TITLE: Christ the Career Counselor DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

FAMILY MATTERS

I just don't understand how being a Christian has anything to do with one's job. I can see that I should be honest, and I can see how it impacts my personal life and my family life. But business is business and what does religion have to do with it?

We are tempted to see the spiritual as divorced or tangential to the reality of everyday work. It's as if we're saying to God: “Thanks for all you've done; I'll take it from here. Should I get into a tough spot, you'll be the first person I call.”

Handing God the Don't call me; I'll call you dismissal is a frequent covert temptation. It's a way to relegate God to the margins of your life. Just as we think we shouldn't mix business with friendship, we figure we shouldn't mix the faith with our professional lives.

That perspective sees the “spiritual” as irrelevant to the “practical.” An analogous situation is where successful business pros don't want to worry about anything other than making their mark, winning more business and keeping enough customers happy. They dismiss other work aspects as “soft skills” that don't mean anything. They think that the soft skills like communications, interpersonal abilities and fairness are niceties that are not critical to the bottom line.

But if a sharp, otherwise-successful person starts to communicate sloppily, hurting people in the process, the bad manners can cost him his current position or worse.

Just so, failing to integrate spiritual considerations with our business life can seriously compromise our effectiveness. So how can Christ be a player in that arena? If we're going to be practical, don't we have to keep religion out of it?

But Christ was practical. After all, he has a very specific mission that has to be carried out in time, amidst extreme resistance. In Matthew 7:21 he tells us that the virtues of doing his will are that we too become wise and practical. We don't become practical if we ignore his will. We have to do his will, which makes Christ present, in order to be practical and wise.

Otherwise we live our life with a shaky, sand-like foundation instead of the solid rock that is Christ. This practical wisdom is a product of building our lives on Christ, the rock. Anything else is unsteady, no matter how inviting.

Living out the will of God doesn't always translate into powerful profits, great leadership or tremendous economic growth — though it can. But it does provide a steadiness that builds competence and confidence. And those traits are surely assets in the business world. Ditto honesty, integrity, charity and dedication.

That's why the most prudent saw-sharpening we can do may be a 15-minute daily meditation on the Gospels. The most energizing motivational meeting might be a noon Mass. The best consultation could occur in spiritual direction. And a critical aspect of preparation for that oral presentation could be the Holy Spirit prayer.

Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic (aoccs.org).

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Getting Old

TOUCHSTONE, September — “In the ’80s, if I suggested in class that there might be any problem with sexual liberation, [my students would say] that everything was fine.

“Now, if I raise questions, many of them speak differently,” reports J. Budziszewski, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas, in the ecumenical Christian magazine. “It's getting old. They are beginning to sound like the children of third-generation Maoists.”

She adds, “Even some of the diehard proponents of that enslaving liberation have begun to show signs of fatigue and confusion.” Her solution: teaching the natural law.

Multiple Goals

BBC NEWS, Sept. 22 — The Indian government says it will reward girls from single-child families with free education through college and beyond.

The move is intended to bolster India's “dwindling female population” while remaining faithful to the official “population control” policy, reported the BBC.

The program implicitly acknowledges that many families strive to keep to the one-child policy but are determined to have a boy, prompting them to abort female infants.

The new program will reward a couple that is willing to accept and love their first daughter but withdraws all aid once there is a sibling, male or female.

India has only 933 women per thousand men, according to the 2001 census.

‘See You at the Pole’

RELIGIONJOURNAL.COM, Sept. 18 — It has become common to see American students gathering at the flagpoles in front of their public schools to pray and intercede for each other, their schools and families.

However, while the familiar “see you at the pole” rallying cry is heard in all 50 states, the prayer movement has spread in recent years to some 19 other countries, including several each in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe.

In addition to 2 million students per year “at the pole,” one student leader said, “We're training up Christians so that they can go out into their classrooms, the hallways, to show God's love.”

Parents Protest

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, Sept. 22 — The Washington daily reports that sexual education textbooks yanked from the classrooms of Fayetteville, Ark., public schools included one for the youngest grades that explains “masturbation, homosexual relationships and abortion with a positive tone.”

Parents’ protests also led to the withdrawal of one for ninth graders that describes pornography as “natural and fine.”

The Times also focused on a clash of cultures as “Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas, with the self-consciously liberal instincts of a college town, is surrounded by a conservative county in the heart of the Bible Belt.”

Notre Dame's New Father

CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Sept 26 — In a feature on Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, who was inaugurated in September as the 17th president of Notre Dame University, the Chicago daily captured the priest's love of prayer, solitude and the virtues.

The piece opens with “Father John,” as he is known on campus, before the Blessed Sacrament for a half-hour of adoration late of an evening in a preferred setting — a chapel that “is empty and silent.”

He says Mass every day, often in private.

“Baby-faced” at age 51, Father Jenkins is also “surprisingly” funny. He is also humble, “declining to say what he gave up for Lent for fear it would sound boastful.”

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Changing Face of the U.S. Supreme Court DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

When Chief Justice John Roberts, 50, was sworn in Sept. 29 (See Roberts, page 7), President Bush called him “a man with an astute mind and a kind heart.” Roberts answered: “There is no way to repay the confidence you have shown in me other than to do the best job I possibly can do.”

The U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to begin hearing arguments Oct. 5 on whether Oregon physicians can be prosecuted by the federal government for carrying out Oregon's assisted-suicide law. The case, Gonzales v. Oregon, involves the Bush administration's attempt to stop Oregon's law.

On Oct. 3, Bush nominated Harriet Miers, 60, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Miers is a past president of the Texas State Bar and longtime Bush friend. An elder at her Evangelical church says “her personal views” on abortion “are consistent with that of evangelical Christians.”

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Seminaries and Scandals DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

EDITORIAL

You almost can't blame them for crying “witch hunt.”

Critics are complaining that for bishops to focus on homosexuals in seminaries is a misreading of the sex-abuse crisis. But that's because discussions of the scandals have perpetuated misunderstandings about seminary life and misunderstandings about the abuse itself.

A Jan. 12, 2003, New York Times article distilled the misunderstandings as only The New York Times can. It was like a template for countless stories that aired or ran elsewhere. The article is a good touchstone to use to examine the common misconceptions about the scandals.

The story suggested that Catholic seminaries are harsh places that teach strict, outdated doctrines, applying repressive discipline destined to create socially backward, culturally warped men. Priests “emerged from their near-cloistered seminaries and stood blinking at a world changing around them,” it said.

But its own survey didn't back up its “more-modern-than-thou” attitude. Most of the abuse, it reported, was committed by priests who were ordained in the 1970s and 1980s. That's when seminaries were on the cutting edge of progressive theological fads and were casting off the discipline of the past.

Seminarians in those days were usually either men of great determination who would stick to their vocations no matter what or they were, well, odd. As the Times itself put it: “Those who stayed in the priesthood in the 1970s were likely to be theologically conservative, gay or maladjusted.”

If the Times’ assumptions about seminary life included serious misunderstandings, that wasn't the worst of it. The story's reporters had gathered a staggering amount of data, and had come to this shocking conclusion: “Since the Roman Catholic Church became embroiled in a sex abuse scandal a year ago, more than 1,200 priests in nearly every diocese in America have been accused of sexually abusing children.”

The problem: No part of the conclusion was supported by its survey.

The 1,205 accusations it cited weren't from the past year, but from “the past six decades.” And the priests weren't accused of sexually abusing “children”; most were accused of abusing teenagers.

The distinction is important. Pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality. It's a monstrous sexual pathology that exists quite apart from sexual orientation. Its perpetrators are sexually truncated sociopaths who are adept at working their way into places — or positions — where they will have easy access to their victims.

Priests who sexually abuse teenage boys are not pedophiles, they are homosexual predators. Most of the accusations cited by the Times were of homosexual acts with teens. That should come as no surprise. From the song “YMCA” to the Showtime program “Queer as Folk,” homosexuals have long celebrated sex with teenagers. In The Gay Report, by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, the authors report data showing that 73% of homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys 16 to 19 years of age or younger.

The Times survey didn't show that there was a pedophile crisis in the priesthood. It simply showed that there was a homosexual culture in the priesthood.

Nonetheless, the Times story became another piece of “evidence” of a pedophile crisis in a media feeding frenzy. Every accusation against a priest is now likely to lead the local news, with dark allusions to an “ever-widening pedophile-priest crisis.”

Catholics, understandably humiliated, disgusted and filled with remorse over the behavior of some priests, have been in a penitential mode throughout the crisis. It can seem like adding insult to injury to point out that the statistics show no pedophile-priest crisis at all. And in our day, it is considered rude and unsophisticated to mention the homosexuality that is evident in priest-abuse statistics.

So Catholics have mostly just agreed with the critics and apologized with the bishops. Then the Church underwent a painful, thorough investigation by John Jay College of Criminal Justice experts. The exhaustive John Jay study found once again that what the Church was facing was a crisis of abuse of teen boys, not attacks on children — and that 81% of the abuse was homosexual.

Homosexuals are not necessarily abusers, no. But the study shows that most abusers in the priesthood are homosexuals. The seminary visitations are facing this issue squarely.

To end these scandals, they must.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Tons of TV DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

FACTS OF LIFE

Want to help children avoid packing on the pounds? Limit their time in front of the TV. New Zealand researchers followed nearly 1,000 children, starting when the kids were 3 years old and ending at age 15. Those who watched the most TV were most likely to be overweight. “Television viewing should be regarded as an important contributing factor to childhood obesity,” the researchers wrote in the International Journal of Obesity.

Source: WebMD, Sept. 13 Illustration by Tim Rauch

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: The Dominican Dynamic at Work DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

PRIEST PROFILE

When he established the Order of Preachers, St. Dominic was charting a new course. The Church needed itinerant preachers who were equipped to carry the authentic Gospel message far and wide.

In a vision, Dominic received an instruction: “Go and preach because you have been chosen by God for this work.” This call continues to resonate in the life of every member of the Dominican Order. And that includes Dominican Father Nicholas Lombardo.

“One of the modern misconceptions about the Gospel is the common stereotype that Christian teachings are in conflict with our desires,” explains Father Lombardo. “But, in reality, the Gospel is the only thing that can respond to our deepest desires. The New Evangelization involves presenting the Gospel as what it is: fresh, exciting, an adventure.”

Father Lombardo explains that he was drawn to the preaching charism of the Dominicans because “I loved to think and discuss matters of faith with others, Christian and non-Christian.”

Originally from Boston, Father Lombardo grew up amidst a multi-ethnic and multi-religious backdrop, eventually studying philosophy in the secular atmosphere at Brown University in Providence, R.I. Drawing from his experiences, he often discussed philosophical and theological questions with students of different backgrounds and beliefs.

He did not grow up specifically thinking he would become a priest, however. His faith had deepened at a confirmation retreat where he learned about Mary's apparitions at Medjugorje, but thoughts of a religious vocation did not seriously occur to him. Later, his cousin entered the Jesuits, making the priesthood more of a real possibility to him. Still, the idea remained in the background.

In college, he began to consider becoming a priest, thanks in part to the campus ministry and a Catholic discussion group on campus. “The faith of the other students was deeper than mine and it rubbed off on me,” he recalls.

Responding to his call has been an ongoing process. His solemn vows as a Dominican, and later his ordination to the priesthood in May of 2004, were “moments of definitive commitment,” he says. “But a vocation involves saying Yes to God continuously, knowing that he's with you all the way.”

Mysteries Unleashed

Of course, everyone is invited to this ongoing commitment through the universal call to holiness, something Father Nicholas sees as one of the most important teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Yet he also recognizes the supernatural distinction of the priestly vocation.

“When I'm administering a sacrament,” he says, “there's something mysterious going on there.”

“Father Nicholas is pastorally effective because his ministry flows from the celebration of the sacraments in the Church's life, especially the Eucharistic liturgy,” says the Father Dominic Izzo, OP, prior provincial for the Province of St. Joseph.

At St. Gertrude Parish in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is an associate pastor, Father Lombardo also hears confessions regularly.

“This is a great gift of the Catholic priesthood because it makes you more aware of how people can accept the teaching of the Church but still struggle with it,” he says. “This helps me to give consolation and encouragement when I'm preaching.”

In addition to preaching and administering the sacraments, he serves as chaplain for a group of Third Order Dominicans, confessor for Cincinnati's Theology on Tap series, a guest speaker at Catholic events and part of the organizational team for a youth conference to be held in Cincinnati next spring.

Father Lombardo is also the spiritual director of a flourishing group for “twentysomethings.”

“Focusing on young adults has borne a lot of fruit,” he says. “I am confident that once people start doing that in more places, there will be an explosion of young adult ministry.”

City Builder

In May 2005, Father Lombardo led the 20s group in a celebration of the ancient Pentecost Vigil liturgy. Elizabeth Weaver came to the vigil because it was a special way to celebrate Pentecost.

“Young adults had gathered together to celebrate and call upon the Holy Spirit for a re-filling of his wonderful gifts,” she says.

Like Saint Dominic blazing a new trail centuries ago, Father Lombardo's commitment to the New Evangelization is helping to usher in what John Paul II called a “new springtime” for the Church.

And John Paul II has, indeed, been an inspiration to Father Lombardo.

“At World Youth Day in Toronto,” he says, “I was moved by his phrase, ‘Build the city of God within the city of man.’ He gave us incredible hope that that's possible and do-able. He gave us a vision. He told us, ‘You have to be the builders of a new humanity. It's up to you. Let no one surpass you. Go out and transform the world.’”

Gina Giambrone writes from Covington, Kentucky.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gina Giambrone ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Rita Spawned Hurricane Heroes DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

PORT ARTHUR, Texas — From the home of her daughter and son-in-law in Bryan, which is near Port Arthur, Texas, June Bourg is counting her blessings in the wake of Hurricane Rita. After evacuating from her home in Groves, she ended up in Warren, some 60 miles from the coast.

Rita swept in from the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall near Port Arthur Sept. 24. The storm's outer bands reached already-battered New Orleans, helping to push water from Lake Pontchartrain over a repaired levee and into low-lying areas of the city.

Evacuation before the storm was massive, in part due to the effect Hurricane Katrina had on parts of Louisiana and Mississippi less than a month earlier. Rita was predicted to hit land as a catastrophic Category 5 storm. It weakened to a Category 3, however, with winds at 120 miles per hour.

Bourg estimates the worst of the storm lasted “from about midnight until 7:30 a.m. Friday. It felt like a giant was trying to lift the roof off the house.” Noting that none of the 10 people in the house was hurt, she said, “It is miraculous that many of the fallen trees didn't fall the other way.”

Although Bourg feels “broken” inside about the damages to her town and not having any timeline of being able to return, she is full of thanksgiving. “I prayed all night long Friday night and I could feel the prayers of all the people far away praying for us.”

Rita left far fewer dead in its wake than Katrina's more than 1,100 victims. In fact, more people died in the evacuation. A bus carrying mostly elderly people on a traffic-choked highway south of Dallas burst into flames Sept. 23, killing 24 passengers.

Veterinarian David Bessell considers himself “very fortunate” back in his home in Beaumont with both power and water. After evacuating himself and several animals from his clinic to Livingston, he had to return after the storm to bring them out of the flooding in Livingston. A 161/2-hour evacuation covering a distance which would normally take two hours to travel would normally leave him frustrated. But it left him impressed. “Overall, mankind is still good,” he said. “I came in contact with so many nice people who opened their hearts to us.”

Churches Help

Elsewhere in Texas, the Brazos County Emergency Management Team called a meeting Sept. 20 in Austin for the leaders of their volunteer evacuee sites. At that meeting was Richard Head, director of Religious Education at St. Anthony's Parish in Bryan, who took charge of preparing their parish for the 187 evacuees they would receive. Many of these evacuees came from Galveston.

Head praised the parishioners at St. Anthony's. “They did a good job of all coming together on short notice” to help out, he said. He described the five days running the shelter as an “amazing, exhausting experience” and a time when “emotions ran high.”

“We have run many retreats at our parish, but the blessing of having these evacuees with us surpasses them all,” Head said. Speaking about the unity experienced in the parish community by working together to accommodate the evacuees, he added, “What they did for us far outweighs anything we gave them.”

At another evacuee site in town, St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in College Station, 370 people stayed in an area designed to hold 225 people. When parishioner Nancy Baker arrived at the church with supplies Sept. 23 at noon, she found a woman who had been driving 26 hours. After the registration desk informed her they were full, Baker offered to take her and her four companions into her own home.

“They were so delightful, so grateful,” explained Baker. Even though the visitors only stayed three days, Baker fondly admitted, “I feel like I have a new family.”

On the other side of the shelter scene, 20 seminarians evacuated to the Bryan/College Station area under the leadership of Father Dean Wilhelm, Formation Director at St. Mary's Seminary in Houston. Heading out on the morning of Sept. 22, they arrived at the retreat center for the Parish of St. Joseph after a five-hour trip that ordinarily takes 90 minutes.

“Various people brought us food for every meal,” Father Wilhelm said. “People were very generous.”

Most of the seminarians were “not happy” to evacuate, according to Father Wilhelm, but he looks at the evacuation as a great opportunity to teach these future priests about the vow of obedience they will take at their ordination. “It shows them that in the life of a priest, we don't always get to make our own decisions,” he explained.

While admitting there may have been some “overreaction because of Katrina,” he recalled Hurricane Alicia 20 years ago when St. Mary's was left without power for a number of days. Safely back at the seminary after Hurricane Rita, he added, “We made the best decision we could with less than optimal information.”

The homeless have been the focus of many post-hurricane efforts, and Houston-based social worker Natalia Gonzalez knows their plight all too well. She is a case manager for Search, an agency that pairs homeless people with local resources such as shelters and food banks.

“The evacuation [from Hurricane Rita] was hard on the homeless, because they have no way to get out of town,” she explained. “The news stations were encouraging anyone leaving with an open seat to open their door to someone in need.”

Gonzalez, whose job working with the homeless involves finding them basic resources to survive, evacuated to North Houston after her office closed the evening of Sept. 21. Having just moved to Houston at the end of June from Buffalo, N.Y., Gonzalez has never experienced a hurricane. Plus, living across the street from the Houston Astrodome, she experienced Hurricane Katrina second-hand. Overall she admits, “It is the craziest thing, but I'm glad to be a given a chance to help out.”

Niki Kalpakgian is based in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Catholic News Service contributed to this report.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Niki Kalpakgian ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Letters to the Editor DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Cologne Coup

Congratulations on publishing Pope Benedict's own evaluation of World Youth Day in Cologne (“Youth in Germany Offer a New Springtime of Hope,” Weekly Catechesis, Sept. 4-10).

I believe it was a scoop for you since you yourselves translated the talk from his words to the 7,000 pilgrims in his general audience on Aug. 24. My heart was moved also by Robert Francis's interview of Legionary Father George Elsbett titled “The Most Incredible 6 Days of My Life.”

“The policeman were very strict on Tuesday morning,” said Father Elsbett, “but by the afternoon, the same policemen were sitting in a corner drinking beer and greeting us with, ‘Hi, Father,’ as they realized they would have almost nothing to do outside the massive events. … They had no idea such a crowd of young people could so well behaved.”

A further comment is that I would like to see youth leaders repeat some of the 30 times Jesus taught that we can store up treasures of grace, beauty and closeness to Jesus as did St. John the Apostle, who leaned on the breast of Jesus.

FATHER RICHARD F. KONEN

Wall, New Jersey

The Plan-B Process

Relevant to “U.N. Scientists Warn of Pill's Link to Cancer” (Sept. 18-24):

Plan B, known to many as a “morning-after pill,” is surrounded by controversy. Women deserve not to be hoodwinked.

First, Plan B's generic name is levonorgestrel. The drug, Norplant, also has the generic name levonorgestrel. Norplant was removed from the U.S. market because of harmful complications to women. So why is levonorgestrel back on the market?

Second, Plan B is being marketed as an “emergency contraceptive”; however, its modes for action prevent ovulation, or fertilization, or implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterine lining. Plan B should be more accurately described as a “contraceptive/contraimplantation pill.” Despite the acceptance by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of the “redefinition” of pregnancy as beginning at the time of implantation, many people still adhere to the ‘original’ definition of pregnancy as beginning at the moment of fertilization/conception.

Third, Plan B should not be distributed to young girls without a physician's prescription and parental notification. If the young girl is not totally forthcoming with her medical history (e.g., being diabetic or epileptic), she could be placing herself in harm's way using Plan B. One wonders whether a young girl will know the difference between experiencing abdominal pain as a reported side effect of Plan B and experiencing abdominal pain as a result of an ectopic pregnancy, which could prove fatal to her. Young girls need monitoring.

Fourth, it appears that Plan B will be available and accessible at numerous locales throughout communities. That being said, a woman's right to purchase Plan B and a professional's right to choose not to participate in the distribution of Plan B should never be mutually exclusive. Respect for each other's rights is paramount. The healthcare professional may adhere to the embryologists’ scientific view that human life begins at the time of fertilization and, in so doing, cannot distribute Plan B because of its abortive mode of action.

Just as a professional should never berate, belittle or lecture a patient, a patient should never berate, belittle or lecture a healthcare professional. Women can still obtain Plan B; on occasion they may need to go “next door” to buy it.

As an advocate for women's health and a woman myself, I am emphatically making the following statements: Women need more than selective information being clothed in a misnomer; they deserve full and accurate information (controversies notwithstanding) to help them in their decision-making about usage of Plan B. Misleading information always debases a woman's intelligence and worth.

BARBARA J. REUDINK

Syracuse, New York

Be Mindful of Mormonism

I am deeply concerned about a misconception that is held in some of the highest councils of the Church concerning the true position of Mormons on abortion Issues.

The official position of the Mormon church allows abortions in the cases of rape, incest, deformity, risk to life and risk to the health of the woman (basically Roe v. Wade all the way).

For verification, please contact the office of the LDS First Presidency (through lds.org) … and ask them to read you their official position from the General Handbook of Instructions.

Also, the LDS church now allows the use of various forms of birth control, and their baptisms have been officially rejected by the Catholic Church.

With the knowledge that the Mormon church aggressively seeks to convert Catholics worldwide to these doctrines, we should beware of any alliances with them.

WILLIAM SHARP

Chairman, Life for Utah

Castledale, Utah

The Writing Is on the Wall

In your editorial “God and New Orleans” (Sept. 11-17), you informatively described several extremes of ultimate understandings about Hurricane Katrina.

In the spirit of biblical Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar we should “read the writing on the wall.” Hurricane Katrina shows much written on the wall:

God is the author of individual liberty. We think we can hide our wrongs in collective social efforts where inconsequentially “everyone shares guilt.” In this we of America flagrantly sin against the natural moral law by such as allowing abortion. Also, doesn't our arrogance in getting away with natural moral evil embolden in us the notion that we are masters of nature, and lead to reckless violations of the natural physical law as well? How many supposedly good people “go along” with the flow of social evil, not “shaking the dust off their shoes” but, instead, staying and sharing the spoils of a corrupt society?

The “sin side” of New Orleans is sordid Mardi Gras blasphemy, and the goings-on of the Gulf Coast's “pleasure belt” are not the doings of only the people living there but of all of us who travel to enjoy it or allow it to thrive. Moreover, wasn't Louisiana a state in the 2002 national election that had legal abortion in the very forefront of its campaigning, only to see the so called “good Catholic state” elect so-called Catholic, pro-abortion Mary Landrieu to be its U.S. senator? In this, we collectively call God's punitive wrath down upon ourselves. We are our “brothers’ keepers” and, as Americans, we have failed in New Orleans and elsewhere

God does interact with his creation by natural physical and moral laws. The notion of these two spheres of law being kept separate is a human wish not borne out by Revelation. Let us remember Sodom and Gomorrah and some more recent examples, such as the message of Bernadette at Lourdes and Mary's message to the children at Fatima about the destruction of nations by communism.

FRANK STRELCHUN, PH.D.

Canaan, Connecticut

That's Not Entertainment

Regarding “Latina Rediviva?” (Sept. 25-Oct. 1):

Bishop Thomas Olmsted recently expanded the availability of the Latin Tridentine Mass by establishing Mater Misericordiae Mission. I now can and do attend daily the traditional Mass. I appreciate the reverence and focus on the sacrificial nature of this Mass.

As far as the priest facing the altar, I am reminded of a shepherd leading his flock, leading his flock to Jesus. Also, it eliminates the temptation for the priest to be an entertainer.

JOEL FAGO

Phoenix, Arizona

State Support

My response to the letter “Welfare Alternatives Work” (Sept. 4-10) is to point out that Pope Pius XI stated in his 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage) that unwed mothers and their illegitimate children “must be helped” by the state if necessary “to avoid a greater evil.”

JOSEPH SIMON

Richland Center, Wisconsin

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Curbing Your Enthusiasm DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

An Anglican clergyman once remarked, “Enthusiasm, sir, is odious!”

It's true that he was expressing a general English cynicism, but to be precise, he was commenting about a religious movement which was sweeping England at the time. The movement was Methodism, and it one of its nicknames was, “Enthusiasm.”

The Methodist movement swept across Britain and the United States in the late 18th century. It was marked by passionate preaching and all the signs we would associate with the charismatic revivalism.

Its main men, the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield, were famous evangelists who brought thousands to an enthusiastic new experience of their Christian faith. The enthusiasm of the Methodist movement, like the enthusiasm of all great renewal movements in the church, is a vital stream of repentance and new life.

It is this same enthusiasm, however, that most often causes heresy, division and heartache in the church. The English writer, Father Ronald Knox, wrote a famous study of Christian sectarianism entitled Enthusiasm.

In it, he traces the oddities, abuses and idiocies that result from unbridled religious enthusiasm.

Knox recognizes that the main strength of enthusiasm is its vital personal experience of God, but that is also its great weakness. Individual “messages from God” are notoriously the stuff of illusions and mental instability. Strange sects grow up around visionaries which are funded by religious cranks.

Wild “supernatural” things happen, and reality and common sense are banished. Once you add the human propensity for gullibility — self-delusion — the tendency to use religion to manipulate others and our susceptibility to the deceitfulness of Satan, enthusiasm becomes too hot to handle. Maybe that stuffy Anglican clergyman was right, and “Enthusiasm is odious.”

But where would we be without enthusiasm? As Ralph Waldo Emerson has written, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” And Vince Lombardi famously quipped, “If you're not fired with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm.”

Enthusiasm and a personal experience of our faith is wonderful, but on its own it can lead us astray.

It does so in several ways: First of all, if we submit to our own spiritual whims too much, we make our emotions our boss, and while emotions are a vital part of life, when we are ruled by them totally we end up in disaster.

Secondly, if our faith is based solely on our religious feelings, it means we are the boss of our spiritual lives, but that's disastrous, because if there is one area of our lives where we are least aware of what is right for us it is likely to be the spiritual.

Thirdly, a spiritual life that is based in personal feelings does not withstand the tests and trials that come along.

When the going gets tough, the religious enthusiast drops out or looks for another form of spiritual thrill. This tendency leads to instability in the religious life and eventual loss of faith entirely.

The problem is nothing new. In his sixth century rule for the monastic life, St. Benedict discusses two types of monks.

One he calls the “gyrovague.” The word sounds like a cross between a gyroscope and a vagrant, and that pretty much defines the word. A gyrovague is a monk who spins around in a flighty way, roaming about from monastery to monastery. He is never content. He is driven by his shallow enthusiasm for the religious life, but he's controlled by his unrealistic feelings.

Benedict condemns this unstable type of monk and contrasts him to the “cenobite” who is rooted in his own community through his vow of stability.

Benedict realizes that the spiritual life is more like a long and dangerous journey than an amusement park. What we need most is stability, commitment and wise direction. That's why Benedictine monks and nuns take vows of stability, obedience and conversion of life.

The three vows are linked. The Benedictine monk or nun commits to a particular monastic community and promises to stay there to learn stability. He or she also promises to obey the superior in all things. These two vows of obedience and stability seem to quench any kind of enthusiasm.

One might ask, “How can we be free in the Spirit if we're bound to stability and obedience?” And yet it is the witness of countless monks and nuns that this is exactly what makes them most free.

It is the stability and obedience that allows the conversion of life to which they also commit themselves. Conversion of life is where the enthusiasm comes in, for the Benedictine monk and nun is also committed to the daily adventure of seeking conversion, and this requires daily enthusiasm.

The same principles apply to Catholic laypeople. We need the wonderful organizations, apostolates, ecclesial movements and support groups through which we express our enthusiasms, but these groups need to be solidly rooted and committed to the Church.

Since becoming a Catholic I have been impressed with most of the new ecclesial movements in their ability to root their real enthusiasm with an unshakeable commitment to the Church. Even when Church authorities seem suspicious and don't want to support them, like St. Francis waiting barefoot for a meeting with the Pope, most of the new ecclesial movements submit to the Church in obedience and seek a deeply rooted way of stability.

When enthusiasm is rooted in obedience, a new kind of unimaginable freedom and power surges forth. The solid teachings and disciplines of the Church give us the ladder on which to climb spiritually while enthusiasm gives us the energy and motivation to climb. The solid and loving teachings of the Church give us the map for the journey.

From that basis, we can go forward not just with shallow enthusiasm but with a Pentecostal fire deep in our hearts that will take us through any trial and lead us all the way to heaven.

Dwight Longenecker is the author of Listen My Son — St. Benedict for Fathers. Contact him at www.dwightlongenecker.com.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dwight Longenecker ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: The Battle Over Roadside Memorials DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

TUCSON, Ariz. — When does an expression of faith and grief become a roadway hazard or even an unconstitutional endorsement of religion?

Is attempting to regulate memorials erected where people died on the highway an infringement on personal freedom — or even religious discrimination?

As state and local governments and the courts sort this out, roadside memorials continue to proliferate, fueled by Hispanic immigration, an appreciation for the psychological need to grieve and a desire to draw attention to needless deaths due to drunken or reckless driving.

Michigan photographer Bill Sampson, who has been documenting the memorials for 11 years, said he has attempted, during those years, to provide both a visual record of the memorials as well as insight into the people who place them along the nation's roadways.

“I attached notes to them, asking for someone to call me back,” he said. “I've found that very few people put up memorials. Most have other ways to express grief, but for some people, the memorial is the way they need to deal with the loss.”

He said everyone loses loved ones to death, but the shock of violent and sudden death is a special burden on survivors.

“They need something tangible to help them through tragedy,” he said.

Roadside memorials are nothing new. An outgrowth of a medieval European tradition of posting crosses to solicit prayers for the dead, markers of various kinds — from simple plaques to elaborate shrines — have been erected along North and South America's roadways for centuries.

Some have become historic landmarks. A fountain near St. Augustine Cathedral in Tucson, Ariz., marks the spot where an 18th-century lovers’ quarrel turned deadly. And there's a monument, 17 miles south of Florence, Ariz., to the cowboy actor Tom Mix, “whose spirit left his body on this spot” in 1940.

What is new is the quantity of markers and the attention they are drawing, both as testament and as controversial signs of public faith. Because of this, they have become a lighting rod for those who want to erase religious expression from public view.

Always unofficial, the roadside markers are tolerated in Arizona and New Mexico where the Hispanic tradition of descanses (to mark the site of a violent death) has been recognized since before the territories became part of the United States.

“We leave it up to our 10 districts to decide on a case-by-case basis,” said Arizona Department of Transportation spokeswoman Sally Stewart. “We understand that putting up a memorial is part of the grieving process, so we approach them with compassion and empathy.”

Vocal Atheists

Other states have taken a different position. California removes all unofficial memorials as road hazards, and so do Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Florida has banned the cross but will erect nondenominational markers for free.

Meanwhile, Colorado became the battlefield for a four-year conflict over roadside memorials, which finally ended last year in a compromise that bans the cross from state highways but allows counties to permit them, elsewhere.

The battle started in 2000 when motorist Rodney Scott removed a memorial cross, erected in memory of 18-year-old Brian Rector, who died in a March 1998 car accident. Adams County District Attorney Robert Grant attempted to prosecute Scott for desecrating a venerated object, and the Madison, Wis., Freedom From Religion Foundation came to his defense, successfully arguing that state land could not be used to promote religion.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, said the state's policy of turning a blind eye to private memorials was the same as endorsing them.

“I'm sure they acted out of a sense of compassion. After all, nobody wants to make the bereaved feel worse, but nobody is supposed to be putting things up on the right of way,” she said. “I don't think we need to see our highways littered with signs of death.”

Colorado was a natural spot for a conflict over religious symbols, said Stacey Stegman, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation. “Outside Denver, we have a group of vocal atheists. Every time someone erected a cross they’d call us demanding that it be removed,” she said.

Stegman said the agency responded to the court's decision by banning all memorials. “That caused an even greater outcry,” she said.

For Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, it's not the decision about whether to allow memorials that's wrong. It's the attempt to ban religious symbols that's objectionable.

“Government shouldn't be in the business of defining what a proper roadside monument is,” he said. “Each person should be free to make their own statement.”

Donohue said restrictions on size, placement and materials are within the government's right to regulate.

“If this is really about public safety, then let them regulate based on that. To single out religious symbols for special treatment isn't right,” he said.

“This becomes a different kind of separation of church and state issue, where the government is saying that some symbols are not equal, solely because they are religious,” Donohue said. “We have a big problem with that.”

The struggle to allow memorials went to the state Legislature where Senate Bill 186 pitted atheists and the Colorado Department of Transportation against grieving families, including the bill's sponsor, Sen. Lewis Entz, R-Hooper, who lost a grandson in a traffic accident in 2003.

In the end, the state agreed to erect nondenominational signs at a cost of $100 along state highways and allow individual counties to permit private memorials or erect official markers, at their discretion.

“This ended up being a positive for us because we now have a guideline to follow,” Stegman said. “Nothing takes the place of erecting a personal memorial. People will always do that, but we've seen a reduction in the number and size of memorials, and complaints have gone way down.”

The American Counseling Association has said roadside memorials provide an emotional release for families who need to share grief with others as a way to manage their feelings. For those people, a roadside shrine or memorial, erected and maintained by them, is usually far better than a uniform and sanitized marker, said Arizona State University Professor Patricia Arredondo, the association's president.

“Standardized memorials are just that: standardized,” she said. “It's not that the state is telling you how to mourn but it's something like that.”

Arredondo said, “Memorials hold sacred that earth where that person left this life. … It's bittersweet, but memorials are about people's faith and the need to show that a lost loved one hasn't been forgotten.”

Philip S. Moore is based in Vail, Arizona.

----- EXCERPT: Love, Death and Faith By The Side Of The Road ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

New Orleans Archdiocese Plans to Cut Jobs

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 26 — In dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Archdiocese of New Orleans said that it will need to lay off an unspecified number of employees over the next few weeks, reported the Associated Press.

The archdiocese is trying to decide how best to utilize fewer resources. All employees were asked to report to work by Oct. 3. Those who will be laid off will be given two weeks pay.

Archdiocesan spokesman Father William Maestri said he did not know what number of the archdiocese's 9,000 workers would be laid off.

Court Denies Pharmacists’ Contraception Objection

STATE JOURNAL REGISTER, Sept. 23 — Pharmacists who are morally opposed to dispensing “morning-after” emergency contraception will have to follow the Illinois governor's rule requiring pharmacies to dispense such medications, reported the Journal-Register.

A Sangamon County judge denied the pharmacist's request for a temporary restraining order to block Gov. Rod Blagojevich's rule. Judge John Belz said that the pharmacists failed to meet the legal standards for him to issue a restraining order.

“We feel like this is a setback,” said Edward Martin, an attorney with Americans United for Life, who is representing the pharmacists. “I'm sorry for my clients who have to now go back to living with this rule that's onerously put on them.”

In April, Blagojevich issued a state administrative rule that requires pharmacies that sell contraceptives to also fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives. Many pharmacists object to the so-called “morning-after” pill because it can cause an abortion of an early embryo.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Resigns

WASHINGTON POST, Sept. 24 — Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford announced his resignation Sept. 23, and President Bush asked National Cancer Institute Director Andrew von Eschenbach to serve as acting commissioner.

Von Eschenbach is responsible for a National Cancer Institute workshop that concluded that there is no link between abortion and breast cancer, despite a majority of studies showing it exists, said Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer. She was quoted by Lifenews.com.

Crawford's tenure was beset by criticism over drug safety and emergency contraception, the Post pointed out. The commission has repeatedly delayed a decision about whether to allow emergency contraception to be sold over the counter.

Group Seeks Boys Town Founder's Beatification

SIOUX CITY JOURNAL, Sept. 22 — Supporters of Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of Girls and Boys Town, are increasing their efforts to see him beatified, said Iowa's Sioux City Journal.

While the process is in its earliest stages, Sharon Nelson, the coordinator of a prayer group, believes Father Flanagan is already responsible for a miracle. She said that a Wisconsin man's tumor stopped growing after he sought the intercession of Father Flanagan.

Supporters gather at the Omaha, Neb., tomb of Father Flanagan monthly to pray for the cause. Father Flanagan founded Boys Town in 1917 to aid orphaned children. He died in 1948. Today, the organization encompasses 19 sites across the country that aid troubled children and their families.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Spiritual or Religious? DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

A recent issue of Newsweek featured several articles on spirituality and religious beliefs, including a cover story titled “In Search of the Spiritual.” Once you cut through the anecdotes and admiring talk of how “diverse” Americans are when it comes to believing (and believing nearly anything), the bottom line is a knowing insistence that “spirituality” is more popular than “religion.”

According to Patricia O’Connell Killen of Pacific Lutheran University, the fastest-growing category on surveys asking people to give their religious affiliation is “none.” But “spirituality” — defined as the impulse to seek communion with the divine — is thriving. A Newsweek/Beliefnet Poll found that more Americans, especially those younger than 60, described themselves as “spiritual” (79%) than “religious” (64%). Almost two-thirds of Americans say they pray every day and nearly a third meditate.

I don't think Newsweek's findings are surprising in the least. In fact, such findings come out at least once or twice a year in the mainstream media.

Is any of this interest truly new? On the surface it would seem that Americans in the 1950s, 1910s, or the 1860s had more homogenous beliefs about God and religion than they do today. But while the profile of esoteric spiritualities has increased since the 1960s, America has long featured a more diverse religious landscape than is commonly acknowledged — and has often been a hotbed for individualistic, anti-authoritarian and esoteric strands of religious belief. As those beliefs have grown, more and more people have tossed aside shallow and anemic forms of Christianity.

Unfortunately, the terms “religion” and “spirituality” have been so corrupted and distorted that they've lost nearly all of their traditional meaning. In post-modern lingo, such as that which Newsweek seems to be using, the two words can be defined roughly as follows:

Religion: The organized worship of a judgmental, angry God who makes unrealistic moral demands, hates women and hopes to send nearly everyone to hell. Most strains were created by old, white men in order to dominate women, oppress Third World countries and repress open-minded people.

Spirituality: The personal beliefs of enlightened people who seek direct, intimate contact with the divine (she, he, it, whatever) without being hindered by dogma, ritual, authority, structure, commandments or rigid notions about truth, logic, or religion.

Severing the two requires tearing the inner life away from the outer life. This leads to the popular idea that spirituality is a private matter while religion is a public display that may or may not taken seriously. Spirituality becomes freedom from religion. But spirituality divorced from authentic religion is a self-absorption leading away from true and abiding spirituality. This self-absorption, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in Truth and Tolerance, causes people to “look for what is irrational, superstitious, and magical,” so they easily fall into “an anarchic and destructive form of relationship with hidden powers and forces.”

“The spiritual man,” writes St. Paul, “judges all things.” The spiritual man is united to Jesus Christ, who rightly judges all things. That is not mere news — it is the Good News. Don't expect to see it on the cover of Newsweek anytime soon.

Carl E. Olson is editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Pope Benedict's Summer of Listening DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

VATICAN CITY — The first rule in the Rule of St. Benedict is to listen.

It is something Pope Benedict XVI has been doing much of since his election nearly six months ago and, as a consequence, has been providing an astonishing and powerful witness.

Over the summer, the Holy Father received a number of prominent figures in private audience at the apostolic palace in Castel Gandolfo. But what is most surprising — or not depending on your previous perception of the Pope as Cardinal Ratzinger — is the variety of people he has been willing to see.

In the latest of these meetings, Benedict spent four hours and dined with dissident Swiss theologian Father Hans Küng, a meeting which some commentators have described as “amazing” and “a sensation.” The professor described the audience, which took place on Sept. 24, as “extraordinary” but stopped short of referring to it as a moment of reconciliation. The Vatican said the meeting took place in a “friendly atmosphere.”

Father Küng was forbidden to teach in 1979 by the then-Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Joseph Ratzinger, together with other German bishops and the Vatican, after he questioned the dogma of papal infallibility. Ever since, he has been trying to secure a meeting, first with Pope John Paul II, and now with Pope Benedict.

Common Ground

The likelihood of a meeting with the new Pope was greater as both Benedict and Father Küng have known each other since 1957. Father Küng was also instrumental in the appointment of Father Ratzinger in 1966 as professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, and in his 1997 memoir Milestones, then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote he had “good personal relations” with Father Küng despite their dogmatic differences.

At the Sept. 24 meeting, requested by the dissident theologian, both agreed to discuss only those issues which they have in common rather than dwell on those issues where they diverge. According to a statement written by Pope Benedict following the meeting, the two theologians focused on the foundation of a “world ethic” and the dialogue of reason and the natural sciences with the reason of the Christian faith.

“I am sure that this will be seen in the Catholic world, and even more than that, as a hopeful sign because it shows that he [Benedict] has more positive intentions than maybe what was seen at the beginning,” Father Küng told the Associated Press. “That he dedicated to me so many hours,” he added, “was extraordinary.”

Society of St. Pius X

Yet this was not the only exceptional meeting of the summer. Just a month before, on Aug. 29, Pope Benedict met with excommunicated Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X. Following the meeting, granted at Bishop Fellay's request, there were hopeful signs that reconciliation was a greater possibility than ever, though still with much work to be done.

“It was very positive that he [Pope Benedict] did accept the meeting,” said Bishop Fellay in an interview with the Register Sept. 2. His deputy, Father Franz Schmidberger, also present at the meeting, said the encounter provided the society with an opportunity to show something they had wanted to demonstrate for some time: “Our love and our attachment to the Church and the See of Peter.”

Two days prior to that meeting, Pope Benedict held another private audience that also raised eyebrows.

Italian-born Oriana Fallaci, a controversial best-selling author of books highly critical of Islam, was granted an audience at her own request. Many commentators saw this again as evidence of the Pope's wish to listen and to try to find common ground, in spite of there being radical differences of opinion, and regardless of how such a meeting might appear to the public.

Yet none of these private audiences comes as a surprise to those who have studied the life of the Pope. As Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Joseph Ratzinger gave homilies extolling such openness and willingness to dialogue.

“It's very much in his character to be open and willing to listen, to look for points that can be shared,” said Legionary Father Edward McNamara, professor of dogmatic theology at the Regina Apostolorum University. “It's probably that this aspect of his character couldn't come out in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”

Father McNamara added: “Some may feel that such meetings are scandalous, but he's showing us that you can speak to these people, that one shouldn't demonize everybody because of their positions and ideas — people can have different ideas.”

The crucial point, Father McNamara continued, is that the Holy Father is trying to “find points of contact and agreement,” but that when it comes to doctrine, “he won't move an inch.”

Quoting G. K. Chesterton, Father McNamara pointed out that Catholics agree actually about everything; it is only everything else they disagree about. That is to say, committed Catholics agree on a few cosmic truths summarized in the creeds, prayers, sacraments and common life of the Church. However, when it comes to the rest of human existence they will gladly disagree with one another.

But these meetings also indirectly show another quality of the Holy Father: a great confidence in his own authority and intellect. It is said that only a believer confident enough in their own convictions is in a position to engage in authentic dialogue. Pope Benedict, with his highly respected intellectual background, so far appears to be enacting this principle to maximum effect.

Edward Pentin writes from Rome.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: He Said Goodbye to Hollywood DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Fifteen years ago, had someone told Paul Harrigan that, one day, he would play his music for tens of thousands of young people at a great religious event led by the Pope, he would have laughed in that person's face.

Yet there he was in August, at 41, playing World Youth Day in Cologne with his band.

For Harrigan, the road to that particular stage — and to his feeling perfectly at home on it — was nothing if not long and winding. Years ago, he gave up playing the seedy L.A. nightclub scene, along with indulging in its hard living and harder partying. The change came after he received an unexpected call — from the Blessed Virgin Mary.

As Southern California-based Harrigan explains the turn of events, it was an invitation to attend a 1991 pilgrimage to Medjugorje that ended up leading him to life in Christ. Today he uses his musical gifts to evangelize and catechize young people hungry for beauty and truth.

Harrigan spoke from his home with Register correspondent Scott Powell shortly after the singer's return from Cologne.

Tell us a little about your life before coming back to the Church. What were your desires and goals as a musician?

I'm the youngest of 10 children (eight of whom are boys). We were raised in a devout Catholic home, but by the time I reached high school, I had pretty much made rock ’n’ roll and partying my ‘gods’ and, eventually, fell away from my faith. My goal was to make it big in music so I could partake of all the things money, fame and success would afford me.

During my college years, my band began performing at many of Hollywood's infamous night spots, including the Troubadour, Gazzari's, the Whiskey A-Go-Go and the Roxy. We had some success and some fun, but it was mostly heartache and headaches as I searched for happiness among material things, and left God on the far back burner.

What led you to go to Medjugorje, and what was it about that trip that affected you so profoundly?

Several years of trying to hit the big time without [attaining] the fame and success I had hoped for brought tremendous sadness and frustration. I had a good job selling high-end cars and was involved in a serious relationship that kept me satisfied, or so I thought. But even these could not quench this inner desire for something more — for the divine.

Then, one day, my older brother called me from back East. He had been working there as a traveling salesman and told me he was quitting his job and moving to Europe. He was headed to teach English in Spain but, before that, he was going on a pilgrimage to some place in the former Yugoslavia that I had never heard of. Nor could I pronounce it. Padre — which is what I call my brother, as he is now a priest — told me the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, had been appearing to six children there on a daily basis.

I believed instantly. Several months later, I was let go from my job, broke up with my girlfriend and quit my band and the party scene. I was ready for something new, yet something, someone, familiar — Jesus. He and his Mother, Mary, were gently leading me to him.

I made a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in May of 1991 with Padre and another brother. There, I experienced the love and mercy of God as never before. I went to confession and poured out my heart to God through his priest. I let go of all the things that had kept me away from God. If I could sum up what Medjugorje means to me, it would be: prayer. Prayer from the heart, the holy Rosary, holy Confession and the Most Blessed Sacrament — the Eucharist. The Blessed Mother had led me back to where I started — the Church.

What are your goals as a musician now?

I now sing and perform regularly in churches and at praise-and-worship concerts and retreats. I was blessed to appear on EWTN's “Backstage” concert series a while back and had a great time down in Birmingham. Today, I'll sing just about anywhere, for anyone who will listen. The way I look at it, God is always listening, so I'll always have an audience.

How did it feel to perform in an enormous venue, one with the Pope as the “main event,” at World Youth Day?

We were able perform at a beautiful arena for a special screening of The Passion of The Christ, but I would have to say that, for me, the musical highlight of the trip was playing on the steps of the cathedral in Cologne with about 50,000 youth dancing and singing all around us.

If you’d have told me back in my rock ’n’ roll heyday that, one day, I would be singing for the Lord, I probably would have laughed really hard.

You describe your new CD, Thank You 2, as a “compilation of songs coming from the heart of a man who has experienced the suffering and loss of being separated from God.” How has this suffering — and now redemption — affected your music?

In the past, my songs were usually about searching for something and coming up empty. They were mostly melancholic. I now “borrow” lyrics from the Psalms and put contemporary music to them. Praise music is a powerful way to “pray twice,” as St. Augustine said.

I like to have fun with my music. I think young people who are on fire for their faith also want to enjoy themselves — and I couldn't agree more that they should. So my newer work focuses on getting them on their feet, clapping their hands, however the Spirit moves them. And I get to have fun, too.

What are some of the projects you're working on, going forward?

I hope to record my new album in the near future and start singing wherever God wants me to. I also have some songs that will hopefully cross over to film and television.

Ultimately, I want to evangelize through my music. I want to give people hope because with Christ, we have every reason to hope.

Scott Powell writes from Denver, Colorado.

Information

PaulHarrigan.com

----- EXCERPT: An interview with Catholic singer-songwriter Paul Harrigan ----- EXTENDED BODY: Scott Powell ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: 5 Saturdays, 1 Salvation DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Quick quiz: Raise your hand if you've heard of Our Lady of Fatima. Good show. Now raise your hand if you know about the Five First Saturdays devotion. If your hand is up, you're among the few who do.

But, as Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Father Andrew Apostoli points out: “The First Saturdays devotion is an extremely important part of Our Lady's request at Fatima for peace in the world and for the spread of devotion to her Immaculate Heart.”

And it carries with it an exciting promise from Our Lady for the individual as well as for the world.

In 1917, Mary appeared at Fatima, Portugal, on the 13th of the month from May to October. During one visit she told the three shepherd children — Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia — that she would return with two requests.

“The first was the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart,” says Father Apostoli, “and the second was the practice of what she called the Communion of Reparation, or as we call it, the Five First Saturdays.”

This second request came on Dec. 10, 1925. Our Blessed Mother appeared with the Christ Child to Sister Lucia, then a postulant at a convent in Spain. (She died this past February.) Jesus spoke first. “Have compassion on the heart of your Most Holy Mother,” he said, “which is covered with thorns that most ungrateful men drive into it every instant, while there is no one who does an act of reparation to withdraw them from her.”

Then the Blessed Mother spoke. “Look, my daughter, at my heart encircled with thorns, with which ungrateful men wound it every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. Give me consolation, you, at least; and announce for me that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months confess, receive holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to me.”

That's right. Our Lady herself assures that those who make this devotion will receive from her the graces necessary for salvation at the moment of their death.

The requests of Our Lady guarantee that her children will regularly receive the sacraments, especially confession, says Father Apostoli, since today so many Catholics don't confess on any regular basis.

“Our Lady was asking something that would assure them going every month,” he adds. “Our Lady was giving us the basic rules of the spiritual life. And the Rosary. Pope John Paul II said it is Christo-centric and a Marian devotion.”

Responding to the request, the Tim and Denise Donohue family of Denton, Texas, began this devotion in September. They learned of it on their visits to the Apostolate for Family Consecration at Catholic Familyland in Ohio.

“I believe the promises,” says Tim. “If you're being told this, and you're serious about your goal of eternal life, you're almost compelled to want to participate as an act of faith.”

The devotion also has a way of radiating out from each practitioner to the world.

“The more we learn the message of Fatima, the more we realize that God has a bigger plan,” says Marie Ostermann of Portland, Ore., a national board member of the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima. “Because of the obedience of those who do what Our Lady requested, whether or not we realize it, the effect is far reaching in bringing about peace. God applies the graces to sinners so they may be converted and be added to the number of those who will bring about world peace.”

Father Apostoli makes clear why Our Lady herself assures us observing the Five First Saturdays devotion plays a significant role in her promise of the ultimate triumph of her Immaculate Heart, beginning with reparation.

On May 29-30, 1930, Jesus explained to Sister Lucia the reasons for this reparation to Our Lady.

“My daughter,” he said, “the motive is simple: There are five ways in which people offend and blaspheme against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

Jesus listed the blasphemies: against her Immaculate Conception; against her perpetual virginity, against her divine maternity, refusing also to accept her as the mother of all mankind; by those trying publicly to implant in children's hearts indifference, contempt and even hate against our Immaculate Mother; and by those insulting her directly in her sacred images.

Father Apostoli elaborates on each of these in his new booklet on the Five First Saturdays, slated to be released this month by the Blue Army (bluearmy.com).

“For example, her perfect virginity is attacked because it stands as a rebuke to the sexual promiscuity and immorality of our times,” says Father Apostoli. “Her divine maternity is attacked because there is the rejection of Christ her Son.”

One reparation we make by this devotion is for those who teach children to have contempt against Mary, he adds. “We particularly see this not only in individual cases but even in the dictatorships of the 20th century — communism, Nazism and the like.”

Prayers of Peace

Tim Donohue wanted to help toward that era of peace after hearing the late Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, theologian emeritus to five popes including John Paul II, explain that “a miracle was promised at Fatima. And that miracle will be an era of peace, which has never really been granted before to the world. … Our Lady promised us this era of peace if we say the daily Rosary, practice the First Saturday Communion of Reparation, and live lives consecrated to the truth.”

Father Apostoli adds one reminder. “The Christ Child said to Sister Lucia not to make this devotion just once,” he says, “but to repeat it over and over again because it is necessary for the coming of the era of peace in the world.”

Observing the First Saturdays the first time takes work, Ostermann admits, because the world, the flesh and the devil always put up obstacles. But once she and her family made the initial Five Saturdays, each successive devotion definitely became easier.

Even a tiny struggle to work with Our Lady for peace and get a personal promise of grace for salvation is a deal too good to pass up.

Let's circle the First Saturdays now on our calendar.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.

How to Observe the Five First Saturdays

1. Go to confession on First Saturday (or the Saturday immediately preceding or following)

2. Receive holy Communion on the First Saturday itself.

3. Recite five decades of the Rosary.

4. Speak in a conversational way with Our Lady for 15 minutes, using one or more mysteries of the Rosary with the intention of making reparation to her Immaculate Heart.

5. Do these on the First Saturday of five consecutive months.

----- EXCERPT: Mary's promises to those who observe the Five First Saturdays ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Fatima in New Jersey DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

This year marked significant events connected with Fatima. In February, Sister Lucia, the remaining seer who saw our Blessed Mother at Fatima, died in Portugal at age 97.

Less than two months later, Pope John Paul II, so closely connected to Fatima's messages that he was called the “Fatima pope,” also died.

With these monumental events fresh in our minds, this summer seemed a fitting time for my wife Mary and me to head for a shrine dedicated to the message of Fatima: the National Blue Army Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Washington, N.J.

As we drove onto the 150-acre grounds, the Holy Family greeted us from one of several wayside shrines around the property. From a good distance up the hillside, our Blessed Mother beckoned us from high atop the huge outdoor chapel, like she's done for countless pilgrims since 1979.

The 26-foot bronze statue shows Mary with a rosary in one hand and a brown scapular in the other. She stands 145 feet above this chapel and nearly 1,000 feet above the panoramic valleys below.

The towering roofline beneath her cascades down and flares out like her mantle, enfolding the outdoor chapel. Mary also stands atop a huge crown; this is significant because Pope Pius XII crowned her Queen of the World. We quickly noted that everything here is designed to remind us that Mary, our mother and queen, protects us under her mantle.

This particular mantle covers the outdoor chapel that holds up to 1,400 worshippers for Masses from May to October — when Mary visited Fatima on the 13th of each month. Beyond the chapel's open-air sides, the rolling lawns and wide walks can expand the flock to thousands more, like the 3,000-plus who come for special occasions such as Padre Pio Day. (St. Pio is considered the “spiritual father” of the Blue Army.)

We visited the indoor Blessed Sacrament Chapel that's also under Mary's mantle, directly below the outdoor chapel. Open daily all year, it was re-dedicated this year after being re-built following a devastating fire.

The chapel focuses on the Eucharist and messages of Fatima. To either side of the altar, graceful statues from Portugal show us the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They stand before walls of warm brownstone that recall the catacombs underneath Rome.

Dancing Sun

We prayed before the Blessed Sacrament directly behind the altar and held by the Angel of Peace, a life-sized polychrome statue that escaped the fire unscathed.

This Angel of Peace, who taught the Fatima prayers to Lucia and her cousins Blessed Jacinta and Blessed Francisco, holds a ciborium with a host suspended above it, just as he did in an apparition preceding the Blessed Mother's appearance. Because this ciborium and host actually form part of the tabernacle, the angel who brought Jesus in holy Communion to the children now holds the Blessed Sacrament for us to adore.

The warm chapel has other reminders of Fatima. The single contemporary stained-glass window recalls the Miracle of the Sun during the Oct. 13, 1917, apparition, fulfilling one of our Lady's promises to the Fatima seers. (Thousands saw the sun dance and whirl in the sky.)

Then, kneeling at a prie-dieu, we looked into the new three-sided mural shrine that placed us momentarily in the Fatima countryside watching the seers and Mary — here as a beautiful statue of Our Lady of Fatima — during an apparition.

“Many people from Portugal say the scene is exactly as they remember the countryside,” Michael La Corte, the executive director of the Blue Army, told us.

He explained that the Blue Army, also called the World Apostolate of Fatima, is an international apostolate officially recognized by the Church as a private association of the faithful — the only Fatima organization recognized under canon law. Because there are no official dues, its hordes of members — 25 million, by one count — can't be numbered exactly. The only requirement is they meet Our Blessed Mother's Fatima requests to help save souls and bring peace to the world. Members promise to pray the Rosary daily, wear the brown scapular and pray the daily morning offering to offer as reparation the sacrifices demanded by our daily duties.

Mary's Glories

The Blue Army/World Apostolate of Fatima, which also promotes the First Saturday devotions, was co-founded in 1947 by Msgr. Harold Colgan and John Haffert. Both are buried in a peaceful glade on these grounds, next to the new 100-foot long shrine of Mary, Mother of the Life Within.

This beautiful, larger-than-life statue of Mary and the Child Jesus was dedicated during World Wide Fatima Sanctity of Life Day on Oct. 2.

“John Paul II consecrated Russia in 1984 according to Our Lady's request,” La Corte reminded us, “and we felt the millions of Rosaries said a day had something to do with the fall of communism without a shot being fired.”

In the Holy House USA that's now also a new retreat center, the chapel is a replica of the Holy House of Loreto. We learned that a stone from the original in Loreto was ground up and mixed with the mortar for these stone walls.

To connect us even more closely with the Holy Family, the chapel's reliquary contains fragments of the True Cross, Mary's veil, and Joseph's cloak.

Large sculptures behind the altar picture Sister Lucia's vision of the Trinity and Our Lady on June 13, 1929, when she received this important revelation and its message.

Outside the Holy House, we took the extensive rosary walk where the original 15 mysteries are well-spaced along a paved path winding through tranquil woods. Scenes set with over-life-sized sculptures bring us the Joyful Mysteries; equally large wood-like and bronze toned reliefs form the Sorrowful Mysteries; the Glorious are smaller bas-relief white marble.

The gentle instrumental hymns that emanated from hidden speakers enhanced the meditative walks.

Along one path, “Ave Maria” tenderly reminded us of our Blessed Mother, her Fatima message and the Rosary — all so lovingly communicated at this shrine.

Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.

Planning Your Visit

The shrine is open 9 to 5 from September through May, and 9 to 7 from June through August. Daily Mass is at noon; confessions are heard at 11:30 a.m. For more information and schedules, call (908) 689-1701 or visit bluearmy.com on the Internet.

Getting There

The shrine is at 674 Mountain View Road East, between major interstates. For directions, call (908) 689-1701 or visit bluearmy.com on the Internet.

----- EXCERPT: National Blue Army Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Washington, N.J. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Archdiocese Keeps the Faith in Religious Ed DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

MIAMI — When Lorena Palmiotto's children come home from their religious education classes, they always want to show her what they have learned.

“The way they teach it to them, it's something they can actually understand for their age group,” Palmiotto said. “They bring their papers home, show them to us and talk about it. They just enjoy it. It's a fun thing, yet they get to learn at the same time.”

Palmiotto and her husband have three boys in the elementary religious-education program at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Lighthouse Point, Fla.: a kindergartner, third-grader and sixth-grader. Their daughter, a high school senior, is an assistant teacher in the second-grade class. All are using textbooks in Sadlier's We Believe series that reflect an emphasis on teaching the faith according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Since 1996, the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism has been reviewing texts for conformity with the Catechism through a system in which publishers like Sadlier voluntarily submit manuscripts before publication to the ad hoc committee.

The committee then provides a report listing changes required for a conformity declaration, along with “recommended” and “suggested” changes. In 90% of the cases, publishers are making all the changes, according to Archbishop Alfred Hughes of New Orleans, the current chairman of the committee.

At the start of the review process, the ad hoc committee, which then was headed by Archbishop Daniel Buechlein, OSB, of Indianapolis, identified 10 areas in which textbooks were lacking:

— the Trinity and the Trinitarian structure of Catholic beliefs

— the centrality of Christ in salvation history and his divinity

— the ecclesial context of Catholic beliefs and magisterial teachings

— a distinctively Christian anthropology

— God's initiative in the world with an overemphasis on human action

— the transforming effects of grace

— presentation of the sacraments

— original sin, and sin in general

— the Christian moral life

— eschatology

As a result of the bishops’ effort to upgrade educational materials, 95 texts and series now bear the declaration of conformity with the Catechism, giving religious educators a wide variety of choices that not only teach the fundamentals of the faith, but make learning interesting for students.

A list of such texts is available on the U.S. Bishops’ website www.usccb.org.

Around the country, many dioceses and archdioceses — including Miami, where the Palmiottos live — are following the lead of the bishops’ conference and instructing religious educators to look for the declaration of conformity when picking new textbooks.

John Vitek, president and chief executive officer of St. Mary's Press in Winona, Minn., has estimated that only a third of the dioceses in the country have such requirements.

As part of a Register investigation, the 20 dioceses with the largest elementary populations are being examined to see whether policies are in place that ensure American Catholic children are getting a sound and thorough religious education.

So far, the Register has learned that the archdioceses of Baltimore, headed by Cardinal William Keeler; New Orleans, led by Archbishop Hughes; and St. Louis, headed by Archbishop Raymond Burke, require books to be chosen from the conformity listing.

The Diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., headed by Bishop Edward Kmiec, directs catechists to use textbooks in conformity, but finds it difficult to enforce the policy because of limited staff.

Must Submit List

Even in dioceses where strong policies are in effect, the Register has found that some schools and parishes are using materials that have not been reviewed by the bishops. In many cases, educators who chose the books were unaware that the texts did not meet the bishops’ standards for conformity with the Catechism, and diocesan officials did not know such materials were in use.

In Miami, where the ordinary is Archbishop John Favalora, all religion textbooks used in Catholic elementary schools must be ones that have been reviewed and declared in conformity with the Catechism by the bishops.

“That's [priority] No. 1,” Josephine Kenna, assistant superintendent of elementary schools, said.

Each year, every school in the archdiocese must submit a listing of the textbooks being used.

“If they're not up to date, they have to give a good explanation as to why,” Kenna said. “This is one of our better areas of cooperation. If we did have someone not using an updated text, we would have to bring them in and meet with the superintendent, have them give an explanation why, and ask them to change textbooks.”

She added, “It's a mandate from our archbishop that you have to be in conformity, period. There's no question about it.”

The archdiocese's religious education department, which oversees parish religious-education programs, has a similar policy and follow-up procedure.

However, Elizabeth Levitz, director of the department, said because the idea of having a list of approved texts is still fairly new, her staff is continuing to make people aware of it.

Two department consultants visit each parish program once a year or every two years to find out what books are being used. In most cases, programs are using an approved text. If something not on the bishops’ conformity listing would turn up, Levitz said she would contact the pastor to let him know.

Random Checks

Random checks of parishes and schools in the archdiocese found most to be using texts in conformity with the Catechism. However, St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Miami, had been using an older Sadlier series called Our Catholic Faith, and St. Paul the Apostle in Lighthouse Point had no text for seventh and eighth graders.

At St. Michael, the out-of-conformity text is being used for just one class of about 15 to 20 young adults who come to the parish with no previous religious instruction and need to learn fundamental teachings to prepare for the sacraments. George Briz, director of religious education, said he was under the impression that the book, which provides a summary of basic beliefs, had been approved by the bishops, as are the other texts the parish uses.

At St. Paul in Lighthouse Point, Judith Sherlock, director of religious education, said she put together her own program on Church history and the Eucharist for seventh and eighth graders using Scripture, the Catechism, and excerpts from books that are in conformity because she couldn't find a series she liked for those grades.

Levitz said she was surprised to hear that Our Catholic Faith was not on the bishops’ conformity listing because it was published by Sadlier.

“Whatever they publish seems to sell well and be fine,” she said. Concerning St. Paul's use of a program put together by the religious education director, she said, “We never think that's a good idea.”

Levitz said she planned to give the information about the parishes to two consultants who work in the department and visit parishes, documenting what is being used and providing advice about textbooks. “I will follow up and see what's going on,” she added.

Among the schools checked in the Miami Archdiocese, two were using questionable materials.

At St. Stephen in Miramar, eighth graders are using Harcourt Religion Publisher's Living Our Faith Morally, which is not on the bishops’ conformity listing.

Principal Maggie Ruiz said she didn't think to question the book because it was recommended by Nelson Bonet, a teacher who also works for the archdiocese. Other books in use at the school bear the bishops’ declaration of conformity.

St. Coleman School in Pompano Beach has just begun using God's Own Making, an older family-life series published by Sadlier that has not been reviewed by the bishops. The school uses two Sadlier series from the conformity listing for its other religion classes. Assistant Principal Liz Huntenburg said she made the change with archdiocesan approval.

When informed about the out-of-conformity texts in use in archdiocesan schools, Kenna said she had been under the impression that everything being used in the schools was approved by the bishops.

She said she was very concerned about the findings because the archbishop has directed that only texts in conformity be used.

Kenna said she planned to look more closely at the textbook listings that were due in her office at the end of September to see what is in place for the coming school year.

Judy Roberts writes from Graytown, Ohio.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: 'Tall, Thin, Dark, Foreboding' ... and 'Tremendously Happy' DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio has gotten attention because he knows Pope Benedict XVI.

But Father Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., and founder and editor in chief of Ignatius Press, would rather talk about the priesthood. Having almost married when he was young, he has advice for men who think they might have a vocation to the priesthood.

Father Fessio spoke to Register correspondent Valerie Schmalz.

What is your main work? You founded the St. Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco, founded Ignatius Press, and now serve as provost of Ave Maria University. What do you see as your call as a priest?

The call is to be a follower of Christ, and as a Jesuit to serve the Church under the standard of the cross, and particularly to support the Holy Father and the Church's teachings. That is the traditional Jesuit rationale.

Ignatius founded an order that was both missionary and educational. And even in the mission work it has done, it's often educational. The great glory of the Jesuits in the 16th and 17th centuries was to become the schoolmasters of Europe by their schools and by the ratio studiorum, which was a plan of studies, but still is very viable and still is used in some places.

As a Jesuit, my being an educator is something quite consistent with my vocation. I originally wanted to be a missionary and go to South America — before I had discovered my priestly vocation — to work with the poor as an engineer and do lay catechetical work. After entering the Society of Jesus, I wasn't given that assignment but I think I'm doing something similar; it's a kind of spiritual engineering: St. Ignatius Institute, Ignatius Press, and now working for Ave Maria University.

How did you come know you were called to the priesthood?

I went to public grammar school, and then I went to my first Catholic school, a Jesuit school, Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Calif. The one thing I was certain of was that I was not going to be a priest.

In high school, I realized that I couldn't be a Catholic just because my parents were Catholic. I had to find out whether this was true — whether there was a God and whether he had revealed himself.

So, in my high school way, I did that, pursued that, and I came to the conclusion that, yes, there must be a God. Looking at all the different claims that he had made himself known, it seemed to me that the Catholic claim was the most persuasive of all, most all-embracing of one's experience of history.

So that confirmed me in my conviction that the Catholic Church was the Church established by Christ and that Christ was the Son of God.

I went on to a Jesuit University — Santa Clara University — to study engineering, and it was there that I read a book which was very important for me called The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. It was about a retired engineer who went to Southeast Asia and by the very simplest means helped these people who were really struggling without benefit of a lot of what we would call technology — labor-saving devices.

In college, I developed a simple version of a personal philosophy. A man needs three things to be happy in life: a good religion, a good job and a good wife.

I had come to the conclusion that Catholicism was the true religion, and I was an American educated in the United States, and I knew I’d be able to find a job, and so the final piece of the puzzle was finding the right woman.

I had this idea of going to South America as an engineer and doing lay catechetical work, and I met a woman who I thought might be a good companion for that, and then found out that before I’d met her she’d decided to enter the convent.

At first, I thought I would change her mind about that and talk her out of it. But I came to the conclusion that, no, she would be a nun and I would become a priest, and that was my vocation. It just seemed like the only possible type of priest would be a Jesuit. So I entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1961 in Los Gatos, Calif.

I've come to recognize that God does act through what apparently are chance circumstances — as in choosing the Apostle Matthias by casting lots.

Looking back on my life's path, I see that I was born to be a Jesuit. My personality, my temperament, my way of thinking and acting are just something that is very consistent with the classical image of the Jesuit: you know, tall, thin, dark, kind of foreboding. Not all are that way, but that certainly fits the image.

What would you say to young men or not-so young men, who are considering a vocation as a priest?

Well, I would say that certainly God is calling many more young men than are responding. One should really trust God. The temptation is to think that you're giving up so much and to wonder whether you would find fulfillment or be happy or achieve your goal, whatever it might be.

The surprising thing is that once you've made what appears to be this great sacrifice of intimacy with a woman and a family and the choosing of your own profession and so on, you find that on the other side of that choice is tremendous freedom and happiness.

The important thing is to find out what God wants you to do. To be truly open. Ignatius calls it indifference. Not indifference in the sense of apathy, but saying to the Lord, “Whatever you want, Lord, not what I want. Your will be done, not mine.”

I think that if a young man has a question in his mind, whether perhaps he's called to be a priest, he really owes it to God and to himself to discern God's will.

At Ave Maria University, we have a wonderful program in which college students who are discerning live on a floor together with priests and a spiritual director, and they're able to be ordinary college students and at the same time discern a vocation. It works wonderfully because if a young man finds he is called to the priesthood, he's found his vocation. If he finds he's not, he still has very good spiritual formation for being a parent and for being a professional.

And it's also good because, sometimes, as you go through your life, you can have this nagging suspicion: Should I have been a priest? If you never really gave it a try, that can be a burden on your conscience. But if you really are open to God, and you try to let him speak to your heart, and you find that he's not calling you to the priesthood but rather to marriage — well, then you know you've generously opened yourself to him, and you can be confident that what you are doing is what he wants you to do.

What is your greatest joy as a priest, as a Jesuit and as an American?

My greatest joy as a priest, of course, is the celebration of Mass. I have come to appreciate especially a way of celebrating the Novus Ordo Mass, which is very much in continuity with the Mass that had been celebrated before the Novus Ordo.

I was happy to find that as I was coming to see this, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was writing his book on the liturgy, The Spirit of the Liturgy. And his views on the Mass and how to celebrate the Mass turned out to be the same as what I had come to, although he expressed them there in a much more beautiful and profound way.

So, celebrating Mass facing the Lord, with the Roman Canon, in Latin, Gregorian Chant and a congregation which is deeply prayerful, is a great joy for me. We do that at Ave Maria University. It's one of my joys, both at Ave Maria University and Ignatius Press. So that's my greatest joy as a priest.

As a Jesuit, I guess my greatest joy is knowing I have been called to a society of such giants of the faith, such great heroes, even though I think at the present moment the society as a whole has fallen somewhat from that extremely high and noble standard. I still think that being a Jesuit is a great privilege.

My joy as an American is the realization that while no political system or order is going to be the Kingdom of God, we do have many freedoms here and the opportunity to become one's self and achieve one's destiny.

Even though our culture is in many ways a degraded one, still when you look at the main forces and powers in the world today and for the future, you see China which is enormous, and Islam which is growing, and you have what — the West. And the West is basically North and South America. Europe is on the decline and is going to become perhaps, if nothing else, an Islamic federation over time.

So I think as an American there is an opportunity through education to form the next generation, many of whom are Hispanics, for leadership in the society and in the Church. And this is really the last chance of preserving the glorious tradition of Western civilization, which is the greatest cultural artifact that mankind has ever produced, a civilization that owes its greatness to the culture forming and transforming presence of the Catholic Church.

Valerie Schmalz writes from San Francisco.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Valerie Schmalz ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Divine Judgment DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Till further notice, I'm going to stick with the daring theory that New Orleans was drowned by a hurricane.

That bothers some of the holier folk I know, who are quite certain they discern in recent events the fate of sinners in the hands of an angry God. In the days following Katrina, I was inundated with e-mail and blog links informing me that the drowning of New Orleans was due to such things as abortion, Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence Day, the Gaza Pullout, and the Big Easy's guilt for being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres.

To doubt that this fully explained the situation of children wandering around by themselves in the ruins of New Orleans, or to suspect that this was not the most helpful way to begin a conversation with a mother who just watched her baby die of thirst was, to some of the more prophetic among us, tantamount to denying the sovereignty of God as judge of the universe.

However, my ears are not attuned to the frequencies by which he communicated these absolute truths to some. So I rely on the basic teaching of the Church without direct locutions from the Holy Spirit. When I do this, certain things emerge from this body of teaching:

First, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Second, God is in control of stuff (including weather).

Third, life is extremely mysterious.

Fourth, God is the judge of the world, not me.

Fifth, if I were in the position of people in New Orleans, I would be strongly tempted to give a good swift kick to the holy ones whose first thought is not, “How can I help?” but “This is your fault, you know.”

Not that Christians are the only ones given to detailing the precise details of the mind of the Almighty, mind you.

In addition to the normal rash of prophetic denunciations of the Great Whore on the Delta, I also got plenty of New Age denunciations of Christians for their grave sin of thinking God is a judge at all. Accordingly, an entirely different set of anointed prophets in tune with the Infinite sent me e-mails and links to reveal that God had nothing whatever to do with the hurricane, and that God would, in fact, never do or say anything that did not affirm us unconditionally in our okayness.

Me? I believe God judges evil. I do not believe that I'm qualified to know every instance of his doing this. One person of my acquaintance was convinced that since I'm not ready, willing and able to connect the dots between Katrina and the various evils that found a home in New Orleans, I denied that God is a judge at all. Meanwhile, my New Age correspondents thought that to believe God is Lord and judge of the world was to blame the victims of Katrina.

The truth is elsewhere. I believe God judges evil. But the central fact of divine Revelation is that God not only judges evil, he has already done so — on the cross. Paul says as much:

“And even when you were dead in transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions; obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross; despoiling the principalities and the powers, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them away in triumph by it” (Colossians 2:13-15).

And he is only taking a page from his Master, who said as he went to that decisive battle with evil:

“But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned” (John 16:7-11).

People seem to have the idea that the real judgment of God is found in cinematic events like Noah's flood and the parting of the Red Sea. These are images of God's judgment. They foreshadow the real judgment which took place on the cross. If we want to really understand judgment (and mercy) in fullness, we have to look there. If we say, “Oh. Yeah. That. I guess.” And then turn eagerly away from it to the images, we'll be reading Scripture backwards.

Real judgment takes place in the cross and in our response to it. And like all real judgment, it not only reveals God to us, but reveals us to ourselves.

So I believe divine judgment is real — and that it typically occurs when God shows us our own faces. In the crucifixion, a terrible judgment is rendered against Caiaphas, against Pilate, against Peter and the disciples, against Judas. But the judgment is intrinsic to who they are.

Those who make it through that terrible day of judgment with hope are the ones who, either at that time or eventually, choose to bear Jesus’ torment — the torment reserved for the accursed. Mary bore it immediately and fully. In the eyes of the establishment that murdered her Son, she was also accursed, and the rumors continued forever after about her alleged liaison with a Roman centurion who was the real father of Jesus. Those who came limping along after, smarting from their judgment like Peter, likewise shared in the curses that fell on Christ.

But the respectable people — the people who were perfectly certain they knew why God had visited this punishment on Jesus and who were perfectly certain that he was being judged … God help them.

Was New Orleans judged by this hurricane? Only in the sense that everything that happens to us can be a means by which God reveals himself and ourselves to us.

Certainly, I think, we learned some very unpleasant things about ourselves in the wake of Katrina. But then again, I think as the stories of heroism and generosity emerge (and they've been chronicled in the Register), we will also find that people (at least some people) learned some very surprising and good things about themselves and others too.

Everybody remembers the people who were certain they saw a judgment on New York in 9/11. I'm one of them. And the judgment I saw was, “New Yorkers are awesome!”

I was repeatedly moved to tears by the incredible stories of heroism, sacrificial love and nobility that came out of that horrible moment. In a strange way, it helped me make sense, at an experiential level, of Paul's talk in Romans about how the trials of this life are nothing compared with the glory to be revealed. It explained how an entire generation can look back fondly on a time of depression and war.

Because judgment does not consist of our external circumstances. It is, rather, how we embrace God's love and live it out under those circumstances.

Mark Shea is senior content editor for www.CatholicExchange.com.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Shea ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

SUNDAY, OCT. 9

Heaven on Earth: Christianity

History Channel, 7 a.m.

Christy Kenneally explores Christian art and architecture, including early Irish monks’ beehive-shaped stone huts on the isle of Inishmurray, cave churches in Ethiopia, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona. Advisory: TV-PG.

SUNDAY, OCT. 9

The Cole Conspiracy

History Channel, 8 p.m.

This 90-minute show chronicles the suicide-bomb attack on the Arleigh Burke Class “Aegis” guided missile destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, on Oct. 12, 2000. The blast killed 17 sailors and wounded more than 30. The crew displayed heroism in rescuing the injured and bringing the damage under control.

TUESDAYS

Zorro's Fighting Legion

Familyland TV, 5 p.m.

In this 12-episode serial from 1939, sword-wielding Zorro (The Fox) escapes many perils as he leads a fighting force — the Legionnaires — in foiling the plot of nasty “Don Del Oro” to become emperor of Mexico. Reed Hadley is Zorro/Don Diego, Sheila Darcy is Volita and William Corson is Ramon. Re-airs Saturdays at 3:30 a.m.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12

Meet the Ancestors

History International, 10 p.m.

In this episode, “The Oldest House in Britain,” host Julian Richards meets fellow archaeologist Clive Waddington in Northumberland, England, at the site of a Stone Age house. Using re-creations and other techniques, they show us what the ancient home and its dwellers might have looked like.

THURSDAY, OCT. 13

Fatima: Altar of the World

EWTN, 11 p.m.

This 60-minute show takes a historical look at Our Lady of Fatima's visits in 1917, the beatifications of the children Jacinta and Francisco, and Pope John Paul II's visit to Fatima after his recovery from the assassination attempt of May 13, 1981.

FRIDAYS

Three Wishes

NBC, 9 p.m.

In this new series, singer Amy Grant (who famously crossed over from contemporary Christian to mainstream pop music) displays what she calls “faith in action” as she visits three towns each week to fulfill the wishes of families and charitable groups.

SATURDAY, OCT. 15

College Football:

USC at Notre Dame

NBC, 3:30 p.m.

Sporting a potent offense under new head coach Charlie Weis, can the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame pull off an upset over the powerful defending national champions of Southern California?

SATURDAY, OCT. 15

The Young Disciples:

Discovering Jesus

In the Eucharist

Familyland TV, 9:30 p.m.

As the Year of the Eucharist draws to a close, this inspiring 30-minute show presents joyful young people who tell about their encounters with Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

Bishop: Church Doesn't Interfere With Domestic Affair

PRAVDA, Sept. 27 — Italian bishops rejected accusations that the Church interferes with the country's domestic affairs, insisting the Church should have its say on moral issues, the Russian daily reported.

The long-standing accusations have been renewed recently as the head of Italian bishops, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, said he opposed giving full legal rights to unmarried couples. The comments drew criticism, and on Sept. 23 the cardinal was booed by a small group of students as he received an award in the Tuscan city of Siena.

Bishop Giuseppe Betori, General Secretary of the Italian Episcopal

Conference, added the Church “will never give up … its duty to speak in a clear and strong way in order to enlighten believers and all men of good faith both on matters of faith and ecclesial life and on issues of great moral relevance, such as human life, family, justice and solidarity.”

Pope Greets Israelis and Palestinians in Audience

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Sept. 28 — Pope Benedict XVI issued special greetings to a group of Israelis and Palestinians attending a seminar on peace, the Associated Press reported.

“I greet in particular those Israelis and Palestinians who have come to Rome to participate in the Education to Peace seminar,” the Pope said Sept. 28, speaking in English at his weekly public audience in St. Peter's Square. “Upon all of you, I invoke God's abundant blessings of peace and joy.”

The audience marked Benedict's return to the Vatican after a two-month vacation, first in the Italian Alps near France and then in the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills south of Rome.

Benedict XVI Invited to Visit Serbia — Conditionally

PRAVDA, Sept. 29 — Serbian President Boris Tadic met with Pope Benedict XVI and said he hoped the Holy Father could visit the country “very soon,” but said certain preconditions had to be negotiated first with the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Russian newspaper Pravda reported.

Tadic told reporters that the possibility of a papal visit was raised during his 25-minute meeting — the first between a pope and a Serb president. There were some “preconditions” that had to be worked out first, Tadic said, referring to an agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church to invite the Holy Father.

A pope has never visited Serbia — a traditional ally of Russia — partly due to an enduring rivalry between the Catholics and the Orthodox, the two traditional Christian Churches separated since the Great Schism in 1054.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Tadic had invited the Pope to visit, and that Benedict had thanked him for the invitation and “expressed hope that such a visit could take place in the future.”

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KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: PASS

(2005)

THE PIPPI LONGSTOCKING COLLECTION: PICK

(1969-73)

PIPPI LONGSTOCKING: PICK

(1997)

Ridley Scott's ambitious Crusade-era epic KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, new this week on DVD, idealizes the 12th-century Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem as a nexus of uneasy but briefly successful coexistence of Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land.

The kingdom is ruled in its final years by Baldwin IV, the Leper King, a moderate who wishes to maintain peace with Saladin. The peace is threatened, however, by “fanatics of every denomination [sic],” i.e., Christian and Muslim. (What about Jews? They're irrelevant here.)

Despite mention of “fanatics” on both sides, Scott devotes far less time to developing the Muslim side of things. There are no Muslim clerics, good or bad, and certainly no Muslim equivalent to the mustache-twirling villainy of the Templars or the hypocrisy of the patriarch of Jerusalem. Apparently Saladin is more successful at restraining fanatical Muslim elements than Baldwin is fanatical Christian elements.

In fact, the story could largely be described as the failure of moderate Christians to restrain fanatical Christians from oppressing innocent Muslims, thereby provoking justifiable Muslim retaliation against the Christians, both fanatics and otherwise.

Kingdom of Heaven makes an uneven effort at even-handedness in its religious portrayals, but its perspective is ultimately anti-religious, if not anti-God or anti-faith, elevating ethics above theology and commending a sort of religious indifferentism as the antidote to religious strife.

Inger Nilsson is Astrid Lindgren's irrepressible heroine Pippi Longstocking in the four-disc boxed edition THE PIPPI LONGSTOCKING COLLECTION, just released on DVD. Originally in Swedish, these four films are most familiar to American audiences in poorly dubbed English versions — and that's the version presented here (distributor Hen's Tooth was apparently unable to get U.S. rights for the Swedish-language soundtrack).

Unquestionably, the lack of the Swedish track (or a decent English dub) is a major drawback, but the standard English dub, as clumsy as it is, has a strange nostalgic charm of its own — not entirely unlike the appeal of the films themselves, which a have a sweet naïveté in spite of being somewhat crudely made and not really capturing the witty, whimsical spirit of the books.

The first film, Pippi Longstocking, opens with Pippi's arrival at Villa Villekula, her first meeting with Tommy (Pär Sundberg) and Annika (Maria Persson), and her various run-ins with local busybodies, a pair of bumbling crooks, and another pair of bumbling policemen.

The story continues in Pippi Goes on Board, which is actually mostly about Pippi not going on board, but carrying on much as she did in the first film. In Pippi in the South Seas, Pippi sets off with Tommy and Annika to rescue her long-absent father from pirates. And finally in Pippi on the Run Pippi accompanies Tommy and Annika as they run away from home.

For even more Pippi-ness, check out the 1997 animated PIPPI LONGSTOCKING, which does a better job than the live-action films at evoking the whimsy and absurdism of Lindgren's stories. The animation, while not Disney quality, is more than serviceable, and the music is better than average for this sort of thing.

Like Peter Pan, Pippi is a magical child, free from every sort of constraint (she's super-strong, rich, has no parents, no manners, etc.), and young viewers get a kick out of her topsy-turvy world.

CONTENT ADVISORY: Kingdom of Heaven contains strong graphic combat and battlefield, religious complications, and an adulterous encounter (nothing explicit), and is not recommended. The Pippi Longstocking Collection contains some scenes of mild menace from pirates and other assorted dangers, and some dubious frivolity involving guns and other dangers. The 1997 Pippi Longstocking contains nothing objectionable.

----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: At the Sign of the Southern Crucifix DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

A Catholic college grows in the Bible Belt.

On 100 scenic acres in the town of Dawsonville, Ga., about 50 miles north of Atlanta, the first Catholic college in Georgia opened its classroom doors Sept. 8 to 72 students from 15 states.

By this humble beginning, Southern Catholic College joins a small but growing list of lay-run Catholic institutions that adhere consciously to the Church's magisterium and seek to form students to be apostles in the modern world.

In keeping with Pope John Paul II's document on Catholic higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Southern Catholic requires all theology instructors to receive a mandatum from the local bishop.

Archbishop John Donoghue, who retired as head of the Atlanta Archdiocese last December, has supported the college since its planning phase; he celebrated Mass for the opening of the academic year.

The inaugural class is a self-selected group that is committed to the faith and excited about entering the ground floor of a new venture.

“I was looking for a Catholic college, but not one that just says it's Catholic,” says freshman Michelle Bivins, 18, from Owensboro, Ky. “At Southern Catholic, they are really in line with the teaching of the Holy Father, and that means a lot to me. And it's exciting to be here as the first class of a new college. I know I'm supposed to be here.”

A Catholic perspective is designed to inform not only theology classes, but history, philosophy, literature, math, science, the arts and all of campus life, through a Catholic Integrated Core Curriculum.

The curriculum is based on the fact that the Catholic faith offers a consistent and enriching view of God and the world that helps men and women form just and true relationships with one another, and leads them toward eternal life with God.

The foundational document of the curriculum is John Paul II's Fides et Ratio, which shows the necessary relationship between faith and reason, which are both oriented toward the one truth in God.

On this campus, there is no purported conflict between the dictates of the faith and academic freedom.

Operative Faith

Helping to develop this consistent Catholic atmosphere is Kelly Bowring, a theology professor who holds the unusual position of dean of spiritual mission. He formerly taught at Ave Maria College in Ann Arbor, Mich. His book The Faithful Exposition of Sacred Doctrine is being published this fall by Alba House.

Quoting from Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Bowring told the Register in an e-mail that, as dean, he is “responsible for assuring, or at least advocating, that ‘Catholicism becomes vitally present and operative’ on every level of the college’ … and assists in uniting the two pillars of Catholic academics — faith and reason — at the heart of the college, and serving to guarantee ‘the distinctive Catholic character of the institution.’”

Toward this end, Bowring began the academic year with “The Two Hearts Lecture Series,” on how students can come closer to Christ through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. He told the Register: “The dean of spiritual mission assists in fostering active prayer and adoration of wisdom incarnate — Jesus Christ — and devotion to Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom.”

This integration of faith and learning attracted 18-year-old Anthony Almeter, who grew up in Dearing, Ga., about a three-hour drive from campus.

“The Catholic faith is very important to me, and I wanted to be a part of a brand-new school that is going to have a consistent Catholic atmosphere,” he says. “Something was just calling me to be here.”

First Resort

Southern Catholic College began as the vision of Thomas Clements, a software manufacturer, who sold his company in 1999. With a number of like-minded Catholic businessmen he formed a board, which is now headed by Edward Schroeder, retired international president of United Parcel Service, which is based in Atlanta.

Also on the board are Nicholas Bain, vice president of UPS. Three years ago they hired Jeremiah Ashcroft, who was president of East Georgia College at the time, to serve as the founding president and sit on the board.

In capital campaigns, the school raised $15 million, and eventually bought a former golf resort for a campus. It includes nine villas with 74 dorm rooms, along with former conference centers that have been set up to house have classrooms, a library, a cafeteria and administrative and faculty offices.

The only newly built building on campus is the chapel, where daily Mass is offered.

The 72 students all begin this academic year as freshmen. A new freshman class will be added each year until all four years of the program are filled and the first class graduates in 2009. As the student population grows, more dorms, classrooms and other facilities will be built.

“After four years, we are looking to have 400-500 students,” Ashcroft says. “We want to continue to grow to about 3,000 students. We have plenty of room to build out on the 100 acres.”

Tuition is $16,500 and room and board is $6,800 for a total bill of $23,300 for students living on campus. About 72% of students have some sort of financial aid, the president said.

Ashcroft, who is 60, said that the college is designed to respond to Vatican II's call for greater lay participation in the Church and the world.

“Most people in my generation, myself included, have been comfortable letting all the work and responsibility fall on the hierarchy,” he says. “But educating the next generation of Catholics is just what the laity should be involved in. Southern Catholic College is a step forward in this project.”

Stephen Vincent writes from Wallingford, Connecticut.

Information

Southern Catholic College

330 Southern Catholic Drive

Dawsonville, GA 30534

(866) 722-2003

www.southerncatholic.org

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Register Summary

Pope Benedict XVI met with 30,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during his general audience on Sept. 28. His catechesis focused on the first part of Psalm 135, a liturgical hymn of praise and a profession of faith recalling God's marvelous work throughout history.

“God's omnipotence is constantly manifested throughout the whole world, ‘in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps,’” the Holy Father noted. “He reveals himself as the redeemer of his people and ruler of the world.” Through the psalmist's long list of God's mighty deeds, “God's love becomes concrete and almost tangible throughout history with all its sorrowful and glorious events,” the Pope pointed out. “The liturgy has the task of making God's gifts always present and effective in our lives, especially in that great paschal celebration that is the root of all other solemnities and the ultimate symbol of freedom and salvation.”

Pope Benedict XVI concluded by calling on the faithful to make their own the words that St. Clement of Rome, the first-century Pope, wrote in his Letter to the Corinthians: “O Lord, let your face shine upon us, for the sake of goodness in peace, in order to protect us with your powerful hand, rescue us from all sin with your almighty arm, and save us from those who hate us unjustly. Grant harmony and peace to us and to all the earth's inhabitants …”

We have just heard the first part of Psalm 135, a liturgical hymn in which allusions, reminders and references to other biblical texts are woven together. In fact, the texts of the liturgy are often composed by drawing from the Bible's rich heritage with its extensive repertoire of compositions and prayers that sustain the faithful in their journey.

Let us examine the prayer found in the first section of the psalm (see Psalm 135:1-12), which begins with a long and passionate invitation to praise the Lord (see verses 1-3). This appeal is addressed to the “servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God” (see verses 1-2).

We find ourselves in the lively atmosphere of worship as it takes place in the Temple, the preferred site of prayer for the community. There, the presence of “our God,” a “good” and “gracious” God, the God of the chosen people and of the covenant (see verses 3-4), was experienced in a very effective way.

A Profession of Faith

After the invitation to praise, a lone voice proclaims the profession of faith, which begins with the phrase “I know” (see verse 5). This creed forms the substance of the entire hymn, which turns out to be a proclamation of the greatness of the Lord (see verse 5) as manifested in his wondrous deeds.

God's omnipotence is manifested constantly throughout the whole world, “in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.” He is the one who makes clouds, lightning, rain and wind, which are portrayed as being kept in a “storehouse” or reservoir (see verses 6-7).

However, this profession of faith especially celebrates another aspect of God's work: the Creator's marvelous intervention in history where he reveals himself as the redeemer of his people and ruler of the world. The great events of the Exodus unfold before Israel gathered in prayer.

First of all, there is a concise and basic commemoration of Egypt's “plagues,” the scourges that the Lord inflicted to subdue the oppressor (see verses 8-9). Afterwards, Israel's victories after its long march through the desert are recalled. They are attributed to God's powerful intervention, as he “struck down many nations and slew mighty kings” (verse 10). Finally, we see the eagerly and long awaited goal — the promised land: “He made their land a heritage, a heritage for Israel his people” (verse 12).

God's Love Is Concrete

God's love becomes concrete and almost tangible throughout history with all its sorrowful and glorious events. The liturgy has the task of making God's gifts always present and effective in our lives, especially in that great paschal celebration that is the root of all other solemnities and the ultimate symbol of freedom and salvation.

Let us respond to the spirit of this psalm and its praise of God, making it our own, in the words of St. Clement of Rome, in the lengthy concluding prayer of his Letter to the Corinthians. He notes that, as in Psalm 135, the face of God the Redeemer, and so his protection, which was already granted to our ancient fathers, now reaches us in Christ: “O Lord, let your face shine upon us, for the sake of goodness in peace, in order to protect us with your powerful hand, rescue us from all sin with your almighty arm, and save us from those who hate us unjustly. Grant harmony and peace to us and to all the earth's inhabitants, as you granted it to our fathers when they called upon you in holiness, faith and truth. …To you, the only one capable of bestowing these and other even greater blessings upon us, we give thanks through the great priest and protector of our souls, Jesus Christ, by whom you are glorified from generation to generation and for ever and ever. Amen” (60, 3-4;61,3: Collana di Testi Patristici, V, Rome, 1984, pp. 90-91).

(Register translation)

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THE TEMPERAMENT GOD GAVE YOU

by Art and Laraine Bennett

Sophia Institute, 2005

288 pages, $16.95

To order: (800) 888-9344 or sophiainstitute.com

With The Temperament God Gave You: The Classic Key to Knowing Yourself, Getting Along With Others, and Growing Closer to the Lord, Register Family Matters columnist Art Bennett collaborates with his wife Laraine to answer a real need for many Catholics.

Describing in detail the four classic temperaments first described by the Greek physician Hippocrates — the choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic types — they guide readers to understand others’ behavioral tendencies and relational patterns.

This is key information for those who would set out to evangelize and catechize the world.

The book begins with a basic discussion of what temperament is, as opposed to personality, and then synopsizes each of the four temperaments. The Bennetts offer a quick temperament test at the beginning of Chapter 2, but I recommend taking the longer “Temperament Indicator Self-Test” at the end of the book before even beginning the chapters. The information will resonate more deeply if you receive it through the prism of your own self-understanding. And don't be surprised if you don't fit neatly into any one type: It is rare for anyone to do so; most of us have a dominant temperament with some traits of a secondary one.

Once you have your temperament(s) figured out, Art and Laraine help you understand your spouse's temperament and suggest helpful and concrete ways to understand and support him or her, keeping his or her temperament in mind.

This chapter really opened my eyes to the very real ways that temperaments affect the ways in which we respond. For example, cholerics (my husband) tend to be self-confident and self-reliant. They take charge and are goal-orientated. What I didn't realize was that they also need words of affirmation and need to be told that they are appreciated. I didn't know I had to tell my husband he was appreciated; I just thought he knew. By the same token, I made sure to highlight the section that lists tips on meeting your sanguine spouse's needs (that's me) — just in case he happens to pick up the book.

The Bennetts then go on to explain the dynamics of children's temperaments. From challenging the choleric to encouraging the phlegmatic child to take on leadership roles, the authors give those of us raising children practical tools we can apply in day-to-day life.

“One of the best tools (for parenting) is to understand the temperaments of our children,” they write. “This is the key to understanding their personality, and it gives us a handle on how to motivate them, how to express our appreciation, how not to let our buttons get pushed — in short, how to show our love for them in a way that encourages and motivates them, and helps them grow closer to God.”

In one of my favorite sections, the Bennetts show how a person's particular temperament affects his or her spiritual life. They point out the spiritual gifts and weaknesses of each temperament, and point to saints as role models for living with the particular temperaments.

And they encourage us not to just accept our imperfections, but rather to turn them into opportunities to grow in virtue. They explain that, when we “begin to see ourselves as we truly are, we can begin to make conscious changes for the better. All Christians — whatever their vocation, their state in life or their temperament — are called to holiness.”

Veronica M. Wendt writes from Steubenville, Ohio.

----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Veronica M. Wendt ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Speaking With the Saints DATE: 10/09/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: October 9-15, 2005 ----- BODY:

“Look at that,” Thomas said, “Soon, you'll worship him as a god.”

He waved a local newspaper. The front page headline asked in bold letters, “John Paul II on the fast-track to sainthood?”

Thomas is an evangelical Christian with a deep love for Christ. He enjoys challenging me about Catholic beliefs he finds misguided. Our stand on saints is particularly disagreeable to him; he considers it a vestige of paganism: “All those saints you worship, each of them in charge of a particular matter, such as good weather, protection from fires, a good harvest, etc., etc. — aren't they precisely like the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece or Rome?”

“We do not worship saints,” I said, “We venerate them. Worship is due only to God.” “That's just a matter of semantics,” he gave back, “a distinction without a difference.”

“No, it is not,” I protested, “let me explain: Worship is a response to a being who has his greatness of himself. The only such being is God. In contrast, veneration includes an awareness that the person venerated has no glory in and of himself, but that everything admirable in him ultimately comes from God. When we say that we do not worship saints but venerate them, we want to emphasize that their beauty reflects God's splendor.

If God is the sun, radiating light by itself, the saints are like the moon, being bright only through reflecting the sun's radiance. Isn't it clear, then, that distinguishing veneration from adoration is not mere semantics?”

“Maybe,” he conceded, “but this does not sway me to consider worshipping — excuse me, venerating — saints as right.”

Thomas is a first-rate classical musician. So I said, “Think of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn. Don't you admire them?” “I do,” he agreed, “But what does Bach have to do with our topic?”

“Well, think of veneration as a kind of religious admiration,” I explained, “If it is appropriate to admire people for matters like musical talent, capability in science, and even accomplishments in sports, shouldn't it also be proper to admire them for something much more important, their zeal in following Christ and their courage in professing the faith?”

“Perhaps — but the way you Catholics relate to saints distracts from God's glory.”

“Does it?” I asked, “Imagine Rembrandt taking a friend through his studio. Instead of looking at any of the paintings, the friend keeps his gaze fixed on Rembrandt until the latter asks impatiently, ‘Don't you want to look at any of my works?’ The friend defends himself, ‘I am afraid that looking at your paintings will diminish my appreciation of your greatness as a painter.’ This would be silly, would it not? Through admiring Rembrandt's paintings, the friend gives honor to Rembrandt. Similarly, the saints are God's most wonderful creations; by admiring (aka venerating) them, we give glory to God who made them.”

He continued looking skeptical as he stated, “There is another matter I take exception to. You pray to saints for assistance — just as if they would be little gods and goddesses capable of helping you.”

I responded, “The saints cannot do anything for us except pray for us. Whatever benefit might result from a prayer to a saint is God's work, done because of the saint's intercession.”

He inquired, “Why waste your energy with asking a saint? Why not go directly to the top?”

It was time for me to leave, so I suggested that we continue our conversation at a future occasion. I knew that Thomas had elective surgery scheduled for the following week. I tried to reassure him by pointing out the excellent reputation of the medical facility where the procedure was to be done. “Thank you for reminding me,” he said, “but please pray for me.”

I could not resist the temptation of using the opening he had just given me: “Thomas, why did you just waste your energy asking me to pray for you? Why did you not make better use of the moment by going directly to the top?”

He laughed: “You are impossible, Fritz.” He got my point: We are called to pray for each other, and when someone promises to pray for me, I am deeply grateful for that promise. The intercessory prayers of a fellow human on this earth are precious to me although he is forgetful, easily distracted, and often inattentive.

Should I then not rejoice much more in the thought of a saint praying for me — someone who never grows tired, is never forgetful, and eternally able to intercede before God with intensive fervor because he sees him face to face?

To date, I did not convince Thomas of the appropriateness of venerating saints. He thinks very highly of John Paul II, though.

May the prayers of that great man help the Thomases of this world to see the Catholic Church as their true home; may John Paul II's intercessions before God's throne bring about a realization of the profound hope he shared with our savior: Ut unum sint (that they may be one).

Fritz Wenisch teaches philosophy and religious studies at the University of Rhode Island.

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Cardinal: Islam Is Totally Diverse From Christiaity

THE TELEGRAPH, Sept. 27 — Two senior Church leaders have risked reigniting the controversy over faith schools by voicing their reservations about Christian children going to Muslim faith schools, The London Telegraph reported.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, welcomed that fact that Jewish and Muslim parents sent their children to Catholic schools because they like the “ethos.” But he said that he would not want large numbers of Catholic children attending Muslim schools because he would not want them to be brought up “in that atmosphere.”

His remarks were echoed by the Right Reverend Tom Butler, the Church of England's Bishop of Southwark, who said he would not have sent his children to a Muslim school.

“Although religion is taken seriously in a Muslim school, I think the particular insight of Islam … is not mine,” he said. Both clerics were speaking on the BBC television program “God and the Politicians.”

Cardinal O’Connor added that, while he welcomed dialogue between the faiths, “fundamentally, the creed of Islam is totally diverse from the creed of Christianity.”

Abortion Fight Rages in Colombia

CHICAGO TRIBUNE, Sept. 27 — The public fight over abortion that has raged for decades in the United States has finally reached this intensely Catholic nation where the practice is outlawed but up to 400,000 abortions are carried out each year, the Tribune reported.

Monica Roa, a 29-year-old lawyer, ignited the debate in April when she filed a lawsuit in Colombia's Constitutional Court challenging the constitutionality of the nation's abortion ban. She also is asking the justices to legalize abortions when the unborn child is deformed and cannot survive outside the womb. One example Roa cited is anencephaly, a rare and fatal condition where the unborn children don't develop most of their brains.

Bishop Fabian Marulanda, secretary general of the Colombian Conference of Bishops, stated, however, “If we would accept the principle that a deformed child doesn't have the right to life, we would be taking part in a kind of Nazism.”

El Tiempo, Colombia's leading newspaper, published a lengthy editorial in August supporting Roa's lawsuit, which the court is expected to rule on in the next few months.

However, Catholics collected 2 million signatures defending the right to life of all unborn children.

Belgium Seeks Rwanda Priests Case

BBC NEWS, Sept. 27 — Belgium has asked Rwanda to allow the case of a Belgian priest, on charges relating to the 1994 genocide, be dealt with by Belgian justice, BBC News reported.

Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht also asked his Rwandan counterpart to return Father Guy Theunis to Belgium. Father Theunis, 60, denies reproducing articles inciting killings, in a Rwandan magazine he once edited.

Under the proposal, a Belgian judge would investigate the charges against Father Theunis and decide whether or not to prosecute.

“At first glance, we can't find any damning facts in the case, and we had a proper look,” de Gucht was quoted as telling Belgian radio.

Rwanda's Foreign Minister Charles Murigande said he would consider the request, saying, “We will need some guarantees on how the process is carried out.”

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