With the Register's Guide to the Rosary, readers can enter into the Rosary the way Pope John Paul II suggested during the Year of the Rosary.
There's no better time renew your dedication to the prayer aid than during October, Month of the Rosary. (Oct. 7 would be particularly apropos: It's the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.)
There's no better time renew your dedication to the prayer aid than during October, Month of the Rosary. (Oct. 7 would be particularly apropos: It's the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.)
Think of the Glorious Mysteries as a trip to heaven with your family — or on your own. Following the Pope's suggestions, Scripture describes God's wonders, dramatic art helps the imagination soar, and an added clause in each Hail Mary and new closing prayers remind you what you'll need to make your visit to heaven more permanent.
The following is quoted verbatim from the booklet's Glorious Mysteries. To get all the mysteries, including the new Luminous Mysteries, in a 48-page pocket-sized full-color booklet, call Vivian at (800) 356-9916, ext. 3809.
The First Glorious Mystery
The Resurrection
Jesus rises from the dead three days after his crucifixion.
Additional clause
… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who rose from the dead for us.
Scripture reading
Matthew 28:1-8
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.” Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples.
Points for meditation and imitation
— Christ's resurrection is a real event that was historically verified (CCC, 639).
— The faith of the first Christians in the Resurrection was based on the witness of concrete men living among them. Paul speaks clearly of more than 500 to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion (CCC, 642).
— Even when faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so impossible did the thing seem. The hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles’ credulity will not hold up (CCC, 644).
— “Mary must have had an intense experience of the new life of her glorified Son (Pope John Paul II, Rosary, 23).
— Risen, Jesus can be touched. He eats. Yet his risen body is not limited by space and time — Christ's resurrection was not a return to earthly life (CCC, No. 646).
— Do I think of the Resurrection like a fairy tale? If it isn't literally true, Christianity is wicked — the cross without redemption.
— The women who visited the tomb were so filled with joy, they ran to tell the others. My encounter with Christ should be that real.
— Christ's appearance on the road to Emmaus is like Mass. He tells the disciples about the Scriptures, breaks bread, then disappears. The message: We must seek him in the Eucharist.
— Christ, risen, still bears his wounds. You can't have Christ without the crucifix.
— Sunday is the feast of the Resurrection, the Lord's day. How do I make it holy?
Concluding prayer
Pray for us, Mary, gate of heaven, that faith in the risen Christ will drive out our cowardice.
The Second Glorious Mystery
The Ascension
Forty Days after rising from the dead, Christ ascends into heaven.
Additional clause
… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who ascended into heaven.
Scripture reading
Acts 1:8-11
Jesus said to them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
Points for meditation and imitation
— “Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory … where he is seated from that time forward at God's right hand” (CCC, 659).
— Before the Ascension, Christ was to be found on earth, always in one place. Now we can find him anywhere.
— “Only the one who ‘came from the Father’ can return to the Father: Christ Jesus” (CCC, 661).
— By telling the apostles to convert the nations and then departing, Christ's message was obvious: We are to do his work now.
— We can imagine that Mary would have told the apostles to “do whatever he tells you” after Jesus’ ascension, when she joined them in awaiting the Holy Spirit (Rosary, 14).
— “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.” We can have great confidence that, with Christ, we are on the winning team.
— All authority has been given to Christ. That means over every aspect of my life.
— Christ is with us always … in the Eucharist. He needs my arms, my legs, my tongue to spread his message.
— Some of the apostles hesitated. Am I a hesitant apostle?
— “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Christianity isn't stargazing — it's serving, praying, and acting in this world.
— We have faith, even though Christ is covered in clouds. We have hope, because we know all authority is his. We have love, because he has entrusted us with so much.
— Christ will return in the same way. Am I ready?
Concluding prayer
Pray for us, Mary, gate of heaven, as we fulfill Christ's command to evangelize.
The Third Glorious Mystery
The descent of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit Ddescends on Mary and the Apsotles
Additional clause
… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, pouring forth his Holy Spirit.
Scripture reading
Acts 2:1-6, 38-41
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Points for meditation and imitation
— On that Pentecost, the Holy Trinity is fully revealed (CCC, 732).
— The Bible itself says that only a small portion of Christ's teaching is contained in it. The rest is given to the Church through the Holy Spirit.
— “By his coming, which never ceases, the Holy Spirit causes the world to enter into the ‘last days,’ the time of the Church” (CCC, 732).
— “Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven and adopted as children, given confidence to call God ‘Father’ and to share in Christ's grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory” (CCC, 736).
— Christ is a teacher, model, savior. The Holy Spirit is our animating principle, our partner.
— “The fruit of the Spirit: … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (CCC, 736).
— The Holy Spirit turned the cowardly apostles into world-conquerors. He will transform me, too.
— All heard the apostles in their own language. The Holy Spirit can help me overcome interpersonal difficulties I have.
— The Holy Spirit was poured out on me at confirmation. Have I squandered this great gift? Or learned to use it?
— We know the Holy Spirit: in the Scriptures he inspired, in the Tradition, in the Church's magisterium, in the sacramental liturgy, in prayer, in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up, in apostolic and missionary life, in the witness of saints (CCC, 688).
Concluding prayer
Pray for us, Mary, gate of heaven, that we allow the Holy Spirit to overcome us.
The Fourth Glorious Mystery
The Assumption
At the end of her life, Mary is taken body and soul into heaven.
Additional clause
… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who assumed you into heaven.
Scripture reading
Revelation 12:1, 13-14
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. When the dragon [the rebellious angel, the devil] saw that it had been thrown down to the earth, it pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she was taken care of.
Points for meditation and imitation
— “The Most Blessed Virgin Mary, when the course of her earthly life was completed, was taken up body and soul into the glory of heaven” (CCC, 974).
— In heaven, Mary “already shares in the glory of her Son's resurrection, anticipating the resurrection of all members of his body” (CCC, 974).
— In the Church's prayers to Mary we “magnify” the Lord for the “great things” he did for his lowly servant and through her for all human beings (CCC, 2675).
— The Mother of Jesus, “in the glory which she possesses in body and soul in heaven, is the image and beginning of the Church as it is to be perfected in the world to come” (CCC, 972).
— “What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ” (CCC, 487).
— Mary was, “from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin” (CCC, 487).
— “To become the mother of the Savior, Mary was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role” (CCC, 490).
— Mary “shines forth on earth until the day of the Lord shall come, a sign of certain hope and comfort to the pilgrim people of God” (CCC, 972).
— We are told that God has prepared a “mansion” for us in heaven — our “dream house” — in a place of joy with no sufferings or tears.
— Without the reality of heaven, our call to the cross would be an abomination. I should make heaven my hope.
Concluding prayer
Pray for us, Mary, gate of heaven, that we will follow you to heaven, bringing others with us.
The fifth Glorious Mysteries
The Coronation
Mary is crowned queen of Heaven and earth.
Additional clause
… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, who crowned you queen of heaven and earth.
Scripture reading
Revelation 12:1-3, 4-5
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and 10 horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.
Points for meditation and imitation
— “Since the fifth century, Christians have given Mary the title of queen in acknowledgment of her sublime dignity as the mother of God” (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, June 1997).
— Christians call Mary our queen also because of “her importance in the life of the Church and in the lives of individuals” (General Audience, 1997).
— The Second Vatican Council teaches that Mary “has been exalted by the Lord as queen of all, in order that she might be more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords” (Lumen Gentium, 59).
— “Crowned in glory — as she appears in the last glorious mystery — Mary shines forth as queen of the angels and saints” (Rosary, 23).
— Mary is “the anticipation and the supreme realization of the heavenly state of the Church” (Rosary, 23).
— “As the queen who reigns in the glory of God's Kingdom, Mary remains close to us at every step of our earthly pilgrimage, supporting us in our trials and sharing with us the life and love of Jesus her Son” (Pope John Paul II, June 1997).
— “We believe that the Holy Mother of God, the new Eve, Mother of the Church, continues in heaven to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ” (Pope Paul VI, Credo of the People of God).
— The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person ‘in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’” (CCC, 492).
— By calling her our queen, the Church teaches us that we can put enormous faith in Mary's ability to intercede for us.
— If Mary is my queen, she is queen of all aspects of my life; not just my religious life, but my social life, work life, home life — and private life as well.
Concluding prayer
Pray for us, Mary, gate of heaven, for your intercession is powerful and we are greatly in need.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: To Deliver Hope, Catholic World Mission Teams With Youth DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:SLIDELL, La. — Hurricane Katrina left behind a trail of destruction — and a trail of gratitude and spiritual lessons.
When the National Catholic Register teamed with Catholic World Mission to provide material and spiritual assistance to Hurricane Katrina survivors, thousands of readers responded.
Catholic World Mission has already begun rebuilding the families and the faith of hurricane survivors. Some examples occurred on a recent weekend in Slidell, a small town in Louisiana, about two hours away from Baton Rouge. Several weeks after the Category 4 storm battered the Gulf Coast, the town was still picking up the pieces, including St. Margaret Mary Church.
The hurricane had ripped away about 40% of the parish school's roof. It peeled away the metal roof of the church, exposing the tar paper underneath and causing some moisture damage inside.
The school, though, was the main concern. Classrooms, books, computers and supplies suffered damage, said Father Lanaux Rareshide, pastor. Though the teachers, principal and other members of the parish were helping to move what was salvageable and set up makeshift classrooms, Father Rareshide said more help was needed.
And that help did arrive.
Catholic World Mission pledged money to Youth for the Third Millennium to help in Katrina's aftermath. When Tony MacDonnell, the national missions coordinator for Youth for the Third Millennium, heard from a priest friend that the area in and around Slidell had been hit hard, he organized a group of 21 members from Louisiana State University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to come down on a recent Saturday to help clear debris.
Youth for the Third Millennium was founded by the Legionaries of Christ in 1994 as a way to provide opportunities for youths and young adults to share their faith with others. In different missions he has led for for the organization, MacDonnell has done door-to-door evangelization and led Bible camps. But this project was different, he said.
“It's much more a physical type of evangelization by your personal witness of being there and helping the others because it's a common cause you're involved with,” MacDonnell said.
He said he recalled something Pope John Paul II said — “Man finds himself in the sincere gift of self” — that he thought was applicable in the type of help the members were offering.
“I wasn't going there to help people because there is humanitarian aid that needs to be taken care of,” MacDonnell said. “I was going there because it was an opportunity to share myself with others. And, primarily, because I organize missions, to get other young people to have that opportunity. Because what I've seen over the years, when they have this opportunity to give of themselves, that's where they become closer to Christ.”
Shell-Shocked
As a senior at Louisiana State, Brandon Charpentier saw the results of the devastation in the shell-shocked faces of the evacuees who arrived on campus, often by helicopter. His school shut down, as many students helped where they could until the more experienced disaster responders arrived, he said.
He added that as a member of Youth for the Third Millennium, he felt called to help the evacuees on campus and to make the two-hour drive from his school to Slidell since they were all his neighbors.
He said he prayed diligently as the hurricane was hitting land, but after it left, he got so busy helping out on campus, with little sleep, that his prayer life “disintegrated.”
“There was so much external activity that my interior eye, so to speak, was blinded,” said Charpentier, 23, a psychology major. “If we don't maintain that prayer life, or that interior focus on the cross, we will break down.”
Another of the volunteers who came to assist St. Margaret Mary Church was the Vicari family, from Folsom, about 30 miles away. Their home was not damaged, though they were without electricity for about two weeks. Their church in Covington was not damaged, either. The worst their area suffered was tree devastation.
“We had thousands and thousands and thousands of trees completely uprooted and demolished,” said Kelly Vicari, 40, who was helping out at St. Margaret Mary during the hot, sunny day with her husband and four children, who range in age from 18 months to 12 years old. “It's devastating what a tree looks like nowadays in our area.”
She said she and her family decided to drive to the church, which they had never heard of before, to help out because “of the gift of being fortunate.”
Though many trees had been uprooted on her property, none had damaged her home.
“We felt really truly blessed, and we felt because God spared our home he expected from us and expected us to help others since we didn't need the catastrophic help that these people need,” she said.
Center of the Storm
She said the hurricane has brought them closer together — with prayer being the “center” of their day.
“It truly got us through it,” she said.
They had been helping others in their town with the recovery effort, but felt called to help elsewhere, something she said they will be doing in other towns in the weeks ahead.
She said the storm has been a blessing in many ways for her family.
“Being here, together, united in Christ,” she said. “Some people thought we should leave our children with someone. But we wanted them to share in this devastation. This is life. This is what we have been given in this area of the world. We have, spiritually, grown tremendously in the community aspect, too. It's so easy for people to say, ‘God just saved us. Praise God.’ Every day, you don't get people talking like that in the grocery store. His name is heard so much more now. That is truly inspiring.”
Carlos Briceño is based in Seminole, Florida.
Lost in the Storm, They Found Solace in God
Tell me about your experience evacuating New Orleans.
When you live in New Orleans, hurricanes come along a lot. My husband, who has always lived in our house, would never leave. He was born and raised in this house. On the Friday before, we saw the news and saw that New Orleans was projected to be hit. For the last two storms, I was the one family member responsible for a 99-year-old aunt. She lived by herself in an apartment complex nearby. So this time, I made plans to go to Birmingham with my aunt, my sister, her husband and his 93-year-old mother. My husband stayed behind.
We lodged near EWTN and went to Mass every day. It was a great spiritual experience — even though I was worried about my husband. It helps to be close to Christ in the Eucharist.
Where you able to communicate with your husband?
Yes. We had communication on and off. All my kids were trying to call him and convince him to leave, but he wouldn't. We were able to talk to him through Tuesday night [after Katrina hit]. On Tuesday night, he said that there was water in the basement, and he was going to bring our Oriental rug upstairs. By 11 p.m., the lines were out. On Wednesday, we couldn't talk to him at all.
What were you doing in the meantime?
Well, my brother-in-law's mother had to go to the hospital, and then my aunt had to go to the emergency room. We also tried to find them permanent homes in the area.
Were you able to contact all your family members?
The Holy Spirit was very good to us — because all of us were in contact, though not 100% of the time.
What happened to your husband?
By Friday, I got a call from a neighbor, who also had her husband in the city. He was the director of a nursing home. He asked his wife to call me and let me know he would do everything possible, even use force, to get my husband out. I also have a nephew who is a New Orleans police officer. He stayed behind to defend the city against looting and violence. I kept leaving messages for him to get my husband.
When did they reach your husband?
On Saturday, my neighbor went by canoe to our house. By this time, my husband began to think it was time to go.
The generator had run out of gas, there was little food and water, and the natural gas had been turned off. He also saw a rat on the front porch. Then one of our two cats attacked him as he tried to get them in their cages.
Around the same time, my nephew arrived. He had secured a friend with a Hummer near by. He brought my husband by boat to the car, and someone was waiting to drive him to Baton Rouge.
How were you reunited?
My husband got to Baton Rouge with the two cats. He soon realized he needed to find a home for these cats — so by chance he walked across the street and knocked on a neighbor's door to ask if they would take them in. When the door opened, it happened to be a man who used to be our next door neighbor for years down in New Orleans.
His name was David Hill, now a doctor. He gave my husband antibiotics and his wife found a home for our cats. Then they used the internet to find my hotel in Birmingham. They called me and we formulated a plan to meet in Jackson, Miss. We reunited at the Ramada Hotel, off of Exit 52.
How did this experience affect your faith and that of your husband's?
This was a cause for his deeper conversion. When he was in the house alone he spent a lot of time looking at a picture of our three daughters and a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Now, he has been praying the Rosary with me every night — something he never did before. As for me, this has also deepened my faith. Father Angelus [Shaughnessy of EWTN] would say during Mass to praise God in all things because this is his will. It is difficult to think of all the things I have lost — but it forces you to have deeper trust.
What are your plans now?
We are staying in a house on the border of Tennessee and Georgia. It's a friend's house. We are enjoying being together. We can't go back to New Orleans, so we may go visit our daughters up North. We think we still have jobs. My husband was a chemist in a part of the city which wasn't flooded, and I worked with my brother-in-law selling remodeled kitchens.
We don't know where we will live. And my husband can't get in touch with anyone from work.
The Register checked back with Madeline and Jean Torre Sept. 22. They discussed their plans to return to New Orleans.
What have you been doing since meeting up with your husband in Jackson?
We drove up to Virginia to visit our daughter Adele, and from there we went to visit the rest of our daughters. We flew up to Boston and stayed with our married daughter in Newburyport, Mass. From there we drove to Wakefield, R.I., where we have a consecrated daughter. She works at Immaculate Conception Academy — a boarding school for high school girls who are open to vocations. We were well hosted there. The girls had a campaign going on: They were praying and sacrificing very hard for all the hurricane's victims. They entertained us with a choir. We just flew back to Arlington, Va., where we will stay a few nights. Then we will slowly drive back down to New Orleans.
What material possessions do you have right now?
All we are sure about is the clothes on our backs and our car. Our other two cars are under water and we don't really know what happened to our house.
How does all this uncertainty make you feel?
I can't pinpoint it. We have to accept God's will. I might cry a lot if we discover that we've lost everything. But we have lots of options. People have offered us so much already. One girl in Arlington is in Iraq — she offered us her condo. In Newburyport, another person offered us an apartment for free for two months. On Lookout Mountain, Ga., we have a place to stay indefinitely. My sister, who lived on the outskirts of New Orleans, has offered us to stay in the guest area of her house. I'm not concerned about the immediate future. What we don't know about is the long term.
Mr. Torre, how has this experience affected you?
Well, we had flood and home insurance. The storm was not as bad as it seemed. The morning after, there was not too much damage. All was well until Tuesday, when the levees broke. That was the only frightening thing for me — to see water coming down the street. It was like watching a science-fiction movie. A close friend of mine lost his house and other properties. Another friend also lost his house. We just had flooding in the basement, so we are on “Easy Street” compared to others.
And how has this affected your faith?
It has strengthened it. I started saying the Rosary again. When I was alone in the house, there was no electricity, no air conditioning. By 7:30 at night, it would get very dark. I would say the Rosary to calm me down. It will take a long time for New Orleans to get back on her feet — bring people back, get them jobs and stabilize the economy. It will be a different kind of Christmas this year. All we can do is pray. Hurricane season will be over on Nov. 1 — which is appropriate enough — because it's All Saints’ Day.
Mrs. Torre, what happened with your 99-year-old aunt?
My aunt passed away on Sept. 12. I was not there because I was traveling. But my sister, brother-in-law and niece were with her. They prayed all night by her bedside. While we were still in Birmingham, she had the presence of mind to ask for a priest. She had the anointing of the sick, confession and Communion. We then moved her to a nursing home in Mobile. From there her health worsened. She went to the emergency room with pneumonia on a Sunday, and passed away the next morning. She was a very holy woman. She had specific ideas about her funeral — she wanted to have the Mass in her own parish and be buried in our family plot. Both are under water right now. We had Masses in Mobile, Boston and New Hampshire. Her body is in a mortuary. We'll wait until the water goes down, and one day, carry out her requests. We know she's praying for us right now, talking to Jesus, and we need her.
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes from Jersey City, New Jersey.
Information
The National Catholic Register is teaming with Catholic World Mission to bring help and hope to hurricane victims. Thanks to the thousands who responded to the Register's request for help. Hurricane Rita ensures that your help is still needed.
Register Reader Response
Catholic World Mission
Hamden, CT 06514
(203) 848-3324
ncRegister.com
CatholicWorldMission.org
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carlos Briceņo ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Catholic History
WSJONLINE.COM Sept. 19 — “Washington sits on a substratum of Catholic conservatism,” explained Howard Fineman in a recent edition of Newsweek. “It goes back to Georgetown University and pre-D.C. Maryland history.”
While disputing Fineman's larger point — that President Bush's selection of John Roberts, a Catholic, for chief justice was designed to please most Catholics — Manuel Miranda acknowledges the accuracy of the Georgetown reference:
“In 1789, in one of the earliest great examples of exploiting insider information, John Carroll, America's first Catholic bishop, founded America's first Catholic college, at the Potomac River port of Georgetown. This was just within the borders of what would soon be the new federal city of Washington.”
The bishop knew this because “his brother, Daniel, was one of the three commissioners assigned by Congress to recommend the location of the new nation's capital.”
New Bishop
Father Tartaglia, 54, has been rector of the Pontifical Scots College in Rome for the last year, following many years of work with seminarians in Scotland.
The Scotsman reported that “Father Philip is a self-proclaimed ‘orthodox Catholic,’ describing the Church's teachings on contraception, abortion and gay priests as ‘settled’ and unlikely to change.”
More History
THE COWL, Sept. 15 — A slightly less strategic vignette from the past is recounted in an article in the undergraduate newspaper that presents “random trivia” about the history of Providence University.
“Aquinas Hall was the first dorm built on campus in 1938, thanks in part to funding from an actress who would soon be a star in The Wizard of Oz.
“Judy Garland, in her pre-Dorothy days, sold autographs in front of Loew's State Theater to raise money for the Aquinas Building Fund.” Visiting campus afterwards, “she was presented with a bouquet of roses.”
Nice Fit
Daily Mass attendance by students “practically fills the chapel,” and undergraduates “have a really good grasp of the basics of their faith,” Father Powell told the undergraduate newspaper.
The university's “emphasis on Catholic culture, the fidelity to the magisterium, and academic level of the students made this a very easy choice for me.”
Jewish Studies
Although the first student who intends to sign up is Jewish, BC professors told the Globe they expect that the majority of the students and many of the teachers in the new Jewish Studies Program will be Christian. About 70% of BC's 8,900 undergraduates identify themselves as Catholic; about 1% say they are Jewish, reports the Globe.
Dwayne Carpenter, a professor of Romance languages and co-director of the program, told Globe religion reporter Michael Paulson, ‘‘The program responds to the post-Vatican II efforts on the part of the Catholic Church to integrate Jewish studies into Catholic university curricula.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Fighting For Faith In Secular Spain DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:MADRID, Spain — One Spanish Church official surprisingly believes conditions are ideal for Catholics in Spain.
But he doesn't mean the secularization and low Mass attendance numbers. And he doesn't mean the country's Socialist government implementing a raft of anti-Catholic initiatives.
“This is a very beautiful moment,” said Father Leopoldo Vives, the head of the secretariat on family and life for the Spanish Bishops Conference, because it's “an opportunity to teach people what we believe.”
“It's true that this isn't the Church of 20 years ago, but people are reacting, and their consciences are being formed. This, however, isn't enough,” Father Vives said. “The Church must teach the people so that they have a solid Christian base, so that Christian parents, in turn, teach their children.”
He added, “Parents must fight for their children. This isn't something that the bishops can do. This is something that parents must do.”
In a country where 90% of the Spanish population claims to be Catholic, the government says 60% of the population supported its recently passed same-sex “marriage” legislation. Press accounts routinely report only 30% of Spaniards regularly attend Mass.
Those numbers, says Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government, prove that the government not only has the broad support of Spaniards, but also reflect the Church's lack of relevance.
The Church's defenders counter the media coverage of the Church is often slanted.
“The Socialist Party has a large presence in the media, especially via Prisa, which controls 80% of the press,” Father Vives noted. The Spanish media company Prisa, which owns Spain's most-widely read newspapers and magazines, as well as the nation's only digital satellite television platform, is seen as being close to Socialist governments.
Homosexual ‘Families’
In June, Spain became the third European country to legalize homosexual “marriages.” Canada followed later in the month.
However, unlike the Netherlands and Belgium, in Spain homosexual couples can now apply to adopt children.
Since the law was passed, two judges have refused to perform same-sex “marriage” ceremonies on the grounds the law is unconstitutional, as the Spanish Constitution refers to marriage as between a man and a woman. They have appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court.
Despite widely-reported press accounts that up to 5,000 homosexual couples were prepared to marry immediately following the passage of the same-sex legislation, only 22 same-sex “marriages” have been performed in Spain since the law was passed, according to a Sept. 8 article in La Razón, a Spanish newspaper that contacted various Spanish marriage registries.
Spain's government has also pushed through legislation for fast-track divorces, and is rumored to be contemplating easing legislation governing abortion — although officially Socialist party members claim it isn't a priority.
The government is also expected to present a bill this month to permit therapeutic cloning, which involves the killing of a human life.
When asked why Catholic Spain has a government passing laws that flagrantly violate Church teachings, Father Josep Saranyana, a professor of history of theology at the University of Navarre, said many of the political leaders in the 55-70 age bracket have a common denominator: a lack in basic Catholic formation.
A form of pietism with no theological base, continued Father Saranyana, has influenced many of the current politicians.
Others lost their faith altogether.
Another problem is a widespread opinion that separation of Church and state means that the Church should play no part at all in political debates.
“The [opposition] fails to understand that separation of Church and State does not mean the negation of religion,” Father Saranyana said.
Radical Government?
Benigno Blanco is vice-president of the Spanish Forum of the Family and a former politician with the Partido Popular, which governed Spain before Zapatero's election victory last year.
Underlying the current Socialist ideology, Blanco argues, is a movement that seeks to liberate the public from “traditional values” and is being utilized by homosexual lobbyists and other activists to propagate a philosophy that man is nothing more than an animal.
That philosophy, says Blanco, logically affects the Socialist political platform in areas ranging from divorce to abortion.
“Spain is a laboratory of ideas,” said Blanco. “Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Socialist party — as all socialist parties — is seeking to redefine itself. The Spanish government has a radical plan that doesn't distinguish between economics and social issues.”
Blanco's Forum of the Family organized the massive June 18 pro-family march to protest the government's platform.
But two months after 1 million-plus demonstrators took to Madrid's streets, Blanco says Forum officials still haven't met with Socialist leaders, despite government promises.
“[Deputy Prime Minister] Fernandez de la Vega told us it was a problem with the agenda,” he said.
Some Church representatives believe that some of today's difficulties may be due to excessive Church involvement in Spanish politics in previous generations.
“In Spain, there is a great desire to return to the past,” said a Spanish Jesuit official, who asked to not be named. “We have a problem with respect to the definition of the relationship between the state and the Church, and where the Church mixes too much in the area of politics, and vice versa.”
Added the official, “The Church in Spain is too closely aligned with politics, and the Partido Popular.”
But according to other Church leaders, it's wrong to claim that the Church moves in lockstep with Spain's opposition political parties.
“It is the press that presents this view, that there is no difference between the PP [Partido Popular] and the Church,” said Father Vives. “We aren't aligned with the PP, nor do we want to be. This is propaganda.”
Still, in the face of all the current Church-state turmoil, Father Vives of the Spanish bishops’ office of family and life focuses on the Church's positive contribution to public life.
“I'd like to stress that there really is a very optimistic message here,” he said. “We must create an atmosphere to share the Church's message of love. We've a lot of work ahead, but we can do it.”
Robert Duncan writes from Madrid, Spain.
The Next Battle: Education
A pending revision of Spain's educational laws is the likely flashpoint for the next major Church-state conflict.
Now that the summer recess is over, Spain's Parliament will debate a recently announced education bill containing more than 1,800 amendments. No education association backs the bill.
While an education overhaul is needed — as reflected in a recent Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development report of 40 countries that said Spanish students are failing in mathematics, science and reading — the Socialist government's proposal also alters the character of religious education courses. Among other things, such courses would not be obligatory or graded.
“What the government says with respect to the religion courses is that they should not condition the future of students at the hour when they decide if they want to be doctors, gardeners, mathematicians or architects,” Spain's deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said at a press conference following the July 22 presentation of the education bill.
Another problem with the bill, according to Benigno Blanco, vice-president of the Spanish Forum of the Family, is that it could mean that only with the regional government's approval would a parent be allowed to change children's schooling.
He says his organization isn't ruling out demonstrations against the education bill, as well as proposed legislation governing embryonic research.
“Right now, one of the most concerning measures is that of religious education,” said Blanco.
Partido Popular, the main opposition party, has said it will present a proposal to amend the entire Socialist education bill.
Juan Antonio Martinez Campo, spokesman for the Spanish bishops, said in a press statement the responsibility of the bill rests solely upon the government's shoulders, “as there has been no dialogue or negotiation with anybody.”
The vice-president of the Spanish Bishops Conference, Archbishop Antonio Cañizares of Toledo, has reiterated pleas for the Socialist government to respect the Spanish Constitution and the 1979 agreements with the Holy See, guaranteeing religious education.
Legal analysts also suggest the education bill may violate Spain's Constitution.
“The Spanish state is aconfessional, but the public powers [in the Constitution] promise to take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and to cooperate with the Catholic Church and other religions,” said Daniel Tirapu, a canon lawyer and professor at the University of Jaen in southern Spain. “This is the complete framework with which religion must be treated in Spain.”
— Robert Duncan
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Duncan ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God Makes Headlines DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:EDITORIAL
God is popping up in the most unlikely places.
The confluence of several events made God a big topic of conversation in September.
The faith of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. was sharply questioned in a sort of reverse inquisition during his hearings before the Supreme Court. Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter wanted the judge to assure America that he wouldn't take his faith too seriously as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Roberts did his best to assuage him.
The movie the Exorcism of Emily Rose, a respectful film by an evangelical Christian director, put God and the devil in the spotlight. The Register's own publisher and editor-in-chief, Father Owen Kearns, was invited to appear on the Fox television show “Geraldo” to talk about how carefully the Church approaches claims of the demonic.
But Hurricane Katrina got God the most attention. Early on after the killer storm, a few columnists timidly questioned whether a harsh Mother Nature was compatible with a loving God. But soon a new kind of story overwhelmed the skeptics: the story of how much better Christians and Catholics had been in responding to the storm than the local, state and federal governments.
One of the most telling columns was one by “unrepentant atheist” Roy Hattersley, a British socialist. Here's what he wrote in London's The Guardian. It's worth quoting at length:
“The Salvation Army has been given a special status as provider-in-chief of American disaster relief. But its work is being augmented by all sorts of other groups. Almost all of them have a religious origin and character. Notable by their absence are teams from rationalist societies, free thinkers’ clubs and atheists’ associations — the sort of people who not only scoff at religion's intellectual absurdity but also regard it as a positive force for evil.
“The arguments against religion are well known and persuasive. … Yet men and women who believe that the Pope is the devil incarnate, or (conversely) regard his ex cathedra pronouncements as holy writ, are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others.
“Last week, a middle-ranking officer of the Salvation Army, who gave up a well-paid job to devote his life to the poor, attempted to convince me that homosexual [acts are] a mortal sin. Late at night, on the streets of one of our great cities, that man offers friendship as well as help to the most degraded and (to those of a censorious turn of mind) degenerate human beings who exist just outside the boundaries of our society. And he does what he believes to be his Christian duty without the slightest suggestion of disapproval. Yet, for much of his time, he is meeting needs that result from conduct he regards as intrinsically wicked. …
“The correlation is so clear that it is impossible to doubt that faith and charity go hand in hand. … Whatever the reason, believers answer the call, and not just the Salvation Army. When I was a local councilor, the Little Sisters of the Poor — right at the other end of the theological spectrum — did the weekly washing for women in [tenement] houses who were too ill to scrub for themselves.
“It ought to be possible to live a Christian life without being a Christian or, better still, to take Christianity à la carte. … Yet men and women who, like me, cannot accept the mysteries and the miracles do not go out with the Salvation Army at night.
“The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.”
It's a shame that Roy Hattersley never met St. Jerome. The great early Christian saint was a formidable scholar who translated the Bible into Latin. He had a reputation for being always at his books and for being a little rough around the edges.
However, when a natural disaster — some say it was an earthquake — displaced Holy Land families in his own day, St. Jerome left his books for more than a year, saying, “When brothers are in need, the vocation of every Christian is to serve.”
Register readers can relate to St. Jerome. Catholic World Mission reports that our partnership in “soul-aid” efforts to serve hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast was a huge success. Thousands of Register readers responded to the call to help.
God doesn't need the secular media to get his message to the world. But it's nice to see that, more and more, secular minds are seeing that they just might need God.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Think Smarts DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:FACTS OF LIFE
Doing a puzzle each day could help keep your brain in thinking shape well into old age. That's according to Dublin, Ireland, researchers who recently found that volunteers who did 10 hours of training sessions in problem-solving and memory techniques showed brain-power equivalent to people up to 14 years younger.
Source: Herald Sun (Australia), Sept. 5 Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Rosary Call for Cornhuskers DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Cold, wind and rain greeted prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp for the 6 a.m. roll call Oct. 7, 1944. Death came, too, guards dragging into line the corpses of prisoners who had died during the night.
Joining them, alive, was Prisoner No. 31200: Polish Army Chaplain Henry Denis.
As usual, the 34-year-old priest turned to a bit of heaven in that hell on earth, mentally praying the Rosary and doing his best to block out the surrounding atrocities.
As he did so, a guard barked out names and prisoner numbers. Deep in prayer, Father Denis heard nothing, failing to step forward when called.
It was a “crime” punishable by death. Yet, for the moment, it went unnoticed.
Father Denis joined a work detail outside the camp, where other priests told him of his mistake. Throughout the day he feared that when the numbers and names did not match the Nazis’ precise count upon return to camp that evening, he would be found out and exterminated.
The time of reckoning came and went, though. A fellow priest had died that day and the numbers matched.
Somehow, Father Denis had been spared.
“It was on that day,” he would write in his memoirs, “that I made a promise, a vow: If I ever leave the camp alive, I would express my gratitude by building for the Blessed Mother a little shrine.”
Fatima Fulfillment
Nearly 61 years later, I pull away from my home in placid Papillion, Neb., and begin a 250-mile drive west to see this “little shrine,” my two daughters in tow. Four hours later, we arrive in Arapahoe, Neb., a town of about 1,000 people near the Kansas border.
At the far end of town we come to 134-year-old St. Germanus Parish and the adjacent Our Lady of Fatima Shrine. Meeting us is lifelong parishioner Mary Graf, who sits on an overcast day to talk about Father Denis and his promise.
It isn't long before she slips into catechetics mode, turning to my girls and asking, “Do you know the story of Fatima?”
They know some of it; a framed picture hangs outside their bedroom depicting the Blessed Virgin's 1917 appearance to three young children in Portugal. There, as World War I raged, Mary urged prayer, penance and sacrifice.
The shrine here does the apparition greater justice than our faded print at home. Perched atop terra cotta bases of concrete are 13 white statues depicting the Fatima scene — Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta kneeling in prayer and facing Our Lady, head bowed and hands folded around a rosary. Four angels stand sentinel.
The shrine also includes nods to Father Denis’ homeland. One stone praises Casimir Pulaski, a Warsaw-born nobleman who fought under George Washington, dying during the siege of Savannah (in his honor Chicago children get off school the first Monday of March).
Another stone dedicated to Polish chaplains recalls Our Lady of Czestochowa.
All of it beckons to motorists zipping through town along U.S. Highway 6/34, bidding them to slow down in more ways than one. “It's a nice surprise,” says Graf. “It's always been a popular attraction.”
But how was it that this one-time parking lot became a spiritual stopover?
Diminishing Despair
Father Denis got the idea for a Fatima shrine after making his vow and finding himself near physical collapse and despair. Fellow priest and Dachau inmate Father Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Marian Schoenstatt Movement, encouraged the Pole, telling him he would survive as a witness to the world and to spread Fatima's message of peace.
Soon thereafter, on April 29, 1945, Dachau was liberated by the U.S. Army. Father Denis in 1949 immigrated to America and Nebraska's Diocese of Lincoln. He was assigned pastor of St. Germanus and soon began telling parishioners of the Fatima apparitions, recognized by the Church just 19 years prior.
He also spoke of Dachau, where 868 Polish priests died.
“They knew what was going on down at the crematorium,” Graf says. “And he said that when they had special holy days like Easter or something, then they killed more.”
Though built in rural Nebraska, the shrine became something of a worldwide project. Parishioners planted more than 100 cedar trees, bushes, roses and other plants. Their children collected rocks from the fields, bringing them in wagons.
Other rocks came from all but four of the 50 states and from Canada and Europe. The statues came from Italy. Much of the financing — about two-thirds, estimates Graf — also came from elsewhere. Father Denis published a newsletter, cultivating contacts with Poles throughout the country, especially in Chicago.
“He just begged everybody for money and help in this,” Graf says.
The shrine was dedicated in 1956 in honor of Mary's appearance, “with hope and prayer for peace.”
It's something of a lost message says Father Robert Barnhill, pastor of St. Germanus’ 48 families. Visitors too often see the shrine, he says, but don't ponder its meaning.
“My goal,” says the priest, “is to bring it back as a place of peace and prayer through our Lady of Fatima.”
Finding Freedom
Even the shrine itself went a bit wayward. The numerous greenery planted half a century ago became overgrown, obscuring the statues. Many of the original trees were removed and others pruned in 1998, making room for a 4-foot statue of Rachel weeping for her children (see Matthew 2:18) — a powerful pro-life statement in bronze.
Additional improvements came two years ago with nearly 700 plantings of perennials, shrubs, bulbs and ornamental trees. Mulch was laid for a pathway leading to four berms that eventually will mark meditation areas for each of the Rosary's mysteries. Future plans include an outdoor Stations of the Cross.
Special devotions for the shrine's 50th anniversary will take place next year during the 13th day of each month, May through October. Half a century later, Father Denis’ words somehow seem even more pertinent today.
“It is well to keep before us what can happen to people who lose freedom,” said Father Denis, who died in 1984, 23 years after leaving St. Germanus. “I pray every day this will not happen in beloved America.”
Anthony Flott writes from Papillion, Nebraska.
Planning Your Visit
The Fatima Shrine of Arapahoe, Neb., is open year-round. For more information (308) 697-3722. Masses are held at adjacent St. Germanus Church Thursdays, 8 a.m; second Sunday of the month, 11 a.m; all other Sundays, 9 a.m.
Getting There
The shrine is about a four-hour drive west from Eppley Airport in Omaha, Neb. It is on U.S. Highway 6 and 34. Take US-75 South toward Interstate 480. Merge onto Interstate 80 West; drive 196 miles. Take US-183 South for 17 miles, then turn right onto US-34/US-6 West; drive 32 miles. Fatima Shrine is four blocks west of US-283.
----- EXCERPT: Our Lady of Fatima Shrine, Arapahoe, Neb. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anthony Flott ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: A Nice Guy Finishes First - But What About the Film? DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:The story is remarkable enough in itself: In 1913, a 20-year-old caddie named Francis Ouimet, the son of French and Irish Catholic immigrants — aided by a brash, 10-year-old truant caddie named Eddie Lowry — stunned the world by besting British master Harry Varden and winning the U.S. Open.
Yet The Greatest Game Ever Played, starring Shia LaBeouf and directed by Bill Paxton from a screenplay by Mark Frost, adapting his own best-selling book, isn't just the true story of a dramatic championship playoff. It's also the story of a revolution in popular culture, and how a poor, unassuming youth helped democratize the most aristocratic of games, transforming golf from the exclusive domain of private clubs and wealthy elites to a popular middle-class pastime played on public courses.
“I think Francis was in many ways the Jackie Robinson of golf,” Frost recently told the Register at a Toronto press event. “He was the man who broke through that class barrier and created an interest at a national level that had never been there before. He landed on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and golf became a sport that was then accepted into the mainstream of sports culture, and in the years that followed has become a mainstream sport around the world.”
Yet Ouimet's dramatic story had long since fallen into obscurity — in part because Ouimet himself, a career-long amateur, never made much of his own success.
“Francis was so unfairly modest and humble as a person that he never talked about himself, and he never really tried to toot his own horn,” said Frost. “The thought of a 20-year-old unknown kid winning the U.S. Open today in a playoff against, say, Tiger [Woods] and Phil Mickelson, and who then refuses to exploit that opportunity commercially, or take a bunch of endorsement deals, is unthinkable. But that's the kind of person Francis was. He didn't think that was the right thing to do.”
Ironically, if Oumet's integrity was part of what led to his obscurity, it was also a big part of what drew Frost, Paxton and LaBeouf to tell his story.
“Francis — that was the whole appeal of the movie,” said LaBeouf, who plays Ouimet. “Golf was secondary. It could have been Frisbee. Francis was an amazing human being. … Francis was a man. Francis was honorable. Francis was a family man, he had integrity, he was respectful, he was shy. He wasn't the poster boy for any kind of sport you would ever think of.”
“Every day you're confronted with choices that could take you down one path or another,” said Frost. “And people who choose the good path can often seem kind of boring, but a guy like Francis Ouimet, who unfailingly followed that path, I found extremely heartwarming, and a great role model as a human being, because he was so kind to other people. Kindness is a quality that we don't see a lot in people.”
Frost's popular new book has revived interest in this inspiring story.
“Mark Frost wrote a great book,” said Paxton, “that brought these forgotten people back into the public consciousness, much like when Walter Hill published A Night to Remember back in 1955.”
Now Paxton's film stands poised to raise the story's profile even higher — if anyone sees it. But the filmmakers know they have a challenge: Golf doesn't have the box-office cachet that other sports do. As LaBeouf bluntly put it: “A lot of people don't like this sport.”
That's why the filmmakers knew they needed to do something different. Commented Frost: “I realized, having seen a bunch of real boring golf movies, that you can't shoot a golf film like you do golf coverage on television. … You follow the flight of the ball, you watch it land, and you watch it stop rolling — that's fine for sports coverage, but it's deadly dull in a film. There was a film about Bobby Jones last year (Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, starring James Caviezel) that was a very reverent golf-based movie that had a lot of that kind of coverage in it, and nobody went to see it. And I think that may have been one of the reasons.”
If the filmmakers wanted to do something different, they succeeded. Paxton and cinematographer Shane Hurlbut bring an impressive bag of tricks to bear in making The Greatest Game visually and psychologically compelling in ways you would never expect of a golf movie.
In truth, much of the film does resemble a generically manipulative Disney film, from disapproving fathers to Eddie Lowry, the tough-talking young caddie. The catch here is that in this story the clichés are apparently all true.
Also, despite the emphasis on the film not being “a golf movie,” LaBeouf and Frost both commented on the extent to which this game in particular tests the character.
“It really tests your character in very strong and powerful ways. And I think it's a great developer of character, myself. I think it taught me to be patient, and it taught me a kind of emotional resiliency I might not have had otherwise. It taught me how to be self-reliant in ways that no other sport had, because you can't depend on anybody else.”
“You sit there and watch these guys who have these six-inch putts to make,” said LaBeouf. “And if they make the putt, their life is changing for the better, everything's great. And they wind up missing the putt. They don't scream. They don't pull a Jeremy Shockey and go crazy and punch a wall. They take their hat off, they smile at the audience, they wave, they put their hat back on. That's a cowboy, that's not a golfer.”
This is the way Paxton speaks of the film, too. “I wanted to create these moments like he's the cowboy who's never been in a gunfight,” the director says, “or the knight who's never been through the tournament or battle.”
Then again, Westerns don't sell so well these days either. As well done as it is, will audiences show up for Greatest Game?
“If the movie could just speak for itself, it'd be on fire,” said LaBeouf. “The truth is that America doesn't always support quality or good film.”
Still, he's optimistic. “We're going to be out for a long time. It'll be the same type of grass-roots thing that Holes had.”
I hope so.
Steven D. Greydanus is editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com.
----- EXCERPT: Bill Paxton and Co. are hopeful about The Greatest Game Ever Played ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: After Years of Priests Shortages, Some Finding Ways to Encourage Men DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:DETROIT — On his road to the seminary, Denis Heames made some of the same stops that other men do — though not many pass through Hollywood.
This fall, Heames is in his second year of theological studies at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.
Raised in Arizona in a strong Catholic family with eight siblings, Heames received his first “call” to the priesthood at age 6 during the consecration at Mass. Like many others who become interested in the priesthood at a young age, he followed other pursuits as he became older.
He ended up in Hollywood to follow an acting career.
“I was doing okay for just getting started, but it was there that I hit the wall as to what I really believed,” Heames said. “The prevailing attitude in Hollywood was, ‘Whatever works for you.’ However, because of my upbringing, I wanted truth. That hunger led me back to the Catholic faith.”
Leaving Hollywood, Heames went to live at Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, to explore the question of God's relevance in his life and in society. Madonna House is a community of about 200 lay persons and priests, founded in 1947 by Catherine de Hueck Doherty. It was here, in an environment where the priesthood is honored, that he rediscovered the reality of both the Eucharist and the priesthood. His call was reawakened.
He entered Holy Apostles in Cromwell, Conn., a seminary for older men, in August, 2004, where he met Bishop Robert Carlson.
“I heard him, in a talk, give a courageous, challenging call to be men of Christ,” Heames recalled. “His articulation of the priesthood and his ability to be a spiritual father, led me to enter the seminary for his diocese of Sioux Falls, S.D.”
It also led him to follow Bishop Carlson when he became bishop of Saginaw, Mich.
It is this type of connection with a priest that is a huge factor in leading to vocations, according to Father Edward Burns, executive director of the Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Our surveys indicate that 78% of the men being ordained to the priesthood in 2003 had received an invitation from a priest,” he said.
It is one of several ways that are emerging as successful strategies in dealing with a long-standing priest shortage.
Another way the priest plays an important part in vocations, Father Burns pointed out, referring to Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, is in placing the Eucharist at the center of his life and ministry, in his example of fervent pastoral charity, and in encouraging boys and young men to be involved in the liturgy.
Church Service
Again, according to surveys, Father Burns said that 65% of the priests ordained in 2003 had been extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist; 73% were altar boys; and 68% were lectors.
“Many of our future priests are right in front of us, and their service has demonstrated the desire to serve the Church,” he said.
Besides Heames, Bishop Carlson has been successful in helping many others to discern their calling. In the past decade as the bishop of Sioux Falls, Bishop Carlson ordained 28 men. One of the charges he received when he was appointed bishop of Saginaw in February was to increase vocations. He named himself as vocation director, and now has nine men entering seminary this fall, and two more in the winter semester.
One effective tool, according to Bishop Carlson, has been Operation Andrew, a program begun by the U.S. bishops’ conference in 1994 whereby priests (and others) invite men to dinner in order to get to know priests and hear their witness of the priestly life. He sometimes speaks at the dinners himself, as do seminarians.
The bishop asks his priests to talk about the priesthood in their homilies in order to promote a culture of vocations in the parish, and on occasion has seminarians tell their story after Mass. He wants parishes to have a bulletin board set up with pictures and short biographies of seminarians so that parishioners know who they are and can pray for them.
Bishop Carlson says his emphasis is not on recruitment, because then he might get in the way of God's work in the person's life. Rather, it is on helping men to discern their call.
“All of us need to stay out of the way of God,” he said. “And a priest has to be willing to be a spiritual father to the men, to walk with them and be a good listener in the discernment process.”
Bishop Carlson said he carries through on that by staying in touch with his seminarians and with the rector and faculty of the seminary.
Praying for Open Ears
Staying out of God's way is something Father George Rutler emphasizes as well. Father Rutler, a regular on Eternal Word Television Network, was cited by papal biographer George Weigel in a newspaper column earlier this year for his success in engendering priestly vocations. The Church of Our Saviour in New York had none before he became pastor four years ago, and now it has had several.
Father Rutler emphasized that “vocations come from God, not from what we do to make them happen.”
“God is vocal. We need to pray for the healing of the deafness of the men he is calling,” he said. “God doesn't have laryngitis. Sometimes the pride of fallen nature can block the hearing.”
In addition, the Church has to be faithful to the care of souls, he said.
“If the liturgy is done correctly, if there are times for daily confession, if Eucharistic adoration has a place — in other words, if the parish and the Church are being what they are meant to be, then vocations will follow,” Father Rutler said.
Our Saviour has a statue of St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests, before which parishioners can pray for vocations. Father Rutler also asks those who come to confession to pray for vocations.
He contends, however, that a big source of vocations in America is EWTN, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary.
“By watching that station, so many people come into contact with, and are influenced by, a priest,” he said. “And when they see there how the Church is being contradicted by bad ideas, then good young men stand up.”
As Heames related, from his own experience, “When we in the Church value vocations as highly as we value careers in law, medicine or entertainment, then young men will choose them.”
Bob Horning is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Bob Horning ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Bring Them Jesus' - Cardinal Focuses on the Real Presence DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Cardinal William Keeler will be watching Rome's October Eucharistic Synod carefully.
He believes Pope John Paul II ignited a Catholic resurgence when he declared the Year of the Eucharist.
Cardinal Keeler, the archbishop of Baltimore, longs for a day when most Catholics return to Sunday Mass and understand that Jesus is fully present in the Eucharist.
To promote the Eucharist the cardinal proposed the just-released book titled Real People, Real Presence: Ordinary Catholics on the Extraordinary Power of the Eucharist. Written by the faithful of his flock, Cardinal Keeler said the book may change lives. He spoke from Baltimore with Register correspondent Wayne Laugesen.
How did this book come about, and how much of it did you write?
I didn't write anything, other than the introduction. Ordinary people from the archdiocese wrote it. What inspired it was the Year of the Eucharist. It was the idea of a person on my staff — Tom Sonni, director of development for the archdiocese — and I instantly said this is a great idea and we should make use of it. I thought it was something that would lift up the Blessed Sacrament in a blessed way.
At what point did you come to understand that the Eucharist is Jesus?
About the time of my first Communion, I think. I knew it was a special food, and I knew it was life-giving. But there was gradual growth and appreciation. In my own introduction, I talk about how deeply impressed I was by Pope John Paul II whenever we visited him in Rome. After a meal he would go into the chapel and pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament. He would kneel there, and those of us who were his guests for lunch or supper would kneel as well. I had this sense that we were at the center of the universe, very close to God.
When he came here to Baltimore [1995], and he made the Sign of the Cross at Camden Yards, it seems to me that in an instant he changed that sports stadium into an outdoor cathedral. The people were so attentive, so responsive, so much drawn into the prayer of the moment. The producer for the TV coverage that day was Jewish, and she said she had never seen people more visibly affected than what she saw at that Mass. So when the suggestion was made to publish stories of the Eucharist, I thought immediately of the Holy Father's devotion to the Eucharist.
You mentioned your first Communion. What did it feel like when you received for the first time?
I don't have detailed memories, but I do remember feeling that it was a very special moment and I think the celebration that surrounded it helped to make it a very special time.
What are some stories that immediately come to mind when I mention the book
This one grandmother wrote about her ministry with the sick and the homebound, and how the Eucharist affects them. She talks about a homebound woman who says, “I love you, because you bring me Jesus.” She writes about members of a nursing home, in varying stages of dementia. Some don't remember their own names, yet they utter the familiar responses when praying the rote prayers of the Eucharist. After receiving the sacrament they are able to thank God for the blessing. She writes about the reverence of an old woman who insists upon being properly dressed and brushed before receiving God.
Were you surprised by the stories that came in?
I was happily surprised, because they were so deep.
How did you solicit these stories?
We advertised in parish bulletins and in our weekly newspaper, The Catholic Review. We received many more stories than could go in the book, so we had to select and choose and we tried to put the most moving stories into the book.
We've all seen the surveys that say a vast majority of Catholics believe the Eucharist is symbolic. Do you think it's true that so many Catholics think that way?
I don't think it's true of people who come to church regularly, and a lot of it depends on how the question is put. When I see the silence and respect that I see in church, especially surrounding consecration and at the time of Communion, it's obvious that people understand the Real Presence. There's enormous silence, and respect, and reverence. People who don't come to church, those who have been educated by the media, have a different take and that's just one of the challenges we face today.
It seems most in the media don't understand the Real Presence at all. Why is that?
That's absolutely true. I really don't know. I was interviewed a number of times in Rome during the conclave, and I remember a reporter from CNN citing surveys about this topic. I said the surveys show that people are giving back to you what they have gotten from you. Because so many people don't attend Mass, we have a great number of Catholics learning about their faith from the media. They're learning from the same media that missed entirely the way in which Pope John Paul II connected with young people, and the effect that connection will have on the world. That connection has not been reported adequately.
The mainstream media say he connected, mysteriously, in the way a rock star connects. Have you heard that?
Yes, but there was a spiritual element to it and that did not get reported. I was in Denver [1992], and I saw the difference between the way some major political figures were received by the crowd and the way the Holy Father was received. It was an explosion of love by the crowd that's just hard to describe.
What do you think explains this special connection?
Faith. People saw that he was the successor of the Apostle Peter.
What will be the ultimate effect of John Paul II declaring the Year of Eucharist?
There's no question that the Year of the Eucharist has already had a deepening effect — causing people to reflect upon what the Eucharist means in our lives. That's a great gift, I believe.
Will the Year of the Eucharist possibly reverse the widespread notion that the Eucharist is symbolic?
I believe it could. But right now, many of our young people are missing formation. They're not even getting adequate information in preparation for their first Communion. There is a lot of work to be done.
So you think a lot of kids are taking first Communion who don't fully understand what it is?
They don't fully understand and we can pray they're going to understand better as time goes on.
What can we do from a practical standpoint?
We just have to keep trying. Here in Baltimore, each year some 7,000 to 8,000 young people of high school age go through retreat programs. They come out just as excited about the faith as what you see at World Youth Day. I think the more of that kind of thing we can have in all parts of our world, the better off we'll be.
What do you think Pope Benedict XVI will do for the Eucharist?
He's going to give us a good example. When our young people went to World Youth Day in Paris, I suggested we spend time in front of the Sacrament simply praying and adoring, and we did a lot of that. We did it again this year, and every year in Baltimore on the Palm Sunday vigil we have a procession through the streets. This year we added adoration. Progress can be made.
Wayne Laugesen writes from Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Rainy-Day Savings DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:FAMILY MATTERS
Do you have any suggestions that would help us do a better job of saving money for future needs? We live day to day and never seem to be able to set money aside for those “emergencies” that always seem to arise.
Because families live on the edge financially, lack of savings is one of the most common problems noted in our counseling. See if you can relate to any of the following situations:
The transmission on your car wears out and you don't have the $1,500 needed to have it replaced. A child has to be hospitalized unexpectedly for a few days and even though your health insurance covers most of it, the $1,000 co-pay requirement is too much for your checkbook. Your 15-year-old washer finally breaks down but you can't afford to pay cash for a new one.
In each of these situations, the family thinks of these expenditures as surprises and never sets aside the money to pay for them ahead of time. Unfortunately, most will pay for these with their credit cards, beginning a cycle of increasing debt and financial bondage.
In reality, we know that things like this are going to happen at some point and we should plan appropriately. By learning to save a portion of your resources to cover these and other future costs, you'll go a long way toward staying out of financial bondage and remaining debt free.
The first step to take in order to be able to save is to make the decision to live within your means. The Catechism reminds us that “our thirst for another's goods is immense, infinite, never quenched” (No. 2536). It's this insatiable appetite for things that makes it so difficult to save for a rainy day. We would do well to heed the advice given in Proverbs 6:6-8, which says: “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer or ruler, she prepares her food in summer, and gathers her sustenance in harvest.” Do you see how the ant prepares for the future by setting aside a portion of the resources it gathers today? We should do the same.
Your next step in developing a savings plan is to create a realistic budget with savings as a planned “expense.” Families would do well to target at least 10% of gross income as an appropriate amount to save. Once you have completed your budget, you'll need a system so that the money actually gets set aside. Just as you pay your regular bills, you'll want to “pay” your savings bill.
Here are a couple of suggestions. If your employer's payroll system allows for direct deposit to your bank, have your budgeted amount deposited directly to your savings account. If your employer doesn't offer direct deposit, just determine the amount that should be credited to savings from every paycheck and split the deposit between your checking and savings accounts.
Remember that it won't do any good to set the money aside into your savings account if you're not following your budget. You'll just find yourself continually “robbing Peter to pay Paul” as you dip into your savings account to cover regular expenses. Instead, track your actual expenses and periodically compare to your budget to ensure that you are following your plan.
God love you!
Phil Lenahan is author of The Catholic Answers Guide to Family Finances.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Letters to the Editor DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Thank God We're Catholic
Pertinent to “‘An Explosion of Joy’” (Aug. 28-Sept. 3):
“It is a great day to be Catholic!” This common Irish Catholic greeting best summarizes my recent pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany. My wife Janet, our six older children and I were part of the St. Leo Church Youth Group from Cincinnati, consisting of 31 youth and eight adults, who traveled to Cologne.
World Youth Day brought together about 1 million people, mostly youth, from more than 180 countries to sing praises to God and celebrate the fullness of the body of Christ. It was beautiful to witness the similarities and the differences of all the various nationalities represented right before our eyes. Germans, Italians, French, Africans, Poles, Croatians, Koreans, Chinese, Spaniards, Canadians, Americans, Mexicans, Japanese — all were having a fun time together in prayer and community.
It was like the first Pentecost. There was a common bond in the Catholic faith and radiant joy among all the participants. God reminded us that we were all on a pilgrimage. The evening before the Pope's Mass, all the pilgrims slept out on the ground at Marian Fields, a large rented farmland, on a very damp, foggy, bone-chilling night.
On Sunday, we all woke up to a chilly, overcast day. However, by the time of morning papal Mass the sun began to peek through the clouds. This joyful, universal celebration of the Mass well expressed the theme of WYD: “We have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). Pope Benedict led the celebration of the holy Mass with 500 bishops and cardinals, 10,000 priests and 1 million people, mostly youth, in attendance. What a powerful gathering to celebrate the holy Eucharist and praise the Lord Jesus Christ!
The Magi theme continued: “So they departed to their own country by another way” (Matthew 2:12). Just so, the WYD pilgrims returned to their homeland in a “new way” with greater hope in Christ to save a sinful world, a deeper love for Jesus and for all men and women of all races and cultures, and a stronger faith in Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. At the end of the Mass the youths led us in the enthusiastic chants with rhythmic clapping of “Benedetto, Benedetto, Benedetto”.
We thank and praise Jesus for allowing our family the privilege to share in WYD 2005 in Cologne, Germany, and we pray we will have the wonderful privilege to participate in WYD 2008 in Sydney Australia.
It is a great day to be Catholic.
DAVE WILLIG
Cincinnati, Ohio
Comedic Quandary
Regarding Steven Greydanus’ movie review of Just Like Heaven (“The Return of Reasonably Rewarding ‘Rom-Com?’” Sept. 18-24):
I am disturbed by the remarks about the 2000 movie Return to Me.
Personally, I found that film a bit sugary and sappy, but for Steven Greydanus to complain because of the film's “implicit acceptance of heart transplantation” struck me as odd.
He went on to say that “Pope John Paul II accepted brain death as a morally responsible standard for determining death, but the question has yet to be definitively addressed by the Church.”
I will grant the fact there are questions about the use of the term “brain-dead,” and that there may be unethical use of the term by some doctors when it comes to organ transplantation. However, given the fact the Pope has said the term is morally responsible, the question is an open one.
Is a romantic comedy to be attacked because it does not take the most conservative position on the issue?
It seems like the reviewer is saying that the filmmakers, who are probably not moral theologians, have taken a position considered legitimate by the Pope, but since the Pope could be wrong on this one, the filmmakers are being irresponsible!
For goodness sake, it is a movie (one based on a real life incident, for that matter). Could you please cut the screenwriter and director some slack for taking a position John Paul II himself says is legitimate?
CHARLES COLLINS
Rome, Italy
Editor's note: As you know, the Register has repeated Pope John Paul II's teaching about brain death on many occasions. We even won an award for a front-page graphic showing the truth behind the Pope's assessment of brain death. We needn't doubt the Church's teaching on the subject. We apologize for the oversight in the case of this film review.
Save Our Sundays
Pertinent to “To Play or To Pray?” (Sept. 18-24):
An idea popped into my head during the current gas crisis.
To get some type of a handle on the situation, our nation's businesses should begin by returning to the policy of not working on Sundays. Families would be able to reunite, churches would be full once again, money would be saved and some stress would be reduced.
PATRICIA STRANG
Foley, Minnesota
Here Comes the Havoc
Regarding “God and New Orleans” (Sept. 11-17):
First, I want to say that I love your paper and have been reading it for years. My reason for writing is to disagree with Raymond Arroyo for saying that, if God is responsible for Hurricane Katrina, his aim is off. Raymond stated that the worst part of New Orleans, the French Quarter, will most likely survive.
That may be true, but it will never be the same again and Katrina's devastation will affect the whole country. If natural disasters keep escalating as they have been, our economy will be devastated.
Biblically speaking, God does chastise through natural means and, in many private revelations that have been approved by the Church, the Blessed Mother has predicted bad times for the world if it does not return to God.
Our Lady of LaSallette said that the seasons would be altered; this is definitely happening and is causing all kinds of havoc in weather patterns.
Many saints and blesseds say the same thing for our times. As long as we have legalized murder, cloning, embryonic research and sanction same-sex “marriage,” we are not going to have God's protection. He does not cause the natural disasters, but his grace is withdrawn. It would otherwise have protected us.
Now Raymond Arroyo happens to be one of my most favorite people on EWTN. He is not only smart but is also a very funny guy. He makes me chuckle almost as much as Mother Angelica, and it pains me to have to criticize him. Raymond needs to remember that, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Lot was spared but had to relocate — just as Raymond did.
MAUREEN VAN DUSEN
Binghamton, New York
Unqualified Endorsement
Pertinent to “The Careful Lawyer” (Sept. 25-Oct. 1):
John Roberts did a fine job avoiding the traps laid for him by pro-abortion senators in their questions. We think he deserves to be confirmed as chief justice of the United States.
STEVEN W. MOSHER
President
Population Research Institute
Front Royal, Virginia
My Brother's Arms-Bearer?
I just wanted to thank Father Andrew McNair for his article “Spreading Democracy: Sept. 11 Changed Bush, Too” (Opinion & Commentary, Sept. 11-17).
I think he did a wonderful job articulating the argument of Catholics who support the Iraq war. He explored both sides of the controversial coin, and explained the moral reasons for our involvement. I always have drawn the spread of democracy as a parallel to the question “Am I my brother's keeper?”
Thank you for printing that column, and thanks for a great Catholic publication.
BECKY PANAYIOTOU
Fort Pierce, Florida
Lutheran Liability
In “Catholic Ecumenical Official Laments Lack of Communion With Lutherans” (Aug. 28-Sept. 3), you write about some members of the Catholic Church trying to build bridges with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
I pray that, before we get too close, some of or bishops will address with them their pro-abortion polices. Christ Hospital in Chicago, where the infamous “born alive abortions” take place, is an ELCA hospital. In Rockford, Ill., where I live, the ELCA placed a pro-abortion billboard just a few blocks from our only abortion mill. It read: “Pro-family. Pro-faith. Pro-choice. Come join us.” This billboard was strategically placed so most of the women going to the abortion mill would get a positive spin on abortion.
The ELCA lobbies in the courts and state and federal legislatures for abortion and even pays for the abortions of their employees. I hope that, before we unite ourselves to them, we realize they are militantly pro-abortion.
KEVIN RILOTT
Rockford, Illinois
Vexing Ventriloquism
Pertinent to “‘I Don't Feel Your Pain’” (Sept. 25-Oct. 1):
On sanctity-of-life issues, Sens. Kennedy, Schumer, Clinton, Feinstein, Biden, Leahy and all the other Democratic senators remind me of Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy. Every time they open their mouths, it is the voice of the abortion industry that comes out.
Old wooden-head Charlie had a legitimate reason for being a dummy. I wonder what the rich and powerful abortion industry is holding over the heads of these senators that gives it the power to make them into dummies?
GERARD P. MCEVOY
Coram, New York
St. Monica and Modesty
“St. Monica, Pray for Mixed Marriages” (Aug. 21-27) is a pretty good article, but it left me wondering why the picture of the bride and groom showed the bride in a strapless wedding gown.
Is the Catholic Church allowing this now?
MARILYN ADAMS
Cincinnati, Ohio
Editor's note: Many readers wrote to us objecting to this photograph. We apologize for offending.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Hour by Hour With St. Benedict's Oblates DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:BENEDICTINE DAILY PRAYER: A SHORT BREVIARY
Edited by Maxwell E. Johnson and the monks of St. John's Abbey
Liturgical Press, 2005
2,304 pages, $49.95
To order: (800) 858-5450 or litpress.org
Don't be put off by the fact that this “short” breviary clocks in at well over 2,000 pages. It's an outstanding and ready-to-use resource for anyone seeking to fold the prayers of the Divine Office, wholly or in part, into their daily life.
Rather than an official breviary in a new wrapper, Benedictine Daily Prayer is an accessible alternative to the Church's four-volume Liturgy of the Hours and the often confusing, more commonly used 1976 abridged revision, Christian Prayer.
As a Benedictine oblate of St. John's Abbey, I have been using the latter for my daily offices since 1997. Although that book had its faults (pages of music and chant-tones that were useless to the uninitiated, for example, and a layout that demanded a guidebook for course-plotting), a new edition of the breviary seemed to me both unwarranted and suspect. That was until I began to use this one — and quickly fell in love.
Compiled by Maxwell Johnson, himself an oblate, and the monks of St. John's Abbey, Benedictine Daily Prayer brilliantly brings the user into the Divine Office in a way no other single-volume compilation has managed. Within this compact, comfortable-to-hold prayerbook you'll find hymns and prayers, antiphons and canticles, and the monastic offices of lauds, terce, sext, none, vespers and compline, as well as the hour of vigils, the “watch in the night.”
This component, which has been missing from previous adaptations, presents the user with Scriptural readings and instruction from saints, popes and notable Catholic writers. There's also a small treasury of Benedictine prayers.
Until I had a chance to pray vigils, I hadn't known what I was missing; the inclusion of these additional readings has greatly enriched my experience of the Divine Office. The opportunity to pray the office and read not only Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, but also Therese of Lisieux, Thomas Merton and Pope John Paul II has the effect of reminding me that God is truly outside of time. Our fellowship with so great a cloud of witnesses, forged through prayer, connects all Catholics throughout the ages.
The Divine Office is meant to sanctify the hours of the day and the night. With this breviary, the times of prayer have been arranged with such artful simplicity that the pray-er may move from hour to hour with a minimum of effort and a maximum of focus. Sanctifying the day and night has never been this easy or this uplifting.
One small quibble: While the editors have (thankfully) retained the Grail Psalms translations (mildly gender-inclusive, but undistractingly so), its new versions of the Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis and Te Deum have been stripped to a bare utilitarianism. They seem to lack warmth, color and poetry.
Also, potential buyers should know that this breviary has been compiled and edited specifically with Benedictine oblates in mind. That's not to say it's inaccessible to all but Benedictine oblates — far from it. But non-oblates may feel as though they're on the outside of something, looking in. This, of course, could be a good thing for those discerning a possible call to the Benedictine way of life.
One of this breviary's best features is that, thanks to the inclusion of the monastic calendar and a 25-year cycle calendar, it requires no daily guidebook for successful navigation. Its ease of use should make it appealing to those who are attracted to the Hours but discouraged by their seeming complexity.
The Divine Office has been called “the next best thing to Mass.” Benedictine Daily Prayer supports that claim, beautifully.
Elizabeth Thecla Mauro writes from Lake Grove, New York.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Elizabeth Thecla Mauro ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Stemming the Tide of Catholic 'Drift' DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:So how did it all happen?
How did American Catholic church attendance halve in the 40 years following the Second Vatican Council? How did American Catholic families shrink to barely above replacement level and tens of thousands of priests and religious jump ship during the same period? How did vocations to the priesthood and religious life fall off a cliff?
You will not find definitive answers to these questions here. There are too many theories and too little space. I have written elsewhere on the subject, and far better experts than I have devoted books, starting with giants such as Jacques Maritain and Dietrich von Hildebrand immediately after the council.
Since then, American authors such as the late Msgr. George Kelly and the still very much alive James Hitchcock and Msgr. Michael Wren have weighed in, but it will take decades for the whole sad story to be told with the proper objectivity. By then, the United States will already be witnessing the resurrection of the Church that John Paul the Great intended when he embarked on the New Evangelization.
Effects, however, do have causes, and the biggest cause for this one (aside from the world, the flesh and the devil) is a massive break in the tradition — the handing on to the next generation of the faith of our fathers.
We will learn most, I believe, from the men and women who lived through this Catholic crack-up and survived to tell the story. One of the very first of these full-length accounts has been written by Mark Gauvreau Judge: God and Man at Georgetown Prep (Crossroad Publishing, New York, 2005, $18.95). The subtitle condenses a generation of failed catechesis: “How I became a Catholic despite 20 years of Catholic schooling.”
Judge has written an autobiography that is part Thomas Merton, part Augustine with a rock ’n’ roll beat in the background. Unlike the protagonists of these classic conversion stories, Judge was brought up in a rock-solid traditional Catholic family, where he was duly baptized, first holy Communioned, confirmed and educated at privileged Catholic grammar and prep schools and the national university of the Catholic Church.
At the end of it all, he did not have a clue about what it meant to be a Catholic.
Sadly, his story — laid out in painful detail in this wonderful and ultimately hopeful book — differs little from that of millions of baby-boomer Catholics.
Some now populate evangelical churches, some have joined liberal Protestant churches, and some have drifted off into the hedonistic consumer society, unconcerned about their salvation because, whether or not there is a heaven, there certainly is no hell.
And of course, that leaves out the millions of uncatechized boomer Catholics who still populate the pews of own churches, though they couldn't make it through even the first three chapters of the old Baltimore Catechism without running into “hard sayings” they disagreed with.
The book opens as the adult Mark is going through his late father's belongings after his death from cancer.
“In the summer of 1996, I found myself surprised to finally realize that my Dad had been deeply, seriously, and mystically Catholic. He believed in the supernatural world and believed that we could catch glimpses of it in this world. He saw in nature not only beauty but also the face of Christ.
“In all my years of Catholic teachings, I had never read or heard anything that brought these words together — that explained Catholicism as a religion about faith and reason, about the reality of this world and the next. I always considered my father's mysticism, his love of nature and poetry and beauty, to be the sign of a brilliant man who occasionally had his head in the clouds. No one ever explained that his mysticism may have been the sign of someone whose feet were planted firmly in reality.”
Our author soon becomes exposed to Chesterton's Orthodoxy, a biography of Cardinal Newman, the aforementioned Merton's Seven Story Mountain and more.
He begins to understand his beloved father and to see what he missed out on during his first 40 years. Speaking of his exposure to Chesterton's Orthodoxy, he says, “I was thunderstruck — not only by the brilliance of the prose, which in a flash made me understand more about Christianity than almost 20 years of Catholic schooling had, but by the realization that this passage beautifully summed up my father.
“In my mind, Dad was many things: an intellectual and scholar, an explorer, a hilarious — and occasionally bawdy — Irish story teller who could keep a room rapt with attention for an hour, and someone who loved rock ’n’ roll. In my mind, none of these things were Catholic. Being Catholic was going to Mass and confession. It was old priests and strict nuns. It had nothing to do with philosophy, science, love, or anything worthwhile in the world. It was the religion I had left behind in high school.”
Judge spends the rest of the book describing his schooling in the very post-Vatican II era atmosphere of bad liturgy and even worse music.
It is a “Catholic” schooling that almost totally neglects the history of Catholic art, architecture, sacred music, literature — or for that matter the history of the Church itself, much less instruction in basic truths of the faith. In short, whatever was intended by those overseeing the education of this generation, they accomplished a revolution as complete as those of 1517, 1789, or 1917.
Happily, the Holy Spirit intervened. Pope John Paul II was elected in October 1978, Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005 and now the New Evangelization is in full swing.
So Judge's father died salvifically, bringing his son back to the faith through the younger Judge's rediscovery of the wisdom of Catholic literature. As Judge writes:
“Sadly, without these events I may never have discovered the magnificence of Catholicism — its fierce intellectualism, its deep love of the order and mystery of the world, its loving invitation to humanity to take a step out of fantasy and fairy tales but into the heart of reality. That reality was denied my generation in the 1970s and 1980s, the richness of Catholicism kept from us by people inside the Church itself. They were teachers who for political reasons — not to mention the excitements of modern culture and psychotherapy — refused to teach the best the faith has to offer.
“Catholics in my generation suffer from deep religious illiteracy, the result not only of conscious efforts by certain radicals, particularly in the 1960s and the 1970s, but by what historian James Hitchcock calls ‘drift’ — the tendency to let traditions dry up through neglect, conscious and not.”
In some ways this book forms the middle of an as-yet-incomplete trilogy. The first volume was Pat Buchanan's Right from the Beginning, an account of a pre-Vatican II upbringing in exactly the same geographical and educational milieu Mark Judge experienced.
Judge's book — the second volume of this trilogy — has a happy ending: He becomes a creative writer who lives his faith through the sacraments (read the hilarious account of his first confession after many years away), prayer, work and friendships.
And the third volume? That waits to be written perhaps in the year 2030, by a man who has come of age in the glorious days of the “new culture of life” even if he also has had to pass through the travails of persecution and cultural warfare.
Father C. John McCloskey III is a research fellow of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington D.C . and a priest of Opus Dei.
frmccloskey.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father C. John Mccloskey ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Two Seminarians Killed in Car Crash
NBC5, Sept. 20 — Mundelein Seminary students Matthew Molnar and Jason Cheek were killed Sept. 15 in a car accident on the seminary grounds, reported Chicago's NBC affiliate. The two, who were studying for the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan., were back-seat passengers in a car that struck a tree on university grounds. The accident took place at 1:40 a.m.
Fellow seminary students Robert Spaulding and Mark Rowlands have been charged in the accident. Spaulding, the driver of the vehicle, was charged with reckless homicide and two counts of driving under the influence. Rowlands was the owner of the vehicle. Both Rowlands and Spaulding have been placed on indefinite leave of absence pending the outcome of their criminal investigations.
Kansas City, Kan. Archbishop Joseph Naumann described Molnar and Cheek as “wonderful and exuberant missionaries of Christ's love.”
Church in Massachusetts Supports Ballot Initiative
All four Catholic bishops in Massachusetts plan to send letters to their parishioners urging them to support the signature drive.
‘‘As faithful citizens, we have a moral obligation to defend the truth, no matter how counter-cultural or unappreciated our convictions might be,” Bishop George Coleman of Fall River wrote in a Sept. 12 letter. ‘‘The time is upon us to take a stand and to act, lovingly but firmly, to restore and defend the truth about marriage.”
If the organizers gather the 66,000 signatures necessary by Thanksgiving, and 50 lawmakers in two sessions of the Legislature approve it, the initiative could make it on the 2008 ballot.
Maine Says No to Federal Abstinence Funds
“This money is more harmful than it is good,” said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, public-health director. “You can't talk about comprehensive reproductive information.” She added that since the teen pregnancy rates and abortion rates have decreased, Maine does not need the funds.
Maine had accepted federal abstinence funds between 1998 and 2004, but it did not seek the $165,000 in funds during the current fiscal year. California and Pennsylvania have also rejected the federal funds.
LifeTeen Questioned in Colorado
Msgr. Dale Fushek, the founder, was placed on administrative leave in December and is the subject of a civil lawsuit filed in Maricopa County, Ariz., Superior Court.
“In terms of the application of the LifeTeen program in the archdiocese, we have a long track record. It's been very successful and trustworthy,” said Francis Maier, chancellor for the Denver Archdiocese.
LifeTeen, which is based in Arizona, is an independent organization serving more than 120,000 teens weekly in 19 countries.
Father Michael Pavlakovich, pastor of Light of the World Catholic Church, said that Msgr. Fushek lives in Arizona and will have no contact with Colorado teens.
LifeTeen Chairman Vince Roig, in a posting on the organization's web site in December 2004, said, “We believe the allegations against Msgr. Fushek are totally inconsistent with his character and honorable service to the Church and teens for the past 26 years.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rosary Rounds DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:In his 2002 apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae (On the Most Holy Rosary), Pope John Paul II described the Rosary as “a treasure to be rediscovered.” He commented: “It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer the growth and development of children.”
There's no time like the start of October, Month of the Rosary, to reflect on what the devotion means to our children as well as ourselves — and to renew our commitment to pray it as a family every day.
Before becoming a full-time mother, I taught a class of Catholic 7-and 8-year-olds in the months running up to their first holy Communion. My experiences during this time brought home to me how much children can gain from praying the Rosary. It also gave me the chance to “rediscover the treasure” for myself, and to “Behold, your Mother!” in a way that is unfamiliar to many contemporary Catholics.
Experience has shown me that children benefit from being taught the traditional prayers associated with the Rosary. Even if they only gain a glimpse of an understanding, it may come back to them in later life, perhaps when they are in desperate need of help and comfort.
A wonderful message for children is to liken each Hail Mary they say to sending an imaginary rose to Mary in heaven. The more thought they put into the words, the more beautiful the flower will become. I know this might sound overly sweet and sentimental, but from what I have seen, that is exactly what children respond to.
The Rosary is a disciplined method of praying; it graces us with time to think and reflect. This goes far in helping children to understand that praying is not the same as making wishes. As one girl in my class put it after her sister failed an exam she had been praying to pass: “It would not have worked out for the best this time. It's like a driving test, and if she'd passed she would have crashed the car.”
In our classroom we had a special board so the children could write their prayers on Post-It notes and stick them on. We would try to spend five minutes at the end of the day saying a decade of the Rosary for all the intentions on the board. Of course, there were the usual things you would expect from little children — prayers for sick hamsters, lost toys and such.
However, there were also others, more serious, that left a lasting impression on me. One child asked the Blessed Mother's intercession for two girls who had gone missing and were believed to have been abducted by a stranger. Another asked simply, “Mary, please look after Jesus because he died on the cross.”
Through learning with children I had the chance to “discover with Mary the face of Christ.” In the words of one child: “It's like I know Mary is holding me tight at night and keeping me safe. All of them who are in heaven warm me like a fire on a cold day.”
I hope other parents and teachers of my generation will seek out similar opportunities to share the Rosary with children, for blessings will be sure to come not only to the children — but to the parents and teachers as well.
Rachel O'Brien writes from Gateshead, England.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Rachel O'Brien ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Emmanuel School of Mission Builds on World Youth Day's Success DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — The unforgettable World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany, may be over, but its effects still linger.
Thanks to the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome, young Catholics can build on their World Youth Day experiences by joining a dynamic mission program in the heart of the Eternal City.
The school's nine-month program of missionary, spiritual and doctrinal formation is aimed at helping Catholics from 20 to 35 years old develop their talents and enable them to become missionaries on their home territory.
“It changed my life,” said Bobbie Anne Abson, 23, who was a student at the school last year. “I learned what freedom really meant and how, from being so close to the Lord, spending time with him and listening to him, my life could change.”
The course comprises “four pillars” of study and formation: The first focuses on spiritual, sacramental and prayer life, helping students learn to live for others, accept themselves, and learn to be attentive to the Holy Spirit. The second is on community life — a “24/7 program” of getting to know oneself and other cultures. The third is centered on intellectual formation, including study of the magisterium, Scripture, dialogue and encounter. The fourth prepares students for mission, teaching them how to evangelize.
This preparation includes trips abroad.
“It's a very deep experience,” said Father Thierry Quelquejay, the school's resident priest. “Being located in Rome, so close to the Holy Father, and through visiting the various congregations and other inspiring places in the city, the school helps to give young missionaries to the Church.”
The school is run by the Emmanuel Community, a Catholic association of lay people and consecrated men and women founded in 1976 by layman Pierre Goursat in Paris, France. It also has the firm backing of the Vatican.
“The Emmanuel School of Mission is a unique experience, for Rome carries a specific and rich meaning,” said Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the school's patron. “Being in Rome in a conscious way is a school in itself.”
Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, who was president of the Council for the Laity when the Emmanuel School of Mission began, believes the school answers a need for young people to become “youth leaders of our Church” in the face of “secularization, poverty, unemployment, loneliness and despair among the youth.”
The school, he said, provides a “unique opportunity” for young lay Catholics to “draw inspiration from the lives of the apostles and martyrs,” as well as bringing the students into contact with other missionaries.
Most of the students have already been active in their local church, but are looking to strengthen their faith during the program.
“I was a very active Catholic before I joined the school, but found [through the Emmanuel School of Mission] that I could still be more attentive and devout, learn how to be of service to others and to act out of love,” said Abson, who comes from Rochester, N.Y. “It made my faith much stronger.”
Community life was the “greatest joy and challenge” for Abson, through which she learned more about herself in everyday interactions with her fellow students.
“It was very formative, it really formed me as a person,” she said. “From study to prayer, socializing to evangelization, every part of me grew.”
However, the nine months were not without their challenges.
“Every student has a different experience, but for me there were a lot of struggles, a lot of days when I said to myself, ‘I have to get through this,’ and then I would take the next step,” she said. “But at the end of every day, there were a lot of wonderful things — it was the most challenging yet rewarding year at the same time.”
Many students return to their local parishes with renewed missionary vigor.
“We can see a personal transformation throughout the year and usually, at the end, the students want to serve the Church in a particular way,” said Father Quelquejay. “Some receive a call to a religious vocation or consider the priesthood, but that's not our goal. It's not so much to discern a vocation as to help the students become genuine missionaries in building a civilization of love.”
Father Quelquejay, who has been the school's rector for the past three years, said that the most important aspect of the course is to “deepen one's relationship with Christ and the Church.” From this, he added, “everything is given, all leads to that, and they will become missionaries automatically.”
One Australian former student spent seven months in Cologne helping with World Youth Day preparations, and now is preparing for the next event in Sydney in 2008. Others have gone to run pastoral youth offices or started teaching in Catholic schools, having previously taught in public ones.
The number of students in the school varies. This year, 10 men and 10 women have enrolled. They also come from all over the world: Three students were from the United States last year, and one each from Canada, Brazil, China, Indonesia and Australia. The remainder come from Europe.
The course runs Oct. 1-June 30, and the school advises students to apply in January. Course fees are about $850 per month for nine months. The cost includes food, accommodation and trips. To cover the costs, most students look for benefactors and sponsors to assist them.
“It's not too expensive when compared to a U.S. college year, and the school is committed to helping students to find the money,” said Abson.
And thanks to staff that is reputed to be “always available” and “dedicated to leading people to holiness,” it makes the course a particularly worthwhile investment.
“It's a great experience for the young adults,” Father Quelquejay said. “It's only one year away, but it's a year that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.”
Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
Information
Emmanuel School of Mission
www.esm-rome.com
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Jordan's King Delivers the Amman Message DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI received a potentially ground-breaking initiative to combat Islamic extremism from King Abdullah II of Jordan.
When the two met Sept. 12, the Middle Eastern monarch brought with him news of the initiative. Since November 2004, the King, in collaboration with an impressive number of prominent and influential Muslim religious leaders, has been trying to spread a true understanding of Islam.
Called the Amman Message, his aides say the aim is to “pull the rug” from under the extremists’ feet by giving a greater voice to what he calls true Muslims.
In an article by Abdullah printed in Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper on the day of the audience, he laid out the vision of the message that calls for “an honest and continuing dialogue” between the West and the Muslim world.
“For the past five years, I have maintained that the global battle against terrorism cannot be fought with only military means,” he wrote. “It is also a moral, intellectual and social commitment. … In order to defeat the extremists, we have to reject their attempts to create a clash of culture.”
According to the monarch, the Amman Message attempts to articulate “Islam's essential values,” which he lists as “compassion, respect for others, tolerance and acceptance, and freedom of religion.”
Pope's Plea
The initiative also seeks to root out extremism by other means; in July this year King Abdullah, together with leading Muslim clerics, including Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani of Iraq and followers of the Wahhabi tradition (once the ideological home of Osama bin Laden), reached a unanimous consensus condemning the practice of calling others takfir (apostates), a means used by extremists to justify violence.
Now the king, who was educated in England and the United States, is trying to export the message. Pope Benedict is understood to have welcomed his efforts.
At World Youth Day in Cologne, the Holy Father made his own plea for Muslims to turn back what he called the “wave of cruel fanaticism” which uses religion to instigate hate, to focus on those values which the two faiths hold in common, and to provide better formation for young Muslims.
The day after the papal audience, King Abdullah, the son of the late King Hussein of Jordan, addressed The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. — all part of an effort, according to his aides, “to expand the circle” of those who are likely to back this approach.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, The Catholic University of America's chancellor, responded very warmly to the king's talk.
“You have taken to heart the words of Pope Benedict XVI,” he said. “May Allah, the merciful and compassionate, continue to guide your steps along this noble path. …Your thoughtful leadership is a stirring invitation to all of us, especially to the people of the Book, the family of Abraham”.
Commentators on Islam and interfaith dialogue also welcomed the initiative as “well-meaning.”
Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, believes that it can work.
“Radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution,” he said.
However, he would like to have seen Abdullah tackle “difficult subjects,” such as the problems of jihad, the rights of women and minorities in Muslim society, and the Shari'a (canonical law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditions of Mohammed). In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Nigeria, where Shari'a is used in the civil context (i.e. in courts), it is interpreted particularly harshly.
Abdullah's failure to address these issues makes his comments “superficial”, Pipes said, adding, “He merely asserts that Islam is moderate rather than doing the hard work of making it moderate.”
Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Center in Oxford, England, agreed.
“I would have liked to have seen something more hard-hitting,” he said. “He knows it's a can of worms, and so he can't address these [difficult] issues. What he should have said is that Islam needs root-and-branch transformation to revive and purify its message.”
Hargey, who considers himself in the Muslim minority, contended that most of the problems come from the mullahs (a Muslim learned in Islamic theology and sacred law).
“They have done a lot of harm, allowing a climate of ‘victim mentality’ to develop, and making sure we don't have genuine integration and dialogue with other faiths,” he said.
The answer, he maintained, lies in “bottom-up” approach with “better grassroots teaching” that encourages Muslims to analyze the Koran rather than simply read it.
“When one looks closely at the Koran, it's not as the Wahhabis and the other Nazis out there would have you believe,” he explained. “As long as the mullahs and the clerical class maintain a monopoly of theological interpretation, it's difficult for ordinary Muslims to become more tolerant.”
Hargey remained unimpressed by the support of prominent mullahs for the King's plan.
“The Wahhabis will give it lip service,” he said. “They interpret these two verses in the Koran [on tolerance and equal rights] as applicable in Mohammed's time, not today's.”
He added, “We need to do a lot of work within the Muslim community rather than focusing on the external community.”
Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentn ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Evangelizing Anew DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:PRIEST PROFILE
At Infant Jesus of Prague Parish in the Chicago suburb of Flossmoor, Ill., Father Andy Santos is known for his zeal — especially when it comes to evangelization.
“It seems like everything we do in evangelization has that flavor of his passion,” says Susan Neale, parish coordinator of religious education. “He's really what the Church needs right now.”
Father Santos, 34, was ordained nine years ago for the Archdiocese of Chicago and served at St. Lawrence O'toole Parish in Matteson, Ill., before coming to Infant Jesus of Prague. He calls himself a “lifer” because he began preparation for priesthood in a high-school seminary.
In his five years as associate pastor at Infant Jesus of Prague, a parish of 2,400 families 20 miles from downtown Chicago, he has developed a reputation for innovation and enthusiasm for everything from the youth group to religious education to fostering vocations. He has helped start a Vacation Bible School, organized an annual Holy Thursday pilgrimage for parish youth, enlisted high-school seniors to help with the Confirmation retreat he directs and organized a yearly bus trip for eighth-grade boys to Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary High School.
When Father Santos first broached the idea of a Vacation Bible School to Neale, she told him there was no time. But, she says, “He wouldn't let it go. He said, ‘It's really important.’”
Father Santos explained that he wanted a Vacation Bible School because Catholic children often end up attending the ones Protestant congregations organize.
“We wanted to make sure we could provide a Catholic Bible School that was rich in Catholic tradition,” he explains. “All the students go to their own Catholic church and learn about the Lord and the Bible and have a fun time doing it.” The program attracted 90 children in its first year. Neale says she would have been happy with 50.
Outside Infant Jesus of Prague parish in Flossmoor, Ill., Father Andy Santos preaches parish missions and serves on the archdiocese's Catechetical Advisory Board and Commission for Church Art and Architecture.
At Chicago's Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica, a small parish where Father Santos preached Lenten missions in 2002 and 2003, Servite Father Donald Siple, the pastor, says, “What stuck with people was how he encouraged them to live the Gospel in their life, in the marketplace, in their homes. He started one of the sermons of the mission by saying he would change all the ‘exit’ signs of the church to ‘entrance’ signs because once we receive the grace of God in the liturgy, we go through the doors and enter the world so we can transform the world. That has stuck with the people of my parish for four years now.”
Seeing Christ
Father Santos first considered the priesthood when his pastor at St. Linus Parish in Oak Lawn, Ill., Msgr. John Cardiff, encouraged him to attend what was then Quigley Seminary South, one of two archdiocesan high school seminaries that since have merged into Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary High School. He continued in the archdiocesan seminary system until ordination, but it wasn't until he was at Mundelein Seminary that he fully surrendered to what he believed was God's call for him.
As Father Santos discerned his vocation, he says, he was moved by the work of priests.
“The ability of the priest to be with people in critical moments of their life, moments of joy and sadness, the ability to offer the Eucharist, having the opportunity to celebrate the sacrament, all that really touched my heart,” he says. “I said, ‘I want to be able to be present in these moments as the people of God grow closer to Jesus.’”
Today, bringing Christ to people at critical times of their lives and offering the sacraments are the two most important parts of priesthood to him.
“If people can see Jesus Christ in the midst of great joy and in the midst of great sorrow, they know the Lord's promise to them is fulfilled — that he will be with them until the end of time,” he says.
Father Santos is quick to add that some of the most rewarding experiences of his priesthood have been working with young people. Infant Jesus of Prague — often referred to by parishioners as IJP — has about 1,000 children and teens in the parish school and religious education program for those who attend public school.
“The joy and innocence and happiness that they bring really lights up my day,” he says. “When I get buried in paperwork, I go over to the school to visit with the kids to see what they're learning in religion. Their exuberance for what they're doing really helps me keep focused.”
Stepping Up
In addition to his other duties, Father Santos serves as the parish director of religious education; trains extraordinary ministers of Communion, lectors and altar servers; supervises seminary interns; writes for the parish bulletin, and coordinates the RCIA program.
Regardless of what he is doing, Father Santos makes evangelization a priority. For example, Neale says education for him is a tool for leading people to, or closer to, Christ, not just something other people do and he checks on from time to time.
Father Santos says the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II is of special concern to him because he has seen many people leave the Catholic Church for nondenominational, charismatic churches. These are people, he says, who were unprepared to respond to questions about their Catholic faith and mistakenly thought it to be in error.
“I'm asking myself, ‘Why is this happening?’ and ‘Why does it have to happen?’” he says. “Yes, they're God-fearing and believing in Jesus Christ, yet the Catholic faith has truth to offer people and they're not coming. Why? That's a question the Church has to ask itself. And it's critical that we step up to the plate with the New Evangelization.”
Judy Roberts is based in Graytown, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic - and Holy Writ DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:This fall, some high school students are making time in their schedules for another elective class. It's not chorus or art. It's a class about the Bible.
Since 1995, a Greensboro, N.C.-based group, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, has taught a course titled “The Bible in History and Literature,” reaching approximately 175,000 students in 37 states.
Meanwhile a second group, the Bible Literacy Project, based in Fairfax, Va., released a high-school textbook, The Bible and Its Influence, Sept. 22. (This group also recently co-published The Bible and Public Schools: A First Amendment Guide with the Arlington, Va.-based First Amendment Center.)
Both groups cite Supreme Court rulings to support their right to offer these courses.
For their part, Catholics are weighing in on the subject — and they're expressing both enthusiasm and caution.
According to the National Council, their curriculum, which uses the Bible as the textbook along with a teacher's guide, is a needed and appropriate addition to a secular curriculum.
“The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch says no one can call themselves an educated American unless they have a basic understanding of the Bible,” notes Mike Johnson, an attorney for the National Council. “Study of the Bible helps students to pursue academic excellence and cultural literacy.”
Adds National Council president Elizabeth Ridenour: “It fills in the gap for students to understand other subjects, such as what's happening in the Middle East.”
The Bible Literacy Project also believes that students need this type of course to complete their education. “We anticipate an enormous interest across all 50 states,” says Sheila Weber, the group's vice president of communications. “There has never been a product like this.”
The Bible Literacy Project recently commissioned the Gallup organization to survey 1,002 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 about their knowledge of the Bible. Only 49% knew that Jesus turned water into wine during the wedding at Cana. And just 1 in 10 thought Moses was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles.
Both groups say their approach is non-sectarian.
On the National Council's website, Ridenour states, “The central approach of the class is simply to study the Bible as a foundation document of society, and that approach is altogether appropriate in a comprehensive program of secular education.”
The National Council recently came under fire in Texas. When the Odessa school district voted unanimously to add the course to its curriculum, the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal advocacy group for religious freedom, protested, saying the curriculum provides a narrow perspective and is riddled with errors.
Peer Review
Anticipating similar complaints, the Bible Literacy Project enters the fray prepared.
“We created the student textbook to meet the standards of the First Amendment Guide,” says Weber, “and to create a product that school boards as well as faith groups can feel comfortable with.”
Her group's textbook has been reviewed by 40 academic and religious scholars from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths, including Eric Jenislawski, adjunct instructor of theology at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., a Ph.D. candidate in systematic theology at the Catholic University of America. Other reviewers include Auxiliary Bishop Emil Wcela of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and chair of the board of trustees for the Catholic Biblical Association.
According to Jenislawski, the textbook is an important endeavor. “In an era in which many students know little about the Bible, I think Christians should welcome the opportunity to be able to discuss the Bible in the public square in a non-confrontational way,” he says. “The danger Christians should worry about is the opposite — that the Bible will be completely banished from public discourse.”
Jenislawski applauds the methods of the Bible Literacy Project.
“From the time I first learned about [it] in 2002, I was struck by the great care of the project's board of directors in assembling a panel of reviewers with representatives from various faith traditions and academic institutions,” he says. “[That's] unprecedented breadth for this kind of initiative.”
But Jenislawski's approval is not without qualifications.
“These courses are valuable but tertiary means of instruction about the Bible for Catholic children in a public school,” he says. “They should come after religious instruction about the Bible in the home and formation instruction in programs such as CCD. The Catholic Church fervently teaches that Catholic parents have a grave moral obligation to provide for their children's instruction in the Faith.”
Monday School
Other Catholics echo Jenislawski's cautionary tone.
Scott Hahn, president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, has reviewed both curricula.
“Both focus wonderfully well on the Bible, and treat it very seriously in literary and historical ways,” says Hahn. He says the advantage of the National Council's curriculum is that students spend more time reading the actual Bible. He says that the Bible Literacy textbook shows more “ecumenical awareness.”
“I wouldn't recommend either for use in Catholic schools,” he says, “but I would recommend them for public schools.”
He refers to the Catholic view of the Bible to support his opinion.
“To approach God's word in strictly literary or historical terms is valuable and helpful, but is inadequate for Catholic reading,” he says. “It's both human and divine. When push comes to shove, you can't separate the literary, historical and divine.”
Amy Smith writes from Geneva, Illinois.
----- EXCERPT: Should Catholics support Bible courses in public schools? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Amy Smith ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Who's Your Daddy? DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Who are a child's parents?
It seems like a simple question — the kid's mom and dad, right? The people who made the baby.
But for decades, legal and technological changes have been reshaping families, as reproductive techniques like sperm donation, egg donation, and surrogate motherhood become far more embedded in our culture than most of us realize.
Now we have kids with two moms, four moms, or none at all.
These technologies, and the legal tangles they create, have shifted us to an understanding of family that pretends bodies don't matter, and denies children's need for their own mother and father. Here are only a few examples of how what we might call “third-party reproduction” is reshaping our culture; hundreds such stories emerge every month.
On Sept. 7, an Ohio judge ruled that an egg donor had parental rights to the triplets she created with a surrogate mother and a 64-year-old single man. It should be obvious: She is the children's parent. But egg and sperm donation are based on the fiction that her messy biological tie is trivial. And so there's no marriage here, no love between the three people claiming parentage; only contracts and legal disputes.
On Sept. 23, NBC's fertility-clinic drama “Inconceivable” premiered. The show's co-creators have both used surrogate mothers. One co-creator told USA Today that just as women once borrowed a cup of sugar from a neighbor, “Now they can borrow an egg or a uterus.”
In an ongoing case in California, Guadalupe Benitez's case awaits oral argument. Benitez planned to conceive a child through donor insemination and raise the child with her female partner. The clinic where she was receiving infertility treatment refused to perform the insemination for religious reasons (and claims it also refused to inseminate heterosexual single women).
Benitez brought a lawsuit against the clinic for sexual-orientation discrimination.
The longing for one's own child is powerful and, in itself, good. But using a surrogate mother or a sperm or egg donor brings a third parent into the picture (you could think of it as adultery-for-reproduction instead of adultery-for-sex), leaving children at risk of “parental rights” disputes and filled with their own unacknowledged longings for biological fathers and mothers they will never know.
The weblog of the Institute for American Values, www.familyscholars.org, is a great resource, often featuring stories about the emotional struggles of the first generation of children of sperm and egg donors.
In my own case, my parents have been married all my life. Like most children, I needed an intuitive, obvious sense of my place in the world. It was in many ways important for me to realize that I took strongly after my mother in looks and my father in personality. That helped root me in my family, and in the world — especially necessary since I was in other respects a difficult and alienated child.
I know I'm the product of my parents’ love, the symbolic and literal result of their union. Every child deserves that sense of belonging. Every child, whenever possible, deserves her own mom and dad.
We need a serious debate about third-party donation and its effects on children and society. If we want to limit uses of this technology, there are many routes. For instance, egg and sperm donors could be held legally accountable the way other biological parents are; this rule alone would make the practice much less appealing to both donors and those who would use their services.
When a Pennsylvania woman went to court earlier this year to force her sperm donor to take legal responsibility for his child, the judge asked her lawyer, “What man in their right mind would agree to [donate sperm] if we decide this case in your favor? Nobody.”
Anonymous donation could be barred, giving children the right to know their biological parents. (Britain barred anonymous donation last February.) This too would make the practice less attractive.
The President's Council on Bioethics has issued a report calling for intensive study of third-party reproduction's effects on both children and adult participants, and exploring other regulatory possibilities.
These reproductive strategies should in no way be further normalized in culture or in law. This is one reason to oppose same-sex “marriage”; as liberal philosophy professor J. David Velleman put it, “Marital rights generally go hand-in-hand with parental rights. … Equality between homosexual and heterosexual marriages may therefore require us to deny that donor-conceived children have both a mother and a father, thereby expunging the children's connection to half of their biological past. … My worry is that a purely affectional conception of marriage will tend to favor a purely affectional conception of parenthood. And I think that denying the importance of biological parenthood leads us to violate fundamental rights of children.”
Family ties will always be messy — hence the old proverb, “It's a wise child who knows his own father” — but we shouldn't capitulate to harmful trends. Children need to be able to answer the deceptively simple, profound question, “Who's your daddy?”
Eve Tushnet is a policy analyst at the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eve Tushnet ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:SUNDAY, OCT. 2
My Secret Friend:
A Guardian Angel Story
EWTN, 5 p.m.
On the Feast of the Guardian Angels, gather your children and enjoy this lively animated video. In the story, little Angie and her family learn big lessons about angels and relying on God as they take an action-packed vacation.
MONDAY, OCT. 3
Leonardo's Dream Machines
PBS, 9 p.m.
Did you ever wish someone would try to build some of the fantastic machines that the Italian genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) designed? Now some experts have, and here are the results.
TUESDAY, OCT. 4
Nova: Sinking the Supership
PBS, 8 p.m.
A Nova crew locates the shipwreck of the giant Japanese battleship Yamato in the East China Sea, 200 miles east of Okinawa, and interviews two survivors and a U.S. pilot and military experts. In April 1945, the Imperial Navy sent the Yamato and its crew of 3,000 on a suicide mission — with not enough fuel to get home — to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; but U.S. dive bombers sank the ship long before it could do any harm.
TUESDAY, OCT. 4
The 12th Annual Van
Cliburn International
Piano Competition
PBS, 10 p.m.
Alexander Korbin, 25, of Russia, won the gold medal and Joyce Yang, 19, of South Korea, took the silver in this 17-day contest of 19 women and 16 men in Fort Worth, Texas. This 90-minute special, taped in June of this year, focuses on several competitors.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 5
Feast of St. Faustina
Kowalska
EWTN
Jesus gave Sister Faustina (1905-1938) the Divine Mercy devotion and asked her to spread it. Today, see Sister Faustina: The Promise of Mercy at 4 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., Saint Faustina Kowalska at 5:30 a.m., Join the Celebration: The Beatification of Sister Faustina at 2 p.m. and The Life and Times of Sister Faustina at 5 p.m.
FRIDAY, OCT. 7
Seven Wonders of the World
History Channel, 8 a.m., 2 p.m.
“‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’” wrote the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817 of a king's unintentionally ironic boast about his now long-gone monuments. Except for the Great Pyramid at Giza, the wonders of the ancient pagan world are gone, too. Advisory: TV-PG.
SATURDAY, OCT. 8
Investigative Reports:
Medical Mistakes
A&E, 6 p.m.
Host Bill Kurtis teams with The New York Times reporters to look into mistakes by medical personnel that kill 100,000 Americans a year and injure more. Survivors speak out and Kurtis probes a medical “culture of secrecy.” Advisory: TV-PG.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Church Denies Hiding War Crimes Suspect
Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor for the United Nations criminal tribunal for the war in the former Yugoslavia, made her allegations in an interview published in a British newspaper, The Telegraph. She said General Ante Gotovina, 49, is accused of murder — 150 Serbian civilians are alleged to have been killed during an operation to control the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995 — and the deportation of thousands of people.
In a Sept. 20 statement, the Vatican said that its foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, had asked Del Ponte to provide more detailed information about her allegations, but that she had not responded.
Once the information is provided, Vatican spokesman Joaquín Navarro-Valls said, the Holy See can aid in the search for Gotovina.
Cardinal Decries Legal Status for Unmarried Couples
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 19 — Giving legal recognition to unmarried couples in Italy would eclipse the nature and value of traditional families and cause grave harm, Cardinal Camillo Ruini told the Associated Press.
Cardinal Ruini said he did not believe most unmarried couples, both heterosexual and gay, want legal recognition. In a rare concession, however, he suggested that common law norms might be applied to offer some protection in certain cases — but not to homosexual couples.
The comments by Ruini, the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the Pope's vicar for Rome, came amid a renewed debate over whether Italy should grant de facto couples some form of legal recognition.
Cardinal Ruini said Sept. 19 that de facto unions, while on the rise in Italy, “don't automatically imply any requests for legal recognition.”
He said that heterosexual couples are either looking to marry, or else “want to remain in a situation of anonymity, without any bonds.” As far as gay couples go, Cardinal Ruini said, “They are not always looking for legal recognition: On the contrary, many run away from it on principle, and want it to remain an exclusively private matter.”
Christians Under-Represented in EU, says Vatican
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's foreign minister, said Europe's Christians must work against the pressures to push faith as a private affair into the social background. He stressed the enormous contribution of the Church to the social and cultural life of Europe in the areas of health and education: “It would therefore be political error if Europe were to reduce the phenomena of church or Christians to an internal aspect of human experience, and thereby to a purely private affair.”
Archbishop Lajolo contended that Christians, which comprise four-fifths of European Union citizens, were underrepresented in political committees, the media and in cultural institutions.
He urged that Christians should not allow their potential to influence to be simply pushed out or ignored “under the pretext of the so-called laicization of political society.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Video Picks & Passes DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Beyond the Gates of Splendor: PICK
(2005)
The Interpreter: PASS
(2005)
Cinderella: PICK
(1950)
The documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor, debuting this week on DVD, takes its title from the 1957 mission-field account Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot, widow of martyred Protestant missionary Jim Elliot and sister of prominent Catholic convert and writer Thomas Howard.
In 1956, the world was shocked by the news that five Protestant missionaries in Ecuador had been murdered by the notoriously deadly Huaorani Indians. Though the missionaries had guns and could have defended themselves, they were resolved not to do so (“We're ready for heaven, and they're not”).
Even more stunning, however, was what happened afterwards. Widow Elliot and the sister of one of the other men continued their mission work in Ecuador, later making contact with and ultimately converting the same Huaorani Indians who murdered their family members.
The women even moved their families into Huaorani territory; the children of the martyred missionaries became friends with the children of their killers. Most remarkably, the Huaorani culture was completely transformed to one of nonviolence.
The documentary tells not so much the story of a tribe of heathens accepting the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but of a murderous culture being transformed by an encounter with a lived message of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Also new this week on DVD is Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, noted for being the first film to receive permission to film in the United Nations (permission denied to Alfred Hitchcock for the U.N. sequences in North by Northwest). Although not exactly an infomercial for the United Nations in the way that, say, Top Gun was for the Air Force, The Interpreter does turn on a touching belief in the international body's ongoing effectiveness and relevance.
The premise requires one to accept that a murderous African dictator would be sufficiently worried about the possibility of being indicted by the United Nations for genocide that he would come to New York City to defend himself — and that the United Nations might indeed uncompromisingly come down against ethnic cleansing in Africa.
Though slick and professional, The Interpreter falls between stools, too inplausible to work as a thriller and too muddled to make a political statement.
And finally, after a 10-year hiatus from home video, Disney's Cinderella returns in an extra-laden special edition. After the greatness of their early films from Snow White to Bambi, Disney's Cinderella represents the early stages of Disney-itis, with less-than-classic tunes and cute animal sidekicks overstepping their bounds into the main plot. But the fairy tale remains compelling, and the animation is rich and satisfying.
CONTENT ADVISORY: Beyond the Gates of Splendor contains a good deal of graphic violent language and non-explicit archival footage of the discovery of the slain missionaries, and is suitable for teens and up. The Interpreter contains a few sequences of brutal violence and mayhem, some profanity and crude language, and a strip-club scene with a pair of barely clad “exotic” dancers. Cinderella contains nothing problematic.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: U.N. Catholics On the Front Lines DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — As a high-profile lobbying organization, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute has had several knocks on its door from concerned Catholics at the United Nations.
Faithful Catholics who work there have come into the offices of the organization also known as C-Fam complaining about the anti-life policies of the international body and the conflicts of conscience they may face as employees there.
“A woman was in my office weeping because of the oppressive atmosphere against the faith,” said Austin Ruse, president of C-Fam, a Catholic lobbying group with its office across the street from U.N. headquarters in New York City.
“People who work there have reached out to us to complain that they can't be Christian or Catholic at the U.N.,” he added. “There's no formal oppression against the faith, and it depends where in the huge bureaucracy you work. But it's fair to say that it's nearly impossible for someone who works in the upper echelons of bureaucracy to outwardly express opinions faithful to the Church.”
Register interviews with a handful of Catholics who work at the United Nations and its agencies indicate that while Catholics are reluctant to openly express faith-based views in the workplace, the United Nations is not hostile in general to Catholicism or any other religion.
In fact, a group meets weekly at noon in a conference room to pray the Rosary, and another Catholic group holds a weekly Bible study and prayer session led by a priest. Mass is offered occasionally in the U.N. complex.
In addition, Holy Family Church, where Pope Paul VI visited on his trip to the United Nations in 1965, is assigned the pastoral care of Catholics working there.
Each fall the church holds an ecumenical prayer service that attracted top officials, including Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
This year the prayer service highlighted the U.N.'s 60th anniversary. The anniversary is Oct. 24.
Yet being Catholic at the United Nations is one thing. Advancing Catholic ideals at a high level is another.
The international body is directly involved in anti-life policies, promoting widespread use of condoms and other artificial contraceptive methods in developing countries, especially through the U.N. Population Fund, and using “reproductive health services” as a code word for advancing abortion in its documents or providing it as part of its third world relief efforts.
Ruse claimed that those who plan U.N. meetings on hot-button social issues seek to screen out pro-life non-governmental organizations such as C-Fam.
The Register reported recently that pro-life non-governmental organizations were shut out of the preparatory talks for the Millennium Summit +5, which was held at the United Nations in September.
Faithful Catholics at the United Nations wonder if by their work they are cooperating too closely with these moral evils.
An indication of the atmosphere there is the fact that none of the U.N. workers interviewed for this article wanted his name or title used in association with his comments for fear of retribution.
One Catholic woman who is involved in office administration said she turned down a promotion that would have required her to work on gender issues that included a radical feminist agenda.
Yet, she added, in her many years at the United Nations, she is not aware that anyone has been held back because of his Catholic faith.
“A lot depends on where you work,” she told the Register. “If you talk about your personal beliefs and go to Mass or [pray] the Rosary, no one will say anything. But there may be a problem if you express Catholic moral teaching at a policy meeting.”
A Catholic woman who works at a U.N. agency said that her job does not involve planning or policy, “so I go about my work and try to concentrate on all the good things we do.”
But she hears Catholics who are closer to the levers of power express concerns over anti-life policies.
UNICEF
Yet not all Catholics associated with the United Nations see conflicts of conscience. Marty Rendon who works for UNICEF in Washington, D.C., said that if the children's aid agency adopted a pro-abortion policy, he would quit.
“Principle is more important than a paycheck,” said Rendon, vice president for public policy and advocacy for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, a fund-raising and lobbying group that is officially independent of the U.N. infrastructure.
A study released last year by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute presented evidence that UNICEF had drifted from its original mission of child health and nutrition through vaccinations and clean water, and became actively involved in a radical agenda under former director Carol Bellamy.
The study pointed out that in 1996, a year after Bellamy took office, the Vatican suspended its annual donation to UNICEF, citing evidence of the organization's involvement in abortion and pushing contraceptives on teens. The study also cited numerous documents in which UNICEF appears to endorse abortion or has sent funds to a group that markets the RU-486 abortion pill.
Rendon read the study and told the Register that it caused some reflection and high-level discussions at UNICEF. Yet he is satisfied that UNICEF does not promote abortion, he said.
“The U.N. system is very large, pluralistic and international,” he said. “We always have to ask what the policy is, and it's certainly not to promote abortion.”
Questions of Cooperation
In the area of contraception, Rendon said that UNICEF supports methods that are in keeping with an area's cultural beliefs, which could include Church-approved natural family planning.
There may be better days ahead at UNICEF with Ann Veneman, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in the present Bush administration, taking over from Bellamy as executive director. In remarks to UNICEF's executive board, Veneman indicated a return to the basics of providing for children's health.
Father George Rutler, pastor of Our Saviour Church, located a few blocks from the United Nations, said that a number of U.N. workers and diplomats from different countries attend Mass there. Occasionally they ask his guidance on matters of morals and conscience.
“The issues of cooperation are the same at the U.N. as they would be at any place of employment,” he told the Register. “It is possible for a Catholic to work at the U.N. as long as there is no formal or immediate material cooperation in a moral evil. But I would say if a person's job requires formal or immediate material cooperation and there's no way that person can avoid the complicity or reform the system, then he or she must resign.”
The online New Catholic Encyclopedia defines formal cooperation as being associated with a wrongdoer “in the performance of a bad deed in so far as it is bad, that is, to share in the perverse frame of mind of that other.” Some forms of material cooperation are allowable and even unavoidable in a complex society, and determining the level of material cooperation is often difficult, the encyclopedia states. But if the moral wrongdoing would not be committed without the act of material cooperation in question, it is considered unallowably proximate or immediate.
Stephen Vincent is based in Wallingford, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Vincent ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Rome Synod to Unite China Bishops DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:ROME — Are Beijing and Rome moving closer together? News of a Chinese delegation to a Vatican synod makes some think so.
Pope Benedict XVI invited four mainland Chinese bishops from both the government-run Catholic association and the underground Church to attend the Oct. 2-23 Synod on the Eucharist in Rome
The Holy See and the communist government of the People's Republic of China currently don't have diplomatic relations, though many hope for reconciliation. The invitation was described as “obviously a harmonious sign” by a Chinese religious official. The government has not indicated whether it will approve the travel of any or all of the bishops.
At first, Beijing seemed to reject the invitation, citing advanced age and poor health of three of the bishops as well as the Holy See's continuing official ties with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province. According to China's official Xinhua news agency, an unnamed official of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association said the invitation showed no respect for China and its Catholic population.
Later, the director of the country's State Bureau of Religious Affairs said the government was still negotiating with the Vatican. The official, Ye Xiaowen, said mainland Catholics saw the Pope's invitation as a “friendly gesture.”
But he added that some of the bishops likely would not be able to make the trip. One, Archbishop Anthony Li Duan of Xian, was terminally ill with cancer, he said. He also said he did not consider underground Bishop Joseph Wei Jingyi of Qiqihar a prelate.
Speculation about relations between the Vatican and the government intensified after a Sept. 20 speech by Archbishop Claudio Celli. The former Vatican diplomat specializing in Asia, said the Vatican “is ready to begin a constructive dialogue with Chinese authorities tomorrow, or rather, this very night.”
Formerly a top official in the Vatican Secretariat of State, Archbishop Celli is now secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See. He made the statement in Rome while accepting an award for furthering relations between China and Europe. While formal negotiations have not begun, “contacts have existed for several years” between the Vatican and China, said the archbishop, who added that the government would have to ensure full religious freedom before relations could begin.
The fidelity of Chinese Catholics to the Holy See is one of many issues both sides must address. The Chinese government created the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association soon after the communists took power in 1949. China regulates the practice of all religions and requires bishops and priests to register before engaging in public or parish ministry. The Patriotic Association recognizes the pope as a religious leader but does not acknowledge his authority over the Church in China.
Over the years, China has persecuted the underground Church with beatings and long imprisonments of bishops, priests and laypeople who proclaim loyalty to the Holy See and practice their faith in violation of the nation's law.
The Holy See is aware of the sharp division between those who have registered with the Patriotic Association and those who have refused to renounce allegiance to Rome, but hope to reconcile Chinese Catholics with each other and with Rome. China experts say the divisions have softened in recent years as news has spread that many of the bishops who have registered with the government have also sought and received approval from the Holy See.
“It is a very complex situation that is not easy to understand,” said Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missionaries Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of the Rome-based agency Asia News.
The mainland bishops invited to the synod are Aloysius Jin Lu Xian of Shanghai, who is 89, and Anthony Li Duan of Xian, 78, both of whom are registered with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. Bishop Luke Li Jingfeng of Fenxiang, 85, is another. He is an underground bishop who was recognized last year by the government as the official head of his diocese without registering with the Patriotic Association.
A young underground bishop, Joseph Wei Jingyi of Qiqihar, 47, will also attend. Bishop Wei has been detained by the government on a number of occasions but has always returned to preach and celebrate Mass.
There is a specific symbolism in the Pope inviting the bishops to a Eucharistic synod, said Father Cervellera.
“The Eucharist is the one body of Christ, and the Church the united body of Christ,” he told the Register. “The Vatican is sending a message that a united Church in China under the Pope is a matter of religion and theology and not of politics.”
Some supporters of the underground Church disagree.
They insist that formal relations should not be set up before the communists release all bishops, priests and laypersons presently imprisoned for their faith.
“I personally do not see how relations can be accomplished without first releasing all the prisoners and exonerating all those who have been unjustly charged with crimes simply for remaining loyal to the Holy See,” said Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, based in Stamford, Conn. He is the nephew of Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, who was head of the Shanghai Diocese when he was arrested in 1955 and sentenced to years in prison and house arrest before being exiled to the United States, where he died in 2000.
Writing last April in the Asian Wall Street Journal, Kung called the imprisoned bishops “citizens of the Vatican and ‘soldiers’ of the Church.” He concluded, “So it's inconceivable that the Vatican would reestablish diplomatic relations with China while so many of its soldiers and citizens remain captive there.”
But Maryknoll Father Larry Lewis, who heads a Vatican-approved program that brings Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association seminarians and priests to the United States for studies, says that lines are no longer so clearly drawn between Patriotic Association and underground clergy and laity.
“The Vatican has always had the view that there is one Catholic Church in China,” he said, “and the invitation to the four bishops without reference to affiliation is a reflection of that view,” he said.
About half of the country's 15 million Catholics attend churches approved by the Patriotic Association, according to Deacon Doug Lovejoy, executive director of the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, which has close ties to the Maryknoll Mission Society and the U.S. Catholic bishops.
About 7.5 million Catholics worship at underground services, he said, though there is much crossover at local levels, especially in rural provinces where government surveillance of religion is less intense.
Deacon Lovejoy cited the ordination last June of Shanghai Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Xing Wenzhi as a prime example of the sometimes confusing but hopeful situation in China.
Bishop Xing was consecrated in a ceremony led by Patriotic Association-approved Bishop Jin Luxian, yet the ordination also was approved by the Vatican, Deacon Lovejoy said.
Furthermore, underground Catholics in China do not recognize Bishop Jin as the head of the Shanghai Diocese, claiming that the equally elderly Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang is the true Vatican-appointed leader. Deacon Lovejoy said that the Vatican is hoping that when the two elderly bishops die, the young Bishop Xing, with both government and Vatican approval, will unite the government-sanctioned and underground communities.
According to news reports, Bishop Xing professed to “loyally serve” the Pope during the ceremony.
Change Coming
The tide, indeed, may be changing, though it remains to be seen how far the communist government will allow developments to go.
A former Chinese student who attended Mass with Patriotic Association priests growing up told the Register that the government's attitude toward the Church is improving. There is little distinction in the average Chinese Catholic's mind between Patriotic and underground factions, said the student, who is living and studying in the United States, and did not want his name used.
“I think in the larger picture, the differences are disappearing,” he said. “Most bishops in China are reconciled with Rome now even if they are recognized by the government. In my home diocese, the bishop, who is 86 years old, was appointed years ago by Rome and now he is friendly with the government.”
Pope Benedict, too, hopes for improvement. In his first meeting with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, the Pope said May 12 that he hoped that countries that still do not have formal ties with the Vatican gain representation soon. Though he did not name those countries, The People's Republic of China was obviously one of them.
Stephen Vincent is based in Wallingford, Conn.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Stephen Vincent ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Catholic Scientist Hounded to Leave the Smithsonian? DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Catholics are increasingly prominent among the dissenting minority of scientists claiming evolutionary theory has gaping holes.
Some say the theory is more of a “secular religion,” and are advancing their own alternative to Darwin, called Intelligent Design.
One such Catholic scientist is Richard Sternberg, a biologist and recent convert, who claims he was harassed from his position as a research associate at the iconic Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, not for his religious beliefs but for his daring to challenge the reigning biological paradigm, Darwinian evolution (See Commentary & Opinion, page 9).
“I was denied access to research materials,” Sternberg told the Register. “I was told if anything went wrong, material went missing, I was going to be blamed for it. It was brought to my attention that they were looking for ways to show me the door disgracefully. It was just too risky to stay.”
This spring, Sternberg stopped using his office at the Smithsonian and the access it once afforded to the museum's huge collection of specimens, while continuing at his paying research job at the National Institutes of Health.
Smithsonian spokesman Randall Kramer says as far the organization is concerned, Sternberg is still an associate.
“He still has access. He still has keys but we haven't seen him for months.”
He would add nothing to earlier Smithsonian denials of Sternberg's complaints.
But Sternberg has support: The U.S. Office of Special Counsel investigated his claim of job harassment and found it justified, while at the same time ruling that his job classification at the Smithsonian (as an unpaid associate) put him outside the Office of Special Council's jurisdiction.
Sternberg's harassment began last year, the Office of Special Council found, after he published an article on Intelligent Design in his role as editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
Intelligent Design is the theory that holds that life and living things show signs of having been designed by one or more intelligent agents. Life is too complex to have simply “happened,” believers in Intelligent Design contend.
Darwinian evolution proposes that all life evolved from a single organism through random genetic variations in offspring coupled with natural selection of those variations most conducive to survival.
The article was written by Stephen Meyer, a historian of science and a paid staffer at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that is a leading promoter of Intelligent Design.
“It was a case of shooting the messenger,” said Sternberg, who denies adherence to either evolutionism or ID, identifying himself instead as a “structuralist.” Structuralists study patterns in living things but stay clear of the origins issue, Sternberg insisted, which allows them to converse politely with advocates of either camp.
Until now. The article's appearance set off a flurry of emails at the Smithsonian speculating on Sternberg's motives and how to oust him. Sternberg's supervisor was asked by the chairman of the zoology department whether Sternberg was a fundamentalist and what was his political affiliation. He was alleged to be a creationist —one who interprest the figurative language of the Scriptural accounts of creation as if they were historical.
Young Minds
Heavily involved in the assault on Sternberg's reputation was the National Center for Science Education in California, an organization devoted to defending evolution's primacy in public schools. Center staffers wrote a detailed critique of Meyer's article on a blog called “Panda's Thumb,” arguing that it fell so far short of the standards expected of scholarly journals that Sternberg's own bona fides needed investigating.
Nick Matzke, spokesman for the National Center of Science Education, said the Meyer article was “poor science,” a mere review of other articles, many by Meyer himself, all in Intelligent Design journals and none in peer-reviewed secular publications.
The center made a big deal of Meyer's article because it fears the Intelligent Design promoters will use its appearance in a legitimate journal to strengthen their case that their belief is scientifically respectable when they appear before school boards and legislators to urge inclusion of Intelligent Design in the public school curriculum.
As to Sternberg's claim that he is not an Intelligent Design advocate, the National Center for Science Education noted that he sits on the editorial board of a Young Earth journal, a Christian publication for scientists who date the creation of the world to only a few millennia ago.
Matzke also insisted there has been no witch hunt: “He still has his job at the Smithsonian. All that has happened is that there has been legitimate criticism of a paper he allowed to be published.”
But Sternberg says that his friends at the Smithsonian now have to deny their friendship with him to keep their jobs, while the three scientists who reviewed the Meyer article have insisted he keep their identities secret for fear they will be punished as well.
Such sanctions are routine, says Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman, also a Catholic. “Darwinism is a kind of religion for some in the scientific establishment. Certainly it is the ruling paradigm. A lot of grants, careers and reputations are wrapped up in it,” he added, so that threats to it must be stamped out.
Among recent victims: Dean Kenyon, a professor at San Francisco State University and author of a popular college text on evolution, about which he began to have doubts. In 1993, his department head ordered him to stop sharing these doubts with his students after several complained. Kenyon's doubts about evolution led him eventually to Catholicism.
And in late September, a trial was held over whether the Dover, Pa., school district could require biology teachers to mention Intelligent Design in class and to refer students to a book in the library on the subject. Eleven parents are challenging a 2004 school board vote requiring the presentation of the theory.
One prominent Catholic critic of evolution, Michael Behe, still has his teaching job at Lehigh University.
“I have tenure,” he explained simply. “But I get a lot of calls and e-mails from students interested in Intelligent Design. I advise them to say nothing, keep their heads down and wait till they have tenure before saying anything publicly. What happened to Richard Sternberg shows the wisdom of that advice.”
Steve Weatherbe is based in Victoria, British Columbia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steve Weatherbe ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Lord Dwells in Our Midst DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope Benedict XVI met with 26,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during his general audience on Sept. 21. He offered his reflections on the second half of Psalm 132, which speaks about the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and God's promise to David that the Messiah would be one of his descendents. The Holy Father had already offered his reflections on the first part of the psalm during last week's general audience.
Whereas David “had sworn an oath that he would not take up residence in the royal palace until he had found a resting place for God's ark,” Pope Benedict noted, God now promises David that he will never go back on his word, and that he will establish David's kingdom forever. However, there is one condition: His descendents must observe the covenant that the Lord has made with them.
“Man has to respond to God's promise and gift, in which there is nothing magical, with a faithful and active commitment to a dialogue that integrates both human freedom and divine freedom,” the Pope pointed out.
Once again, Pope Benedict said, the figure of the Messiah emerges in Psalm 132. Christians later saw the fulfillment of this figure in the person of Christ. The Fathers of the Church used this psalm, the Holy Father pointed out, to describe the incarnation of the Word in the Virgin Mary's womb.
As Saint Irenaeus explains, “The Holy Spirit indicates to those who want to hear that, when the Virgin Mary gives birth, God's promise to David to bring forth a king from the fruit of his womb is fulfilled.”
We have just heard the second part of Psalm 132, a song recalling a crucial event in Israel's history — the transfer of the Lord's ark to the city of Jerusalem.
David was the architect of this transfer, as confirmed in the first part of the psalm on which we have already reflected. In fact, the king had sworn an oath that he would not take up residence in the royal palace until he had found a resting place for God's ark, which was the sign of the Lord's presence among his people (see verses 3-5).
Now, God himself responds to the vow that the king has made: “The Lord swore an oath to David, a pledge never to be broken” (see verse 11). This solemn promise is essentially the same one that the prophet Nathan had made in God's name regarding David's future descendants, who were meant to reign forever (see 2 Samuel 7:8-16).
God's promise, however, implies a commitment on the part of man, since it is qualified by an “if”: “If your sons observe my covenant” (see verse 12). Man has to respond to God's promise and gift, in which there is nothing magical, with a faithful and active commitment to a dialogue that integrates both human freedom and divine freedom.
At this point, the psalm is transformed into a hymn that exalts the wonderful effects of both the Lord's gift and Israel's faithfulness. Indeed, God's presence will be felt among his people (see verses 13-14). He will be just like one other inhabitant among Jerusalem's inhabitants, just like one other citizen who experiences the events of history along with the other citizens, yet offering the power of his blessing.
God will bless the harvests, taking care to see that the hunger of the poor is satisfied (see verse 15); he will cover the priests with his protective cloak, offering them his salvation; he will make sure that all the faithful live in joy and in faith (see v. 16).
From The House of David
The most meaningful blessing is reserved once again for David and his descendants: “There I will make a horn sprout for David's line; I will set a lamp for my anointed. His foes I will clothe with shame, but on him my crown shall gleam” (see verses 17-18).
Once again, as in the first part of the psalm (see verse 10), the figure of the “Anointed One” (the “Messiah” in Hebrew) appears, linking descent from David to the expectation of the Messiah, which, according to our Christian understanding, is fully realized in the person of Christ. Vivid images are used here: David is depicted as a sprout that grows vigorously; God illuminates David's lineage with a shining lamp, which is the symbol of vitality and glory; a splendid crown will be the mark of his triumph over his enemies and, therefore, of his victory over evil.
The Lord's presence, both in a place and in history, is fulfilled in Jerusalem through the Temple where the ark is kept and through David's descendants. Therefore, Psalm 132 becomes a celebration of God-Emmanuel, who is with his creatures, living among them and working for their well-being, provided they remain united to him in justice and truth. The central spiritual principle of this hymn is a prelude to the proclamation that John made: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14).
The Incarnation
Let us conclude by remembering that the Fathers of the Church have usually used the beginning of the second part of Psalm 132 to describe the Incarnation of the Word in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In fact, when referring to Isaiah's prophecy concerning the virgin giving birth, St. Irenaeus gave the following explanation: “The words, ‘Listen, O house of David!’ (Isaiah 7:13), indicate that the eternal king, which God had promised David that he would bring forth from ‘the fruit of his womb’ (see Psalm 132:11), is the very one who was born of the Virgin, who came from David's line. It is for this reason that he promised a king that would be born from the ‘fruit of his womb,’ an expression that denotes a virgin who is pregnant. Therefore Scripture … proposes and affirms ‘the fruit of the womb’ in order to proclaim that the one who was to come would be born of the Virgin. This is exactly what Elizabeth, full of the Holy Spirit, confirmed when she said to Mary, ‘Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ (Luke 1:42). Thus, the Holy Spirit indicates to those who want to hear that, when the Virgin Mary gives birth, God's promise to David to bring forth a king from the fruit of his womb is fulfilled” (Contro le eresie, 3,21,5: Già e Non Ancora, CCCXX, Milan 1997, p. 285).
Thus, we see God's faithfulness in this great span of time that begins with an ancient psalm and goes up to the Lord's incarnation. The mystery of God, who lives among us and becomes one with us through the Incarnation, appears and shines forth in this psalm. Both God's faithfulness and our trust amid the changes of our unfolding history become a source of joy for us.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard Sternberg DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:A fellow Catholic is now being persecuted, in no small part, because of his religion.
You haven't heard about it — nor are you likely to — precisely because it is just the kind of story the reigning media assiduously ignore. The powers-that-be are trying to round up scientist Richard Sternberg and hound him out of town (the town, in this instance being Washington, D.C.). All in the name of secularist ideology posing as science.
Before we turn to Sternberg's interesting case, we should recall the recent clarifying words about evolutionary theory by Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn in his now-famous New York Times op-ed, “Finding Design in Nature.”
“The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” (emphasis added) Sternberg is being driven out of his job as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History by ideologues.
A little background: Rick Sternberg is extremely well qualified for his position. He has two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology — one in molecular evolution and the other in systems theory and theoretical biology. He has published more than 30 very technical articles in respected biological journals.
Everyone was quite happy with his work, both as staff scientist with the National Center for Biotechnology Information and as a research associate at the Smithsonian.
All was well until Sternberg, as managing editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, allowed a technical paper critical of neo-Darwinism to be published: “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” written by Steven Meyer.
Meyer's Ph.D. is in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. He is an advocate of Intelligent Design.
Instead of engaging Meyer's paper through argument, the powers-that-be simply dismissed it as religious tripe, and began attacking Sternberg with startlingly underhanded animus, doing anything they could to make his life miserable to indelibly soil his reputation and to drive him out the Smithsonian.
First, Smithsonian officials tried to remove him directly, charging that as managing editor he had violated the publication process. But Sternberg followed the procedure perfectly. He discussed publication with a fellow scientist at the Smithsonian, and before publication he had the article peer-reviewed by three molecular and evolutionary biologists — all with doctoral degrees.
Unable to trump up any legitimate charges, Smithsonian officials went after him indirectly, creating an intolerable work environment, smearing him with false allegations, pressuring the National Center for Biotechnology Information to fire him, and worst of all, investigating his personal religious and political beliefs behind the scenes.
The interesting thing in regard to this last skullduggery of prying into his religion is that Sternberg is not an advocate of Intelligent Design, but of the structuralist approach to biology. But the assumption of those “digging for dirt” was that, if he believed in God, then his skull was obviously soft enough to admit Meyer's paper rather than reject it outright.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel was called in to investigate. Its officials decided unambiguously in Sternberg's favor, although officials at the Smithsonian have now stoutly refused to cooperate with the investigation. Small wonder, given their less-than-admirable methods of trying to destroy Sternberg.
Reading the Special Council's report is an eye-opener. Before the Smithsonian stopped cooperating with the investigation, behind-the-scenes e-mail correspondence was gathered by investigators. It is clear from reading them that Smithsonian officials had little but contempt for religious believers:
“After spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt,” said one,” I have learned how to carefully phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for the kids. … The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part.”
Charming. The e-mails reveal what is truly behind the “careful phrasing” of these scientist-administrators. They are secularist ideologues with a barely suppressed disdain for believers.
“It is clear that I was targeted for retaliation and harassment explicitly because I failed in an unstated requirement in my role as editor of a scientific journal,” Sternberg contends. “I was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually challenging explanations of puzzling natural phenomena. Instead I allowed a scientific article to be published critical of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an unpardonable heresy.”
Interesting, isn't it? Can you imagine a scientist of Sternberg's stature being persecuted because he allowed a paper to be published that concluded evolution occurs as “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” and that consequently all notions of a Creator God are entirely groundless? Of course not. That's orthodoxy. Or is it ideology masquerading as science?
One thing is for certain. Sternberg is still being persecuted behind the scenes for daring to allow science to question science.
Benjamin Wiker's newest book is Architects of the Culture of Death (Ignatius, co-authored with Donald DeMarco), a book that originated in a Register series.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Benjamin Wiker ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: World Media Watch DATE: 10/02/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 2-8, 2005 ----- BODY:Cardinal Pell Calls for Stem-Cell Research Ban
THE AGE, Sept. 21 — Australian Cardinal George Pell warned that the destruction of embryos for science has created “a class of human life which is statutorily expendable,” the Australian website reported.
In his statement to a government inquiry into laws covering cloning and the use of embryos for research, Australia's most senior Catholic leader said the scientific justification for using embryos had diminished since the laws were passed in 2002.
Under the existing laws, scientists can use embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization for research, including the creation of embryonic stem cell lines. Their rationale is that the embryos would be destroyed anyway.
Cardinal Pell, who addressed the National Press Club in Canberra Sept. 21, called for a ban on all research that involves destroying embryos or, at least, no extension to the laws. He said access to spare embryos for the past two years had not “led to a significant advance in knowledge.”
China Takes Action Over Forced Abortions
BBC NEWS, Sept. 20 — Several Chinese health workers have reportedly been arrested or fired over claims that they forced people to have abortions or sterilizations, BBC News reported.
China's state-owned media said the abuses had come to light in Linyi city in the eastern province of Shandong. Time magazine said last week that some 7,000 people had been sterilized against their will in Shandong.
“Some persons concerned in a few counties and townships of Linyi did commit practices that violated law and infringed upon legitimate rights and interests of citizens while conducting family planning work,” a statement China's National Population and Family Planning Commission said.
Chen Guangcheng, an activist who has championed the rights of couples that have complained of forced abortion or sterilization, told Reuters the authorities had forced couples who had two children to undergo sterilization, while women expecting a third child were forced to undergo abortions.
According to an earlier published report, China recorded more abortions than births in 2004.
Brazil's Promises After Nun's Killing Prove Hollow
The Brazilian government's own land-reform agency complains of being handcuffed and short of money and personnel, and local Catholic Church leaders contend that even the investigation into Sister Dorothy's case have failed to apprehend several of those involved.
“Everything continues as if nothing had happened,” said Bishop Erwin Krautler of the Xingu, as this region straddling the Trans-Amazon Highway is known.
Gabriel Domingos do Nascimento, a leader of the local peasants’ union, asked that the Brazilian army be more assertive in going after the hired guns who since the 1980s have killed more than a dozen priests, nuns and community leaders, and driven scores of peasant families off the small plots of land they have carved from the jungle.
“It's been like this for 30 years, and we can't stand it any more,” he told The Times. “We're desperate. Even with the army here, the land invasions and the deforestation continue.””
Public Funding of Stem-Cell Research Criticized
EURACTIV.COM, Sept. 23 — A group of 73 Members of Parliament are asking the European Commission not to use European Union taxpayers’ money to fund research on human embryo and embryonic stem cells, and to exclude this research area from the government's new legislation program, the Belgium-based news service reported.
In a statement, the representatives noted that, as some countries ban stem-cell research, it is wrong that public money from those countries is used to fund the research in others. They proposed to leave this type of research to the member states and national funding.
Great Britain and Belgium allow for the creation of human embryos for the procurement of embryonic stem cells. Austria, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland and the Slovak Republic have prohibited procurement of stem cells from embryos, whereas France, Germany and Italy allow the import of new stem-cell lines, but not their creation.
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