a great deal,” she said, but Nicolosi worries about other advice actors and writers receive. She described an instance of a priest telling someone in the entertainment industry to choose a different career as an example of well-intentioned but counterproductive advice.
“We have abandoned our artists, so they have abandoned us,” she said.
What is needed, she said, is “a community of apostle-artists who have their act together.”
Nicolosi said Act One is designed to give writers the tools they need to succeed in Hollywood on a professional level while maintaining their spiritual integrity.
A Spiritual Home
Father Raymond sees his putting newcomers in touch with “managers and people in the industry whom they can trust” as an integral part of his work at Family Theater.
In addition, helping to spiritually support newcomers to the industry is a key element of Family Theater's mission, he said.
“We want to welcome people, especially young people, to Hollywood and let them know that their spiritual home here is Family Theater,” he said.
Family Theater is fulfilling its mission as spiritual home and moral base, said writer-director Tyree.
“Just stepping back from 'the business’ for an evening of this type of sacred prayer,” he said, “helps me to refocus my life and career around God.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Catholic Oscars DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will celebrate its 75th Oscar Awards presentation March 23. Although several recent movies such as Dogma and Stigmata have been hostile to the Church, there have been many positive portrayals of the Church by Hollywood over the years as well.
Some, such as Ben Hur, The Sound of Music and Going My Way, are still fairly well known, and many of these films have even been honored with Academy Awards. Among the lesser-known but equally well-made pro-Catholic films are:
The Song of Bernadette (1943): Her role as St. Bernadette Soubirous—the young girl to whom the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in Lourdes, France, in 1858—earned Jennifer Jones the 1943 Academy Award for best actress. The film chronicles St. Bernadette's life story, her visions of Our Lady and her persistent faith even in the face of disbelief from her own family.
On the Waterfront (1954): Central to this tale of the battle against labor-union corruption is a Catholic priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden), who takes a heroic—and personally costly—stand with his flock against a ruthless labor union. The film earned eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Director (Elia Kazan).
Becket (1964): Thinking it would be wise to have his playboy friend as archbishop of Canterbury, Henry II (Peter O'Toole) appoints Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) to the vacant see. Becket takes his new role seriously, however, and when he stands up to Henry he is ultimately murdered by the king's henchmen. The pageantry of the excommunication scene alone makes the film a classic. It was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including Best Director (Peter Glenville) and Best Actor (Burton).
A Man for All Seasons (1966): Six King Henrys later, A Man for All Seasons picks up the theme of kingagainst- friend where Becket left off. The screen adaptation of Robert Bolt's play recounts St. Thomas More's personal struggle to be a good servant to both God and king while Henry VIII creates a schism in order to divorce and remarry. The film shows More as the saint he was—a man willing to die rather than renounce his faith. The film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Paul Scofield) and Best Director (Fred Zinnemann).
The Assisi Underground (1985): Based on a true story, this littleknown film details the organized and largely successful work of the Catholic Church to save Jews in Italy from Hitler's death camps. The all-star cast includes Ben Cross, James Mason and Max imilian Schell.
The Scarlet and the Black, (1983) a similarly themed film, originally made for TV, may be even better.
—Andrew Walther
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Pope's Preacher Goes to India DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa is usually preaching to Pope John Paul II — but in February, he was in India.
The 68-year-old priest recorded six 15-minute Lenten sermons there for Italian television at places like the Taj Mahal; Raj Ghat, shrine of Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi; the Bahai Lotus Temple in New Delhi; and among the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. The sermons are being broadcast on the Saturday evenings of Lent.
Register correspondent Anto Akkara interviewed Father Cantalamessa at the Bahai Lotus temple.
What is the purpose of your visit to India?
I have been in India for more than three weeks. I preached a retreat [in Calcutta] to the general chapter of the Missionaries of Charity congregation of Mother Teresa. After that, I preached another retreat for eight bishops and more than 100 priests and sisters in northeast India.
Then the Italian TV crew joined me. They have already recorded my four programs in the institutions of Mother Teresa. We reached Delhi yesterday and plan to record three more sermons here [at the Lotus Temple of the Bahai], at Raj Ghat and the Taj Mahal.
Why have you chosen these sites for your sermons?
In my Lenten sermons for Italian TV this year, I wanted to focus on interreligious dialogue. That is why we chose these venues in India, a land of different religions.
Have you made similar recordings outside Italy in the past?
No. This is the first experience of this kind. Earlier, we had recorded in Africa but it was mainly on the life of the Church in Africa.
What is your message from India?
The main message from here, I think, is that India has given to the world and to our countries in Europe a sense of spirituality. In India, you still see images of spirituality and interiority — a sensitivity for spiritual values, which is almost disappearing in a secular and materialistic world. Many are concerned only with material joys and nothing beyond.
Indian people, I feel, deserve praise for being self-centered in a good sense. It is a good sign for me that the people here are able to spend time in prayer. I hope India will not make the same mistake we are making in our countries by reducing everything to a material and consumerist culture.
When did you become the papal retreat preacher?
I was a professor of history and Christianity at the University of Milan. In 1979, I resigned the job and a few months later I was appointed preacher to the pontifical household.
How often do you preach to the Pope?
During Advent and Lent, I give a weekly meditation every Friday morning for half an hour. The Pope will come with the cardinals of the Roman Curia, bishops and superior generals of religious orders. About 100 persons attend this weekly meditation.
How many retreats have you preached to the Holy Father?
The poor Pope has listened to at least 90 hours of meditation this ordinary Capuchin has given.
What is your impression of the Holy Father as a listener? Does he ask for any special theme to be dealt with?
Yes, the Pope does let me know some preferences. If there are special occasions, he likes that I focus on this particular topic. Otherwise, he is an ordinary listener among others around him. He is an example to others.
It's quite astonishing that this Pope finds the time to come and listen regularly to the meditations given by an ordinary priest. This is an incredible example of spirituality from the life of the Pope and respect for the word of God.
Could you describe how you go about the retreat?
I see him before the retreat and he gives me a blessing. After the sermon, I meet him in a separate room. When he was stronger than now, he would comment upon the sermon and put some questions to me.
You have been preaching to the Pope for more than two decades. Do you find any change in approach or attitude in the Pope over the years?
You know, this is a very personal question. But I can say that these meditations are taken very seriously by the pontifical household. Your correspondent in Rome [Father Raymond J. de Souza] regularly reports it. Even those who do not come to the meditations, they follow the text.
What are your other engagements?
I am a regular retreat preacher. I have preached several retreats to national bishops’ conferences. The last one was in Poland. I have preached retreats to the Catholic bishops of Ireland, Brazil, the United States, etc.
How do you feel about being a famous retreat preacher?
I am an ordinary Capuchin. But I feel it is a great blessing because I receive more than what I give. For example, preaching to the Missionaries of Charity sisters [in Calcutta] was a great experience for me. I could see and witness the dedicated life of the sisters. It was an incredible experience.
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Ohio Congressman Abandons Pro-Life Position for Presidential Run DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:CLEVELAND — Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has a history of winning long-shot races. This time he's aiming for the ultimate prize: president of the United States.
The former “boy mayor” of Cleveland — he was elected in 1977 at age 31, the youngest-ever leader of a major U.S. city — has represented his home city's district in Congress for eight years on a consciously ethnic Catholic platform of opposing both war and abortion. Kucinich even has a Web site that mentions his appreciation for “polka, bowling and kielbasa.”
So it surprised many when Kucinich declared his support for legal abortion on Feb. 16, the same day he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president.
“As president, I would protect that right, and I would also make sure that appointees to the Supreme Court protected that right,” Kucinich told a crowd Feb. 17 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he kicked off his presidential campaign.
Talk-show host Bob Novak later confronted Kucinich on CNN's “Crossfire,” accusing him of doing a “switch-over.”
Kucinich denied the charge. “No, I expanded my view,” he told Novak. “Because what I believe is this is a very divisive debate, and I think that it's important to simultaneously affirm that a woman has a right to choose under the Constitution and at the same time work, as I have my whole life, to see that abortions are not necessary, by having sex education and birth control and then prenatal care, postnatal care and child care.”
The news came as a blow to pro-life Democrats who were hoping to have a prominent pro-life Democrat run for president.
“It is very unfortunate that Dennis Kucinich felt pressure to change his view in order to run for national office,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life. “It has been the trend for some time and we hope that it will end and pro-life Democrats will feel comfortable in their own party.”
Day said Democrats would continue to face electoral defeat if they ignore the voices of pro-life Democrats.
“The truth is that the American people do not want abortion on demand,” she said. “If the Democratic Party is going to recover from its devastating elections losses, we better open up the ‘big tent’ that we hear so much about.”
The change in Kucinich's stance on abortion is visible on his presidential campaign Web site but not on his congressional Web site.
As late as Feb. 27, a page of thank-you letters on his congressional site still listed an April 25, 1997, note from Janet Folger, former legislative director of Ohio Right to Life. In the note, Folger thanks Kucinich for “taking a stand against the form of infanticide known as the partial-birth abortion.”
Signs of Change
The first signs Kucinich had been preparing to abandon his pro-life record came last year in Congress. He had voted as late as Sept. 25, 2001, to oppose abortions on military bases. But on a similar bill seven months later, he voted to allow abortions on military bases. Neither measure passed.
Kucinich then voted “present” on a bill to ban partial-birth abortions and another bill to prevent hospitals from discriminating against employees who refuse to participate in abortions.
His vote to neither support nor oppose the pro-life legislation didn't match his previous 90% pro-life rating from National Right to Life. Kucinich's actions caught the attention of one investigative journalist.
“What happened to the erstwhile pro-life leftist?” asked Timothy Carney in an article for National Review Online.
Carney attributed the reversal to an article titled “Regressive Progressive” in the May 2002 issue of The Nation, a left-wing monthly magazine.
“In his two terms in Congress, he has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions,” the article read, referring to the Illinois Republican Catholic Congressman and former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
“That a solidly anti-choice politician could become a standard-bearer for progressivism … speaks volumes about the low priority of women's rights to the self-described economic left,” Katha Pollitt wrote in the article.
But now abortion activists are sufficiently happy for Kucinich's conversion.
Kate Michelman, head of National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League Pro-Choice America, said when politicians such as Kucinich move away from opposing legal abortion, it is the “opposite of being political.”
“When they were being anti-choice, it was the political thing to do maybe,” she said. “At that time, their position was expected of them to be anti-choice. I think they've thought a lot more about this issue and came to the decision after a great deal of thought and not as a reflex.”
Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said voters might not be so forgiving.
“Kucinich's flip-flop on abortion ought to be troubling to both pro-lifers and pro-choicers,” he said. “How can someone in the thick of politics for decades, someone who has been forced to think clearly about a fundamental issue like abortion over a long period of time, change his position almost overnight? What does that say about his core values?”
He noted, however, that this wasn't the only time a Democratic presidential candidate moved away from the pro-life position to run for president.
“Prior to Dick Gephardt's 1988 run for president, U.S. News reported that Gephardt had actually asked another congressman, ‘What should my position on abortion be?’” Sabato noted.
“If you don't know the answer to that question in the depths of your soul, without political manipulations,” he commented, “you probably shouldn't be president.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Feds Defend Internet Filter Law
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 9 — U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it should uphold a law mandating Internet pornography filters for libraries that receive federal funds.
The Children's Internet Protection Act was challenged by the American Library Association, which routinely opposes all attempts to screen out adult content from libraries, and by a county library. The association won a lower-court ruling in May, which stated that too much legitimate content was liable to be caught in imperfect commercial filtering software.
Olson asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling, arguing that librarians could turn off the filters upon request for patrons who needed access to material that was inadvertently blocked or libraries that dissent from the law could set up funding arrangements that exempted them from the law.
The court is expected to rule in July.
Rosary Prayers Supported Villanova's Win
Before the big game, Coach Harry Perretta received a phone call from a former player's mother. The player — Shelly Pennefather, an All-American player in 1987 — is now a cloistered nun living in a convent in Maryland, according to the Hartford Courant.
When Perretta told Mrs. Pennefather he was on his way to the game, she said, “Oh. I think I'll call the convent and tell them to pray for you guys. And we're going to say the rosary for you, too.”
The prayers worked: The Villanova women beat the Huskies 52-48. The UConn women, who hadn't lost a game in two years — in a loss to eventual champion Notre Dame in 2001's NCAA tournament semifinals — were owners of a 70-0 win streak.
“Shelly's been such a big person in my life,” Perretta told the Courant. “And such a friend. It was such an amazing coincidence that [her mom] called right at that moment and said she was going to call the convent and ask them to pray for me.”
Cohabitation Up 72%
Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council is troubled by the trend. She warned that cohabitation does not serve as a test-run for marriage, improving the chances of avoiding divorce. Quite the contrary, she said, pointing to figures that show higher divorce rates among couples who had lived together before marriage than among those who hadn't.
Married couples are still the majority of American households, accounting for 90% of the couples in America.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Leaders Hail Passage of Partial-Birth Abortion Ban DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Catholic officials praised the U.S. Senate for its 64-33 vote to pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban on March 13.
“This historic vote sets the ban on track to be the first federal law limiting abortion” since the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, said Cathy Cleaver, director of planning and information for the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., passed after three days of intense debate. It prohibits doctors from committing an “overt act” designed to kill a partially delivered fetus and includes an exemption in cases where the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother.
Opponents of the legislation, including Sen. Barbara Boxer, DCalif., called the bill's language unconstitutional. Boxer described it as “an attempt to outlaw all abortions, to take away the rights of women to choose — not only to chip away at that right, but to take it away and, by the way, criminalize abortions.”
In a statement released after the vote, President Bush called the Senate's action “an important step to building a culture of life in America” and said he looked forward to the House passing legislation and working with the Senate to resolve any differences “so that I can sign legislation banning partial-birth abortion into law.”
Cleaver said she expected the House to pass the ban quickly, and she described the Senate vote as “the beginning of the end for this cruel and dangerous procedure.”
Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, likewise said he “looked forward to passage of similar legislation in the House.”
“We still have a long way to go toward building what Pope John Paul II has called the culture of life,” Anderson said, but he added that “banning partial-birth abortion is a good and necessary first step.”
Barbara Garavalia, president of the National Council of Catholic Women, similarly urged Congress to “move quickly toward sending this bill to the president's desk so that the history of partial-birth abortion in America will be short-lived, a reflection of the strong and widespread opposition by America to this inhumane procedure.”
Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, earlier had urged the Senate to approve the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 without amendments to weaken it.
In a March 10 letter to senators, he asked them to support the measure over a substitute proposal that was expected to be introduced. The Senate began floor debate on the bill March 10.
Similar bills have been ap proved by Congress twice before but were vetoed by President Clinton. A version passed by the House last year was never scheduled for consideration in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
More than half the states have enacted laws banning the procedure, and polls “consistently show” that a majority of Americans oppose it, the cardinal wrote in his letter. But in 2000 the Supreme Court struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban, raising questions about the constitutionality of other state prohibitions, the cardinal noted.
Cardinal Bevilacqua said the new measure “responds to this question of constitutionality.” First, the bill narrowly defines partial-birth abortion and addresses issues raised by the Supreme Court about protecting women's health, he said.
The bill also “presents Congress’ findings, based on years of testimony, that partial-birth abortion is not necessary to preserve women's health, and in fact may pose serious health risks,” the cardinal added.
Opponents of the legislation argued that the particular type of abortion it addresses is sometimes medically necessary, especially when birth defects or other complications are discovered late in a pregnancy and other abortion methods are less likely to succeed.
On the Senate floor March 10, Santorum said partial-birth abortions are “never medically necessary,” are “not taught in any medical school in this country” and are “not recommended.” In describing the procedure, he said it is being used after the 20th week of pregnancy, and during it the fetus is partially delivered, then a pair of scissors is “thrust into the base of the skull and … the cranial contents removed.”
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, introduced an amendment to the legislation expressing the “sense of the Senate” that the Roe v. Wade decision was “appropriate and secures an important constitutional right” and should not be overturned.” Harkin is a Catholic. His amendment passed 52-46, but is likely to be removed by a House committee and not introduced in a House version of the bill.
The Senate narrowly defeated an amendment to the partial-birth abortion bill that would have increased availability of emergency contraception and required insurance companies to expand prescription drug coverage to include contraceptives, The New York Timesreported March 12.
Cleaver, in her March 13 statement, called the Senate vote a “great success for those who have worked so hard for passage of this bill, but above all it is a victory for women and children, who bear the pain and anguish wrought by this inhumane procedure.”
(Register staff contributed to this story)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope Goes on Lenten Retreat With Curia
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS (U.K.), March 11 — Pope John Paul II asked the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square March 9 to pray for him and the Roman Curia as they began their annual Lenten retreat. The Pope said Iraq and the Holy Land would be in his prayers during the weeklong retreat.
Referring to the icon of Christ who unmasks and vanquishes Satan, the Pope said, “Within every man echoes both the voice of God and the insidious one of evil. The latter seeks to deceive man, seducing him with the prospect of false goods, to take him away from the true good, which consists of doing the divine will.
“But humble and trusting prayer, strengthened by fasting, allow us to overcome even the harshest trials and fill us with the courage to fight evil with good. Lent is a time of fruitful training for the Spirit.”
Scotland Is No Longer Christian, Pope Says
“We may observe that in Scotland, as in many lands evangelized centuries ago and steeped in Christianity, there no longer exists a Christian society,” he said. “The powerful forces of the media and entertainment industry are aimed at young people who find themselves the target of competing ideologies.”
Archbishop ‘Taliban’ Addresses Iraq War
CNN, March 5 — In an interview whose CNN transcript gave the name of Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran as Jean-Louis “Taliban,” the French prelate who handles foreign relations for the Holy See addressed the proposed U.S. war on Iraq, along with National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen and Robert Royal, president of the Faith and Reason Institute.
“No international law authorizes one or more states unilaterally,” Archbishop Tauran said, “and I stress unilaterally, to use force to overthrow a regime or a form of government because it might own weapons of mass destruction. Everything must be decided within the United Nations.”
Of the Pope's involvement in promoting a peaceful disarmament of Iraq, Allen said: “The Pope is not a pacifist and the Catholic Church is not a pacifist. I mean, their position is that a state has the right to defend itself against aggression, and so if Iraq were to attack someone, then that state, up to and including the United States, would have the right to retaliate. However, what they are against is this doctrine of a so-called preventive war.”
Royal responded that “given these weapons of mass destruction, given the tremendous power for damage, for mayhem, that they can perpetrate, we don't have the luxury of waiting as you did, say, in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, to see those weapons, those troops being massed.”
Royal noted that only an Israeli pre-emptive bombing in 1981 prevented Saddam Hussein from obtaining functional nuclear weapons and pointed to that once-controversial decision as an instance of a just pre-emptive attack.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Bethlehem Residents Expect Restrictions on Daily Life With New Wall DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:BETHLEHEM — When Nicola Jamil Awwad looks out the window of his comfortable, second-floor apartment, he can see the main road leading to the center of Bethlehem and, across it, his brother's grocery store.
When he exits the front door, the 75-year-old Awwad, a Catholic businessman who has lived in Bethlehem, the town of Jesus’ birth, for many years, is free to conduct business and visit friends anywhere in Bethlehem.
All this will end if the Israeli government acts on its plan to build a 30-foot-high wall right in front of Awwad's building, which he shares with other family members. If the wall is erected, he and about 130 others (by his estimate), most of them Christians, will be physically cut off from the rest of Bethlehem.
Others say the number of people who will be affected could be much higher.
The two-mile-long wall is expected to enclose a section of northern Bethlehem that borders Jerusalem.
Several months ago the Israeli government began constructing a physical barrier between Israel and the West Bank with the intention of preventing Palestinian terrorists from entering Israel. Since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000, dozens of suicide bombers have snuck across the mostly unguarded, disputed border — known as the Green Line — killing hundreds of people.
Last November a Bethlehem resident blew up himself and 11 others on a crowded Jerusalem bus.
Earlier this year the Israeli Army informed Bethlehem officials the barrier would be extended to one edge of the town in order to protect Jews wishing to worship at Rachel's Tomb. According to Jewish tradition, this is where the biblical matriarch Rachel was buried. Jews, especially childless women, flock to the site, which is very close to the entrance of Bethlehem.
Many Israelis want Jerusalem's city limits to be extended to include Rachel's Tomb, despite the fact that Bethlehem is a Palestinian town. Such a move would ensure future Israeli governance over the tomb in the event of a final peace deal with the Palestinians.
Jordan, which controlled the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, prohibited Jews from going to the site in violation of international law.
Officials in Bethlehem as well as various Church leaders insist that this time, it is Israel that is breaking the law.
The municipalities of Bethle -hem and nearby Beit Sahur have petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to prevent the wall's construction. The estimated 20 families who will be most affected recently hired a lawyer and are considering what action to take.
A spokesperson at the Ministry of Defense said the wall must be built because “there is a need to protect people who come to Rachel's Tomb to pray.” He said work has not started yet because “there are some legal procedures that have to be concluded first.”
Alan Baker, the legal adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry, told the Associated Press that according to a 1995 interim peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, “Israel has special jurisdiction over Rachel's Tomb.”
In early March the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, and Franciscan Father Giovanni Battistelli, the custos of the Holy Land who oversees holy sites, urgently appealed to Christians everywhere to help halt the wall's construction.
In a message to the presidents of bishops’ conferences worldwide, the two wrote, “Please, do whatever you can: through your own government, with the Israeli Embassy in your country, with the Israeli government itself.”
If the wall is constructed, the patriarch and the custos said, Christian families will be “encircled, isolated and deprived of services.” They will have “only a small entry through an 8-meter-high wall that will isolate the city of Bethlehem from Jerusalem and the other territories.”
If the wall is erected, they said, Christians in the Holy Land would feel threatened “to the point where some of them may feel constrained to leave the country.”
The letter called on “all Christians in the world” to “convince the Israeli authorities to stop this measure of building the wall at the entrance of the very holy city of Christmas, the city of Bethlehem!”
“This is an SOS cry,” it concluded.
Driving his car around the area where the wall is to be built, Father Shawki Baterian, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem, says, “This wall will only make the very difficult situation here that much worse.”
Referring to the continuing security closures Israel's army has imposed on West Bank residents for much of the past two and a half years, Father Baterian said, “people cannot move around. They need money and as a Church we try our best to sustain the Christians here, but what can we do?”
Things are so bad, Father Baterian said, “that I just heard of a case of a man who is so desperate to feed his family that he is offering one of his kidneys for sale.”
Looking out onto the nearly empty street where the towering wall could soon be built, Nicola Awwad agrees that life in Bethlehem seems to be going from bad to worse.
“We're already in prison due to the closures, and the wall will imprison us even more,” Awwad said. “As it is, if we want to go to Jerusalem we need a permit, but the army refuses to issue one. If the wall gets built we've been told we will now need a permit to enter the rest of Bethlehem. If I want to cross the street and go to my brother's supermarket, I'll need to go down to the checkpoint down the road and get a permit. Every single day, a new permit!”
And that's not all. “If someone — friends or family — wants to visit us they'll need a permit from the army as well,” he said. “And who will collect our garbage?”
Fingering his rosary beads, Awwad concluded, “It will be like living in no man's land.”
Michele Chabin writes from Jerusalem.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michele Chabin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:25,000 Petition Vatican Regarding Raped Girl
Women's groups organized the petition and presented it to the Holy See's ambassador in Madrid, Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, according to The Business Times and the BBC.
Abortion is forbidden in Nicaragua except when the mother's life is in danger, but civil authorities declined to prosecute the parents. According to canon law, abortion is a grave crime against justice that brings automatic excommunication upon all who perform, obtain or help someone else to obtain it. Such excommunication serves to warn Christians against committing certain extremely serious crimes, to correct them and to call them urgently to repent.
Islamic-Christian Group Pushes Peace in Indonesia
FIDES, March 7 — An international London-based organization that aims to foster reconciliation in areas of Christian-Muslim conflict has pitched its tents in Indonesia.
The International Islamic-Christian Organization for Reconciliation and Reconstruction has started work in Ambon, Maluku province, and Poso, Sulawesi, all places where local Christian minorities are clashing with Islamic militias.
Organization chairwoman Baroness Caroline Cox said Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, has experienced sectarian conflict in areas where Muslims and Christians used to live peacefully together.
“We have seen how families have been torn apart by death and injury and destruction of places of worship, mosques, churches, temples, of homes and devastation of entire communities,” she said.
Supported by local Christian and Muslim religious leaders, the organization plans to help rebuild infrastructures, places of worship, schools, homes, hospitals and community centers, resettle displaced persons, and provide education materials that foster Christian-Muslim understanding.
The International Islamic-Christian Organization for Reconciliation and Reconstruction works in Nigeria, Sudan and the Balkans.
Schismatic Bishop to Church: Be More ‘Patriotic’
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 7 — A leader of communist China's state-affiliated “Patriotic Church” last week told Hong Kong's Roman Catholic hierarchy, which is still faithful to Rome, to line up behind the communist government and a proposed “anti-subversion” law.
“We hope Hong Kong's Church will be patriotic and love the law,” said Bishop Michael Fu Tieshan.
Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong Joseph Zen has long been a vocal critic of the Chinese government, which persecutes Catholics faithful to Rome on the mainland. He has warned against the new “anti-subversion” bill now before the local legislature, which he fears will undermine the remaining liberties Roman Catholics still enjoy in the former British colony.
“No matter how high our position, we must render unto God the things which are God's and unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,” Fu said.
Bishop Zen responded by saying he believed that offering constructive criticism of one's government was, in fact, patriotic.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Kissing Cousins DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Is Europe as anti-American as we often hear it is? Having lived in Europe for the past seven years, I have done pastoral ministry in suburban parishes and inner-city schools in Spain, France and Italy. And I have found a different Europe from the one the headlines depict — a Catholic Europe, an America-friendly Europe, a Europe closer to us than we've been led to believe.
There were the back-to-back World Youth Days in Paris and Rome. On both occasions I led groups of American pilgrims. I remember praying the rosary with a group of Italians in front of the Colosseum. I also recall a group of French kids greeting us on the subway with a rousing, if barely coherent, rendition of “God Bless America.” We responded with the best version of “Frere Jacques” we could muster.
Nor will I ever forget the summer of 1997, when a fellow seminarian from California died in an accident while visiting me in Paris. Steven was 27 years old and would have been ordained a priest this year. We expected 10 or 12 people for the funeral — Steven's family members who came from California and fellow seminarians. Yet more than 100 French families came to pray with us.
Finally, what about the hundreds of condolences I received after Sept. 11, 2001? Many European friends were envious of a country whose president could declare a “National Day of Prayer” and invoke God's blessing on national television.
The truth is that the voice of European Catholics is effectively squelched by the continent's left-leaning news media. There may be disagreement on certain political issues, but, on the whole, most European citizens are very fond of us Americans.
Not surprisingly, Europe's Catholics are facing the same problems as their American counterparts: a vocations shortage, an anti-family tax code, a pro-abortion political lobby, dwindling parish life and mediocre catechetical formation. The time has come to tackle these issues together.
Happily, this has already begun in several key areas. Here are a few examples.
Evangelization. American college students have pioneered a Catholic version of door-to-door evangelization, running with a challenge first launched by the Holy Father at the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver. In 1997, Pope John Paul II rallied his young Italian friends for the Missione Cittadina.
Parish renewal. The Neocate -chumenal Way and Opus Dei, both founded in Spain, are making important pastoral contributions in several American dioceses. Likewise, the “Beatitude” charismatic community founded in France has also begun its ministry in the United States.
Political Action. Europeans still dread mentioning religion in the public arena, but cracks appeared in the Voltairian wall with the Holy Father's historic speech before the Italian Parliament in November.
Vocations and priestly formation. Promising seminary numbers are not limited to Paris and Denver. The Pontifical North American College has 172 seminarians this year. And religious orders, including my own, the Legionaries of Christ, are attracting vocations from Europe and North America.
In my theology classes at Rome's Pontifical Regina Apos -tolorum University, I sit alongside Euro pean seminarians. We're excited about the future of the Church. I suppose that, during the coffee breaks, we could talk about the United Nations. But we have other, more urgent matters to attend to.
Legionary Brother Raymond Cleaveland writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Announcing Mary - a `Living Shrine' to Jesus DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Around the world, Marian shrines never cease to retell the story of the Annunciation of the Lord.
In a certain sense, they do so quietly, yet insistently — very much like the Blessed Mother must have told it herself.
The Annunciation, of course, is the name given to the moment when Mary became the first “living shrine” to Jesus by saying Yes to God the Father via his messenger, the angel Gabriel.
“The Word became flesh in the womb of Mary,” says Father F. Joseph Harte, founder and director of Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando, Fla. “Mary is the tabernacle of Jesus. The door of our tabernacle at the shrine is the Annunciation: the Word become flesh. It's Christ coming — and the first coming of Christ goes on forever.”
It's fitting that the world's Marian shrines are dedicated to the Eucharist, says Father Harte, since “she housed the Sacred Body of Christ in her own body.” When we eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood, “we ourselves then become tabernacles of Christ himself.”
In this way, Mary reminds us of the promise of eternal life. “Christ's great promise of the Eucharist is that ‘he who eats my body and drinks my blood has life eternal, and I will raise him up on the last day,’” says Father Harte. “That wonderful promise of eternal life — that's where the connection [between Jesus, Mary and Marian shrines] is.”
It's also fitting to consider this connection right now: The Church celebrates the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord on March 25.
Among Us Still
Easter Sunday Masses at Mary Queen of the Universe draw 35,000 worshippers. The half a million souls who each year make their way to the shrine, located just a stone's throw from that behemoth of a secular shrine, Walt Disney World, attend daily Masses, spend time in eucharistic adoration and reflect on the mysteries of Jesus and Mary in the Rosary Garden.
“We have a tremendous response to the sacrament of reconciliation,” says Father Harte. Mary brings penitents to Jesus during many hours of the sacrament daily. “We hear literally thousands of confessions every year.”
Reconciliation is also important at Mary's Central Shrine in Philadelphia, according to Vincentian Father James Kiernan, director of the Central Association of the Miraculous Medal. The shrine is the home of the Miraculous Medal novena, prayed for decades on Mondays all day long, either after Masses or with benediction.
“We direct our prayers through Mary to the Lord Jesus,” says Father Kiernan. “Many times we acknowledge this through reading the petitions and answers [to prayer] to the people.”
At Boston's Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, also known as Mission Church, Redemptorist Father Kevin Milton has no trouble connecting the dots between the Annunciation and his shrine as a living embodiment of it.
“The Word became flesh in Mary, and then was enshrined in her womb for nine months as the ark of the New Covenant,” says the pastor. “And the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
“People come to the shrine to be in touch with that reality of the Word becoming flesh in their own life and mulling over that word. Mary had to mull that word over in her own heart.”
Mission Church points us to Jesus with the weekly novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, celebrating its 125th anniversary here this April. There's also devotion to the Divine Mercy. And “Mary is very much incorporated into the healing services at Mission Church,” says Father Milton. An average of 500 people come to these monthly services.
At the Annunciation, Mary enshrined Jesus and became the ark of the New Covenant. The An -nunciation is a remarkable event in the history of salvation, with God now ready to fulfill his promise, Father Harte says. “The ark was the way God preserved his people and the covenant he made with them. The ark saved people in the flood. Now Mary is the ark where Jesus was ‘housed,’ and Jesus saves his people. With Mary, God saves us from more than waters of the flood: He saves us from eternal damnation.”
Nothing less than the salvation of the world depended on Mary's Yes to God's “proposal.” And the message of the Annunciation is contained in her answer, explains Father Walter Rossi, associate rector and director of pilgrimages at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. “I think those words of Mary could be the model of any Marian shrine.”
With her fiat, she conceived and enshrined the Word in herself, he continues. When people leave “seeking to follow Mary's Yes in their own lives, they too are able to enshrine that Word made flesh — not only in their own lives but in the world.”
Because no one knows Jesus better than Mary, Pope John Paul II says, no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his life and mystery better than she.
“By coming to the Marian shrines, we're being what the Holy Fa ther calls 'schooled in the ways of Mary,’” says Father Rossi. “She's bas ically trying to train and form us in the image and likeness of her Son.”
Shrines’ Special Genius
At the national shrine, Mary points us to Jesus to us in the daily rosary, Miraculous Medal novena, novenas for major Marian feasts, and twice-weekly exposition. “A perfect example of contemplating the face of Christ is sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament,” says Father Rossi.
Mary always tells us to say Yes to Jesus as she did. At the mar riage feast at Cana, Mary says, “Do whatever he tells you,” notes Father Harte. “She always points to Jesus. She wants her children to be always imitating Jesus, following Jesus.”
Mary proclaims Jesus in another way at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine in St. Augustine, Fla., the first Marian shrine in the country. “The symbol of motherhood represented by the statue of Our Lady of La Leche certainly draws people here who would not come otherwise,” explains shrine director Eric Johnson. “They come to pray about having a child and for a safe delivery.
“One of the striking things is the Infant Jesus is in Mary's arms and totally dependent on her in his humanity and divinity,” he continues. “And the mother is holding Jesus out for us to receive him.”
The site's quiet, comforting atmosphere gives visitors, including many non-Catholic tourists, another opportunity to embrace prayer — allowing them moments of grace they might not otherwise have, Johnson says.
At this shrine, Mary also points us to her son in the Prince of Peace Votive Church, erected in 1965 for prayer for world peace. “The church was built specifically to spare us from nuclear war,” says Johnson. Inside, the small shrine to Our Lady of Fatima reminds visitors that Mary asked people to pray the rosary for world peace.
Mary proclaims her Son to about 10 million visitors a year at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, considered the most popular Marian shrine in the world. In her miraculous image on Juan Diego's tilma, she appears to be expecting — a visual reminder of her enshrining Jesus and bringing him to us.
At Lourdes, more than 5 million pilgrims hear her Annunciation from April through October alone. Yearly, another 4 million at Fatima concentrate on Jesus at daily Masses and rosaries, in the perpetual-adoration chapel and at eucharistic processions.
So it is that, everywhere and always, Mary points us to Jesus.
Therein lies the special genius of Marian shrines, says Father Harte. They never cease to show “the close association of the Mother of God with Jesus, her Son.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Oscar Overview: Should They Be Called The Harveys? DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:The March 23 Academy Awards ceremony will be the unofficial coronation of one of Hollywood's most powerful figures: producer/distributor Harvey Weinstein, whose Mira -max Films has been an important combatant in Amer ica's culture wars.
Weinstein's New York-based ministudio has received 40 Oscar nominations for its movies, close to a third of the total and the most any production entity has garnered in more than 60 years.
Three of his releases — Chicago(13 nominations), Gangs of New York(10 nominations) and The Hours(nine nominations) — are up for Best Picture. His Fridahas earned six in other categories, while The Quiet American and Hero have grabbed one each for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film, respectively.
Weinstein is the closest thing contemporary Hollywood has to old-time movie moguls like Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner and Harry Cohn. Like them, he has an unerring eye for talent, a superb sense of showmanship and a willingness to take great risks.
But Weinstein's movies promote values that are radically different from those of Hollywood's founders. These men were all first-generation immigrants who be lieved in the American dream and strove to create a product that reinforced its commendable moral code.
Weinstein, a major fund-raiser for the Democratic Party, was the driving force behind the independent film movement that transformed moviemaking in the 1980s and ‘90s. As part of this movement, his most successful releases (Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Crying Game and Pulp Fiction) deliberately set out to subvert traditional values. Even though Miramax is now part of Disney, most of its nominated films continue this pattern.
Here's an overview of this year's Oscars, with a close look at the Harveys.
Best Picture?
First, the Best Picture nominees.
The Hours is a complex interweaving of three separate stories about three unhappy, educated, upper middle-class women (Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep), whose destinies are tied together by references to Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway and Woolf's attempt to kill herself. It propagates the fashionable idea that the modern-day artist is a kind of saint whose suffering and values should inspire us. Added to the mix are some politically correct notions about the nobility of suicide and the overtly gay lifestyle.
Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese (The Last Temptation of Christ), is equally pretentious. A young Irishman (Leonardo DiCaprio) sets out to kill the nativist gang leader (Daniel Day-Lewis) who murdered his father (Liam Neeson). The two men become friends and compete for the same woman (Cameron Diaz). A would-be epic of romance and revenge, the film attempts to undermine traditional ideas about 19th-century America with a negative, ultra-violent vision of capitalism and our immigrant culture.
Chicago is lighter fare — a colorful, energetic musical whose only purpose is entertainment. Set during the roaring ‘20s, it tells the tale of two showgirls (Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones) who murder the men who did them wrong. A slick, charming lawyer (Richard Gere) manipulates the system to get them off. It's a cynical, amoral view of American society that the audience is encouraged to share. The movie wants us to root for these crimes to go unpunished because the showgirls’ singing and dancing are stylish, and the lawyer's wisecracks are witty.
More uplifting are the two non-Miramax films nominated for Best Picture. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (six nominations) is a swashbuckling action fantasy that remains true to novelist J.R.R. Tolkien's transcendent vision of good and evil. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) leads three members of the fellowship in a defense of a besieged kingdom. Their battle against the demonic-looking armies of the dark lord Sauron (voice of Sala Baker) renders visually one of the movie's central themes: There are times when evil must be stood up to and confronted. At the same time the ring-bearing Frodo (Elijah Wood) hooks up with the child-sized Gollum (voice of Andy Serkis) who once was in possession of the ring himself, producing in that grotesque creature an intense moral struggle that's a compelling demonstration of inner spiritual warfare.
The Pianist (seven nominations, including Best Picture), directed by Roman Polanski (China town), is not a movie of faith. But its harrowing and sometimes absurdist tale of survival shows human nature at its best even in the midst of great evil. Set in Poland during World War II, a Jewish musician (Adrien Brody) is separated from his family after they are shipped off to a Nazi death camp. He hides in deserted apartments as Warsaw goes up in flames outside. The movie depicts both decent and corrupt people on all sides — German, Polish and Jewish.
The Harveys
What of the Mira max films with lesser ambitions?
The Quiet American, based on Graham Greene's novel, criticizes America from a different angle. It argues that our involvement in Vietnam was at least as bad as, if not worse than, the communists’ activities. It dramatizes this message through a love triangle between a world-weary British journalist (Sir Michael Caine), a CIA operative masquerading as an aid worker (Brendan Fraser) and a beautiful Vietnamese woman (Do Thi Hai Yen). Only Greene's unorthodox Catholic faith prevents the film from turning into a knee-jerk anti-American tract.
Like old-time movie moguls, Weinstein has an unerring eye for talent, a superb sense of showmanship and a willingness to take great risks. But Weinstein's movies promote values that are radically different from those of Hollywood's founders.
The heroine of Frida (Selma Hayek) was a real-life mid-20th-century Mex ican painter whose sexually pro mis cuous life style and radical political beliefs are assumed to have lessons to teach us today. Frida marries (twice) the famous muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) and then harbors Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush) during his forced exile from the Soviet Union. At the same time, she overcomes a painful physical handicap to accomplish her art. Like The Hours, the movie is an injection of what were once anti-establishment, avant-garde, bohemian values into mainstream popular culture.
Weinstein's final Oscar entry is Hero, a Chinese martial arts film that has not yet opened in the United States.
A Miramax-like attack on traditional values can be found in other Oscar-nominated movies the minis-tudio didn't produce.
Hero's main competition for Best Foreign Language Film is El Crimen del Padre Amaro, a savage piece of anti-Catholic propaganda whose central character is a Catholic priest (Gael Garcia Bernal) who impregnates a young female parishioner (Ana Claudia Tal ancon) and forces her to have an abortion, which kills her.
But Miramax’ in fluence goes beyond it's own films.
A non-Weinstein film that's made with the Miramax spirit is Far From Heaven(three nominations), a vis ually lush homage to the high-camp melo dramas of Doug -las Sirk (Written on the Wind, Imi tation of Life, etc.). Its mission is to expose the 1950s suburbia of Sirk's films as a cesspool of racist, sexist and homophobic prejudices. A seemingly model husband (Dennis Quaid) and wife (Julianne Moore) are shown to have built their marriage on a series of lies. He is revealed to be a closeted homosexual, and she has erotic longings for her African-American gardener (Dennis Haysbert).
Another Harveyesque nominee is Talk to Her (two nom i nations). It explores a sub ject in which many Catholics might have an interest. Two wo men (Leonor Wat ling and Rosario Flores) in the same hospital are in a deep coma from which they may never awake. The two men to whom they are close (Javier Camara and Dario Gran din etti) are determined to see them cared for with dignity. But Spanish director Pedro Almodovar gives one of his heroes an ugly, perverse motivation that deliberately subverts any Catholic interpretation of the issue.
As Weinstein is elevated to popculture's Mount Olympus, it's important to remember that more than money and glamour are at stake.
Mass entertainment is the primary source of formation for many in our culture. Weinstein's many nominations reflect a continuing decline in the respect for traditional moral codes. It's a trend that may alarm some — and should concern all.
John Prizer is currently based in Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New School in Rome Examines the Cutting Edge in Ethics DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — Peter Litchfield was all set to attend medical school when he sensed he should pursue a slightly different route: bioethics. He considered study in the field so vital for his training that he deferred his acceptance into medical school.
Now in his second year of studies at the School of Bioethics at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University in Rome, Litchfield is scheduled to graduate from the school's master's degree program in June. His goal is to finish medical school and pursue a law degree.
“My desire is to be able to teach medical ethics in a medical school and one day take the formation that I've received to work on public policy, because that is where help is really needed,” said Litchfield, 23, of Johnson City, Tenn.
Medicine, biology, law, philosophy and theology are the pillars of the new academic discipline called bioethics. Study in the field is deemed essential in a society that increasingly wrestles with moral issues related to biomedical technology.
“Whereas specialists in any of these areas can provide helpful input, only those with a global bioethical formation can competently address the complex ethical issues,” the school says on its Web site. “An academic degree in bioethics guarantees the expertise for those who wish to work this field.”
Only in its second year of existence, the school of bioethics’ current enrollment has already exceeded 300 students. They come from all over the world: Austria, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Romania, Slovakia, South America and the United States.
Monika Haas, a student from Austria, is preparing for a career in politics. In particular she hopes to confront the issue of abortion.
“In Austria, there is a great problem with abortion,” she said. “Every second child is aborted. Talking to wounded women and seeing their great pain, I have realized that we need a true recovery of the culture of life.”
Jennifer Miller, 22, came to Rome to meet the challenge posed by the popular misconception that science and faith are antithetical.
“Having worked with scientists and other people in academia, I know how many of them think that faith is useless in the pursuit of science,” she explained.
For Miller, studying bioethics is a unique chance to integrate her different interests in the fields of philosophy, theology, law and science. Her goal is to take these studies back to the United States as a strong Catholic leader working first in the educational field and eventually in politics and public policy-making.
“Coming from Fordham University, where I received my undergraduate degree in physics,” she said, “I saw that scientists get so desensitized that they forget what they are really doing. Science is just another kind of study, devoid of respect for life. There is a need to re-humanize science with a focus on human dignity.”
The Program
The Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University, which is directed by the Legionaries of Christ, offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in its School of Bioethics. The bachelor's program lasts two years and is designed to give students a core foundation in general bioethics, medicine, law, philosophy and theology. The master's program also lasts two years and, in addition to providing further investigation into bioethical principles, it presents students with in-depth case studies and practical research in specific issues. For a doctoral degree, students must research a particular bioethical question.
Professors from the School of Bioethics and visiting international experts lead the programs.
The School of Bioethics also accommodates those who are unable to take too much time away from work to come to Rome to study, offering weeklong courses twice each semester and once during the summer. These courses allow the student to complete the required number of courses for the master's degree.
Information
www.upra.org/bioetica/index.ht ml or write to: bioethics@upra.org
Dr. Juan Estrella, a pediatric cardiologist, along with his wife and five children, came all the way from Argentina to meet the urgent need for bioethicists.
“Bioethics at Regina Apostolorum is providing the ideal complement to my medical career,” Estrella said.
The school of bioethics welcomes students from all walks of life. Lay people and religious alike study together. Father Ken Slaymen, a Maryknoll missionary to Korea and Japan, was one of the first students to complete his master's degree.
“My pastoral activity demands that I have clear ideas in the bioethics field and I got just what I needed at Regina Apostolorum,” he said. Father Slaymen is also a nurse and was gratified to see how well his studies in bioethics complemented his medical expertise.
Mary Kunze was for many years a vice president of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. She obtained her master's degree in business administration from Northwestern University and her master of arts degree in bioethics from the Medical College of Wisconsin. She felt the need to complete her doctoral degree in Rome because she wanted a solid basis in philosophy, theology and the wisdom of the magisterium, none of which was included in her previous, clinical-focused curriculum.
Kunze thought it was very important to be able to serve Catholic hospitals. “Classes in Italian were certainly a challenge,” she said, “but if a Midwesterner like me could do it, anyone can.”
John M. Kunz, who has attended classes at the School of Bioethics, writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Kunz ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:Be Not Afraid of Science
“The question is not if we can, but if we should,” said Cardinal Danneels of the options afforded by new technologies. He said ethics is not required to conform to technology and that good technology should work in tandem with ethics.
As for the Christian response to the concerns that can come with advances in science, Cardinal Danneels said these are really “a call to responsibility and generosity.”
He reminded the audience of the words of Jesus that are often repeated by Pope John Paul II: “Do not be afraid.”
Final Buzzer
Wickenheiser acknowledged taking part in a decision to admit a player who did not meet the NCAA eligibility requirements.
The board named Franciscan Father Dominic Monti as interim president.
Oh Say, Can You See?
THE O'REILLY FACTOR, March 3 — The Fox News show featured a report on Toni Smith, a senior basketball player at Manhattanville College, who has been turning her back on the American flag during the playing of the national anthem as a protest to a war with Iraq.
Her dissent has sparked a backlash on the Purchase, N.Y., campus, reported host Bill O'Reilly. Smith was recently confronted before a game by a Vietnam veteran who held an American flag close to the play-er's face as he demanded that she not turn away.
The college, founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, has so far defended Smith's right to protest, as did O'Reilly.
Civic Dispirit
CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING, March 5 — While many colleges and universities are making strides toward integrating civic morality into campus life, a new Carnegie report concludes that no college has yet found a way to integrate civic education into every aspect of student life.
The report, “Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of Moral and Civic Responsibility,” focuses on a secular and social concept of morality that is manifest in such areas as volunteerism.
The researchers looked at more than 100 colleges and focused on 12 in detail, including the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.
No Strings
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, March 10 — The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand an appeals court ruling last year that said a Tennessee government agency could legally issue tax-exempt municipal bonds to help build facilities at Lipscomb University, according to the Associated Press.
The ruling was made even though Lipscomb, affiliated with the Church of Christ, is “pervasively sectarian.”
The court's action ends a 12-year legal fight and lets stand a practice — widespread throughout the United States — of issuing municipal bonds on behalf of private institutions.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pro-Lifers: Look Back and Step Up DATE: 03/23/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: March 23-29, 2003 ----- BODY:BACK TO THE D RAWING BOARD :THE FUTURE OF THE PRO -LIFE M OVEMENT
Teresa R. Wagner, editor St. Augustine's Press, 2003 350 pages, $20 To order: (800) 621-2736 www.staugustine.net
Three decades after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions legalized and removed state restrictions on abortion, Teresa Wagner is realistic. “[I]t is time for the pro-life movement to ask tough questions,” she writes, “to entertain fresh ideas, and to consider new directions.”
Wagner, a former lobbyist with the National Right to Life Committee, has put together an informative and enlightening collection of essays. Abortion is here sized up from all the important angles — legal, medical/scientific, political, cultural — and with an eye toward where it all could be leading.
Pulling no punches, Wagner sets an unambiguous tone in her preface. “It would be both untrue and overly dramatic to say that the pro-life movement has lost,” she writes. “But we are not winning. And the sooner we face it, the sooner we change it.”
Today's pro-life advocates are confronted with prospects going far beyond the civic debate over whether or not abortion should be legal. Current and future challenges, all related to protecting life, include the destruction of embryos in stem-cell research, cloning, and the long-term treatment of physical and psychological wounds related to the destruction of human life. In the book's foreword, Father Richard John Neuhaus writes that, for all that is new and threatening, abortion remains at the heart of the contest for what Pope John Paul II calls the culture of life. “We know what our goal is: Every unborn child protected in law and welcomed in life.”
Some chapters offer overviews and helpful summaries of legal, legislative and medical developments. One of the best qualities of the book is that it attempts, in many places at least, to stand back from the culture wars in order to gain perspective. Most of the contributors offer an honest look at past achievements and misjudgments, suggesting new, thoughtful directions.
One of the disappointments to be found in a few places is the use of rhetoric that caricatures opposing views. For example, the second essay in the legal section of the book is titled “Only Liars Need Apply.” It begins with the statement: “On the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Americans may discover that the U.S. Senate will no longer confirm an honest person to the Supreme Court. Powerful pro-death forces seek to impose one non-negotiable condition on all nominees. ‘If you are willing to to lie about the meaning of the Constitution, you are not qualified to be a Justice.’ In short, only liars need apply.”
Such inflammatory language shows disrespect for two of the nation's highest institutions. It will change no minds and do little to advance the human rights under assault.
Also, considering the wide range of contributors, it is not surprising to find a certain unevenness in the quality of the 26 chapters.
Still, all things considered, this book well serves what its title suggests. Going back to the drawing board does not mean giving in to defeat. Instead, the title is an exhortation to pro-lifers to reassess their status, refocus their mission and refine their strategies. Fallow times can be periods of fertility and great promise.
Wayne A. Holst has taught religion and culture at the University of Calgary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne A. Holst ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: What Did Bishop Carlson Write To Sen. Daschle? DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Report: Bishop Told Senator Not to Claim Catholicism
Features Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.—Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has reportedly been ordered by his bishop to stop identifying himself as Catholic.
Daschle, who was raised Catholic, has not only voted to keep abortion legal at all stages in an unborn child's life but also has participated in direct fund raising for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (now called NARAL Pro-Choice America).
An article in Weekly Standard by Jody Bottum and MSNBC's “Joe Scarborough Show” both reported April 17 that Bishop Robert Carlson of the Sioux Falls Diocese wrote a letter to Daschle instructing him to “remove from his congressional biography and campaign documents all references to his standing as a member of the Catholic Church.”
Neither Bishop Carlson's office nor Daschle's office was willing to comment. Instead, both sides released press statements.
Chris Bois, a staff member in Daschle's press office, e-mailed the Register the following statement by Daschle:
“I have been a Catholic all my life, and I will remain one. Every American's religious convictions are deeply personal, and I am not going to participate in a debate that is intended to politicize anyone's religious beliefs, especially during Holy Week.
“I have had the benefit of Bishop Carlson's guidance on many public and private issues, and that relationship will continue. However, I will not discuss our private conversations in the media.”
Donna Cannon, administrative assistant in the Diocese of Sioux Falls’ communications office, forwarded a statement from Bishop Carlson.
“It is true that Sen. Tom Daschle and I have had a number of discussions on the abortion question and many other issues,” the statement said.
“As a religious leader in South Dakota, I have spoken out on a whole variety of issues over the years at the local, state and national level,” it continued. “I have encouraged the senator to reconsider his position with regard to abortion and his support for NARAL. However, other than inviting people to pray for the senator's conversion, I do not believe it is appropriate for me to discuss my pastoral relationship with the senator or anyone else. I would never break off dialogue or a pastoral relationship with anyone.”
Neither Daschle's office nor Bishop Carlson's office would confirm whether the letter from the bishop to Daschle reported by the Weekly Standard had been sent.
“Bishop Carlson and Sen. Daschle have had correspondence,” said Jerry Klein, chancellor for the Sioux Falls Diocese, “but to characterize any of that does not allow the bishop to carry out a pastoral relationship.”
According to a follow-up article by Bottum, books and arts editor with the Weekly Standard, offices of both the bishop and the senator were making determined efforts to discover who leaked the information about the bishop's letter.
Whatever its status, the letter has people in South Dakota talking.
“I' thankful that Bishop Carlson had the courage to send such a letter to Daschle,” said Greg Balfrage, a radio talk show host at KELO-AM 1320 based in Sioux Falls. “Bishop Carlson has reminded all Catholic Christians that we must do more than simply give lip service to our religious beliefs. We must exemplify those values in our public lives.”
Not the First Run-In
This is not the first time Bishop Carlson and Daschle have sparred.
In 1997, the two publicly disagreed over partial-birth abortion prior to a Senate vote on the issue.
While Daschle said he supported a ban of the procedure, he offered a compromise that allowed exceptions for women who claimed mental or physical health reasons for having the procedure. Bishop Carlson described the compromise as a “smokescreen ... for pro-abortion senators and President Clinton.”
In response, Daschle criticized the bishop on the Senate floor for speaking in a way “more identified with the radical right than with thoughtful religious leadership.”
Then, just before the November elections, on Oct. 29, 2002, NARAL sent out via e-mail a national fund-raising appeal written on NARAL's behalf by Daschle.
In response Bishop Blase Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., ordered that a letter be read at all Catholic Masses the weekend prior to the election.
In that letter, Bishop Cupich said, “Since Sen. Daschle has ... decided to frame this year's election uniquely as a referendum on abortion, he should know that there are citizens of good will in both parties who reject this extreme position and who cannot let it go unchallenged,” and he urged all eligible voters to vote.
Bishop Carlson later told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader he was mystified by Daschle's position on abortion.
“NARAL claims him as one of its No. 1 supporters,” Bishop Carlson said. “I don' understand how he can be in touch with South Dakotans as much as he is and yet consistently have a pro-abortion record.”
Vatican Notification
Any action taken by Bishop Carlson appears justified in light of the Vatican's recent document examining the role of Catholics in public life.
In January, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.”
That document states, “A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.”
Bishop William Weigand of Sacramento, Calif., was the first U.S. bishop to refer to the note in public criticism of a politician when in late January he criticized Catholic California Gov. Gray Davis’ public support of abortion.
Bishop Weigand told the Register, “I have to say clearly that anyone—politician or otherwise—who thinks it acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk and is not in good standing with the Church.”
Daschle is one of at least 12 pro-abortion Catholics in the U.S. Senate.
In January, the Stafford, Va.-based American Life League listed Daschle in its “Deadly Dozen” advertisements—ads that looked much like “wanted” posters suggesting such senators were “wanted” for fraudulently claiming the Catholic faith.
The organization also mailed a letter to the bishops responsible for the 12 senators, calling on bishops to “actively prevent openly pro-abortion politicians ... from receiving holy Communion.”
Only Bishop Carlson responded. “It is my understanding that [Daschle] neither attends church nor receives holy Communion on the rare occasions when he is in church,” he wrote. “I have documented this and again would be interested if you have information to the contrary.”
“We respect Bishop Carlson and his attempt to deal privately with the senator,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “It would truly add insult to injury if anyone in Sen. Daschle's office had anything to do with releasing private information to the media. It is obvious that Bishop Carlson takes his responsibility as a shepherd of the Church very seriously.”
Her group was not alone in its efforts to shine a light on the behavior of pro-abortion senators. The Austerlitz, N.Y.-based Catholic Family Association of America believes the clamor over Daschle's Catholicism is a direct result of its prayer effort.
In January 2002, Catholic Family Association of America initiated a Divine Mercy Prayer Project soliciting prayer and fasting for the souls of prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians and encouragement for their bishops. The organization handed out 30,000 prayer cards at the January 2002 March for Life in Washington, D.C., and distributed another 20,000 across the country.
To date, Catholic Family Association of America has received pledges for approximately 7,500 days of prayer and fasting specifically for Daschle and Bishop Carlson.
The apostolate also sees the power of prayer in the timing of the public spat.
“The Daschle situation became public on the very eve of the novena to the Divine Mercy, which began Good Friday evening and completes on Divine Mercy Sunday,” said Timothy Chichester, president of the Catholic Family Association of America.
“The senator needs to understand that, to paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, 'Sin makes you stupid,’ “Chichester said. “His self-destructive behavior is in direct proportion to his prideful rejection of Sioux Falls’ Bishop Carlson's solicitous efforts to help him regain a Catholic conscience.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: White House Defends Santorum DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON—When Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., made controversial comments about homosexuality in an interview published April 22, Democrats and homosexual activists were hoping public pressure would force Republicans to remove him from the Senate leadership.
They compared his comments to statements about segregation made last year by Trent Lott, who eventually stepped aside as Senate majority leader.
And while President Bush helped to push out Lott by harshly criticizing him, this time the White House has come to Santorum's defense.
“The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator” and in his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said April 25.
“The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes,” Fleischer added.
The controversy began when Santorum, who is Catholic, gave an interview with the Associated Press on April 7. The interview was regarding Lawrence v. Texas, a court case currently before the Supreme Court in which the justices might rule that state laws against sodomy violate the federal Constitution.
Santorum worried that if the Supreme Court, based on the constitutional “right to privacy,” overturns laws it will leave no legal basis for opposing other forms of sexual relationships now condemned by most of society.
“And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home,” Santorum said, “then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
On polygamy, adultery and sodomy, he continued: “All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”
Homosexual organizations immediately pounced on the comments, calling for Republicans to remove Santorum as Senate Republican conference chairman.
“Sen. Santorum's remarks to the Associated Press betray a deep discrimination against an entire group of Americans that is inappropriate for a senior leader of the U.S. Senate,” said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual activist organization in Washington, D.C. “We need leaders who will unite the country and affirm the inherent dignity, value and equality of every citizen—not just the citizens he happens to like.”
Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, criticized homosexual activists who tried to compare Santorum's remarks to Lott's remarks about segregation.
“To be anti-black is to be opposed to someone on the basis of his ancestry. To be opposed to homosexuality is to be opposed to what a person does,” Donohue said. “There is a fundamental difference between race and behavior and attempts to obscure these differences are disingenuous.”
Santorum said his comments were specific to the court case and the implications of overturning a state law against sodomy on the basis of the “right to privacy.”
“In the interview, I expressed the same concern as many constitutional scholars and discussed arguments put forward by the state of Texas as well as Supreme Court justices,” Santorum said. “If such a law restricting personal conduct is held unconstitutional, so could other existing state laws.”
Santorum's comments were in the same vein as those made by the Pontifical Council For The Family in the year 2000 Vatican document on homosexual marriage, “Family, Marriage And “De Facto” Unions”
“Marriage and the family are of public interest,” said the document (No. 11); “they are the fundamental nucleus of society and the State and should be recognized and protected as such. Two or more persons may decide to live together, with or without a sexual dimension but this cohabitation is not for that reason of public interest. The public authorities can not get involved in this private choice. De facto unions are the result of private behavior and should remain on the private level.”
Ken Connor, head of the Family Research Council, said Santorum's remarks are “hardly a novel point of view.”
“Many legal scholars have made the same argument,” Connor said. “The law has historically respected and protected the marital union and has distinguished it from acts outside that union, such as fornication, adultery and sodomy.”
“To extend homosexual sodomy the same protections given to the marital union,” Connor added, “would undermine the definition of marriage and could lead to homosexual marriage.”
In the 1986 Supreme Court case Bowers v. Hardwick, a majority of the Supreme Court voiced concern that a board privacy ruling would have additional collateral impact in addition to the elimination of sodomy laws.
If the right to privacy protected voluntary sexual conduct between consenting adults, the justices wrote, “it would be difficult, except by fiat, to limit the claimed right to homosexual conduct while leaving exposed to prosecution adultery, incest and other sexual crimes even though they are committed in the home.”
Justice Byron White, writing for the majority, wrote that the high court would not overturn state sodomy laws in 1986 for that reason. “We are unwilling to start down that road,” he wrote.
Constitutional experts and Supreme Court watchers say the high court is deeply divided about the issue today and it remains unclear how the decision will come down.
Family activists are upset about the attacks on Santorum because the Supreme Court might overturn the Texas law prohibiting sodomy. And they are also worried that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts will force the Bay State to recognize same-sex marriages.
Connor called the criticism of Santorum an attempt “to intimidate defenders of marriage and silence critics of the homosexual political agenda.”
But the uproar over Santorum is expected to die down, observers say.
“The president wants to be able to dictate what the debate is about. ... In the short term, this is a major annoyance and distraction,” said Stu Rothenberg, a political analyst. But he acknowledged that the controversy would likely dissipate.
“I think that six months from now, we' be on to eight other controversies,” he said.
Timothy Carney, a political reporter for the Evans & Novak Political Report, said the controversy would continue only if Santorum backed away from his own comments.
“If Santorum is straightforward and honest about what he believes on the subject and his faith's teachings on the matter, the damage to him will be small, and the upside may be greater,” Carney said. “If he equivocates and waffles, he destroys any chances to ascend to majority leader or governor, because he will simply embolden his critics.”
But Santorum appears unlikely to backpedal from his statements. In fact, he has reaffirmed what he has said.
“To suggest that my comments, which are the law of the land and were the reason the Supreme Court decided the case in 1986, are somehow intolerant, I would just argue that it is not,” he said.
“I have nothing, absolutely nothing, against anyone who's homosexual,” he continued. “If that's their orientation, then I accept that, and I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So, it's not the person, it's the person's actions [that are significant].”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Peterson Double-Murder Case Exposes Unborn Double Standard DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:MODESTO, Calif.—The case involving the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son have abortion-rights advocates running for cover.
If a jury convicts Scott Peterson of killing his wife and son, Connor, he could face execution. By law, however, Connor could have died the same day at an abortion clinic without anyone getting charged with even a petty offense.
Laws in California and 23 other states allow prosecutors to seek murder charges when the victim is an unborn child. In all of those states, because of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, abortion is legal. In some, including California, abortion is allowed throughout the third trimester.
“For anyone who's following this case, it has to drive home the lie that sustains the abortion industry,” said Dan
Caplis, a Denver attorney who is an expert on the issue. “The lie is that what's terminated in an abortion is something other than a person. For this to have been a double murder, however, the so-called ‘fetus’ has to be a person endowed with rights.”
Caplis, who is Catholic, said the defense team in Scott Peterson's case might have no choice but to raise the abortion issue in his defense should a death penalty sentence appear imminent.
“This is a potential death-penalty case only if he's convicted of double murder,” Caplis explained. “Therefore, the defense attorney may argue that the death of Connor does not equate to murder. The defense can point out that because it would have been lawful to abort Connor, his death cannot be considered murder.”
That argument has already been made in California, Caplis said, in a case involving a robbery that resulted in the death of an unborn child but not the mother. In that case, the California Supreme Court rejected the argument that because the mother could have lawfully killed the child, the baby's death should not be considered murder.
“But that doesn' mean the case won' be made again on appeal, if Peterson is convicted of double murder,” Caplis said.
The whole dilemma so frightened pro-abortionist Marva Stark, president of the Morris County, N.J., chapter of the National Organization for Women, that she spoke publicly April 19 to denounce the double-murder charge against Peterson.
“If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted they could call it murder,” Stark said. She continued by explaining how a murder conviction for the death of Connor could set a damaging precedent that would call into question legalized abortion.
In California, the Peterson case had people talking about the rights of unborn children even before Stark made her statement.
“At least this case is raising awareness, and that comment from the National Organization for Women helped raise awareness even more,” said Nancy Bonnet, director of the respect life office of the Diocese of Stockton, Calif., to which Modesto belongs. “The National Organization for Women is suddenly good for the pro-life cause, and I hope they keep talking. They don' come across as loving and caring when a ranking official says that whoever killed this child should suffer no consequence because it wouldn' look good for the abortion industry.”
Pro-abortionists figured that out quickly, however, soon after Stark's comments sent shockwaves throughout the country. Former NOW president Patricia Ireland spoke to TV cameras in a rushed effort to counter Stark and concede that whoever killed Laci and Connor Peterson committed double murder.
However, at press time the National Organization for Women headquarters in Washington, D.C., had issued no official statement about the double-murder charge. When asked whether NOW concurred with Ireland's statement, a spokeswoman told National Review Online only that Ireland no longer speaks for the organization.
Caplis said he hopes the Peterson case, or a similar high-profile murder case involving an unborn child, could make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court would be asked to uphold or strike down state laws that allow murder charges involving unborn victims.
“It could force the court to look at the underlying flaw in Roe v. Wade, which is the lie that says a fetus is something other than a person,” he said. “You can' have a murder victim if the victim isn' a person with rights. Yet the key to Roe v. Wade is the Supreme Court's unwillingness to recognize an unborn child as a person with rights.”
In other words, the court might find that it can' have it both ways. If it allows states to punish killers of unborn children as murderers, Caplis said, it might have to allow states the option of outlawing abortion as well.
In 26 states, prosecutors have no good options when a criminal's conduct results in the death of an unborn child even if the aggression occurs only days before the expected delivery date. Caplis found that out the hard way in Colorado, where he represented a client whose baby died at eight months’ gestation because a drunken driver collided with her car.
“I tried to get a judge to force the district attorney to charge the drunk with vehicular homicide, but he refused to do it,” Caplis said.
Laws that allow murder charges involving unborn children face serious opposition, and not only from the abortion industry. The American Civil Liberties Union formally came out against such laws in 1996, saying a pregnant woman and her “fetus” should never be regarded as separate independent entities.
“We have serious reservations about legislation designed to protect fetuses, because it can endanger women's rights by reinforcing claims of ‘fetal rights’ in the law,” said an ACLU position statement.
In the wake of Stark's comments, leading abortion proponents are refusing to comment about the Peterson case.
Calls made by the Register to the National Abortion Rights Action League and its state chapters in California and Colorado were not returned. Rebecca Farmer, national spokeswoman for NOW, did not return calls. Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for Free Choice—a pro-abortion organization denounced as “fraudulent” by the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—refused comment.
“This is an absolute no-win [situation] for the abortion industry,” Caplis said. “The industry is realizing that very quickly, and it will go as low profile as it possibly can regarding the Peterson case.”
Feminist author and journalist Pamela White, who describes herself as “ardently pro-choice,” said so-called choice activists fear the pro-life movement will wrongfully exploit the death of Connor Peterson to further its cause.
“Nobody's suggesting that his death isn' awful, and I can' imagine anyone in the pro-choice community thinking it's terrible for the suspect to be charged with double murder,” White said. “And yes, Connor was human, and I don' believe he was a lizard or a parakeet. But as long as that child is living inside of its mother, then she has a choice whether or not to participate in the arrangement. The killer of that child didn' have choice in this matter.”
Caplis said arguments such as the one posed by White illustrate the insanity of a culture in which abortion is lawful while other acts of aggression against the unborn are punishable by death.
“California law tries to deal with the hypocrisy issue by providing for a murder charge against a victim who isn' technically defined as human,” Caplis said. “The wording allows for charges if the suspect's victim is a ‘human’ or a ‘fetus.’ But that's a charade, because it's a homicide charge. You cannot be charged with homicide if what you killed isn' human. It's not homicide in this country to kill a dog.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Little Flower Blossoms in Yale Neuroscientist DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk (pa-HOLE-check) is a parish priest who happens to hold a doctorate in neuroscience from Yale, and travels widely speaking on bioethics.
Before he worked at St. Patrick's in Falmouth, Mass., he worked as a molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He holds four undergraduate degrees (molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, biochemistry and philosophy) from the University of Arizona and serves on the ethics committee at St. Anne's Hospital in Fall River, Mass. He recently spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake.
Where are you from originally?
I grew up in Tucson, Ariz., and am the oldest of five children. I have four sisters. Two of my sisters are adopted. My father was an astro-physicist at the University of Arizona and my mother was a nurse.
Is there an early experience that led you to pursue science?
I grew up in a family where there was a lot of discussion about science. Jesuit scientists from the Vatican observatory at the University of Arizona would come by the house and were friends of the family. I enjoyed interacting with them a great deal growing up. They are doing interesting work as astronomers and priests, and are trying to build bridges between science and faith by keeping the dialogue going.
At age 15, I won a fellowship that was sponsored by the American Heart Association. As a result, I was assigned to a summer rotation with Dr. Jack Copeland, a cardiac surgeon at the University of Arizona Medical Center. I spent the summer in the operating room watching surgeries and going on rounds. I was able to shadow a surgeon in most aspects of his daily existence, visit patients, see the inner workings of a large hospital, even go to the morgue for autopsies. It was a wonderful summer that drew me in the direction of the biosciences.
What led to your vocation? My vocation was connected to a lot of things, but it was primarily related to an exposure to St. Thérèse of Lisieux and her life. During a trip to Italy when I was 17, I read her autobiography and was struck by her persistence in going after her own vocation as a Carmelite nun. That was really helpful to me. Here was a 15-year-old girl who was willing to go to the mother superior, to her bishop and all the way to the Pope to plead her case. She knew what she was about. I knew at that point that I needed to pursue my own calling with a real persistence.
You have spoken frequently on cloning and have even testified on cloning before the legislature. In a nutshell, what's wrong with cloning?
The first thing that is most distinctly wrong about it, and the Church has stated this quite clearly, is that cloning participates in the basic evil of moving procreation out of the setting of committed marital intimacy and into the laboratory. Human procreation is not meant to happen in that setting because that opens it up to all kinds of ways that you can violate human dignity.
There is a dignity both to the process of procreation as established by God through sexual self-giving and the dignity of the life itself, which is engendered by that process. Cloning threatens human dignity on both of those levels.
Cloning also represents a sort of genetic engineering. Instead of choosing just a few features you' like your offspring to have—for example, greater height or greater intelligence—cloning allows you to choose all of the features, so it represents an extremely serious form of domination and manipulation by parents over their own children. It represents a type of parental power that parents are not intended to have. Ultimately, cloning is a type of human breeding, a despotic attempt by some individuals to dominate and pre-determine the make-up of others.
With cloning you also distort the relationships between generations. If a woman were to clone herself using her own egg, you wouldn' need to have a man involved at all. Oddly, she would end up giving birth to her own identical twin—a twin sister who is also her daughter.
There has been much discussion of reproductive cloning vs. therapeutic cloning. Both types are seen as immoral by the Church, are they not?
There really is no difference. You go through the same identical steps to make the cloned embryo. Once you have the cloned embryo, it is from there you make the decision about what you will do. You have two options: One is to implant it into the uterus and cause a live birth, and the other is to destroy that embryo and harvest its stem cells. If you want to be really precise about the moral evil here, there is a greater evil in therapeutic cloning, where you create life for the purpose of destroying it. With a cloned birth, at least you would end up with a baby that is alive.
All of us have our origins in the embryo, and embryos should not be instrumentalized for research purposes, even if the ends that might be obtained through that research are indisputably very good ends. It would not be acceptable ever to do this kind of research that depends on embryonic destruction. Sometimes I like to say to people, “As a former embryo myself, I feel qualified to speak to these matters.”
An embryo is a human being, a being that is human, that is not some other kind of animal. Whether it's a person yet at the moment of conception, whether it's been ensouled—those are very interesting intellectual discussions but they' not ultimately relevant. In the moral analysis, what's critical is that once you' a being who is human, a being with the potential to become an adult, then you are a bearer of human rights.
Based on your knowledge, has anyone been successful in cloning a human being?
No. Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., has been trying to do so for therapeutic purposes, but its early embryos have only grown to the six-cell stage. You have to get past the eight-cell stage before you can talk about the embryo growing under its own impetus. Thus far, no human embryos have gotten beyond this stage.
In fact, recent research in the journal Science suggests that given current techniques, cloning humans may not be possible at all. Researchers have been trying to clone primates for years. One researcher in a laboratory that specializes in primate research has tried more than 300 times to clone monkeys. The best she could get was a placenta with no fetus. Primates are extremely resistant to cloning. That's why most scientists give zero credence to the claims of the Raelians that they have already cloned four or five humans.
What's at the heart of scientists’ inability to clone primates and humans?
In primate cloning procedures, it looks as if the mitotic spindle, which is critical to the normal process of cell division, gets damaged in a way that the cell cannot recover from. The chromosomes do not move properly into the daughter cells and you get abnormalities that look like they will be very hard to surmount using current techniques.
How did we get here?
All of this stems from our society accepting in-vitro fertilization in the 1970s and 1980s. In-vitro fertilization is the quintessential slippery slope. Commercial interests came in and started offering it as standard practice. Today, our society has basically accepted in-vitro.
The Catholic Church is one of the few voices out there that has been consistently opposed to it, and now we stand on the brink of confronting previously unimaginable issues about embryonic stem cells, cloning and genetic engineering. It is not recognized enough that invitro is what led us to where we are today.
What is your primary concern regarding the direction we seem to be headed?
My worry about these things always comes from the perspective of a consumerist society. There is a real danger of a consumerist eugenics in the future. Every parent desires a perfect baby. This is a natural aspiration. But in a biotech-laden society under the shadow of consumerism this aspiration can easily become disordered.
As parents are offered new possibilities for choosing their children's characteristics, they are unlikely to be able to resist the temptation. By focusing on their desires, they become oblivious to the various evils, which are part and parcel of the fulfillment of those desires.
As huge industries emerge to assure the satisfaction of those desires, the profit motive will preclude any serious examination of the inherent moral objectionability of what is transpiring. This is precisely what has occurred with in-vitro fertilization. I see that as the looming threat on the horizon.
As a civilization we have by and large adopted an erroneous initial assumption, namely, that when I get married I have the right to a baby. That is out there, and people have bought it hook, line and sinker. We don' have a right to a baby. A baby is not a possession. When we get married, we have a right instead to those acts which are, in and of themselves, disposed to the procreation of new life.
Life itself is a gift. If God gives you that gift, great! If he does not, that doesn' somehow throw open the doors for you to do whatever you want in order to lay hold on a life.
I repeat this point often: Human life is a gift, not a right, not a possession. It is a blessing to be realized and embraced only via the specific and sacrosanct means God has fore-ordained, namely, the marital acts of husband and wife. That way human procreation is not dehumanized and depersonalized, and the human life that is brought into being with God's help is not turned into an object of manipulation but is treated as a unique and irrepeatable subject to be safeguarded, esteemed and loved at all points from conception to natural death.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: It's All Relevant: Catholic Radio Casts Wider Net for More Listeners DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:MINNEAPOLIS—They' everywhere—thousands of baptized Catholics with minimal faith formation.
They' looking for answers to the complications they' facing in their lives—anxiety, financial struggles and marital problems—but they' not finding solutions during their church experiences. When they go to church, they know they' fulfilling their duties, but they can' explain the Mass, the rosary or what the sacraments mean.
Jeff Cavins, former host of Eternal Word Television Network's popular “Life on the Rock” series, knows people who fit this description. They need to be re-evangelized, he said, so they can avoid the split in the Vatican II constitution Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World): “The split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”
Cavins hopes to help people bridge that gap between faith and everyday life by offering what he calls “relevant radio.”
“The main part of the definition of relevant radio is radio that speaks to people in the predicament they' in,” said Cavins, the executive director of programming and production for Starboard Network, a Catholic radio network based in Green Bay, Wis. “It's relevant to their daily lives. It brings the message of the Church to their situation.”
Today's Catholic broadcasting world focuses a lot on devotional and apologetic content, which is fine, he said. But what often happens is that the content of the faith is not always understood because the average Catholic does not understand the “subculture language” that broadcasters are accustomed to using, he said.
“We cannot assume that the unchurched or the Protestants understand our ‘family’ language,” Cavins said. “Therefore, we have to adjust our language to them, as Archbishop John Foley [president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications] suggests in his document on communications. We have to bring them the truth of the faith, but we have to deliver and communicate it in a way they understand. If our goal is to broadcast to the faithful, then our language will reflect that. Our vision is to cast our nets a little wider.”
Cavins’ net was cast April 21, the day his radio show, “Morning Air,” made its debut on 10 Starboard-owned and -operated stations, primarily in the Midwest, including the Ave Maria Network. The program, which airs Monday through Friday from 7-9 a.m. Central time, also airs on Saturdays with content based on the best shows from the week. “Morning Air's “ estimated listening audience is approximately 20 million people, according to Sherry Brownrigg, president of Starboard Network. Listeners can also tune in on the network's Web site at www.relevantradio.com
The show's content is timely, segment driven and theme centered.
Guests come from the Catholic world, but Cavins will also interview non-Catholic experts.
“Right now, the majority of Catholics take their lead when it comes to marriage and family and love and finances from Oprah and Dr. Phil and Rush Limbaugh and others,” Cavins said. “We believe that Rome sets the pace. And our job is to communicate that to the people.”
The program also includes listener call-ins, Catholic/Christian music, stock market reports, news, breaking news, weather, sports and a report from Rome.
“One of the great concerns we have at Starboard Network is we see a breakdown between the universal Church in Rome and the local parish,” Cavins said. “We want to be a conduit to bring the heart and message and passion of the Holy Father to the average person out there.”
Realizing it also wanted to be obedient with the U.S. bishops, the network was recently approved by the bishops’ conference as a national Catholic media outlet, a prestigious stamp of endorsement.
Other programs broadcast on the network include Dr. Ray Guarendi's “The Doctor Is In” (Guarendi is also a Register “Family Matters” columnist), Gregory Popcak's “Heart, Mind and Strength” and “Al Kresta Live.”
More Stations
Catholic radio has grown rapidly in the past several years; there are about 55 Catholic-owned stations around the country, according to Stephen Gajdosik, executive director of the Catholic Radio Association. That number is up from 20 stations about five years ago.
Doug Sherman, president of Immaculate Heart Radio and founder of Reno, Nev., Catholic radio station KIHM, said catechetical, evangelizing and devotional shows make up the majority of his station's programming. He's also intent on acquiring new stations.
In the years since KIHM started broadcasting in January 1997, he has gotten five other Catholic stations on the air, all in California and Nevada. Two more stations are being built, and he's looking to add two more stations to his network, including expansion into the San Francisco area.
” The Catholic faith is so powerful because it is truth, and it has an impact on people that you might never suppose,” said Sherman, adding that his stations have the potential to reach about 5 million listeners. “Our job is to broadcast the faith and let it land wherever it will.”
KBVM, a station based in Portland, Ore., has another philosophy when it comes to reaching its listeners. When it went on the air—on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, 1989—there wasn' a lot of Catholic programming available. So it broadcast music during the day and went silent at night. Now it airs music during the daytime and catechetical teachings at night, seven days a week.
“We viewed music as a means of evangelizing,” said Steven Moffitt, KBVM's general manager. “We know it works. The reason it does is because music has the ability to bring us into contact with transcendent beauty. That beauty attracts us so greatly that we want more of it.”
Last December, the station received a call from a grateful listener, Moffitt said. Several months earlier, she had resolved to commit suicide. She wanted to play music in the background as she carried out her plan. So she turned on the radio, which happened to be tuned to
KBVM, and what she heard was beautiful music—so beautiful that it touched her soul and caused her to change her mind.
“In other words, she was brought into contact with transcendent beauty, and that beauty caused her to make a moral choice for good, changing her life,” Moffitt said. “To this day, she still listens to us.”
Carlos Briceno is based in Seminole, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceno ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Bishop Says Priests Will Keep Confessional Seal
WCAX-TV (Vermont), April 16—Vermont's Bishop Kenneth Angell announced on April 15 that priests in his diocese would never be permitted to breach the seal of the confessional—as a proposed state law would require, according to a local TV station.
The bill would compel Vermont clerics and other Church employees to report any suspected child abusers to the police. The bishop said he would support the law if it allowed an exemption for sacramental confession.
“What is told in the confessional stays in the confessional,” Bishop Angell said. “The priest is not allowed to talk to anybody about it. Even if the penitent said, ‘Go ahead, talk,’ I couldn' do it. And if that meant that I' have to go to jail, I' have to go to jail. That includes all the priests in the state of Vermont and beyond.”
The bishop pointed out that priests who hear confessions of criminal acts are supposed to order the penitent to go to authorities.
Easter a Time for Conversions
The story noted that the ecumenical movement has helped break the barriers to conversion, as members of different faiths are exposed to others’ beliefs.
Egon Mayer, an author of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, reported that some 16% of Americans said they' changed religions at some point in their lives.
It seems interfaith marriages are a key factor in conversions—some 43% of former Jews now identify as Catholics; the article speculates many married Catholics, since the two religious groups tend to live in close proximity in major American cities.
The story noted that such conversions rose steadily by 10 to 15% each decade throughout the 20th century, stalling in the 1960s, then rising again during the current pontificate.
Last year, some 161,000 adults joined the Church—up from 80,000 in 1973.
Catholic Parody Play Opened on Good Friday
CATHOLIC LEAGUE, April 17—“The Children of Fatima” opened on Good Friday at Rider University, an independent school in New Jersey, a move that was criticized by the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights.
Written by Michael Friel, the plot revolves around a Catholic schoolboy in the 1960s who fears the world will end when the pope reveals the third secret of Fatima. The play features a drunken Irish priest and an “[expletive] Sister Regina Coeli,” according to the Princeton Packet, a local New Jersey newspaper.
Catholic League noted that a friend of the play's author called it “Catholic bashing.”
President William Donohue inquired in a press release: “Why is the play opening on Good Friday?”
He continued: “I am asking [Rider University] President [Bart] Luedeke to reassure Catholic students that the university does not endorse this play.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Baptized By the Pope: Ohio Teen's Journey Begins - and Ends - in Rome DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:TOLEDO, Ohio—Growing up in what he once referred to in a college essay as the ghetto of Toledo, Ohio, 19-year-old Baron Thoma never dreamed of going to Rome, let alone meeting Pope John Paul II.
But on Holy Saturday, he not only met the Pope but also was baptized, confirmed and received his first Communion from the man he can now call his “Holy Father.”
Thoma, who was raised in a family of 11 children with three different biological fathers, said in an interview that he was still in shock and awe after his reception into the Church during the April 19 Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. He was the only American in a group of seven people who were baptized and confirmed by the Pope.
Speaking from Rome, where he is now living with the Miles Jesu community, Thoma said he learned about a month before Easter that he would be coming into the Church during the Pope's Holy Saturday Vigil when his superior asked him if he wanted to be baptized by the Pope.
“I said, ‘Yeah,” Thoma said. “We had a meeting with Cardinal [Alfonso] Lopez Trujillo [president of the Pontifical Council for the Family] ... Then everything happened.”
Thoma said he was excused from the mandatory two-year catechumenate because of the formation he was undergoing in the Miles Jesu community. On March 8 he was officially received as a catechumen at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
At the three-and-a-half-hour-long Easter Vigil, besides being baptized, confirmed and receiving his first holy Communion, he was among those who presented the offertory gifts to the Pope.
After the vigil, he said, he was able to greet the Pope and wish him a happy Easter. “He gave me a rosary,” Thoma added.
Growing up, Thoma had only a minimal exposure to religion and church through his Baptist stepfather before his family was split up and placed in foster care. Later, in a foster home, he became involved in a Lutheran youth group. But when he met the family of Thad and Cindy Beeley through their son Mark, a high school classmate, he became intrigued with their Catholic faith.
Cindy Beeley said Thoma moved in with the family in February 2002 after he had difficulty living on his own following his release from foster care. The Beeleys, who have six children, also have taken in other young people in the past and their Perrysburg, Ohio, home is often a gathering place for their children's friends.
“We' just open and friendly and as far as the faith goes; we have symbols of faith all over the place,” Beeley said. “People know when they walk in our house that we' Catholic.”
Besides that, Beeley said, her family isn' shy about discussing their faith. “We get into really deep discussions. We talk about God a lot. That's just how our family is. We ponder things. If we hear something on the news, it always seems to come up that we talk about God a lot and about seeking his will.”
In addition, Beeley said her son, Mark, is an avid evangelist who led a former girlfriend into the Church recently. The family's lively faith also figured in the conversion of another of Mark's friends, who entered the Church this Easter at St. Rose Parish in Perrysburg, where Cindy Beeley served as his sponsor in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) program.
Now, the girlfriend of the Beeleys’ son Steve is expressing an interest in Catholicism and is going to Mass regularly. When the young woman went into the Marines, Beeley said, “Thad gave her his cross and we gave her a rosary and told her how to pray it.”
Beeley credits her son Mark's interest in Miles Jesu with inspiring Thoma to join the community and eventually the Church. Mark lived with a Miles Jesu community briefly while trying to discern whether he had a vocation and, when the family went to visit him in Chicago, Thoma announced that he, too, had decided to join.
Shortly before that, Cindy Beeley said her husband had a talk with Thoma about his future. “Thad suggested he had to think about his life and where he was going and what God's will was for his life. Baron said later that talk really had an impact on him.”
When Thoma decided to join Miles Jesu, Cindy Beeley said, “He was so happy and at peace ... He kept saying ‘I'going to learn so much about Christ and serve Christ with my life.”
In a letter Thoma wrote to the Beeleys on March 11 to tell them he was going to be baptized by the Pope, he said he would be receiving a white robe to symbolize his new life in Christ.
“Then on Sunday, the 27th of April, [Divine] Mercy Sunday, at the Basilica of St. Lawrence outside the Walls, there's a special Mass and ceremony where I will take off my white alb and lay it on the tomb of the martyrs there, praying that they help me be faithful all the days of my life. Exciting, huh?” Thoma wrote.
Cindy Beeley said Thoma called her family on Easter to talk about the vigil. “He said he stood over the tomb of St. Peter at one point. He said it was so meaningful because he was welcomed into the heart of the Church in the heart of the Church.”
Beeley said the role her family has played in the conversions of her children's friends reminds her of a motto she learned in the Cursillo movement: “Have a friend, be a friend and bring a friend to Christ.”
“Thad and I don' see ourselves as the type of people who can get up and give a talk or go out on the lecture circuit,” she said. “We' just average people trying to live our faith, and it's bearing fruit by the grace of God.”
Judy Roberts writes from
Millbury, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Eucharist Encyclical Provides New Ways to Discover Holy Communion DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY—“The Church draws her life from the Eucharist,” opens Pope John Paul II's latest encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (The Church of the Eucharist), released Holy Thursday, April 17. “This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church.”
ANALYSIS
An encyclical on the Eucharist is not likely to have anything of striking novelty in it—it would be surprising if it did. Yet John Paul's 14th encyclical does propose some interesting angles, as it were, from which to look at the Eucharistic mystery.
A Jubilee Program
“In a word this sacrament is, as it were, the very soul of the Church; and to it the grace of the priesthood is ordered and directed ... From the same source the Church draws and has all her strength, all her glory, her every supernatural endowment and adornment, every good thing that is here.”
That's not from Eucharistia but from Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical on the Eucharist, Mirae Caritatis (Wondrous Love). John Paul refers to that encyclical, published on Corpus Christi 1902—the 25th year of Leo's pontificate. A hundred years later, John Paul is following Leo's lead, marking his 25 years as Pope with an encyclical on the Eucharist.
The pontificate's 25th year gives Eucharistia a special significance, and the Holy Father indicates that he intends it to be part of his “program” for the Church in the third millennium.
“I would like to rekindle this Eucharistic ‘amazement’ by the present encyclical letter, in continuity with the Jubilee heritage which I have left to the Church in the apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte and its Marian crowning, Rosarium Virginis Mariae,” John Paul writes (No. 6), explaining his reasons for the new document. “To contemplate the face of Christ, and to contemplate it with Mary, is the ‘program’ which I have set before the Church at the dawn of the third millennium. ... To contemplate Christ involves being able to recognize him wherever he manifests himself, in his many forms of presence, but above all in the living sacrament of his body and his blood.”
A Perpetual Sacrifice
Eucharistia is quite clear that the Church's doctrine on the Eucharist is unchangeable, formulated most completely by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), whose decrees remain “a dogmatic reference point” (No. 9) for the Church's faith in the Eucharist. Yet John Paul wishes to highlight a key element of that doctrine—namely that the Eucharist is primarily the sacrifice of Calvary made present.
“At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane,” John Paul writes (No. 3).
What happened on Holy Thursday is what happens at every Mass; the sacrifice of Calvary is made present through the offering of Jesus Christ—truly, substantially present under the appearance of bread and wine—to the Father. There is only sacrifice—one Passion, one cross. On Holy Thursday it was made present in anticipation; at every other Mass it is made present after the fact.
“By virtue of its close relationship to the sacrifice of Golgotha, the Eucharist is a sacrifice in the strict sense, and not only in a general way, as if it were simply a matter of Christ's offering himself to the faithful as their spiritual food,” Eucharistia says (No. 13). “The gift of his love and obedience to the point of giving his life is in the first place a gift to his Father. Certainly it is a gift given for our sake, and indeed that of all humanity, yet it is first and foremost a gift to the Father.”
John Paul does not hesitate to speak of the Eucharist as “a true banquet” but underscores that what is being consumed is the sacrifice of Christ himself. The animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant were also eaten, but the sacrificial character remained primary. Eucharistia warns against obscuring this point.
“At times one encounters an extremely reductive understanding of the Eucharistic mystery,” it says (No. 10). “Stripped of its sacrificial meaning, it is celebrated as if it were simply a fraternal banquet.
“Furthermore, the necessity of the ministerial priesthood, grounded in apostolic succession, is at times obscured and the sacramental nature of the Eucharist is reduced to its mere effectiveness as a form of proclamation. ... How can we not express profound grief at all this? The Eucharist is too great a gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation.”
Apostolicity
Apostolicity is the principle “angle” from which Eucharistia looks at the Eucharist—and from this apostolic character several important practical consequences follow.
“The Eucharist [like the Church] has its foundation in the apostles, not in the sense that it did not originate in Christ himself but because it was entrusted by Jesus to the apostles and has been handed down to us by them and by their successors. It is in continuity with the practice of the apostles, in obedience to the Lord's command, that the Church has celebrated the Eucharist down the centuries,” John Paul explains (No. 27).
It is the bishop, therefore, as a successor of the apostles and as a member of the apostolic college, who is entrusted with the celebration of the Eucharist. This means that only a validly ordained bishop (apostolicity) in communion with the pope (collegiality) can be the minister of the Eucharist for the local Church.
“This minister is a gift which the assembly receives through episcopal succession going back to the apostles. It is the bishop who, through the sacrament of Holy Orders, makes a new presbyter by conferring upon him the power to consecrate the Eucharist,” Eucharistia says, explaining why only an ordained priest may celebrate Mass (No. 29).
John Paul's teaching in Eucharistia is that the Church can only have access, so to speak, to the Eucharist through the apostles and their successors because Jesus himself entrusted the Eucharist to them. From that starting point, the Holy Father argues that a lack of such apostolic communion excludes one from receiving the Eucharist.
“The celebration of the Eucharist, however, cannot be the starting point for communion; it presupposes that communion already exists, a communion which it seeks to consolidate and bring to perfection,” he teaches (No. 35).
Therefore, non-Catholics, because they are not in communion with a bishop who is a member of the apostolic college, cannot receive holy Communion, except in truly exceptional circumstances foreseen in canon law (which relate mostly to the Orthodox Churches).
Likewise, “Catholics may not receive communion in those communities which lack a valid sacrament of orders” (No. 46), which rules out all Anglican and Protestant ecclesial communities.
This same principle of Communion applies to Catholics who, through mortal sin or grave public scandal, have separated themselves from full communion with the Church. Sacramental confession is required before reception of holy Communion in such cases.
“The judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one's conscience,” Eucharistia states (No.
37). “However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who ‘obstinately persist in manifest grave sin’ are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion.”
While no examples were given, relevant cases would include the divorced and remarried, those living in public common-law relationships and—as has been seen in recent cases in the United States and Peru—politicians who persistently promote abortion.
Eucharistic Adoration
The Holy Father indicates that a new disciplinary document on the Eucharist will be forthcoming from the responsible Vatican departments, which will “effectively help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant mystery (No. 10).”
Nevertheless, there are positive signs, including Vatican II liturgical reform, which have “greatly contributed to a more conscious, active and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the faithful.”
In particular, John Paul notes that Eucharistic adoration is a growing practice, which says is the “responsibility of pastors to encourage, also by their personal witness (No. 25).”
“How can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heart-felt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament?” John Paul writes. “How often, dear brother and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!”
Mass of All Time
In his own spiritual reflections on the Eucharist, John Paul broadens his vision—seeing in the Mass the whole sweep of salvation history, not only looking back but also forward to the end of time. He encourages Catholics to see in the Eucharist a promise of the future resurrection of the body that will take place at the end of time.
“This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were, the 's ecret’ of the resurrection,” he writes (No. 18).
Mass of All Creation
No priest has celebrated the Mass in as many locations as John Paul has as Pope—his numerous international pilgrimages are built around celebrations of the Eucharist. He writes of that experience in terms the cosmic dimension of the Mass—all creation participates.
“When I think of the Eucharist, and look at my life as a priest, as a bishop and as the successor of Peter, I naturally recall the many times and places in which I was able to celebrate it,” he writes (No.8). “I remember the parish church of Niegowic, where I had my first pastoral assignment, the collegiate church of St. Florian in Krakow, Wawel Cathedral, St. Peter's Basilica and so many basilicas and churches in Rome and throughout the world. I have been able to celebrate holy Mass in chapels built along mountain paths, on lake-shores and seacoasts; I have celebrated it on altars built in stadiums and in city squares ... This varied scenario of celebrations of the Eucharist has given me a powerful experience of its universal and, so to speak, cosmic character. Yes, cosmic! Because even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation.”
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. De Souza ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:O'Reilly Condemns Pope—Again
O'Reilly wrote: “It should come as no surprise that the fall of Saddam Hussein is causing an avalanche of repercussions all around the world. While no one can predict the future, the immediate past is fairly easy to catalog, and Saddam has taken a lot of people down with him. ... Apparently, John Paul II is on a personal crusade to destroy the Roman Catholic Church in America. He's still allowing cardinals like Roger Mahony in Los Angeles to stonewall priest sex-abuse allegations. Then the Pontiff has the chutzpah to call the Iraq war ‘immoral.’ A miracle is needed.”
Pope's ‘Coded’ Rebuke to the United States?
On Easter Sunday the Pope urged Iraqis to take the lead in rebuilding their country in close accord with the international community—a phrase that usually refers to the United Nations rather than the U.S.-led coalition.
John Paul irked many hawks in the United States with his vigorous efforts to keep the United Nations in the driver's seat in the disarmament of Saddam Hussein's regime.
“With the support of the international community,” the Holy Father declared, “may the Iraqi people become the protagonists of their collective rebuilding of their country.”
The Pope called for “peace in Iraq” to thunderous applause, the news service reported. It described the Holy Father's statement as an attempt to push Washington to speed up the creation of a reliable, native civilian government in the Arab country, which is now under full-scale U.S. occupation and the authority of retired American Gen. Jay Garner.
CNN ‘Kills Off’ the Pope
The obituaries appeared for some 20 minutes before they were spotted and removed, by which time thousands of users had read the stories, which ran with photos.
A source at CNN expressed chagrin: “Everyone knows a lot of obituaries are prepared in advance, but to publish them is a serious error. How would you feel if you saw your picture next to the year you were supposed to die? Someone is going to get into trouble for this.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Peace: The Message of Easter DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:During the Octave of Easter, the Church highly exults Christ's resurrection. After having endured passion and death on the cross, he now lives forever and death no longer has any power over him.
However troubled situations may be or however strong tensions and conflicts may be, nothing can resist the powerful renewal the risen Christ has brought about.
The community of faithful throughout the world raises a canticle of praise and thanksgiving to the one who has delivered man from the slavery of evil and sin through the redemption that was brought about by the Incarnate Word. This is expressed in Psalm 135 that we have just heard, which is a splendid hymn to God's goodness. God's merciful love is fully revealed once and for all in the mystery of Easter.
A Message of Peace
After his resurrection, the Lord appeared several times to his disciples and met with them on several occasions. The evangelists relate various episodes that reveal the wonder and the joy of those who witnessed these marvelous events. John particularly draws attention to the first words the Risen Master spoke to his disciples.
“Peace be with you,” he said to his disciples as he entered the upper room. He repeated this greeting at least three other times (see John 20:19, 21, 26). We might say that this expression, “Peace be with you,” or “shalom” in Hebrew, contains and summarizes in a certain sense the entire message of Easter.
However troubled situations may be or however strong tensions and conflicts may be, nothing can resist the powerful renewal the risen Christ has brought about.
Peace is a gift that the Risen Lord offers to men and it is the fruit of the new life that was ushered in by his resurrection.
Peace, therefore, is the “new thing” that Christ introduced into history on Easter. It is rooted in a profound renewal of man's heart. Thus, it is not the result of our human efforts nor can we attain it through some treaty between people or institutions. Rather, it is a gift that should be received generously, guarded carefully and made to bear fruit in a mature and responsible way. However troubled situations may be or however strong tensions and conflicts may be, nothing can resist the powerful renewal the risen Christ has brought about. He is our peace. As we read in the Letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, through his cross he has broken down the wall of enmity, so that “he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace” (Ephesians 2:15).
God's Mercy
The Octave of Easter, which is permeated with light and joy, will conclude next week with in Albis Sunday, which is also called “Divine Mercy Sunday.” Easter is the perfect example of this mercy that comes from God, who “shows mercy to his servants” (Psalm 135:14).
Through his death on the cross, Christ has reconciled us with God and has established in the world the foundation for all men to live together in brotherly love. In Christ, fragile human beings who long for happiness have been rescued from the slavery of the evil one and from the slavery of death, which generate sadness and suffering. The blood of the Redeemer has washed away our sins. In this way we have experienced the renewing power of his forgiveness. God's mercy opens our hearts to forgiving our brothers and sisters, and it is by offering and receiving forgiveness that we will attain peace in our families and in every other aspect of life.
I gladly extend once again my warmest Easter greetings to all of you, as I entrust you, your families and your communities to the heavenly protection of Mary, Mother of Mercy and the Queen of Peace.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II met with more than 25,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square for his general audience on April 23, the Wednesday after Easter. He commented briefly on Psalm 135, which he called a “splendid hymn to God's goodness.”
During the Easter season, the Holy Father said, the Church proclaims Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and death has no more power over him. The risen Savior greets his disciples with the words, “Peace be with you,” he noted. “Peace is a gift that the risen Lord offers to men and it is the fruit of the new life that was ushered in by his resurrection.” Peace, he noted, is a gift from God and not the result of human effort: “Through his death on the cross, Christ has reconciled us with God and has established in the world the foundation for all men to live together in brotherly love.”
Pope John Paul II noted that the Octave of Easter will conclude on Divine Mercy Sunday and that Easter is the perfect example of this mercy that comes from God. “God's mercy opens our hearts to forgiving our brothers and sisters,” he said, “and it is by offering forgiveness and receiving forgiveness that we will attain peace in our families and in every other aspect of life.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Esposito ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: In Fourth Place But No. 1 DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:To many, he is a living legend. To all, he is a giant in moral stature.
He has been seen in person by more people on this planet than any other human being and, on April 30, Pope John Paul II will have added one more number to the already-staggering statistics of his papacy.
On that day, his pontificate will become the fourth longest in history at 24 years, six months and eight days. Of the 264 popes, only St. Peter, whose precise reign is unknown, Blessed Pope Pius IX (who reigned for 31 years and eight months) and Leo XIII (25 years, five months) had longer pontificates.
John Paul is, without a doubt, the most peripatetic Pope in history, having made 98 foreign apostolic trips (Madrid in May is No. 99, and Croatia in June will mark the magical 100), and having traveled more than 1.24 million miles (almost three times the distance to the moon and back). One would need a calculator to total the number of trips taken within Italy (142), speeches given during all of his trips (more than 3,300) documents written, parishes visited in his diocese, consistories held, synods called, beatification and canonization ceremonies celebrated, weekly general audiences, and private meetings with heads of state and government.
To these astonishing figures must be added a number of “firsts.” Pope John Paul II is not only the first Polish Pope ever, he is the first Pope to: E visit a synagogue, in Rome on April 13, 1986.
E visit a mosque, on May 6, 2001, the Omayyad Great Mosque of Damascus, Syria, during his pilgrimage to Greece, Syria and Malta. He was the first Pope ever to visit Malta (his first trip there was in 1990) and the first in 1,000 years to visit Greece.
E hold press conferences on airplanes. At least 50 such conferences were held, as well as one in the Holy See press office to accredited journalists on Jan. 24, 1994, the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron of journalists.
E be photographed in slacks, instead of his white papal soutane, during mountain hikes and several times while skiing.
E visit a prison cell, on Dec. 27, 1983, in Rome's Rebibbia prison, when he spoke with Ali Agca, the Turk who made an attempt on the his life in May 1981. The Pope's other visit to a prison was during the Jubilee Year 2000 when he said Mass on July 9 at Regina Coeli prison, wearing vestments made by inmates.
E visit Norway (June 1989) and to celebrate both vespers and Mass in the northernmost Catholic community in the world (Tromso), more than 350 kilometers north of the Arctic Polar Circle—a fact the Pope himself noted in his homily at vespers.
E stay in a hotel during an apostolic trip. During his May 2002 trip to Azerbaijan, the Holy Father, given the lack of an apostolic nunciature (where popes usually stay), lodged at the Irshad Hotel in Baku. For the duration of the Pope's stay, the government conferred the status of a diplomatic seat on the hotel.
E travel to the Arab Republic of Egypt, on Feb. 24, 2000, on his Jubilee pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai, his 90th foreign trip. A month later he made a Jubilee Year pilgrimage to the Holy Land, his first trip there as Pope (though he was not the first pope to visit the Holy Land).
E travel to Cuba, in January 1998. In fairness to the nearly 100 countries the Holy Father has visited, many of them welcomed a pope for the first time. E write a letter to children (December 1994) and a letter to women (July 1995).
E add five new mysteries to the rosary; he added the Luminous Mysteries (Mysteries of Light) on Oct. 16, 2002, the 24th anniversary of his pontificate, when he also called for a Year of the Rosary.
E visit and say Mass in an airport hangar, on Dec. 10, 1992, the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto, patroness and protector of airline personnel. The Pope said Mass in a hangar at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport, from where he departs for all his international trips. E administer all seven sacraments: baptism, penance, the Eucharist, confirmation, marriage, holy orders and anointing of the sick, which he usually does on the Feb. 11 celebration of the World Day of the Sick, which he personally instituted.
E publish books of prose and poetry: Crossing the Threshold of Hope (October 1994), Gift and Mystery: On the 50th Anniversary of my Priestly Ordination (November 1996) and Roman Triptych (March 2003).
E use a letter—“M” for Mary—on his papal crest. Normally the rules of heraldry forbid the use of words or letters on a crest; they can surround it but not appear on it. John Paul wanted “M” for Mary (his motto, Totus tuus, is dedicated to Mary), so, in a sense, he rewrote the rules of heraldry.
E place an image of Mary on St. Peter's Square. When he became Pope, John Paul was astounded that, of all the statues adorning St. Peter's Square, not one depicted the Mother of God. Therefore he ordered a beautiful mosaic of Mary to be placed on an outer wall of the Apostolic Palace overlooking the piazza.
E call for a Day of Pardon, on March 12, 2000, in a special Jubilee Year Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. The Holy Father asked forgiveness for the faults, past and present, of the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church.
E celebrate a Mass in the HispanoMozarabic rite, in St. Peter's Basilica on May 28, 1992, Feast of the Ascension.
Former Register Rome bureau chief Joan Lewis is now with the Vatican Information Service.
----- EXCERPT: Vatican View ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Pro-Family Groups Oppose Italian Bill That Would Make Divorce Easier DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME—Italy has long been known for her strong families. But like all Western European countries, divorce is increasingly becoming a fact of life.
The Italian Parliament is discussing a bill to shorten the time it would take to get a divorce. Under current law, divorced couples must wait a period of three years after filling for divorce before the divorce is final. The bill under consideration would abbreviate the process to one year.
The bill was introduced by members of the Italian political left and supported by various left-wing organizations. Prime Minister Berlusconi's political party, Forza Italia, which comprises the Italian right, is opposed to the bill.
Pro-family organizations are concerned that reducing the separation period to one year would mean reducing the time given to spouses to reflect and find solutions.
“The reduction of the separation period contradicts the reasons that induced Parliament to wisely exclude the possibility of the immediate dissolution of marriage,” said Ciro Intino, vice president of the Family Forum, a pro-family association that represents 40 organizations. “The separation phase is in fact deemed necessary by Parliament so that spouses—and during this phase they are still spouses—can reflect on the effects of their decision and try to remove the problems that caused it.”
“It would be better to leave things as they are,” said Raffaella Bernardini, a divorce lawyer in Rome. “This bill is not positive because the three years are important. People who are separated can re-think their decision and maybe get back together. They have time to think about how their decision will affect their children. Once you divorce, it's permanent. You can' go back.”
Yet not all family proponents see the time reduction as the problem.
Grazia Sofferino, a canon law expert who has worked for the Roman Rota, the Church's central appellate court, explained, “It's clear that you don' help a family by changing the separation phase from three to one year. But it's not the passage of time that will help. The family as an institution needs help. But real help for the family from the state does not really exist.”
Part of the problem, pro-family advocates say, is that judges and lawyers are passive in the face of the increased demand for divorce.
“Judges should force people to get external help,” Sofferino said. “They should see specialists designated by the community: psychologists, child experts, etc.”
According to Bernardini, the Italian government introduced a program last year by which these types of specialists are made available to couples seeking to end their marriage. Psychologists and lawyers take a one-year course that teaches them how to handle the issues that arise in divorcing families. The idea is to follow a family through the proceedings.
“But it's not serious,” Bernardini said of the program. “What I have noticed is that some of the people who take the course are not prepared for the situations they face. We really need more specialized people. The idea is good, but it hasn' been that helpful.”
According to research compiled by the Heritage Foundation in 2002, Italy has 10 divorces out of 100 marriages, which is among the lowest in Europe. Frequently, this statistic hides the fact that many couples separate but never actually divorce for the children's sake. Others are “separated in the house”—not living as husband and wife, frequently in different rooms, but under the same roof.
The Italian divorce rate compares with 54.8% in the United States, 38.3% in France, 39.4% in Germany and 42.6% in the United Kingdom.
The real problem, according to some opponents of the bill, is not that the time period was shortened from five years to three several years ago, nor is it that some legislators want to shorten it now from three years to one.
“The real problem is the crisis of the family,” Sofferino said. “Faith is just window dressing. People use it how they want. People decide that they don' like some things the Pope says. It is total subjectivism. ‘I do what is right for me.'he sense of morality has been pulverized.”
Of those who work with divorcing couples or those who want to annul their marriage, all agree it is the children who suffer the most.
“Children are the least of those considered in divorce,” Sofferino said. “Parents use them to get more money.”
“The trend I have noticed is that people separate very soon after they get married with very little children,” Bernardini said. “It has a disastrous effect on the kids. It creates terrible tension and the children are often used as tools between parents for their own selfish ends.”
The Italian Bishops’ Conference has spoken out against the bill. Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and papal vicar of Rome, has made statements to the press asking why Parliament would want to approve a minefield for the family. When the bishops’ conference newspaper Avvenire took an editorial position that said the issue should be discussed, Cardinal Ruini immediately responded that there was no discussion.
For now the bill has remained in the justice committee, waiting to be introduced into the Parliament's calendar for future discussion. Opponents hope it will be shelved.
“The Italian culture has a major-itarian view which favors the family,” the Family Forum's Intino said. “Despite the crisis of divorce, the family is still strong. It is a public good, and the state must protect it.”
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Caritas Iraq Reports No Damage
FIDES, April 11—According to April 11 reports from the Amman, Jordan, office of Caritas, a Catholic aid agency, there has been no damage so far to Caritas centers or Church buildings.
Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency, said no Church personnel or clergy have been hurt in the American-led war and subsequent social disorder.
However, Hanno Schafer, head of Caritas in Baghdad, said unrest and looting continue, and many Iraqis are holing up at Caritas Centers and parish buildings for safety.
Schafer called the humanitarian situation critical. Household food stocks are running low and will last between 15 to 25 days, he said. Due to the increasing number of wounded, basic assistance is not always guaranteed. Caritas continues to supply antibiotics and anesthetics from its stores in Amman.
According to Bishop Jean Benjamin Sleiman in Basra, southern Iraq, there is an ongoing need for chlorine to purify water. More supplies of chlorine are being sent from Caritas in Amman, he said. Water sanitation facilities are operating at minimum capacities owing to absence of operators and because of intermittent power supply.
According to U.N. Office Project Services, there are some 266,018 new displaced persons in the three northern territories—188,924 in Dohuk; 50,036 in Erbil; and 27,058 in Sulaymaniyah. Some 89% of the new internally displaced persons are currently staying in host families, just fewer than 10% are in public buildings and approximately 1% are out in the open.
Caritas supplies blankets and kerosene because temperatures in this mountainous region are still cold.
Slovakia's Professionals Get the Rigth to Say No
A law on freedom of conscience—the first of its kind in Europe—would permit doctors to refuse to perform abortions, judges to refuse to hear divorce applications and teachers to opt out of leading sex-education classes, plus conscientious objection to military service, the paper noted.
The law should pass in May, well before a visit by Pope John Paul II that is set for September.
The Guardian called the treaty part of a Vatican strategy to “reevangelize” a largely secularized Europe beginning from the East, where the Church often led resistance to communists.
Delegation Takes Pakistan Complaints to U.N.
UNION OF CATHOLIC ASIA NEWS, April 17—An international delegation of Christians acting on behalf of various denominations in mostly Islamic Pakistan have complained of religious intolerance to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, the Union of Catholic Asia News reported.
Delegation members presented their statement at the 59th session of the commission, urging the Pakistani government to eliminate “unjust laws” aimed at native Christians and to sign on to human-rights treaties that protect religious freedom.
Father James Channan, a representative from Pakistan, said it was valuable to take their concerns “to the highest-level world body.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: John Paul vs. the Real Crisis DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II's new encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucharistia is his latest and most powerful response to the crisis in the Church. Though its aim is much broader, it is in part an answer to the root causes of the Church's sex-abuse scandal, the only kind of answer that can have a truly lasting result.
In it, he says several times that Catholics conscious of serious sin—anything from needlessly missing Sunday Mass to sexual sins to slander—must receive the sacrament of reconciliation before they can receive Communion.
The strength of his language is striking: “I therefore desire to reaf-firm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future, the rule by which the Council of Trent gave concrete expression to the Apostle Paul's stern warning when it affirmed that, in order to receive the Eucharist in a worthy manner, ‘one must first confess one's sins, when one is aware of mortal sin’” (No. 36).
The Holy Father knows that the sex-abuse crisis is just one example of a much larger crisis in the Church: The loss of the sense of sin.
C.S. Lewis understood how frightening sin is. He wrote that, when we meet someone, we should be conscious that, 100 years from now, that person will either be so ugly and disfigured by his own sin in hell that we would be tempted to flee from him in horror or so beautiful and transfigured by glory in heaven that we would be tempted to worship him.
The Church, particularly through the sacrament of forgiveness of sins, is the guardian of that vision of the person's potential. The Catechism teaches that “[m]ortal sin, unconfessed, causes exclusion from Christ's Kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices forever, with no turning back” (No. 1861).
The lifetime of hurt that sex abuse causes is terrible. The eternity of hurt that sin can cause is much, much worse. Both the abuser and those he drives away from the Church by his behavior are endangered. Christ says that it's better that a millstone be tied around a man's neck than he “lead a little one to sin.”
It's no wonder the Holy Father, again and again, has urgently called for a renewal of the sacrament of confession.
Last year, in his Holy Thursday letter, John Paul pleaded for priests to return to the confessional, saying twice that Catholics must confess serious sins before receiving Communion. He then linked the confession crisis to the Church's sex-abuse crisis. He even followed up that letter on the feast of Divine Mercy last year with a motu proprio apostolic letter on confession.
The consequence of his argument is clear: If you are not providing confession to your flock, you are allowing serious offenses to the Blessed Sacrament to become commonplace. You are signaling that sin either doesn' exist, or it doesn' matter. And where the sin's horror is forgotten, horrible sins follow.
It is a tragic irony that many of the critics who say the Pope has failed to address the Church's sex abuse crisis are undermining his efforts to solve it.
First, they cast suspicion on the public figure who has shown the clearest understanding of its solution. Second, they risk making the crisis worse by undermining the sacrament of confession. By exaggerating the number of priests involved in the sex-abuse crisis, they scare people away from confession and have helped create a climate where states have even taken action against the sacrament of confession's secrecy.
John Paul has given the Church a call for the renewal of the sacrament of confession that couldn' be any clearer or any more urgent.
“The two sacraments of the Eucharist and penance are very closely connected,” he writes in the new encylical (No. 35). The renewal of the sacrament of penance must occur side by side with the renewal of the Eucharist in the Church. After all, as the first sentence of the encyclical reminds us: “The Church draws her life from the Eucharist.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Rosary, Register-Style DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Some gifts are priceless. The Guide to the Rosary, the Register's gift to the Archdiocese of Military Services, is a treasure of Catholic wisdom and devotion making its way to service members on the front lines of Operation Iraqi Freedom and military personnel around the globe. It takes a warrior's strength and resolve to hold on to God when hell is in session.
This book is one of those spiritual weapons of combat. Its poignant reflections on Christ's life, enhanced with vivid classical art images, elevate the mind and heart to God, who is everywhere—and can be found everywhere—even amid chaos and war.
Thank you for making it available to our military and their families. Through its faithful recitation, may justice and peace be served well and may loved ones return safely home.
JUDY MCCLOSKEY
Front Royal, Virginia
The writer is a director of Catholics in the Military, an apostolate serving Catholic military families in cooperation with the Military Archdiocese.
To order your copy of The Register Guide to the Rosary, call (800) 356-9916.
St. Vincent de Paul's
Daughters
Thank you for the informative article about St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home in Hyattsville, Md., and the profile of its director, Sister Josephine Murphy.
I need to point out one error that you consistently made throughout the article. This was to refer to Sister Josephine as a Paulist nun and to her religious community as Paulists.
Actually, she is a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. We in the Archdiocese of Washington have been very blessed to have the Daughters of Charity ministering in various elementary schools, [along with] Elizabeth Seton High School in Bladensburg, Md., Providence Hospital in Washington, D.C., and, of course, at St. Ann's Infant and Maternity Home.
Thank you for allowing me to bring this matter to your attention.
FATHER JOHN DILLON
Hollywood, Maryland
The writer is associate pastor at St. John Francis Regis Church.
Mother
Teresa on
Tape
In “Missionary of Faith, Hope and Charity” (Feb. 16-22), it was mentioned that “live audio and videotapes of Mother Teresa are relatively hard to come by, as the Missionary of Charity was in the business of serving the poorest of the poor—not making recordings!” True, very true, Mother Teresa's biggest penance was talking to the public and being nationally recognized. Not because she didn' love to witness to the truth, but because, in her humility, she didn' want to be personally recognized and she didn' want to be taken away from her first love, serving the poorest of the poor.
But, oh my goodness! The Apostolate for Family Consecration has at least eight hours of live footage of Mother Teresa meeting with its founders, Jerry and Gwen Coniker, and teaching the world the truths of the Catholic faith in her simple way. This footage is available in audio-tape and videotape sets called Encounters with Mother Teresa. It is an awesome treasure of the Catholic Church!
If any of your readers are interested, they can call (800) 77-FAMILY or visit www.family-land.org.
ANNA THOMPSON
Bloomingdale, Ohio
The writer is director of public relations for the Apostolate for Family Consecration.
Our Pope and Our President
I just finished reading the commentary titled “Rising Up From Flanders Fields” (April 20-26). I am proud that it was authored by a Catholic priest in Rome. The article articulates so well how honorable and caring people can differ on the justification for this war. I think the article gives a reasonable explanation of why the war is perceived so differently on each side of the Atlantic. It is so ironic that the Holy Father and George Bush are on opposite sides of this issue. On many other issues, such as the rights of the unborn, no modern American president has held views so consistent with that of the Holy See.
We are all truly blessed to have the Holy Father. I understand his position and I am proud that he is a man of peace. I would not expect him to espouse violence or war. Yet I am also proud of President Bush. I truly believe he is a good Christian man and has only pursued this course after hours of prayer. Would that all our leaders pray to God before they act.
RICHARD A. BIERLY
New Albany, Indiana
Catholic-American Pride
We are proud to be American Catholics. We are proud of our cardinals, bishops and priests, whom we see as Jesus on the altar. We are proud of our priests who minister to people in nursing homes, hospitals and prisons, teach in our schools and serve as military chaplains in our armed forces. We are proud of our missionaries all over the world.
We are proud of Bishop Ricard, who criticizes the government in the Middle East denying visas to Catholic clergy. We are proud of Bishop William Weigand of California.
We are proud of our pro-life priests—we must be 100% Catholic. We are proud of Archbishop John Myers for changing the rules on eulogies at funeral Masses.
We are extremely proud of Pope John Paul II and our holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
IDA AND GEORGE ZAMBETTI
New York City
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Special Solemnity for Life DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Permit me to add a bit more information to the story “The Day of the Unborn” (March 23-29).
As the article correctly pointed out, the Catholic world has, for some years now, expressed the conviction that the Feast of the Annunciation should be celebrated with greater solemnity and its pro-life dimensions highlighted. This theme was emphasized in a special statement signed by about 75 national Catholic leaders a few years ago. The statement was issued by Priests for Life, Human Life International and the Missionary Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It states, in part:
“As Catholic leaders at a time when our society is beset with the evil of abortion, and when the human embryo is treated as a mere object for scientific research, we believe that the celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation is more important than ever. By celebrating this feast with special solemnity, and by spending more time meditating on its doctrinal and spiritual lessons, the faithful can be even more solidly rooted in their pro-life convictions and spurred on to effective action in defense of life.”
The full text and signers can be found at www.priestsforlife.org/annunciation.htm. The statement was reissued again this year and accompanied with a national celebration on March 25 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C..
I am grateful to the Register for playing an important role in drawing attention to this current trend within the Church.
FATHER FRANK PAVONE
New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Papacy or Piracy? Captain Blood's Moral Struggle DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:If you' like me, you plague yourself with these sorts of questions all the time:
“What now? What remains? Loyal service with the English was made impossible for me. Loyal service with France has led to this; and that is equally impossible hereafter. What remains, then? Piracy? I have done with it. Egad, if I am to live clean, I believe the only thing is to go and offer my sword to the King of Spain.”
But in this case I am quoting directly from Rafael Sabatini's classic swashbuckler Captain Blood. It is the dashing, witty Captain himself who gives voice to this anguish—and for Blood, service to the King of Spain is no real alternative because for him, a former prisoner of Spain, “Spanish” is a byword for cruelty and rapacity.
Perhaps his anguish, his desire “to live clean” among the pirates of the Caribbean, is a case of “Catholic guilt,” for even though “a papist only when it suited him,” Captain Blood is an Irishman, and a baptized Catholic is marked for life.
Blood is a physician by training and a soldier of fortune by experience. Yet, as the book opens, he hopes to settle in the English West Country, leave his adventurous days behind and establish a medical practice.
That, however, proves impossible, because although he dismisses the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth against King James II—a rebellion taking shape directly outside his garden window—as the inane passion of non-conformist Protestant yokels, he finds himself convicted of treason.
His crime? Coming to the medical assistance of a wounded rebellious nobleman.
He is sentenced to death, with that sentence commuted to slavery in the Caribbean. “I'thinking it's more pleasant in the sight of heaven to kill men than to heal them. Sure it must be,” he muses.
Standing on the slaver's dock in Barbados, Blood learns that blacks are worth twice as much as whites, because the latter become debilitated and die so quickly from the tropical climate and diseases, and so are given harder work and harsher treatment. His only salvation from slavery is his medical knowledge and his ability to relieve the medical distresses of the governor and his lady, which gives him a bit more freedom—freedom he expands by escaping and becoming a pirate.
Blood, like a good baptized Catholic, is both realist and idealist; a man, as another character remarks of him, “chivalrous to the point of idiocy,” while understanding full well the evil that lurks in most men's hearts.
Twice in the book he kills a man—in both instances to save a woman's honor from brutal physical attack. All around him, power is abused, patriotism is betrayed for self-aggrandizement and enrichment, religion invoked merely as a guise for hatred. It is only the religiously unobservant Blood in whom true religion seems to have bit, in which it operates in action.
“It is not human to be wise,” he says. “It is much more human to err, though perhaps exceptional to err on the side of mercy. We' be exceptional.” And his desire “to live clean” is given a devotional flame by the love of a good but apparently unobtainable woman.
Be forewarned. Captain Blood is not a “Catholic” book. But then again, this column devotes itself to books that touch on Catholic themes, not “Catholic” books per se. It has scenes of violence and salty language—though of a kind that was acceptable to readers who made it a best seller in 1922. (It was also the hit film that launched Errol Flynn as a star in 1935.)
So it is recommended with a modest degree of caution.
But if you have a daughter in college or in high school or dating—and who suffers from that Quixotic complex common to young women about reforming “bad boys”—then Captain Blood might be just what the psychologist ordered. It might help remind such daughters that there are evil men—there are plenty of these in the book—and then there are, well, misunderstood pirates who are “chivalrous to the point of idiocy” and who yearn “to live clean.”
Attempts at romantic reform should be reserved for the latter.
And when conducted with the bravura that is displayed in Captain Blood, the result is, in the words of the Dutch admiral van der Kuylen, “fery boedigal” (‘very poetical,” for those of you not familiar with the Dutch).
And Captain Blood reminds us of something else. Catholicism is not insular. Like Captain Blood, Catholics know that there is no elect, no utopia, no cleaving to the Bible alone and condemning the world.
Catholics seek not to shun the world but to be the physician who tends the wounded, to be the pirate who defends a woman's chastity with a sword, to be the comrade of ruffians but to insist on chivalry (and also, in Blood's case, to drop classical allusions).
Thus even an occasional papist, but a papist in his conscience, like Captain Blood, can be our guide and tutor.
So if ye be of brave disposition, set sail, my friends, and unfurl the flag of St. George.
H. W. Crocker III is author most recently of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. His comic novel, The Old Limey, and his book Robert E. Lee on Leadership
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: H. W. Crocker III ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Excess and the Single Girl DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Helen Gurley Brown was born in Green Forest, Ark., on Feb. 18, 1922. After attending Texas State College for Women and Woodbury Business College, she held 17 different secretarial positions in Los Angeles. In 1959 she married movie producer David Brown. At this point in her life there was nothing to indicate that she was on the road to success or that she was becoming one of the most influential women in 20th-century America.
At age 37, she seemed to be, in “success” terminology, a nobody going nowhere. By her own admission, she was a “mouseburger,” a term she invented to describe people who are not prepossessing, not pretty, don' have a particularly high I.Q., a decent education, good family background or other noticeable assets.” She did have one fungible asset. From the time she was 20 until her marriage, she had a risqué sex life.
Her twice-married, twice-divorced husband encouraged her to write about her wild escapades as a bachelorette. She obliged, though she had never published so much as a magazine article before. The result was Sex and the Single Girl, a “shameless, unblushing, runaway, unmitigated” manual advising and instructing women on how to seduce men and enjoy their inalienable right to have as much sex as is humanly possible.
The book was a national sensation. Mrs. Brown, now 40, was sounding the clarion call to release all single girls from their sexual inhibitions. She was granting permission for their ids to operate independently of any culturally imposed super-egos while promising them a better sex life than their married counterparts. The author of Sex and the Single Girl had become for single girls what Hugh Hefner had been and was continuing to be for single men. But she was without competition in her field. She had a sexually curious and highly susceptible female readership all to herself.
The success of Sex and the Single Girl, “my first baby,” as she called it, led to the movie bearing the same name. Although the film version, in which Natalie Wood played Brown as a psychologist, had nothing to do with the book, it meant $200,000 in movie rights for the author. The fledgling writer had now parlayed sex into both money and success. She was well on her way.
Cosmo Girls
Her next stop, on the wings of her first book's success, was as editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. At that time, in 1965, the magazine was floundering. As a literary journal, it had featured writers such as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos et al. But now it needed a new face. Mrs. Brown gave it that new face, increased circulation from 750,000 subscribers to 3 million, put it in the black and stayed on at the helm for the next 32 years.
When she left her post in 1996, Cosmo was No. 6 in newsstand sales among 11,475 magazines published and No. 1 for the 16th straight year at college campus bookstores. But she did not leave Cosmo. She now supervises its 39 international editions, all of them in the black.
The Ladies’ Home Journal named Helen Gurley Brown one of its “100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century.” The Sophia Smith Library at Smith College is the repository for her manuscripts, papers and letters. Cosmo Girl, for teen-agers, is a spinoff of Cosmopolitan. The hit television show “Sex in the City” is a trendy and even more shameless reincarnation of
Sex and the Single Girl. Brown's legacy is undeniable and her influence is incalculable.
Helen Gurley Brown did not have children of her own. But she did invent, or at least shape, the “Cosmo Girl.” She is the “girl,” between 18 and 34, who wants to take charge of her life, which means being free to pursue the cherished trinity of sex, money and success.
Would Monica Lewinsky be a “Cosmo Girl”? “Yes,” Brown reckons, especially “since Cosmo girls do get involved with married men.” On the other hand, the genuine article would not have “a creepy girlfriend like Linda Tripp.”
Under the editorial direction of Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmopolitan was titillating. Its readers once confessed to the most unusual places where they made love (‘In Edgar Allan Poe's bed at the University of Virginia”). It was outrageous: “How I' steal the president [Nixon] away from Pat.” And it was shocking. In 1992, it unabashedly provided its readers (viewers) with America's first male centerfold—Burt Reynolds au naturel.
Such shenanigans outraged feminist founder Betty Friedan, who called the magazine “quite obscene and quite horrible.” By this time, its editor had learned to take the bad with the good. She had been booed and bombed with tomatoes at public appearances when she was promoting Sex and the Single Girl.
Helen Gurley Brown enjoys needle-point and stitching hip slogans onto pillows. One of her favorites is “Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere.” Here is a charming example of the arithmetic fallacy—by adding anything to something, you automatically enrich it. Adding ice cubes to Dom Perignon does not improve its richness. Additives can have destructive as well as a diluting effect. Being good, however, is not limiting. Not knowing where to draw the line, on the other hand, can be self-defeating. She wants us to believe that being good is a terrible deprivation. In reality, it is all we need. Good is good enough.
Death and the Single Girl
Brown tells us repeatedly that she never wanted to have a child (she also fought to keep abortion legal). Nonetheless, she concludes her memoir with a 13-page letter to her fantasy child, whom she calls Anna Marie. She informs her nonexistent offspring that “Your mother doesn' believe in God ... but I do believe in the okayness of everybody here on earth.”
It is difficult to read this final entry of her memoir and not sense that, at 79, Helen Gurley Brown knows in the inner recesses of her soul that she has not had it all. Anna Marie will not be receptive to her mother's advice. Her mother's words will fall not on deaf ears but on no ears. They will echo within the mind of the childless mother, emphasizing all the more that no children will grieve for her or carry on her legacy once she is no more.
If Helen Gurley Brown did not want children, she certainly wanted something she realized more and more, with the passage of time, that she could not have—immortality. As St. Augustine said, anything that is not eternal is too brief. This might explain why she finds herself “waking up scared every morning” and why her advanced age prevents her from being happy. No amount of cosmetic surgery (she had breast augmentation when she was 73) can keep the grim reaper at bay.
Trying to deny death is the surest way to become engulfed by it. If we cannot find a love and a faith that transcends death, we inevitably become its abject victims. One of the roots of the culture of death is, paradoxically, a fear of death that is so strong that it blocks out the spiritual realities that transcend it.
We are spiritual beings. This means that we need a form of nourishment that sex, money and success cannot provide. Vice, which greases the wheels of the culture of death, contracts life, choking off the arteries that nourish our spiritual and personal needs. It is alluring, but not enduring. Virtue, which may be less marketable, less fashionable and less glamorous, is expansive, allowing us to be more than an island of self-concern.
At a luncheon a few years ago in Washington, D.C., Helen Gurley Brown found herself seated next to the editor of an orthodox Catholic magazine. When she was apprised of his occupation, she glowered at him and said, “So, you' the enemy.”
The editor is not her enemy, nor are human beings enemies to each other. But virtue is the enemy of vice, just as vice is the enemy of virtue. And it is the ensuing battle between virtue and vice that constitutes the war between the culture of life and the culture of death. Morality is not an opinion. Much less is it a packageable consumer item. It is simply the only way we know that allows us to retain our humanity.
Donald DeMarco teaches philosophy at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald DeMarco ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Pray for Prayer on National Prayer Day DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:For years, many Americans showed little or no interest in the National Day of Prayer.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, and the ensuing war on terror, that's no longer the case.
Now scores of Americans honor this national observance by praying for our country. Last year, approximately 40,000 volunteers arranged prayer observances at state capitols, county courthouses, city halls, schools, businesses and churches.
Their efforts paid off. More than a million Americans turned out for these activities. Commenting on the nation's renewed interest in prayer, President Bush said, “The prayers of this nation are part of the good that has come from the evil of Sept. 11.”
Yet the National Day of Prayer, observed this year on May 1, touches a nerve in critics that oppose state-sponsored prayer. Stanley Hauerwas, professor of theology at Duke University in Durham, N.C., says, “If you are seriously Christian, prayer is something you do every day, and you don' want the state sponsoring it.”
To this, many reply, why not? After all, most Americans believe in God. But what about those who don'? Critics maintain state-sponsored prayer pulls down the constitutional wall between church and state. They uphold a basic conviction: the United States is a secular republic, not a theocracy. If you want to pray, do it in the privacy of your own home or church. Keep God out of civic events. Since Sept. 11 critics around the country voiced staunch opposition to religion's role in public life. Consider the following: A In Madison, Wis., the school board prohibited the students from saying the Pledge of Allegiance because the phrase “one nation, under God” made some feel uncomfortable. After the school board received more than 20,000 letters criticizing the ban, the board reversed its decision.
A In California, the American Civil Liberties Union ordered a school district, under the threat of a lawsuit, to remove a sign outside an elementary school that said “God bless America.” They characterized these words as “a hurtful, divisive message.” The school district refused and the ACLU backed down.
A In New York City, the board of education demanded a sign that said “God bless you” be removed from its posting outside a high school in the Rockaways. The board contended the sign was not “constitutionally permissible.”
Are the critics right? Does the National Day of Prayer defy the Constitution by calling Americans to prayer? If so, wouldn' it cause a moral problem since good citizens should obey the law? Absolutely. However, let's first see if state-sponsored prayer actually violates the Constitution.
The entire debate centers on the opening sentence of the First Amendment of the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In recent years, some interest groups have interpreted this as forbidding the government to sponsor or support directly or indirectly the practice of religion. What would the Founding Fathers say about such an interpretation? Nothing complimentary, I'sure.
This interpretation would have shocked and infuriated them. They understood the First Amendment anti-establishment clause as forbidding an official state religion such as the Church of England. The National Day of Prayer doesn' in any sense pretend to set up a state church. In the second part of the amendment, the Founding Fathers make it clear that Congress may not hamper the free practice of religion.
Consequently, for a court to bar people from making expressions of faith by saying “God bless America” or “God bless you” in public places blatantly breaches the Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court made clear on different occasions that the First Amendment protects religious speech. For instance, the Supreme Court pointed out in Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens that “there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect.”
This means a church and civil government act as separate and distinct institutions. State autonomy from religion doesn' mean eliminating any type of religious expression from public forums. The Supreme Court defines the wall of separation between the two in the case Everson v. Board of Education (1947) as meaning neither the state nor federal government can set up a church.
Furthermore, it specified that the government cannot discriminate against speech because it's religious in nature. Again, the Supreme Court clarified in the Mergens case that “the Establishment Clause does not license government to treat religion and those who teach or practice it, simply by virtue of their status as such, as subversive of American ideals and therefore subject to unique disabilities.” In other words, religious discrimination is illegal.
From a historical viewpoint, prayer is part of who we are as a people. It's a vital part of our national heritage. In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a new nation. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln called for a day of prayer and fasting to foster national unity and to end the civil war. In 1952, President Harry Truman signed into law a joint resolution of Congress calling for an annual National Day of Prayer. And in 1988, President Ronald Reagan amended the law to designate the first Thursday of every May as the National Day of Prayer.
The National Day of Prayer reminds us what we should be as Americans: “One nation, under God.”
Legionary Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Studies in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary ----- TITLE: Were You There? DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:The high point of the entire New Testament is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. St. Paul says, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain ... and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14-17). It is the greatest of Christ's miracles and his personal guarantee to the world that he is God. Why? Because only God has power over life and death.
Over the centuries, the resurrection of Jesus has been disputed. Some have said that Jesus’ disciples stole the body of Jesus and then lied about the resurrection. Others have claimed that Jesus’ disciples were delusional. Some suggest that Jesus never really died on the cross at all. Thinking through the historical account reveals the unlikelihood of each of these scenarios and points to the conclusion that, on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.
Jewish leaders were the first to sow seeds of doubt about the resurrection. They claimed that the disciples stole the body out of the tomb and then lied about seeing Jesus alive (Matthew 28:12-15). This cannot be simply because Jesus’ disciples did not understand that he was to be resurrected. Scripture records that, after Jesus’ death on the cross, his disciples scattered, fearing for their lives. They were mourning the loss of their friend and Lord, the one they hoped would finally liberate them from their subjugation to Rome. The disciples were in no state of mind to plot the greatest deception of all time, much less take on the Roman empire.
Besides the fact that lying goes against what Jesus taught, the disciples had no motive. If they were lying, look what they got for their lie. They were persecuted, tortured, imprisoned, exiled and eventually killed. Under torture, people sometimes even confess things they don' do, not to mention things they are actually guilty of. The apostles, on the other hand, preached all around the world that they had seen Jesus alive, spoken with him, touched him and even eaten a meal with him. It makes no sense that they would have gone to such an extreme in order to gain nothing.
Another theory is that the disciples, being so distraught at Jesus’ death, invented his resurrection in their minds. In other words: They were hallucinating. This idea might be plausible had Jesus been seen by only one person. But, on the contrary, more than 500 people saw the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15:5-7 and Acts 1:3-11).
The greatest evidence of the Resurrection in Scripture is to be seen in the transformed lives of Jesus’ disciples when Jesus sent them the Holy Spirit. Only 40 days after his death, Jesus’ ragtag band of defeated followers became an indomitable group of leaders with a single-minded focus: making disciples of all nations.
Peter, who had denied Christ out of fear, boldly proclaimed him before a large crowd at Pentecost as well as the Sanhedrin. He eventually went on to establish the Church in Rome. James founded the Church in Jerusalem while Philip preached all over Samaria. Paul began intensely persecuting Christians and then saw a vision of the resurrected Christ. He immediately became a believer and founded churches throughout all of Asia and Macedonia. All but two of the 12 apostles (Judas and St. John) accepted martyrdom for their faith rather than deny what they had seen with their own eyes.
To this day, the resurrection of Jesus Christ still continues to transform people's lives. People who place their faith in Jesus embrace a love and joy like they have never known, and a peace that goes beyond all understanding. May the power of the Risen Lord be yours as well, “that believing you, too, might have life in his name” (John 20:31).
Christina Mills writes from
Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Mission San Luis Reveals Spanish Flor DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:It is a fact of history that the Franciscan missions in Spanish Florida—which preceded the many missions of the American Southwest—were nearly forgotten as the first plantings of Christianity in the United States.
Aside from the charming reconstruction of the Chapel of Our Lady of Le Leche at Mission Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine, where historians believe Ponce de Leon and the Spanish celebrated the first Mass on American soil overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, there are scant reminders of the early missions. These extended in a territory from Key West north to present-day Georgia.
Under the authority of the bishop of Havana, Cuba, and staffed by adventurous young friars of the
Iberian Peninsula, the Florida missionaries came into contact with some 100,000 native peoples belonging to roughly six tribes, including the Apalachees near the present-day Tallahassee area.
Historians recall that, in 1539, Hernando de Soto was told by other native peoples that the Apalachees were, thanks to their wealth and might, superior to all other Florida tribes. But their eventual slaughter and dispersal by the English and their Creek Indian allies from 1702 to 1704 sealed their fate—along with the rest of Spanish Florida.
It was among the Apalachees that the Spanish established what had become the western capital of the mission system in Florida from 1656 to 1704. The colonial settlement at Mission San Luis included a fort, religious complex, a native council house and chief's house, and a Hispanic village that resembled a small Spanish city. It was home to more than 1,400 Apalachees who farmed the area as well as several hundred Spaniards.
But in 1670, the British established Charleston and became a threat to Spanish Florida by establishing a foothold in the Southeast. By 1702, war in Europe gave the British reason for open hostilities against the Spaniards and the Indian missions. Many of the Apalachees were killed and martyred by the English when they arrived that year under the direction of James Moore, ex-governor of Carolina. The English attacked the fort at St. Augustine and Mission San Luis was burned down.
The Apalachees who did survive were dispersed. Some joined the English, others retreated to St. Augustine with the Spaniards, and another group migrated to French Mobile (Alabama) and, eventually, on to Louisiana.
Above, the state-run mission is nestled among North Florida's looming oak and Spanish moss tr displayed include remnants of a sacred quartz cross the Apalachees constructed, along with fragments fr inal baptismal font (left).
Planning Your Visit
Mission San Luis is open to the public 4 p.m.
The mission is located at 2020 Mission Rd. in 10, take either Exit 28 or Exit 29 and follow the signs.
Getting There
Spanish Sanctity
Franciscan Florida
A few years ago, a friend who lives in Tallahassee asked if I would like to see San Luis during a trip to the Florida state capital that I used to make once a year. Her description of the site as quite tranquil proved true—the state-run mission is nestled among North Florida's looming oak and Spanish moss trees.
I soon learned that the State of Florida purchased the mission site in 1983; today it's co-managed by the state's Bureau of Archaeological Research and Museum of Florida History.
Archaeological and historical research at the site revealed the physical layout of the mission as well as details of daily life among San Luis's colonial residents. Excavations in the Franciscan church complex, the Apalachee council house and chief's house, the fort, and the Spanish residential area led to the reconstruction of several mission-era buildings and the development of a living history program. And plans over the next decade call for the 60-acre park-like setting to be transformed into the first re-created Franciscan mission settlement in Spanish Florida.
On Oct. 22, 2000, with more than 600 people in attendance, Pensacola-Tallahassee Bishop John Ricard celebrated the first formal Mass at Mission San Luis since 1704. However, Karin Stanford, curator of education and historic sites for the Museum of Florida History, says the state has discovered that the reconstructed church and two other reconstructions were built from untreated wood beams. For that reason, visitors are not allowed inside—public safety is the issue—until the state decides how to resolve the matter. Still, visitors can walk around those structures and see the rest of the site.
And that's plenty. Two new buildings—the convento/friary and the kitchen—are now open to the public, as is the Spanish House. There is also a small chapel in the convento.
The opportunity to see the artifacts here is especially exciting for Catholics.
The historic items displayed include remnants of a sacred quartz cross the Apalachees constructed, along with fragments from the original baptismal font.
Inside, the church is rather sparse, but it's elegant in its simplicity. There were no benches used in 17th-century mission churches.
A red dirt floor covers an area beneath which archaeologists believe some 700 and 900 individuals from the Apalachee tribe are buried. It has a timber frame construction with a roof thatched with 42,000 palm fronds.
According to Dr. Bonnie McEwan, director of archaeology, the nave of the church was divided into three sections and was separated from the sanctuary by a wooden railing.
The sanctuary contained an altar, sacristy and counter sacristy. More than 5,000 olive-jar fragments were recovered during excavations in the sanctuary and are the remains of vessels that were used to hold wine and water at Mass.
San Luis historian Dr. John Hann has translated two inventories of church furnishings from Spanish Florida that suggest the church at San Luis had at least six statues, 13 paintings, two engravings and six brass candlesticks and other religious items. It is also likely that since San Luis was the provincial capital, its church had one of the two gilded altar screens (reredos) imported to Spanish Florida.
Newly open for the public is the orientation exhibit hall with recreated archaeological excavations, interactive exhibits, bilingual audio tours and a large display of artifacts excavated from the site. Some of these are hands-on materials allowing visitors to actually touch 17th-century artifacts, including pieces of the baptismal font recovered from excavations in the church.
There is more. Prior to 1996, it was unknown if there were any living descendants of Florida's mission-era Indians. (All of the present-day native people of Florida were probably later, 18th-century immigrants into the state.)
But in March of that year, the research staff at Mission San Luis was contacted by the Apalachee Indians of Louisiana. They are still practicing Catholics and have been able to trace their lineage through parish records to Apalachees who left San Luis in 1704, according to Dr. McEwan. The Apalachees’ remarkable story is highlighted in the new Visitor Center exhibits, which include many ethnographic items and family photographs they have donated to the site.
According to Stanford, the group of 300 Indians living in Louisiana still keep in touch with the staff at San Luis; they recently sent a photo of a newly baptized member of the tribe. The Apalachee Indians of Louisiana are trying to gain recognition as a Native American tribe, she added.
“The friars had recommended them for martyrdom [at the time]; now we think the story continues,” Stanford said. “It has put a face on those people in Florida. They are still Catholic.”
Tom Tracy writes from West Palm Beach, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom Tracy ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Now Playing DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:HOLES (Disney) Director: Andrew Davis. Sigourney Weaver, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight. (PG) Take One: Based on a popular kids’ book about an unlucky boy (Shia LaBeouf) wrongly sentenced to reform camp, Holes has wry humor, thrills, redemption and a convoluted, almost epic plot that's fun to unravel.
Take Two: Some scenes of menace might be too much for young children; some parents might have concerns about a subplot involving a family curse inherited from an old fortuneteller.
Final Take: A satisfying tale that tackles fate, friendship, intolerance and overcoming adversity, Holes benefits from its memorably cartoonish adult villains and from the hero's endearingly quirky family.
ANGER MANAGEMENT
(Columbia) Director: Peter Segal. Adam Sand-ler, Jack Nicholson, Marisa Tomei. (PG-13)
Take One: Few actors convey suppressed rage like Sandler; few actors get under your skin like Nicholson. Nicholson tormenting Sand-ler seems like a comic no-brainer.
Take Two: No-brainer, yes; comic, no. Desperately unfunny and more than a bit disturbing, Anger relies on offensive, juvenile sexual humor, embarrassing celebrity cameos and paranoia fantasies of the alienated.
Final Take: You'll need anger management after sitting through any portion of this sorry film.
PHONE BOOTH (20th Century Fox) Director: Joel Schumacher. Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker, Katie Holmes. (R) Take One: Suspense-driven morality play with Farrell as a slimy publicist trapped in a Times Square phone booth by a hidden sniper who knows his sins.
Take Two: Excessive foul language drains enjoyment from the proceedings. Other faults include over-pumped direction, a too-generic villain and a cheesy, tagged-on denouement.
Final Take: A flawed but passable thriller with some interesting moral implications, Booth actually suggests that there's something wrong with ogling and lusting, and manages a redemptive ending.
WHAT A GIRL WANTS
(Warner Bros) Director: Dennie Gordon. Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston. (PG)
Take One: Virtual remake of Disney hit Princess Diaries is sure to appeal to 'weens of the target gender, with Bynes as a vivacious American girl who longs to know her absent daddy (Firth), a British aristocrat.
Take Two: Firth is meant to be likeable but awkward with Bynes, yet he comes off as a sap and never sufficiently improves. Class-conscious film equates casual with authentic, genteel with hypocritical.
Final Take: Basically harmless despite cited weaknesses and some mild sensuality, but of interest strictly to the target demographic.
A MIGHTY WIND
(Warner Bros) Director: Christopher Guest. Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean et al. (PG-13)
Take One: Mockumentary auteur Guest (Spinal Tap) and his usual ensemble turn their satirical sights on aging folk musicians with a reunion story culminating in a New York concert. Fred Willard and Levy are especially hilarious.
Take Two: As usual, the humor is sporadic and some gags fall flat, but a strong third act pays off. Guest's penchant for objectionable sexual humor is toned down from Best in Show but still in evidence.
Final Take: Guest isn' for all tastes, but Wind is his most affectionate, least edgy film—less a satire than an eccentric, good-natured tribute to folk music, with some hilarious conceits and a smile-inducing finale.
Steven D. Greydanus, editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com, writes from
Bloomfield, New Jersey.
----- EXCERPT: A Register's -eye view of five current box-office leaders ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Spotlight: Signs of Change at Disney? DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:For more than a decade, many Catholics and other Christians have had serious reservations about anything bearing the Disney logo. Troubling anti-family and popspirituality themes in Disney features, objectionable corporate policies and some of the more notorious projects of Disney's subsidiary Miramax have all rightly been points of concern. These issues have sparked loud protests from the Christian community and caused many to look elsewhere for family entertainment or to boycott Disney altogether.
Look again. Encouraging signs of change in recent Disney films suggest that the Mouse might be starting to get the message. The new trend began with surprisingly strong pro-family themes in direct-to-video sequels such as Lady & the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure. This positive depiction of family continued in the theatrically released (though still low-budget) sequels Return to Never Land and Jungle Book 2.
Last year, the trend hit big-budget Disney features. Characters in Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet were missing parents, but the films depicted this tragically, with unusual clarity and poignance. In the same year, themes such as faith, family, miracles and providence, overcoming anger with God, and human mortality figured prominently in the live-action Disney movies The Rookie, The Count of Monte Cristo, Signs and Tuck Everlasting.
This year's Holes, with its affectionate view of family and redemptive themes, continues the trend. All of this is good news for those who want to see more wholesome entertainment at their local multiplex or video store.
Perhaps for some who have avoided Disney products in the past, the time may have come to consider beginning to reward these positive efforts. If the Disney brand alone puts family audiences off of worthwhile movies (other recent examples include Spy Kids and Monsters, Inc.), the law of supply and demand will ensure that they stop getting made.
—Steven D. Greydanus
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:X-Men (2000)
The only superhero movie to date capable of standing with the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies, X-Men is as interested in conflicting ideas and ideologies as clashing superpowers or martial-arts moves. Based on the popular Marvel comic books, Bryan Singer's film is bold enough to invoke the Holocaust and the civil-rights movement in its tale of widespread fear and mistrust of a misunderstood minority population, the superpowered mutants.
Patrick Stewart plays Professor Xavier, leader of the X-Men, who wants to see mutants and other humans live together in harmony. Ian McKellen plays Magneto, an embittered Holocaust survivor whose determination to realize his vision for mutantkind by any means necessary ironically mirrors Nazi superior-race ideology. The real star of the large ensemble cast, however, is Hugh Jackman as the popular Wolverine.
Violence is sometimes intense but stylized and seldom deadly (except for a brief but brutal prize-fighting scene); refreshingly, the film finds it unnecessary to kill off the villains. Persecution of the early Church is highlighted in a key scene, deleted from the film but available in special-edition DVD/VHS, that slyly parallels the conversion of Constantine and legitimization of Christianity with Magneto's entertainingly hokey comic-book plot.
As a young man living under Nazi occupation in Krakow, Karol Wojtyla (now Pope John Paul II) participated in an underground cultural resistance movement called the Rhapsodic Theatre.
During this time he wrote The Jeweller's Shop, a three-act play mostly consisting of contemplative monologues reflecting the vision of love and personhood that would one day inform his treatise Love and Responsibility.
The film version broadly adapts the soliloquies into a loosely structured drama spanning two decades, two continents and two generations. A pair of young Polish couples embarking on matrimony receive guidance from a Wojtyla-like priest and a mysterious jeweler (Burt Lancaster) whose shop seems to exist on a boundary between time and eternity.
References to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins bookend the drama, highlighting the challenge of preparedness for a lifetime of love and of weathering the whims of circumstance, tragedy, temptation and uncertainty. Small touches of magical realism highlight the indissolubility of marriage, while realistic psychological challenges face a young man growing up without a father and a young woman fearful of commitment due to her parents’ troubled marriage. Ultimately, the film affirms love as the vocation of the person and the hope of the future.
A joyous experiment in pure animation, an ambitious work of imaginative power, a showcase of cutting-edge technique and a celebration of great music, Disney's masterpiece is without precedent and without rival. Originally boldly conceived as “a new form of entertainment,” the film initially met with critical and popular failure. Now a recognized classic, it remains one of a kind.
Essentially a high-minded, feature-length descendant of Disney's classic “Silly Symphony” shorts, Fantasia combines the music of Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky with animated imagery drawn from a far-ranging array of conceptual fields.
The film's many unforgettable images include the magical flowers and pixies of the Nutcracker Suite, Mickey Mouse battling the unstoppable bucket-wielding broom in Sorcerer's Apprentice, the dinosaur showdown of Rite of Spring, the majestic winged horses and flirting centaurs of the Pastoral, and the bizarre ballerina hippos and ostriches of Dance of the Hours.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Adults `Fire Up' Their Faith at Summer Conferences DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:SANTA PAULA, Calif.—It seems an unlikely group of people taking part in religious education classes—among them a state trial judge from Arizona, a tax attorney, a chief executive officer. But they all participate in Catholic summer conferences to learn more about their faith.
“It fires us up,” said Richard Anderson, the trial judge from Arizona who, for the past eight years, has been attending the Thomas Aquinas College great books summer seminar in Santa Paula, Calif. “If we read a particular excerpt from Plato, then that spurs us on to continue to read Plato for the rest of the year, not to mention Thomas Aquinas or whoever we' discussing at the time.”
With several degrees in banking and finance under his belt, Fred Ruopp, chairman and chief executive officer of Chelsea Management Co., attends the summer conferences regularly for a different reason.
“I always wish[ed] I had a solid grounding in the liberal arts,” he said. “The summer conference at Thomas Aquinas College is a way for me to participate in that.”
Summer conferences seem to satisfy a yearning adults have to know more about faith and life, and several Catholic colleges are helping to accommodate them. Many offer programs for adults from all walks of life, including lay people, priests, religious and scholars.
The following is a roundup of several programs offered this summer.
Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Mich., on Aug. 8-10 will offer “John Paul II and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology Conference,” sponsored by the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria College.
Leading theologians from Rome, Oxford, Scotland, Switzerland and Chicago, as well as scholars and graduate students in theology from Duke University, Catholic University of America and Loyola University, will gather for two days of intense theological reflection on Pope John Paul II's recovery of Thomistic theology for the post-Vatican II Church.
The keynote speaker for this conference will be Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles. Those attending may use campus housing during their visit. For a brochure on the conference visit www.aquinas.avemaria.edu/JPIIConference.pdf.
Renewal Ministries of Ann Arbor, Mich., an organization that trains Catholic evangelists, will also sponsor its summer training institute at Ave Maria College. The institute is divided into three schools: the School of Evangelization from July 11-20, which helps participants learn how to spread the Gospel in response to the Pope's call for a New Evangelization; the School of Catholic Bible Study from July 20-23, which teaches Catholic understanding of Scripture; and the School of Spirituality: Journey Toward Union with God from July 24-27, which outlines the course of spiritual life.
Among the scheduled presenters are Ralph Martin, president of Renewal Ministries and host of the weekly television program “The Choices We Face”; Sister Ann Shields, whose popular radio show “Food for the Journey” is heard daily throughout the world; Debra Herbeck, a Messianic Jewish Catholic who has taught Bible studies for more than eight years; and Dr. Laurie Manhardt, coauthor of the Come See Catholic Bible Study series.
For more information, visit www.renewalministries.net.
Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., will sponsor two great books summer seminars for adults. Session 1 is scheduled for July 18-20 and Session 2 from July 25-27.
Together with Dr. Tom Dillon, president of Thomas Aquinas College, Dean R. Glen Coughlin and tutors of the college, participants discuss and analyze ideas expressed in the great books.
This summer's theme is “War.” Participants will be reading The Life of King Henry V by Shakespeare; “On Learning in War Time,” an essay by C.S. Lewis; and selected questions concerning war from the Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas.
For more information contact Jaqueline Slay at (805) 525-4417, ext. 329.
Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, offers several conferences throughout the summer specifically for men, women, religious, Catholic apologists and educators:
May 30 to June 1: “Catholic Women: Transformed by Grace.” Speakers include author Patti Mansfield and Rosalind Moss of EWTN.
June 6-8: “Catholic Men: More Than Conquerors.” Speakers include Alan Keyes, former NFL player and coach Danny Abramowicz and Father Terence Henry, TOR.
June 9-13: “Priests, Deacons and Seminarians: May Your Hope Overflow.” Speakers include Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Father Benedict Groeschel and Bishop Daniel Conlon of the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio.
June 13-15: “Catholic Charismatic: Born in and for the Church.” Speakers include Jesse Romero and Patti Mansfield.
July 8-10: “Religious Sisters: Healing: The Bigger Picture.” Speakers include Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Richard McAlear and Sister Maria Walsh.
July 16-18: “Applied Biblical Studies: A Living Sacrifice: Scripture and the Sacramental Life.” Speakers include Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Edward Sri and Dr. William Bales.
July 18-20: “Defending the Faith (apologetics conference): The Truth and Beauty of Holiness.” Speakers include Scott and Kimberly Hahn, former Pentecostal pastor Alex Jones, Father Benedict Groeschel and Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
July 23-27: “St. John Bosco Conference for Catechists and Religious Educators: the Father's Love.” Speakers include Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn.; Mary Jo Smith, director of Image of God; and Msgr. Stuart Swetland of the Diocese of Peoria, Ill.
For more information contact Franciscan University Christian Conference Office at (800) 437-8368 or visit www.franciscanconferences.com.
If you's never attended a Catholic summer conference, perhaps this is the year to start. Kristie Wolfe, from Portage, Pa., attended the “Defending the Faith” conference at Franciscan University last summer with her husband as a wedding anniversary present.
“It was an outstanding experience,” she said. “The keynote speakers were all amazing—every one of them. It energized us as a couple. We saw our faith in a new light and now have ways to explain our faith to others that we didn' have before.”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: They Reversed Direction for Life DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:STERILIZATION REVERSAL: A GENEROUS ACT OF LOVE
Edited by John L. Long One More Soul, 2003 296 pages, $8.95 To order: (800) 307-7685 www.omsoul.com
Most of us have at least one or two “skeletons in the closet”—regrets that we manage by pushing them to the backs of our minds. Some of our past bad decisions have brought about unfortunate circumstances that, even now, we wouldn'
change even if we could.
Here are 20 courageous couples who tell how they squarely faced the biggest moral mistake of their lives—contraception by permanent sterilization—and describe the extraordinary measures they took to reverse their self-imposed, life-denying condition.
Most of the couples in Sterilization Reversal: A Generous Act of Love began their marriage with good intentions and some rudimentary religious sensibility, but financial pressures or health concerns or a wrong-headed search for peace of mind motivated them to end, for once and for all, the possibility of conceiving any more children. Yet, instead of increased freedom and joy in their marriage, they experienced turmoil and a growing realization that, in contributor Greg Alexander's words, “we had totally strayed from the way God had intended things to be.”
All the couples eventually recommitted to their shared Catholic faith and, as they grew in their understanding of Church teachings on marriage, they realized the enormity of their sin. Even when these couples confessed their sin and received absolution from a priest, they wrestled with a lack of closure. “I liken this to breaking someone's window and feeling the need not only to ask for forgiveness, but also to try and fix what was broken,” writes contributor Bob Mallett.
Sometimes the husband is first to realize the error; sometimes the wife. Often, the decision must be delayed until both come to a shared understanding of their sin. Many prayers are said in the interim and small miracles abound—often through the practical help of this book's publisher, the pro-life organization One More Soul.
While the stories vary in particulars, most are uncannily similar in theme. Many couples blame watered-down moral theology, or inaccurate doctrine, they received from representatives of the Church. Lisa and Michael Rein are “cradle Catholics,” but, according to Lisa, their premarital counseling primarily concerned details of the wedding ceremony. “Looking back,” she writes, “it wasn' just the Church's teaching on birth control that we didn' understand; we really didn' have a clear understanding of any of the Church's teaching on marriage and the family.”
Most contributors have agreed to tell their very personal stories in the hopes of dissuading other married couples from making their mistakes. Equally important is their desire to share the great joy they experienced when they fully embraced the Church's teaching on sacramental marriage and resolved to make God's will, not their own, central. Sallyann Gowen writes of a new intimacy with her husband, Mike: “Our love-making has been raised from a mere physical act to a spiritual partaking of in the renewal of our marital bond with the Lord.”
The book concludes with four informative appendices. Baker, Ore., Bishop Robert Vasa and theologian Father Matthew Gutowski discuss the Church's position on sterilization and reversal. Medical information is provided by a urolo-gist and by a gynecologist.
Sterilization Reversal: A Generous Act of Love offers clear information and thoughtful encouragement on a difficult issue. Its largest lesson, though, is applicable to any situation. In Kathy Piper's words: Our freedom is in following Christ's teachings.
Maryanne Hannan writes from Troy, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Maryanne Hannan ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Georgetown on ‘Watch’
Though not downgraded, Georgetown University saw its rating outlook go from positive to stable with its bonds, placed on “watch” for a possible rating downgrade. The downgrades for all private colleges were nearly three times what Moody's reported for the same period last year and more than five times as many as in the first quarter of 2001.
The Times said the trend reflects the pressures to spend heavily despite waning endowments, competition from public universities and the need to raise tuition.
On a Mission
ZENIT, April 14—Rome's Lateran University now offers a master's degree in the “theology of evangelization” in order to provide missionaries with a solid formation that does not require years to accomplish.
The master's degree, which is recognized by the Congregation for Catholic Education, is designed to be completed in two years with one spent in Rome while the other is completed through correspondence.
First Steps
ALL AFRICA.COM, April 7—The new Catholic University of Ghana has completed its first months of operations and all appears on schedule, reported the Web news service.
The university is operating from temporary quarters within the Sunyani Catholic Diocesan Pastoral Center as permanent facilities are still several years away, said the school's president, Father Michael Schultheis.
While Father Schultheis is an American, all five of the university's professors are Ghanan. They teach a student body of 50 that is 70% Catholic. The first academic year will come to a close in October.
Ruined by Success
ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 14—The Ten Commandments Project, a ministry that sought to help children distinguish between right and wrong by paying them $10 each to memorize the Ten Commandments, has run out of money.
Retired florist George Kelley started the program in 1997 and saw to the payment of some $75,000 in prizes through last December. That's when newspapers nationwide published an Associated Press report on the project and Kelley received 15,000 letters from children in all 50 states, breaking the project's bank.
As donations can no longer keep pace with costs, the project is on hold, the founder said, “until the Lord provides additional money.”
Barry Gets Nod
Barry, which is administered by the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich., had been turned down several times for the association's validation because of a relative lack of academic research and the small size of the business school library.
As part of its effort to gain accreditation, a weekend MBA program was added, the college worked to better document alumni successes and, one administrator told the Herald, “the faculty made a big effort to publish.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Suddenly Strict DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Having realized that I's been a weak disciplinarian for years, should I change all at once or gradually? Either way, how will this kind of change affect my children (ages 4, 7 and 8)?
Change all at once. That's the best way. Alas, in so doing, you will only change gradually anyway. Even trying with all your might, it's nearly impossible to change quickly and fully. Your parenting style and habits have been gaining momentum for a long time. Suddenly slamming on the brakes and reversing engines won' result in an immediate, 180-degree turnabout. Most likely you' skid for a while, inch to a halt, then slowly reverse direction.
Turning around a large ship in the ocean takes up to 12 miles. And that's a ship without kids. You' not the size of a ship, but you' far more complex. Altering ship course is child's play compared to altering parenting course.
Nevertheless, you need to begin changing your ways right now and with full speed ahead. First, the longer you delay, the longer bad habits have to further harden. Breaking bad habits a little at a time is like trying to quit smoking a little at a time. You' struggling to conquer the same behavior in which you keep indulging.
Second, changing gradually leads to changing erratically. Let's say you prioritize your list of troubles. This month you' tackle the majors—backtalk, defiance and sibling quibbling. Next month you' move on to bedtime badtimes, meal melees and toy trash. What if you' still getting resistance in the big three at the end of the month? Do you allot another month, thus still ignoring the minor issues? And when is a problem conquered? At 50% less? 75%? In fact, most misbehavior never completely goes away. So if you wait until one problem is all gone, you' never move on to any others.
Third, the faces of misconduct overlap. For example, backtalk and defiance may be intertwined with bedtime badtimes. Sibling quibbling can lead to toy trash and vice versa. You can' deal effectively with one without simultaneously dealing with the others.
Fourth, bad stuff needs to be stopped now. The instant you sense you' drinking spoiled milk, do you slow your rate of swallowing—or spit it out? If your child were doing something harmful, would you allow him three months to give it up? One of the greater human blessings is self-awareness. Once we realize we' heading in the wrong direction, we can exert all our will to change course, if we so choose.
How will your kids react to the new you? They' be shell-shocked. Who is this stranger? What kind of junk has he/she been reading? How long is this going to last until we get back to normal? Kinds don' generally realize what is good for them. But, shortly, they' come to accept that this stronger parent is here to stay and will only get stronger with time.
Gradually, they' change, too—into more mature human beings who' learn to appreciate the way things have changed.
Dr. Ray Guarendi is the father of 10, a psychologist and an author. He can be reached at www.kidbrat.com
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dr. Ray Guarendi ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Reward of Restraint DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Obese children are 5.5 times more likely than healthy kids to have a poor quality of life. On a 100-point scale, obese children rated their quality of life at an average of 67 (based on the sum total of several wellness indicators)—compared with 83 for healthy, non-obese children surveyed in another study. Results of the study, conducted at the University of California- San Diego, were released in the April 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The rate of childhood obesity has tripled since the 1970s.
Register Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Facts of Life ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Meet the Newest Spanish Saints DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Sixteenth-century Spain was a world power whose mighty navy expanded its commercial empire to newly discovered lands across the ocean.
During the Siglo de oro (‘Golden Century”), Spain also brought the Gospel to the Western Hemisphere and produced great saints like Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and Teresa of Avila, who reformed the Carmelites.
The Spanish Empire is long gone, but the Church in Spain has continued to bring forth saints. During his fifth pastoral visit to Spain May 3-4, Pope John Paul II will canonize five Spaniards who lived to see the second quarter of the 20th century. Here, in brief, are their stories.
José María Rubio Peralta (1864-1929), a Jesuit priest in the Spanish capital, was such an outstanding preacher and confessor that the local bishop called him “the Apostle of Madrid.”
José María was one of 12 children in a devout Catholic farming family. Upon completing many years of seminary studies, he was ordained for the diocese of Madrid in 1887. After two short parish assignments he began to teach at the seminary.
In 1906, Father Rubio made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, then entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Granada. After making his profession, he was stationed at the Jesuit residence in Madrid. There, until his death on May 2, 1929, he carried on a grace-filled pastoral ministry, which extended into the poorest barrios.
Father Rubio's simple preaching inspired devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Sacrament. Long lines of penitents waited outside his confessional. Pope John Paul II, in his homily at the beatification ceremony on Oct. 6, 1985, praised “his exquisite touch as a director of souls ... He spiritually formed committed lay people ... men and women of every social class, who in many cases came to be his collaborators in the works of assistance and charity inspired and directed by him.”
Ángela de la Cruz Guerrero González (1846-1932) founded a congregation, the Sisters of the Cross, to serve the poorest of the poor.
Ángela's parents, Andalusian peasants, had come to the city of Seville looking for good jobs; she, while still a little girl, had to work in a shoe factory. As a youngster she was drawn to religious life. When she was 15, she took private vows and devoted herself to charitable works.
In prayer, Ángela had a vision of an empty cross facing Christ crucified and was inspired to offer herself together with him “through poverty, self-denial and humility” for the salvation of souls. Father José Torres Padilla helped her to write a rule for The Company of the Cross, which was instituted in 1875. Its members “became poor with the poor so as to bring them to Christ.”
In 1876, the Sisters of the Cross tended the sick during an epidemic in Seville. By begging for alms and distributing them, Sister Ángela of the Cross created a bond between the poor and the rich.
The congregation thrived and was approved by the Holy See in 1904. Mother Ángela died on March 2, 1932, and was beatified in Seville on Nov. 5, 1982.
Father Pedro Poveda Castroverde (1874-1936), a diocesan priest and educator, was martyred during the first year of the Spanish Civil War.
Pedro was attracted to the priesthood early in his life. When his family could no longer afford to pay for his studies, he transferred to the diocesan seminary in Gaudix, where the bishop gave him a scholarship.
After his ordination in 1897, he served as a professor and then spiritual director at the seminary in Gaudix. He also did pastoral work among the poor, founding a school for the local cave-dwellers.
Throughout his priestly ministry Father Poveda carried on an education apostolate. Noting dangerous trends in the increasingly secular public schools, he founded the Teresian Institute in 1911 to train women teachers and provide them with sound religious formation. The institute spread throughout Spain and Chile. He also wrote influential books on pedagogy and spirituality.
Don Pedro Poveda was assassinated in Madrid in the uprising on July 28, 1936, after declaring: “I am a priest of Christ.” He was beatified Oct. 10, 1993.
Genoveva Torres Morales (1870-1956) overcame personal tragedies and hardship to found a religious community devoted to Eucharistic adoration and the care of needy women.
The youngest child of Catholic working-class parents, Genoveva was orphaned and lost four siblings by the age of 8. When she was 13, one of her legs had to be amputated; from then on she walked with crutches.
For years she lived in “Mercy House” in Valencia, a charitable home staffed by nuns. There she learned to sew, but her disability prevented her from entering the convent. At age 24, she began working to support herself and took lodgings in the city with two other women.
Under the guidance of her spiritual director, Genoveva founded the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Holy Angels in 1911. The community took in elderly and neglected women. The sisters’ prayer life centered on nocturnal adoration and the rosary. The religious institute spread rapidly and received papal approval in 1953.
Despite her ailments, Mother Genoveva retained a cheerful sense of humor. She died at the age of 86 on Jan. 5, 1956, and was beatified Jan. 29, 1995.
María Maravillas de Jesús Pidal y Chico de Guzmán (1891-1974), a noblewoman by birth, dedicated herself as a Discalced Carmelite to the restoration of monastic life in Spain.
Maravillas was born while her father, the Marquis de Pidal, was the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See. As a young lady she turned down several marriage proposals, but her father would not allow her to enter the convent. After his death in 1913, Maravillas was advised to stay with her mother. Thus she was 28 when she began her novitiate as a Carmelite.
Sister María Maravillas de Jesús was one of four nuns sent in 1924 to start a new Carmel in the geographical center of Spain. She was appointed novice mistress, then Mother Superior, a position she would hold in various communities.
The Spanish Civil War sent her community on an odyssey. At one time, the sisters lived in an apartment in Madrid. Yet Mother Maravillas opened a new monastery near Salamanca during the war. Like St. Teresa of Avila, she had the charism of a foundress. Over the years, she founded 10 other Carmels, including a daughter house in Kottayam, India.
Mother Maravillas died in La Aldehuela on Dec. 11, 1974. She was beatified May 10, 1998.
During the first half of the 20th century, Spanish society experienced the upheavals of industrialization and armed conflict. The Church suffered terrible persecution. In those times of adversity, God raised up new saints, many of them from humble circumstances, to care for the needy, to train and guide lay Catholics, and to hand on Spain's heritage of holiness to succeeding generations. In canonizing the five new saints of Spain, the Holy Father has given the Church shining examples and powerful intercessors to help her in the New Evangelization.
Michael J. Miller translated New Saints and Blesseds and Married Saints and Blesseds for Ignatius Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Michael J. Miller ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro Athletes Strong for Life DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:He made a living protecting quarterbacks. Now he defends life in every stage of its development.
For Chris Godfrey, who gained fame as the right guard for the Super Bowl XXI champion New York Giants, what began as a one-time talk given to an eighth-grade confirmation class in 1981 has led to a full-time pro-life ministry.
“Teens have been led to believe that sex is no big deal, something to do for kicks,” he says, explaining the rationale behind his founding of Life Athletes, an organization of more than 300 professional and Olympic athletes dedicated to being pro-life role models. “We want them to think about things beforehand, to make their own decisions.”
“Young people today are leading very busy lives,” he adds from his office in South Bend, Ind. “They' like the sheep in the Gospel: harried and harassed. They' bombarded with attractively packaged messages that are leading them down the wrong path.”
A cradle Catholic, Godfrey had an adult conversion experience at the beginning of his nine-year career in the National Football League, which led to speaking engagements across the country. “I became aware of what was going on with abortion, that a lot of people were getting hurt,” he explains. “So I began to incorporate some of these pro-life thoughts into the talks I was giving.”
Giants’ owner Wellington Mara and former Giants’ great Andy Robustelli took notice. On the heels of the team's 1987 Super Bowl victory, they invited Godfrey and five teammates to create a pro-life video called “Champions for Life.” Later Godfrey, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School and a member of the Indiana Bar, founded Life Athletes. The ministry's outreach now includes books, videos, summer camps and speaking engagements.
“We's honed what God would have us to do,” he says. “We's grown to over 300 athletes who are involved in one way or another. We invite others to join us in making the Life Athletes commitment.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patrick Novecosky ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 05/04/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 04-10, 2003 ----- BODY:Faith-Based Chastity
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, April 2—Teens with strong religious views, particularly girls, are less likely to have sex than are less religious teens.
According to a recent analysis of the Add Health Survey, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, religion reduces the likelihood of adolescents engaging in early sex by shaping their attitudes and beliefs about sexual activity and its consequences.
Parents’ religious and sexual attitudes don' directly affect their children's decision to have sex, but they do influence the formation of their children's own attitudes toward sex, according to Ann Meier, one of the researchers.
Condoms Condemned in Kenya
All Christian churches that have been involved in the discussions—Anglican, Methodist and Catholic—have opposed the use of condoms. Muslims have advocated their use within marriage.
Philippine Abortuary Sting
ABS-CBN NEWS, April 12—Six suspected abortionists and two of their associates have been arrested in an illegal abortion facility in Obando, Philippines.
Chief Supt. Eduardo Matillano, director of the National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said the suspects were arrested in a sting operation inside their rented apartment that doubled as their “clinic.”
Matillano said an eight-man team of agents employed the pregnant wife of a policeman to nab the suspects red-handed.
Umbilical Blood Banking
After learning more, Kaleel decided to donate her child's cord blood after delivery and is now leading the push to get more women in Illinois to do the same.
Her voice has been heard: The Illinois House has passed legislation requiring licensed hospitals to notify pregnant women that they have the option. The bill now heads to the Senate.
“Too often women have no idea that they can donate their umbilical-cord blood and, by virtue of doing so, save thousands of lives,” said Rep. David Leitch.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: U.N. Population Fund Ignores U.S. Alarm DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — The U.S. State Department has released a report accusing the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) of funding forced abortion and sterilization programs worldwide.
The March 31 report says that forced abortion and sterilization policies exist in the 32 counties where the Population Fund has operations. And the report states that, despite the organization's claims to the contrary, its involvement in China's abusive programs is sufficient to deny the organization U.S. government funds under federal law.
The provisions of the Cairo Program of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development prohibit the United Nations from supporting forced abortion and sterilization programs.
Evidence provided by State Department investigators shows that abuses also include the leveling of so-called social compensation fees for families having a child without government approval. These “social compensation fees” are fines amounting to several times a family's yearly earnings. The report calls these fines “draconian.”
According to the report, “additional disciplinary measures against those who violated the limited-child policy by having an unapproved child or helping another to do so included the withholding of social services, higher tuition costs when the child goes to school, job loss or demotion, loss of promotion opportunity for one or more years, expulsion from the Party [membership in which was an unofficial requirement for certain jobs] and other administrative punishments, including in some cases the destruction of property.”
As a result of these findings it was determined that funding the U.N. Population Fund would be in violation of federal law specifying that no U.S. government funds be used in a program that “supports or participates in the management of a coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
An official of the U.S. State Department told the Register, “Our position is that UNFPA's assistance to the Chinese birth-limitation program amounts to support or participation of their program, and the program is coercive; therefore we cannot provide funding for the UNFPA.”
The Fund's Silence
Contacted for comment, U.N. Population Fund spokesman William Ryan said he had not seen the State Department report. He did not answer an offer by the Register to e-mail him a copy to review.
During a follow-up call, Ryan said, “No, my position hasn't changed.” Asked if he would specify what his position was, he replied “No” and hung up.
Finally, the Register reached another U.N. Population Fund spokesman, Abubakar Dungus, who refused to make any statement other than to refer to a July 22, 2002, press release posted on the fund's Web site. The press release contains quotes and a link to a statement released on the same date by Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund and concurrently U.N. under-secretary-general.
Obaid's statement, quoting from the initial findings of the State Department assessment team, defended the fund's record.
He said the loss of U.S. funding to the organization “is especially troubling since the fact-finding mission that was sent to China by the United States found, quote, ‘No evidence that UNFPA has supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China,’ as has been charged by critics. This is contained in the report dated May 29, 2002, addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell.”
However, the actual quote from the May 29 State Department letter states: “We find no evidence that UNFPA has knowingly supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in the PRC [People's Republic of China]” (emphasis added).
As well, Obaid failed to mention the investigators’ statement just seven lines later: “We therefore recommend that unless and until all forms of coercion in [Chinese] law and in practice are eliminated, no U.S. government funds be allocated for population programs in [China].”
As well, a team of independent journalists reporting in March for Radio Free Asia in Korla City, located in one of the Chinese counties where the U.N. Population Fund operates, interviewed family-planning officials and local citizens who said human-rights abuses in the name of family planning were taking place (see sidebar).
‘Liars’
Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-family U.N. watchdog group, was blunt about the U.N. Population Fund's claim: “They are liars,” he said.
The fund “says a number of different things,” Ruse continued. “At one point they'll say coercion doesn't exist or that coercion is not occurring where they are operating. They just deny that coercion happens. They have enough countries that are more or less indebted to them that no widespread move against UNFPA is really possible until more governments get involved in these types of investigations, such as [the one] the United States just conducted.”
According to an April 17 weekly news briefing from the pro-life Population Research Institute, new evidence has emerged that the U.N. Population Fund's denials are not only false but “impossible,” in the words of one Chinese official.
“China has passed a new law enforcing family planning and birth limitations,” the Population Research Institute briefing stated. “In regions in China where UNFPA operates, local statutes are being implemented to strengthen the central government's strangle-hold on reproductive freedom.”
“UNFPA supports these projects with funding, surgical and technical support,” the institute briefing added. “It also provides free public-relations services to the Chinese government by claiming that reform is taking place in China.”
John Mallon is contributing editor ofInside the Vatican magazine.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Mallon ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Cuba Crackdown DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:HAVANA — Pope John Paul II will continue his dialogue with Fidel Castro in hopes of fostering the democratization of Cuba despite the recent execution of three hijackers and the jailing of scores of dissidents.
“The Holy Father is convinced that dialogue must continue to contribute to the democratization of Cuba,” Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano told reporters April 30.
Much of the recent repression in Cuba has been directed toward members of a pro-democracy group enjoying the support of many Catholics.
Several Cuban independent journalists and Catholic lay leaders were awakened March 17 by Castro's political police and, without any explanations, taken to police stations.
That morning marked the largest wave of arrests of Cuban dissidents in more than 20 years. Almost 80 were subjected to summary trials behind closed doors and, by April 7, sentenced to between 15 and 27 years in prison.
Owning “books contrary to the socioeconomic process,” old computers or video cameras; meeting with U.S. diplomats in hotels; and getting access to the Internet for free at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana were some of the charges the prosecution brought forward during the trials.
“These arrests are the most intense wave of repression in the history of Cuba,” said human-rights activist Elizardo S·nchez, one of the few dissi dent leaders who remain free. “Rarely has Latin America seen so many people accused for crimes of opinion.”
In fact, among the convicted are well-known figures of the Cuban democratic opposition such as Raúl Rivero, director of the alternative news agency Cuba Press, and Martha Beatriz Roque, founder of the Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society.
“It is true for the Pope as for other free peoples of the world [that] the [Cuban government's] latest decisions were disappointing,” Cardinal Sodano said. But he said the Vatican, “through our excellent nuncio in Cuba, Archbishop Luis Robles DÌaz, and through the bishops and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, archbishop of Havana, [we] will continue with that dialogue.”
“In life,” he continued, “you always have to provide people with golden bridges to come out of the world in which they are enclosed.”
Castro has stood by his actions, defending the executions and harsh sentences. At a May 1 rally in Havana, he charged that President Bush is committed to eliminating him. Cuba's recent crackdown against dissidents is “legitimate defense” against the United States, which is trying to subvert his government, Castro said.
But Cardinal Sodano said he and the Pope both have “great hope” that Castro “may lead the [Cuban] people toward new democratic goals, maintaining the achievements of the last decades.”
“This is of course the hope we all have,” a source within the Cuban episcopate told the Register on condition of anonymity. “But he [Castro] is doing everything possible to convince the Cuban people that there will be no change, at least not a peaceful one, while he is alive.”
Most of the imprisoned dissidents are key grass-roots supporters of the Varela Project, a public appeal for a popular referendum to introduce democratic reform in Cuba.
The project, which presented some 11,000 signatures to the Cuban Parliamentary Assembly last year, has been promoted mostly by Catholic groups, particularly the Movimiento Cristiano LiberaciÛn (Christian Liberation Movement), directed by Oswaldo Pay· SardiÒas. It is named after Father Felix Varela, a 19th-century priest who advocated Cuban independence from Spain.
Payá was spared because of his international fame — he is currently a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize — but approximately 20 of his key collaborators have been sentenced, including secretary of the Christian Liberation Movement JosÈ Daniel Ferrer Garcia, 32, the father of two.
“This is obviously a blow aimed directly at the Varela Project and to any other initiative fostering a peaceful but bold transition to democracy in Cuba,” Payá said at a press conference in which he provided the long list of Varela Project's supporters sentenced by the government.
According to Cuban independent journalist Claudia Marquez Linares, “The blow the government has struck against the peaceful opposition within the island shows the dissidents were doing a good job.”
Marquez, wife of a journalist sentenced to 18 years in prison, believes that to accuse dissidents of subverting the established order “demonstrates how feeble the administration's hold on power really is.”
“Fidel Castro is scared. At least he is alarmed,” said Pablo Alfonso, one of the most knowledgeable commentators on Cuban issues and a columnist of the Miami-based Nuevo Herald.
“Why so many Catholics among the arrested? Because most of the dissident initiatives such as the Varela Project have been growing around lay Christian groups,” he told the Register.
Probably because of this fact, the increasingly outspoken Catholic Church in Cuba decided not to remain silent.
First, the lay diocesan council of the Pinar del Rio Diocese issued the unusual public criticism of government officials April 7.
The document said the government's campaign against dissent was creating a climate of fear in Cuba and voiced its “concern for the direction that the nation might take.”
The statement also protested the fact that the dissidents had merely voiced their political opinions, thus “such severe sanctions should never have been applied to anyone who was acting peacefully,” especially considering “the critical conditions of subsistence” in Cuba.
Five days later, the Permanent Council of the Cuban Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement condemning the government's decision to execute three dissidents who hijacked a ferry with the intention of sailing to the United States.
After learning of the April 11 execution, “the bishops of Cuba, in full agreement with Pope John Paul II's magisterium, express once again our rejection of the death penalty,” the document said.
“No one has the right to put others’ lives in danger, as the hijackers did, but at the same time no one should decide to apply death to other persons as a remedy for their crimes, especially when it takes place after an extremely brief trial,” the bishops added.
The document also called the long jail terms imposed on the political dissidents “a matter of deep concern.”
The official response of the Cuban government was aired by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe PÈrez Roque, who said the summary trials and harsh sentences were justified because the main U.S. diplomat in Cuba, James Cason, was leading a plan to “undermine Cuba's revolution.”
“These excuses are nonsense,” Alfonso said. “The government is just getting paranoid over a growing, organized dissident movement. Castro is just thinking of what will happen with such a movement in four years, when he will turn 80.”
The reaction of the Catholic Church has gone beyond Cuba, even affecting the relationship between the Vatican and the Castro regime.
In fact, on April 28, after several leaders of the Cuban exile community called for the intervention of Pope John Paul II, the Vatican made public that the Holy Father had already urged Castro to grant clemency to dissidents in a letter written on Palm Sunday, April 13.
The letter, signed by Cardinal Sodano, spoke of the Holy Father's distress “upon learning of the severe sentences imposed recently on numerous Cuban citizens and, also, for some sentences of capital punishment.”
The Pope's message requested that Castro “give consideration to a significant gesture of clemency to the condemned, with the certainty that such an act would contribute to creating a climate of greater civil liberty for the benefit of the beloved Cuban people.”
“I am sure that you also share with me the conviction that only a sincere and constructive interaction between citizens and civil authorities can guarantee the development of a modern and democratic state in an ever more united and fraternal Cuba,” the letter also said.
Nevertheless, other Vatican voices have been less diplomatic in voicing their criticism of Castro.
The Vatican's missionary news agency, Fides, issued an editorial April 29 stating that they “must say that we hoped for a change, we hoped that ‘El Máximo’ [a title referring to Fidel Castro] would have the courage to open Cuba to democracy.”
“We hoped and we were wrong, holding our breath for something to happen,” the editorial continued. “In this way perhaps we gave the [Cuban] regime the impression that its leader was covered by our silence ... but it was not a covering, it was only charity, it was offering him a chance to walk toward the rediscovery of his dignity.
“But Fidel is using his fist against those demanding justice for the people. The closed fist of Fidel, full of the flies of rhetorical populism whose buzzing filled the gulags with corpses, continues to strike defenseless people.”
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Peru.
(Catholic News Service contributed to this story)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ALEJANDRO BERM⁄DEZ ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Law Would Help Give the Best Mother's Day Gift of All DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Women who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy are often unaware that they have an opportunity to give the greatest Mother's Day gift of all: adoptive motherhood.
Jo Ann Davis wants to make sure they know.
Davis, a Republican congresswoman from Virginia, has reintroduced the Adoption Information Act (H.R. 1229), which would require that adoption information be given to pregnant women who seek advice from federally funded clinics.
The Adoption Information Act, which Davis introduced in October 2001, received strong support at that time but was not brought to the House floor for a vote.
Reintroduced March 12, the bill has more than 20 co-sponsors and is gaining support.
“Opinion surveys consistently find that the general public views adoption as an attractive option in the case of an outof-wedlock pregnancy or other situations in which the mother is unable to care for the expected child,” Davis said. “Yet very few women choose adoption when confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. I believe this is in part because adoption information is not available to them and they often have to search for a provider of adoption services.”
Specifically, the Adoption Information Act would require nearly 5,000 family-planning clinics that accept Title X funds to provide a detailed pamphlet of adoption information to all people inquiring about alternatives to abortion. The pamphlet must include a comprehensive list of the adoption centers available in the state where the services are provided, including address and telephone information.
In addition, those distributing brochures would be required to orally inform women that the pamphlet is provided by the Department of Health and Human Services and contains adoption information for that state.
Last year the Office of Population Affairs ruled that clinics must offer pregnant women counseling for prenatal care and delivery, infant care, foster care, adoption and abortion. But, according to this rule, referrals to agencies that provide in-depth counseling about these options can be offered “only upon request.”
NARAL Pro Choice America (formerly the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) maintains that abortion clinics follow this procedure and inform women about the adoption option. But they do not provide referral information unless pregnant women request it.
According to NARAL spokes-woman Deborah Bagocius, “Title X-funded clinics are required to give what's called ‘nondirective options counseling’ that includes discussion of carrying the pregnancy to term, adoption and abortion, and must include referrals to any option upon request.”
Caroline Fitchett, executive director of Oregon NARAL, stated that Oregon laws “currently offer pregnant women information about adoption, and she [the pregnant woman] does not have to ask for adoption information before it is given.”
However, specific referral information is not provided unless the woman specifically requests it, and Davis believes the Adoption Information Act would resolve this problem.
Not Top Option
Eleanor Ruder directs Bridge for Life, a crisis-pregnancy center in Queens in New York City. She said there is still much work to be done in overcoming a prejudice against adoption.
Of the hundreds of women the center has helped during the past 11 years, only about five or six have chosen to put their babies up for adoption, she said.
“Women don't want to hear about it,” Ruder said, calling it a nationwide problem.
She explained most women in crisis pregnancies think they have three options: abort, have the baby or place the child for adoption. Adoption is often viewed as the worst of the three options because, though a single mother might not be able to provide well for the baby, such a mother might feel she will be “even worse” if she “abandons” her child to someone else. And some take the attitude, “If I can't have the baby, no one can.”
But Ruder still supports Davis’ bill. “We should definitely try to give [mothers] information,” she said. “It might plant a seed. Even if she ends up having the abortion, she might feel so crummy about it and if she's pregnant again, she might consider adoption.”
And she remarked that with the possibility of “open adoptions,” a mother can now keep in touch with her baby and be reassured the child is being well cared for.
Loretta Cooper, adoption facilitator and vice president of the Academy of California Adoption Professionals, thinks the Adoption Information Act is necessary but hopes it would go a step further than providing a list of agencies and an oral option for adoption.
“I've been doing adoption for 20 years,” she said. “When it works, it is so right. I'm very much an advocate of adoption. Any way that the adoption can be promoted I'm for it. But I believe there is a lack of education with regard to adoption. The girls need to meet with an adoption professional that would take time with them and educate these girls and give them information. When a girl knows completely about her options and understands adoption, it takes away the fear, and she is less likely to change her mind.”
Davis admitted the training of adoption professionals is a necessary accompaniment to the Adoption Information Act.
Last year, U.S. Rep. Jim De-Mint, R-S.C., included language in the Children's Health Act that made grants available to adoption organizations for programs to train health center staff to provide adoption information and referrals to pregnant women on an equal basis with all other courses of action. However, those referrals are now provided only upon request.
The Adoption Information Act complements the DeMint language in that it provides a clear mandate to put adoption information and statewide adoption referrals into the hands of all pregnant women who visit family-planning clinics, regardless of their intentions when they go to a family-planning clinic.
If passed, the Adoption Information Act, though not comprehensive, would be another step in the education process.
“Adoption is an option for unwanted pregnancies, and information must be readily available for women who are seeking answers on how to handle an unwanted pregnancy,” Davis said. “This legislation will help facilitate this need.”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: MARY ANN SULLIVAN ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: New Laws Target Priests, Not Abuse, Critics Say DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:BOSTON — The Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal started out mainly as a source of pain and embarrassment for Catholics. Now it has now become the reason given for unprecedented interference into the affairs of the Church by the state.
That is the belief of a number of attorneys who met on the issue at university symposiums in April.
Media coverage of sex abuse by priests — and the failure of bishops to stop it — reached a high point last year when a notorious Boston pedophilia case was prosecuted in the courts. The New York Times estimates that only 1.8% of priests have even been accused of sex abuse, and studies suggest only 0.3% of priests are pedophiles, but the anger of Catholics and the pain of victims have fueled unprecedented legal challenges to the Church.
Patrick Schiltz, associate dean at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, believes many of the lawsuits being brought against the Church necessarily bring state intrusion into the Church's life.
As an example, Schiltz told a symposium at Boston College Law School about one type of lawsuit that claims there is a fiduciary relationship, or position of trust, between the bishop and his people that is violated any time a clergyman commits sexual abuse.
“Determining whether a pastor or bishop breached such a duty,” Schiltz said in his paper, “does not involve an inquiry into whether he acted as a reasonable minister, some courts explain, but instead requires that the court ask whether the pastor or bishop acted ‘with utmost good faith and solely for the benefit’ of the [victim].”
That raises all kinds of issues, Schiltz said, including competing loyalties between laity and priests. But more importantly, “some courts have purported to assess what acts of ministry are or are not in the best interest of congregants.”
Schiltz is not concerned with “courts reaching the conclusion that a pastor acts wrongly when he sexually exploits a congregant” since fiduciary law isn't needed to say that.
“Rather, my concern is with courts second-guessing the decisions made by bishops and others in authority within a church,” he said.
But David Clohessy, executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, thinks those decisions need to be second-guessed. His group has pushed for legislation that would suspend the statute of limitations and for courts to force dioceses to reveal their files on priests who are accused of sexual misconduct, among other measures.
Speaking to the Register from the first National Conference on Clergy Abuse that was held April 10 at Yeshiva University in New York, Clohessy said “no institution can effectively police itself. Therefore, those who are victimized have to have the option in the courts, especially when seeking justice in the institution doesn't work.”
He thinks there is “absolutely no evidence” there will be any real changes in state law regarding clergy, as some say.
Of those worried about changes to state laws, Clohessy said, “My impression is that it sounds like Chicken Little.”
New Hampshire Method
But state legislatures are not the only venue in which state interference is happening. At the Boston College conference, John Baker, a law professor at Louisiana State University, said the agreement reached between the New Hampshire attorney general and the Diocese of Manchester is particularly onerous.
The state placed on the diocese “a burden over and above state law,” Baker said. “It is an outrageous expansion of existing law.”
The agreement states the attorney general will not indict the diocese as long as it implements the five-year deal. Part of the agreement says the state will annually audit the diocese's efforts at child sexual abuse prevention, including what programs it is using. It also places additional reporting requirements on all diocesan personnel.
N. William Delker, senior assistant attorney general in New Hampshire, disagreed with Baker's assessment.
“The diocese agreed,” he said, “that if they were indicted they would have been convicted. In order for us to sustain a conviction, we would have had to have both the law and the facts on our side.”
But Baker said it was impossible to tell if that would have happened or not. He said the attorney general's action sets a precedent that will only increase state interference.
“The next time there's a crisis,” he said, “it'll be worse.”
The bishops of New Jersey also made an oversight agreement with county prosecutors and the state attorney general last year.
“I have not seen any instance of prosecutorial excess,” said Bill Bolan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference. “And I say that as a former prosecutor.”
In fact, it was entered into under completely different circumstances, he said. The bishops of New Jersey entered the agreement voluntarily, but the New Hampshire deal was reached only after the attorney general said he would indict the diocese for the abuse patterns.
Getting the Priests?
Though Clohessy said the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests had absolutely nothing to do with New Hampshire, it appears the organization would like to see the New Hampshire method applied to New Jersey.
After the New Jersey agreement was announced, the state chapter of the network issued a press release saying it was unhappy with the agreement and called for further action by the attorney general against the state's bishops.
This included:
Econvening a statewide grand jury with subpoena powers;
Erequiring a quarterly disclosure of where all priests who have been “credibly accused” of sex crimes are;
Eeliminating the statute of limitations;
E the attorney general allowing Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to assign “survivor liaisons” for each diocese “to assist in the prosecution of abuse cases and promote our presence in the state to support victims";
Eand asking that the attorney general plan with the network “a public forum with prosecutors and bishops to address the ongoing public safety crisis in the Church.”
These new developments seem to have one thing in common, said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, and that's that they single out the Catholic Church.
“If it was about protecting kids,” the laws would be equally applied to all people, he said.
Donohue cited as one example New York state's new mandatory-reporting law. Last year, the Legislature debated a law that would require all professionals who have contact with children to report sexual abuse.
But that was effectively stopped when Planned Parenthood complained it would require the organization to report statutory rape. Now the law states that people who are in a “position of trust” must make a report.
“It's all about getting the priests,” Donohue said, “and not protecting kids.”
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Scandal, Phase 2 The State Responds ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Out of the Starting Gate - and Into the Church DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Jerry Bailey might have placed second in this year's Kentucky Derby, but he is still America's top jockey.
Bailey has earned more than $22 million in purses by winning 225 races in 900 starts. He has won the Kentucky Derby twice, the Preakness twice, the Belmont once, the Dubai World Cup four times and the Breeder's Cup 13 times. He's also won the Eclipse Award for best jockey of the year — the Oscar for jockeys — for six of the last eight seasons.
Just before leaving for this year's Kentucky Derby, Bailey spoke with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Dallas and raised in El Paso, Texas. I have two sisters, one who is four years older and another who is 13 months younger than I am.
What did your parents do for a living?
My father is a pedodontist — a children's dentist. My mother taught home economics until the kids came along. Then she worked as a housewife. She died in 1975 of breast cancer, when I was 17.
How did you handle your mother's death?
It could have been worse. I could have been 7 instead of 17, but I don't think I dealt with my mother's death particularly well. It is a piece of a young man's life that is not easily overcome. I went out on the road and fell into the lifestyle of those people around me — bars and late nights. I ended up becoming an alcoholic.
What led you to become a jockey?
Texas didn't have legalized racing at the time, but my father used to frequent the races across the border at Sunland Park in New Mexico. He was so enthralled that he purchased several racehorses and has owned them all his life. I became hooked by osmosis. In addition to summer jobs like paper routes and mowing lawns, I worked at the stables.
Did you grow up Catholic?
No. I grew up Methodist but wasn't terribly spiritual growing up. Spiritually, I didn't have a basis to draw from. That's probably why I fell on the side of the fence that I fell on.
What led you to become Catholic?
I was married to my wife, Suzee, in 1985. She is Catholic, and both of my sisters married Catholics. Although I wasn't Catholic, I attended a Catholic church with my wife. She has been a great power of example to me.
We have dual residences in both Florida and New York. I went to see our priest on Long Island, N.Y., and he referred me to some members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I recovered in 1989 and am still recovering.
After that, I became more spiritual. I believe God had saved my life and I wanted to grow closer to him. I was received into the Catholic Church at St. Bernadette's Catholic Church in Hollywood, Fla., about four or five years ago. One of my sisters has also converted and the other one is debating it.
Was there a particular incident that led you to join Alcoholics Anonymous?
No, it was a steady progression. We didn't have a child at the time, and it was apparent to me that if I was going to be responsible and be a father, my lifestyle had to change. We suffered with infertility issues but eventually conceived. Our son, Justin, is now 10 years old.
Tell me a little about the daily life of a jockey. Do you ride daily, even when you're not racing? How do you prepare for a race?
Generally races run five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday.
Most mornings I'll exercise the horses that I will be riding the next day or the next week, and I'll go riding at about 6 a.m. I get on them and work them around the racetrack, not at race speed but at three-quarters speed. Then I'll go to the barn area where the horses are stabled and do some public relations with the trainers and go over the mounts with my agent. Every jockey has an agent.
If I'm able, I make it a habit to return home between 9:30 a.m. and noon, and return back to the track for my races in the afternoon. They typically start at 1 p.m. and then run every half-hour.
How does your spiritual life fit into that routine?
Every day the racetrack chaplain has a daily devotion at noon in the jockey room. Wherever I'm at, I'm usually there for devotions every day.
I'm usually away on Sunday, but I try to find a Mass. If I'm in New York, I'll go to church on Long Island. If I'm in Kentucky, I'll attend St. Paul's. If I'm in California, I have to catch a 6 p.m. Mass after the races.
How do you develop a relationship with your horse?
You either have a knack of getting along with horses or you don't. You communicate to the horse through your hands — through the reins and the bridle. That's how you control them and communicate with them. Basically, if you have something through your mouth and someone is sitting on your back and they kick your ribs, you go. If they pull on you, you stop.
The better jockeys are a bit more subtle and have gentler hands. Some jockeys talk to their horses.
What do you most enjoy about working with horses?
I didn't initially get into racing because of the horses. I liked the competition the best, and I still do. I like the actual race itself the best — from the time the gate opens to the end of the wire.
‘I realize that the reason I'm winning is that God has blessed me with a talent for winning races. That keeps my head in perspective.’
How much of a race depends upon the horse and how much upon the jockey?
Ninety percent is the horse and 10% is the jockey. A good jockey can't make a bad horse win. A bad one can get a good horse beat.
How has your faith impacted your work?
I can't say how it's affected my work, but I can say that my faith has helped me to handle life a lot better.
I've run across many people in this business who are very spiritual people. I realize that the reason I'm winning is that God has blessed me with a talent for winning races. That keeps my head in perspective.
You've said you plan to hang up your jockey uniform soon, haven't you?
Yes; it's a dangerous sport and not one you always walk away from. It also takes me away from my family a lot. I only race here in Florida three months during the winter, so the rest of the time I'm on the road. I return home every Sunday night and then have to leave again on Wednesday. I might quit at the end of this year, or next year. I take it a year at a time. At the most I would say I have a year and a half left.
What are your future plans?
I've had some conversations with a couple of networks as far as doing some broadcasting periodically throughout the year, but I do not plan to do anything full time that takes me away from my family like horse racing does.
You are one of the most successful jockeys of all time. You've earned more than $20 million during your career. To what do you owe your success?
I have to look above and thank God. I owe it all to him.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Cancer Institute Is Denying Abortion Breast-Cancer Link, Critics Say DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The National Cancer Institute has recently stated again that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer. But don't tell that to Charnette MessÈ.
Messé, who is black, is only 32 years old and has a rather virulent form of breast cancer. She says it very straightforwardly and without hesitation: She has breast cancer because she used the pill and had an abortion. Now a Catholic and married to a Catholic physician who is in the Navy, Messé stakes her claim not on her emotions but on her medical records.
She is particularly concerned she will not live long enough to see her two children grow up. Because of this, she is committed to speaking out on the issue so other women don't have to go through what she has endured.
In late February, the National Cancer Institute, part of the taxpayer-funded National Institutes of Health, held a workshop to which it invited 100 scientists who had some expertise on abortion and breast cancer. This was in response to the request from some members of Congress to remove from the institute's Web site a statement claiming there is no link between abortion and breast cancer.
At that conference, National Cancer Institute director Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach said the meeting was convened “because the National Cancer Institute is deeply concerned and committed to addressing the problem of breast cancer.”
“We must assure that we are getting the most accurate information to women who are affected or who are at risk,” he added.
The workshop's introductions made it clear a number of times that this was a scientific conference that was to leave out all emotions and “politics” surrounding breast cancer and abortion. In fact, the second day's introduction by Dr. Susan Love, a pro-abortion breast surgeon and breast cancer activist, included the same warning.
But the warnings were disingenuous, critics of the National Cancer Institute said.
“It serves their purpose,” said Dr. Elizabeth Shadigian, an obstetrician and researcher at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. That purpose was to advance the institute's view that there is no link, she said.
Shadigian recently published a study in Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey with two researchers at the University of North Carolina on different effects of abortion, including breast cancer. They said even though the conclusions from studies vary on the degree of the link, even the possibility that it could happen is something women should be informed of before they undergo an abortion.
Dr. Joel Brind was not happy with the National Cancer Institute statement, either. He and three colleagues published a groundbreaking paper on this topic in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health in 1996. This meta-analysis (a review of all the published scientific studies on a particular topic) found that women who have had an abortion have an average 30% increased risk for breast cancer. Since then, he has been the most outspoken scientist on the issue.
Not Listening
The National Cancer Institute does not appear to appreciate what Brind has to say. Its conference Web site mentions that one scientist dissented from the majority opinion and that that person had written a minority opinion. However, it does not mention who it was (it was Brind) or say where to find that report (see information box for links of where to find it).
In fact, Dr. Louise Brinton, chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch at National Cancer Institute, told the Register she had not read Brind's report but that she didn't really need to since “I pretty much already know what he's going to say.”
Brinton claimed Brind's meta-analysis was flawed from the beginning because of the nature of these analyses, which includes many different types of studies.
Brinton stated that recent studies have found no link between abortion and breast cancer. But Brind and others find flaws in those studies.
Claims and counterclaims can be made about the validity of one study over another. Opponents of the link point to a study done in Denmark with thousands of women in it that concludes there is no link. But National Cancer Institute critics say it has a huge flaw — some of the thousands of women who were counted as not having an abortion actually could have had one because the authors put the date of abortion legalization in Denmark at 1973 when it actually happened in 1963.
Politics play an inevitable part of the debate, though critics would argue they are not the ones introducing them. “If they acknowledge this link,” Dr. Angela Lanfranchi said, “then that opens a whole can of worms for them.”
Lanfranchi, a breast surgeon in northern New Jersey, said that “can of worms” will be having to acknowledge the link between breast cancer and the pill. That's because both affect the levels of estrogen in a woman's body, which many researchers believe is the main cause of breast cancer.
Lanfranchi is a colleague of Brind's at the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, which works on what most breast cancer organizations do not work on — prevention. The best way to prevent breast cancer, they say, is for women not to have an abortion and to have children at an earlier age.
But now, Brind wants to use politics to his advantage. He's pushing some U.S. senators to hold hearings on the validity of the National Cancer Institute's claims and what went on with the workshop. There were things that happened there, he said, that were not above board and were designed to ensure a set outcome.
Reaching truth by consensus is not the way to go about it, he said. In fact, he wonders how many times the National Institutes of Health has reached a consensus on a particular topic only to be found wrong.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Buchanan Defends Santorum
WORLDNETDAILY.COM , April 28 — Catholic TV pundit Patrick Buchanan came out swinging on April 28 in defense of Sen. Rick Santorum, a Catholic senator from Pennsylvania who was criticized in April for saying in response to a court case regarding a sodomy law, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to have consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
Buchanan said Santorum had been “hauled before a modern inquisition, scourged and ordered to grovel and apologize or be stretched on the rack.”
Buchanan noted Santorum's comments reflected “the moral position of John Paul II, supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, to which Santorum belongs, and of most Americans.”
But, he said, “the traditional Christian moral code in which he believes and which informed his remark is no longer the moral code of the American elite. Indeed, it is detested by that elite as the codification of hatred and intolerance. ... [I]t would seem that it is Santorum — the target of vilification and demands for his ouster because of his views — who is the real victim.”
Buchanan warned that America is “getting close to a religious test for high office, a test that no believing, practicing Christian is going to be able to pass.
Court Refuses Appeal in Defense of Public Cross
PRIMENEWS.COM , April 22 — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 21 declined without comment to hear a petition submitted by the city of San Diego in defense of a cross that long sat on public land atop Mount Soledad Park.
In response to previous court cases, the city had sold the land on which the cross stands to a private veterans group, which designated it a war memorial.
But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided in a previous case that the sale of the cross was unconstitutional since the city had not offered the land to groups that wanted to destroy the cross.
According to PrimeNews.com, the city will now have to find another way to comply with the court rulings.
California Defends Drag Queens and Transsexuals
EVERYTHINGCHRISTIAN.ORG , April 24 — The California state Assembly came to the defense of drag queens and transsexuals with a vote on April 24 in favor of a bill adding cross-dressers to the list of protected minorities in that state and threatening businesses who decline to hire men in wigs and dresses with fines of up to $150,000.
The bill is a threat to Christians, warned Randy Thomasson of Campaign for California Families, who said it “would give drag queens unprecedented power to persecute the Boy Scouts and religious businesses, even the power to shut down a Bible bookstore. This radical bill engages in reverse discrimination and would do real harm to persons of conscience.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Six New Beatified Italians Are Models for Modern Christians, Pope Says DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II beatified six Italian nuns and priests, including a 17th-century preacher who encouraged the city of Vienna to resist the Turkish army — and with it, the advance of Islam in Europe.
The Holy Father said Capuchin Father Marco d‘Aviano had helped defend the “freedom and unity of Christian Europe” and served as a reminder that the continent is founded on “common Christian roots.”
John Paul pronounced the beatification decrees April 27 during a Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by tens of thousands of people. The promotion of six Italian sainthood causes was a point of pride for Italy, which the Pope called “a fertile land for saints.”
The others beatified all founded religious orders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They included Father Giacomo Alberione, considered Italy's “apostle of the mass media"; Sister Maria Cristina Brando, who left a wealthy family to devote her life to Eucharistic spirituality; Sister Eugenia Ravasco, who founded schools in northern Italy; Sister Maria Domenica Mantovani, known for her care of the poor and sick; and Sister Giulia Salzano, who made a special effort to influence the religiously indifferent.
The Holy Father said all six figures showed the way of holiness to men and women of today, who are called to be “apostles” in their own social and professional spheres.
Blessed d‘Aviano was considered a potentially controversial figure (see Media Watch, this page) because his beatification underlined a historical flash point between Christianity and Islam on the European continent.
Although the war was political and not religious, some historians believe that had the Ottoman army won the battle of Vienna in 1683 much of Europe would have been “Islamicized” afterward.
Well known for his sermons, Blessed d‘Aviano preached extensively in Vienna and is credited with having inspired the city with a defense that culminated in a key military victory Sept. 12, 1683. The Vatican's biography of the priest said that during his stay in the city he had “recalled and underlined the Christian identity of Europe, which should be preserved.”
John Paul, while not mentioning Islam, said circumstances had placed this “unarmed prophet” at the center of historic events.
“To the European continent, which is today opening up to new forms of cooperation, Blessed Marco d‘Aviano recalls that its unity will be stronger if based on its common Christian roots,” he said.
Blessed d‘Aviano's beatification was seen by some Italian commentators as a provocation to Muslims, especially in the climate created by the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But Vatican officials who coordinate dialogue with Muslims said that, so far, the beatification had not even been mentioned by Islamic representatives.
The Pope ignored the interreligious aspect and focused in his sermon on the spiritual qualities of Blessed d‘Aviano and the other five figures. He summed up the reason for their beatification in a few words.
“The Good News is a universal message destined for all people of all times. It is personally directed to everyone and asks to be translated into real lives,” he said.
“When Christians become ‘living Gospels,’ they transform themselves into eloquent signs of God's mercy, and their witness more easily reaches the hearts of people,” he said.
The Holy Father, resplendent in gold vestments, remained seated during the two-and-a-half-hour liturgy. As in recent weeks, he celebrated Mass on a specially equipped chair that was raised and lowered by pneumatic pressure.
As the portraits of the newly “blessed” were unveiled and their biographies read, the loudest applause rang out for Blessed Alberione, a pioneer in Church use of the mass media. He founded the Society of St. Paul and later the Daughters of St. Paul, as well as a series of related institutes and organizations aimed at putting modern means of communication and publishing at the service of the Gospel.
Known today as the “Pauline family,” its members are active in 28 countries in numerous fields: editorial work, bookstores, journalism, cinematography, television, radio, audiovisual, multimedia, research, formation and animation.
Even before he was beatified, Blessed Alberione topped a recent poll promoting a patron saint for the Internet. The poll, featured at an Italian Web site, attracted 70,000 participants — about 40% from Italy. The Vatican has given no indication when it might choose a patron saint for Internet users.
The April 27 liturgy, celebrated on Divine Mercy Sunday, brought to 1,310 the number of people beat-ified by John Paul, according to the Vatican press office. For four others, the Pope has issued a decree confirming their status as “blessed.” The total of 1,314 is close to twice the number beatified by previous popes, under saint-making rules established in the late 1500s.
Beatification is the major intermediate step in the process of canonization, or declaration of sainthood. The Pope has proclaimed more than 460 new saints, more than all his predecessors combined.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Thavis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Blessed Friar Criticized for Defending Christendom
D‘Aviano is credited with stirring Christians to beat back an invading Turkish army that nearly conquered Vienna in 1683. In subject lands, the Ottomans regularly kidnapped and enslaved thousands of Christian children for service as “Janissary” soldiers.
A Vatican statement April 27 said D‘Aviano “participated actively in the anti-Turkish crusade.”
The Independent suggested that the honoring of “such a militant anti-Muslim figure strikes a discordant note after the efforts of Pope John Paul II to prevent the war on Iraq and minimize the damage to Christian-Muslim relations once it became inevitable.”
Italian conservative politicians of the Northern League rallied behind the beatification, accusing critics of “modern ecumenical relativism.”
‘Papal’ Character Reference Turns Out to be False
Evans also seemed to be unusually well connected: At his sentencing, he produced a letter reading, “My dear friends in Christ. I regret that we have been unable to protect the Church from this scandal in the case of Julian Evans. The entire Church, the Bride of Christ, is afflicted by this wound. We are obliged to support Julian Evans and we have done so throughout these troubled times. Julian has given an immense amount of spiritual, human and social good for the welfare of the Church and humanity. Yours in Christ, Pope John Paul.”
The authorities were skeptical of the letter, and a subsequent inquiry proved Evans had purchased the testimonial for $80 on the Internet.
Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton told the paper the testimonial was an obvious fake: “The Pope would not give a character reference, especially for someone he did not personally know. It is plausible that he would sign something ‘Yours in Christ,’ but he would never ever sign himself Pope John Paul. It would be Joannes Paulus II. It is the detail that lets him [Evans] down.”
Young Italians Choose Favorite Role Models
ANANOVA.COM , April 23 — Young people in Italy prefer religious leaders to sports stars and actors, according to the news site Ananova.com.
A survey of 12- to 24-year-olds found that Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II were the top two “role models,” running well ahead of the third-place finisher, revolutionary Che Guevara, and soccer star Diego Maradona.
“Many people said they voted for Mother Teresa and the Pope because they admired their courage, honesty and devotion to charity,” said Eurispes, the Milan-based research firm that did the survey. “These sort of qualities are what young people look for most in their role models of today.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:During his general audience on April 30, Pope John Paul II resumed his series of teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours. Addressing 20,000 pilgrims who gathered in St. Peter's Square, he offered his reflections on Psalm 101, which “paints the portrait of the ideal political ruler, whose model in life should be the way God governs the world.”
A ruler's personal life, the Holy Father pointed out, should be marked by moral integrity, while his public activity reflects a commitment to combating every form of injustice in society. Psalm 101, he said, offers a plan for a ruler's life that is based on two important moral principles: integrity of heart and rejection of evil. The wisdom of Psalm 101 is not limited only to rulers, the Pope said. As the Church sings this song during morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours, the faithful are called to apply it to their own personal lives “by deciding every morning to uproot from their own hearts and conduct of the weeds of corruption, violence, perversion and wickedness, as well as every form of selfishness and injustice.” ----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: God Is the Model for All Political Rulers DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:
After two catechetical teachings devoted to the meaning of the Easter celebrations, we are resuming our reflection on morning prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. Tuesday of the fourth week includes Psalm 101, which we have just heard.
This meditation paints the portrait of the ideal political ruler, whose model in life should be the way God governs the world: working in an upright way based on perfect moral integrity and a vigorous commitment to fighting injustice. This text is now offered as a plan for the life of the faithful as they begin their workday and begin to relate to their neighbors. It is a plan based on “love and justice” (see verse 1), which is expressed along two broad moral lines of thought.
Moral Integrity
The first is called the “way of integrity,” which is oriented to exalting our personal choices in life that are made “with integrity of heart,” or perfect righteousness of conscience (see verse 2).
On one hand, positive reference is made to the great moral virtues that illuminate the “court” or “house,” that is, the just man's household (see verse 2): wisdom, which helps to fully understand and judge properly; innocence, which is purity of heart and of life; and finally, integrity of conscience, which does not tolerate any compromise with evil.
The ideal political ruler should work in an upright way based on perfect moral integrity and a vigorous commitment to fighting injustice.
On the other hand, the psalmist introduces an obligation that has a negative overtone. This is the struggle against every form of wickedness and injustice in order to keep every perversion of a moral order far from our homes and the choices we make (see verses 3-4).
As St. Basil, one of the great Fathers of the Eastern Church, writes in his work called Baptism, “not even an instant's pleasure that contaminates one's thoughts should disturb those who have been buried with Christ in a death like his” (Opere Ascetiche, Turin, 1980, p. 548).
The Rejection of Evil
The second line of thought is developed in the last part of the psalm (see verses 5-8). It specifies the importance of those talents that are more typical of public and social behaivior. Here, too, the essential points are listed for living a life intent on rejecting evil sharply and firmly.
First of all, there is the struggle against slander and secret denunciation, which is a fundamental commitment in a society based on oral communication, which attributes special importance to the role of speech in interpersonal relationships. The king, who also exercised the role of judge, announces that he will use the utmost severity in this struggle: He will reduce the slanderer to silence, that is, destroy him (see verse 5). Afterward, he rejects all arrogance and haughtiness; he refuses the company and counsel of those who always act deceitfully and untruthfully. Finally, the king makes known the way in which he will choose his “companions” (see verse 6), who are his ministers. He will carefully select them from “the faithful of the land.” He wishes to surround himself with people of integrity and refuse to have any contact with anyone “who practices deceit” (see verse 7).
Common Responsibility
The last verse of this psalm is particularly forceful. It might be a source of perplexity for the Christian reader, since it speaks about wholesale destruction: “Each morning I clear the wicked from the land and rid the Lord's city of all evildoers” (verse 8). However, it is important to remember one thing: The person who is speaking in this way is not just any ordinary person but the king, who is ultimately responsible for justice in the land. He uses these words to express in an exaggerated way his unrelenting commitment to combating crime, a duty that is shared by all those who have responsibility for public affairs.
Clearly the job of being an avenger is not the duty of every citizen! Therefore, if individuals among the faithful wish to apply these words from the psalm to themselves, they must do so in an analogical sense by deciding every morning to uproot from their own hearts and conduct the weeds of corruption, violence, perversion and wickedness, as well as every form of selfishness and injustice.
The Primacy of Love
Let us conclude our meditation by returning to the verse at the beginning of the psalm: “I sing of love and justice” (verse 1). In his Commentaries on the Psalms, Eusebius of Caesarea, an early Christian writer, emphasizes the primacy of love over justice, however necessary it may be: “I will sing of your mercy and your judgment, showing the way in which you usually act: not by judging first and then having mercy, but by having mercy first and then judging, sentencing with clemency and mercy.
“For this reason I, myself, by exercising mercy and judgment toward my neighbor, dare to draw near and sing psalms to you. Aware, therefore, that one must act like this, I keep my ways immaculate and innocent, convinced that in this way you will be pleased with my singing psalms through good works” (PG23, 1241).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Latin American Threat: Secularization, Not Protestantism DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:SANTIAGO, Chile — When evangelical sociologist David Stoll published his book Is Latin America Turning Protestant? in 1990, the title summarized what Latin American bishops thought was the region's greatest challenge: the unstoppable growth of Protestant sects.
More than a decade later, figures show the number of Catholics in the region is, in fact, slowly declining — not to due to conversions to Protestant denominations but to plain secularization.
And Latin American bishops are taking notice.
“The challenge to Chile's Catholicism is not posed by evangelicals, as it was believed until quite recently, but by a fast process of secularization occurring mainly in the cities,” said Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, archbishop of Santiago and president of the Chilean bishops’ conference. “Lapsed Catholics in Chile have become agnostics or nonbelievers, rather than evangelicals.”
In early April the Chilean government released the official figures of the latest census, which found 70% of the population is Catholic — 7% less than 10 years ago — while the number of evangelicals grew approximately 3%.
In fact, the “Latin American Barometer,” a yearly report that polls social tendencies in 23 Latin American countries, had consistently shown during the last five years that, although Catholicism is still the largest Latin American denomination (approximately 73% are Catholic), more and more people are becoming nonbelievers.
This trend toward secularization in cities led more than 30 Latin American bishops, including eight cardinals, to convene a conference in March to discuss the challenges of pastoring in large cities.
The conference, titled “New Evangelization in Mega-Cities,” analyzed both pastoral experiences and statistical data that show, in the ever-growing Latin American cities, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep a strong Catholic foothold.
Some bishops point to the unprecedented growth of cities as the problem.
“Unfortunately, the tendency in Latin America is still [toward] an uncontrolled, unpredictable growth of large cities at the cost of rural areas and small towns,” said Bishop Jorge Jiménez Carbajal, president of the Latin American Bishops’ Council. “The future of the New Evangelization in Latin America, thus, is closely tied to the cities.”
The differences between city and rural living can account for some of the changes in the way people follow their faith.
“The economy, the kind of relationships established by urban employment, the physical distance, the influence of media and technology, the urban stress and many other factors are really challenging the mostly rural structure of the traditional parish,” said Alberto Methol Ferré, a Uruguayan Catholic intellectual who has been an adviser to the bishops’ conference.
“In our largest cities, most of the parishes are unsuccessfully struggling to keep a personal relationship that is almost impossible when parishes are too large and priests are too few,” he said. “Don't get me wrong — parishes are vital to the Church, but in large cities, they definitively need ‘re-engineering.’”
“Mega-cities have become a pastoral phenomenon of their own,” said Bishop Carlos Aiguiar, the bishops’ council's secretary-general. “Call it Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lima or Mexico City — you will be facing mostly the same challenges, the same consequences of globalization, for which we are not very well prepared.”
Some say the best way to promote the New Evangelization in large cities would be to implement smaller, simpler administrations. Many propose the division of the largest archdioceses.
According to Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, archbishop of Lima, Perú, the decision to divide the archdiocese taken by his predecessor, the late Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora, was “not only timely, but pastorally wise.”
“‘A mass of people can hardly become a flock,’” said Cardinal Cipriani, quoting his predecessor.
In fact, several dioceses have gone down the path of territorial division: MedellÌn, the second-largest city in Colombia, and Sao Paulo in Brazil are some of them.
The next “mega-dioceses” in line for division are Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and especially Mexico City — probably the world's largest city, with 21 million inhabitants, and also the most heavily populated archdiocese, with more than 17 million Catholics.
But other experts believe the mere division of territories is not a solution.
“The figures [of the Chilean census] just make evident the need for a missionary zeal that should energize all Catholics, not only priests and religious,” said Chilean Cardinal Errázuriz. “Catholics from all walks of life — professionals, the youth, the families — need to go out, door to door, establishing personal connections, lively communities, proclaiming the Gospel in our cities.”
Lay Movements
According to Cardinal Errázuriz, the new lay movements in the Church are a “great source of hope in this regard, [but] we need to strengthen this trend, which is rather new.”
Other Latin American bishops join the Chilean cardinal in the belief that lay movements can provide the kind of relationships many Catholics need in large cities — some 50 representatives from different lay organizations were invited to the conference in Santiago.
“It is more and more evident that most of the lay movements do not compete with parishes but, on the contrary, help them in the process of adapting to new urban realities,” said Father JoaquÌn Alliende Lucco, president of the Cultural Commission of the Archdiocese of Santiago.
Father Alliende is a member of Schoenstatt, a movement founded in Germany and widely popular in Chile.
“Movements ... are just a way in which the Holy Spirit, through His Church, is responding to the new challenges posed by today's cultural and social trends,” said Luis Fernando Figari, a Peruvian lay founder of the Movimiento de Vida Cristiana (Christian Life Movement), a group rapidly growing in Latin America and Europe that has also been established in Denver and Miami.
“Obviously, there are many alternatives that have to be combined to respond to the challenge of an increasingly secularized lifestyle in Latin America,” Cardinal Errázuriz said. “The people of God, from the bishop to every single committed lay person, are sharing the responsibility of giving a positive response to the question posed by Our Lord: ‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’”
Alejandro Bermúdez is based in Lima, Perú.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Alejandro Bermúdez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Commission Drops Discussion of Sexual Orientation
CROSSWALK.COM , April 30 — A resolution to expand the United Nations’ list of human-rights violations to include discrimination based on “sexual orientation” might be off the table for now, but family groups predict supporters of the issue will lobby even harder when it comes up for a vote next year.
“This issue never goes away,” Douglas Sylva, director of research at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a pro-family U.N. lobby organization, told Crosswalk, a Christian Web site. After heated debate at the 59th session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva on April 25, the commission ended discussion on the resolution without a vote.
The proposal was introduced by Brazil and co-sponsored by 19 other nations, including most European nations and Canada. The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission described the resolution as “a historic opportunity.”
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and Malaysia, saying the resolution did not reflect Islamic values, offered amendments deleting the sexual language from the proposed document. The United States remained neutral.
Anglicans Respond to Eucharist Encyclical
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS , April 23 — The Church of England on April 23 responded to Pope John Paul II's recent encyclical on the Eucharist, according to Independent Catholic World News.
The response said, in part: “The Anglican Communion Office notes with respect the publication this Maundy Thursday of the papal encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia. His Holiness the Pope has chosen an appropriate moment to draw the attention of all Christians to the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the Christian faithful and eloquently expressed afresh the Roman Catholic understanding of this sacrament. He speaks of his personal experience of the celebration of this sacrament as a way of introducing a theological exploration of its importance in the life of the Church and of the boundaries of its proper celebration, which include a restatement of the existing limitations on Eucharistic sharing as defined by the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church.”
The Anglicans promised further study of the document.
Group Questions End of Sudan Sanctions
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESS , April 23 — The Sudanese government on April 23 welcomed President Bush's decision not to impose further sanctions on it in recognition of its efforts to forge a peace deal with long-oppressed Christian and animist rebels.
Under American law, every six months the president must evaluate whether the government and the rebels are pursuing peace talks “in good faith,” the French news agency reported.
The agency noted that the civil war in that country has killed some 1.5 million people and created 4 million refugees in the past 20 years. But human-rights groups questioned Sudan's good faith and Washington's judgment.
“Sudan's radical Islamist dictatorship is now ecstatic at the approval that George W. Bush has given it,” said Mel Middleton of Freedom Quest International. He also pointed to “recent serious violations of ... cease-fire agreements,” including helicopter gunship attacks and chemical weapons used recently against civilians.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Radio Free Asia Broadcasts Testimonies of Abuse DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:In March, a team of independent journalists interviewed residents of Korla City in the Xinjiang province in western China. Korla City is one of the county projects in China the U.N. Population Fund supports.
The following comments about the county's coercive population program are translated from a March 17 broadcast on Radio Free Asia:
Radio Free Asia: We heard that on Jan. 1, a new resolution about the birth-control policy was implemented. Can you give us some information about that?
Birth-control officer in Korla City: It is a new resolution that was made based on the Uyghur region's condition; it has proceeded since Jan. 1.
If someone [is] against the plan, what kind of punishment will be given?
Punishment will be given according to the new resolution. If they hide [a] newborn baby, they have to pay a social compensation fee.
If someone's illegal pregnancy is found, what will happen?
We don't allow her to bear [the] baby.
During the Population Research Institute's September 2001 investigation of the U.N. Population Fund's program in China, researchers reported that abortion is carried out in urban areas in the Xinjiang province with brute force. Here's what another birth-control official in Korla had to say about forced abortions:
Radio Free Asia: Is your office proceeding with the new birth-control plan?
Birth-control officer 2 in Korla City: Yes, we received a new birth-control plan, on Jan. 1, and started our job according to the new plan.
If someone is suspected with illegal pregnancy, what would happen?
We forcibly make her abort her child.
Does it have to be forced? If she refuses, what will be happen?
Yes, it must be forced. If not, how we can control the population? It is clearly mentioned in our birth-control policy.
Radio Free Asia also interviewed women who said they had been victimized by the U.N. Population Fund-sponsored county project, as one women testified:
Radio Free Asia: Do hospitals usually explain anything about the risks of IUDs or abortions?
Woman: No. We accept insertions of IUDs because we have to do it. Peasants [are] against birth control, but government workers [are] not.
Today, how many children are peasants allowed to have?
Three.
If they wanted more than three, what would happen?
They have to pay [a] heavy fine.
If government workers wanted to have more children, what would happen?
They have to pay [a] heavy fine or they will be fired.
If the government finds out someone is illegally pregnant, in spite of the age of the [unborn] baby, will they force her to [have an] abortion?
Yes, pregnant women will be forcibly brought to the hospital by birth-control officers. Birth-control officials wait for her until the operation is done, because they want to make sure the baby was killed.
How do birth-control officers find [out if] someone's pregnant?
Their job is [to learn] about each family's private life every day. They can find out. In case someone had not been [discovered], all responsibility would [be] on the birth-control officer's head.
Source: Radio Free Asia, “Family Planning in Uyghur Region,” March 17, 2003, reported in the Population Research Institute Weekly Briefing: New Evidence: UNFPA Support of Forced Abortion, Genocide, April 17, 2003.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News ------- TITLE: Santorum vs. Relativism DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:In January, the Holy See warned that “cultural relativism,” which denies the existence of absolute truths, threatens to undercut contemporary democracies.
In April, American commentators proved him right by loudly denouncing Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., for drawing moral lines on the issue of sodomy.
Santorum sparked a wave of tut-tutting when he said, “And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
The New York Times was quick with a sarcastic spin. Its April 22 editorial said: “Hear ye, hear ye: Sen. Rick Santorum feels obliged to offer gratuitous guidance to the Supreme Court in the form of an ad hoc, highly unlearned ruling that equates homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.”
Sadly, that misses the point. Santorum's argument is about the codification of moral relativism into America's laws, and that The New York Times missed the point only shows how right he is.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith knew exactly how such a statement would be received.
Its “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life,” which debuted Jan.16, is worth quoting at length.
It says that “a kind of cultural relativism exists today,” adding, “it is not unusual to hear the opinion expressed in the public sphere that such [relativism] is the very condition for democracy.”
As a result, it adds, “lawmakers maintain that they are respecting this freedom of choice by enacting laws which ignore the principles of natural ethics and yield to ephemeral cultural and moral trends, as if every possible outlook on life were of equal value.”
It concludes that “political freedom is not — and cannot be — based upon the relativistic idea that all conceptions of the human person's good have the same value and truth, but rather, on the fact that politics are concerned with very concrete realizations of the true human and social good in given historical, geographic, economic, technological and cultural contexts.”
But you don't need to look to the Catholic faith to find justification for Santorum's words.
You need only look to the 1986 decision of the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick.Justice Byron White, writing for the 5-4 majority of the court, said that the court found “no connection between family, marriage or procreation on the one hand and homosexual activity on the other.” The court found nothing in the Constitution that “would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy.”
He pointed out that, “Proscriptions against [sodomy] have ancient roots. Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original 13 states when they ratified the Bill of Rights. In 1868, when the 14th Amendment was “ratified, all but five of the 37 States in the Union had criminal sodomy laws.”
White even spoke in language very much like what would later be used by the Vatican when he gave a sharp rebuke to modern-day slogans about how “you can't legislate morality.”
He wrote, “The law, however, is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.”
The Supreme Court then saw what Santorum sees now. Moral relativism is tempting. It means you don't have to decide what's right or wrong. But, ultimately, it only backfires in a dangerous way.
If the law refuses to distinguish right from wrong in sexual matters, society will soon find out that the damage won't be confined to “partners” in the privacy of their bedrooms.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Family Planning Promotion DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Praise God that the bishop of Syracuse has made NFP promotion and education a priority in his diocese (“Natural Family Planning Makes Marriages Happier, Couples Say,” April 27-May 3).
Such emphasis on the teachings of Humanae Vitae[on Human Life], Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on the regulation of birth, is the appropriate response to the recent clergy sex-abuse scandals.
The Church has lately been experiencing the price of more than 30 years of nearly universal dissent from Church teaching. Keep an eye on the Diocese of Syracuse. If they truly are focusing on NFP promotion, and not just to the engaged but to the entire diocese, there will be many blessings showered upon that diocese: increased priestly vocations, conversions and Mass attendance.
Pray to God that more dioceses follow suit and begin to get this house in order.
CHRISTOPHER WHITE
Oceanside, California
Two Wrongs: Who's Right?
I guess Father Raymond J. de Souza's argument in “Rising Up From Flanders Fields” (April 20-26) eludes me. He comments that “in the light of the current war, the lessons of the past do not determine current political positions, but they do give a sense of how the debate is framed.”
True, but in the end, the upshot of Father de Souza's comments, aside from underscoring the true point that heroism can be exhibited in war, merely underscore the truism that one's position in life often has something to say about the genesis of one's moral judgments. To draw some further conclusion — and that seems to be the operative subtext of the article — is to commit the genetic fallacy, viz., that it is fallacious to infer from an account of how one arrived at a belief some conclusion about the truth or falsity of that belief.
Those of us who were skeptical that the Iraqi war satisfied the just-war criteria are not about to immediately relativize the Pope's judgments by regarding them as some sort of outgrowth of the European experience about war in the 20th century. That would denigrate the conviction that the Pope is moved by the Holy Spirit. There have been bad popes, obviously, but with JPII we do not have a bad pope, and there is every sign that he has his wits about him.
To return to the point: Are we to infer that, because one's position in life often has something to say about what one thinks, there is no objective fact of the matter about application of just-war criteria? One could analogously argue that, because some American Catholics reject Humanae Vitae for various sociological or historic reasons, the encyclical has no truth value. Quite a leap.
Finally, it is worth pondering, in this context, the Pauline principle that one ought not do something wrong in order to bring about good. I will be the first to recognize that great good may come out of the American involvement in Iraq.
But the verdict is still out and it is not clear that its upshot, at the price of many dead persons, will not be to further inflame ill will between Muslims and Christians — something the Pope warned about.
BRIAN SIMBOLI, PHD Bethelehem, Pennsylvania
Operation Iraqi Mess?
I recently read “Arming the Troops with Faith” (March 23-29). As an end to Operation Iraqi Freedom [is now] in sight, we should take time to reflect on what we have done for the Iraqi and American people.
For both Iraqis and Americans, we have disarmed a potential threat in Saddam Hussein, a dictator who did little to take care of his people and failed to obey rules enforced by the United Nations. I support all our troops involved in the conflict and hope they return home quickly and safely.
Although something clearly needed to be done, did the United States do the right thing by acting without U.N. consent? U.S. citizens are split on the issue, but President Bush's approval rating has gone up because of the quick strike on Iraq. Sure, the initial strikes were quick, but how long will the rebuilding take? It has been estimated that it will cost the country $2 billion for every month we have troops in Iraq.
One has to question destroying a country that has done nothing to the United States and then using taxpayer money to rebuild the country. That $2 billion could have certainly been used to help our struggling economy. For those who believe this war will bring us out of our recession, let me assure you: This is not your grandfather's war. The primary concern of this war is not to seek and destroy but to rebuild. This may sound like a great thing, but what about all the civilians killed during the initial strikes?
We call it Operation Iraqi Freedom, but so far more Iraqis have been killed than Allied forces. Keeping all this in mind, more should have been done to come to a peaceful resolution to ensure Iraqi freedom.
Tony Monaghan
Dubuque, Iowa
Catholic Church, We Love You
This letter is in response to the letter titled “Popetown Pot” (April 20-26). I would just like to say that the impression the writer has given is very sad indeed.
Catholics — real Catholics — do respect and love the Church. There are many people out there, it is true, who claim to be Catholic but aren't. Those are the people who do not respect the Church. That is why the Church has organizations for all ages to teach the truths of the Church. From such places as these, one learns to respect the Holy Father and the Church as a whole.
We cannot expect that everyone in every religion will accept us (and we must pray that someday they do), but to say that the members of the Catholic Church as a whole — the Mystical Body of Christ — do not respect our Church is viciously untrue.
LEAH D‘ETTORE, age 13
Brampton, Ontario
Gnostic Gnashing
Thank you for the insightful, two-part commentary on “Gnosticism and the Struggle for the World's Soul” by Legionary of Christ Father Alfonso Aguilar (March 30-April 5 and April 6-12). In the case of the Harry Potter books, however, I believe that J.K. Rowling passes all three of Father's test questions to discern whether her books are “rooted in a Gnostic or in a Christian worldview.”
First, Father Aguilar says we must ask the question: “Is God the only supreme good power or is there another evil force of the same rank?” To answer this, he suggests that Lord Voldemort is a sort of “demiurge” with godlike attributes. Some heretical philosophies of the early Church taught the “demiurge” was a “bad” God who created the physical world (presumed to be evil). Their “good” God dwelt only in the realm of the spiritual. But Voldemort has no such godlike rank or power to create. He is merely an evil wizard, representative of Satan.
Second, regarding the view of man, one of the questions is: Does man's salvation come from a gratuitous gift of God (grace) or from “secret knowledge” acquired by training (gnosis)? A typical example of God's grace may be found in the second Harry Potter book, The Chamber of Secrets. In order to overcome evil (the monstrous Basilisk), Professor Dumbledore's phoenix (a Christ figure) comes to Harry's rescue. Without the phoenix, Harry was powerless. Harry called for help, and God answered. When Harry is mortally wounded, it is the tears of the phoenix (Christ) that restore his life. There was nothing esoteric about it. Each of the four existing books contains similar traditional Christ figures and similar examples of God's grace.
Third, on whether the books reflect a dualistic view of creation, the question posed was: “Is creation good and real or evil and illusory?” On this issue, many critics of Harry Potter accuse the author of contempt for the “real world” of the Muggles and for Muggles themselves. Although prejudice may be found in many characters, there is no prejudice against Muggles in Professor Dumbledore (who is the standard of good values). Also, the Harry Potter books strongly oppose the false dichotomy of the materialist worldview. Rowling illustrates that there is more to “reality” than the physical world you can see, not that the world is bad or an illusion.
Harry Potter books are not a substitute for instruction by the Church, but they can inspire and reinforce the reader's desire to follow the Christian faith.
Robert Trexler
Amherst, Massachusetts
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Vatican and the War DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Your editorial on the Pope and Iraq well points out that the Pope did not “condemn” the Iraq War (“Liberation Day,” April 20-26).
However, virtually all Vatican predictions about the war were wrong, just as they were in the instance of the Persian Gulf War, at which time the most authoritative statements bordered on hysteria.
Before [Operation Iraqi Freedom], highly placed members of the Curia disparaged the United States, said that Saddam Hussein was making “every effort to secure peace” and went so far in abusing theology as to say that there can no longer ever be a just war. The Iraq War was called “a crime that screams to the heavens.” A Vatican spokesman engaged in a kind of Jesse Jackson doggerel in saying that the solution is “the force of law and not the law of force.”
None of this was corrected or reproved, so one may proceed in the belief that such represents the mind of the Holy See. Dire predictions of Vatican diplomats have been radically wrong and yet there has been no apology, although public apologies for alleged mistakes of our Catholic ancestors have become habitual since the Great Jubilee.
The historian and journalist Paul Johnson has said: “Fate, or Divine Providence, has placed America at this time in the position of sole superpower, with the consequent duty to uphold global order and to punish, or prevent, the great crimes of the world.” This requires the sober commentary of theologians, and it will not be addressed wisely by perpetuating a romantic trust in a discredited United Nations.
To avoid this reality forces the question of whether the offices of bishop and diplomat are incompatible.
Father George Rutler
New York City
The writer is pastor of the Church of Our Savior in Manhattan.
Editor's note: We would only point out that though the statements you quote were never publiclyrebuked, readers will have noticed that they stopped several weeks ago. Only a few now speak for the Vatican on war questions, and we expect you will find them more circumspect.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Crisis in Africa: How Abstinence DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:“This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature,” President Bush said in his latest State of the Union address. How?
The president called for $15 billion during the next five years for HIV/AIDS programs abroad. Congress is happy to spend the money (as always) but has drawn up a bad bill that funnels all this money into the failed programs of the past. There is new evidence that abstinence education and good basic health care could stop the epidemic in its tracks — but Congress isn't paying attention.
The need for effective AIDS relief in Africa is tragically self-evident. Of the estimated 42 million people worldwide who are currently HIV positive, nearly 30 million reside in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in 11 adults is infected with the disease. According to conservative demographic projections, there will be 300 million fewer Africans in 2050 because of the scourge of AIDS.
Three and a half million people on the continent were newly infected with the deadly disease in 2002. Millions — millions — die each year. Yet transmission rates in many of African countries are so star-tlingly high that the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to spread.
“Unsafe sex” is continually blamed for Africa's AIDS pandemic. But a new meta-analyses, just out in the International Journal of STD and AIDS, suggests the role of sexual transmission of HIV has been greatly inflated. “Existing data can no longer be reconciled with the received wisdom about the exceptional role of sex in the African AIDS epidemic,” the authors conclude.
The real culprit is bad medical practice. The study concludes that unsafe injections and other medical exposures to contaminated blood may account for two-thirds or more of the new cases of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
This is not what the U.S. Agency for International Development lobbyists who oppose abstinence want to hear. Nor is it music to the ears of the abortion-promoting ideologues of the U.N. Global Fund.
Their programs “integrate” HIV/AIDS relief programs with “sexual and reproductive health” programs. Such “integrated” HIV/sexual and reproductive health programs provide an opportunity for medical transmission. They bring HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients together in the same ramshackle clinics and subject both to invasive medical procedures.
Three and a half million people on the continent were newly infected with the deadly disease in 2002. Millions —
The new evidence suggests millions of married and monogamous couples on the African continent have contracted HIV/AIDS from poor medical procedures.
This problem has been made even worse by foreign aid programs that emphasize contraception, sterilization and abortion (“reproductive health”) to the near exclusion of primary health care. Clinics are well supplied with DepoProvera, IUDs and condoms but lack health care essentials such as rubber gloves, needles and disinfectant.
Medical equipment, such as syringes and manual vacuum aspirators, cannot be properly disinfected before it is reused. The local blood supply might be tainted, providing yet another vector for HIV transmission.
The over-reliance on condoms that characterizes these programs has its own drawbacks. The “safe sex” message creates a false sense of security that could encourage promiscuous behavior. And condoms do not provide fail-safe protection against HIV, as several recent studies have demonstrated.
There is only one method that provides absolute, 100% protection against getting AIDS. Abstinence should be promoted without hesitation or equivocation in U.S.-funded programs.
Stand-alone abstinence programs, implemented by faith-based groups that are unencumbered by the population control/family planning mentality, would be tremendously effective.
Funding faith-based abstinence programs would also break up the HIV/sexual-and-reproductive-health cartel. A half dozen population-control groups, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation, have mightily profited from AIDS spending for two decades. Millions of innocents have contracted HIV during this same time period, many infected in the same integrated HIV/sexual-and-reproductive-health clinics that were supposed to save them.
Enough is enough. Let us stop this man-made plague by encouraging the African people in the direction of abstinence. Let's shatter the dangerous paradigm that confuses HIV/AIDS programs with “family planning” — and sends people to their deaths.
And let us help rebuild primary health care programs in Africa, a continent suffering from three decades of neglect at the hands of the population controllers, some of whom, it must be said, must be greatly pleased at what they have achieved.
Steven Mosher is the president of
Population Research Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending human-rights abuses in population-control programs.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven Mosher ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Pope and St. Joseph on Wall Street DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Does a “free” economy in itself fulfill the requirements of Catholic justice?
Pope John Paul II, drawing on 2,000 years of Catholic tradition, has consistently answered No to that question. In the last week of April, at two separate events, the Holy Father reinforced his teaching with a twofold warning about the dangers of economic freedom pursued without regard for Gospel truths.
That happened to be the same day a $1.4 billion settlement against Wall Street's leading investment firms was announced. The firms were accused of luring millions of investors into buying billions of dollars worth of shares in hyped-up companies with biased research reports during the recent stock-market boom.
And on May 1 would come the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, the day proclaimed by Pope Pius XII in 1955 to counter communist “May Day” celebrations on May 1, the traditional holiday of the working class.
Was the Pope's timing a coincidence? Hardly. Since the fall of communism, he has refused to give capitalism a free pass.
The Golden Bull
In a meeting with representatives of the Czech Republic on April 8, the Holy Father took aim at the demand side of modern capitalism — consumers. He cited the perils of a “culture of consumption” and the “idolatry of the market.”
What do these phrases mean in everyday language? They describe societies where people see themselves mostly as consumers of goods and services, living lives built around the enticements of the marketplace.
According to John Paul, a society where “having” becomes more important than “being” can never be a “civilization of love,” even if its members fulfill the obligations of personal piety and morality. The people themselves might be saved, but they will have failed in the important task of building up the Kingdom of God, creating communities where people live in communion through strong ties of citizenship, justice and service.
These social obligations are defined in Catholic social teachings every pope since the late 19th century has considered essential to the Church's proclamation of the Gospel.
These teachings are highly critical of the unrestrained “free market,” which tends to reduce life to financial and contractual relationships, and ends up reducing people themselves to objects. Eventually, families and communities are undermined, and the weak are marginalized.
“This,” the Pope warned, “seriously detracts from the dignity of the human person and makes promotion of human solidarity difficult at best.”
Two days earlier, on April 26 before 800 executives from an Argentine bank, the Holy Father zeroed in on the supply side — investors, entrepreneurs and corporate managers — those who fund, start and operate businesses.
“Profit,” the Holy Father insisted, “should not be the sole or principal motive for business or commercial activity.”
John Paul knows businesses must generate enough profit to survive and thrive. He has also praised the creativity and initiative involved in starting a business. But, he reminded his audience of executives, “such activity must keep in mind the human factors and is subordinated to the moral exigencies proper to all human action.”
Could the Pope have had in mind the large-scale business corruption cited in the Wall Street cases as well as Enron, WorldCom and the scandal that crippled the accounting firm Arthur Andersen?
An economy motivated mostly by the lust for money will, paradoxically, end up less wealthy.
The massive corruption that fed the stock-market boom and the bust that followed left millions of small investors — many of them seniors living on fixed incomes — significantly poorer, caused the layoff of thousands of employees and sent the economy into a recession that has lasted much longer than expected.
Why have the Pope's leading Catholic defenders been mostly silent about all of this, despite the statements of the Holy Father and the U.S. bishops and 2,000 years of Catholic teaching concerning the evils of economic injustice?
After all, the faith implications are clear. The Catechism states: “Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means to profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money and contributes to the spread of atheism” (2424).
Looking at the government policies of the past 25 years, faithful Catholics need to ask: Has the radical deregulation of business and financial markets — and the relaxing of professional standards — made our economy less just and, ultimately, less Catholic?
It's true, as the Vatican's doctrinal point man Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has said, that “structures of sin” are built upon personal sin, and that without personal morality, social reform cannot succeed. But structures of sin, in themselves, can push moral standards lower, creating a vicious cycle of moral decline.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled “A Decade of Greed Undid a Once-Proud Profession,” reporter Ianthe Jeanne Dugan chronicled the disastrous decline of the centuries-old accounting profession. (A Franciscan Friar, Luca Pacioli, fathered the profession in 1494 when he became the first person to describe double-entry bookkeeping).
Dugan quoted 72-year-old retired General Motors auditor Eugene Flegm, who blamed the collapse on “the 1960s anything-goes attitude” combined with “all the greed.” Together, he said, “you have a recipe for disaster.”
That's some recipe: Take ruthless, global competition; add pressure to generate ever-increasing levels of growth and profit; combine materialistic values; drain off moral restraint. The result? Greed and social irresponsibility. Apply it to the upper strata of American business — Wall Street and the Fortune 500 — and corruption is inevitable.
St. Joseph the Consumer?
What can orthodox Catholics do? They can protest against these economic “structures of sin” that harm families and communities, and victimize the poor and the vulnerable. Just as we protest against laws and conditions that threaten the sanctity of life and family values, we must advocate for reasonable regulation of the marketplace to ensure a just economy (as the Catechism says in No. 2425).
Historically, the Church has always taken a middle path between collectivism (socialism) and individualism (capitalism). It favors private property and the common good, strong government and economic freedom. As Catholics, our criterion for judging economic policy should be: “Will this make life in our nation more human ...more Christian?”
This might not go over well on conservative talk radio. But we are called to proclaim the Gospel, not a party platform. We must go beyond liberal and conservative.
Reducing our economy's obsession with cutthroat competition, unrealistic growth, short-term profit and higher stock prices, by whatever reasonable means, will help create more breathing space for charitable and spiritual pursuits, and strengthen families and communities. Most management experts agree such measures would probably improve long-term business performance as well.
And that's the rub.
An economy motivated mostly by the lust for money will, paradoxically, end up less wealthy. Even more damaging than business sins of commissionare sins of omission —the creative acts of investment and service that don't happen when a business or economy is motivated solely by greed and selfishness rather than the sort of self-giving commitment to customers, employees, neighbors and investors that comes from the Gospel.
Such commitment, far from being pie in the sky, has always been the source of real business achievement.
In his message for the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, the Pope entrusted the world of work to the spouse of Mary, whose example is a support to “those who in their activity attend to the needs of the family and of all the human community.” That's as good a working definition of the purpose of business as any.
When that purpose is lost, economic freedom becomes a destructive force. Economic freedom, like other God-given freedoms — political, scientific, artistic, sexual — is good, but only when ordered to the truth of the human person. As Catholics, we're well aware of the harm done by bad politics, bad science, bad art and certainly bad sex.
But are we blind to the effects of bad economics? The Pope is calling us to examine our consciences.
Angelo Matera is the former chief executive officer of Circle Media, the
Register's parent company.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Angelo Matera ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Devil's Food Mate: Marriage Recipes from Hell DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Dear Wordworm, I read with great interest your case report on the female.
So many juicy details, so much raw data — it makes one positively slaver to taste the soul. Proceed with discretion, and you shall.
It is only 122 miserable mortal days until your client, the prissy Victoria, will join with mine, the vulgar Patrick, in the Enemy's sanctified breeding ritual. In that time, we must lay the groundwork for a lifetime of dynamic, self-replicating evil. Together we will ensure that each one's lazy foible, or harmless indulgence, becomes in the other's eyes the gravest sin — a personal insult, demanding vengeance.
Likewise, we'll engineer their natural powers to jangle against each other like an untuned piano. Make sure Victoria's energetic disposition disrupts Patrick's need for peace and quiet — which in turn we'll teach her to judge as rank laziness. Inflect her tone of voice — so sweet to him now — so that each time she sincerely offers him her help, he takes it as a sly suggestion that he is needy, even unmanly. In a few short years — how long they will seem! — we'll make of their home a little model of what the Enemy calls the “Holy Land": a sacked shrine poisoned by mutual hate.
Accomplish that and we'll feast on both of them. And what a culinary treat these couples can prove — the pungent, commingled flavors of misery and resentment, of one soul's glee at the other's suffering, made piquant by despair. One can almost see what the Enemy had in mind by ordering them to mate in pairs. What we squeeze from the goose will be sauce for the gander.
Do note that Victoria is keenly attuned to the needs encoded by the Enemy in mortal males. (She is also “devout"; the two qualities go together with disgusting regularity.) For now, she does sincerely love both her man and her Maker. She is sadly responsive to Patrick's crass emotional cravings for admiration and respect — and more prepared to foil those viral “upgrades” that our father cleverly hacked. She is wise to the vices of virility — rank lust, boastfulness, bravado and blustering rage — and responds to them with woeful firmness and a cloying compassion. A most dangerous woman! A few million more like this and whole generations could be lost.
Ordinary appeals will not avail you here. Victoria's old tempter — poor bumbler — never managed to breed in her the haughty self-centeredness and intellectual pride we pioneered in the 20th century Endarkenment. She likes her job and values her talents but does-n't fancy them a fragile treasure, something her still-unnamed and un-conceived children might someday threaten, like abdominal ego parasites.
While she's no simpering pushover, Victoria is also no feminist. She is glad her fiancé earns more money than she, but she wouldn't despise him if he didn't. She's happy Patrick considers her beautiful but is not obsessed with the question. (That's where the women's magazines can help us.) And she really does think him brave, dependable and strong. On the surface, this may appear a hopeless case — a marriage made in the other place, which we will be helpless to harm.
But Victoria has her vulnerabilities — located just behind her strengths. That's how it always works. A brave man is tempted to recklessness; a generous one to gambling; a devoted mother to suffocating neediness ... and so it goes. And this is where we must strike. We must remold this bride into a fair-haired Pharisee.
Victoria is a recent, fervent convert to the Enemy's religion. She fell in with a crowd who knows its superstitions and practices its groveling rituals. Now past the initial “high,” she still trudges off to its rites day in and out, regardless of mood or metabolism. She spins her beads, mouths their slogans and chews the Death Cookie every day — having learned that so-called “virtues” depend more on habit than on momentary “sincerity.”
Rather than try to undo the damage, it is much better simply to push Victoria ever further in one direction, until she's neurotically driven to pray while Patrick is speaking, to serve him TV dinners while watching religious TV, to make the marriage bed a sink of scruples.
Instead of discouraging her interest in the Enemy's Church, it is much better to feed the beast until she becomes obsessed. Slowly transform her faith into her hobby, her fascination into fanaticism. Make sure Victoria reads (aloud, to him) the most discouraging news about their Church — “in order to defend it.”
Teach her to tut-tut while reciting the heresies of faraway theologians and the sins of deposed archbishops. The worse the sins she reads about, the more trivial seem her own — until at last she's glad to examine anybody's conscience but her own.
Finally, fan in her a “righteous” anger against the Enemy's Vicar on earth — and eventually against the Enemy himself for tolerating the sins she sees. Manage that, dear nephew, and she is securely ours.
Next month, I will unfold for you our pastoral strategy for the male.
Your Affectionate Uncle,
Screedbait
Written by New Yorker J.P. Zmirak with apologies to C.S. Lewis whose Screwtape Letters invented the literary device of letters from demons.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: J. P. Zmirak ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rosary in Congress Spotlight DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Focolare Founder Chiara Lubich Talks Why Event Came About
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — An international Marian congress, organized in this Year of the Rosary by the Focolare Movement, was held at the place that's home to the Pope's summer house April 29-30.
The meeting spotlighted, among other things, the appreciation of Mary by different churches and Christian communities as well as the artistic expressions inspired by Jesus’ Mother.
Some 1,400 people attended the congress, including 20 cardinals and bishops from 80 countries.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, reprinted here from Zenit news service, Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement, explains the reason for the congress.
What was the idea behind the Marian congress?
It all started on Oct. 16, 2002, at the end of the Wednesday audience with the Holy Father, after he signed the apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (On the Rosary of the Virgin Mary). I was among the 600 or so people of our movement present in St. Peter's Square.
On that day he handed me a long letter which, among other things, said: “On this occasion I would like to entrust to the Focolarini the rosary ... I am certain that your devotion to the holy Virgin will help you give prominence to the initiative of dedicating the coming year to the rosary.”
From that moment on, all over the world, there has been an abundance of ideas to promote the rosary as widely as possible. The Marian congress is one of these activities.
What did the three-day program of the congress consisted of?
There were reflections on the apostolic letter of the Holy Father on the rosary and on the new mysteries of light with testimonies given by families, politicians, consecrated men and women, priests and young people.
There were two round-table discussions: one dedicated to the various ecclesial movements on the subject of the rosary and the other dedicated to Christians of other denominations who will comment on the Pope's letter.
The talks were interspersed with artistic performances and exhibits worthy of honoring Mary, the all-beautiful.
‘We are called to work as never before to bring about solidarity, the sharing of goods, universal brotherhood, in order to make humanity one family.’
Mass was celebrated by cardinals and archbishops, among whom were Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, archbishop of Prague; Msgr. Stanislaw Rylko, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; and others.
What relevance do Mary, the rosary and prayer have in today's world?
Mary and prayer have an enormous value in our times. There is now a new type of terrorism in the world — the most terrible — which could be an effect, as many think, of the presence of evil with a capital E.
The normal means aren't enough to combat this evil. We have to turn to good with a capital G, therefore to God and to everything he represents. This is why prayer is so important; the Day of Prayer for Peace held in Assisi [last year] is one example of this, and so is reciting the rosary.
Today's world is divided between rich and poor, and this is one of the main causes that give rise to terrorism. We are called to work as never before to bring about solidarity, the sharing of goods, universal brotherhood, in order to make humanity one family. Because Mary is the universal Mother, she can give us a hand as no one else can.
What would you say to those who don't believe in prayer and in its effectiveness in everyday life?
Usually those who don't believe in prayer have little faith in God. We need to help them rekindle this faith. There are many means at our disposal.
One of the most effective means is the witness that we Christians can give when we love one another. In fact, Christ promised the conversion of the world to those who are united in love. He said, “That all may be one so that the world may believe.”
What is the relationship between Mary, with the spiritual life she represents, and the creative work of artists?
Artists are predisposed toward creating beautiful things. In fact, I've seen that for them, if they are believers, the greatest attribute they can give to God is beauty.
It's true that God is truth, that God is love, but God is also beauty. And Mary is the one who is all-beautiful; you could say she is the incarnation of beauty. That's the cause of her relationship with artists and of their relationship with her. They are truly attracted by Mary: They have painted her, sculpted her, sung songs in her honor in all ages and in every imaginable way.
Could you explain the meaning of the title of this congress, “Contemplate Christ Through the Eyes of Mary"?
No person has known, or will ever know, Jesus as Mary did, because she is the Immaculate One, she is his Mother; she is a living Gospel and therefore another Jesus.
In order to see, know and contemplate Jesus through her eyes, we have to try as much as we can to imitate her in her constant Yes to the will of God and, in a certain sense, to relive her life in us.
----- EXCERPT: Focolare Founder Chiara Lubich Talks Why Event Came About ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Dad is the Best Mother's Day Gift DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:There is a 12-inch compound miter saw in my living room.
With an eye to our springtime remodeling plans, my husband bought this piece of equipment, as well as the metal table it sits on, shortly after Christmas.
That evening, I naively helped him carry it into the house and set it up in the living room where he assured me it would remain “for only a day.”
In his defense, I must admit that he got a good deal on the saw and that we currently lack adequate storage for such a large item, but in my defense, I must point out that he said “only a day” and it has been much more than a day.
In fact, it has been many, many days and I am growing weary of vacuuming around the saw, retrieving toys from underneath it, and explaining its presence to visitors (it's hard to convince them it's an early Mother's Day gift.).
In my weaker moments, I recall our wedding day and I am certain that none of the vows I took that day make mention of power equipment in the living room. I suppose, however, that the saw is in those vows somewhere, perhaps falling under that sneaky, catch-all phrase “for better or for worse.”
I am continually surprised by the particulars that make up the “worse.” On the positive side, though, I am just as often surprised by the things that make up the “better.”
Before we were married, my husband and I promised each other that we would never become one of those unhappy married couples with which we were all too familiar.
Catholic Living
We were young; we envisioned a marital life filled with passionate moments, fresh-cut flowers, and candle-lit dinners.
We did our share of those things, but today, many years and quite a few children later, I no longer anticipate flowers and chocolates when my husband returns from work. I am delighted if he remembers the gallon of milk I asked him to bring home. Am I missing out? Am I deprived? I don't think so.
Over the years, my husband, who is a teacher, has gotten up before the sun and stayed up long past dark working a variety of different part-time and summer jobs to ensure that our family is always well provided for.
He has been a coach, a golf course groundskeeper, and a waiter. He has worked 14-hour days tearing apart old barns to salvage materials and build our home. His diligence and dedication to our family's welfare are a part of the “better” I never could have anticipated years ago.
There are other parts, too. I can find myself feeling particularly unfulfilled by my duties of squelching squabbles, wiping noses and cleaning up the eternal messes that are part of an active household.
On these days, when he calls home from work, my husband can tell by the sound of my voice that today would be a good day to bring home a pint of Ben & Jerry's “Super Fudge Chunk” and put the kids to bed early. His demonstrations of kindness and compassion during my moments of weakness are another unexpected part of the “better.”
As our relationship matures, I discover that marriage is filled with the unexpected. I never thought being a faithful wife would mean tolerating a power saw in my living room.
When we accommodate these unexpected trials, however, we make room for other surprises, more wonderful than we could have imagined.
This kind of marriage is not a romance of the typical hearts and flowers variety. It's better. It's the best Mother's Day gift of all.
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: The Rosary and the Volcano DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:In 79 A.D., when Christianity was just beginning to spread throughout the Mediterranean, a violent explosion shook the southwestern coast of Italy.
Mt. Vesuvius had suddenly erupted, sending fiery ash across the bay and covering the elegant Roman city of Pompei, killing most of its inhabitants.
This part of the world was ignored after that for centuries, until finally a farmer came upon some artifacts and an elaborate excavation was begun. As one of Italy's most popular travel excursions, the tragic ruins of Pompei now draw millions of tourists each year.
As a traveler and writer, I have often spent a day walking, awestruck, about Pompei's streets, stilled on that fateful day. But it was not until this year that I realized the importance of the Sanctuary (shrine) of Pompei, a place as vibrant as the ancient city is lifeless. It's only a short distance from the ancient site.
Having heard about the Year of the Rosary from Brother Michael at my parish in New York — Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei — I decided to visit the original shrine in Italy, Santuario della Regina del S. Rosario (Sanctuary of the Queen of the Holy Rosary).
The Manhattan church had inspired Italian immigrants to recreate part of their homeland, and so they built a partial replica of the shrine. Last October, pilgrims from Pompei went to the Vatican carrying the precious icon of Pompei (a painting of the Madonna and Child) to the Holy Father, who opened the Year of the Rosary and declared that peace would be the priority of the rosary prayers.
May being a Marian month, and this Sunday being Mother's Day (remember the Blessed Mother in your May 11 prayers), I recall the happy memories of my pilgrimage with special relish.
Blessings of Bartolo
Once in the town of Pompei, you'll have no trouble finding the sanctuary. A very tall campanile (bell tower) beckons like a lighthouse to all parts of the city, with Christ extending comforting arms just beneath the cross at the top. (Take the elevator to the top to see as far as Naples and Capri.) When I reached the piazza in front of the tower, I was startled to see a mirror image of the facade of the church I saw daily in Manhattan.
The campanile and adjoining church, together with the myriad buildings that make up the shrine, clearly reflect their overall purpose: to reach up to God and out to mankind.
Inside the church, all familiarity vanished. It is an enormous cathedral, a symphony of vaults and arches, columns and pilasters, frescoes and statues, hanging lamps and candelabra set the tone for the soft lighting. It is dazzling in color and line, and yet restful and comforting at the same time.
Above the main altar, the icon glows, inspiring pilgrims to spend time in prayer and thanksgiving. The Madonna sits on high, a crown above her head and above the Child Jesus. From their hands, rosaries flow down to St. Dominic and St. Catherine.
This icon was brought here by Blessed Bartolo Longo, a truly remarkable layman who is the founding father of the miraculous Shrine of Pompei.
The Pope quoted Longo, now on the way to sainthood, in his apostolic letter on the rosary.
In brief, Bartolo Longo was born in Puglia, Italy, in 1841 and went to Naples as a law student. His years at the university, just prior to Italy's War of Independence, were a time of questioning all authority, including that of the Church. Longo's spiritual side was drawn to other mystic forms, and he became a “priest of spiritism.”
In practicing this cult he fasted for long periods, endangering his health. Then one day he turned from this life and went to a Dominican confessor in Naples, never to leave the Church again. His past life would always trouble him, and perhaps it spurred him to seek forgiveness in a productive life that most could not even imagine.
Among his friends was the widowed Countess de Fusco, who owned land in the Valley of Pompei. He became administrator of this estate. While walking alone one day through the fields, a voice spoke to him: “If you wish to be saved, you must spread the rosary. This is Mary's promise.”
‘Parish of the World’
Falling to his knees, Longo experienced a peace he had never known. The evil had been driven out, he felt. From the passion of this experience, his mission to spread the rosary grew. Needing a painting of the Virgin, when he decided to build a church, he went to Naples and found the icon, which he had a farmer carry to Pompei, unceremoniously, atop a cart of fertilizer, it turned out.
The painting was restored and its figures beautified. The altar was consecrated for the cathedral in 1887. On that day the social work of Pompei began, and prayer and charity were forever linked here.
Longo and the Countess, now married, came under criticism for their work, partly because it had required raising money. The accusations reached the Pope. Longo suffered for years as a result of unjust accusations, and they decided to give all the land to Pope Pius X in 1906, making this a papal property within Italy.
Now that the Pope was aboard, the mission soared. Calling Pompei “the parish of the world,” Pius directed that pilgrimages be sent to Pompei, and Longo's hope for a Pious Union for the reciting of the rosary was fulfilled.
When he died in 1921, Bartolo Longo left a growing treasure. From his miraculous conversion, a shrine would become an outreach to God through the rosary, whose inspiration made possible a mini-city of good works beneath the bell tower. Among these are schools, as well as foundations for the elderly and orphans.
The publications division of Pompei is extraordinary, printing quality color work that is used in hundreds of volumes and the monthly Il Rosario (The Rosary) magazine, which is shipped throughout the world in many languages.
When Pope John Paul visits Pompei in October to close the Year of the Rosary, he will find a shrine city built by prayer, whose social outreach is incalculable.
As Msgr. Caggiano, administrator of Pompei, explained to me: “Prayer and social work are a synthesis of the Gospel. Charity here comes straight from the rosary.”
Barbara Coeyman Hults is based in New York City.
----- EXCERPT: Sanctuary of the Queen of the Holy Rosary, Pompei, Italy ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barbara Coeyman Hults ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Times, They Were a-Changin' DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Folk music had its pop-culture moment in the early 1960s.
The raw, authentic roots music of white and black rural America was packaged into a commercial product that sold tens of millions of records.
At the high-end of this movement were talented, socially conscious children of the suburbs like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Judy Collins. The low end was occupied by homogenized hitmakers like the Kingston Trio and the New Christy Minstrels.
A Mighty Wind, directed by Christopher Guest and co-written by Guest and Eugene Levy, is a skilled, entertaining parody of this folk scene, presented in the form of a fictional documentary or “mockumentary.” Guest co-starred in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap, which originated the genre with its hilarious re-creation of the antics of a British heavy metal band, and he has become a master of the form.
Guest's previous films, Guffman and Best in Show, satirize the worlds of small-town, Broadway-like musicals and dog shows, respectively. They cast a humorous and sometimes cruel eye on two very different groups of enthusiasts who are sincere about their passions but clueless as to how ridiculous their actions can be. At times these two movies seem to condescend to the subcultures they're parodying.
A Mighty Wind has more heart than its predecessors. This time the filmmaker allows us to get emotionally involved with his protagonists while we laugh at their foibles. The story revolves around a memorial concert for Irving Steinbloom, a folk-music mogul modeled on the late Albert Grossman who managed Bob Dylan, Odetta, and Peter, Paul and Mary. The event is being staged by Steinbloom's neurotic son, Jonathan (Bob Balaban), who grew up in his father's shadow and would have trouble organizing lunch.
For the show, Jonathan hopes to call on his father's most successful acts, each of which has real-life counterparts. The Folksmen (Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean) are an earnest acoustic combo who've aged badly. Originally created for a Saturday Night Live sketch 20 years ago, they're a pitch-perfect imitation of whitebread, collegiate combos like the Kingston Trio, the Chad Mitchell Trio and the Brothers Four.
They're to be joined on stage by the New Main Street Singers (Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins and others), a well-observed portrait of aggressively wholesome groups like the New Christy Minstrels and the Serendipity Singers.
The highlight of the concert is to be the reunion of Mitch and Mickey (Levy and Catherine O‘Hara), who were once a romantic duo offstage as well as on, much like the real-life folk stars Richard and Linda Thompson, Ian and Sylvia Tyson, and Mimi and Richard Farina. The movie's folk fans eagerly anticipate Mitch and Mickey's rendition of their signature song, “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” to see how the now-separated pair will handle the chaste kiss with which their shows always ended.
Guest understands the documentary form and cleverly mimics it with an imaginative mixture of awkward interviews, candid cinéma-vérité moments and pseudo-expert commentary. Unfortunately, a handful of the jokes are slightly risqué, which may turn off some family viewers.
The Folksmen and the New Main Street Singers are presented in a deadpan, satirical style that's almost always on target. The New Main Street leaders (Lynch and Higgins) dabble in a silly, New Age-like, occult spirituality that's based on the vibratory power of color; their manager, Mike LaFontaine (Fred Willard), is a washed-up TV comic who can't resist recycling some of his old material while he's hyping the group.
Mitch and Mickey are treated differently. Mitch has spent years in and out of mental institutions. Though still a sweet, gentle soul, he's permanently damaged. We wonder whether he'll be able to pull himself together enough to perform again on stage and we root for him to succeed. Mickey is now married and lives in an affluent suburb, and we're moved by her concern for her former partner's condition.
Guest achieves a remarkable authenticity in reproducing the physical details of the folk scene and the emotions it generates. But he downplays one important area — politics.
The opening narration says the music carried “a message of peace and freedom” that “young people got behind.” While this is certainly true as far as it goes, it ignores the centrality of radical, left-wing politics to the movement.
The roots music that inspired the folkies was discovered by ethnographers like Alan Lomax, who wanted to demonstrate the vibrancy of rural and urban cultures that were being destroyed by industrial capitalism.
The generation of folk musicians that preceded those parodied in A Mighty Wind often worked closely with the Communist Party (Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, the Weavers).
Folk music also provided the soundtrack for the left-wing political demonstrations of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Most civil rights and anti-war rallies were serenaded by harder-edged versions of the songs mocked in the movie. Bob Dylan's No. 1 single, Blowin’ in the Wind, which the film's title parodies, is usually interpreted as an anthem for the cultural changes of the era, which included a more permissive moral code as well as left-wing politics.
Guest tries to avoid this potentially more controversial aspect of folk music by focusing on the more commercialized groups who watered down the politics. But if you looked hard enough, it was usually there. In this way, A Mighty Wind is much like the groups it's making fun of. It sanitizes its subject matter in order not to offend.
John Prizer writes from
Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: A Mighty Wind spoofs the '60s folk revival ----- EXTENDED BODY: John Prizer ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video Picks DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Return to Me (2000)
Pious, folksy Irish and Italian Catholic culture is used to refreshingly appealing effect in Return to Me, a sweetly wholesome romantic comedy about love and second chances. Minnie Driver plays Grace, a woman dying of heart failure until she receives a life-saving transplant. Later, she becomes involved with an architect (David Duchovny) who lost his wife in a car crash. What neither knows is that the heart beating in Grace's chest previously belonged to Bob's deceased wife. The fairy-tale implication is their hearts were united literally before they met — that Grace's heart belongs to Bob twice over, and he to it. Driver and Duchovny bring considerable charm and chemistry, and the sentimental logic works.
Carroll O‘Connor and Robert Loggia lead a delightful supporting cast as the owner and chef of O‘Reilly's Italian Restaurant, a picturesque establishment where old men sit around playing cards and arguing the relative merits of Italian and Irish culture. Director Bonnie Hunt and James Belushi round out the cast, providing a hilarious but affectionate glimpse of family life full of foibles and charms.
Silverado (1985)
An unabashedly nostalgic celebration of the Western, Silverado was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote the screenplays for Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back. Kasdan has called Silverado his “Western Raiders,” and it has the same tongue-in-cheek excitement, taut, complex storytelling and wistfully nostalgic innocence. It doesn't have Raiders’ spiritual dimension, but it has a good-vs.-evil storyline, with four heroic gunslingers (Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover) standing up to a corrupt sheriff and an evil clan of ranchers. It's a whirlwind tour of virtually everything you can do in a Western: shootouts, ambushes, jail breaks, posse pursuits, wagon convoys, saloon gunfights, outlaw hideouts, wounded heroes, bucket-line firefighting, a cattle stampede. One significant omission: It includes cowboys but not Indians, since it's hard today to make a feel-good Western about Indians.
The story is sprawling but sturdy, the dialogue razor-sharp, the action rousing and cleverly choreographed. Other neo-Westerns have deconstructed the genre, but Silverado revels in strong heroes who stand up to bullies, pioneer spirit, family ties and loyalty among friends. It also depicts some morally problematic elements of the milieu, though with restraint and discretion.
The Kid Brother (1927)
Harold Lloyd has been called the “third genius” of silent film comedy, along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. The Kid Brother is an ideal introduction to this forgotten master. By turns hilarious, touching and thrilling, it's rousing, crowd-pleasing entertainment. Unlike Chaplin and Keaton, with their exaggerated, eccentric screen personas, Harold Lloyd had a sweet, boy-next-door quality, as winsome and approachable as Jimmy Stewart or Tom Hanks. In his trademark spectacles, Lloyd played a mild-mannered underdog hero, too bashful to approach the pretty girl and too slight to take on the brawny bullies, who eventually discovers hidden strength in himself.
The Kid Brother balances humor, sentiment and action in a well-crafted story about the youngest son in a family of burly frontier heroes who must save his family's honor after the theft of public funds in his father's keeping. Standout sequences include an extended game of cat-and-mouse with Harold's bullying older brothers and a rip-roaring showdown aboard a listing steamboat. Great fun.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Catholic Education - From Vatican II to Today DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — The Second Vatican Council had something to say about the Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities — long before Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the teaching in his 1990 apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae(From the Heart of the Church) on Catholic higher education.
As part of its 40th anniversary series on the Second Vatican Council, Zenit news service took a look at the Vatican II declaration on Christian education, Gravissimum Educationis.
Zenit spoke with Kenneth Whitehead, a former U.S. assistant secretary of education who writes on public and Catholic Church affairs. His most recent book is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church.
What are the most important points of
The most important point of the document is its primary focus on “the dignity of the human person,” which establishes a right to education rather than focusing upon institutions such as the family and the school — upon which previous Church documents on education, such as Pope Pius XI's 1929 encyclical on Christian education, tended to focus.
This focus on human dignity, in keeping with an important priority of Vatican II generally, as it has been of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, emphasizes that every human person has a right to education, just as every Christian has a right to a Christian education.
Another important focus of the document is its emphasis on parents as the principal and primary educators of their own children. Only after establishing this primary responsibility of the parents in education does the document go on to speak of the responsibilities of the school, society, the state and even the Church for education.
The document is very traditional, however, in its insistence that true education is “directed toward the formation of the human person in view of his final end and of the good of ... society.”
What were the greatest successes of
The greatest success of the document is probably that it really has helped to establish in people's minds today the truth that parents are the principal and primary educators of their own children.
With the decline in standards in so many schools in our time, this understanding that the parents, after all, are really the responsible teachers, did not come along any too soon.
What still needs to be implemented in the document?
Probably much or most of the document's truths and basic principles are far from being implemented in practice, but one could mention in particular Gravissimum Educationis’ call to public authorities to guarantee “distributive justice to ensure that public subsidies to schools are so allocated that parents are truly free to select schools for their children in accordance with their conscience.”
This, of course, is not possible in America today, where Catholic parents must pay separately for Catholic schools for their children even while they continue to support the public schools with their taxes.
In North America, many of the so-called Catholic universities and colleges have lost much of their religious identity. What is the prospect for Catholic higher education?
The problem of loss of Catholic identity in Catholic higher education is really not a problem of education at all but rather of a practical abandonment of the principles of the Catholic faith.
Wholly in keeping with Vatican II's Gravissimum Educationis, Pope John Paul II issued in 1990 another document on the Catholic university, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which spells out in detail what needs to be done to restore Catholicity to Catholic higher education.
The prospects for Catholic higher education could be very bright if Catholic educators would only respond to and follow the Pope's vision.
The home-schooling movement in North America has grown a lot. How do you see its future? Is it a healthy movement?
At a time when by pretty general agreement many schools have become so bad, the home-schooling movement has arisen out of the concerns of knowledgeable and responsible parents, who rightly wish more for their children than many schools today are providing.
The movement represents a clear and dramatic case of parents acting directly on Vatican II's teaching that they are the principal and primary educators of their children. I don't know what the future of the movement will be, but I hope it will be bright.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Marvels of a Mother's Love DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:There are so many stories surrounding Mary Jo Copeland, “Minnesota's Mother Teresa,” that it's hard to know where to begin. Michelle Lynn Peterson cleverly kicks off her Copeland biography with the story of Brian Philbrick, whose childhood is destroyed and his self-worth beaten out of him by his father. Believing himself nothing more than “an animal,” Brian becomes a drifter at the age of 15, armed with anger, fear and distrust. We don't hear about Brian again until well into Mary Jo's story.
After enduring Mary Jo's odyssey of childhood neglect, readers see hope unfold as she meets and marries Dick Copeland. They raise a family of 12 children with very little means and Mary Jo's stark determination to let nothing get her down. “After what she'd been through and seen in her life,” Peterson writes, “there really wasn't much she couldn't handle.”
That motto carries Mary Jo through several years of depression and addiction until Dick coaxes her out of the house and into volunteering at the Catholic Charities center in downtown Minneapolis. Mary Jo soon finds herself in a battle of wills on how best to serve the city's homeless, is terminated and continues her charitable work from the trunk of her Plymouth Reliant. “Mary Jo's whole experience only strengthened her own philosophy: that the souls in this world will continue to flounder until their basic needs are met,” writes Peterson. “They need services that are based on unconditional love, not bureaucracy. ‘You have to take people as they come to you, not as you want them to be,’ explains Mary Jo.”
The rest of the book is devoted to Mary Jo's growing charity “complex,” from storefront shelter to Sharing and Caring Hands, which serves hundreds of people a day, and Mary's Place Shelter transitional housing. I found myself rooting for Mary Jo every time she encountered an obstacle, and believing in her every time she exclaimed to Dick, “Who else is going to do it?” The story ends with Mary Jo's newest project, Gift of Mary, a $30 million home for children. (All proceeds from this book go toward that project.)
Mary Jo's take-charge “Martha” nature is complemented by a deep faith and willingness to sit daily at the feet of the Lord and listen. She never lacks a hug, a prayer, a word of comfort, bus tokens or dollar bills for those who seek her out, and she never misses the twice-daily ritual of washing the battered feet that walk through her doors.
This is where Brian re-enters the story. Failing to get a response from the dirty, belligerent stranger who shows up at the shelter, Mary Jo finally reaches him through his bloodied and blistering feet. When she kneels before him to wash and tend his sores, it sets the stage for his first encounter with love. The daily washing sparks a relationship between the two that exemplifies the unconditional love of Jesus and reminds us that his light can shine in the darkest corners.
It's a great story within a story and one of Great Love's finest moments. Its weakest come when we sense that we're only getting the most celebratory side of Mary Jo Copeland's story. Of the many clergy, volunteers, philanthropists, city leaders, politicians and family members we encounter, several of whom had their differences with Mary Jo, none is given much space to express a detracting or at least questioning opinion. Such perspective could have given the book needed balance.
Despite its lack of depth, Great Love provides a cheerful, inspiring read — perfect for Mother's Day — and serves as a motivating reminder that nothing is impossible with God.
Barb Ernster writes from
Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Steubenville Honoree
FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY OF STEUBENVILLE , April 28 — Former Reagan administration official Kenneth Whitehad received an honorary doctorate from Franciscan University of Steubenville, the school reported.
University President Father Terence Henry, TOR, proclaimed Whitehead a Doctor of Christian Letters “for his dedication to the common good and service of the Church.” Whitehead is an influential advocate for Catholic universities, and, Father Henry noted, a tireless defender of the unborn, the weak and the vulnerable.
In his remarks, Whitehead explained the contemporary dangers of secularization for Catholic universities and the great value of Pope John Paul II's vision for higher education.
For Black Seminarians
FRANCISCAN UNIVERSITY , April 28 — The university in Steubenville, Ohio, is offering St. Benedict the Moor scholarships for black men who think they might have a vocation to the priesthood.
Recipients of the scholarship must be accepted by the university and its pre-theologate program.
The scholarship is available for both undergraduate and graduate students who maintain a 3.0 grade point average. For more information, call (740) 283-6495.
Other Things
“Trustees said they were caught off guard by Gearity's decision and said the president was not asked to leave,” but that he is leaving to do other things, the Observer reported.
He is to be replaced on an interim basis by Father Placid Solari, Belmont Abbey's college chancellor and the abbot of the Benedictine community that administers the college.
Obscenity Protected
CHRONICLE.COM , April 25 — Citing academic freedom, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed a provision in a budget bill that would have prohibited public universities from using state funds for the purchase or display of videotapes considered obscene under Kansas law, reported the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The measure was apparently directed at an undergraduate course on human sexuality offfered at the University of Kansas because of its use of X-rated materials.
Under the amendment, violators would have lost state appropriations for their department or division.
Fray Angelico
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES , April 25 — A proposed book on the life and works of Franciscan Father Angelico Chavez has earned a National Endowment fellowship for Ellen McCracken, a professor of Spanish at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Father Chavez, a writer and intellectual, is well known in his native New Mexico for his contributions to painting, poetry, fiction, history and architectural renovation. Known as Fray Angelico, he served as archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe from 1975 to 1982. He died in 1996.
The female student at the South Orange, N.J., university had a fever and upper-respiratory infection in early April when her father, who might have been exposed to SARS, visited her.
The student is not sick or showing any symptoms of the illness.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Q My husband spends up to 60 hours a week at work. Do you think he is a “workaholic”? If so, what can I do?
A People often voice pride in our country as a place where anyone can “get ahead” or work their way “to the top.” I know someone who began working for a company as a young teen pushing a broom — and now he is vice president of that company.
A man's work is very important to him on many levels, including psychologically and spiritually. Without work, man is simply not able to develop fully as a person. Even in the Garden of Eden, prior to the Fall, man worked. It is vitally important to do one's best at whatever one does and to faithfully and conscientiously perform all the duties of one's position.
Yet a get-ahead work ethic can sometimes lead us astray. In Leisure: The Basis of Culture, philosopher Joseph Pieper tells us that the capital sin of acedia, commonly called sloth, is a vice that goes against the Third Commandment — keeping holy the Lord's Day. This is surprising until we understand that leisure is critical to the well-being of the soul. It is not merely a nice activity that we do once a year when we take a trip to the Outer Banks or on a Friday night when we finally get to put our feet up and watch TV. In fact, leisure is opposed to both acedia and frenetic activity, and is a counter to the despair that can arise from both.
A wise friend once suggested that, when you are in need of a break, don't just do the knee-jerk thing you have always done in your free time (which might hark back to your single days, when Friday nights meant a six-pack of beer with your friends or a night on the town. Instead, do something that will make you feel truly refreshed and rejuvenated. In other words, enjoy some leisure time.
Instead of immediately turning on the TV when you come home from work, take 15 minutes to sit quietly outside and reflect on the beauty of God's creation. Or try a daily mediation and conversation with God for 15 minutes. Or, when it's cold outside, sit quietly by a window, reading Scripture or a spiritually uplifting book. Take a sunset stroll with your wife. Play catch with your kids.
So often, we men tend to keep up the never-ending cycle of work, work, work. Work is never done. Then we come home and plop ourselves down in front of the computer, answering e-mails, cruising the Internet, making sure we have all the latest news. Or we sit in our favorite chair in front of the TV. Beware of this kind of “leisure.” It doesn't leave us feeling refreshed; more often, it alienates us from our family and can even lead us into temptation.
True leisure is not escape. True leisure will leave us more in touch with ourselves and others, and closer to God. God himself rested on the seventh day. So should we.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic and Consultation Services in Vienna, Virginia, and Bethesda, Maryland.
----- EXCERPT: Leisure Lifts ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Adolescents who are involved in community service are more likely to have a strong work ethic as adults, according to updated survey data. Youth who volunteer are also less likely to become pregnant or to use drugs, and more likely to have positive academic, psychological and occupational outcomes. Of the 35% of high-school seniors who volunteer at least once a month, most work with education or youth-service organizations (34%) or religious organizations (31%).
Source: childtrendsdatabank.org, April 15. Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Volunteer Virtues ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Married - and Happy? DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:There's no better day than Mother's Day to consider an age-old question: Can marriage make you happy?
The answer is No, according to the American Psychological Association, whose 15-year study of marital satisfaction — which surveyed some 24,000 married people — made the headlines in many news outlets in March.
The single most talked-about finding: Most newlyweds experience a brief emotional “bounce” after their wedding — only to return to the same emotional state they were in before they stepped up to say “I do.”
This should come as no surprise to Catholics. After all, the Church's idea of marriage is that God designed it not to make people feel happy — but, primarily, to call them to participate with him in the creation and stewardship of new life. And this, say Catholic marriage experts, can help people feel fulfilled.
Happiness vs. fulfillment in marriage: Do Catholic couples know the difference?
Some do, but many Catholic couples do not understand marriage as a calling, says Father John LeVoir, who counsels engaged couples at his parishes, Holy Trinity Church and St. Augustine in South St. Paul, Minn.
“Fulfillment is a beautiful word to describe the sacrament of marriage,” he says. “Marriage doesn't bring the happiness that the world brings. It brings a Christian joy and peace to life because you know you're doing what you're called to do, and nothing compares to that.”
Father LeVoir uses Pope John Paul II's theology of the body as the basis for his counseling. He has co-authored two books on the subject, Covenant of Love: Pope John Paul II on Sexuality, Marriage and Family in the Modern World (Ignatius, 1992) and Faith for Today: Pope John Paul II's Catechetical Teaching (Doubleday, 1988).
The love of God is “a permanent love, a faithful and fruitful love,” he explains, and the love in a marriage should reflect that — exclusively with one spouse for life and open to life. “I always tell couples, ‘You're going to be living a countercultural life. But you're going to make it because Christ is there, you've built your house on rock, and you've got a call to fulfill.’”
That's not to say that Catholic couples, like all others in today's culture of rights-assertion and self-seeking, don't have their work cut out for them.
In fact, surveys during the last 40 years have shown a decline in happiness among all married people, according to the National Marriage Project, a think tank at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J.
Dave Popenoe, Rutgers professor of sociology and co-director of the project, says marriage has dissolved from a respected social institution upheld by economic, legal and religious components to a private agreement based on feelings and emotions.
Fueling the decline is the practice of cohabitation, whose basic ingredient is a lack of commitment. This, says Popenoe, “has made a mess of the dating scene; it's given men a free ride while leaving women disenfranchised. People can't depend on relationships anymore and there's not enough holding marriages together in the sense of obligation and calling to make it fulfilling.”
Sacrifice that Satisfies
The Christian family, though always countercultural, is vital to a modern civilization whose foundation was Christian to the core, says Register columnist Jennifer Roback Morse, author of Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work (Spence, 2001).
In apostolic times, she points out, Christianity transformed the family. Where Western pagans had thought of the family as essentially being under the ownership of its father or highest-ranking male, Christians redefined it as a relationship of generous love and sacrifice. The appeal of the Christian way for all involved was one reason the faith eventually blossomed where paganism had flourished for so long.
Then, too, in Christianity lifelong monogamy was the norm. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “the well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life” (No. 1603).
Today, however, the traditional message of Christianity has become almost incomprehensible to a society that, for the most part, is politicized and commercialized. If people are to understand the vocation of marriage, “layers and layers of rubbish have to be swept away,” says Morse.
“The idea of individualism is so embedded in our culture that understanding interrelationship is all but impossible,” she adds. “People view it in terms of commerce, ‘What's in it for me,’ like you would look at a new car. If it doesn't work out, you exchange it for a new one.
“People are so afraid of being taken advantage of that they're reluctant to give of themselves. If we are really confident of our ability to take care of ourselves and our own needs, we don't have to be afraid of being consumed by another person. Generosity is a sign of interior strength.”
Morse believes society is confusing freedom and autonomy. It has created a whole new definition of freedom to mean that one is completely unencumbered by human relationships, which bring about discomfort and fear. The attitude, she says, is that we are only free if no one is in a position to make legitimate demands upon us — and no one is in a position to hurt us.
“That's why we fear dependent people, such as children and the disabled,” she says. “That's why women continue to work [when they] would really prefer to be home with their kids. All of this is based upon fear, not love. I think a lot of people are undermining their own marriages by their fears and by a lack of trust in each other.”
Contentment
Catholic observers agree, as well, that our society cannot disregard the toll taken by its contraceptive culture.
The current generation of young people is having a harder time and taking longer to get from adolescence to adulthood, according to a March 23 report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In what the reporter termed the “quarterlife crisis,” many young people are experiencing paralyzing angst over what to do next with their lives. The urge is to keep open all options and choices as long as possible; this leads to protracted foot-dragging, which is often enabled by unprecedented affluence in parents’ homes and sustained by unrealistic expectations for careers, relationships and quick wealth. In this cultural climate, many, if not most, young adults appear reluctant to commit to a career — let alone to marriage and children.
The Star Tribune article concludes that the biggest single enabler of the mass procrastination is the birth-control pill. “[The pill] meant that people didn't have to get married anymore to start a regular sex life,” says Jeffrey Arnett, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland, in the article. “That opened up that period from the late teens to the mid-20s, where they're free and unfettered.”
There is an appeal to perpetual adolescence and its qualities can be found even in “married singles,” says Morse. She uses the term to refer to couples with no children who pay their bills and go to work but put off starting a family — sometimes indefinitely.
The reality, she adds, is that “reproductive freedom” is not so much about independence and autonomy as it is about fear — “fear of relationship with the child and the other parent, fear of intimacy, fear of the responsibility for the care of a dependent child.”
Still, despite all the negatives, there are encouraging signs of hope for married life. As Popenoe points out, not only has the divorce rate stabilized, but there is also a national movement under way to promote the benefits of marriage to society. Political pressure is mounting to enact a marriage amendment that recognizes marriage as only between a man and a woman. And organizations such as the National Marriage Project are adopting and promoting education and marriage-preparation programs similar to those embraced by the Catholic Church.
And Father LeVoir reports a greater faithfulness among engaged couples today, combined with an openness to natural family planning. “They're listening to the Pope's theology of the body,” he adds, “because it makes sense to them.”
“John Paul says the complementarity of male and female is an invitation to all human persons to actively participate in creative and faithful love,” says Morse. “This is a very uplifting vision of what our marriages can be.”
And what is that? In a word: fulfilling.
Familial fulfillment — the ultimate Mother's Day gift. For Dad as well as Mom.
Barb Ernster writes from
Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Giving Voice to Virtue at the United Nations DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:When Barbara McGuigan talks, teens listen. When she tells them about chastity and God's love for them, they hang on her every word.
“She has the greatest gift,” says Stephanie Heneghan, an eighth-grade teacher in Mission San Juan Capistrano, Calif., where McGuigan, a wife and mother of three adult children, leads the annual retreat for students preparing to graduate from the parish school. “She can reach those kids and keep them in the palm of her hand for six hours.”
McGuigan's words are about sexuality as a gift of God, the importance of modesty and prudence in living chastity, the truth of the abortion evil and the powerful spiritual trio — the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph — to help young people live the virtues.
Pro-life educator and EWTN series host McGuigan, for 15 years a speaker with Human Life International, has recently launched the nonprofit Voice of Virtue International, an apostolate through which she educates young people and families about the spectrum of life issues from a Catholic perspective.
Having spoken in schools and parishes, on television and radio across the United States and in seven foreign countries, McGuigan is now appealing to find yet another audience: the United Nations. She hopes to be the latest in a handful of pro-life nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have access to delegates, conferences and other NGOs to spread the life message.
Life Forces
The day after covering this year's March for Life in Washington for EWTN, McGuigan flew to New York to meet with Josef Klee, adviser to the Holy See Mission to the United Nations and a consultant to the U.N. Global Compact, which promotes human rights and environmental responsibility in the global economy.
Klee told her that of the more than 2,000 NGOs with status in the U.N. Economic and Social Council, only 50 are Catholic — and, of those, only half support the Holy Father and the teaching magisterium, says McGuigan.
“He said, 'The Holy See really needs you,’” she adds.
The next day McGuigan became one of the first to meet with the new apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.
“He's very warm, and very gracious. He remarked right away, ‘Gee, I like your name [Voice of Virtue],’” she says. “He was so grateful. And I said, ‘Your Excellency, will you please pray that we will obtain NGO status?’ He looked at me eyeball to eyeball and said, ‘You will.’”
Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a clearinghouse for pro-family lobbying at the United Nations, says that, although they are vastly outnumbered by their opposition, several natural family planning groups and pro-life organizations have been approved for NGO status.
“This coalition has essentially stopped what the United Nations wanted to do,” Ruse says. “They wanted abortion as a universal right, and we stopped them; they wanted to redefine the family ... we've stopped them; They want to redefine gender as a social construct not based in nature, and we've stopped them.
“The U.N. still does a lot of very bad things. But in terms of the documents themselves, the other side is losing,” Ruse adds.
A positive development is that the U.S. delegation under President Bush is strongly pro-life, in sharp contrast to the delegation under President Bill Clinton, says Sue Fryer, Canadian lobbyist for the World Organization for Ovulation Method Billings since 1994.
And despite recent attacks on its U.N. status, the Holy See is still highly respected, she says.
“The Holy See is a voice that rings true in the halls of the U.N. and is a beacon for all — the Muslims, the people of no faith, the Protestants, whoever they are,” says Fryer.
But the opposition to pro-family policies is also strong. “There's no room for naÔvetÈ at the U.N.,” says Fryer. “Just to see how Planned Parenthood works is to know what real evil there is. These people know there is a good and natural [family planning] method that works in the developing countries, and yet they're still pushing all the abortion on demand and contraception in these countries. They seem to stop at nothing to do this.”
Fresh Faces
Other NGOs would also resist the chastity message of Voice of Virtue. Kathy Hall-Martinez, director of the international legal program for the Center for Reproductive Rights, says her organization considers an abstinence-only approach to be unrealistic and unsafe.
“All women and men should have access to comprehensive reproductive and sexual health, including information that is comprehensive. We certainly also would include adolescents with that,” she says. “We feel very strongly that simply approaching the issue of reproductive and sexual health with sort of an abstinence-only agenda and bias is harmful to women and girls.”
McGuigan counters that view. “The misconception in this whole line of flawed logic is that contraception and abortion are goods that actually free women, when, in fact, they actually violate the nature and dignity of all women, thus keeping them in bondage,” she says. “An informed person knows that abortion and contraception violate women physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.”
Fryer says Voice of Virtue would be welcomed in the pro-life caucus: “It's a good time to come. We need some new faces and fresh efforts.”
“Is God opening a door? I would like to think so,” says McGuigan. “We'll do our very best, by the grace of God. ”
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: Prolife Profile ----- EXTENDED BODY: Ellen Rossini ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 05/11/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 11-17, 2003 ----- BODY:Baby-Tooth Stem Cells
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL , April 21 — One day, doctors may harvest stem cells from baby teeth to help combat diseases, researchers have reported.
Just like the nonspecific tissue from which all organs arise, the stem cells in baby teeth can transform themselves into nerve cells and fat cells in laboratory dishes, investigators told United Press International.
“These cells are a very surprising resource,” said stem-cell researcher Songtao Shi, a pediatric dentist at the National Institutes of Health. “They are very capable of providing huge numbers of cells.”
Adoption Barrier Falls in Florida ASSOCIATED PRESS , April 24 — Mothers who want to place a child up for adoption in Florida will not be required to publicize their sexual histories in newspaper ads.
The ruling came after a state appeals court said the law violates privacy rights and substantially interferes with a woman's ability to choose adoption, the AP reported.
The Fourth District Court of Appeals struck down the law, which the state's lawyers had refused to defend. It was heavily criticized because it required mothers, including rape victims and underage girls, to widely publish potentially embarrassing information.
MS Meets Its Match ASSOCIATED PRESS , April 16 — Raising hopes of a treatment for multiple sclerosis, researchers have found that stem cells injected into mice can repair damage and sharply reduce symptoms.
Seven of 26 mice recovered completely from hind-leg paralysis and others showed substantial improvement after the stem cells were injected into their spinal cords or blood, reported AP news service.
In the experiment, researchers from the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy, used stem cells that had been removed from the brains of adult mice and grown into larger quantities in a laboratory. Once injected, the cells traveled to damaged nerve areas and changed into cells needed to make repairs. Results of the study were published in the April 17 issue of the journal Nature.
Pro-Life Professor Prevails PACIFIC JUSTICE INSTITUTE , April 23 — After a year of battling, the Cuesta College Federation of Teachers has finally agreed to allow one of its professors to have his union dues diverted to a charity of his choice.
The federation had denied Professor Paul Bauer's request to divert his mandatory “fair share” union fees to a charity that did not conflict with his religious convictions. The choice of charities to which the union had restricted the instructor were the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood.
Cuesta College operates several campuses in southern California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Happy Birthday, Pope!' Young Fans Say DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — First there was Pope Day. Now there is Birth Day. The Holy Father's fans cannot be sated.
Both “days” are organized by New York young adults responding to Pope John Paul II's call at World Youth Day in Toronto last summer for Catholics to be “the light of the world and the salt of the earth.” Pope Day was held Oct. 18 to celebrate the 24th anniversary of John Paul's election. Birth Day is scheduled for May 18, the Holy Father's 83rd birthday.
The event, scheduled for the Sunday after Mother's Day, will have a decidedly pro-life theme, celebrating not only the Holy Father's birthday but birth in general. It is scheduled to take place in Bryant Park along Manhattan's 42nd Street, a few blocks from Times Square. The schedule opens with an outdoor Mass and closes with an attempt to break the world record for the most lighted candles on a cake.
In between, short talks will be given on natural family planning, the work of crisis-pregnancy centers and the beauty of giving birth. Literature on these topics and John Paul's writings will be offered to passers-by. For children, there will be storytelling, clowns and face painting. A “holy happy hour” is planned for young adults at the park's outdoor café. Jazz and rock groups and a church choir will provide live music.
“There's something for all ages,” said Peter McFadden, the chief organizer of both Pope Day and Birth Day. “We're engaged in soft-sell, positive evangelization in the heart of the city.”
He plans to hold Birth Day annually on the Sunday after Mother's Day whether or not it falls on the Holy Father's birthday.
Dorothy Dugandzic, who promotes natural family planning through her St. Augustine Foundation in Yonkers, N.Y., is another organizer of the event. Her foundation is providing natural family planning literature and arranged for a pregnant woman to speak about the joys of bringing new life into the world.
“I really like this event's energy and appeal,” Dugandzic said. “I think the birthday cake will attract a lot of young people. This is the way to promote the faith through positive involvement.”
McFadden said the logistics of making and baking a 2-by-5-foot cake has been the most difficult part of planning the event. “We haven’t been able to find a baker to make it for us, so we're going to do it ourselves,” he said.
McFadden is co-founder of a Manhattan young adult group that three years ago began studying John Paul's book Love and Responsibility on male and female relationships, marriage and procreation. First published in 1960, the book is based on the Pope's pastoral experience with couples when he was a priest in Poland. It identifies self-surrender in imitation of Jesus as the basis of all true love and warns against using other people as a means to an end.
Inspired by the book, the Love and Responsibility group has gone on to other writings by the Holy Father and seeks ways to spread the message among their peers.
October's Pope Day was observed in 22 cities in six countries, McFadden said. After he and other New Yorkers came up with the idea at World Youth Day in Toronto, word of the event spread via the Internet. An international network of Catholic young adults was formed.
Birth Day was conceived even as plans for Pope Day were finalized. Thus far, McFadden said, the New York event is the only observance planned, though he hopes the concept also will spread to other cities.
“We have Earth Day in which we celebrate the earth,” he said. “Now we have Birth Day in which we celebrate birth. Birth is the ultimate creative act and the greatest gift that anyone can receive.”
Sister Mary Grace, a member of the Sisters of Life and director of pro-life activities for the Archdiocese of New York, called Birth Day “a neat idea, truly inspired.”
“We are giving this our complete support,” she said. “It is a great vehicle to promote the Gospel of Life by celebrating birth.”
McFadden's group also conducts pre-Cana engagement and marriage programs at Our Saviour Church and sponsors a rosary pilgrimage from the midtown church on the first Saturday of each month.
Father George Rutler, pastor of Our Saviour who also appears on the Eternal Word Television Network, said the group is a model for lay people seeking to serve the Church and have an impact on society.
“As a pastor, I have to say that it's refreshing to have so many young people coming up with ideas and putting them into effect,” Father Rutler said. “They are active and they have the mind of the Church. I think it's significant that these are young people supporting the Church, while so many graying hippies from dissident movements are just making a lot of noise and stirring up trouble.”
Working in the heart of New York, the abortion and secular media capital, can be discouraging, McFadden said. Yet he thinks ranting in the public square would turn people off and be self-defeating.
“We realize the overall culture in New York is sick in many ways, but what's the best response?" he asked. “I think the program the Holy Father lays out is to engage the culture in a positive way. Our message is beautiful, our faith is beautiful, our Church is beautiful. The beauty of Christ is stronger than any darkness of the culture. We hope to present these truths in a way that will inspire people to take a deeper look.”
Stephen Vincent writes from Wallingford, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Vincent ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: More (and Younger) Doctors Support Natural Family Planning DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:COLUMBUS, Ohio — Nancy Foley knows the value of a good natural family planning-only physician. Her physician, Dr. James Patterson, might very well have saved her life.
Foley (not her real name) had charted her signs of fertility for nearly 12 years, but the signs she was experiencing seemed anything but typical. Concerned, she approached her natural family planning-only physician with her symptoms. Patterson's (not his real name) knowledge, coupled with his patient's, led to further tests and a final diagnosis of a pre-cancerous condition that was successfully treated.
Because Foley used natural family planning, not only was she was in tune with her body's signs but she was also able to identify an abnormality that led to an early diagnosis.
"I'm very thankful to have had a physician that recognizes and understands the medical applications behind natural family planning,” she said.
It used to be that natural family planning-only physicians — physicians who understand modern, scientific methods of natural family planning and do not perform sterilizations or prescribe contraceptives — were difficult to locate. That's less true today. Not only are there more natural family planning-only physicians than there were six years ago, but more and more are coming to the decision earlier in their careers.
Approximately six years ago, Steve Koob, director of the Dayton, Ohio-based apostolate One More Soul, created the country's first directory of natural family planning-only physicians. It began with 45 doctors from a variety of specialties and has now grown to contain more than 450.
"We get about three new NFP-only physicians each month,” Koob said.
While Koob is happy to see the growth, he's disappointed that the number isn't larger. "In 2000, I threw out the number 2,000 by the end of 2000,” he said.
He's convinced, however, that there will not be a dramatic leap in natural family planning-only physicians until clergy begin challenging doctors.
"Very often, everyone in a community knows that a physician is doing tubal ligations, and yet they are treated like great Catholics,” Koob said. "They are on the parish council, they serve as Eucharistic ministers, they teach CCD. That's a scandal.”
Indeed, some of the very physicians contained in One More Soul's directory came to be natural family planning-only at the admonition of clergy. That is certainly true for Dr. Michael Skoch of Lincoln, Neb.
"I had been trained at a Catholic hospital in Wichita, Kan., and [contraception] was what we were taught, so I assumed that it must be okay for me to prescribe,” Skoch said.
Eighteen months into his practice, Skoch found his professional life being addressed by his local priest.
"He asked me if I knew what I was doing,” Skoch said. "When I told him that I was doing what I had been taught, he replied that if I continued doing what I was doing, he could no longer continue giving me holy Communion.”
A year and a half later, Skoch finally stopped prescribing contraception.
In June 2000, Skoch left his five-physician family practice to launch the Moscati Health Center — a four-physician primary care medical practice incorporated with mental health services that does not compromise Skoch's values.
While Skoch said he did lose some patients during the transition, he estimated that 90% of his 2,000 families stayed with him.
For Skoch the decision to become a natural family planning-only physician came in midcareer. However, an increasing number of physicians are embracing natural family planning during residency or before. It's a trend Skoch has noticed.
"More and more young men and women have this figured out at a much earlier stage than I did,” he said. "It's an inspiration to me at this stage of my life. I firmly believe that the future is really bright and positive in this direction.”
Younger Doctors
Dr. Richard Cash is among those who have gone in that direction. Cash became a natural family planning-only physician during his third and fourth years of medical school. At that time he received information he previously wasn't taught or had ignored about the abortifacient nature of oral contraceptives.
Cash was awarded the Minnesota Academy of Family Practice Resident of the Year award last year and is in his first year of family practice with the St. Cloud Medical Group. He serves as one of two natural family planning-only physicians in the 45-member practice.
"When I made the decision to focus on NFP, I knew that the pill was used to treat the symptoms of a lot of different conditions,” Cash said. "I wanted the knowledge to be able to offer something more for my patients rather than saying, 'I'm sorry, I don't deal with that.'"
Cash was recently certified as a natural family planning medical consultant by completing a six-month program through the Omaha, Neb.-based Pope Paul VI Institute.
"That training will help me better treat some gynecologic conditions without using artificial hormones,” Cash said. "It's a disease-based approach, meaning that a lot of things that women have, such as infertility, painful menses and ovarian cysts, are symptoms of an underlying disease that is not often sought after by the medical community. They simply cover it up with contraceptives.”
Cash said he has seen a trend among younger physicians embracing the Church's teaching.
"The majority of people in the medical-consultant program were students, residents or physicians early in their practice,” he noted.
Another physician who has come to the decision early is third-year Ohio State University medical student Kyle Beiter. A biology major from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, Beiter hopes to bring a natural family planning-only approach to his work as an OB-GYN during his residence at Georgetown University. In his work he says he has already seen the failure of separating the unity of sexual intercourse from the procreative aspect.
"In one week I saw three women who were pregnant and were 13-14 years old,” Beiter said.
Beiter has found the support he needs along the way. He said he was fortunate to do his rotations with mentor Dr. Michael Parker, a natural family planning-only physician at Grant Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
In addition, in preparation for his residency work, Beiter spoke with colleague Dr. Faith Daggs, a Camp Hill, Pa., OB-GYN.
"She went to Georgetown [University],” Beiter said, "and was kind of anxious going into it. Yet her peers supported her decision. She has been out for five years and is doing well.”
Clearly, the role of doctors in natural family planning is pivotal.
"The doctors are huge on this issue,” said Theresa Notare, assistant director of the U.S. Catholic bishops' Diocesan Development Program for Natural Family Planning. "Outside of the priest, if a couple is having trouble on this front they will go to their doctor and they will take what he says very seriously.”
As important as the doctors are, the support of teaching couples and the Church is just as crucial. Notare described it as a "trinity of support.”
"Whenever we survey the dioceses about the obstacles that stand in their way of getting the Church's NFP message out to people, they include: priests not speaking about birth control and NFP, couples not coming forward to witness or teach other couples, and then, of course, the medical profession,” she said.
Yet Notare is hopeful.
"I'm very encouraged when I see the young people that have somehow stumbled onto natural family planning and the theology of the body,” she said. "They are just jazzed about this. There is great hope out there.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Do Senate Democrats' Rules Exclude Catholic Court Nominees? DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats continued in May to expand their crusade against President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.
The case of J. Leon Holmes of Arkansas, a Catholic, comes closest to demonstrating that Democrats are now imposing an unconstitutional religious test for office that faithful Catholics and other traditional Christians cannot pass — especially those who are outspoken about their beliefs.
District Court nominees rarely generate controversy, but Holmes barely made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I put in a motion to pass him out with no recommendation,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told the Register shortly after the committee vote on May 1. “It passed by a party-line vote.”
Democrats are filibustering appeals-court nominees Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen — the first filibusters in history against appeals nominees. They have also threatened to filibuster appeals-court nominee Charles Pickering. All four nominees have excellent legal credentials. Estrada has refused to express publicly his views on abortion and Roe v. Wade.
A Senate filibuster means that 60 of 100 senators, instead of the usual majority, must vote to approve a motion.
Holmes’ “zealous advocacy for doing away with … a fundamental right [to abortion], along with extreme statements he has made about the separation of church and state, gay rights and gender equality, raises serious questions about his fitness,” wrote the leftist Alliance for Justice on March 25 to Hatch and Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
At a judiciary hearing April 10, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said: “In 1980 he wrote a letter to the editor stating that abortion should not be available to rape victims because conceptions from rape occur with the same frequency as snow in Miami. … He co-wrote [with his wife] an article in which he stated that, ‘The wife is to subordinate herself to her husband,’ and ‘The woman is to place herself under the authority of the man.’ How could I ever vote for this man to be a judge?
“In a recent article written with his son, Jeremy, he argues that ‘Christianity in principle cannot accept subordination to the political authorities, for the end to which it directs men is higher than the end of the political order.’ He wrote that ‘the abortion issue is the simplest issue this country has faced since slavery was made unconstitutional, and it deserves the same response.’"
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., read from a response Holmes had made to a question: “‘As a citizen I am troubled by the Supreme Court decisions in Dred Scott [declaring slaves personal property], Buck v. Bell,’ which is a case of involuntary sterilization by the state, ‘and Roe v. Wade, because in my view, each of those decisions failed to respect the dignity and worth of the human person.’ How can a person make that statement about Roe v. Wade and then quickly add that ‘I will apply this law with objectivity’? I think it is almost impossible.”
Applying Test?
“From time to time I think it does arise,” said Hatch when asked if Democrats are effectively applying a religious test. “I really think that it's despicable. Abortion has become their No. 1 issue. It's almost their only issue. So anyone who is pro-life gets opposed by them.”
“I think that's largely the case,” said John Nowacki, head of the Free Congress Foundation's Judicial Selection Monitoring Project, about a de facto religious test. “Nominees can’t just promise to obey a higher legal authority. They now must make a personal affirmation of Roe v. Wade … There seems to be a general hostility toward people who have acted on their faith.”
The Constitution says that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
The White House would not comment about the issue.
The Senate did confirm a conservative Bush nominee May 5 — Deborah Cook of Ohio — but in spite of the fact that she has received consistent support from the Ohio Right to Life Committee, Cook has a “limited record on women's rights and reproductive rights,” the pro-abortion Feminist Majority Foundation said. Cook won a seat on the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Holmes, on the other hand, is a past president of Arkansas Right to Life who has also taught at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif. He wrote senators explaining that the subordination of wives is long-standing Catholic doctrine but “I do not believe that the historic Catholic teaching that the marital relationship symbolizes Christ and the Church is or has been relevant to my conduct in my professional life, nor would it affect my conduct as a judge.” He has apologized for the 23-year-old comment about rape.
“These are legitimate public-policy issues,” Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told the Register about what Democrats have raised about nominees. “The Supreme Court has said there is a right to privacy [the foundation for Roe v. Wade]. We are concerned about public-policy issues. These other things are red herrings used by the other side.”
Democrats have allowed the confirmation of some judicial nominees who are pro-life, Nowacki said. But often there is controversy over them.
“There seems to be an effort to try and tar these people, who are excellent nominees, so that they will not have any chance of being on the Supreme Court,” Hatch told reporters April 29.
Tom Jipping, director of the Concerned Women for America Judicial Appointments Project, said Democratic opponents “will identify certain views that are explicitly or implicitly products of their Christian faith.”
Regarding Holmes, he said, “The statements that he's made that they take issue with are primarily those he made in Catholic publications or to Catholic audiences. … The strategy here is to define an entire category of people as unfit for the bench. These Democrats do not believe judges apply the law impartially. They believe judges rule based on their personal views, so they oppose people whose personal views they cannot accept.”
He noted that in the case of Estrada, Democrats oppose him because they do not know what his personal views are.
Nowacki and Jipping identified several other judicial nominees who have been targeted by Democrats because of their views on abortion and homosexual rights, including Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, a Catholic outspoken on social issues.
Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, said Democrats are definitely applying a religious test.
“It highlights the importance with which the Democrats view judicial institutions,” he said. “They are pro-abortion, pro-homosexual rights, anti-traditional marriage, and they want judges who will implement their agenda.”
“I don’t think there is a doubt about it,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. “We carry the burden today of staying within the mainstream.”
Joseph A. D’Agostino writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph A. D'Agostino ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: House Committee Questions Overseas Funding Ban DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — In the House of Representatives on May 7, lawmakers passed an amendment that would eliminate the Mexico City policy that for 17 years has ensured U.S. funds do not support U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) projects that violate human rights.
A March 31 State Department report said forced abortion and sterilization policies exist in the 32 counties where the U.N. Population Fund has operations.
The prohibitions have been included in every overseas funding bill since 1985. They have been renewed by presidents Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush and George W. Bush.
It is known as the Mexico City Policy because it was at a population conference in Mexico City in 1984 that the Reagan administration first introduced the requirement that the U.N. Population Fund provide “concrete assurances that [it] is not engaged in, or does not provide funding for, abortion or coercive family-planning programs.”
The new move against the policy came in the House International Relations Committee in May. Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (and a Register columnist — see Page 8) said lawmakers “gutted an old U.S. human-rights law in order to fund a coercive U.N. agency, UNFPA.”
The Mexico City policy has prohibited federal funds from going to any “organization or program that supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
The new Crowley amendment, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York, only disallows UNFPA from “directly" coerced women. Indirect support of China's forced sterilization, therefore, would still be a legitimate use of U.S. funds, according to the new language.
Twenty-two Democrats and one Republican on the International Relations Committee voted on May 7 in favor of the Crowley amendment.
In a press release, Crowley called the Mexico City policy “a disgrace.”
“Restoring U.S. funding for UNFPA programs is crucial to improving the health of women and their families and to addressing rapid population growth,” he said.
“UNPFA provides international leadership on population issues and is a key source of financial assistance for family-planning programs in developing countries. It is a disgrace that the Bush administration has held UNPFA funding back.”
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., wants to save the Mexico City policy. “The amendment is wrong,” he said.
“Human rights are worth fighting for. In the words of Dongfan Ma, who was forced to have an abortion in China and now lives in the United States in freedom because of human-rights laws we fought for in the past: ‘Through this denial of UNPFA funds by President Bush and supported by a bipartisan group of U.S. congressional representatives, conscience and human nature will triumph over barbaric policies imposed on families in China.’"
Scott Weinberg of the Population Research Institute said efforts to end the Mexico City policy come at an interesting time. “Pro-abortion Democrats would rather fund a group that supports coercive abortion in China than send life-saving aid to women in Afghanistan,” he said. “They know UNPFA supports coercive abortion, so they want to gut U.S. federal law to fund this renegade organization. Thank God we have a president who will support, defend and preserve" the Mexico City policy.
“It is despicable to me that proponents of this amendment are so extreme in their support for U.N. Population Fund that they are trying to weaken 17-year-old human rights law,” Smith said. “Instead of seeking to weaken the law, they should help women who have been victimized and pressure the U.N. Population Fund to divest itself of programs that rely on coercion. Instead of lowering the bar on human rights they should be trying to get UNPFA to increase their efforts to meet fundamental human-rights standards.”
Hill insiders believe the Mexico City policy will be restored before the bill becomes law. The change “was approved by a one-vote margin in the House committee because some good people were absent,” said Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “The policy should be restored by the full House, and I expect it will be.”
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America said pro-life groups will make sure of that. They will be recommending voters contact lawmakers who oppose the Mexico City policy in the coming weeks.
The policy “is very important — not just as a statement that the United States will not support coerced abortion or sterilization,” she said, “but because, as it's become too clear, there are elected and government officials in the United State who have to be legally restrained from funding programs that are coercive.”
The earliest a vote is expected in the full House is in late June.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pop Songwriter Turns to Celtic Rock DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Bob Halligan Jr. has written songs for Cher, Michael Bolton, Joan Jett, Kathy Mattea and others.
But in addition to the songs he has written for others, he also writes for himself.
He is the lead singer for the Celtic rock band Ceili Rain. The band has performed at the National Catholic Youth Conference and World Youth Days in Rome and Toronto. It has recorded five albums, including its most recent, “No You — No Me.” Halligan spoke recently with Register features correspondent Tim Drake from his home in Nashville, Tenn.
Have you always been musical?
Yes. I’ve been a singer from the age of 3 or 4. I started piano lessons when I was 7 years old. I picked up the guitar when I was 13 and started to write songs at about age 15. I first played in a band when I was 12. It's the Beatles’ fault. Most musicians in my age group will tell you that.
Did you grow up Catholic?
I grew up as an only child in Syracuse, N.Y. My father was the editor of an industrial magazine and my mother was a housewife.
Yes, I am a cradle-to-the-grave Catholic. I was an altar boy and sang in choir. I had 13 years of Catholic school and three years of Latin. There are family members who are priests and brothers. About half of the band is Catholic.
What led to the creation of Ceili Rain?
About nine years ago, my wife had been playing Celtic music around the house, and I started to really enjoy it a lot. At that point, I had had a fairly successful career as a song-writer for other people. I’ve had about 150 songs recorded by various artists and have sold about 30 million units.
When my wife noticed that I was developing a fondness for Celtic music, she asked me, “Why don’t you combine that with the rock-and-roll stuff you’ve always done?" I replied that that was easily the dumbest idea I had ever heard.
Yet it was like an itch that I had to scratch, and so I tried. I’ve never been the same since. A guitar, bass and drums kind of band no longer holds any interest for me whatsoever. It seems devoid of color. Celtic rock music is all I can really muster any feelings about.
My first cousin Dick Halligan was one of the founding members of Blood, Sweat and Tears, so Ceili Rain is kind of an Irish-Beatley take on Blood, Sweat and Tears. They had horns, whereas we have whistles, pipes, accordions and sometimes a fiddle.
You’re one of the few contemporary Catholic groups that have been picked up by both contemporary Christian and secular labels aren’t you?
Yes, our songs, “A Hundred Smiles an Hour” and “Everything Good is You,” have received air-play on evangelical stations. In the Catholic world, Heart Beat Records distributes our albums. On the contemporary Christian label, Crossdriven, Lemstone and Lifeway/Providence distribute our albums in Christian bookstores. We're currently negotiating a contract with a mainstream label, Compendia. Once that takes place, probably in June, we will have two of our records in Borders and Tower Records types of stores.
How does your faith play out in your music?
The lyrics are informed by my Catholic-Christian perspective. As evangelicals will tell you, our theology is quite different from theirs.
While we do not actively evangelize or prosletyze, that does happen as a result of people listening to our music.
We also evangelize just by being decent people. When someone asks, “Why are you so nice?" we can explain that we try to follow the Golden Rule, which is of a Christian concoction.
I understand that you play at a lot of youth events.
Yes, between 30-40% of our shows are for youth. In recent months we played diocesan youth rallies in Wilmington, Del., Charleston, S.C., and Philadelphia. The coordinators bring us in after the youth have been listening to talks all day and the youth are ready to rock, yet they want to do it in a way that isn’t harmful to the young. In the past, coordinators have had dances with mainstream music with questionable content. The youth hear enough of that. They need to hear something different — rock that comes from a wholesome place. That's where we come in.
How do you see contemporary Christian music and contemporary Catholic music interacting with one another?
I get the feeling that Catholics and evangelical Protestants are infecting each other more than we all realize. The increased enthusiasm among young Catholics for matters of faith, and the increased numbers of Catholic youth that are active in youth groups and rallies is somewhat attributable to them seeing their friends attend contemporary Christian music concerts. I really believe that there are ways in which contemporary Christian music and the Catholic Church can complete each other.
When we play at World Youth Day or the National Catholic Youth Conference we cannot tell the crowd apart from a crowd at a contemporary Christian music concert. Both audiences share the same enthusiasm for God.
What remains the biggest challenge?
I live in the buckle of the Bible belt. There used to be a time when, if you were Italian, you were assumed to be in the Mafia.
I don’t know that being Catholic will ever be viewed as a good thing here, but it's less negative than it used to be. There is more acceptance within the evangelical Protestant world than there used to be for all things Catholic. Yet, it's very slow.
In the contemporary Christian music world, being Catholic is not good news to people that meet me for the first time. Yet some will admit that a family member is Catholic, or they know of others who are converting to Catholicism. Popular Christian singer Rich Mullins was on the verge of converting when he was tragically killed in a car accident five or six years ago. That is a well-known fact among Catholics, but a well-hidden fact among the evangelical music community.
Tim Drake writes from St. Cloud, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Darke ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Supreme Court: South Carolina Can Keep Data on Women Who Abort DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 21 cleared the way for South Carolina to collect and keep records of women who have had abortions. The decision will allow the state more oversight of abortion clinics.
The court refused to hear a challenge to the state's law, which allows the South Carolina health department to store medical records from clinics and abortion doctors.
The court's action lets the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion stand.
“The courts have said that this is not burdensome,” said Holly Gatling, executive director of South Carolina Citizens for Life. “The U.S. Supreme Court, which is not a pro-life court, agreed.”
South Carolina is the only state where the health department maintains abortion patients’ medical records. That has supporters of legal abortion upset.
“Patients seeking reproductive health services in South Carolina can no longer be guaranteed of the confidentiality of their health-care decisions or their medical records,” said Bonnie Scott Jones, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which argued the case before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
But Trey Walker, a spokesman for the state's attorney general, said the regulations passed constitutional muster.
“The state regulations are reasonable health and safety measures that do not infringe on anyone's constitutional rights,” he said.
The case arose from a 1995 law that imposed new and stricter regulations on abortion facilities in South Carolina. The state claims the regulations were passed to improve standards and make the procedure safer.
Gatling said the abortion clinics themselves were the cause for the regulations.
“In 1992, two women filed a complaint with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control,” Gatling said. “Lori Saunders and Celeste Danish revealed that the clinic owner, the late Dr. Jesse Floyd, used a common kitchen sink disposal to grind up the bodies of aborted babies, some well past the 12th week of development, and flush these human remains into the public water system.”
One woman testified that she saw a dog in the procedure room.
The health department told the two abortion clinic workers that nothing could be done because there was no law to regulate abortion clinics.
A three-part investigative story by the CBS affiliate in Charleston caught the attention of South Carolina citizens and within two years a regulation bill became law.
Supporters of abortion challenged not just the medical records collection but also the health regulations of the abortion clinics.
That case was resolved in 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court let the lower-court ruling stand. On Aug. 15, 2000, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled: “The regulations serve a valid state interest and are little more than a codification of national medical and abortion association recommendations designed to ensure the health and appropriate care of women seeking abortion.”
So far, however, South Carolina remains the only state with basic health regulations of abortion facilities.
Other States
On the same day as the U.S. Supreme Court's action, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed legislation to regulate abortion clinics in Kansas.
After sailing through the Kansas Senate, the veto override fell short of the two-thirds support needed in the Kansas House on May 2. The abortion clinic regulation bill garnered 73 votes, falling 11 votes short of the threshold of 84.
Kansas House Rep. Peggy Long, R-Madison, said, “We need to address the problems occurring at abortion clinics.”
In South Carolina, Gatling said other state pro-life organizations are interested in her state's legislation, but little action except Kansas has so far occurred.
The passing of the abortion regulation law in the Palmetto State is just one in a string of victories for the pro-life community. When abortions there peaked at 14,133 in 1988, the South Carolina Citizens for Life began aggressive lobbying of a parental-consent bill. It became law two years later. A Women's Right to Know Act was passed the same year as the abortion clinic regulation bill.
From 1997 to 2001, every year saw a new pro-life bill became law in South Carolina. The trend started with a ban on partial-birth abortions and then a ban on physician-assisted suicides in 1998. South Carolina also passed an Unborn Victims of Violence Act in 1999. A new law provided safe havens for abandoned newborns in 2001. Also in 2001, the state authorized “Choose Life" license plates.
By that year, the number of abortions in South Carolina fell to 7,014, a decrease of 50%, which Gatling attributes to the legislation enacted into law.
“What has happened,” she said, “is that the South Carolina legislature and the South Carolina pro-life community have set the bar for other states to follow.”
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Conservative Papers Blossom on Campuses
There are now more than 80 right-leaning newspapers on campuses — 50% more than two years ago, the Los Angeles daily reported. Conservative students are appalled that liberal professors and student leaders blame the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq.
At the University of California at Santa Barbara, Nicholas Romero and Gretchen Pfaff edit the Gaucho Free Press. They had no interest in writing for the main campus paper, the Daily Nexus, which they say too often glamorizes drug use and promiscuity.
At least two organizations give seminars on how to start a newspaper. One is the Collegiate Network; the other is the Leadership Institute in Virginia, whose director of student publications is Joshua Mercer, also a Register correspondent.
His approach to transforming popular culture has a familiar, apostolic ring: “People complain about the media,” Mercer told the Times. “Our philosophy is, ‘Be the media.’"
Nevada Committee Okays ‘Pill’ Bill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 29 — The Nevada State Senate moved one step closer on April 24 to passing a bill that would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for every drug — including birth-control pills and abortifacient “emergency contraception" — regardless of their personal and religious objections.
The AP reported the bill would empower the state pharmacy board to punish any pharmacist who refuses. But the bill does not require a pharmacist to stock a given drug.
The first version of the bill protected pharmacists who had conscientious objections to certain drugs, but, AP reported, it was amended because lawmakers feared it “interfered with business management.”
New Bill Targets Internet Porn
The bill also toughens penalties for the abuse or exploitation of children, offers federal money to provide a national-alert system for abducted children and strengthens laws against child pornography — including the “virtual" variety, which is digitally composed.
The law's sponsor, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., explained the anti-masking law will help protect kids from blundering into a “fraudulent storefront on the Internet … and find themselves in the adult section — triple X — when they came in looking for Hardy Boys.”
Legislators Try to Stop Contraceptive Project
But one state official suggested that Wisconsin law mandates the program's continuation.
The Family Planning Demonstration Project, which began in January, offers $29.3 million in federal money to fund family planning along with noncontroversial services such as cancer screening.
One opponent of the project, Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, pointed out that the project allows girls 15 and older to seek contraceptives without parental consent.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Wal-Mart Pulls Racy Magazines From Shelves: Families Cry 'Encore!' DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:BENTONVILLE, Ark. — WalMart's decision May 5 to yank three racy men's magazines from its shelves elicited applause from pro-decency groups. But some of those groups challenged the company to go further.
Wal-Mart said its decision was a response to letters, e-mails and phone calls from consumers dismayed by the prominent placement of Maxim, Stuff and FHM magazines in its newsstands and near checkout counters.
“Basically we carried them in response to customer demand,” Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams said. “But we had customers around the country who have been consistently telling us they were uncomfortable with them. In this case we had to balance the interest of two customer groups.”
He said the decision was driven by customer satisfaction. “Our products are the result of what customers want,” he said May 6. “When there are differences in opinion we want to make a value judgment and do the best we can.”
The company has 2,485 Wal-Mart stores and 456 Sam's Clubs in the United States, making it one of the country's largest retailers with a tremendous influence on tastes and culture.
Though pleased with the decision, some groups who follow moral issues in the media are guarded in their response.
“It is commendable that Wal-Mart has taken away these men's magazines. But they’ve got to think about a little bit more than just consumer satisfaction,” said Patrick McGrath, director of media relations for Morality in Media Inc., a law-focused national organization that deals with obscenity law and broadcast indecency law. “Otherwise, it will just be bouncing back and forth. They need to take a stand one way or the other.”
McGrath believes Wal-Mart's decision has not gone far enough.
“We just wish that they would have a look or at least have a similar policy about the over-sexualized women's magazines like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Redbook, Marie Clare and also the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition,” he said.
"Our problem with the marketing of such magazines is the in-your-face factor, the inescapability factor, that they are marketed at the supermarket checkout stand and you have to go through the checkout stand in order to get out of the shop,” McGrath added.
Catholic Parents Online, an organization working with Catholic schools to ensure authentic teaching of the faith, was more generous in its applause for Wal-Mart, thanking the company for “helping us guard the innocence of our young and to uphold the dignity of every man and woman.”
“As Catholic parents we strive every day to teach our children and grandchildren our faith and morals, leading them by word and example,” said Colleen Perfect, president of the St. Paul, Minn., group.
But Dennis Publishing Co., which publishes Maxim and Stuff, charged that Wal-Mart's policy is inconsistent.
“We are dismayed at the double-standard Wal-Mart has set with magazines,” the company said in a statement. “We hope Wal-Mart will realize that the front covers and contents of Maxim and Stuff are no more provocative than those of other men's magazines such as GQ, Esquire, Details and Rolling Stone — and usually less provocative than the covers and contents of many women's magazines.”
Bill Johnson, president of the American Decency Association based in Freemont, Mich., which claims responsibility for organizing groups throughout the United States that have continually sent messages to Wal-Mart, said, “This ministry has been key in contacting and asking Wal-Mart to make a significant change in what they sell and disseminate, primarily the magazines at the checkout counter. As a result tens of thousands of people over the past year and a half have been in touch with Wal-Mart.”
Johnson said he thinks Wal-Mart has not gone far enough.
“We have a real sense that we've been thrown a bone,” he said. “I say that because they have left many magazines that are very concerning, for example, Cosmopolitan, Glamour and other magazines. We should never tolerate the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition with [its] ever-increasing display of eroticism. We have been in numerous Wal-Mart stores in the past where these magazines were on display front and center or at the checkout counter.”
“We could wish it were a decision based on a sense of morality or decency,” Johnson added. “But we do not believe that it was. We believe that they felt they would get a lot of press, as they have.”
Wal-Mart spokesman Williams said it's still early to gauge customer response to the decision.
“This all just came to light,” he said. “We are always removing products and adding products in our stores. We do it and do it quietly. We said Yes when we were asked to remove the magazines. It's early yet in the process. We hear from customers all the time in myriad ways.”
Aware that Wal-Mart makes its decisions based on consumer demand, Dennis Publishing hopes Wal-Mart will reconsider.
“Dennis Publishing has been doing business with Wal-Mart for a long time,” the company stated. “Our sales experience in Wal-Mart confirms Wall-Mart customers enjoy Maxim and Stuff. We hope that copies of the two biggest men's lifestyle magazines in America will be back in these stores soon.”
But Phyllis Plum, vice president of Catholic Parents Online, referring to a slogan used by Stuff, commented, “Printing what is considered a ‘no-holds-barred approach to delivering what interests men most,’ attacks godly love, joy and peace within the family unit, targets faithfulness and kindness, goodness and self-control.”
“Ultimately, every attack on the family is an attack on Christian principles,” she continued. “Without Christian principles, there is no protection, no rules, no walls, because there are ‘no-holds-barred’ for all.”
Mary Ann Sullivan writes from New Durham, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mary Ann Sullivan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Vatican Paper Calls TV Show ‘Useless and Parasitical’
ANANOVA.COM, April 30 — The official paper of the Holy See has gone after one of Italy's newest and most popular programs: “Big Brother” (“Grande Fratello"), the “reality TV" show imported from America.
L’ Osservatore Romano called the show “useless and parasitical,” characterized the housemates as “empty protagonists” and the viewers as “full of morbid curiosity,” reported Ananova.com, an online British news site.
The paper wondered how so many Italians could follow such a tedious show when dire world events — such as the war in Iraq — demanded their attention instead.
As if in answer, Ananova.com noted that within hours of the first program, two of the contestants had already joined each other on camera in bed.
Media in Spain Roused to Comment by ‘Papa’
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORP., May 4 — The visit of Pope John Paul II to historically Catholic (but frequently anticlerical) Spain has brought out a wide mix of reactions in the media, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported in a survey of Spanish media.
The daily paper El Mundo called the Pope a “peace campaigner.” It called his visit “inextricably linked to the rejection of violence in the face of those who consider war a valid method of resolving conflicts.”
Another issue that arose concerned the restive Basque regions. The Basque regional paper Deia quoted Inaki Anasagasti, leader of the Basque Nationalist Party, who suggested that the Holy Father has not been fully informed of his group's grievances against the Madrid government. Anasagasti cited a manifesto by 530 Basque priests issued in support of his demand for negotiations leading to greater autonomy.
John Paul's visit also recalled the legacy of cruel anti-Catholic pogroms conducted by the Spanish Republic during the 1930s. During his visit, the Pope canonized Father Pedro Poveda, one of nearly 4,200 priests killed in that persecution.
The leading daily paper El Pais noted that the Church was not emphasizing the martyrdom of Father Poveda so much as his works of charity: “[O]n this occasion, the Pope has sought to emphasize … the apostolic qualities and dedication" of Spanish clergy who educated the poor.
Pope to Lift Restrictions on Ancient Liturgy?
Currently, this rite requires special permission from local bishops. John Paul is said to be preparing to issue a universal indult sometime this year, permitting priests to choose freely between the 1962 and 1970 missals.
The indult would be connected with the publication of notations to Ecclesia de Eucharistia, the Holy Father's April 17 encyclical on the Eucharist, the paper suggests, and might be announced at the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome on May 24, when Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos celebrates the older Tridentine rite.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Eucharist and Mary in Church Tradition DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:ROME — In his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (On the Church and the Eucharist), Pope John Paul II dedicates Chapter 6 to the “School of Mary, ‘Woman of the Eucharist.’"
To understand in greater depth the relation between the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharist, Zenit news service interviewed Discalced Carmelite Father Jesús Castellano Cervera, president of the Teresianum School of Theology and an expert in Marian studies. He is also a consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Don’t you consider somewhat singular the Pope's decision to dedicate a whole chapter to Mary in an encyclical on the Eucharist?
Mary's relation to the Eucharist is evident, especially if two fundamental aspects of the Eucharist are considered.
The first is the continuity of the mystery of the Incarnation, exactly as John presents it in chapter 6 of the Gospel: the indissoluble connection between the Word made flesh (see John 1:14) and the flesh that he gives for the life of the world (see John 6:51 and following). The chapter and the prologue of the Gospel, verse 14, uses the same expression in “the Word became flesh,” and “I shall give you my flesh.”
In the measure that the mystery of the Incarnation is connected to the Virgin, from whom the Word takes flesh, we can say that it is a central aspect of the Eucharist and not a devotional aspect.
St. Augustine himself said in the commentary on Psalm 98:9: “From the flesh of Mary, he took flesh; in this flesh the Lord walked here; and he has given us this same flesh to eat for our salvation; and no one eats that flesh without having first adored it … as we do not sin adoring it but sin if we do not adore it.”
The second fundamental aspect is that the Eucharist is the memorial of the death of Christ, and in that moment of Calvary, John recalls Mary's presence at the foot of the cross. It is a presence in which the Virgin is associated with the mystery and with the offering of Christ to the Father, and in the offering of herself to the Father.
We cannot not think of the Virgin Mary, present in this mystery, of which the Eucharist is the sacramental connection; therefore, either because of the Incarnation or because of the sacrifice of the cross, Mary is present. Moreover, there are numerous expressions of the Fathers of the Church that bring the mystery of the Incarnation closer to that of the Eucharist.
Could you give an example?
Peter Chrysologus said Christ “is the bread that sowed in the Virgin, leavened in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the sepulcher, kept in the Church, taken to the altars, gives the faithful heavenly food every day.”
In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas made a comparison between the virginal birth, which is of a supernatural order, and the Eucharistic conversion, which is also supernatural.
The relation between the Eucharist and the Virgin is an integral part of the whole Tradition. In some Eastern rites, for example in the Ethiopian liturgy, they recite: “You are the basket of this bread of burning flame and the cup of this wine, O Mary, who produced in your womb the fruit of the oblation.”
And also: “O Virgin, who brought to fruition what we are about to eat and who made to gush forth what we are about to drink. O bread that lives in you: life-giving bread and salvation for the one who eats it with faith.”
However, we must admit that at present this relation between Mary and the Eucharist is not known or reflected upon.
In reality, the popes have always stressed this aspect of Tradition. Pope Paul VI, for example, in Marialis Cultus exhorted [us] “to live the Eucharist with the sentiments of faith and love of Mary, virgin who listened, virgin of prayer, virgin who offered, virgin Mother, as well as virgin model and teacher of spiritual worship in daily life, transforming herself in a pleasing offering to God.”
We could also refer to Pope John Paul II, who introduced the Institution of the Eucharist among the luminous mysteries of the holy rosary.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Church Is Committed to Europe's Spiritual Tradition DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Today I wish to speak briefly about my apostolic journey to Spain last Saturday and Sunday, whose theme was “You Will Be My Witnesses.”
I thank the Lord for letting me visit this noble and beloved nation for the fifth time, and I wish to express once again my warmest gratitude to the cardinal archbishop of Madrid, to the bishops and the entire Church in Spain, to their majesties the king and queen, as well as to the head of the government and to the other civil authorities, who welcomed me with such kindness and affection.
From the moment I arrived, I had the opportunity to express the esteem that the Successor of Peter has for that portion of the pilgrim people of God, who have dwelt for almost 2,000 years in the land of Iberia and have played a considerable role in the evangelization of Europe and the world. At the same time, I wanted to show my appreciation for the social progress that has been made in the country, asking that it always be based on those genuine and everlasting values that constitute the precious heritage of the entire European continent.
Two Special Moments
There were two memorable moments during this pastoral pilgrimage: the large meeting with the youth on Saturday afternoon and the Mass for the canonization of five saints on Sunday morning.
The vigil for youth that was held near the Cuatros Vientos Air Base in Madrid, which had the recitation of the rosary as its background, gave me an opportunity to reiterate in summary the message of my apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae and the Year of the Rosary that we are celebrating. I invited the youth to become men and women with an ever-stronger spiritual life by frequently contemplating Christ and his mysteries along with Mary. This is really the most efficacious antidote against the dangers of consumerism to which the men and women of our day are exposed. It is urgent that we oppose the lure of the passing values of this visible world that some of the media propose with the lasting values of the spiritual world that can be attained only by recollecting one's own spiritual life through meditation and prayer.
Moreover, I joyfully observed that young people increasingly know how to promote the New Evangelization among their peers and are ready to use their energy to serve Christ and his Kingdom. I entrusted the young people of Madrid and of all of Spain to the care of the Virgin Mary, since they are the hope and the future of the Church and of society in their country.
The following day the solemn Eucharistic celebration took place in Plaza de Colón in downtown Madrid. In the presence of the royal family, the bishops and the civil authorities of the country, and before a vast assembly that included representatives from all walks of life within the Church, I had the joy of proclaiming as saints five sons and daughters of Spain: Pedro Poveda Castroverde, a priest and martyr; José María Rubio y Peralta, a priest; and the religious sisters Genoveva Torres Morales, Angela de la Cruz and María Maravillas de Jesús.
Models of Holiness
These true disciples of Christ and witnesses of his resurrection are examples for Christians of the entire world. By drawing the strength they needed from prayer, they were able to carry out the work that the Lord entrusted to them in contemplative life, pastoral ministry, the field of education, an apostolate of spiritual exercises and caring for the poor. May these saints be an inspiration to believers and Church communities in Spain so that, in our days also, that land, so blessed by God, will continue to produce the abundant fruit of evangelical perfection.
In this regard, I exhorted Christians in Spain to remain faithful to the Gospel, to defend and promote family unity, and to constantly guard and renew the Catholic identity that is the nation's source of pride. It is by virtue of the everlasting values of its tradition that that noble country will be able to make its own contribution in an effective way to building a new Europe.
A Call to Witness
This fifth apostolic journey to Spain confirmed within me a deep conviction: The old nations of Europe retain a Christian soul that constitutes a single entity with the “genius” and the history of its respective peoples. Unfortunately, secularism is threatening its fundamental values, but the Church is determined to work constantly to keep the flame of this spiritual and cultural tradition burning.
Calling upon the greatness of the Spanish soul that has been formed according to solid human and Christian principles, I especially wanted to address these words of Christ to the youth: “Be my witnesses.” I repeat these words today, assuring the people and the Church in Spain — and all you who are present here today — of my prayers that are accompanied by a special blessing.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Register Summary DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Pope John Paul II offered his reflections on his recent trip to Spain during his general audience with several thousand pilgrims who gathered in St. Peter's Square on May 7.
The Holy Father said the two most memorable highlights of his trip were his meeting with 700,000 young people and the canonization of five saints that drew a crowd of 1 million people.
During his meeting with the youth, he encouraged them to cultivate an inner spiritual life as an antidote to the lure of consumerism. He said he was happy to see the youth are increasingly promoting the New Evangelization among their peers. He said the five saints he canonized are an inspiration for people from all walks of life to remain faithful to the Gospel.
John Paul encouraged Spaniards to remain faithful to the everlasting values of its spiritual tradition while making its contribution to building a new Europe. “This fifth apostolic trip to Spain confirmed within me a deep conviction: The old nations of Europe retain a Christian soul that constitutes a single entity with the ‘genius’ and the history of its respective peoples,” the Holy Father noted.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: The Rector's Dinner: Rome, American Style DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:One day a year the seminarians of the North American College in Rome set aside theology books to wait on tables, serving high-ranking prelates from the United States and the Roman Curia, the glitterati of Roman society and just plain friends of the NAC, as the seminary is affectionately called in the Eternal City (it sounds like “the knack").
The occasion is the annual Rector's Dinner, an elegant affair considered one of the most important events on the Rome calendar, according to Msgr. Kevin McCoy, rector of the college. The black-tie event, held this year on May 8, originated in 1991 as a fund-raising event and is attended by upwards of 400 guests from the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, the Italian parliament and the American and European business world.
The dinner, notes the rector, “exhibits the vibrant life of the college and its unique role in the Catholic Church in North America, showcases the college and its special ties to Rome and her people, and is an opportunity for its patrons … to show and renew their support for the college and their love of the Church.”
The centerpiece of the evening is the Rector's Dinner Award, whose honorees are ongoing supporters of the college and high-ranking prelates who have made significant contributions to the Church in America. The recipients of the 2003 award were Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and Linda and Greg Jewell, longtime NAC supporters.
Past recipients have included U.S. cardinals, cardinals of the Roman Curia and Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, a former NAC rector.
The seminary dining room is transformed for one magical evening into a splendid banquet hall where the guests, after enjoying cocktails and antipasto in the second-floor porticoes, are treated to course upon course of Italian culinary art. Generous Roman benefactors provide copious hors d’oeuvres, wine and the magnificent flowers that decorate the galleries and dining tables.
But what is truly remarkable about the evening is the central role played by the seminarians. Having been coached in the days preceding the Rector's Dinner in the fine art of being a host and in the etiquette of serving tables, these smiling young men from dioceses throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico welcome guests as they arrive, escort them through a maze of halls, show them their assigned tables and serve throughout the evening.
The best, however, is saved for last. A group of seminarians regales the guests with a 20-minute musical presentation, prepared and rehearsed for weeks in advance. In the past this has included an Evening with Elvis, numbers from Broadway musicals and a medley of show tunes. In 2001, the last year that now-Archbishop Tim Dolan of Milwaukee was rector of the North American College, there was a tribute to his seven years at the NAC in song and comedy.
This year the seminarians took a look at their own lives, from the day they arrived at the NAC to departure day. Half of the fun is watching the amused guests join in the evening's entertainment — rhythmic clapping, singing along or toe tapping.
The meal and entertainment are framed, of course, by serious moments, moments of prayer, of recognition and tribute to the honorees for their lives of service and dedication to the NAC and to the Catholic Church, of singing the national anthems of Italy and the United States and, as a fitting conclusion, praying the Regina Coeli together.
Cardinal Stafford was honored this year because “he exemplifies all the values our college holds dear: a strong sense of priestly identity, a willingness to follow the Lord wherever it may lead, a love of neighbor that transcends the boundaries of race and religion, and the courage to preach the Gospel, whether convenient or inconvenient.” Greg Jewell may have summed up everyone's feelings for the seminary when he spoke about his long association with the North American College. He said that the NAC, throughout its 144-year history, but especially at this delicate moment for the Church in America, has been, is and always will be “a city of hope.”
Joan Lewis works for the Vatican Information Service.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Philippine Bishops Cry 'Peace!' As Battles Rage Around Them DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:MANILA, Philippines — The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have called for a cease-fire in the establishing hostilities between separatists groups in the south of the country and government forces.
Two seminarians were killed in one attack, reported UCA News, an Asian Church news agency based in Thailand. They were students at Cor Jesu Seminary in nearby Dipolog on a summer pastoral program at Holy Cross parish in Siocon.
About 200 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters attacked the predominantly Christian town before dawn May 4. The armed men fired at the town's police force; some burned the commercial center and herded people into the town square. When military troops arrived from their base about six miles away, the perpetrators hurried away, taking with them several hostages, who were forced to carry wounded Moro Islamic Liberation Front soldiers. Twenty-two people were killed in the gun battle, eight of them civilians. At least 20 were wounded.
But the killings did not end there. A few hours after the attack on Siocon, Moro Islamic Liberation Front spokesman Eid Kabalu said in a radio interview, the group attacked a village in another province, in Maguindanao, where 11 soldiers were killed. And on May 6, Moro Islamic Liberation Front soldiers ambushed a military truck, killing three soldiers and five civilians who were riding inside the truck.
In a May 5 open letter to Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Hashim Salamat, the Philippine Bishops’ Conference condemned the killings of civilians the day before in Siocon, a town in Zamboanga del Norte province. The bishops appealed to the leaders “to order a cease-fire on all fronts and to direct the immediate resumption of peace negotiations” on the southern island of Mindanao.
Fight for Independence
Consisting of about 10,000 members, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is a breakaway group from the Moro National Liberation Front, which advocates an independent Islamic state in the southern archipelago. When the Moro National Liberation Front signed a peace agreement in 1976 with the government, several disgruntled members joined former leader Hashim Salamat, who established the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Such a move by Muslim separatists did not sit well with the government, which has declared war on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front several times. The biggest “all-out war” against them was in 2000, when government forces overturned the group's major camps in Mindanao.
But the separatists did not leave the area. They have established themselves in one of the old camps in the Buliok complex, a cluster of villages near Pikit in Central Mindanao. Here, according to witnesses, including the parish priest of Pikit, Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Roberto Layson, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have lived peacefully side-by-side with the government forces — until Feb. 11.
Early that morning, as Muslims were about to say their prayers, government forces dropped mortars and bombs on their communities, disturbing the otherwise peaceful lives of Christians, Muslims and indigenous peoples. Thousands of families ran out of their homes toward the evacuation centers in Pikit.
The government was targeting the Moro Islamic Liberation Front enclave in the Buliok complex, where, according to the military, a notorious kidnap-for-ransom group had taken shelter. After a few days, the military captured the complex and declared victory over the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but nothing was said about the kidnapping gang.
The displaced Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces continued their battle in the hope of regaining their position — and perhaps their pride. They spread out to nearby provinces, indulging in pocket skirmishes, targeting mainly military personnel.
Innocent Victims
The war in Mindanao has created a fight for survival among refugees living in improvised evacuation centers. At its peak, these refugees have reached 200,000 in four provinces, all displaced, scared and vulnerable to diseases. Although the government and several nongovernmental organizations have been giving them humanitarian aid, it is barely enough.
“Let us allow ourselves to be horrified by the killings and the suffering that goes on day after day in our own midst,” the bishops’ conference, headed by Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato in Mindanao, wrote in the open letter. “Cease-fire in these circumstances is the demand of sheer logic, the demand of wisdom, the demand of compassion.” The losers in this unending war in Mindanao are the people, in particular the children, the bishops said.
“As spiritual leaders, our hearts bleed at the terrible toll that this war in Central and Southern Mindanao has inflicted on thousands upon thousands of families,” they said. If both parties, the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, continue this war, it would merely “inflict the ultimate damage — the severe impairing of the collective psyche and spirit of all the people who dwell here.”
President Arroyo demanded the Moro Islamic Liberation Front hand over those who attacked Siocon before peace talks resume.
“We will not compromise against terrorism,” she said. “We will pursue them wherever they breed.”
Sonny Evangelista writes from Manila, Philippines.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sonny Evangelista ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Voodoo Now an Official Religion
Haiti's government, led by former priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, made the move in April, The Daily Telegraph reported. The Haitian president issued a decree announcing that that the state acknowledges voodoo as “a religion in its own right" and that he would prepare legislation affirming that status.
A March 15 marriage in a voodoo temple has already been given legal recognition. Aristide's decree specifies that voodoo priests may ask the government for permission to preside at weddings, funerals and even christenings.
The decision has sparked heavy criticism from Christian and other religious groups.
Voodoo has existed in Haiti since that island was flooded with slaves in the 18th century and is regarded as a holdover of their African ancestral religion, combined both with certain Catholic externals (such as saints) and elements of black magic.
According to The Telegraph, former Haitian dictator François “Papa Doc" Duvalier was himself a voodoo practitioner, who used its rituals to convince his subjects that he possessed godlike powers.
Catholics Active Against Mugabe's Dictatorship
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, May 2 — In April, the bishops of Zimbabwe issued a Lenten pastoral letter denouncing the “frightening" degree of corruption, lawlessness and tyrannical abuses committed by the government of post-colonial dictator Robert Mugabe.
Echoing their pastors, more than 200 lay Roman Catholics gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe, to hold a symbolic “no-confidence vote on Mugabe.” Their statement urged “the present government [to] step down and hand over to those who are prepared to serve the country and all its people.”
The Catholic Institute for International Relations has joined the Zimbabweans in their effort, according to Independent Catholic News. The London-based anti-poverty organization announced on May 2 that it supported the Zimbabwean bishops’ statement.
The Catholic Institute endorsed the bishops’ demand for “meaningful dialogue with the political opposition party and all significant sectors of Zimbabwean society.”
Cardinal Pleads For Peace in India
UNION OF CATHOLIC ASIAN NEWS, May 5 — Catholic bishops are pleading for peace in Kerala, a region of India that has included Christians since apostolic times.
The bishops called for dialogue after Muslim-Hindu violence claimed the lives of nine people in the South Indian village of Marad on May 2. Muslim extremists attacked the fishing village with swords and knives while most of the men were out at sea, according to the Union of Catholic Asian News, a Church news organization based in Thailand.
Local police said villagers were afraid to help the wounded — until police arrived and fired into the air to chase away the attackers. Eight Hindus and one Muslim died.
Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of Ernakulam-Angamaly, leader of Kerala's Catholic bishops, has called on the Indian government to take urgent action to restore law and order, and promote interreligious harmony.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Medieval Connecticut DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:It sounds like satire: “The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a fetus is a body part, akin to teeth, skin and hair that are eventually shed.” But it's all too real, from a May 7 Associated Press story that tells of a man convicted for attempting an amateur abortion on his unwitting fiancée.
Who knows what future anthropologists will make of such a report. They may think they stumbled upon a time warp.
If they compare the report to our time's advances in medical knowledge, they may think that the Connecticut Supreme Court unaccountably reverted to pre-medieval biology.
It's true that women and their children, especially while they reside in the womb, are intimately linked in a unique relationship, a dependent symbiosis that breaks down many of the barriers that ordinarily demarcate where one person stops and another begins. They share blood; their immune systems “turn off" so as not to attack each other; a poison injected, eaten, or smoked by the mother will harm the child.
But even in medieval times, an unborn child was known to be just that — another person — and birth has never been considered an “amputation.”
If future historians analyze the Connecticut Supreme Court with legal development in mind, they will find that our laws are profoundly confused, a hodge-podge of incompatible assumptions about the nature of human beings, their rights and duties. But in one respect, they may find the decision a throwback to ancient times.
In medieval English common law, which gradually Christianized the pagan customs of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, a wife was considered (all-too-literally) a part of her husband. In fact, the moment she married, she lost virtually all property rights, becoming in effect his “chattel.” (The root of the word, “cattle,” refers to any moveable piece of property.)
Because of this intimate relationship, a woman could not be called to testify against her husband — since it would constitute self-incrimination.
Most egregiously, there was no provision for punishing marital rape or most forms of spousal abuse. The metaphor of unity, degraded to mean simply property, overrode considerations of human dignity and common sense.
It took centuries for English common law to be transformed by the Christian insight that women were spiritually equal to men, that every person has a special dignity and direct relationship to God, a particular vocation, and the rights and responsibilities that go along with it.
Today there is little trace left of the common law assumptions concerning the unity of husband and wife. The pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Marriage is now viewed as the least enforceable contract on earth, dissolvable almost at will.
Yet the courts have transferred the extreme, distorted logic of the old Common Law from the marital bed to the womb. The maternal rather than the marital relationship is now removed from the ordinary scrutiny of law, exempted from any rational consideration of responsibilities and rights, crafted as a radically imbalanced case of one human being owning another as “chattel,” to be disposed of at her own discretion.
This is precisely what the feminist movement wanted to avoid. As the early suffragettes fought the laws that lingered from the days when they were considered property, they argued that their unborn children must not be considered property, either. (For documentation, look up Feminists for Life in Washington, D.C.)
This legal “development" in the Connecticut Supreme Court is in no sense a piece of progress toward the free development of persons or the recognition of human dignity. Instead, it is a lurch backward, into a more primitive and irrational state of legal affairs.
It falls short of the medieval understanding of basic biology and matches the worst of the human-rights abuses of the Middle Ages. We invite the Hartford courthouse to join the rest of us here in the 21st century.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Gnosticism, Harry Potter and the Faith DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Father Alfonso Aguilar's essays “Gnosticism and the Struggle for the World's Soul" and “Into the Gnostic Wonderland" (March 30-April 5 and April 6-12) were excellent and entirely correct. I believe he has truly understood and emphasized the Holy Father's increasing concern with this phenomenon.
I can personally attest to the accuracy of his analysis of The Matrix. Following the release of the DVD version of the film, in an online forum with the creators of The Matrix (Larry and Andy Wachowski), I put this very question to them, and received the following answer:
Me: “Have you ever been told that The Matrix has Gnostic overtones?
Wachowski Bros: “Do you consider that to be a good thing? I would.” (Source: http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/cmp/lar ryandychat.html)
Father Aguilar makes the strong case that neo-Gnosticism (pun intended) is one of the dominant ideologies in popular culture today. From The Matrix to the Harry Potter series to Memento, there is a renewed effort to sensitize the masses to this un-Christian philosophy.
May God continue to be with Father Aguilar in his exercise of Christ's prophetic office!
ALBERT GUN via e-mail
Father Aguilar's writing on “Gnosticism and the Struggle for the World's Soul" was very well done — and very much needed in today's world.
As one who was a part-time teacher in general psychology, child and adolescent psychology, marriage and the family, sociology, etc., I discovered how grateful the students were to learn the truth.
If one were to make a syllogism to prove “There is no such thing as truth,” it becomes obvious that, if one believed the statement to be true, it would be ridiculous — or what is called an “internal contradiction.” If it is not true, and contradicts itself, then what Father has written is supported — and the world needs to turn to the Person who said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light" and “He who believes in Me shall never die.”
Those who think they can make up their own truths and deny the laws of nature and nature's God will pay the consequences. I would recommend C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia stories for children looking for interesting reading material. As a young child, I was taught that it is important to learn how to swim upstream even [when] it is difficult and against the current. As my father told me, it is garbage that floats down the stream.
In today's world, I believe parents need to teach their children the eternal truths that will lead to productivity and happiness on the spiritual as well as material level. They should read the books that their children do and provide a critique that will point out the silliness or flaws.
The Register provides much food for thought in its many recent articles on the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, etc. Keep up the good work, and thank you, Father Aguilar, for giving parents a good analysis of the Harry Potter stories, etc., when they see their youngsters get drawn into the latest trends.
Just as students are grateful for good teaching, children will be grateful for good parents even if they have high standards — and this was shown at many family get-togethers on Mother's Day.
BARBARA BRAUN via e-mail
Father Aguilar's articles on Gnosticism were a wakeup call for me: I had swallowed the red pill dissolved in water.
A few years back, I developed some interest in New Age ideas. I was drawn to the emphasis on doing good and “self-improvement through self-discovery.” It sounded like Catholic spirituality. However, for some reason it just didn’t feel quite right for me and I soon lost interest in it. But all along I still thought that the New Age movement was a positive one since it promotes the well-being of self and society.
It was not until I read Father Aguilar's articles that I realized how misled I was. Thank you so much for shedding a light on this for me.
AGNES CHAN Vancouver, British Columbia
I am a non-Catholic reader who very recently re-discovered the Register after a lapse of about 20 years. I am very grateful for Father Alfonso Aguilar's two-part series on Gnosticism and its strong influence in modern society.
I have long been concerned about the popularity of some insidious ideas embedded in popular culture, viewed by many as “spiritual" or “religious” and, therefore, generically classed as a good thing.
Such attitudes are evident in talking with professionals whose otherwise outstanding educations have left them in philosophical, ethical and moral kindergarten — resulting in many of today's teachers and opinion leaders who lack the insight to recognize the false values present in the “warm fuzzies” of the New Age pseudo-philosophers.
Then there's the ignorance of much of the secular press at all levels. I have worked in small-town newspapers for 26 years. The secular media uncritically treats all “spiritual" ideas as equal, so even persons who are considered well-educated often look at all things “religious” as having equal value. The question is not one of treating all viewpoints and traditions fairly, and allowing them equal access to the media, but the depiction of things religious as a personal spiritual buffet, where one can graze and sample without discernment, because, hey, it's all really the same thing, isn’t it?
Such relativism has found a home in sincere Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, who lack understanding of the core of authentic Christianity. They’re often left wide open to the appealing and very logical sound of much of the New Age movement.
My wife and I have two young children who both caught the reading bug early. My 8-year-old son is basically an independent adult reader, and his sister is not far behind. Yes, they love Harry Potter. They also have been introduced to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They can and should enjoy these terrific stories. But literature can also be a place where parents and family challenge them with questions and engage them in thinking about choices they will face.
I know that, as a child, growing up in a pastor's household, I would come upon dozens of strange and fascinating volumes lurking in my father's study, from Lives of the Desert Fathers and the Confessions of St. Augustine to Rufus Jones Speaks To Our Times. I believe we must bequeath to our children the exciting discovery of the whole world of great minds and ideas, because I believe that is the best way to prepare them to think critically in religion, in politics, in personal and societal values.
A few years back, when Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II was published, my wife and I purchased our copy in the mass-market paperback section of the local Kroger supermarket, alongside the mystery novels and magazines. I thought that was a small but potent symbol that there is still hope for our culture. I strongly suggest that the best response caring Christians can make to the concerns addressed in Father Aguilar's articles is to raise children who have been exposed to the best minds of the 20 centuries of the Christian world.
HARRY M. FOX New Albany, Indiana
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: OPINION -------- TITLE: Wonderland or Christianland? DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:In his letter titled “Gnostic Gnashing" (May 11-17), Mr. Robert Trexler offers an interesting Christian interpretation of the Harry Potter series — a reading defended by Christian critics such as Alan Jacobs, Serge Tisseron, Pietro Citati, Massimo Introvigne and Catherine and David Deasel (authors of the forthcoming book Philosophy and Harry Potter.)
Yet the very test questions I proposed (and Mr. Trexler used to prove Harry Potter's Christian worldview) reveal, instead, its Gnostic soil.
First, the question about the divine. Mr. Trexler points out that Lord Voldemort is an evil wizard, representative of Satan, rather than a “demiurge" with god-like attributes. He is right. The problem lies elsewhere.
Contrary to Msgr. Peter Fleetwood's personal opinion about the Christianity of Harry Potter, which in no way constitute an official “Vatican" endorsement of the series, the Vatican-based journal La Civiltá Cattolica published an article titled “Il fenomeno ‘Harry Potter’" (March 2, 2002, pp. 474-483), in which the author, Father Antonio Spadaro, SJ, acknowledges that its worldview seems to be incompatible with the Christian world-view. “The implicit model of the character [Harry Potter],” Father Spadaro writes, “is that of a man who has ‘powers’ (i.e., ‘power’ tout court) and who has in himself everything he needs without giving room for any transcendence.”
Transcendence is the point. In Tolkien's and Lewis’ stories every power is not intrinsic but received — transcendence is in the background. In Rowling's books the divine is not a Transcendent Personal God, the giver of all goods, but an impersonal immanentistic power — the magic. The divine is dualistic: There is a good (white) magic and “the dark arts” — something analogous to the Star Wars “force" and its “dark side.”
Second, the concept of man is also Gnostic. It is true that Harry Potter is sometimes saved by others rather than by his own powers. Mr. Trexler interprets the tears of Professor Dumbledore's phoenix as a symbol of God's grace with reference to Christ. (Gnostics like interpreting Christian symbols in the light of their own philosophy.) Yet in this and similar cases Harry Potter is not saved by the grace coming from a divine person but rather by the powers or powerful possessions of well-trained wizards (the Gnostics), particularly by those of the school headmaster Dumbledore.
In the end, “Rowling portrays Harry's victory as the fruit of esoteric knowledge and power,” as Canadian writer and literary critic Michael D. O’Brien points out. “Thanks to his magic Harry Potter seems to be substantially self-sufficient,” Father Spadaro writes. Consequently, the message of the story “can become a thrust to self-centeredness — believe in yourself and you’ll make it.”
Third, a dualistic view of the cosmos emerges in the series. The physical world is not presented as bad or illusory. Yet it is portrayed as less “real" than the wizard world — the fantastic realm of powers whose gate can only be opened by the key of esoteric knowledge. Doesn’t the reader feel more “at home" at Hogwarts School than in the boring material world of Muggles?
Harry Potter is not as obviously Gnostic as the Star Wars and The Matrix. That's why some Christians may read its pagan Wonderland as “Christianland.” Harry Potter provides us with elevated entertainment, valuable lessons and admirable heroes, but all in the context of a Gnostic worldview, as I believe the test questions show.
The ultimate test, however, is the readers’ and moviegoers’ life. Do the novels and movies reinforce in them a Christian mindset — or do they rather inspire a desire to an esoteric knowledge that will make them more powerful?
FATHER ALFONSO AGUILAR, LC Thornwood, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: The Pope at 83: One Day The E-Mail Will Be Right DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:A few days ago, an e-mail message from a priest in Rome said authoritatively that Pope John Paul II was very sick and very near the end and that we must pray for him with urgency.
It was wrong. Such messages are common fodder and have been for years. But one day, the e-mail message will be correct. The Pope will be dying. The Pope will be dead.
And that day will be one of the saddest days of our lives. But it will also be one of the most amazing, because this is what will happen.
You will be sitting at your desk; perhaps you will be in bed, out jogging or watching television. I mean this to, literally, every person in the world, or practically every one. The phone will ring or someone will run in or you will hear the radio go all strange and urgent. And then you will know. This great and holy man has died.
You will be stunned. Your head will swim. You will certainly stop what you are doing, whatever it is. And the thought of him will invade your mind and your heart. You will find yourself moving. Others will be moving with you. You will see the stunned look on the faces that pass you by. Car doors will be open with small crowds gathered listening to radio reports blaring out.
Perhaps you will whisper to someone who has not heard, “The Pope is dead.”
They will move along with you. You are going to church, to synagogue, to mosque. When you get there, the place will be jammed, no matter what time of day or night, for surely those in deepest night will know, too. Night will fall and sun will rise and those awake will talk about him and those asleep may dream.
What we will experience is a world historical moment. One of the great men of all time will have died. The whole world will know it in an instant. And, all at the same time, the world will be joined in prayer. This will be a moment you will not forget for the rest of your life.
The media scrum will be unimaginable, like nothing we have seen. For years, the major American television networks have been renting the tops of buildings near the Vatican, paying upward of $200,000 per year in order to get the best views during those coming dramatic days.
The pundits within and without the Church will have their day. Those of left and right will vent their particular grievances against John Paul, that he was too conservative, that he was too liberal. Ho-hum. But the great middle will grieve and celebrate.
Since this column is not an obituary — since the great man still breathes and celebrates his 83rd birthday May 18 — it will not relate the uncountable amazing moments of his life. Still, here is a man who bestrode the 20th century like a colossus.
No one is like him.
Like all men of genius, he can see beyond the horizon. Unlike most geniuses, he sees far, far beyond it. And don’t you get the impression that he is sprinting, like a thor-oughbred, toward the finish line that he knows is out there somewhere, maybe somewhere close?
He is an elderly man, a frail man, who can still surprise us.
He just gave us a new set of mysteries for the rosary and absolutely no one saw it coming. A few years ago he gave us new biblically based Stations of the Cross. On Holy Thursday he issued yet another in his long line of brilliant written works, this one on the Eucharist. Biographer George Weigel says it will take a century to unpack the deep meaning in all his writing. Let the unpacking begin, please.
But the best part of that horrible and wonderful day will be this: On that day, this man will meet Jesus. And we just know that Jesus will take him in his arms and love him like he loved the Apostle John. For this man was an apostle unlike any other. Can’t you see him walking as an equal with the originals? That is what will happen in heaven.
Here on earth John Paul will almost immediately come to be known as “John Paul the Great.” When was the last one called “The Great?" Fourteen hundred years ago? Now we will have another. What is more, the Catholic people will not wait for the Church to tell us he is a saint. We will not wait for the inevitable process of canonization. We will simply call him that.
For the first time since the Middle Ages, a saint will be made by acclamation of the people. We will begin praying for him, as all good Catholics should, but also to him, and then the graces will fall even faster from the hand of John Paul the Great's good God.
Austin Ruse is president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He welcome coments at austinruse@c-fam.org.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Austin Ruse ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: When Mothers Go Away to War DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:It's now a fact: American women serving in the U.S. Armed Forces are assuming more combat roles than ever before. During the war in Iraq, they struck targets, took enemy fire and guarded prisoners.
They faced the same dangers as their male counterparts: capture, injury and death. How is this possible, since women soldiers still remain barred from front-line ground-combat roles?
Military experts say modern warfare has blurred the concept of a clear front line. Guerrilla-warfare tactics and long-distance missiles make the entire combat zone a front line.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa proves this new reality. When she was traveling with the 507th Maintenance Company, Iraqi forces ambushed her convoy. She became the first American woman killed in action in Iraq. Her death has prompted a national debate over women's role in the military.
Many of the questions being asked are the same as ever: Are women strong enough for combat? Will they weaken the cohesion of units? Will Americans be able to accept the sight of women coming home in body bags? These are valid questions. Nonetheless, Christian leaders should be asking a different set of questions: Is military life morally suitable for women? Is it morally right for women to engage in combat? What role, if any, should women play in the military?
It's imperative that Christian leaders confront this issue with serious theological discernment. The debate at hand demands moral clarity in order to ensure the dignity of women. From a theological viewpoint, this debate should begin with an anthropological reflection by asking: What does God's revelation tell us about the feminine personality? What is her natural God-given vocation according to grace and nature? The answer to these questions will tell us if the nature and demands of military life are compatible with the dignity of women.
The intrinsic dignity of women, like that of men, originates from the truth of being created in the image and likeness of God. Genesis 1:27 narrates, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Consequently, men and women share the same dignity as human beings created in the image and likeness of God. The Second Vatican Council's pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world, Gaudium et Spes, accentuates this basic equality of dignity between men and women:
“All men are endowed with a rational soul and are created in God's image; they have the same nature and origin and, being redeemed by Christ, they enjoy the same divine calling and destiny; there is here a basic equality between men and it must be given ever-greater recognition.”
Although men and women share the same dignity, they have different natural vocations in relation to creation. This means God ordained men and women with certain diverse natural ends or purposes proper to each. In this sense it is possible to speak about a natural feminine and masculine personality.
For instance, God gave women at the beginning of creation the natural vocation of wife and mother. Subsequently, women are spiritually and physically intended for this purpose. God's maternal gift to women links them particularly to the gift of life. For this reason, women can love their children and human life in general in a way the masculine personality cannot.
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the distinguished Christian philosopher and scholar better known as Edith Stein, describes well the characteristics of the feminine personality:
“Woman naturally seeks to embrace that which is living, personal and whole. To cherish, guard, protect, nourish and advance growth is her natural, maternal yearning. Lifeless matter, the fact, can hold primary interest for her only insofar as it serves the living and personal, not ordinarily for its own sake. Relevant to this is another matter: Abstraction in every sense is alien to the feminine nature. The living and personal to which her care extends is a concrete whole and is protected and encouraged as a totality; this does not mean that one part is sacrificed to another, not the mind to the body or one spiritual faculty at the expense of the others.
“Her theoretical and her practical views correspond; her natural line of thought is not so much conceptual and analytical as it is directed intuitively and emotionally to the concrete. This natural endowment enables woman to guard and teach her own children. But this basic attitude is not intended just for them; she should behave in this way also to her husband and to all those in contact with her.”
Having said this, it's time to answer the key question of our debate: Is the military profession and its demands compatible with the Christian vision and dignity of women?
In my judgment, the answer is No, since the nature and demands of the military seem to contradict the feminine personality. The personal experience of many women in the military supports this view.
For example, women soldiers find it tremendously difficult to be away from their children when deployed on a mission. Sgt. Raja Valenzuela, an Arabic linguist for the Army in Iraq, said, “I always lived in fear that I would leave my son. I have to have my baby with me.” Friends of Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa mentioned that her deepest worry before going to war in Iraq was leaving her 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
Now these children will never see their mother again.
When on long deployment, mothers in the military often lament missing important moments in their children's lives: birthdays, school plays and special holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. Now one might question: Don’t military men miss their children, too? Of course they do. Yet this experience is far more intense for women than men.
This helps account for the high attrition rate among women in the military. Take a look at the U.S. Army, which has more enlisted women than any other military branch. Before their first three years are up, approximately 47% of enlisted women leave the Army either by choice or order. The attrition rate for enlisted men during the same period is about 28%. The numbers in themselves demonstrate that women don’t exactly relish military life.
Besides this, contrary to the message of feminist advocates, most women in the military don’t want combat positions. Pentagon studies consistently found that only about 10% of enlisted women showed interest in combat positions. Operating tanks, shooting bazookas and other bellicose activities naturally disagree with the feminine personality that tends toward life and not destruction.
Nonetheless, the very purpose of the military is to wage war in defense of the country. This raises a compelling question: Why should young women be encouraged to seek a profession that thwarts their feminine personality? Wouldn’t this seem unwise, unhealthy and even morally questionable? This is what Christian leaders need to debate.
As for myself, I consider the idea of the woman warrior a deeply flawed one based on an erroneous feminist anthropology that denies the natural God-given complementary differences between men and women. Something is seriously wrong when a nation permits young women and even mothers to go to war. I hope reason enlightened by faith will defend the dignity of women in this ongoing debate.
Legionary of Christ Father Andrew McNair teaches at Mater Ecclesiae International Center of Formation for consecrated women in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew McNair, LC ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Conner on Our Minds - and in Our Laws DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:We're all innocent until proven guilty, including Scott Peterson.
Now that the Iraq war is over, press attention has turned to him and his culpability in the murder of his wife, Laci, whose body was discovered on Good Friday after she had been missing since Christmas Eve. The story has been unanimously assumed by most of the media and most Americans.
But what about Conner, the Petersons’ already-named unborn son, whose fully developed body was also discovered by police washed up on a California shore?
By California law, Conner is as much a person as his mother, Laci. Because of the Golden State's fetal-homicide law, Scott Peterson could face capital-murder charges in the killing of both his wife and unborn son.
But Conner would not be considered a legal person in every state. Currently only (but at least) 26 states have laws on the books that recognize the non-abortion-related killing of an unborn child as a homicide.
While Americans — or at least the media — have their attention fixed on the Peterson case in California, Congress should act on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making Conner the poster-child of a federal law recognizing the legal lives of future Conners.
Passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act would ensure unborn children killed in the commission of a federal crime against pregnant women would be treated as legal persons by the law.
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, in the Senate and Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Pa., in the House of Representatives have already reintroduced the bill. The president has asked that Congress pass the legislation this year.
“The president does believe that when and unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of a crime of violence, the law should recognize what most people immediately recognize, and that is that such a crime has two victims,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said in April.
But there is no guarantee of smooth sailing to passage for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Pro-abortion groups, who at least will take a stand against violence against pregnant women, are vociferously opposed to legislation that would allow unborn victims of non-abortion-related homicides any legal status. Such laws — the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, specifically — “threaten women's rights” National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (recently renamed NARAL Pro-Choice America — or, Our World Revolves Around Abortion, But We'll Never Admit It) has said.
But the pro-abortion groups are not too enthusiastic to rally in opposition to the Unborn Victims of Violence of Act right now — which is precisely why they should be made to face their own positions.
In regard to the Peterson case, in the days immediately after the two Peterson victims’ bodies were discovered, separately, a National Organization for Women chapter head from New Jersey blurted out her true feelings — and the party line. Marva Stark told the press, protesting a possible Peterson double-murder charge: “If this is murder, well, then any time a late-term fetus is aborted, they could call it murder,” she said.
Stark's position was wholly consistent with everything her gals support — they’re against fetal-protection laws, they’ve long avoided using the words “pregnant mother.” They very clearly oppose the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Never give an inch to protecting innocent life from death.
But in the Peterson case, the pro-abortion sorority did not want to be so obvious, with the image of Laci and talk of Conner on television sets and news stories — and makeshift memorials dedicated to them both. However much they agreed with her sentiments, Stark's sisters in pro-abortion feminism quickly fell silent, therefore, knowing the emotion surrounding the Peterson case would make their political position simply untenable.
After all, as one poll recently revealed, 84% of registered voters nationwide agree that a double-homicide charge is appropriate in the Peterson case. Most people see the homicide of a pregnant woman as a crime with two casualties. That's too much for the pro-abortion movement to handle. So much for Laci's right to choose.
In a letter supporting the legislation, the family of Laci Peterson — Conner's maternal relatives — writes: “As the family of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, this bill is very close to our hearts … Knowing that perpetrators who murder pregnant women will pay the price not only for the loss of the mother but [also] the baby as well will help bring justice for these victims and hopefully act as a deterrent to those considering such heinous acts.”
To use the Peterson case as an opportunity for passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act this year would not be the scoring of a cheap political point for the pro-life movement but would be an opportunity to codify a life-affirming law. We owe it to the late Conners of the world.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online and an associate editor of National Review.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Spirit and Life DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:No Time for Prayer?
In Lent the church calls us to renew our spiritual lives in preparation for the feast of Easter. Christians all over the world resolve on Ash Wednesday to make personal sacrifices and devote additional time to prayer during this penitential season. But many of us find that our initial enthusiasm tends to peter out as the weeks pass and Easter comes without appreciable spiritual improvement.
Now, Easter has come — and we are in the Easter season, longer than Lent. Why not join forces with the members of your family? Make growth in the spiritual life a joint family effort. Make specific plans to do together what will help all of you grow in holiness.
After all, your lives as members of the same family are inextricably intertwined and, even if your own individual resolve tends to weaken as time goes on, your love for each other should prompt you to be faithful. For holiness promotes happiness and your own fidelity will benefit not only yourself but your whole family as well. Furthermore, the Lord has told us that he is present where two or three are gathered in his name, so when you pray as a family you have not only the support of your family, but you also have the Lord's support as well.
The biggest obstacle to any joint family enterprise today is lack of time. Today in most households both parents have to work. Keeping up your home, shopping, getting meals and transporting children to school and to sports events, leave little time for family prayer. In addition, electronic communication, for all its efficiency, has not increased our leisure but added to our work and increased our stress.
For now we take our work home and are accessible to everyone by e-mail, faxes and cell phones. Where, indeed, can you find time for family prayer?
Strictly speaking, we can’t “find time" just as we can’t “make time" or “make up time" lost. It passes inexorably at the same rate even though it seems to pass quickly when we are doing what we enjoy and to drag on interminably when we are bored. It is so precious that we even say that time is money, and feel obliged to make the best possible use of it. What we have to do is to “take time,” to “spend time" on what is worthwhile. What we choose to spend our time on tells us much about ourselves.
If we use our free time to get ahead in our work, it could indicate that financial gain and our careers are our top priority. If we use our free time for golf, fishing, reading or listening to music, we do so because these are our real loves. If we spend time in the meditative reading of Scripture and prayer, we have a clear indication that union with God and holiness of life are our first loves and the source of our greatest enjoyment.
Prayer, in fact, will be our top priority if we have tasted the sweetness of the Lord and experienced the peace and joy that he alone can give. And if we ourselves realize the value of prayer, then we will want the members of our family to appreciate it too. And Easter season is the ideal time to learn to enjoy prayer together.
During Easter this year, with the telephone off the hook, take the time to gather your whole family and spend 20 minutes together reading the Scriptures. Have someone read an agreed-upon passage. Spend a few minutes in quiet reflection. See how the passage sheds light on your own lives and the problems you have to face.
Father Thomas Feeley, C.S.C., is Vice Postulator of the Cause of Canonization of Servant of God Patrick Peyton, C.S.C. and Director of Evangelization for Holy Cross Family Ministries in North Easton, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Thomas Feeley ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Philly's 'Saint of the Impossible' DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:“It's a very special privilege to be back in my old hometown in what was my moth-er's special church.”
So said the late Cardinal John O’Connor in 1998 to several bus-loads of people he led on a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia in Philadelphia. He knew firsthand the intercessory power of St. Rita, called the “saint of the impossible,” whose feast the Church celebrates May 22. (She can also give you some child-rearing techniques — see page 16.)
As a young boy growing up in Philadelphia, the cardinal would often go with his mother to the shrine. Although she went completely blind from unexplainable causes when her son was a baby, that didn’t stop Dorothy O’Connor from faithfully attending novenas at the shrine for many years to thank and petition St. Rita.
She joined the thousands who flocked to the Renaissance-style church. One night, the cardinal explained, his mother said she woke to a vision of St. Rita. Maybe it was the picture of the saint on her wall, he added. “At any rate,” he said, “she could see.” The cardinal's mother credited St. Rita for her restored vision and united with countless other pilgrims who reported receiving a miraculous answer to prayer here.
In 1907, seven years after St. Rita was canonized, the Augustinians founded the church to serve as an ethnic parish for Italian immigrants living in the city. Services were held in the lower church until the upper one was completed in 1915. In the early years, as many as 1,000 babies were baptized yearly.
Wife, Mother, Widow, Nun
As the neighborhood changed, the parish register grew much smaller, but the pilgrims and visitors continue to come. Their constant numbers and the centennial celebration of St. Rita's canonization in the Jubilee Year 2000 motivated a major renovation of the upper church.
From the outside, even the impressive 14th-century-style facade doesn’t give people any inkling just how large and grand the upper church is on the inside. Its cathedral-like proportions and beauty surprises many first-time visitors.
The painted ceilings are 80 feet high. One of the two major murals honors the Holy Trinity in a familiar pose. This reminder of the Trinity repeats over and over symbolically as interlocking triangles within a circle in the floor mosaic.
The other stunning painting that soars in the apse high above the altar pictures St. Rita accompanied by angels and saints as she enters heaven. Beneath it, the magnificent main altar, guarded by gigantic angels to either side, has a tall reredos topped by a gray-white image of St. Rita. Towering above everything is a spectacular baldachin with sculpted angels, personified virtues and a cross.
St. Rita, who died on May 22, 1457, was a wife, mother, widow — and Augustinian nun. The church-shrine tells her story marvelously in art, beginning with the stained-glass windows lining one side of the nave. They’re by the world-master F.X. Zettler in Munich.
One, for example, pictures St. Rita's patron saints — John the Baptist, Augustine and Nicholas of Tolentine — accompanying her to the Augustinian convent in Cascia where she had been turned down three times. Her patrons showed her how to open the door.
Born in Umbria, Rita married at 16 and had two sons. Then, 16 years later, her husband was killed by political rivals. Within a year her sons died.
As a passport to the convent, Rita reconciled the families of her slain husband and their political rivals. When she convinced them to sign a formal document with a promise to live in peace, Rita was welcomed into the convent. Later, as a saint, she would also be titled “peacemaker” and “reconciler and promoter of family harmony.”
Rita received the stigmata in the form of a thorn from Our Lord's crown that pierced her forehead. She bore it for 15 years. Before she died, she asked for a rose from her family home. To her it would be a sign that her prayers for her deceased family had been heard. It was January, but her cousin found one rose growing through the snow.
The windows depicting this and the other important chapters in St. Rita's life story gently guide the eye to the elaborate St. Rita altar to the rear. Its marble columns and arch frame a bright bas-relief of St. Rita contemplating Jesus crucified. Above, an angel holding a crown of flowers watches intently from the azure sky. The tabernacle displays a relic of St. Rita for veneration.
More awaits pilgrims and visitors in the former lower church, newly constructed into another shrine honoring St. Rita. The novena draws thousands during its nine days plus the celebration of the solemn feast on May 22.
The hub of this lower shrine is a remarkable bronze statue of Rita in ecstasy the moment after she receives the stigmata. She holds the thorn that pierced her forehead, and her gaze draws us to turn to see what she sees. On the far wall, the object of her intense look is an image of Jesus of Holy Saturday. He is still crowned with thorns but is beginning to rise from the tomb. This depiction was popular in Rita's time; on it she focused her own devotion. The bronzes are the work of Anthony Visco, a parishioner.
On the reliquary wall, the gift from the Augustinian Sisters in Cascia offers cause for reflection: the pillow from St. Rita's coffin. Her hands rested on it from 1935-47. There's also a relic with a piece of the saint's flesh from her incorrupt body.
Every square inch of this place reminds us that, with God, nothing is impossible.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: St. Rita of Cascia National Shrine, Philadelphia ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Sometimes, Primetime Choices Boggle the Mind DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:A few nights ago I sat in utter amazement watching a young character in a new “family" drama series get an abortion.
The show, “Everwood,” is centered on a small family in a small, rural town. The show's creator says it is “geared for teen-agers.” The network airing it, The WB, has for some time now been the network of young viewers. Its strongest demographic is 12- to 34-year-olds.
The protagonist of the show, a doctor and widower-father played by Treat Williams, is a warm-hearted, earnest fellow who is no doubt endearing to many viewers but a bit too easily befuddled for my tastes. (His utter inability to explain to his 9-year-old daughter that pornography is wrong, for example, was difficult to endure.) His character, Dr.
Andy Brown, is a good example of the kind of man modern entertainment seems fixated on — confused, weak milquetoasts who are guided through life by sage, strong-willed women. (Where have all the cowboys gone?)
In the show in question, 18-year old Kate is two months pregnant and the father of the baby has skipped town.
Kate's domineering father visits Dr. Brown, demanding that he take care of the problem. “This is between you and me,” he insists. It's clear that what Kate wants does not matter.
At this point, my mind was racing. This is not half bad, I thought. This depicts the reality of so many young women who are forced into abortion by their families. This helps to give the lie to “pro-choice" because it shows that it's not her choice at all.
Dr. Brown sees Kate, who is quivering, the very picture of vulnerability. She's afraid to tell her mother, she fears her father's wrath, she's been abandoned by her boyfriend. She needs a way out. Dr. Brown tells her that abortion can be a traumatic experience emotionally. She should take a couple of days to think about it.
He himself is torn. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to do the abortion. He's done “the procedure" once before, but the death of his wife has given him a new appreciation for life, and for death.
I was quivering now. Can it be? Is this show telling the truth about “choice"? Is this, in fact, a pro-life storyline?
Alas, it was not. Enter the great sage, Dr. Brown's secretary, a tough old bird who lectures him about how, in this life, “men make the mess, women clean it up.” It's time for Dr. Brown to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. Give this girl the help she needs — an abortion, you idiotic man!
And so, with her help, he begins to work through his muddle. “I don’t know when life begins. I don’t even know that, for a scientist, that question is answerable.” He's troubled by the memory of a previous operation where he saw the visible organs of a fetus at 54 days — it was, he says, “not a person,” but still “a perfect possibility of a person.” And yet …
There is one thing he does know. He remembers being told by his wife that the “right to choose is the most important thing a woman owned.” Maybe he's too weak to help Kate himself, but he'll find help somewhere.
Now, as we viewers are knee-deep in pro-choice clichés (“Doing this kind of thing in this town can get a man killed!") — and I’m thinking that Planned Parenthood could’ve written the script — up flashes a local Planned Parenthood commercial encouraging viewers to call to learn more about the subject of tonight's show.
Dr. Brown was not the only fool that night.
Kate — the new Kate, now self-composed, confident — has decided that abortion is “the best thing for me.” Help comes in the form of the brave Catholic doctor who, following in the footsteps of his illegal abortionist father before him, has vowed never to forsake women. He aborts her child, and then we see him walk into a confessional, kneel, and begin: “Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” as the credits roll. Brilliant!
The reviews of this episode were glowing. Entertainment Weekly said it “grappled" with the topic “evenhandedly yet decisively.” The Akron Beacon Journal said the show “tackled" the subject in a “surprisingly intelligent" way. The Chicago Tribune said the show was “proof" that it had “some smart people behind it.” And the Los Angeles Times said the show “confronted" the issue “with grace, sensitivity and reason.” (To send your own review to The WB, e-mail faces@talk.thewb.com.)
What if Kate had had the baby? What if Dr. Brown had found help for her of a different kind? What if the abortion were portrayed as a tragedy, a betrayal of Kate in her time of need? What if the Catholic doctor had acted like a Catholic? One has to suppose that “smart,” “intelligent" and “reasonable" would not be the reviewers’ dominant themes.
After the show ended, I realized something. At the same time “Everwood" airs, the hit sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond" is on CBS with Emmy Award-winner Patricia Heaton.
Heaton is the honorary chair of Feminists for Life. She believes that, “Women who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy.”
So it is that Monday night television offers a “family-style" abortion on one channel while a pro-life comedienne makes people laugh on another. There might be hope in Hollywood after all.
Cathleen A. Cleaver, Esq., is director of planning and information for the secretariat for pro-life activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Cathleen Cleaver ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:The Dish (2000)
In 1969, when the world watched as man went to the moon, America needed help from Australia to see the action. Twelve hours of the day, Houston was facing away from the moon; during those times signals from the mission could only be received from the southern hemisphere.
Enter a small Australian town with a big radio telescope — the setting for this weightlessly charming, loosely fact-inspired ensemble comedy.
Given the Australian setting, we aren't surprised to find that the radio telescope is located in the middle of a sheep paddock or that the town is populated by an appealingly quirky cast of local characters.
Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill), the laid-back, pipe-puffing scientist in charge of the dish, plays Andy Griffith to this down-under Mayberry.
The appeal of The Dish lies in its affection for its small-town characters, its acute sense of place and its appreciation for the sense of awe that the moon mission brought to a wide-eyed world in 1969.
It Happened One Night (1934)
One of the most enduring romantic comedies of Hollywood's golden age, It Happened One Night is an unassuming road picture following an out-ofwork newspaperman (Clark Gable) and a spoiled heiress (Claudette Colbert) as they travel together from Miami to New York. She's fleeing from her concerned father (Walter Connolly) and returning to the shiftless beau (Jameson Thomas) she married in a civil ceremony to spite her father (who had her whisked away from the service, so it's not final legally or sacramentally).
Gable discovers her on the road and aids her, ostensibly for her exclusive story — though, as much as they grate on each other, it's inevitable that they'll wind up falling in love. The oppositesattract comedy still works, though Gable's dismissive treatment of pampered Colbert, which played well with Depression-era audiences, seems dated today. Of the pioneering screwball comedy's many celebrated comic scenes and conceits, easily the most memorable is the famous “Walls of Jericho” running theme: Gable hangs a sheet between twin beds when necessity compels Colbert to share a room with him. This prop to modesty eventually becomes a metaphor for purity before marriage, culminating in the film's satisfying, romantic final image.
The Wrath of Khan (1982)
One of the strongest and most popular entries in the Star Trek film franchise, The Wrath of Khan has everything you could ask for in a good sci-fi action-adventure film: sympathetic, well-drawn heroes, a terrific villain (Ricardo Montalban as Khan), exciting outer-space showdowns, gee-whiz visuals (the Genesis effect) and a touch of moral depth (the Enterprise crew finally faces up to age and mortality, and questions about the wisdom and consequences of playing God are hinted at).
The plot picks up on a scenario from an episode of the original TV series that involved a group of bioengineered superhumans whom Kirk (William Shatner) had earlier marooned on an uninhabited planet.
The legacy of Kirk's life surfaces in other ways as well, as Kirk revisits an old flame (Bebe Besch) and makes a discovery both surprising and perhaps ultimately inevitable.
The familiar trio of Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Bones (DeForest Kelley) has an easy camaraderie that's become seasoned with time.
Remarkably, the climax retains its power, in spite of what fans know about how things turn out in subsequent films. Escapist entertainment doesn't get much better than this.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Coalition Criticizes Colleges Honoring Pro-Abortion Speakers DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:WORCESTER, Mass. — Pro-life and Catholic watchdog groups troubled by 12 Catholic colleges honoring pro-abortion commencement speakers have met silence when trying to appeal to college presidents and bishops regarding their concerns.
At the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., an alumnus and former board of trustees chairman received no response to three letters he sent to the college detailing his opposition to its selection of Chris Matthews — alumnus, author and host of MSNBC's “Hardball with Chris Matthews” — to speak and receive an honorary degree at commencement May 23.
Matthews, a 1964 graduate of the college, has repeated his pro-abortion stance both on his television show and in his 2001 book, Now Let Me Tell You What I Really Think.
Alumnus Charles Millard, who served on the board of trustees for 27 years and sent all eight of his children to Jesuit-run Holy Cross, first voiced concerns to the trustees in March about Matthews’ public pro-abortion views. His three letters included copies of the “College Position on Abortion" and the Jesuit publication “Standing for the Unborn.”
In an interview from his home in Florida, Millard said he isn’t trying to stop Matthews from speaking but does object to honoring him with a degree.
“The distinction is that the college is giving a public honor to someone who is in support of abortion,” he said.
In Millard's final letter to the trustees, he proposed a solution — the addition of this disclaimer to the degree:
“We honor our loyal son today. As we do, we disassociate the college from his pro-choice position on abortion and pray for a change of heart in line with the Church teaching on abortion, so eloquently set forth in the recent Society of Jesus document, ‘Standing for the Unborn.’"
After all of Millard's letters went unanswered, on April 10 he “very reluctantly" took his concerns public.
Holy Cross spokeswoman Kathy McNamara would not comment on why no one at the school responded to the former chairman or on whether the school acknowledged Matthews as pro-abortion. Phone calls to Matthews’ offices were not returned.
McNamara did confirm that Matthews would still receive the honorary degree.
In a statement issued by college President Father Michael McFarland, S.J., called Millard's characterization of Matthews “inaccurate.”
“Chris has not questioned the Catholic Church's fundamental teaching on the morality of abortion,” Father McFarland said in the statement. “Where he would differ from some Catholics is on the role of government and how effective government can be in controlling abortion in a society like ours. This is a matter of practical judgment that is arguable within the framework of Catholic thought.”
However, Matthews’ statements on “Hardball" and quotes from his book seem to clearly define his position on abortion as one that is very much outside Catholic teaching.
In a 2002 interview with Al Gore, Matthews stated, “I’m pro-choice.” That February, in another interview, he told a guest, “I’m for abortion rights.” In his book Matthews wrote, “Clinton promised to make abortion safe, legal and rare. Still needed is a president who will make and keep such a promise.”
Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things and president of the Religion and Public Life Institute, said he was “deeply puzzled by the statement of Father McFarland that Mr. Chris Matthews’ public position on abortion is ‘allowable in Catholic thought.’ The authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church … is that just government unequivocally requires the legal protection of the unborn.”
He continued, saying Matthews “should not be honored as an exemplary Catholic layman by an institution that intends to be credibly Catholic.”
Others Concerned
Millard was not the only person to contact the school with concerns. Also weighing in at Holy Cross and several other Catholic campuses honoring pro-abortion speakers was a coalition of organizations headed by the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that seeks to restore Catholic identity in Catholic colleges, and the American Life League.
In each instance, said Cardinal Newman Society president Patrick Reilly, the group contacted the school presidents and local bishops and cardinals with the message that “fawning over public dissenters on a fundamental teaching of the Church sends a terrible message to your Catholic students and other Catholics.”
American Life League president Judie Brown said her organization was especially concerned about the selection of the Sanchez sisters at Mount St. Mary's College outside Los Angeles. Reps. Loretta and Linda Sanchez, both California Democrats, hold the distinction of being the first sisters ever to serve in Congress at the same time, and both are very pro-abortion.
Loretta Sanchez received a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) in 2002 and voted against a partial-birth abortion ban. She also sponsored an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Act to force overseas military hospitals to offer abortions.
First-term congresswoman Linda Sanchez, who previously worked for the National Organization for Women, holds similar views.
“I am very concerned about women's reproductive health and a woman's right to choose,” she said in a February interview with Women's E-News. “Over time, we have seen a subtle but pernicious erosion of Roe v. Wade.”
Brown said American Life League received no response to letters it sent to Mount St. Mary's president Jacqueline Powers Doud and Cardinal Roger Mahony asking them to cancel the sisters’ appearance.
National Hispanics for Life and Monrovians Against Planned Parenthood are also protesting the Mount St. Mary's speaker selection. Mount St. Mary's and the congressional offices of Linda and Loretta Sanchez did not return phone calls.
At Jesuit LeMoyne College in New York, spokesman Joe Della Posta said Kerry Kennedy Cuomo — who has campaigned for both her husband, Andrew, and her father-in-law, former New York gov. Mario Cuomo, on their abortion-rights platforms — was chosen partly for her “close personal friendship" with the college president but primarily for her work in human rights.
Saying that abortion rights “wasn’t really a big part of her campaigning,” Della Posta said the college has received few objections from alumni, parents or students.
Dana Wind is based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Wind ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Questionable Speakers DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:— St. Peter's College in Jersey City, N.J. — New Jersey Superior Court Judge Reginald Stanton, who has advocated abortion rights and in 1986 ordered a Catholic hospital to withhold nutrition and thus starve a patient to death in accordance with her wishes.
— Boston College Law School — Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who has defended and upheld the Roe v. Wade decision.
— College Misericordia in Dallas, Pa. — Cokie and Steven Roberts, who have upheld the right to abortion in their joint-syndicated column many times.
— Niagara University in New York — former Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci, a public advocate of abortion rights and homosexual rights.
— College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vt. — Vermont Gov. James Douglas, who campaigned with a pro-abortion position and has publicly endorsed abortion rights.
— Quincy University in New York — radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, a public advocate of abortion rights.
— Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. — New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a public advocate of abortion rights.
—Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich. — civil-rights activist Roger Wilkins, a public advocate of abortion rights.
—University of Scranton, Pa. — Chris Matthews.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: To Our Knees for Transformation DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:LISTENING FOR TRUTH: PRAYING OUR WAY TO VIRTUE
by James Keating Liguori, 2002 96 pages, $6.95 To order: (800) 325-9521 or www.liguori.org
A couple of years ago, a slender book titled The Prayer of Jabez took the publishing world by storm. Written by an evangelical Protestant, the book claimed that an obscure Old Testament prayer “contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God.” The incredible success of that book indicated that there is a deep hunger for a life of prayer as well as sad confusion about the actual nature and purpose of prayer.
Listening for Truth is a slim book on prayer worth reading. Its author, Dr. James Keating, is a moral theologian and a deacon, and is well qualified to write a thoughtful and challenging work about prayer and the moral life. Keating admits that “there are thousands of descriptions of prayer in thousands, maybe millions, of books and essays. What characterizes my approach in this book, however, is that I am going to describe prayer from a perspective of growing in moral virtue. Of course, prayer cannot be manipulated for our ends, but like communicating with one's spouse, it can serve the purpose of deepening communion with your beloved regardless of the specific topic at hand.”
In just fewer than 100 pages, Keating shows how prayer is an essential need for every Christian; through prayer the believer can honestly assess his sins and failings and can form his conscience with truth. This leads to growth in virtue and a closer communion with virtue's source. “Prayer, whether offered as an individual or as a community in a liturgical setting, is the seeking of communion with God,” writes Keating. “The moral life also seeks communion, but its first purpose is to facilitate communion with what is morally good, not with what is ultimately good, namely, God. But the two are not opposed in any way. In fact, the more one grows in moral goodness the more one seeks completion in what is ultimate.”
Unlike The Prayer of Jabez, Keating focuses on the reality of sin, and the constant battles the Christian faces with self-absorption, pride and spiritual infidelity. Prayer that ignores the inner state is bound to fail. “The real enlightened ones are those who see how deeply they jeopardize their own human dignity through sin,” he writes. In a similar fashion, private prayer without connection to the liturgical, communal prayer of the Church is seriously lacking. Prayer is not a single strand connecting us to God but is part of an entire fabric binding together the Body of Christ: “We come to learn what is good because we are instructed by indwelling truth, the living Spirit of God. This instruction, however, needs to be confirmed by the Church. Thus personal prayer is contextualized within communal prayer and discernment.”
Prayer, ultimately, is the transforming act of coming into fuller communion with God, through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Moral transformation comes as our prayers more deeply align with the work and person of Jesus Christ. “Moral conversion occurs,” Keating emphasizes,
“when we lovingly participate in the self-offering of Jesus upon the cross and his Father's response to that act of love in raising Christ from the dead.” As we die to our faults and sins and allow God to change us, we become more like Christ: “The moral life is the resurrected life; it is the life of sharing in the power of Christ's resurrection.” In the end, “Christ is virtue.”
Writing with a warm and engaging style, Keating has penned a book based squarely on sound spiritual and moral theology, mixed with insights taken from psychology and everyday living. Though it might not top the bestseller charts, Listening for Truth provides solid insights into prayer and the moral life, free of sensationalism and gimmicks.
Carl E. Olson, editor of Envoy magazine, writes from Eugene, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Milking Scandal
Professors on both Catholic and secular campuses are writing books, offering new courses and hosting conferences that bring a certain “edge" to the study of the Catholic religion, the newspaper said.
In a reference to “Catholicism in Crisis,” a course at Tufts University, the opening paragraph of the Globe story offers an insight about what this “edge" might entail:
“The new syllabus says it all: ‘Sexual abuse. Women's ordination. Authority and dissent in the Church. Homosexuality and priesthood.’"
Lineup Change
Carty agreed to pull out of the ceremony following his resignation after American had approved bonuses and pension payments for executives that would be protected even in bankruptcy. This occurred simultaneous to the airlines’ asking rank-and-file workers to accept $1.8 billion in annual pay cuts.
In his Post-Dispatch column of April 27, McClellan wrote that Carty would have been a great speaker because disgrace “is a wonderful teacher.”
Busy in Michigan
CHRONICLE.COM, May 2 — St. Mary's College of Ave Maria University, a suburban Detroit institution that was formed as a result of a merger in 2000, will become part of nearby Madonna University on July 1.
In a separate development, the Associated Press reported that Rusty Hills, a former state Republican Party chairman, would spearhead the founding of a new four-year college, Sweetest Heart of Mary College, in the Lansing area.
Hills said the college would be “faithful to the teachings of the Church and the Pope" and concentrate on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, cloning and doctor-assisted suicide.
St. Mary's, which grew from a seminary that was founded in 1885, was struggling financially before it became part of Ave Maria University. The merger with Madonna will not involve the seminary or St. Mary's Prep School.
New President
UNIVERSITY OF SCRANTON, April 29 — Jesuit Father Scott Pilarz, interim university chaplain and assistant professor of English at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., has been named the 24th president of the University of Scranton, Pa. When he takes office July 1, he will succeed Jesuit Father Joseph McShane, the new president of Fordham University in New York.
Father Pilarz, 43, holds a doctorate in English. He was responsible for leading campus-ministry efforts on George-town's main, medical and law campuses.
Marianists
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON, April 28 — Marianist Brother Raymond Fitz, a past president of the university, has been named executive director of the newly formed Association of Marianist Universities.
The new association will support cooperation among the three universities operated by the order of priests and brothers.
In addition to Dayton, the other two Marianist universities are St. Mary's University in San Antonio; and Chaminade University in Honolulu.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Books -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Family Financial Disputes
Q I have two brothers who won’t talk to each other because of a financial dispute that goes back two years. The disagreement relates to land they purchased together. Now things have changed for one of the brothers and he wants his money back. What recommendations do you have for helping them reconcile their differences?
A Unfortunately, money often plays a role in family disagreements, and the consequences over a lifetime can be tragic. It appears your brothers entered into this arrangement without much planning or written understanding. While contracts won’t eliminate all misunderstandings, they can greatly reduce the possibility of one occurring.
To reach a resolution that respects the dignity of all parties, your brothers will need to deal with both the spiritual and temporal issues that lie at the root of the disagreement. While the facts as presented aren’t adequate to offer a specific solution, I encourage you and your brothers to consider the following general points:
From a spiritual standpoint, disagreements such as this often result in fanning the flames of many vices, including envy, greed, selfishness and, most important, pride. Pride leads us to exaggerate the faults of others while minimizing our own (Matthew 7:3-5). Unless put in check quickly, positions harden, making it even more difficult to reach a resolution. Ultimately, your brothers will need to overcome pride through the gift of humility, which will allow them to work toward being reconciled. I pray that God provides the grace to your brothers so they can see that the value of their relationship is greater than the financial matters in question.
Forgiveness will be another key to your brothers’ reconciliation. There are so many verses regarding forgiveness in Scripture that are applicable, yet your brothers would do well to read Matthew 5:22-23: “But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
A great first step toward forgiveness is to make a good confession, which I encourage both of your brothers to do. One hopes the graces received in this sacrament will guide them to seeing the facts of the situation through a “different" lens, one that emphasizes the virtue of charity.
While I have spent a great portion of this answer on the spiritual issues, that is because they are the root of the problem. In order to deal with the specific temporal issues involved, it may be wise to involve a third-party mediator. Such a person can be agreed to by both of your brothers — and their decision will be objective. Otherwise, you may find that family members are forced into taking sides, resulting in even greater division.
Phil Lenahan is director of finance for Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
Reach Family Matters at familymatters@ncregister.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:QUIET IN THE NURSERY
Modern noise pollution may affect speech and language development in the very young, say neurological researchers at the University of California-San Francisco. Their findings suggest that “environmental noise … commonly present in contemporary child-rearing environments, can … contribute to auditory and language-related development delays,” the authors write in the April 18 edition of the journal Science.
Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Raising Kids St. Rita's Way DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:“We tried to teach them right from wrong. We took them to church. Now they don’t go anymore and they’re very worldly in their ways. Where did we fail?”
That's one lament heard all too often from Catholic parents whose children seem to be going astray.
If you count yourself among that crowd, take heart. Look to Rita Lotti Mancini, better known as St. Rita of Cascia, whose feast we celebrate May 22. She lived in a 14th-century Italian village, but the way she handled a major problem she faced as a mother makes her a first-rate role model for today's parents.
Things went from bad to worse when her husband was murdered and her two sons announced their intentions to exact revenge. “The sons were very much influenced by the values of [the] society [they lived in],” just like so many of today's young people, explains Augustinian Father Michael DiGregorio, rector of the National Shrine of St. Rita of Cascia in Philadelphia. With her strong faith, Rita knew “that's not the Catholic way, the way of forgiveness,” he adds. “She tried to win them over to her side by her example, her words and her prayers.”
After doing everything she could, yet still finding herself unable to sway her sons from the path they seemed to be on, Rita turned her predicament over to the Lord. Soon after, both boys became ill and died. Was this God's way of answering Rita's prayer by protecting her sons from committing the mortal sin of murder?
Today's society is tugging children away from God's path — more subtly than in St. Rita's day, maybe, but in greater numbers as well.
“The cultural forces are much more powerful than the average parent realizes,” says Dr. Ray Guarendi, a Catholic family psychologist and Register “Family Matters” columnist. “We raise them well, but we underestimate the other factors that counter what we're doing. The dominant mind-set of our culture is anti-Christian in many ways, and many parents are in a bit of a time warp when it comes to recognizing it.”
What's to be done? Like St. Rita, parents can direct their children to see the right path of Catholic values “primarily through example, through teaching and through praying for their children,” says Father DiGregorio.
First, parents need to be vigilant beyond anything they ever thought, Guarendi suggests. Second, they need to be countercultural in many respects. “They need to be a bit of a social misfit according to peer group definitions,” he adds.
At St. Rita of Cascia Catholic School in Aurora, Ill., principal Elizabeth Baney says that, while the media tells children “[the world promoted by popular culture] is real, we have to tell them that it isn’t.” In the area of computers, for instance, she shows students how to use technology for good: e-mailing prayer requests to the shrine of St. Rita, looking up saints, checking out the Vatican site.
In all areas, “parents have to be willing to go against the flow,” says Guarendi, “and recognize that many of their decisions will be questioned by other parents and even their faith community as views ‘too extreme' when, in fact, they’re nothing of the sort.” Parents need to show emotional stamina and persistence.
The saint of the impossible showed what's possible as she opposed society's anti-Christian mind-set.
As St. Rita's School works hand-in-hand with parents, Baney educates them on the life of the school's patron. “One of the areas we focus on is her title of peace-maker,” she says.
“We encourage parents to join us for every Tuesday's school liturgy,” says Baney, adding that a mother's group meets weekly to pray for, support and encourage one another to be good Christian parents. “As some of our families become more aware of St. Rita and her mission, her ideals come out whether they’re conscious of it or not.”
Another Rita-esque ideal vital to times like ours: persistence when things look bleak. “Even though you struggle as a parent,” Baney says, “it's okay if you get in conflict with your children from time to time, if it's for their faith, hope and holiness.” Like St. Rita, she notes, parents should never let go of hope.
At the same time, “pray for their protection,” advises Guarendi. “Never before in human history have forces been able to enter our homes and shape our children as this.” He's referring, of course, to television, video games, the Internet, magazines, music CDs and so on.
What to do when children avoid all the pitfalls only to take prodigal-like tumbles in their early adulthood? Father DiGregorio says parents must realize that the choices young people make aren’t always a reflection of their parents’ input.
“Say what you need to say, pray for your children, try to give them a good example, then realize that your responsibility is to rear them and then set them free,” says Father DiGregorio. “Remind yourself: ‘The choices my children make in life as an adult are their choices; I can’t consider myself responsible for what they choose.’"
“In the end, they’re free,” he says. “It's the same risk God takes with us. He respects our freedom.”
Counselors like Guarendi often encounter parents who, having undergone a life-changing conversion experience, now feel guilty over not inviting God into their homes sooner — when the children were younger and more malleable.
But “it's never to late to try" for a turnaround, says Guarendi, despite the tremendous challenges presented by older children and teens.
In other words: Why do you think they call Rita the saint of the impossible?
“For some parents, their efforts end happily, for some the situation is ongoing,” says Father DiGregorio. “But we never know how it ends until we get to the ‘other side.’ You have to take the long view of things from the point of view of eternal life, not this pilgrim life.”
“St. Rita had the long view of things,” he adds, “and that's what we're constantly called to do and see — the long view, not the short plan.” Parents have to come to terms realizing, “it's far better I seek their eternal happiness than a few more years of their lives.”
Baney has seen this happen. “Don’t give up the mission for the short term if the long-term goal is more important,” she tells parents. “Sometimes you think you’re losing the battle, but children do come back and tell you it makes a difference to have a Catholic education. Sometimes it's the ones you least expect" who end up thanking you later in their lives.
After St. Rita lost her family, of course, she entered the convent. After 40 years of praying there, “she received one rose that bloomed in the winter, that came to life out of time, out of the same cold ground that contained the bodies of her husband and children,” says Father DiGregorio. “She read it as a sign that God had brought out of the tragedy of their deaths their salvation through her prayers for them.”
“So what's the real vocation of parents?" he asks. “Is it to want my children to grow us successful and comfortable? Or is it wanting my children to grow up to be saints, get to paradise and see God?"
For Catholic parents, St. Rita has the answer.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Pro-Life's Legal Arm Reaches From Chicago DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:When it comes to defending human life on the national level, Washington, D.C., isn’t the only town in the game.
From its home base in Chicago, a combination law firm/educational organization has been working since before Roe v. Wade to educate the public on the evils of abortion and to help enact public policy that will protect life in all stages of development.
That group is Americans United for Life. It's a “national public-policy organization to change the laws and culture" of the United States in favor of life, according to Clarke Forsythe. He has been its president for the last eight years.
The group was launched in August 1971, Forsythe says, because “abortion was heating up as the life issue at that time.”
The group that founded the organization “wanted to take abortion beyond the ‘Catholic issue' it was being made into at that time,” he explains. People of many different professions and faiths joined the group then, and it remains ecumenical today.
Though it is not a household name, Americans United for Life has made an undeniable impact on the debate surrounding life issues around the country and even around the world.
Some 90% of the organization's legal work is done on the state level, according to Forsythe.
Kansas is one state that has benefited from the groups activity, according to Michael Farmer, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference. Farmer says he became aware that Americans United for Life had drafted some rights-of-conscience legislation. He entered the draft into the Kansas legislature and it made its way through the democratic process.
Nikolas Nikas, Americans United for Life's chief lawyer, along with Dorinda Bordlee and Denise Burke, the firm's other attorneys, went to Topeka to provide expert witness before the House and Senate committees that were considering the bill, Farmer says, adding that he “greatly appreciated" the support.
Unfortunately, the bill, which would have expanded the right for health-care providers to opt out of ethically unsound medical procedures, did not survive the Senate.
But Americans United for Life was more successful in Kansas on another bill. The Kansas House recently passed an Americans United for Life-drafted bill that places minimal regulations on abortion clinics by a veto-proof margin. It also passed the Senate but fell three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The pro-abortion governor, Kathleen Sebelius, vetoed the measure, and observers say the bill is dead for this session.
Sebelius told the Topeka Courier-Journal, “I tend to feel very strongly that medical decisions should be made by licensed medical providers and overseen by licensed medical providers and not let politics or bureaucracy enter into what are very important health-care decisions.”
Even if the bill becomes law, it will most likely face the courts. That would be ironic, Farmer says, since veterinary clinics have more regulations than do abortion clinics. Currently, abortion businesses don’t even fall under the regulations governing outpatient surgical centers, says the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Peggy Long. “Everyone compares this to veterinary clinics,” Long adds. “But there's a movie theater in my district and all they serve is popcorn and pop. But they get regular visits from the health department.”
What is even more ironic, Nikas said, is that the Kansas bill uses Planned Parenthood's own internal regulations as its basis. That fact provided part of their testimony before the Kansas legislature.
If and when the case does go to court, Americans United for Life will be there to defend it.
All of this work, Nikas said, is well within the framework of Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II's 1995 encyclical on the value and inviolability of human life. Even in those bills that seem only to be limiting abortion, like the regulation bill in Kansas, the Holy Father writes, “In a case … when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well-known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.”
Perhaps of greater impact, though, is the conscience-protection issue. Americans United for Life has been contacted by 41 states for that model legislation and it is moving forward in at least seven of those. Something similar has been introduced on the federal level in the form of the Abortion Nondiscrimination Act, which passed the House last year.
This legislation would be helpful in countering what are known as the “Pill Bills” — bills requiring hospitals to administer emergency contraception in cases of rape or incest. These are being pushed by the abortion lobby and have some Catholic hospitals in a quandary. The conscience-protection legislation would help with that, Bordlee has said.
Americans United for Life's work in this area has attracted attention from the Vatican. In fact, Nikas and Bordlee were invited to address a conference of the International Catholic Medical Association in Rome called “The Future of Obstetrics and Gynecology: The Fundamental Human Right to Practice and Be Trained According to Conscience" in 2001. They were the only attorneys to address that conference and were invited back to the Vatican later that year for further consultations. They keynoted the conference in 2002.
Not only is Americans United for Life concerned with law, but also with culture. The group was a major co-sponsor of three academic symposia held earlier this year at Georgetown University, Boston College and St. John's University called “30 Years of Abortion and its Impact on Women.” These discussions explored what the true impact of abortion has been in the United States on the women who have endured it — depression, breast cancer, alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide.
Bordlee's address at St. John's highlighted the Pope's challenge for women “to promote a ‘new feminism’ that rejects the temptation of imitating models of ‘male domination’ in order to acknowledge and affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society and overcome all discrimination, violence and exploitation.” Bordlee focused on abortion-alternative policies that reflect this “new feminism,” including right-to-know laws, which give women full information on the medical risks of abortion, and federal funding of crisis-pregnancy centers and maternity homes, which provide social services. A book compiling essays by the speakers at the three college symposia is expected to be published this fall.
“We must realize that there is much that can be done socially, culturally and legally,” writes Bordlee in an essay posted on the group's Web site, “to reduce abortion and to make positive alternatives readily available.”
Tom Szyszkiewicz writes from Altura, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 05/18/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 18-24, 2003 ----- BODY:Pro-Life Purchase Power
CHILDREN OF GOD FOR LIFE, April 24 — Two pro-life organizations have lodged a complaint with the chief executive officer of pharmaceutical giant Merck, which has used fetal stem-cell lines to produce vaccines. And the company head had to listen: The organizations are stockholders.
Children of God for Life and Human Life International combined to purchase enough Merck stock to file a formal resolution at a Merck company meeting April 22. The pro-life resolution passed and Debi Vinnedge, executive director of Children of God for Life, said the stage is set for further action.
Charge Upgraded
CHANNELOKLAHOMA.COM, April 28 — Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols will be charged with first-degree murder in the death of an unborn child whose mother was killed in the 1995 bombing, reported the Web site of Oklahoma's Channel 5 News.
Nichols already faces 160 counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors initially planned to charge him with manslaughter in the death of the unborn baby of bombing victim Robin Ann Huff. Assistant District Attorney Lou Keel said Huff's child, due in June 1995, had been in gestation for 32 weeks.
An Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruling last year said the killing of an unborn child can be a homicide if the fetus could have lived outside the mother's womb.
Michigan's Moment of Birth
KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION, May 1 — The Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would define legal birth as the first moment any part of a fetus is outside a woman's body.
The bill, known as the Legal Birth Definition Act, would also declare a fetus alive when there is a detectable heartbeat or evidence of spontaneous movement or breathing. Although the committee amended the measure to make sure it does not abolish any part of Roe v. Wade, opponents of the legislation said that it could ban so-called “partial-birth" abortion.
Not So Fast in Texas AMERICAN-STATESMAN, April 29 — The Texas House has voted to require a 24-hour waiting period for women who seek abortions — time they would have to weigh their decision and study state-provided information about risks and alternatives, reported the American-Statesman, a newspaper based in Austin.
Under the pending proposal, the Texas Department of Health would provide descriptions of the medical risks of abortion, adoption alternatives and the financial responsibilities of fathers. The package would also include color photographs of unborn children at two-week intervals of development.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Child as Body Part? Neither Side Likes Court Ruling DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:HARTFORD, Conn. – Activists on both sides of the right-to-life debate were unhappy when the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled May 7 that a fetus is a body part, akin to teeth, skin and hair that are eventually shed.
Pro-lifers say it demeans the humanity of the unborn. Pro-abortionists say fetuses shouldn't even have the rights a body part has.
The court unanimously upheld the conviction of Edwin Sandoval, who tried to induce an abortion by forcing two abortifacient pills into his girlfriend's body. He argued that he couldn't be convicted of attempted assault because the fetus was the target, not the mother.
She later gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
The court cited a law that prohibits the assault with the “intent ... to destroy ... or disable permanently a member or organ of [her] body.” The court determined that while the fetus is not an organ, it could be considered a “member” of the woman's body.
“In light of the state's compelling interest in protecting life and limb, we are unwilling to presume that the legislature ... sought to protect a person's ear, tongue and skin but not a developing fetus living within, and physically attached to, the mother,” Chief Justice William Sullivan wrote.
“The fetus is not a blob of tissue. I have a daughter and when I gave birth to her, I wasn't ‘shedding’ anything,” said Susan Smith, president of the Pro-Life Council of Connecticut.
Supporters of legal abortion opposed the ruling because Sullivan issued a concurrent opinion in which he acknowledged the possibility that the fetus might have “its own independent existence.”
“Any time I hear about giving rights to fetuses, I get concerned,” Elaine Werner, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, told the Associated Press. “That's the slippery slope to eroding Roev. Wade.”
But pro-life activists said the case is about assault and has nothing to do with legal matters behind Roe v. Wade.
“Twenty-six states recognize the fetus as a second victim,” said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life. “[It] does not deal with abortion. It's about assault, which is the action of third parties who attack or injure unborn children along with their mother.”
He noted that the Connecticut decision comes on the heels of the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner. Her body was found in April on the eastern shoreline of the San Francisco Bay. Laci's suspected killer is her husband, Scott Peterson. Because California has a 1970 law that considers fetuses as victims in assault or homicide cases, Peterson could be charged for Conner's death as well.
“In the recent Fox News-Opinion Dynamics poll, 84% of Americans said two homicide charges [in the case] are appropriate,” Johnson noted. Only 7% in the poll stated the law should have one count of homicide.
Johnson said states with unborn-victims laws recognize the fetus as a victim even if the fetus wasn't the target – and even if the attacker didn't know the woman was pregnant.
“As the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in upholding the Minnesota unborn victims law [State v. Merrill, 1990], ‘The possibility that a female homicide victim of child-bearing age may be pregnant is a possibility that an assaulter may not safely exclude,’” he said.
Johnson said that even the abortion lobby's policy organization agrees that unborn-victims laws have nothing to do with the question of legal abortion.
“Even the [pro-abortion] Alan Guttmacher Institute admitted it's constitutional,” he said. “All of the challenges have been unsuccessful. The courts have universally resisted the argument that this is inconsistent with Roe v. Wade. Yet the abortion lobby continues with this argument.”
Cathy Cleaver, spokeswoman on life issues for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has a mixed reaction to the ruling.
“Obviously it's a contorted stretch to call a fetus a ‘member’ of the woman's body,” Cleaver said. “But it was for the purpose of making the bad guy guilty.”
The process of looking for a law to prosecute the defendant, however, has established some peculiar legal precedents, she said.
“But they've created a mess because they've said the fetus is like a nail,” she added. “[The case] doesn't make any sense logically, and it could be a problem in the future.”
She said there is an easy solution to the dilemma.
“There needs to be an Unborn Victims of Violence Act in Connecticut. You wouldn't have to go through these machinations,” Cleaver said.
Connecticut recently passed a bill increasing the penalty for assaulting a pregnant woman but stopped short of recognizing the fetus as a victim. Gov. John Rowland is expected to sign the bill that punishes such assaults with sentences of 10 to 25 years in prison.
Sandoval was sentenced in 2001 to 12 years in prison for using ulcer medication in an attempt to abort the fetus.
Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joshua Mercer -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Brave New Womb: Embryos' Dilemma DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:MISSISSAUGA, Ontario – Haley Bentham is 4 years old and lives with her family in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga. Her biological twin sister, Emily (not her real name) is just 9 months old and was born to Kate and Steve Johnson in rural Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia.
Welcome to the brave new world of embryo adoption, in which human embryos conceived in laboratory dishes and cryogenically frozen in fertility clinics – leftovers no longer wanted by their biological parents – are implanted into the womb of a surrogate mother who adopts them. It's a world in which twins can be born to different mothers, in different countries and years apart.
Embryo adoption is a growing phenomenon. Emily was one of at least 71 babies born by the end of March after being adopted as embryos through the Fullerton, Calif.-based Snowflakes program. And in April, 18 more women were pregnant with at least 24 more babies adopted as embryos, including a set of triplets.
It is a trend that is likely to continue to grow. In the United States alone, nearly 400,000 “spare” human embryos exist in a weird sort of limbo, frozen in glass straws of liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit and stored in squat aluminum tanks in fertility clinics across the country. That is the “conservative” estimate of the Birmingham, Ala.-based Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, which surveyed the nation's 430 fertility programs in conjunction with Rand Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif., and released the figures this month.
Each embryo, the size of a grain of sand, looks like a shiny soap bubble under a microscope. Each holds the complete human genome; it is a perfectly unique human individual who, given a womb, could grow into a child.
That is the outcome favored by President George Bush, who, after he banned federal funding in 2001 of further research involving the killing of human embryos for their stem cells, allotted a $1 million public fund to promote embryo adoption.
But Catholic moral theologians are sharply divided over embryo adoption. These are experts who agree on virtually every other issue regarding human life. They believe life begins at conception and recognize the sacred and inviolable status of the human embryo. They agree that in-vitro fertilization is an offense against marriage and God's procreative plan, and see freezing “spare” embryos as a grave offense against their human dignity.
They disagree, however, about how to deal with those that have already been created and frozen.
Germain Grisez, a professor of Christian ethics at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., and author of the book Difficult Moral Questions, firmly favors embryo adoption. Although wrongly conceived, he argues, frozen embryos must be nurtured and protected as the human individuals they are.
The proper place for an embryo is a womb, Grisez argues, and if an embryo's own mother's womb is closed, another woman's generous offer to nurture is not the same as surrogacy – which the Church has clearly condemned – because the adoptive mother intends to keep the baby for herself.
“I'm afraid if we can't accept embryo adoption then we have to go back and examine wet nursing,” Grisez said.
A single woman whose sister dies, leaving behind her frozen embryos, may even have a duty to carry those embryos, he added.
But Msgr. William Smith, a moral theology professor at St. Joseph's Seminary in the Archdiocese of New York, sees embryo adoption as an additional technological trespass against God's procreative plan, tantamount to the artificial conception itself.
He cites Donum Vitae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1987 document on new reproductive technologies, which states, “Those embryos which are not transferred into the body of the mother and are called ‘spare’ are exposed to an absurd fate, with no possibility of their being offered safe means of survival which can be licitly pursued.”
Embryo adoption is surrogacy, Msgr. Smith maintains, and as such degrades natural family and sexual relationships.
“I am as adamant as anyone about defending the personhood and life of the unborn, but that does not mean we have a free-fire zone,” Msgr. Smith said. “Marriage and family cannot be stepped on as if they are afterthoughts.”
“We must not do evil that good may come of it,” said Brian Scarnecchia, a bioethics professor at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, in agreement. “We cannot end atrocities by partaking in them. We cannot build up a culture of life by adopting the ways of a culture of death.”
In that case, there is no reckoning the “absurd fate” of frozen artificially conceived embryos. Msgr. Smith believes the only licit response is to thaw them from their unnatural (“extraordinary”) cryogenic state and let them die naturally. Not even their biological mother would have a duty to carry them.
What Is Pregnancy?
The debate seems to hinge on the pregnancy itself: Is it a sacred part of procreation that cannot be introduced by technicians and doctors – in which case embryo adoption violates the one-flesh communion of husband and wife? Or is procreation complete upon conception, and pregnancy merely sustenance, like wet nursing?
These are questions Scarnecchia wishes the Church would speak to directly, because he has been approached on more than one occasion by Catholic couples considering embryo adoption. “If it is inherently wrong, no matter how good the intentions, there will be consequences,” he said.
They were questions certainly not considered by the Benthams and thousands of others like them on a technological quest for children. “We didn't even think about the extra embryos at the time,” Karen Bentham said.
The Benthams had been trying to have a child for 10 years by the time Haley and Emily were conceived in a laboratory with the help of Toronto fertility specialists.
Haley was selected out of the nitrogen by the unwitting power of a technician for implantation into her mother's womb, and her brothers and sisters were left behind.
Within a few months after Haley's birth, the Benthams unexpectedly conceived a son naturally. They had finally got their fertility faucet turned on, and they wanted it off. “We had always only wanted two children,” said Karen, 37. “Then, when we had two children we realized it was a handful. It was enough.”
What to do with the five “spare” embryos in the freezer, then? Born-again Christians, the Benthams did not want their “surplus” embryos destroyed for research. “But we didn't want five children, either,” Karen said.
They heard about the Snowflakes program on a Focus on the Family radio show. The agency matched the Benthams with the Johnsons, a couple in their 40s without children because Steve Johnson had been paralyzed in a biking accident.
For about $4,000 the Johnsons signed a contract taking possession of the Benthams’ embryos and had three of them implanted into Kate Johnson. Only Emily survived.
But Karen Bentham said news of the Johnsons’ pregnancy was an “emotional roller coaster” ride she hadn't expected.
At first she was excited to have helped another infertile couple, but then it began to bother her: “It weighed on my heart for some time.” She arranged to meet the Johnsons, hoping to be reassured by a “face-to-face” encounter. “It was awkward,” she said.
Emily's birth hit her genetic mother even harder. “I felt like, ‘That's my baby.’ There's a sense of attachment there,” she said.
Had it not been for her own trouble conceiving and her personal experience of a failed adoption, Bentham said, she may have considered a court battle to regain her child. “It's probably just a matter of time before that [litigation over adopted embryo babies] happens,” she predicted.
Despite the debate about embryo adoption's licitness, there is a consensus among the moral theologians that it is a long way from God's original plans. And it underscores the gravity and depravity of conceiving children in test tubes.
“A barrier is broken,” Msgr. Smith said. “Now, we're in a Never-Never Land, walking through the consequences. We should never have gone down this road.”
Perhaps no one feels that more keenly than people such as Karen Bentham.
“There are times when I think, ‘Oh, what have I done?’” she said. “I'm certainly better than I was before, but I don't know how I'll feel eight years from now and further down the road. I can't see the overall picture.”
Far better, she added, “if we never had to decide at all.”
Celeste McGovern writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Celeste Mcgovern -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Novena for Priests DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:
PEORIA, Ill. – It began as three men deciding they needed to pray more for the priesthood. Encouraged by papal biographer George Weigel and a Chicago commodities trader, it's now grown into a nationwide response to the past year's Church scandals.
Two priests and a layman from the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., have composed a Pentecost novena for priests in a “back-to-the-future” effort to move the Church into renewal by returning to the simplest prayer.
Father Christopher Layden, associate pastor of the Church of St. Patrick in Ottawa, Ill., and the two others wrote the prayer for priestly renewal, obtained ecclesiastical approval from Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria and secured a Web site, www.novenaforpriests.com, to circulate the novena as widely as possible. The novena is to begin May 31.
Father Layden was encouraged by writer and ethicist Weigel, whom he met while still a seminarian at the North American College in Rome, when Weigel was working on the papal biography Witness to Hope. Weigel devoted his April 23 column to this “nationwide surge of prayer” and asked others to pass it on.
Chicago commodities trader Chris Skokna did – quickly. When he found the novena Web site, he immediately e-mailed it to 25 people.
“Everyone should welcome this,” Skokna said. “It's so charitable, praying for our priests.”
His parish, St. John Vianney in Northlake, Ill., is planning to pray the novena as well.
“It's a beautiful prayer, and [it] calls for an active faith,” pastor Father Charles Fanelli said.
One of the novena's earliest supporters, Bishop David Ricken of Cheyenne, Wyo., is planning to connect it with a pilgrim statue of St. John Vianney he is acquiring from the saint's shrine in Ars, France. In the coming months, the statue and novena will travel throughout the Cheyenne Diocese in an ongoing prayer vigil for priestly renewal. In the meantime, Bishop Ricken is circulating the novena prayer and Web site to all his parishes to join in the Pentecost effort.
Father Layden said he and the two others decided in late March to pray a novena together “for the renewal of the priesthood in the United States.”
On the first day, Father Layden realized this work was much bigger than the three of them. “Millions should be praying it!” he recalled thinking. At Mass that day, he was inspired to take the initiative nationwide.
“[Weigel] always said we are the future of the Church,” the young priest recalled. “He told us to ‘rise up, and do it now!’ Recently, he told me to be magnanimous in the apostolate for priests.”
Father Layden decided the time had come.
“For well over the past year, we have been listening to lawyers, psychologists, committees and the media,” he said. “But, I wondered when we were going to bring God into this. Reform is vital, but true reform will only come from above.”
The Church scandal, Father Layden believes, is a crisis of personal holiness.
“The media uncovered one aspect of the problem, but that's a manifestation of the bigger picture,” he said. “The priesthood is in crisis. We have a generation of priests who, for the most part, have not been formed to pray. And there's something fundamentally wrong when priests aren't praying.”
Father Michael Lane, pastor of Visitation Church in Elmhurst, Ill., outside Chicago, had been agonizing over that problem for months.
“I have been saying all my rosary meditations for the needs of the priesthood, that this nonsense ends,” Father Lane said. “We hear a lot about vengeance but not about reconciliation. The heart of the problem is that so many priests and people aren't praying. They're looking for other answers to ease their troubles. But what is going to make the difference is that we pray.”
We are being forced to pray by this very crisis, observed Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, former rector of the North American College and author of Priests for the Third Millennium.
“The Lord brings good from evil,” Archbishop Dolan said. “One of my priests told me this scandal and all the turmoil around it has grounded him, and I think that's true for all priests. It has brought him to his knees, first of all. Then it has moved him to rediscover what his priesthood is, to rediscover humility. And in all this he has rediscovered the essential value of prayer.”
The value of “simplistic prayer,” as Father Layden puts it, has largely been lost in an age of activism.
“Americans have the tendency to speak before thinking, to ‘do’ before praying,” he said. “We are a country of activists. But this prayer initiative requires us to just pray it and listen. It's God's opportunity to tell us what he wants us to do.”
The simpler the prayer, the more you know it is from God, Father Lane noted.
“There has to be no other answer,” he said. “If something happens to bring about balance, it will be because first we prayed. Anything done without that will fail. Renewal is not going to come about because of activity. It has got to be through prayer.”
One of his parishioners admitted that for Americans, that might be a new concept.
“People always have to be busy doing something,” said Dr. Lawrence Bennett of Elmhurst. “It helps us not to have to look inward, to face our own need for reconciliation. We've compromised too much with society and need to return to our roots, to personal holiness. This novena is beautiful. It's an excellent effort. We need holy people to lead the Church, not just administrators. We have to be drawn back to prayer to get holier priests and holier bishops. It's a renewal. It has been done before, but it's time to do it again.”
Father Layden recalled when St. Francis of Assisi heard God's call to build his Church in a time of crisis.
“From crises, there have arisen great saints historically,” he noted. “But that remains a cliché until you say, ‘It's going to be me; let's rise above this.’ We need to be St. John Vianneys [the patron saint of parish priests].”
“I'm thrilled about it and welcome it, especially the power of a novena prayer in preparation for Pentecost,” Archbishop Dolan said. “It is an especially cogent way to pray for priests. God is particularly moved when people pray together. I love it! I expect great things will come of this.”
Father Layden is praying for that, too.
“Through this novena, we want thousands and millions of voices asking God, ‘What is it that you want us to do to grow in faith?’ We hope this is the beginning of listening to God.”
Sheila Gribben Liaugminas writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: May 31 Is Day One for Pentecost Project ------- EXTENDED BODY: Sheila Gribben Liaugminas -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Guadalupe Relic and Promotion of Rosary Team Up for U.S. Tour DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY: DENVER – When relics of St. Thérèse toured the United States in 1999 they drew enormous crowds of pilgrims in lines that stretched around cathedrals and churches.Now Americans will have a chance to venerate part of the tilma of St. Juan Diego, the recently canonized Aztec Indian, as the Tilma of Tepeyac Tour visits 17 cities in the United States.
The piece of the burlap cloak on which the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared is being called a special blessing for Latin American Catholics.
“It's a wonderful gift to the people of our archdiocese to be the first stop on the pilgrimage, particularly since we're opening the new Centro San Juan Diego this summer,” said Auxiliary Bishop José Gomez of Denver, referring to a new outreach center for Hispanic immigrants. “I know our growing Hispanic community – and the entire Catholic community – will feel blessed to see up close a piece of St. Juan Diego's miraculous tilma right here in Denver.”
Latin American Catholics such as Carolina Medina, who is from the state of Chihuahua in Mexico and lives in Denver, say they are proud that Americans will see this piece of their culture.
“It is marvelous that [the relic] will be here because it is very, very holy for all Mexicans, Latin Americans and Americans,” she said.
The tour is sponsored by the Association for Holy Relics, a group that is dedicated to raising public awareness of saints and their relics.
“At this event we will place Our Mother in the hearts and minds of the faithful, and for a brief moment, through the love of her children, connect heaven and earth,” said Thomas Serafin, the association's president.
“Especially during this tumultuous time in our history,” he said, “we hope that this pilgrimage will give those people who cannot go to Mexico City an opportunity to share in the graces and blessings bestowed by Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Mother of God and the Empress of the Americas.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe also is patroness of the cause of life and of the unborn.
The Knights of Columbus is helping with printing and financing for the tour and is providing an honor guard at each stop. In fact, the relic is scheduled to be at the Knights’ Museum in New Haven, Conn., June 6–15.
The Family Rosary Society in Easton, Mass., which will be sending 1,000 rosaries to each venue, is co-sponsoring the tour, and the Association for Holy Relics is encouraging dioceses to have time set aside during the visit for the recitation of the rosary.
“The tilma tour is a way of reminding people of Father [Patrick] Peyton's saying, which centers on the recitation of the rosary,” said Father Thomas Feeley of the Family Rosary Society. “The family that prays together stays together.”
Information Apostolate for Holy Relics (818) 522-2005 www.relictour.org
Important Gift
The relic, the only one in the United States, is a half-inch square swatch from St. Juan Diego's tilma. It will be displayed hanging from the neck of a 17th-century statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
It was a gift from Mexico City Archbishop Luís María Martínez to Los Angeles Archbishop John Cantwell in 1941 and has been kept in the archdiocesan archives under the care of Msgr. Francis Weber since 1981.
But its history stretches back much further.
Mary's appearance in the Americas had a significant impact on the spread of Christianity in the New World, said University of Dallas Spanish Catholic historian Alexandra Wilhelmsen.
“Our Lady of Guadalupe's appearance was extremely important for the conversion of the Indians,” she said. “When Our Lady appeared to them, it validated what the Spanish explorers were saying about the new religion. From then on, the conversions were massive.”
The year was 1531 and the bishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumarraga, had been ardently petitioning Our Lady to send him Castilian roses as an acknowledgement that she had heard his prayers for peace between the Europeans and Aztecs.
Then, on a cold December morning, 57-year-old Juan Diego would witness the first of four apparitions just as he was embarking on his 24-mile trek to a suburb of Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City, to attend Mass.
When Our Lady appeared to him at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, it was near the temple ruins of the Aztec's blood-thirsty mother goddess, where thousands of lives had been sacrificed, and she asked him to pick flowers that had mysteriously popped up and take them to Bishop Zumarraga and say that she was “the Mother of the true God” and wanted a church built there.
The Indian obediently gathered up the roses in his tilma and went to the bishop.
When he unfurled his burlap cloak and the roses fell to the floor, the miraculous image of Our Lady was emblazoned there.
Artists say only a miracle could explain how the exquisite image could have been painted on such a coarse and porous surface.
And to this day, scientists cannot explain how the tilma, which would normally last only 10 to 15 years, has survived for close to five centuries.
“It brings tears to my eyes that I will have the privilege of seeing a piece of the tilma,” said Lucy Martinez, a Mexican-American parishioner at the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe in Dallas and vice-president of Las Guadalupanas, a women's group devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe that promotes her devotion. “We're very honored, very proud and very happy.”
Michael Zachowicz, a member of Queen of Martyrs parish in Cheektowaga, N.Y., said the tilma tour will help remind Catholics that “all of us are capable of becoming saints like St. Juan Diego.
“Relics such as the tilma remind us and inspire us to imitate the lives of the saints,” he said. “We only need to use the spiritual tools that God gave us – the sacraments and the rosary – to help strengthen us to overcome our sinful nature.”
At the end of the tour, the tilma will return in time for the standing-room-only, four-day-long festive celebration at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles that celebrates the feast days of St. Juan Diego on Dec. 9 and Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12.
Whether the relic returns to the archives or has a special shrine created for it hasn't been determined yet, said Carolina Guevara, spokes-woman for Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles.
But whatever happens, she said, “the Virgin has a very special place here in the archdiocese and we look forward to welcoming back the tilma upon its return.”
Lisa Makson is based in Alexandria, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Makson -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: From Steubenville to the World, Cameras Rolling DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:
Wendy Wilmowski has worked in more than 20 countries promoting Christian culture as a television and film producer.
With a career that took her from Steubenville, Ohio, to an Arizona prison, Jerusalem to Brazil, the Netherlands to the frontier of Hollywood, she lives now in Washington, D.C., where she is preserving culture in a new way – her top client is an anti-terrorism organization.
Wilmowski spoke with Register correspondent Ellen Rossini about how grace changed her life and has guided her in her career.
As a child, how were you aware of God?
I grew up in Chicago, in the Midwest primarily, and we always went to church. I experienced the Lord profoundly as a child. I always found him in nature; I was always outside.
I had a nice experience at confirmation where I really felt that God was calling me. [At that time] I was really struggling with [questions such as], “Who am I?” “Where was I before?” “Where am I going?” “Why am I here?” “Is there really a heaven?” – all those kinds of questions where you get kind of a tingle in your body thinking about them.
I remember opening a Bible, and I got this Scripture passage: “You did not call me; I called you.” So [I knew] God's hand was on my life somehow.
Did that set the course for your life from then on?
When I was starting my sophomore year of high school we moved to Arizona, and I went through a huge rebellious period. I was dipping very heavily in[to] the partying scene, drugs and alcohol. I still kept a 4.0 [grade point average], so my parents didn't really know. I was lying all the time to my parents about what I was doing and where I was going.
Then I had a profound experience of God touching my life when I was 18. It changed everything.
What was this profound touch of God?
My dad felt guilty that I was in a public school and wasn't getting any catechetical teaching, so he sent me to this youth group at our church that happened to be charismatic. I went out of obedience, but I hated it. I would get there late and leave early. Everybody was very free and open about how they were praying, which freaked me out.
My boyfriend at the time was from Santa Cruz, and he was a surfer; we were doing that whole partying thing together. I remember praying to the Lord one night, “If all of this is real, if you really exist and this stuff isn't just a figment of somebody's imagination, I want to quit doing drugs. I just don't want to have any desire for them anymore; I just want to wake up tomorrow morning, and that's it.”
I woke up the next morning and I had no desire, no withdrawals, nothing. So then the Lord kept tugging at my heart. Three or four weeks later, I was like, “If you're really real, and if all of this is not made up, then I just want to quit drinking.”
We drank to get drunk. I had done the little test, “Are you an alcoholic?” and I clearly was. So I prayed, “I don't want to have any desire for another sip of alcohol.” And bam – nothing.
By this time my boyfriend and I broke up, because of course there was nothing left that we had in common. I received my first persecution from him – he called me a “Holy Roller.”
Toward the end of my senior year, I was before the Blessed Sacrament. I had this very profound, deep peace that the Lord was really real, and there was some reason for my life. So I prayed again, “Okay, I'm not strong enough. I can't see my friends anymore. Just make it so I never see them. Don't have them call me, nothing.” From that point until I graduated, I never saw my friends. They didn't call. It was like I just had vanished.
Were you able to remain committed to your new way of life?
I didn't really like the youth-group friends too much; they were still a little bit too geeky for me. I was really lonely.
Around June or so, I said, “Lord, I've given up everything for you – my friends, drinking, drugs, everything. Where would I have been if I didn't do this for you?” I was stopped at a traffic light and I felt that I needed to look up. Across the intersection was a gas station and there were all my old friends, the ones I hadn't seen since April, and five cop cars, and they were all up against the cop cars getting frisked.
There were four of them, and I heard as clear as day, as if someone was sitting next to me, “You would have been No. 5.” That was it. I thought, “Okay, then there's no going back.”
I realized that with the Lord touching my life in this profound way, I needed theological formation, which is why I ended up at [Franciscan University of] Steubenville.
Your work as a television producer has taken you into more than 20 countries. What are some memorable moments?
I had to cover a story in southern Lebanon, and I couldn't get a cameraman to go. So it was me and another friend, and we had to leave our passports on the Israeli side, because it was illegal for Americans to go into southern Lebanon.
We had to cross a kilometer, carrying all the gear ourselves, and be met on the other side. The Israelis went through every single piece of equipment we had, checking cables, whatever, and it took forever to clear. So we got everything repacked and were walking across. The guys on the other side could see us – obviously we're in no man's land, nothing on either side of us – but when we get to the other side, it was the same thing all over again: We had to undo all the cables, everything. But we couldn't argue, we couldn't say anything, because we were lucky that we were able to get in there.
Our question was, what effect does constant war have on children and their Catholic faith, when they grow up only knowing war, only knowing hardship – which is still the story today in that region, unfortunately. [We filmed while] hearing bombs going off and gunfire, and being in the heart of where the battle was going on.
In the course of my career I've been in many situations like that. I was on the last commercial plane to leave Medjugorje before the [early 1990s Balkans] war. We saw the tanks rolling down the roads as we were getting out.
You've had a number of successes in Hollywood, including a film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, award-winning documentaries and several television programs. Why did you leave L.A.?
One of my “breaking points” if you will, was [when] I realized that my identity was so tied up with what I did. My identity was up there on the screen; if you liked what I did, you liked me, if you didn't like it, you didn't like me. That will cripple anybody. You can't have that.
Film and television really attracts wounded people. The business is so difficult that it really brings out the worst in a lot of people. It's not a loving, nurturing environment. If you don't have a solid foundation of faith or family, you're going to die, or you're going to turn into what a lot of people are – screamers, very unhappy, turning a lot to substance abuse. That's why you have all of that there; the pressures are enormous.
Your main work for now is quite a change from feature films. Tell me about that.
I moved to Washington, D.C., four years ago. I went on a four-month retreat and was taking a couple of classes at the John Paul II Institute. I just never left. I ended up getting my master's degree in theology, graduated in December 2000 and then found that I really liked the East Coast and decided to stay there.
When I decided to stay I ended up getting a job working with an organization that deals in counter-terrorism. They follow radical Islamic extremists from around the world, primarily in the United States, tracking them, keeping tabs on them.
And then the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks happened.
That totally changed everything. I have other projects I'm working on the side, but [this organization] consumes most of my time. If you follow any major news story, whether it's about the charities the United States are closing, the whole direction that President Bush is now taking with regard to terrorism in the United States – our organization, which I can't name – has been largely influential in all that.
We are shaping policy, working with the FBI, helping them and the CIA and other government agencies see the broader picture in terms of how some of these guys are infiltrating American culture. They say one thing in front of the media, but we have them saying other things behind closed doors.
Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Proponents of Marriage Find an Unlikely Supporter in the Battle: Canada DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:TORONTO – A Canadian courtroom was recently the scene of an unlikely spectacle: Federal government lawyers passionately defended the traditional definition of marriage in the shadow of three major legal victories for the homosexual movement.
In a country that has been incrementally extending the pension, health and legal benefits of common-law marriage to homosexuals for the past 10 years, it was a surprise to hear federal lawyers defending marriage as “the voluntary union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others.”
“Marriage is not simply a shopping list of functional attributes,” wrote Roslyn Levine in a Justice Department brief to an April 22–25 Ontario Court of Appeal hearing, “but a unique, opposite-sex bond that is common across different times, cultures and religions as a virtually universal norm.
“Marriage is universally intended ... as an institution to facilitate, shelter and nurture the unique union of a man and woman who, together, have the possibility to bear children from their relationship and shelter them within it,” the federal brief said. It is “designed to meet the unique needs, capacities and circumstances of opposite-sex couples and their children – namely, an institution that brings together the two complementary sexes and provides a supportive environment for the birth and rearing of successive generations.”
Levine said marriage is not a construct of modern or even ancient cultures but “predates our legal framework through its long existence outside of it.”
Much of the brief resonates if not with Catholic doctrine per se then with a natural-law understanding of the universal nature of the marriage bond, observed Daniel Cere, director of the Newman Center at McGill University.
“One could argue,” he said, “that some of the language reflects that there are certain things about the nature of the human condition that cannot be simply dismissed as faith-based.”
Mixed Signals
Based on the brief, Canada's Liberal government seems determined to overturn an Ontario Superior Court ruling last July that said it is discriminatory to deny marriage to homosexuals.
But in two other rulings, the Quebec Superior Court said last September that opposite-sex marriage violates the constitutional equality provisions of the 1981 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And on May 1, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled that marriage must be redefined as “the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others,” eliminating any reference to the sexes.
In all three cases, the judges asked the high court to change the law – a demand the appeal courts are not expected to rescind.
Some federal government voices are already conceding that the Supreme Court might also find the law discriminatory.
“In all likelihood, Canada's highest court will agree that the opposite-sex definition of marriage is unconstitutional,” said a May 2 government memo to the parliamentary Justice Committee, leaked to homosexual media.
Canada's Constitution includes a “democratic safety valve” that enables Parliament to legislatively override the Court for renewable five-year periods. But no federal administration has ever invoked the clause, and apart from conservative Western Canada, it is widely seen as unacceptable for legislators to contradict the courts.
Instead, the government will likely fall into line, said John McKay, a Liberal Member of Parliament who opposes same-sex marriage.
McKay sits on the House of Commons Justice Committee, assigned by Martin Cauchon, the minister of justice, to conduct Canada-wide public hearings and report in June. (Unlike congressional committees, Canadian parliamentary committees are beholden to the executive branch.)
“I think [Cauchon] will bypass the appeals and simply ask the Supreme Court for a reference. He will proceed as if same-sex marriage is a done deal,” McKay said. “Our report will count for nothing.”
McKay said government lawyers are merely buying time.
“They wanted to maintain the illusion of consultation when all along EGALE [Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere], easily the most powerful lobby in Canada, was in the driver's seat,” he said.
Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere's spokesman, John Fisher, said in a March 31 press release, “The onus is on [Cauchon] to clearly state, once and for all: Is he committed to upholding the Constitution and ensuring the right to equality of same-sex couples is respected, or will his government continue to discriminate against us by denying us the equal right to marry?”
However, to change the law would contradict a key 1999 House of Commons vote, in which members of Parliament voted 216 to 55 across party lines to affirm that “marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. ... Parliament will take all necessary steps to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada.”
Cauchon, Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his expected successor Paul Martin were among the 216, though Martin has since stated publicly that he will not resist the courts on the issue.
The pace of events has found pro-marriage advocates unprepared, said McGill University's Cere, who was a witness before the House of Commons committee earlier this year.
“There has been little debate in the academy about the radical nature of what is being proposed,” said Cere, who recently founded the Institute for the Study of Marriage, Law and Culture at McGill. What is needed, he said, is a “strong body of academic writing to focus on the culture of marriage, the complex sociobiological environment, the role of procreativity and so on.”
In light of the May 2 memo, Ottawa might appear to be giving up.
“The recognition in law of same-sex marriage is about fair play, equality, inclusiveness and justice, values that are consistent with our government's commitments,” it said.
Speaking to reporters May 1, Cauchon was clearly impressed by the unanimity of the three court rulings. “Three decisions are going exactly in the very same direction,” he said. “So I have to take that into consideration.”
But the defenders of marriage believe the battle is not yet lost.
“In the past, our common understanding of marriage was so taken for granted, as a given, that no one felt the need to present a strong argument in favor,” Cere said. “People are only realizing now that we need to promote that understanding in a positive and compelling way.”
Chris Champion writes from Ottawa.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Chris Champion -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Comic Book Promotes Rosary
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, May 12 – Pauline Books, operated by the Daughters of St. Paul, has published a new book designed to mark the Year of the Rosary and help popularize the devotion among children.
The Rosary Comic Book, by cartoonist Gene Yang, is 56 pages long, in full color and contains instructions on how to pray the rosary, the full text of all the rosary prayers and the Luminous Mysteries, recently introduced by Pope John Paul II, reported Independent Catholic News.
Yang hopes his work will prove useful to Catholic children, their parents and teachers.
“As a child I didn't really understand that the rosary was meant to be a meditation on Christ's life,” he said. “It just seemed like a bunch of words I had to say over and over and over. I'm hoping that this comic book will help today's kids understand what I didn't.”
Kansas Church Films Liturgy to Teach Changes
DIOCESE OF DODGE CITY, KAN., May 4 – The church was packed at St. Andrew's parish in Wright, Kan., on April 6, but not for Mass. Well, it was a Mass, but only a simulated one – congregants took part in a videotaping designed to teach the recent Vatican-authorized changes in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the Diocese of Dodge City, Kan., reported.
Diocesan officials pointed out that some of the upcoming changes are previous reforms that were never implemented.
“For example, when ready to receive Communion, the congregation will stand and will stay standing until the last person receives the Eucharist,” they said.
Father Henry Hildebrandt, who presided at the staged liturgy, pointed to a key emphasis in the revision of the missal.
“Silence is being stressed like it hasn't been before,” he said. “When we go to Mass we should have a genuine encounter with God. One of the things the Holy Father sees as instrumental of feeling God's presence is taking time to let the Holy Spirit move within us in a holy silence. After the first and second reading, there should be a pause measurable in minutes, not seconds.”
Israeli Museum Hosts Anti-Catholic Art
CATHOLIC LEAGUE, May 7 – William Donohue of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights in a press statement questioned several artworks to be exhibited starting May 22 at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The exhibition, “Revelation: Representations of Christ in Photography,” is based on a newly released book by that name, which Donohue has reviewed.
“As Nissan Perez [curator of the exhibit and author of the book's introduction] says, the 195 illustrations range from the ‘sacred’ to the ‘profane,’” Donohue wrote, “[but he] writes that ‘no disrespect or offense [is] intended.’ How considerate. I wonder, is this what he tells his Jewish friends when they are offended by anti-Semitic art – to consider that no disrespect was intended?”
Donohue pointed to some of the obscene, blasphemous images in the exhibit as examples of “the moral relativism that marked Weimar Germany ... which made possible Hitler's triumph.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Genetic Prenatal Testing Raises Fears and Could Lead to Abortions DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON – It has been nearly 18 months since the Washington, D.C.-based American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists made its call for genetic screening of parents to anticipate cases of cystic fibrosis.
Calling it a “revolution,” the physicians association announcement quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mennuti, M.D., as saying, “The advances of the Human Genome Project have moved from the laboratory to the obstetrician's office. With these changes come new options and new decisions for expectant couples.”
Led by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, doctors and expectant parents are using the discoveries from the Human Genome Project to screen for possible future medical conditions in children yet to be born.
Yet accusations of uncertain and misinterpreted results are limiting its value in predicting hereditary conditions such as cystic fibrosis. Meanwhile, as a warranty against future disease or handicap, experts are warning that genetic screening is promising more than it can deliver.
The new push for screening also seems to have influenced some parents to end the lives of unborn babies who might have birth defects.
Partially as a response to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ support for cystic-fibrosis screening, laboratories are experiencing a boom in diagnostic testing. Gary Samuels, spokesman for Quest Diagnostics Laboratories Inc., said the demand for genetic screening has soared by 400% and is continuing to grow.
“There are a lot of prenatal screening tests that prospective parents can have for various reasons,” he said. Competitors Myriad Genetics Inc. and MDS Inc., of Canada, have introduced genetic tests for inherited risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
“We're profit-making businesses,” Samuels said. “So, broadly speaking, there is a competition among [testing laboratories] to identify new tests, since prospective parents want to know.”
However, cystic-fibrosis screening suggests the shortcomings of prenatal genetic testing even when there is a clear hereditary cause for disease.
“Any form of testing for CF – whether it be carrier screening, amniocenteses, chorionic villus sampling or newborn screening – does not provide a 100% guarantee that a child will or will not have CF,” the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation said in a prepared statement.
“With more than 1,000 mutations of the CF gene, information about testing for the CF gene and how that information predicts health is complicated,” the statement continued. “The existing tests identify the most common mutations but not all and, therefore, cannot offer a guarantee that a child will not have CF, nor can it indicate the severity of the disease.”
Instead, screening could lead to unnecessary worry and riskier prenatal tests, even if the screening results are interpreted correctly, which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists admits is not always the case. In addition, genetic screening distracts from the need for a cure, which the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is seeking.
“We prefer to address people who have CF today,” said foundation spokesman Alison Tobin. “Those with CF need a better life and need a cure.” She said ongoing research has increased the life expectancy of those with cystic fibrosis from five years in the early 1960s to more than 33 years. “We still do not have a cure, but CF is not what it used to be.”
Implicit in the concept of genetic screening is the concept of eradicating the disease by eliminating a child with the disease. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, concurrent with its support for genetic screening, believes couples likely to have a child with cystic fibrosis “must make the personal decision whether to continue or terminate the pregnancy.”
‘Children of God’
The concept of using abortion to prevent the birth of a child with a defect is alien to Steve Koob, director of One More Soul, a Dayton, Ohio-based nonprofit natural family planning organization. Koob said he and his wife, Mary, had a child diagnosed with a congenital birth defect.
“He could not survive outside the womb,” Koob said. “We were able to baptize Joseph and have a funeral for him. That was important for us.”
“Every child is a child of God, a human life that will live for an eternity,” he said. “Nobody would want to have a child that's mentally retarded or ill, but society should be there to help. Every child should be seen as a gift from God.”
Koob is concerned that “there is an attempt to put pressure on families, to drive parents toward contraception or abortion.”
“This goes back to the Margaret Sanger super-race mentality,” he said, referring to the eugenics-promoting founder of Planned Parenthood. “We need parents to keep in mind the humanity of any human being [and for] society and churches to accept all life.”
Beyond the ethics of screening out inherited illness, there is the question of whether the genetic tests offer a true picture of the risks, said Edward Furton, ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
“There are many, many tests for genetic disease, but very few cures for these illnesses,” he said. “It calls into question the practical usefulness of these tests.”
Parental screening for cystic fibrosis gives no greater than a 1-in-4 chance of the mother's giving birth to an affected child, while more exotic genetic tests screen for future medical conditions that might not emerge until adulthood or later. Inherited genetic risk for breast cancer or ovarian cancer account for less than one in 10 adult cases. Most cases are linked to adult environmental or lifestyle risk factors.
“People don't understand probability,” Furton said. “There are risks for anything we do. Five percent sounds threatening, but that means a 95% chance it won't happen.”
Even good prenatal test results lead to a false sense of security, he said.
“Science and medicine are just part of the toolbox to help us have healthy and happy lives,” he added. “They will not protect us from all harm.”
Philip S. Moore writes from Portland, Oregon.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: PHILIP S. MOORE -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Controversy Erupts in St. Padre Pio's Hometown Over Control of Shrine DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY: SAN GIOVANNI ROTONDO, Italy – These days demonstrators rather than pilgrims fill the square in front of St. Padre Pio's monastery in San Giovanni Rotondo.Drawing approximately 8 million pilgrims each year, this small town in southern Italy – where St. Padre Pio lived and now is buried – is second only to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in its number of annual visitors.
Now, protestors are targeting the two most important institutions in St. Padre Pio's life: the Catholic Church and the Capuchin order to which he belonged.
The dispute began May 3 with the announcement that Archbishop Domenico Umberto D'Ambrosio – the newly installed archbishop of Manfredonia, whose diocese includes San Giovanni Rotondo – will have oversight of the shrine run by the Capuchin Friars.
“The friars were told the night before the announcement,” said Charles Abercrombie, an English-language editor of the Voice of Padre Pio, a journal of the Capuchin friars of San Giovanni Rotondo, on May 8 from his office near St. Padre Pio's monastery. “The superior of the friars said they were very offended.”
News agencies quoted a letter by Father Paulo Cuvino, the superior of the Capuchin province, which stated: “We feel like we're returning to the dark times that Padre Pio knew, with a decision that seems to us hostile and punitive.”
The “dark times” Father Cuvino was referring to were Vatican restrictions placed on the saint between 1923 and 1934, when St. Padre Pio's ministry was sharply curtailed. As alarms were investigated, he was forbidden from publicly saying Mass or hearing confessions.
Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls responded to the current controversy by stating: “As there have been news reports by the media about the administration of the shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo, I think it is appropriate to clarify that the Capuchin Fathers will continue to run the shrine.”
“The archbishop of the place, however, has the right and duty to watch over the pastoral activity that takes place there, as does every bishop in his diocese according to the general norms of canon law,” he added.
“The title of Holy See delegate for the works of Padre Pio is similar to that given by the supreme pontiffs to the delegates of other shrines,” Navarro-Valls said.
Lorna Cifaldi, who works for the English edition of the Voice of Padre Pio and lives in Manfredonia, said other shrines are under similar arrangements.
“It is the same way in Assisi,” she noted.
Still, Abercrombie said the situation was unsettled. “How much independence the friars will have,” he said, “no one knows.”
Many locals seemed unhappy. By May 4, protesters were already lining the streets of San Giovanni Rotondo. News reports said some carried a banner, which read, “We defend our Padre Pio.”
Though the monastery and church where St. Padre Pio is buried have been controlled by the Capuchins, the Vatican, through the Archdiocese of Manfredonia, already controls the House for the Relief of Suffering that St. Padre Pio founded.
The hospital houses a small museum and is the international headquarters of the Padre Pio Prayer Groups, which exist in parishes around the world.
“The Vatican has been in charge of the hospital for years,” said Charles Mandina, who lives near Los Angeles and served as a secretary and translator for St. Padre Pio during the 1960s. He also helped found hundreds of prayer groups in the United States.
Mandina said he was unaware of the specifics of the current developments. Neither the press office at the hospital nor the English office at the monastery would comment on the current situation.
Dispute Over Relics
While the latest controversy pitted the locals and even some Capuchins against the Vatican, the Capuchins themselves were the targets of protests as recently as April. That dispute centered on plans to move the saint's body from a church built during St. Padre Pio's lifetime to a new, much larger church being constructed nearby.
“There is a movement in San Giovanni behind a local poet to block the moving of [St. Padre Pio's] body,” Abercrombie explained.
Abercrombie said the plan is for St. Padre Pio's final resting place to be located in a crypt beneath the altar of the new church.
“The current tomb in the crypt of the other church is very dangerous because it is too small,” he said. He added that if St. Padre Pio's body were found to be incorrupt – many saints’ bodies have been found to be unexplainably preserved from decay – it would be placed under glass, where it could be viewed by pilgrims.
Abercrombie indicated that he thought the plans to move the body were sound.
According to reports in the Italian media, signatures have been gathered and a petition has been presented to the municipal authorities asking that the body not be moved.
The petition cites what it claims is St. Padre Pio's wish for a humble burial and his distaste for the new church, which was designed by noted architect Renzo Piano. So far, the city government has shown little interest in taking any action, according to published reports.
Abercrombie said both disputes have cooled for the time being, and the Washington Post reported May 8 that high-level talks are now under way between the Capuchins and the Vatican.
Though some saw the move by the Vatican as having a financial motive – the shrine takes in huge amounts of money each year – the charge was flatly denied by the papal nuncio.
“Money doesn't enter in this matter,” Msgr. Paolo Romeo told the Washington Post. “What interests us is the salvation of souls.”
Andrew Walther writes from Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Moscow Might Help Pave Way for Papal Visit
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 7 – The foreign minister of Russia, Igor Ivanov, is willing to help foster executive meetings that could make it possible for Pope John Paul II to visit that country, according to the Associated Press.
Ivanov suggested that preliminary meetings to this end be held between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
John Paul has frequently suggested such a visit, which would be the first by a pope to Russia, where the Orthodox Church looks with deep suspicion on the Roman communion.
Patriarch Alexy has refused to meet with the Pope, even in a foreign country. Berlusconi told newspapers last month that the Holy See had asked him to get involved.
“If the desire of a meeting with Patriarch Alexy II is expressed,” Ivanov said, “then in this case this request will be transmitted to the patriarchate and negotiated through diplomatic channels.”
Spies in St. Peter's House?
Alvarez's book shows that the Holy See once operated a significant intelligence bureau when it still ruled over the papal states, but after 1870, the Vatican lost much of its cloak-and-dagger vigor.
After that, “the Vatican devoted its main energies to fending off efforts to infiltrate it. Exceptions to this rule included the work of Pope Pius X to investigate the heretical modernist movement and a heroic but futile attempt to smuggle priests into the Soviet Union at the height of Stalin's terror.”
According to the paper, the book also notes that Pope Pius XII “acted as a go-between linking the German opposition to Hitler to British authorities and then slipped dangerously into transmitting military information to the British.”
British Writer Snipes and Sniffs at Church
THE TIMES (London), May 10 – In an opinion piece published May 10, British columnist Jonathan Meades criticized the Catholic Church both for its taste and its morals.
In a travel piece ostensibly concerned with the Spanish city of Zaragoza, Meades called it “an epicenter of Catholic superstition and Mariolatrous kitsch,” and celebrated the work of surrealist director Luis Buñuel as “nothing more than an inspired revenge on the Society of Jesus, a heretical raspberry.”
He urged readers to ignore “the Vatican's so far unheeded but nonetheless persistent lobbying for Christian “values” to be somehow enshrined in the EU's revised constitution.”
He said “the Catholic Church is ... once again over-promoting itself from a kitsch sideshow to become a meddlesome danger again.”
Meades, who elswehere in the article mentions his knowledge of medieval architecture, does not say Chartres, Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey are the height of kitsch, but they were what Europe produced though its Catholic faith.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Good Jewish-Christian Relations Don't Require Rewriting the Bible DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Dumbed-down biblical scholarship is no friend to Jewish-Christian relations.
As all Christians and Jews who are engaged in fruitful dialogue have long known, interfaith exchange is most successful when both clearly and respectfully put forward their own beliefs and make a sincere effort to comprehend each other's.
True comprehension and respect exclude compromising one's religious identity; authentic dialogue in no way requires checking one's convictions at the door.
Hence my dismay on reading a recent piece of pseudo-exegesis in the April 15 Boston Globe. Columnist James Carroll takes issue with Mel Gibson's new movie on Christ's passion and expresses concern that Gibson's reading of the passion could stir up anti-Jewish sentiment. Strangely, however, Carroll attributes this danger not to any twisting of Scripture on Gibson's part but rather to his fidelity to the Gospel narratives about Jesus’ death.
“A literal rendering of the Passion story can resuscitate the old ‘Christ-killer’ charge,” Carroll warns. In Carroll's reading of things, it is the sacred texts themselves that “carry the virus of Jew hatred.” A momentous charge indeed.
If taken seriously, not only would it eviscerate the doctrine of divine biblical inspiration, but it would also invite a thorough redrafting of the Gospels in order to mollify modern sensibilities. After all, if we are going to rewrite the Passion, we might as well expunge those bothersome condemnations of adultery and greed, and throw in something on the evils of secondhand smoke and the blessings of recycling instead.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and Carroll's disbelief in the authority of the Gospels seems apiece with the rest of his peculiar strain of religious practice. But Carroll goes beyond expressing personal disapproval. He cites the blanket authority of “Scripture scholarship” to negate the historicity of Jesus’ trials and the accuracy of the Passion narratives.
According to Carroll, “scholars now assert with near unanimity that the death of Jesus did not happen as the Passion narratives recount. ‘The Jews’ did not sponsor the death of Jesus. The dramatic trials are unlikely to have occurred.”
One wonders whether the Boston Globe realizes its token Catholic columnist still embraces 1950s-style radical biblical deconstructionism, of the kind in vogue during Carroll's seminary days. Such theories hardly enjoy scholarly unanimity.
True, revisionist exegesis still draws a following among the more militant adherents of the historical-critical method, such as the French exegete Simon Légasse. Yet one could cite numerous contrary exegetical studies that affirm the historicity of the Gospel account of Jesus’ trial and subsequent Passion.
Among the works in English, one could mention N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God, B. F. Meyer's The Aims of Jesus and R. Brown's The Death of the Messiah. Quite helpful, too, is an older essay by the very respected critical scholar, D. R. Catchpole, “The Problem of the Historicity of the Sanhedrin Trial” (in E. Bammel [ed.], The Trial of Jesus: Festscrift for CFD Moule, 1970).
For its part, the Catholic Church has authoritatively made clear its own unflagging belief in the historicity of the Gospels in the Vatican II dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum.
“Holy Mother Church,” we read, “has firmly and with absolute constancy maintained and continues to maintain that the four Gospels just named, whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day that he was taken up” (No. 19).
The fact that no ancient texts call into question the basic facts of the Passion narratives does not seem to bother Carroll, who is more intent on exculpating the Jewish authorities of the time than on careful scholarship.
But Carroll misses the point. As participants in successful interfaith dialogue have discovered, you don't overcome anti-Jewish prejudices by whitewashing history to cover up every misdeed committed by a Jew; nor do you defuse anti-Christian sentiments by pretending that all Christians throughout history deserve straight As for ethics. Harmony and increased cooperation between the Jewish and Christian faiths require, rather, the ability to distinguish between the actions of individuals and the religions themselves. Recent efforts along these lines have yielded splendid results, and a deeper mutual appreciation has been growing steadily since the Second Vatican Council.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts in no uncertain terms, the historical complexity of Jesus’ trial is evident in the Gospel accounts, and the personal sin of the participants is known to God alone (No. 397). Not the Jews, but rather all sinners, including each one of us, are responsible for Jesus’ suffering and death (No. 398). Mel Gibson himself, reflecting on responsibility for Christ's death on an EWTN broadcast, commented, “Looking at Christ's crucifixion, I look first at my own culpability in that.”
Given that Jesus himself was a Jew and carried out his mission in a Jewish setting, it is natural that the heroes as well as the villains in the Passion story are Jewish. While the high priest Caiaphas as well as other scribes and Pharisees clearly wanted Jesus dead, others such as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus did not. Moreover, Jesus’ apostles were all Jewish, as were the holy women on Calvary, Simon of Cyrene and Jesus’ own mother. Only a hardened ideologue could find roots of anti-Semitism here.
Christians and Jews must continue to build on the great advances that have been made in their mutual respect and cooperation but not at the expense of the truth. We don't need to rewrite God's word in order to reverence the Jews as our elder brethren in the faith.
Theodore Wirrell, SSD, writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Theodore Wirrell, SSD -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Pope Ordains Five Members of New American Order DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY – When John D'Orazio knelt before Pope John Paul II to be ordained a priest on May 11, the Holy Father might not have realized the significance of the moment for D'Orazio.
For the first time, John Paul was ordaining a man who was not yet born when he was elected Pope in October 1978. Father D'Orazio, 24, a native of Manchester, N.H., came to Rome seven years ago and was ordained for the Diocese of Rome.
The Holy Father traditionally ordains priests for service in the Diocese of Rome on “Good Shepherd” Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, which is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.
Among the 31 new priests, there were five North Americans in addition to Father D'Orazio. Four Americans and one Canadian were ordained from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, a new American community founded in 1958 by Father James Flanagan, who acknowledged that the day was a “historic” day for his community and a “great day for Our Lady.”
Encouraging the new priests to be men “of the Word” and men “of the Eucharist,” John Paul told them that “especially in the Holy Mass” they will grow into “more intimate configuration to Jesus the Good Shepherd, the eternal high priest.”
Referring to his recent encyclical on the Eucharist, the Holy Father encouraged the new priests to spend more time in Eucharistic adoration at “important moments of your life, in times of personal decisions and pastoral difficulties, and the beginning and at the end of your day.”
“I can assure you that I have experienced this and drawn from it strength, consolation and support,” the Pope said.
The annual ordinations usually include the local seminarians from Rome as well as seminarians from the Neocatechumenal Way movement who have come to the Rome Diocese and will serve in Roman parishes.
This year, special permission was given for the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity seminarians to be ordained along with the Romans, as they have recently been entrusted with the pastoral care of a parish in Rome.
The society, which includes approximately 150 priests, 80 seminarians, 90 sisters and 2,500 lay associates, is in the process of moving its headquarters from the United States to Rome.
“This is a great gift to us and to the society from Our Lady on Mother's Day,” said newly ordained Father Derek Anderson, 27, from Issaquah, Wash. He will be assigned to the new parish, to be called Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity.
Father Anderson recalled how he received the surprising news that the Pope himself would be ordaining them: “Our superior, Father Flanagan, burst into my room without knocking and just handed me the letter without saying anything – I started to read it and my reaction was just disbelief.”
A fellow deacon and university classmate, Kevin Martin of Maine, reacted to the news by telling the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity members, “It's not bad to be ordained by a saint.”
The lone Canadian ordained, Father Mark Wendling, 30, from Burlington, Ontario, recalled first seeing the Pope in Canada in 1984.
“I felt that he looked right at me,” the former biochemistry major at the University of Toronto recalled, adding that he made a childhood scrapbook of newspaper articles from the Canadian papal visit. Now his ordination photographs will complete that scrap-book of papal memories.
Father Anderson, a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, also remembers the first time he met the Holy Father – at World Youth Day in Denver in 1993.
“When I first saw him, I just began to cry – I felt that Jesus was present to me,” he remembered. Four years in Rome have made Father Anderson more composed in the presence of the Holy Father, though his face, like his fellow new priests, was beaming with joy.
The other three American priests ordained, all Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity members, were Father Scott Braathen, 35, from Michigan; Father Brian List, 32, from New York; and Father Margarito Sanchez Navarro, 52, of California.
Father Raymond J. de Souza writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Raymond J. Desouza -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God's Love Prevails Amid Life's Trials DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope John Paul II told pilgrims who gathered in St. Peter's Square for his general audience May 14 that God's love will always prevail amid life's trials. “There is the assurance that the last word will be one of mercy and forgiveness,” he said. The Holy Father was offering his reflections on the Canticle of Azariah, which is found in the Book of Daniel, as part of his ongoing series of teachings on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours.
The Canticle of Azariah is included in the story of the three young Hebrew men whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon condemned to death in a fiery furnace after they refused to betray their conscience and their faith by worshiping a statue that the king had erected.
John Paul said Azariah's prayer is “a prayer of repentance that does not lead to discouragement or fear but rather to hope.” His trials do not lead to bitterness but to a humble and contrite heart. “He offers to God the center of his existence – his very self – that has been renewed by trial as a sign of his conversion and his dedication to doing good,” he noted.
The Holy Father encouraged his listeners to pray the Canticle of Azariah at the dawn of the new day with the same inner spiritual attitude as Azariah: “The moment has now arrived for us to abandon the perverse ways of evil and its crooked ways and devious paths. We set off to follow the Lord, moved by the desire to seek his face.”
The canticle we have just heard is part of a Greek text in the Book of Daniel. It is a sincere and fervent plea to the Lord. It is the voice of Israel, which is experiencing difficult times of exile as a diaspora among the nations. In fact, the person who is singing the canticle is Azariah, a Jew, who lived in Babylon during the time of Israel's exile, after the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar.
Azariah, along with two other faithful Jews, is “in the fire” (Daniel 3:25). He is a martyr who is ready to confront death rather than betray his conscience and his faith. He has been condemned to death for having refused to adore the imperial statue.
This canticle considers persecution to be a just punishment that God uses to purify his sinful people. “By a proper judgment you have done all this,” Azariah confesses, “because of our sins” (see verse 28). It is, in a sense, a prayer of repentance that does not lead to discouragement or fear but rather to hope.
A Time of Purification
Clearly, leaving was bitter, the destruction was serious, the trial was harsh and God's judgment on the people's sin was severe: “We have in our day no prince, prophet or leader, no holocaust, sacrifice, oblation or incense, no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you” (see verse 38). The Temple of Zion had been destroyed and the Lord no longer seemed to dwell among his people.
In the present situation, which is tragic, hope seeks its roots in the past, specifically in the promises that had been made to the ancestors. Therefore, reference is made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see verse 35), whom God had assured of blessings and fruitfulness, lands and greatness, life and peace. God is faithful and will not be unfaithful to his promises. Although justice demands that Israel be punished for its sins, there is the assurance that the last word will be one of mercy and forgiveness. The prophet Ezekiel had already related these words from the Lord: “Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? ... Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live? ... For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies ...” (see Ezekiel 18:23–32). Surely this is now a time of humiliation: “For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation, brought low everywhere in the world this day because of our sins” (see Daniel 3:37). Yet, the expectation is not one of death but rather of new life after the purification.
A Contrite Heart
This man of prayer approaches the Lord and offers him his most precious and acceptable gift: a “contrite heart and humble spirit” (see verse 16; see Psalm 51:19). Indeed, he offers to God the center of his existence – his very self – that has been renewed by trial as a sign of his conversion and his dedication to doing good.
With such an interior attitude, fear ceases, confusion and shame die away (see Daniel 3:40), and his spirit is open to trusting in a better future, when the promises made to his ancestors will be fulfilled.
Seek God's Face
The final words of Azariah's plea as they appear in the Liturgy of the Hours have a strong emotional impact and a deep spiritual intensity: “And now with all our heart we follow thee, we fear thee and seek thy face” (see verse 41). They echo the words of another psalm: “‘Come,’ says my heart, ‘seek God's face’; your face, Lord, do I seek!” (see Psalm 27:8).
The moment has now arrived for us to abandon the perverse ways of evil and its crooked ways and devious paths (see Proverbs 2:15). We set off to follow the Lord, moved by the desire to seek his face. His face is not angry but full of love, as the merciful father was full of love when he saw his prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–32).
Let us conclude our reflection on the Canticle of Azariah with the prayer that was written by St. Maximus the Confessor for his Ascetic Discourse (see verses 37–39), where he actually takes this text from the prophet Daniel as a starting point. “In your name, Lord, do not abandon us forever, do not break your covenant and do not take away your mercy from us (see Daniel 3:34–35). In your pity, our Father who art in heaven, in the compassion of your only-begotten Son and in the mercy of your Holy Spirit ... Do not ignore our plea, O Lord, and do not abandon us forever.
“We do not put our trust in our works of justice but in your mercy, through which you preserve our race ... Do not detest our indignity but have compassion for us according to your great mercy and, according to the fullness of your mercy, wipe away our sins, so that without condemnation we may approach the presence of your holy glory and be considered worthy of the protection of your only-begotten Son.”
St. Maximus concludes with the following words: “Yes, O Lord and omnipotent Master, hear our plea, since we do not recognize any other besides you” (see Humanità e divinità di Cristo, Rome, 1979, p. 51–52).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Indian Church Considers Measures to Meet Growing AIDS Challenge DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI, India – The number of HIV and AIDS cases are at epidemic proportions in India. Now, a new clause will be added to Catholic dioceses’ prenuptial inquiry forms are asking prospective brides and grooms to inform their future spouses if they are suffering from “any communicable disease.”
The executive committee of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India made the change at its April 29-May 1 meeting in the Indian capital.
“It is true that this comes in the wake of the worsening AIDS scenario in the country,” said Bishop Bernard Moras, head of the Belgaum Diocese in southern India and chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India's commission for health care apostolate.
While India has more than 4 million HIV-positive cases, according to government data, health experts say the figure is much smaller than reality. The U.S. CIA recently projected that India will have the worst AIDS epidemic in the world, with 25 million HIV-positive cases, by 2010.
Amid such gloomy projections, Indian states such as the southern Andhra Pradesh already have announced plans to enact legislation to make premarital AIDS testing mandatory.
Church officials have endorsed such action. The Nazrani Catholic Priests’ Conference – an unofficial forum of diocesan priests in the autonomous Syro Malabar Church based in the southern Kerala state – recently demanded changes to Syro Malabar Church statutes to make an AIDS-free certificate mandatory for church weddings.
However, Bishop Moras said, the Catholic Church “cannot approve such measures that violate the individual's right to privacy.” All the same, he pointed out that the Church is “aware of the seriousness of the issue raised and the duty to safeguard the interests” of those who enter wedlock in good faith.
So, when the parish priest fills out the prenuptial inquiry form, which is to be signed by the engaged couple, he will remind the partners of their duty to reveal and the right to ask each other whether one is suffering from any serious ailment.
“But our role does not end here,” Bishop Moras said. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India's standing committee, he said, has urged all Church personnel “to respond seriously to the [AIDS] problem facing the nation.”
“We have decided to ask all our commissions and the institutions to be sensitive to this [AIDS] challenge while planning their activities,” Bishop Moras said. “None of our institutions should turn away a patient simply because he is suffering from AIDS.”
Outcasts
As many who suffer from AIDS are becoming “outcasts” in their own families and even denied access to hospitals for treatment, Bishop Moras said, “we have the duty to make a serious effort to stop this stigmatization.”
He cited the widely reported case of two orphaned AIDS-infected children in Kerala, one of India's most progressive states, with a 91% literacy rate. The HIV-positive Christian children – Benson, 5, and Bency, 7, whose parents died of AIDS – were expelled from school under pressure from parents who feared their children, too, would be infected if they mingled with the siblings.
Reluctant to take on people's fears, Kerala set up a school exclusively for HIV-positive children.
“Even medical staff in our hospitals used to shiver when they first came across an AIDS patient,” said Father Sebastian Ouseparambil, director of the Catholic Hospital Association of India, which has more than 3,000 Catholic hospitals and health care centers under its umbrella.
However, with intensive training beginning in 1993, Father Ouseparambil said, the Catholic Hospital Association of India has been able to prepare a team of nearly 700 committed Church health workers to deal exclusively with those suffering from AIDS. The Church now runs 36 hospitals across the nation dedicated to the care of HIV/AIDS patients who are denied treatment in major government hospitals, even in New Delhi.
Catholic Hospitals
A 31-year-old HIV-positive Christian widow living in a Church AIDS rehabilitation center in Chennai tearfully told a reporter she was thrown out of her home soon after her husband died of AIDS. While her two older children are studying at a boarding school, her youngest child, 5, is also infected and stays with her at the rehabilitation center, called Poorna Jeevan(Complete Life). All 13 residents at the center – most of them widows in their late 20s and several college students – have been disowned by their families after being diagnosed with AIDS.
The “family discriminates the most” was the common refrain from those afflicted with AIDS, according to a 2001 study conducted by UNAIDS, the joint U.N. program on HIV/AIDS. The study, “AIDS-Related Discrimination, Stigmatization and Denial,” found that discrimination occurs in most hospitals, even after death. Insurance firms even deny benefits to families of those who die of AIDS.
The study singled out Catholic hospitals for their “unconditional care” for stigmatized AIDS victims.
“Church-run hospitals and a few other private ones [in Mumbai] had opened all their treatment facilities to patients with HIV and AIDS. Indeed, Catholic hospitals were in the unusual position of having a written policy on AIDS that clearly stipulated the provision of unconditional care to patients with HIV,” the UNAIDS study said.
Condom distribution, of course, is not on the Church's agenda, even though it is on the United Nations'.
Meanwhile, the Indian Church has opened a new front in its bid to educate the public against “disowning and ostracizing” those with HIV. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India's commission for health care in 2000 instituted a chair on HIV/AIDS at India's leading university, Indira Gandhi Open University, with a contribution of 5 million rupees ($106,000). Even the curriculum for two diploma courses for health workers run by the chair is jointly prepared by Church workers and university staff.
“The response [to the courses] is very good,” said Father Alex Vadakkumthala, executive secretary of the health care commission. More than 2,000 health workers employed in government and private health care have already enrolled in the courses.
“Even ordinary health workers lack proper knowledge about AIDS and its infections,” Father Vadakkumthala said. “We need to educate the public on how to prevent AIDS. Our motto is ‘prevention is better than cure.’”
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Media Watch DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:EU to Monitor Pro-Life Groups
INDEPENDENT CATHOLIC NEWS, May 12 – The European Union has a different understanding of freedom than the one Americans are used to.
In the European Union, groups with extremist views are routinely ruled illegal, and spokesmen for “anti-democratic” viewpoints sometimes go to jail. Now the EU has turned its eyes on the pro-life movement – which is much weaker in Europe than in the United States.
Independent Catholic News reported that the European Union has set up a unit to monitor the activities of life advocates.
Peter Smith, of the British-based Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, lodged a protest at the European Parliament, saying, “I am a British taxpayer working for a voluntary organization. It is galling in the extreme to know that my taxes, some of which are used to fund the commission, will go to employing people whose job could be to refute the good quality material which I give to [members of the European Parliament] on matters such as abortion.
“Not only do pro-abortion nongovernmental organizations get EU funding, but EU money is now also going to this attempt to thwart our good work in defense of mothers and their unborn children. However, in the end, the truth will [come] out.”
Catholic-Rights Activists Mourn Sisulu
CATHOLIC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, May 12 – In an obituary for Walter Sisulu, an anti-apartheid activist in the African National Congress who died May 5, Ian Linden, former director of the British-based Catholic Institute for International Relations, reflected on what he'd learned from meeting Sisulu: “There is only one word to use to speak of the quality that such [a man] radiated: spirituality. Walter Sisulu had the spirituality that grew from political struggle. [The Catholic Institute for International Relations] will be thinking of his distinguished widow and family at this time and, I know, will hope always to discover and celebrate that spirituality in its work.”
Iraq Priest Launches Appeal for Country's Christians
FIDES, May 9 – “After 12 years of U.N. sanctions, many people in Iraq are extremely poor,” Father Nizar Semaan of the Diocese of Niniveh told Fides, the Vatican missionary news agency. “Those who suffered most in these 12 years were the middle class and the most needy, who in the last two or three years have struggled with a state of dire poverty.”
In the wake of the U.S.-led war, Father Semaan said Iraqis “must think only of the future. It is not worthy of Christians to cry over the past; we look ahead because we are full of hope. This is why I hope the conscience of the world will soon awaken to relieve the needs of the Iraqi people.”
Father Semaan called on “the Christians of the world, particularly Church organizations, to bring help to Iraqi Christians.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Birthday and Beyond DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:His 83rd birthday celebrations on May 18 underscored the continued vitality of Pope John Paul II. The climate in Rome this year is one of joyous thanksgiving for the Pope. Every few weeks, our Rome correspondent finds a new conference, symposium or meeting in preparation for the Holy Father's 25th anniversary as pope this October.
But they needn't look into the past for the Pope's achievements. In two of his pontificate's chief concerns, human rights and holiness, he has been as active in 2003 as ever.
First were his tireless pleas for a peaceful resolution to the situation in Iraq, even as he denounced the human-rights violations there. While he said war mustn't be avoided “at any cost,” he put front and center the concerns the world has for peace in our difficult time. His actions have been credited even by his opponents with helping avoid a worse conflagration.
At the same time, John Paul reminded the world of the universal call to holiness by declaring the Year of the Rosary and issuing a new encyclical on the Eucharist.
The Pope spent his 83rd birthday May 18 canonizing four saints – fittingly two Poles and two Italians – and tirelessly teaching once again that human rights are not only to be studied in law faculties but must be fought for in the vast fields of culture.
St. Joseph Sebastian Pelczar (1842–1924) was a professor and rector of Poland's most important university, the Jagiellonian University in Krakow – the Pope's alma mater. Later he served 25 years as bishop of Przemysl, a diocese near Krakow, during a time when Poland did not exist on the map of Europe.
St. Joseph Pelczar was a pioneering bishop in the importance of culture in defending the rights of Poles. He gave himself tirelessly to both pastoral and intellectual work, producing a vast body of magisterial and intellectual works. Sound familiar?
The other new Polish saint, St. Urszula Ledóchowska (1865–1939) began as an ordinary Ursuline sister of extraordinary holiness. After living in a Krakow convent for 21 years, she led a group of sisters to St. Petersburg in Russia, where religious life was prohibited.
They lived secretly, under constant surveillance by the secret police. In 1914 she was forced to leave Russia due to World War I and eventually returned to Poland, where she founded the Ursulines of the Sacred Agonizing Heart of Jesus. Her responsibilities meant that she had to come to Rome in 1928, where she died in 1939. Sound familiar?
The president of Poland and an enormous number of Polish bishops and faithful were in St. Peter's Square to see their two fellow citizens canonized as well as to sing Polish birthday songs to the Polish Pope.
It was, of course, the holiness of the saints that led to their canonizations. But the papal schedulers must have been pleased to have the canonization on the Pope's birthday.
And in a nice personal connection, St. Joseph Pelczar was the founder of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Krakow. Sisters from that congregation looked after Cardinal Karol Wojtyla's household there, and he brought them with him to Rome in 1978.
So closely do the sisters serve the papal household that when the Pope recently went to Spain, our Rome correspondent found the sisters in St. Peter's Basilica early on Sunday morning looking for a priest to celebrate Mass for them – their “chaplain” was away!
“To believe and to love: This is the program of your pontificate,” said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of the College of Cardinals, in his official birthday wishes.
For his part, the Holy Father spent his birthday looking not at his own past but at the Church's future.
He thanked everybody who had sent birthday wishes and then added: “To each and every one, I ask that you continue to pray that God may help me to faithfully complete the mission which he has entrusted to me.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: LETTERS DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Pro-Life Doesn't Mean Anti-Animal
Regarding “The Holocaust, Animal Rights and Abortion: PETA's Latest Display Angers Many” (April 27-May 3):
PETA does not speak for all vegetarians when it says that humans and animals are equal. Killing a human baby is worse than killing an animal. However, I do think those of us who are pro-life need to look at how we treat all of God's creatures. Billions of animals in the factory farms of America have known no other life than one of suffering and pain. All because we like the taste of meat. Meat is not necessary for our health and, according to the American Dietetic Association, can cause many diseases.
I challenge anyone who eats meat to visit the large factories where most meat and poultry comes from, or even a slaughterhouse. You will be shocked at where your dollars go every day. Anyway, vegetables, whole grains, beans, etc., are cheaper. Eat them and send your profits to the pro-life campaign.
While the pain and suffering of what animals are subject to is not on the same level as that of babies who are aborted, this doesn't make the way we are treating animals right.
CHRISTIE KELEMEN
Long Beach, California
Renovating Rochester
In “Rochester Diocese Hopes to Expand Cathedral” (Media Watch, April 27-May3) was the statement that the Rochester Diocese “said they were unaware of any lay opposition to the [renovation] project” planned for Sacred Heart Cathedral. What a glaring lie!
When parishioners voiced objections at parish-council meetings in fall 2000, they closed the meetings. The Sacred Heart Preservation Committee was formed and gathered more than 7,000 signatures against the renovation. We petitioned the city to give landmark status to the cathedral in order to preserve it and prevent destructive renovation. The diocese opposed landmark status and it was denied. We have appealed that denial and are currently involved in court proceedings over it.
In February 2001 we were filmed delivering a copy of the petition (then bearing 3,000 signatures) to the bishop's residence. At the same time, outside, the media filmed 50 people holding the 120 pages of the petition in a line running along the street. There have been numerous letters to the bishop and to the local papers opposing the project. Your own Judy Roberts even covered the controversy just a few months ago. Local investigative reporters have filed stories on it. Sacred Heart's pastor has tried to prevent the distribution of fliers that occurs after every Sunday Mass. How could anyone from the diocese say they were unaware of opposition after almost three years of battle?
Given that you yourselves covered this, how do you justify reporting the lie without challenging it? Dare we hope you will correct this failure and report the truth – that there has been strong and consistent opposition to the renovation from a majority of local Catholics? The only people who have supported it are those who were hand-picked to be on the renovation committee.
I look forward to seeing a correction in your next edition. After all, this carries national significance because Sacred Heart is the only cathedral ever assigned to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who is now being considered for sainthood.
MARY E. ARAMINI, ESQ.
Rochester, New York
The Rochester Diocese Responds
Thank you for the opportunity to clarify a sentiment attributed to the diocese that claims we were not aware of any opposition to our cathedral project. Having attended press conferences and demonstrations staged by a small but very vocal group that opposes any plan to renovate Sacred Heart Cathedral, I am certainly aware of their opposition. The statement I gave to a reporter was in response to his question of whether I was aware of a petition that carried approximately 80 signatures of neighborhood residents opposed to a plan to expand parking. Until the time of our conversation, I was not. I went on to reinforce the fact that the two major neighborhood associations in that area strongly supported the cathedral project, as did the overwhelming majority of parishioners.
MICHAEL TEDESCO
Director of Communications Diocese of Rochester
Salvation and the Jews
Regarding “Papal Preacher Weighs in on U.S. Debate about Conversion of Jews” (April 20–26):
As a Jewish convert to the Catholic faith whose eyes were opened not by human testimony but by a dream, I can tell you that some powerful prayers must have been raised to heaven – whether “the Church as a whole” desires Jewish conversions or not.
As far as evangelizing the Jews is concerned, it is risky trying to convince a Jewish person that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Of those Jews who even believe in an expected Messiah, many see the messiah not as a person but as an event, i.e. the achievement of world peace. And then, how to reach Jews who aren't “religious” and barely believe in God at all? And what about those who, for historic or current reasons, have a low opinion of the Catholic Church or even some anger toward her?
Father Cantalamessa says we need to first love the Jews in order to be able to speak the sometimes harsh-sounding words of Scripture to them. However, in my opinion, prayer is a different matter altogether. Personally, I don't care if whoever prayed for my conversion loved me or hated me, or the Jewish people in general. Perhaps their motive was even not referring to forced conversions or to hostile campaigns targeting Jews for conversions but only to prayer.
In my case, the result was that God gave the grace so that today I have the joy of knowing and serving Jesus as my lord and savior, my friend and my bridegroom, and of being united with him each day at holy Mass.
So I beseech all readers to pray for conversions of Jews, Muslims and people of all faiths or of no faith – simply because the difference between life without Jesus and life with Jesus is like night and day.
MARILYN BOUSSAID
Hermosa Beach, California
Graphic Photos Get the Job Done
Susan Wills makes the statement: “I know of no prominent abortionist, clinic owner or abortion activist who was won over by intimidation or bloody fetus photos” (“A Mom's Journey to U.S. Bishops’ Office,” Inperson, April 6–12).
There is controversy over showing the gruesome details of what abortion is all about, brought about mainly by those who want to keep their heads in the sand. To many, abortion is just a word that they want to put into the back of their minds, hoping it will go away. It will not go away until decent people rise up and demand that the politicians, most of whom are being bribed by the abortion industry, vote to outlaw abortion, or they will not get their votes.
While “bloody fetus photos” may not have changed the aforementioned people, they have changed the minds of many young people, especially on college campuses.
GERARD MCEVOY
Malverne, New York
The Perils of Pagan Economics
On page 9 of the May 11–17 Register, [an oped essay titled “The Pope and St. Joseph on Wall Street"] claims that the Pope has said that a free economy is not consistent with Catholic justice. There are perils of a “culture of consumption” and “idolatry of the market.” But peril is neither failure nor injustice. It is also unclear what the author means by a “free” economy.
An economy is people doing things for each other. There can be many reasons people do things for each other, including carrot, stick, love and divine vocation. Rarely is justice the primary motivation. Justice is a social order, often an ideal social order.
The Bible teaches that only divine justice is sustainable, and it is achievable only in following Christ (e.g., Isaiah 55:8 and 1 Corinthians 4, among many others). Therefore, that economy best suited to justice is one that is most open to people responding to divine vocation and the love of God. To the extent that divine vocation has elements external to interactions solely between humans, an economy best suited to justice must also be open to such elements. I cannot imagine a better definition of a “free economy” than one that is so open.
JOSEPH D. RUDMIN
Harrisonburg, Virginia
I was so impressed with the article “The Pope and St. Joseph on Wall Street.” Please put the article on your Web site so I can forward it to my friends. Angelo Matera put into words what I have always felt need to be expressed by our clergy to American Catholics.
BUD HUSS
New York
Editor's note:It's now available. Click on the “archives” button.
Voice of the Faithful Correction
In our April 20–26 issue, a Media Watch item quoted CatholicCitizens.org's report claiming that Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was planning to meet with Voice of the Faithful. “It is simply false,” Cardinal George said of the report we quoted. He particularly objected to the suggestion that he was supportive of Voice of the Faithful. “I can't support an agenda that seems undefined,” he said. “And until they're willing to say what they're for, why would I meet with them?”
- Editor
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Fearless Senator Santorum DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:How refreshing it was to read of Sen. Rick Santorum, a Catholic politician who doesn't check his faith at the door as he leaves Mass on Sunday (“Under Fire: White House Defends Santorum,” May 4–10).
Santorum is clearly not “homophobic.” A phobia is a fear of something. Far from being afraid of homosexuality and its powerful lobby, the senator showed real courage in speaking his conviction, particularly in this era of liberal-McCarthyism. The senator was well aware that, in doing so, he was exposing himself to the “PC” police who attack and attempt to destroy anyone who dares think, much less speak, differently than they. How intolerant!
The real “phobia” in this culture is a fear of speaking the truth (lest we be seen as intolerant) even the point of saying nothing as others put their immortal souls in jeopardy. Thank you, Sen. Santorum, for reminding us all of our responsibility to a higher calling.
JOHN RYAN Ballwin, Missouri
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: EDITORIAL -------- TITLE: Memorial Day 2003: Young Heroes, Bilingual Prayers, Deep Catholic Faith DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:The recitation of the rosary for Pfc. Francisco Martinez Flores, 21, one of the first Marines killed in Iraq, took place in Duarte, Calif., the town he called home from the time he arrived from Jalisco, Mexico, at age 3.
Except for the large number of teen-agers and young adults, the crowd of more than 400 people who packed into the Carmelite Chapel was probably no different from mourners in other towns across the nation who came to honor fallen Marines.
But what made the service unique was the message read by the young man's fiancée, Marisela Campos, also 21. Both the content and the delivery were unforgettable.
In a clear, controlled voice that never once faltered, she read, first in Spanish and then in English, her prepared reflections. “Francisco does not want us to cry,” she said, and she quoted from the first letter he wrote after leaving home: “I hated seeing the tears in your eyes when I left ... I never in my life want to see you cry, only for joy.”
“I would like to share with you something very special and beautiful that we offered to God,” she said. “Back in November we went to church and knelt at the altar before Jesus crucified and gave our promise of chastity to God that we would save ourselves until marriage. We did this out of respect for ourselves and to please God because we believe in the holy sacrament of marriage.
“Francisco was opened to God's call. We went to Sunday Mass together, to frequent confession and had a life of prayer. God walked hand in hand with the both of us. God was the strength in our relationship. Without his being present in our lives there would not have been that authentic love.”
She told of their long friendship, going back to when they met in the seventh grade, how they read the Bible together, how they planned their wedding “and discuss[ed] our future children's names.” In his last letter home Francisco discovered the name Seth meant giving. He thought that would be a good name for one of their boys because it summed up their relationship.
She quoted from another of his letters: “One thing that I can promise you is that I will keep my soul clean. I will not take an innocent life away.”
Before he left for Iraq, he kneeled before the crucifix and promised to save himself for marriage.
“He had a respect for life,” she added. “In the last letter I received from him, he had written on the outside of the envelope, ‘Look up at the sky and smile when you get this.’ I received the letter three days after he died.”
Before the crowd that stood in wrapped silence, she concluded her remarks, her voice echoing throughout the dimly lit chapel: “Thank you, Virgin Mary, for walking hand in hand with me thought these difficult moments and thank you, God, for Francisco's irreplaceable love and memory that will never be extinguished from my heart. I know who awaits me in heaven when my time arrives – not only Jesus, my king, but also my prince. Francisco, I love you.”
A fellow Marine then gave another side of “Panchito,” a fun-loving buddy who was always smiling and who was a top-notch auto mechanic. A cousin recalled, “He used to make me laugh until my stomach hurt. I knew him as a naughty boy and then [as] a strong man.”
There were 1,500 who showed up for the Mass at the parish church in Monrovia the following day. After the ceremony they processed on foot a mile and a half through town, following the hearse and eight Marines marching to the beat of a single drum, to the local cemetery.
At one point the procession passed some teen-agers playing basketball. The players stopped and placed their hands over their hearts. The mariachis were waiting at the grave. After a number of songs, the people sang “Adios, Adios” as Francisco's younger brother placed a shovel of dirt on the lowered casket.
Francisco was the eldest of four children, “the pride of his family,” his mother said. “Despite what people say, that this war is about business or oil, I know that my son went to Iraq for liberty and to end suffering.”
“He kept God in his life and in his heart,” Marisela said. “I know that he is in a better place now. We were planning to be married when he got back, but God wanted something different.”
Paula Shaughnessy writes from Duarte, California.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Paula Shaughnessy -------- KEYWORDS: Commentry -------- TITLE: Faith Insulates Youth Against Crime DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:An odd sort of paradox has highlighted recently the problem of adolescent crime.
On the one hand, with reports of children as young as 10 committing parricide and school shootings, it would appear crime among youth has escalated. On the other hand, crime statistics during the past decade have shown juvenile crime and school violence is on the decline.
What criminologists have come to understand is that while crime rates among juveniles have fallen, the acts committed by these juveniles have become ever more violent. It is also becoming apparent that with the rise in the juvenile population and with the most recent crime statistics available, juvenile crime is once again rising.
One other subtle fact is the growing awareness that “ordinary” teen-agers are committing many of these violent acts, leaving one author to term the problem the “apocalypse of adolescence.” While the problem might not truly be of such biblical proportions, one does wonder what can be done to avert crime during the adolescent years.
The secular reaction to these crimes is to blame the juvenile's problems on a dysfunctional family, peers, low self-esteem and to give a cursory nod to the popular culture. The solutions are often to call for instructing parents to learn the “signs” of juvenile crime, for enhancing security at schools (a “bricks-and-mortar” mentality, only in this case it is “security guards and metal detectors”), for various forms of counseling programs aimed at kids in the school system and sometimes for enhancing the presence of the criminal-justice system within the schools.
Average Families
The problem with that approach, as many have become aware, is that many of these youth do not come from dys-functional families but rather from very average families. Peers are in fact a good source of blame for many crimes, but they are also sometimes to be lauded for keeping their friends from committing crimes. Self-esteem has recently been dismissed in the psychology field, as high self-esteem is associated with narcissistic behavior and, contrary to popular belief, bullies do not suffer from low self-esteem.
And, of course, the cursory nod to popular culture could be missing what is perhaps the greatest influence on youth, but research in this area is tenuous at best. Conventional wisdom that television violence contributes to youth violence generally doesn't demonstrate a direct causal link in clinical studies.
As for the secular responses to juvenile crime, they tend to discount those factors that have a great influence on youth such as family, peers and popular culture, and favor counseling programs aimed at teaching generically to students about the problems of crime. They also tend to be – like the criminal-justice response – reactive in nature. Finally, when the criminal-justice response to youth crime is proactive it tends to be invasive (e.g., drug dogs and locker searches) and doesn't effectively deal with the crime problem. What is needed is a proactive measure that deals with some of the underlying problems of adolescent crime and, as many in my field say, “gets to the root of the problem.”
The one response secular society almost never mentions – for obvious reasons – is religion. It would seem those who grow up with a strong faith in any of the Judeo-Christian religions would be taught that crime is a sin and would be less likely to commit crimes. Dr. Ray Guarendi, a psychologist-author (and also a Register Family Matters columnist) has pointed this link out in his book You're a Better Parent Than You Think!and has discussed the importance of what he refers to as “spirituality” in his book Back to the Family.
For the Church, the key to the prevention of youth crime should be very evident: strong Catholic families.
Essentially, the stronger the faith of the family, the less likely the child is to commit any type of violation of the family norms, including crime.
Recently, only a few studies in the criminal-justice field have explored the relationship between a juvenile's faith and his propensity to commit crime. A study in the late 1980s found that juveniles who associated with peers who were strong and like-minded in their religious faith were less likely to smoke marijuana. Religion was found to guide the juveniles, but their peers were the direct influence.
A more recent study in 2000 found that inner-city and disadvantaged youth who attended church services on a regular basis were less likely to commit crimes, deal drugs or use drugs.
While encouraging, these studies have several drawbacks: They were one-time surveys on specific groups of juveniles and they focused on religion in a generic sense; hence there was no distinction among religions. A new study, however, is beginning to address these problems.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is conducting a national study of youth and religion. It is a four-year study that surveys high-school seniors regarding their personal activities and religious behaviors in an attempt to understand the impact religion has on crime and other juvenile delinquent acts. The study began in fall 2001 and will be completed in 2005. The researchers, Christian Smith and Robert Faris, recently released their first set of findings and they are telling.
Perhaps the most significant finding was the fact that those juveniles who attended church on a weekly basis were far less likely to commit petty and significant thefts, trespass, shoplift, hit a teacher, smoke marijuana, try hard drugs, sell drugs, get drunk or get in trouble with the police than those who never attended church.
In addition, they were less likely to try cigarettes, smoke on a regular basis, go to bars, take unnecessary risks, skip school, be sent to detention, be suspended or be expelled. They also were more likely to wear seatbelts in their cars, volunteer in the community and participate in sports and student government. It should also be noted that the strength of attending church on a weekly basis proved to be much more effective than if the youth only attended once or twice a month.
The study also found that those youth who perceived religion to be very important in their lives were significantly less likely to commit these same negative behaviors than those who did not see religion as important in their lives. However, added to the list of negative behaviors that were far less likely to be committed by those that were strong in their faith were armed robberies, automobile theft, vandalism and arson. They also were significantly less likely to get a traffic ticket, get in a fight or argue with their parents.
Also interesting to note from the study was the impact belonging to a religious youth group had on juvenile crime and juvenile delinquency. For those youth who had belonged to a youth group for six or more years – thus starting no later than the seventh grade – they were far less likely to try a cigarette, smoke regularly, go to bars, get drunk, try marijuana, smoke marijuana on a regular basis or try hard drugs. Religious peers seem to have a great influence on youth in terms of drugs and alcohol.
Consequences of Faith
Finally, looking solely at the Catholic faith itself, those youth who identified themselves as Catholics were less likely than those with no religious identity to smoke regularly, be offered drugs, sell drugs, try marijuana, try hard drugs, hit a teacher, skip school and be suspended or expelled from school. In addition, they were more likely to be those students who volunteer in the community, participate in sports or student government and whose parents limit their time out on school nights.
The real key, however, appears to be at the intersection of these four categories. When a youth identifies himself as Catholic and believes strongly in his faith, coupled with his holy obligation to attend Mass every Sunday and when involved in a church group, the chances of him committing juvenile crimes or exhibiting delinquent behavior fall dramatically. The key to the prevention of youth crime for Catholic families should be very evident: family and a strong Catholic faith.
As Guarendi has pointed out, it is the family that sets the example in terms of their Catholic faith, and children learn from this example. As a result, those youth who grow up in a Catholic family, attend Mass on a weekly basis and grow to love their faith will most likely steer away from crime and delinquency. In addition, ensuring adolescents have opportunities to associate with like-minded peers through such things as Catholic youth groups and teen Masses are critical to steering this course away from sin.
When the “ounce of prevention” to crime is a strong adherence to our Catholic faith, we are truly blessed by the grace of God.
Willard M. Oliver is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Radford University in Radford, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Willard M. Oliver -------- KEYWORDS: Indepth -------- TITLE: Why the Vatican Put Archbishop Martin in Dublin DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:It is an indication of how seriously the Vatican continues to view the Church in Ireland that it has just appointed one of its most experienced and competent figures as coadjutor to the Archdiocese of Dublin.
That person is Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, whose most recent job was permanent observer of the Holy See at the United Nations office in Geneva. A coadjutor is an auxiliary bishop with the right of succession. This means that when the present incumbent, Cardinal Desmond Connell, steps down as archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop Martin will take over the reins.
This is likely to happen within the year because the cardinal is now 77 and has already submitted his resignation to Rome twice.
Archbishop Martin, 58, will have an enormously challenging job before him, but he is well equipped for it. Those who have followed U.N. conferences such as the Cairo Conference on Population and Development or the Beijing Women's Conference will be familiar with him.
In Cairo and Beijing, Archbishop Martin, then simply Father Martin, found himself negotiating with heavyweights such as Hillary Clinton on behalf of not only the Vatican but also the Islamic world, as well as many South American and Third World countries.
At both of those conferences a concerted effort was made by feminist nongovernmental organizations and a coalition of Western nations to foist population-control policies, including abortion, on the Third World in particular. It was Western cultural imperialism writ large. Archbishop Martin gained a reputation as a very skilled and shrewd negotiator at those meetings – and many others – and even gained the respect of his opposite numbers.
Archbishop Martin is a priest of the Dublin Archdiocese but has been serving with the Vatican since 1976. From then until 1986 he was with the Pontifical Council for the Family. He was then appointed undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and in 1994 became secretary of that same council, working alongside the saintly Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who died last year.
He has been a champion of Third World debt reduction long before Bono of U2 fame took up the cause. In that capacity he has had dealings with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
It is hard to imagine some clerics working in anything but the Church. This is not the case with Archbishop Martin. It is easy to visualize him heading a government department or a major corporation. Obviously there is much more to being a bishop than this – a bishop needs first and foremost a deep personal faith – but one who combines deep faith with a high level of competence plus a vision is ideal. God-given, actually. Informed Irish Catholics have high hopes that Archbishop Martin might combine all three qualities.
As archbishop of Dublin he will need them. The country's biggest diocese has been adrift for some years now. It has been beset by the child-abuse scandals and Cardinal Connell has had to postpone major decisions – for example, the fate of the diocesan seminary – until his successor takes over.
In addition, there has been a dearth of leadership in the Irish hierarchy as a whole. There are individual bishops who are doing good jobs in their dioceses, but there are none making a truly national impact or who are capable of galvanizing their colleagues.
Some people might think the fact that Archbishop Martin has been out of the country for so long will disadvantage him. If anything, it will have the opposite effect, because he will come into the job unaffected by the malaise that has much of the Irish Church in its grip. He is coming from a part of the Church that is invigorated and purposeful. He knows how to get things done and he has worked with some of the world's most powerful figures.
This means he will not be intimidated by Ireland's “movers and shakers.”
Critically, he will come into office quite untainted by the abuse scandals. He cannot possibly be blamed for mismanaging cases of clerical sex abuse.
Also, now that proper child-protection measures are in place and past cases are being thoroughly investigated by civil authorities, this whole sorry episode should be behind us shortly. This on its own will go a long way toward restoring priestly morale, which in turn will help to restore the morale of the laity.
The Irish Church is a vital cog in the wheel of the Church internationally. It has helped to build the Church in America, Australia and the rest of the “New World.” It has provided thousands of missionaries to every part of the Third World. Many Catholics of Irish descent still look to Ireland as a source of inspiration and hope.
The Church in Ireland has been going through a very rocky period in its long history. Archbishop Martin may well be the man to successfully navigate it into better times.
David Quinn is editor of theIrish Catholic.
----- EXCERPT: Spirit & Life ------- EXTENDED BODY : David Quinn -------- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Bigger and Better? DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Dear Adrienne and Lance,
Well, there goes the neighborhood. No, I don't mean that our neighbors have stopped painting and weeding – or are raising pigs.
To the contrary, in the consumer mentality of today's United States, our neighbors probably think they are improving things. But I'm not so sure. I mean, everything seems to be getting bigger.
Exhibit No. 1: the houses. Our neighborhood once had many houses like ours. Three bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, basement and a couple places to wash your face. But many of our-size houses have gone under the wrecking ball to be replaced by single-family houses the size of apartment buildings.
There are good reasons for having such a big house: You are a faithful Catholic family with a heap of children. You have taken in your destitute relatives. You operate a home day care center.
There are some bad reasons for having such a big house: You have accumulated so many worldly goods that you need a huge place to store them. You think it will impress others. You prefer a large mortgage-interest deduction to a deduction for gifts to charity.
Exhibit No. 2: the cars. Well, I probably should say trucks, since that is what a three-ton sport-utility vehicle really is. People in the neighborhood used to drive sedans and, in the case of large families, mini-vans. Now they drive vehicles bigger than the school bus I rode to Crestview Junior High.
There are some good reasons for driving a mammoth SUV: You have enough children or extended family members in the household to fill all the seats. You tow a boat, camping trailer or other device that brings your family together for warm moments of bonding. You are part of an elite search-and-rescue team that saves the lives of poor souls lost in the mountains.
Letters to my Children
And there are some lousy reasons for having a mammoth SUV: You want to be ready for the daring three-block trek to the grocery store. You want to show everyone that you can afford something really expensive and fuel-inefficient. You want to take your half of the road from the middle.
Exhibit No. 3: french (or freedom) fries. An order of these little crunchies once fit in the palm of my hand. Now a “regular” order fits in a grocery bag, a large order requires a shopping bag and an extra-large order needs one of the SUVs discussed above.
There are good reasons for having immense orders of fries: One order can feed a small family. My pet bird likes the leftovers. Increased sales of potatoes benefit farmers.
Of course, there are bad reasons for giant orders of fries: A big bag costs more than a small bag. Eating big bags of fries makes for big bellies in people. Throwing away uneaten fries is just plain wasteful.
What I'm trying to say is that “bigger” and “more” aren't necessarily good things. After all, all this stuff we have on this earth isn't really ours – it is just stuff God gives us to use. If the stuff you have serves a good purpose, fine and dandy. But “good purpose” does not include “makes me feel important and cool.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says it well (No. 2548): “Desire for true happiness frees man from his immoderate attachment to the goods of this world so that he can find his fulfillment in the vision and beatitude of God.”
Jim Fair writes from Chicago.
----- EXCERPT: Spirit & Life ------- EXTENDED BODY: Jim Fair -------- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Our Lady's Heartland Lament DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:What do the Weeping Madonna of Mariapoch Shrine and 18th-century pioneers traveling west from New England have in common?
They both came long distances to settle in the small town of Burton, Ohio.
Our Lady traveled the greater distance – all the way from Eastern Europe, in fact – to arrive in what was called the Western Reserve. But then, she is used to traveling, as the May 31 feast of the Visitation reminds us!
Before this huge chunk of land was ceded to the state in 1800, it was actually considered the western territory of Connecticut.
As we pulled into Burton after a 45-minute drive east from Cleveland, we were surprised it had the look and feel of a small New England town, complete with village green. No wonder, since it was the first town in the Reserve founded by those Connecticut settlers. But they didn't give Burton its nickname of “Pancake Town USA.” And don't be surprised to see Amish folk driving horse-drawn buggies in these parts.
Of course the best surprise is in the countryside, a leisurely three miles from the green, where the Weeping Madonna of Mariapoch Shrine (pronounced “Maria-poshe“) settles on 50 acres of woodlands, fields and lawns. This American counterpart isn't meant to be an exact replica of the original in Hungary, where the village church enshrining the icon of the Weeping Madonna was named a minor basilica in 1948. About a half-million Hungarians defied communists by turning out for that celebration.
Not being at all familiar with our Blessed Mother under this title, we were eager to find out how she received it. The story, we learned, begins more than 300 years ago.
The Gift of Tears
In 1698, Hungarian bishops accepted the supernatural authenticity of the weeping icon of the Madonna. In 1696, two years before their declaration, as Turks were overrunning Hungary, epidemics and starvation plagued the population, and Calvinism was drawing many from the faith, Our Lady began to shed tears.
A Greek-styled icon of our Blessed Mother in the small village of what then was named Pochformed tears. They trickled down her cheeks for 18 days, from Nov. 4 through Dec. 8 – a day the Church would eventually choose to celebrate her Immaculate Conception.
Villagers from all around streamed to the church to witness this phenomenon and pray before the icon. Crowds witnessed many miracles; visitors converted on the spot. One of these was a Turkish soldier who asked to be baptized immediately once he gazed on the weeping icon. Another was a Calvinist who burned with fever and watched the icon darken as he tried to touch the tears. At once he recanted his heresy and returned to the faith.
Shortly after the bishops declared the tears authentic, Leopold, the Austrian Emperor and King of Hungary, called for a procession with the icon from the village to Vienna because Turks were besieging the city. At the sight of the Weeping Madonna, the Viennese knelt in the streets and begged for her intervention.
The Weeping Madonna was enshrined in St. Stephen's Basilica in Vienna and an exact copy of it was painted for the village church in Poch – soon renamed Mariapoch. In 1715, this duplicate also began to weep. A second time, the bishops declared the weeping supernatural. Miraculously, prayers were recorded, heresies stopped and schismatics quickly returned to the fold in large numbers.
Mass pilgrimages followed, gaining momentum when the icon wept a third time in December 1905. Today the faithful come to this American counterpart in Ohio, also called the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch.
Happy Accident
After the small brick year-round chapel was dedicated in 1956, the shrine continued to grow. The main outdoor chapel is the focus of attention during the shrine season from the first Sunday of May to the first Sunday of October. The chapel with bench pews is a pavilion that's half open-air, half roofed. Since this chapel and all the additional smaller outdoor shrines are well along an extended drive off a quiet country road, the shrine is secluded and peaceful.
The pavilion chapel is the first stop. Three brick arches with decorative wrought-iron gates open to the altars inside. The tabernacle is at the center; above it is the shrine's central large icon of our Blessed Mother. Two smaller icons flank it. One is a copy of the original 17th-century Weeping Madonna of Mariapoch, while the other replicates the first copy for the village church that also wept in 1715.
We wondered why the large center icon didn't look exactly like the original. Sister Flora, one of the only two Social Mission Sisters from Hungary in this country – both care for the shrine – explained that it was painted in Rome and modeled after one attributed to St. Luke, as was the original Weeping Madonna. It depicts Mary with the title “Salvation of the Roman People.” Though there was this “mistake” during the painting, the shrine didn't send it back to Rome because they decided it was a beautiful rendition for Ohio.
In the 40 years Sister Flora has been with the shrine, she's seen miraculous answers occur on this side of the Atlantic. In one case, a young mother medically unable to have children came to the shrine faithfully for a year, attending the blessings of the sick, and now has four youngsters. In other cases, a crippled man was able to walk away by himself. Other people had their cancerous tumors disappear.
Besides the main season's outdoor chapel and the oratory now done in Byzantine icon style (the shrine follows the Byzantine Catholic rite), other outdoor sites on the grounds become added spiritual beacons for visitors and pilgrims. They begin with the Stations of the Cross, the Stations of the Sorrowful Mother and the Calvary pavilion behind the shrine.
Then wayside shrines radiate out from Our Lady of Mariapoch chapel. Visitors can easily stroll to these outer shrines dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Joseph, the Holy Family, the Sacred Heart, St. Ann, St. Anthony and the Infant of Prague. All around the Shrine of Our Weeping Madonna of Mariapoch there is peace aplenty – and plenty of opportunities to contemplate not only Our Lady's sorrows but also her joys and glories.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen -------- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Who Put the Cookies in Your Computer? DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Are the cookies that reside in your computer necessary? Sometimes yes.
Let's say you use the Internet Explorer browser to access the Web. Each time you download a page, your computer accesses a Web-server computer where the page resides. The server, which could be housed anywhere in the world, downloads the page to your computer and Internet Explorer displays it to you in a viewable format.
The Web server, now that it has given you what you requested, goes off to do something else. It closes the connection to your computer and then forgets who you are. If you now click on a link on the page you downloaded that also resides on the same Web server, the server will dutifully download it to your computer. However, it does not remember who you are. From its point of view, every single request to do something it receives is a unique request from a different computer.
This system worked well for the Web's original use: to be a vast electronic library. It was designed to support the simple reading of text. Since those early days, images, videos, sounds and commerce have been improvised to work on this underlying fundamental structure.
Now let's take another example. Say I want to buy a book, using a credit card, from Barnes & Noble online. I enter my name and address on a Web page. Then I am sent to a new Web page to enter my credit-card number. Since the Web server does not know I am the same person, how can it relate my personal information to the credit-card information? Answer: It gave my computer a cookie.
How does it work? First, when I begin browsing the Barnes & Noble site, it sends a small text file to my computer. This file can only be referenced by the Barnes & Noble Web server. It contains a simple but unique number that identifies me. When I go to buy the book, the Web server tries to read this cookie to identify me. It does the same thing on the credit-card page. Thus it knows I am truly me throughout the buying process and can relate the personal information to the credit-card number.
The next time I return to Barnes & Noble to buy something, up pops all my information – since the computer now knows who I am. The unique cookie, which resides on my computer and my computer only, becomes a means of identification. For those Web sites where you actually enter a username and password, these would then be contained in the cookie, the password being encrypted. Cookies can also contain preferences you have chosen on customizable Web sites.
Cookies give a Web developer helpful clues about who's visiting his site. This can help him determine what appeals to his audience. With the proper cookie scheme, he can tell which demographic group goes where on his site and how many people are interested in a particular product or service. He can even use cookies to tell whether a particular column or advertisement is attracting enough attention to keep it around. For the maintainer of a Web site, this information can be invaluable.
Maybe you're among the people who don't like the idea of one's computer silently being “force-fed” files from an outside server. Is there reason to be afraid of the cookie monster? It depends on what sort of things scare you.
Cookies can be set to expire (they'd be automatically deleted) when you exit a Web page or remain on your computer far into the future. Various advertising companies abuse this feature. Cookies on your computer can be created and read whenever a Web server downloads any object to it. This includes banner advertising or any graphic advertisers may place on a page.
Every time you visit a page with an advertising graphic from the same agency the graphic effectively asks, “Have I seen this person before?” If the answer is “Yes” (a cookie exists on your computer from them), then a notation is made in your profile on the advertiser's computer system. In a short time, the advertising agency can acquire quite a bit of knowledge about your surfing habits.
Why do advertising agencies do this? Because by knowing what you like to look at they can tailor their advertising to appeal to you. I can all but guarantee that the largest advertising agency on the Internet, Doubleclick; has a cookie on your computer. To find out, launch Internet Explorer and go to Tools > Internet Options > Settings > View Files. (AOL users can select on their screen Settings > Preferences > Internet Properties > Settings > View Files.) You should see a cookie called doubleclick.net. You can find out when it expires, was last modified and was last accessed.
So how concerned should you be about cookies? Well, that depends on how bothered you are by advertising agencies tracking your surfing habits. With the above technique you can look at the cookies on your computer and delete those you don't recognize. Want to get rid of all of them? On Internet Explorer go to Tools>Internet Options>Delete Cookies. (On AOL, it's Settings>Preferences>Internet Properties>Delete Cookies.) The downside of deleting all cookies: They make using your favorite sites quicker and easier. Then again, you can always set them up again next time you shop at or interact with the site.
There's lots more to cookie-management. It's one of the features with which you ought to acquaint yourself if you spend a considerable amount of time on the Internet.
I don't know whether computer cookies got their name from real cookies, Chinese fortune cookies or what have you. Perhaps one of my readers knows the origin of this name. I do know that, personally, I'll take the cookie-jar variety over the computer kind any day – the ones with the double-cream filling, for the record.
Brother John Raymond, co-founder of the Monks of Adoration, writes from Venice, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: Cookies. They're not just in your cookie jar anymore. ------- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John -------- KEYWORDS: Art & Culture -------- TITLE: Monthly Web Picks DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:This month I would like to concentrate on the sacrament of penance and reconciliation on the Web.
The Register has an excellent guide to confession and examinations of conscience for adults and children at www.ncregister.com
Read Pope John Paul II's 2002 apostolic letter on confession, Misericordia Dei, at: www.vatican.va/holy_father/john _paul_ii/apost_letters
Catholic Answers has a couple of interesting tracts related to this sacrament: “Confession,” according the Fathers of the Church, and “Forgiveness of Sins.” Check out:catholic.com/library/sacra ments.asp.
St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae looks at penance in detail. See the Tertia Pars & Supplementum Tertia Partislinks at newadvent.org/summa/.
The Church of Our Saviour in New York City offers a helpful article titled “How to Make a Good Confession.” See oursaviournyc.org/How_To_Make_A_G ood_Confession.htm.
For more links on this topic see the reconciliation category in my online directory at monksofadoration.org/reconcil.html.
— Brother John Raymond
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Brother John Raymond -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Weekly Video/DVD Picks DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:The Straight Story(1999) David Lynch's The Straight Storyis a feel-good, down-home celebration of family loyalty, kindness to strangers, the ending of old quarrels, dignity in the face of weakness and frailty, and the wisdom that comes with advanced years. Sweetly gentle, luminously photographed, touchingly homespun, the simple tale is based on a real-life incident.
In the fall of 1994, 73-year-old Alvin Straight learns that his brother Lyle has suffered a stroke. Alvin's own health is none too good, and he and Lyle haven't spoken in 10 years, but Alvin is determined to make a 300-mile trip to see his brother again.
Unable to drive a car due to failing eyesight, Alvin lights upon the audacious, foolhardy plan of making the entire trip on his tractor-style lawnmower.
Lynch doesn't try to “explain” what makes Alvin tick, to reduce a man to a motivation. The only “explanation” comes in the very last moments of the film, when we finally see for ourselves the point of Alvin's determination to make the journey his own way – why he couldn't accept a kind stranger's offer to drive him the rest of the way. It's an eminently satisfying moment.
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Also known as The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, this World War II drama tells the true story of a Holy Office notary who, during Nazi occupation of Rome, covertly ran an underground railroad for Jews, anti-fascists and escaped Allied POWs. Riveting and edifying, the film stars Gregory Peck as Msgr. Hugh O'Flaherty, a plain-speaking, straight-dealing Irish priest who boldly aids enemies of the Third Reich under the watchful eye of Christopher Plummer's Nazi Lt. Col. Herbert Kappler. Their cat-and-mouse game is thrilling and great fun, and culminates in a startling showdown.
John Gielgud plays Pope Pius XII, who is depicted sympathetically and is shown to be willing to stand up to the Nazis. In one scene he is depicted as having had second thoughts about his Concordat with the Nazi regime – a portrayal the well-meaning filmmakers undoubtedly meant to put the Holy Father in the best possible light. The acting is superb and the final coda is so uplifting that it might seem contrived if it weren't historically accurate. About the only weakness is the score, which is rather thin and stark. Otherwise, this is one inspiring and very satisfying entertainment.
The Fugitive (1947)
Not to be confused with any version of the story of Dr. Kimble and the one-armed man, this Fugitive is director John Ford's underrated adaptation of Catholic novelist Graham Greene's masterpiece The Power and the Glory. Starring Henry Fonda as a flawed priest in Mexico during the anticlerical purges of the post-Mexican Revolution era, the film softens and conventionalizes Greene's difficult parable but still packs spiritual punch.
No Hollywood film of this era could have depicted a cleric as flawed as the original book's “whiskey priest,” who doubted that anything he did was pleasing to God. So Greene's morality play, in which a man deprived of every earthly consolation from human gratitude to divine approval nevertheless persistently chooses to serve others at great risk, becomes a more traditionally uplifting story about a basically good man serving God despite self-doubt and trying circumstances.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus -------- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Two for Sacramento: Legionaries and Christian Brothers DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A flourishing Catholic population on the West Coast has prompted the formation of two new Catholic universities in Sacramento.
The Legionaries of Christ's University of Sacramento is set to open first, in 2005. The Brothers of Christian Schools’ De La Salle University is still in its initial stages and is planning to open in 2007. Both are still fund raising.
“This is wonderful news for everyone in the greater Sacramento area but especially for the more than 500,000 Catholics who live within the Diocese of Sacramento,” said Sacramento Bishop William Weigand. “A Catholic university has been greatly needed in the diocese.”
Christian Brother Craig Franz, president of St. Mary's College of California in Moraga, noted the area's highlights: “Sacramento is one of the very few – possibly the only – state capitals without an associated private university,” he added.
“It is an ideal region for a new college in many ways,” said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities.
Faith Just the Start
Brown was responsible for convincing the Legionaries they should open their first U.S. campus in Sacramento after seeing their success at three of their campuses in Mexico – Universidad An´huac del Sur in Mexico City, Universidad del Mayab in Merida and Universidad An´huac de Xalapa in Xalapa.
The Legionaries approach to education – marrying cutting-edge standards and Catholic faith – “would translate well in the United States,” Brown said.
The Legionaries, who currently operate 11 universities in Mexico, Spain, Chile, Italy and a graduate school for psychology in Virginia, had been researching a possible location for their first American campus for nearly five years.
Legionary of Christ Father Robert Presutti is the general coordinator of the project. He said the university in Sacramento, where the Legionaries have a growing presence, fits into the Legionaries mission to extend Christ's Kingdom.
American students don't want to have to choose between top-tier academics, serious commitment to the sciences and authentic Catholic faith.
The Legion's flagship university, Anahuac University in Mexico City, has been a great success in this regard, Father Presutti said.
“In less than 40 years, Anahuac has grown to a student population of 7,000 and has become one of Mexico's finest universities, featuring schools of business, engineering and the top medical school in Mexico,” he said. “It enjoys a reputation for fostering responsible, proactive community service and involvement in its students.”
The Legionary approach can be even more successful in the United States, he said.
Father Presutti said the school will be based on Pope John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae (from the heart of the Church).
For starters, it will have a “strong liberal arts curriculum” so “students will get a good understanding of their place in the world.”
But the university won't stop there.
Father Presutti said the Legionaries envision a top-tier university where scientific research is prized, a university that competes with national secular universities even while it develops a living faith in students through a service-oriented intellectual formation.
“The really nice thing about the Legionaries is that they are champions of sound Catholic dogma,” said Tim Flanagan, one of three lawyer-brothers who are assisting the Legionaries with the University of Sacramento. “[T]hey know how to work with young students in helping them calibrate their own moral compasses so that the way to heaven, like magnetic north, can always be found.”
Research Center
The Legionaries’ University of Sacramento is already developing its educational plan. Its vice president for development, Margo Reed Brown, said the school will first launch a graduate school of education, one that will be modeled on the Legionaries’ successful graduate Institute for Psychological Studies in Arlington, Va., which trains Catholic psychologists true to the magisterium.
The graduate school “will operate as a satellite program for working professionals” and will be located somewhere in downtown Sacramento, separate from the undergraduate campus, she said.
Jonathan Brown, who has been central to getting both orders interested in the region, said he helped to attract the Christian Brothers after Greek immigrant Angelo Tsakopoulos, president of AKT Development Corp., saw a great need for Catholic higher education in Sacramento. Tsakopolous decided to donate a total of 1,100 acres, according to Brother Franz.
Brown said the Brothers had been thinking about creating a new liberal arts college because they saw a need there, especially among the poor Latino and Filipino Catholic immigrants in the region. And, Brother Franz said, this was a perfect fit for them because of their apostolate to educating the poor.
Tsakopoulos’ son Kyriakos told the Sacramento Bee that his father awarded the project to the Christian Brothers because of their “unmatched track record” in education.
“They prepare students for the working world while endowing them with the moral tools and character to inspire them to serve their communities,” he said.
Christian Brother Craig Franz said Sacramento is attractive because it is “the seat of high-tech investment with such firms as Hewlett-Packard, NEX and Agilent Technologies.”
The Christian Brothers run seven U.S. universities.
“The county looks at it as forming a research triangle, similar to that at Duke [University],” Reed Brown said.
Community reaction has so far been very supportive.
“After four and five months of meeting people in the community,” Reed Brown said, “things are going pretty well. They're very excited about it.”
The Legionaries conducted a “thorough” investigation that “examined a variety of factors, such as overall population growth rates, Catholic population trends, utilization of Catholic education, real estate prices and trends, and business climate statistics,” Father Presutti said. The Christian Brothers already have a school – St. Mary's University – nearby.
Both schools looked at the level of community support – an overwhelming 78% approved and only 9% opposed, according to a poll conducted by Maslin, Maulin and Associates.
Sacramento's Auxiliary Bishop Richard Garcia said of the two campuses, “We see it as something very positive.”
“Although some people are saying they'll be competing against one another, they're going to have different programs so that's not an issue,” Bishop Garcia said. “[A]ll of the people that Bishop Weigand and I have heard from are very positive about it.”
Lisa Makson is based in Alexandria, Virginia.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Lisa Makson -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Faith and Science
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICES, May 7 – The Vatican, with an initial grant of more than $160,000 from the John Templeton Foundation, has launched “Science, Theology and the Ontological Quest,” a series of new academic programs at three of Rome's leading universities aimed at promoting a scholarly dialogue between faith and science.
The effort will also bring Nobel Prize winners, top scientists and theologians to Rome for conferences.
The Jesuits’ Gregorian University will study the problems of the foundation of the philosophy of science and of nature while the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, run by the Legionaries of Christ, will focus on relations between theology, philosophy and life sciences, including bioethics.
The Lateran University, the seminary of the Diocese of Rome, will concentrate on the systematic formulation of the relation between the scientific and humanistic disciplines, using the discipline of formal ontology.
Good Night
CATHOLIC CAMPUS NEWS, May 9 – Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey has canceled his planned commencement address at the Franciscans’ Quincy University in Illinois, the Cardinal Newman Society announced in its e-mail news service.
The commentator, who is pro-abortion, pulled out “lest he cause embarrassment to us and to himself,” said Father Mario DiCicco, Quincy's president.
The Cardinal Newman Society had protested Harvey's appearance as part of its annual survey of commencement honorees who oppose Catholic teaching.
N.D. Resignation
The investigation began in January immediately after Father Scully had allegedly grabbed and pushed television news reporters who were covering a Mass on the campus. One of the reporters even filed an assault report with university police.
Father Scully had been considered a strong candidate to succeed Father Edward Malloy as Notre Dame president in 2005.
BC Grant Studied
The review will try to determine whether trustees of the Yawkey Foundation were influenced by their strong ties to Boston College. Two of the foundation's 10 trustees also serve on the Jesuit college's board of trustees.
A third, Father J. Donald Monan, is college chancellor. And three other Yawkey trustees are Boston College alumni.
Pro-Vouchers
The editors also pointed out that a need for more money could not explain the problems of the under-performing Washington, D.C., schools, which have the third-highest level of spending per pupil in the nation.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen -------- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Where Have All the Deviants Gone? DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:THE POLITICS OF DEVIANCE by Anne B. Hendershott Encounter Books, 2002 194 pages, $26.95 To order: (415) 538-1460 or www.encounterbooks.com
Most sociologists today deem the study of deviance an academic irrelevancy. In The Politics of Deviance, Anne B. Hendershott, a professor of sociology at the University of San Diego, seeks to put it back in the curriculum.
“[F]or the majority of sociologists today,” Hendershott writes, “the only reason to study deviance is to dissect a long-dead discipline in order to understand why so many sociologists once deemed it important.”
“Most of the sociology textbooks today,” the author continues, “are critical of the notion of defining deviance and even more critical of any sociologist who might suggest that the concept was ever useful in helping us understand social order.”
The reason for the silence – and the premature reports of the passing of a discipline – is that, as Hendershott writes, “For today's postmodern sociologists, conceptions of deviance cannot exist in a society that has been so dramatically changed by shifts in values, politics and social relations. The commitment to egalitarianism, along with a growing reluctance to judge the behavior of others, has made discussions of deviance obsolete.”
Wishful thinking on their part. For, unfortunately, deviance is very much alive, and likely to be so for as long as man is – even if it is politically incorrect to say so.
As Hendershott shows, to claim that deviance is dead is to avoid a whole panoply of issues most fair-minded academics don't want to touch – and certainly do not want to pass judgment on: homosexuality, promiscuity, adultery. The list goes on.
“In the aftermath of the radical egalitarianism of the 1960s,” Hendershott writes, “merely to label a behavior as deviant came to be viewed as rejecting the equality – perhaps the very humanity – of those engaging in it.”
As Hendershott sees it, the erasure of deviance has blunted society's ability to condemn certain choices. In fact, they are not even choices anymore.
Take drug abuse as an example. In a damning chapter, Hendershott explains how the problem has become largely medicalized, to the extent that former baseball star Darryl Strawberry's drug addiction is presented as akin to his cancer. When actor Robert Downey Jr. was arrested on drug charges (again) weeks after receiving an Emmy award, the media scrambled to blame his genes, his upbringing, his environment – anyone and everyone but him.
Hendershott writes: “Instead of holding the actor responsible for his latest lapse into substance abuse and addiction, the media offered to transfer any blame for Downey's problem to Hollywood itself ... One Boston Globe critic claimed that most people believe that Hollywood should have given him space after his release from prison and that producer David E. Kelley did him no favors by featuring him on the television series ‘Ally McBeal.’”
What happens when there is no recognition of the existence of behavioral norms within a society? It becomes difficult to condemn even the most despicable acts or to hold perpetrators responsible for their actions.
This is not just a what-if scenario, by the way. Look at the crime of pedophilia, for example. It's already being referred to by the intelligentsia under the euphemism “intergenerational intimacy.” In other words, sure, it's wrong when it is forced, but who's to say that it is objectively wrong?
Destigmatization efforts make pedophilia, according to Hendershott, “a behavior whose status now appears to be in transition.”
Hendershott's prescription for waking up from this sort of societal delusion? We must regroup and “draw from nature, reason and common sense to define what is deviant and reaffirm the moral ties that bind us together.” That's a tall order, but, as she shows in these pages, there's still time to fill it.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ------- EXTENDED BODY: Kathryn Jean Lopez -------- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Family Matters DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Choosing a School
Q. We want Catholic education for our children, but we are torn between our modest, older parish school and the more expensive academy that seems to have all the latest that technology and sports have to offer.
A Take it from two former teachers: Brand-new buildings aren't the things that grab us. Elaborate computer labs are nice, but they're not at the top of our list. What we're most concerned with is our children's faith formation and character development. In short, where will they grow closer to Christ?
Don't get us wrong. We're definitely concerned about academics. Caroline is a self-professed study nerd who loved school and always did well. (Tom somehow did well with much less studying!) But, in the long run, these things truly are secondary. What will bring our children the most happiness and fulfillment in their lives is knowing, loving and serving the Lord and his Church. And so we must provide an education whose aim is exactly that. Pope John Paul II said as much: “The ultimate goal of a Christian education is salvation in Jesus Christ.”
That's why our default position must always be set on Catholic education, no matter how impressive the public or private school down the road looks. Our first choice must be the Catholic school, unless there is a serious, compelling reason to go elsewhere – such as, for example, a special-needs child who would be better-served at a specially equipped school. (And, of course, we consider home-schooling Catholic education as well.)
Married Life
The best people we know are Catholic school teachers. The ones tucked away in smaller schools in smaller parishes sometimes are thought of as lesser than their counterparts in private schools or the bigger parishes, but please, let's dispel that notion. Catholic educators must have the very same credentials as any other but serve for less pay and with fewer aides. People willing to make sacrifices in order to do God's will? Just the kind of people we want our kids to be around.
What else to look for? Talk with other parents in the school. Are they excited about the place? Do they share your values? Can you relate well with them? Remember, these will be the families of your child's friends.
Peek your head in and notice what teachers have on their walls. What they choose to display and find inspirational is telling. Walk through the halls on a typical school day. Does it seem to be a disciplined, orderly setting? Are public events smoothly run? Attend a school liturgy. Is it vibrant and well-done? Are the teachers singing? How about the kids? And, of course, examine the curriculum and texts. Is the material orthodox?
Don't overlook that sweet little Catholic school in your neighborhood, be it old or small or less technologically advanced. You just may be missing out on a gem of an education.
Tom and Caroline McDonald are family-life directors for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Tom and Caroline Mcdonald -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: Have You Made a Visitation Lately? DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY: In today's mobile, fast-paced society, many people no longer live close enough to extended family members to visit with them on a regular basis. Many of us proceed “in haste” to soccer practice, PTA meetings and a host of other social obligations. Yet routine family gatherings with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles are increasingly rare.The Church reminds us each May 31 that Mary, upon hearing about a relative's pregnancy, traveled to visit. And Scripture makes a point of how she went to Elizabeth: “with haste” (Luke 1:39).
Our Lady's example of unhesitating, active devotion to extended family is an admirable one. Are we following it? It's a question worth considering this feast of the Visitation.
“Modern society is fractured,” says Father Kevin Barrett, chaplain at Catholic Familyland in Ohio and a frequent public speaker on matters concerning the family. “More than ever, families need the Church. They need support. Parents of young children particularly are in need of support.”
Ideally, he explains, support for young families would come from grandparents and other relatives. Grandparents can enjoy the emotional benefits of frequent contact with loved ones while they give their grandchildren the individualized attention, wisdom and abundant affection they need. Parents also profit from this close relationship as they receive competent help with child care, assistance with daily chores and support in catechizing their children.
Father Barrett highlights the value of the extended family by pointing out that Christ himself placed such great importance upon the family that he spent the first 33 years of his life on earth in relative obscurity, attending to the tasks of daily living within a family. He adds that Christ taught us to call God our father, referred to himself as our brother and, in the moments before his death, gave us the gift of his mother.
“Clearly, family is at the heart of God's plan of redemption,” he says.
Our Lady's example of unhesitating, active devotion to extended family is an admirable one. Are we following it?
The importance of family relationships is a subject close to the heart of Leisa Thigpen, a home-schooling mother of two and co-author with her husband, Paul, of Building Catholic Family Traditions (Our Sunday Visitor, 1999). Three years ago, after years of living away from family, the Thigpens moved from Missouri to Savannah, Ga., in order to care for Paul's ailing mother in their home.
The decision benefited all members of the family. Although she admits that living with and caring for an aging relative was sometimes difficult, Leisa is certain that the experience taught her two children an invaluable lesson.
“By involving them in her day-to-day care, we showed them that we care for people through all stages of life,” she explains. “Our daily lives were an example of Christian charity.”
Always Welcome
Additionally, the Thigpens drew support from and grew closer to other relatives during the time Paul's mother lived with them. Working together and making important decisions as a team enabled them to realize how much their presence added to one another's lives.
“It was nice to be able to call on each other in our daily needs,” Leisa recalls.
Although their grandmother now requires care in a nursing home, family members are still able to visit her regularly because they live nearby. Also, the Thigpen children have developed rewarding friendships with their cousins – many of whom they did not know very well before their move. As a result, their daughter has served as a role model and mentor to a younger cousin who is now making plans to join the Church.
During the years they spent physically distant from relatives, the Thigpens made it a priority to keep in touch with relatives and involve them in their daily lives. Thanks to the wonders of e-mail, notes Leisa, they were able to exchange notes and pictures across the miles without racking up long-distance phone bills.
Also during their time away from family, the Thigpens visited relatives regularly and enjoyed many visits in their home. In order to emphasize the significance of these occasions for their children, they established a tradition of creating a “Welcome” banner, which they hung on their house to greet their guests. The children helped to decorate the banner each time it was updated and the project soon became an important part of anticipating visits and welcoming their loved ones.
Having moved all the way from Texas to Alabama in order to be close to extended family for the sake of their children, Register Family Matters columnists Tom and Caroline McDonald are very familiar with the blessing of having loving relatives nearby.
They're particularly attuned to the benefits physical proximity affords when it comes to forming their children in the Catholic faith.
“The faith becomes more real to a child if he sees not only Mom and Dad praying and going to church, but the rest of the family as well,” Tom explains. “Our kids see their aunt and uncle leading music at our parish Mass. They see Grandma singing in the choir and Grandpa lectoring. These regular encounters with every member of the family living out the faith can have a profound impact on our children.”
Living close to grandparents also enables the McDonald children to learn from their mother's relationship with her parents. Because they witness Caroline's respect for her parents, Tom believes that they “learn how to live out the Fourth Commandment by seeing it modeled in front of them on a daily basis.”
Close at Heart
Even among families who live near relatives, some have difficulty finding time to see one another. For those who struggle with busy schedules, the McDonalds suggest scheduling time for regular family get-togethers.
“We shouldn't fall prey to the bad habit of seeing our in-town relatives only on holidays and major events,” says Tom. “We should work at making family a priority.”
Some of the couple's practical suggestions for fostering family closeness include having frequent casual family dinners and helping one another with child care. These activities allow opportunity for family members to interact on a regular basis.
For instance, Caroline and her sister sometimes offer to watch each other's children for a few hours during the day.
“The benefit is twofold,” she says. “One mom gets some time away while the cousins get to spend time together.”
With regard to distant relatives, the McDonalds point out that long-distance visits can create lasting memories for children – and powerfully reinforce the importance of family in young minds. Tom cherishes fond memories of his family's annual summer trips from Nebraska to California where they visited his mother's family. The fact that his father used all of his vacation time to make the trip each year reinforced the value of family relationships.
Together, the McDonalds observe: “Often the reason families move away from one another is due to job opportunity, but perhaps that shouldn't always be our priority. It might be worth seeking out different work in order to remain near family.”
Paul and Leisa Thigpen, however, do not need anyone to tell them that returning to their roots was the right thing to do. A banner greeted them upon their arrival in Savannah three years ago – one made by family members for themthis time.
“It didn't just say Welcome,” Leisa recalls. “It said Welcome Home.”
Danielle Bean writes from Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Safe Havens for Abandoned Babies DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Citing a report released in March, an adoption-advocacy group recently raised serious questions about the effectiveness of programs set up to protect abandoned babies.
But supporters of the programs – created under the so-called “safe-haven” laws enacted by many states – say they offer a viable alternative to women tempted to abandon their newborn babies.
Prolife Profile
Some of the safe-haven programs are operated by Catholic organizations or individuals who believe they are effective solutions to the problem of newborns being abandoned by troubled young mothers.
The laws are intended to save babies whose lives are endangered when they are deserted in places like dumpsters and public restrooms. Under the laws, a mother who can't take care of her baby for whatever reason can bring the child within a designated time of the baby's birth to an approved site. These can include hospitals, churches, fire stations and other facilities. No questions are asked as long as the baby has not been harmed, and the mother will not be prosecuted for abandonment.
Usually the mother or father can reclaim the child within a certain period of time, after social workers have ensured that either parent is capable of caring for the child. The baby can be released for adoption within six months, after the mother has given up her parental rights.
The study criticizing the programs, conducted by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, an independent think tank studying adoption-related issues, did not mix words. “[S]afe-haven laws not only do not solve the problem of unsafe infant abandonment but actually may encourage women to conceal pregnancies and then abandon infants who otherwise would have been placed for adoption through established legal procedures or been raised by relatives,” its authors write. “Moreover, safe-haven laws are having other serious negative consequences and undermine established child-welfare and protection practices.”
The laws are having negative consequences, the report says, such as creating the opportunity for upset family members and others to abandon babies without the mother's consent, depriving biological fathers of their legal right to care for their children and sending a signal to people that they do not necessarily have to assume responsibility for their actions. The institute claims the laws undermine established child-welfare and protection practices and says there is no evidence that the laws are working.
Save Rates to Reckon With
Meanwhile, supporters and practitioners of safe-haven programs take issue with many of the findings and say the programs are helping to save the lives of babies.
The institute “did not use our statistics or interview us, and we have one of the highest save rates in the country,” says Tim Jaccard, president of the AMT Children of Hope Foundation, a Mineola, N.Y., organization that has been operating a safe-haven program for several years. Jaccard says his group last year rescued 10 babies and helped 129 mothers decide to keep their babies. Many others put their babies up for adoption.
The foundation is a nonprofit organization that gets support from local Catholic and other religious organizations, such as the Knights of Columbus and Holy Name Society. Jaccard, a member of St. William the Abbott parish in Seaford, N.Y., which also provides a safe haven for babies, has been a leading proponent of safe-haven laws.
In addition to rescuing abandoned babies, the foundation refers pregnant women and new mothers to qualified counseling services. Jaccard says there have been several cases where women who had been considering abortion opted instead to have their babies and bring them to his group.
Catholic Family Services in Sioux Falls, S.D., also provides a safe haven for babies and offers counseling services for pregnant women. The service is one of five havens offered within the Diocese of Sioux Falls. Sister Mary Carole Curran, executive director of the service, says it has yet to receive an abandoned baby but has had people come in to place babies for adoption.
Curran says she is aware of the criticism that safe-haven laws encourage young parents to not be responsible for their babies. But the safe havens promote more responsible behavior than abandoning babies in places that are not safe, she says.
“I think [the program] is wonderful,” says Curran. “We're pro-life and we want these children to live.” She says Catholic Family Services offers financial assistance to parents in the diocese who want to keep their babies but don't have the financial resources or have exhausted available funds from social agencies.
Also waiting for its first baby is St. Frances De Chantal Church in Wantagh, N.Y., which began operating a safe haven in 2002. “The priests and sisters understand the program and are prepared if a baby is brought in,” says Ele Ruth Fritsch, director of parish social ministry at the parish. Fritsch says the church has donated food, clothing and diapers to the AMT Children of Hope Foundation.
Fritsch agrees that havens reflect the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church and help young mothers by offering counseling and other services. “We need to make it easier for moms who come into these situations and not point fingers at them,” she says.
Juli Novak, director of women's services at Holy Family Memorial Medical Center in Manitowoc, Wis., says the hospital began serving as a safe haven since Wisconsin enacted a law in 2001. A baby left at the hospital is assessed in the emergency room and admitted to a newborn nursery. Physicians care for the baby, and the hospital notifies child protective services, which takes custody of the baby.
Novak says no one who works for the program at the hospital – founded by Franciscan sisters and serving a small community – initially expected a baby to be dropped off. In March 2002 a staff member went outside for a break and found a duffle bag on a bench that held an abandoned baby girl. The baby, who was between eight and 10 hours old, was treated, spent three days in the nursery then was brought to child services to be placed for adoption.
“She now has a home and her [adoptive] parents are excited,” Novak says. “They know a miracle brought her to the hospital.” Novak says seven babies have been left at havens in the state since the law went into effect. Because of the law, she says, “these babies are alive and have an opportunity for life.”
The Least of These
In Minneapolis, an organization called A Safe Place for Newborns is working to educate people in Minnesota and other states about safe haven programs. The group is supported by Catholics and began operations in the basement of the Cathedral of St. Paul, says Laure Crupp, executive director. At least five babies have been left at havens in Minnesota since its law was passed in 2000.
“We've helped a lot of women through our Web page and crisis line,” says Crupp. “One girl contacted us saying she was about to give birth and hadn't told anyone. We exchanged e-mails and persuaded her to get to a doctor.” The woman gave birth within two weeks of contacting the group.
Crupp says her Catholic faith drives her to help others in need.
She relates the story of St. Lawrence, her patron saint, who when ordered by officials in Rome to hand over the treasures of the church to the emperor, assembled the poor, crippled, widows and orphans and presented them to the officials, calling them the treasures of the Church.
“This is what my faith taught me; to stand up for the least of these,” Crupp says. “These souls are crying out. If we hear that cry we must answer it.”
Bob Violino writes from Massapequa Park, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Violino -------- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Prolife Victories DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Planned Parenthood to Close Clinic
According to Dian Harrison, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood-Golden Gate – one of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the United States – the closure is due to the poor economic condition of the agency, which operates the Daly City clinic and eight others in the San Francisco Bay area.
Harrison said a number of problems have combined to paint a disastrous financial picture, according to the San Mateo County Times, a daily newspaper. She cited a substantial drop in donations from individuals and foundations as a key factor behind the decision to close the clinic.
Pro-Life Pharmacists Can Say No
The bill had been sought by Planned Parenthood because of an incident in 2001 in which a Carson City pharmacist denied birth-control pills to a Reno woman, reported a Las Vegas newspaper, the Review-Journal.
Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, said she tabled the bill because Senate members received hundreds of e-mail messages over the weekend from people opposed to provisions in the bill.
Yalies Form CLAY
NEWS CHANNEL 8(Norwich, Conn.) – On a liberal college campus like Yale, pro-life students know they are in the minority. That only makes them more determined to have their voices heard, reported Connecticut's ABC affiliate.
“I think it's Yale's dirty secret because people take it for granted everyone's pro-choice here, but I have met so many pro-life people here,” grad student Justin List told a reporter.
Calling themselves CLAY for “Choose Life at Yale,” the group is calling for a partial reimbursement of their student fees, which they believe go to help students pay for abortions. School is about to end for the year, but CLAY will work next fall for the reimbursement and to be recognized as an official group on campus.
Pro-Life Poster Okay in UK
Police lawyers agreed to hand back the poster to Pro-Life Party candidates Joseph Biddulph and Fiona Pinto for the rest of the current election campaign, reported the national newspaper of Wales. In ordering the return of the posters, the judge said arrangements should be made to ensure Pinto could “carry on electioneering ... with the assistance of the poster.”
----- EXCERPT: ------- EXTENDED BODY: -------- KEYWORDS: Culture of life -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 5/25/2003 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: May 25-31, 2003 ----- BODY:Most parents – 71% – say they have been shocked or offended by something they saw on TV during the past year. A strong majority (65%) say the shows that air on the major networks between 8 and 10 p.m. are inappropriate for children. (Only 19% said prime-time fare is fine for the whole family; another 15% said they didn't know enough to say.) Yet half of America's kids have a television of their own in their bedroom (58% of 13- to 17-year-olds, 50% of 10- to 12-year-olds and 40% of 5- to 9-year-olds).
Source: Public Agenda. Register illustration by Tim Rauch.
----- EXCERPT: THE TV TRANCE ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News --------