There are many ways to focus your Advent on the coming of Christ. You'll see more in the Register in the weeks to come. Some common ones:
Advent Wreaths are a wonderful way to bring an Advent atmosphere into the home. But you need to order now to get the materials in time. And what prayers to say when you light the candles? Our links below can help.
Advent Chains are a fun way for kids to focus on the spiritual. You create a chain of purple construction paper links, and remove one link per day. Each link has a Bible verse on it to read. As the chain gets smaller, Christmas gets closer.
The Jesse Tree is a combination craft and Scripture study that keeps your family focus on all the preparations God himself made for Advent. Find readings and necessary materials explained below.
Cribs, crafts, offerings and more ideas keep cropping up. You can find them through the websites offered below.
CatholicEducation.org
This site includes an article by Michaelann Martin that gives a great overview of Advent customs. To find it, type these two words in the search field: Advent Martin
EWTN.com
EWTN provides prayers, readings and other resources for your Advent and a great clickable online Advent calendar at: www.ewtn.com/devotionals/advent/
CatholicMom.com
This site has a great resource page for Advent activities and sources for Advent materials. Click on the home page, then click on “Catholic Kids” and find “Lenten Resources.”
USCCB.com
The USCCB has a number of Advent aids, including pdf pages you can print out for your family or CCD class. From the home page, click on “Publications” then “To Teach.”
GOSPEL OF CHRISTMAS
“Nowadays,” wrote Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, “a theologian or a preacher is all but expected to heap more or less sarcastic criticism on our popular way of celebrating Christmas.” There's much truth in that, he said, but also much bah, humbug. In Christmas tackiness “the yearning for something purer and greater is not entirely extinguished. [U]nderneath it all, does it not originate in the notion of giving and thus the inner urgency of love, with its compulsion to share, to give of oneself to the other?”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Death Lingers in Pakistan DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:NEW DELHI — A powerful earthquake brought death and destruction to the mountainous northern parts of Pakistan.
Weeks later, relief workers had yet to reach hundreds of villages.
After visiting the areas worst affected around Muzzafarabad and Balakot, the emergency coordinator of Caritas Pakistan, Tariq Raza, said in an Oct. 22 report that 20% of the survivors are “still unreachable” in the mountainous Kashmir region under Pakistani control.
“Across the mountains north of Balakot, an inestimable number of people have died in 1,000 villages that remain inaccessible,” he said. The survivors there remain trapped without an escape, and the rescuers struggle to find a way, his report said.
He predicted that the number of dead and injured would be” substantially” higher than the Pakistani government's count of 55,000 dead and 78,000 hurt.
Provincial governments in the quake-hit region have put the death toll at nearly 80,000, while nearly 1,500 deaths have been reported from the sparsely populated Indian side of Kashmir.
“We are faced with the biggest humanitarian crisis in our nation's history,” bishop Joseph Coutts, director of Caritas Pakistan, told the Register Oct. 26 from his diocesan office in Faisalabad.
“Thousands of people are stranded in their remote villages. But we do not have the means to reach out to them,” said Bishop Coutts, who has made three trips to the disaster zone to put in place the Church's advance relief center at Mansehra, about 62 miles north of Islamabad.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in India is working on a $6.8 million comprehensive relief and rehabilitation project and arranging for 1,260 special tents for earthquake-hit villages in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian website NewKerala.com reported.
With more than 80% of the houses and other buildings in the quake zone flattened or unfit for living, Bishop Coutts said that even those within reach of the relief workers are “desperately looking for shelter material.”
According to the Pakistani government, the Oct. 8 earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, rendered more than three million people homeless and destroyed property and infrastructure worth $5 billion over an estimated 10,810 square miles in the north.
With massive landslides triggered by the earthquake making remote villages perched along high mountain slopes inaccessible except by helicopter, Caritas described the ongoing relief operation in Pakistan as “one of the toughest relief operations the world has ever known.”
Although nearly 100 helicopters are in operation (including those dispatched by the United States), Caritas said that “many more aircraft and tents are needed; these are still too few … to reach more than 1,000 remote villages with life-saving supplies,” the report said.
“Shelter is crucial, and if people don't get that soon there will be a crisis of a different kind — people will start dying of exposure,” cautioned the Caritas report as snowfall has already started in the high mountains in the foothills of the Himalayas.
“The most urgent need is shelter. Thousands of people are freezing in the cold,” Bishop Coutts said.
Mass Graves
Bishop Coutts added that Caritas, along with Catholic Relief Services, has set up emergency relief centers in several of the worst-hit areas to distribute relief material while the international Caritas network is rushing thousands of tents.
“The scenes of devastation are unbelievable. There is hardly anything intact in the villages or the towns,” said John Joseph, executive secretary of the Caritas unit in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
While the road to worst-hit Muzzafarabad was snarled in traffic, Joseph said even the airports in Islamabad and Lahore are “almost choked” due to the relief material pouring in from across the world.
“This is a calamity of gigantic proportions,” said Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Pakistan.
Pointing out that Pakistan is not used to such a massive calamity — the last major disaster here was a quake in 1935 — Bishop Lobo said the challenge is how to get the relief material to the neediest people.
Besides helicopters, the bishop said, other means of transport would be donkeys and mules to carry the material along the rugged mountain terrain.
The enormity of the humanitarian crisis and relief work, he said, is symbolized by government officials declaring the site of the collapse of a school with 300 girls near Balakot as a “cemetery,” as no one is prepared to dig up the rotting bodies.
Similarly, with even international relief workers calling off rescue operations in several areas due to the stench of rotting bodies in the debris, entire villages have been declared open cemeteries. The Garan Dheri and Garlaat villages near Balakot, where thousands of people were buried alive, have been converted into cemeteries with local Muslim clerics asking the locals to erect walls around them.
Meanwhile, another major crisis is emerging. Medical relief workers from Caritas Germany reported Oct. 24 that in a desperate bid to save injured people, doctors are forced to perform emergency surgeries without anaesthesia in the remote villages.
Andreas Fabricius, health and nutrition specialist from Caritas Germany, said after visiting several villages in an army helicopter that some people's limbs were amputated “under makeshift circumstances. Many individuals have not received any medical attention at all.”
As a result, Fabricius said, the wounds of many patients have turned septic, and unhealthy living conditions could result in disease outbreaks in the remote villages.
Anto Akkara writes from New Delhi, India.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Anto Akkara ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Why Can't the Church Behave Like a Business? DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:FAMILY MATTERS
Whenever I get involved with Church-sponsored activities, I end up feeling frustrated. Meetings start late, proceedings are disorganized and nothing much seems to get accomplished. Are efficiency and professionalism too much to ask of leaders of church-based organizations?
I concur that there seems to be a built-in forgiveness factor at work in parish- and Church-sponsored groups. To a certain extent, this is understandable. In some cases, it's laudable. But that doesn't mean we have to make a mission out of mediocrity.
Neither does it mean, though, that you should expect Church operations to behave like businesses. For one thing, many Church-sponsored programs are staffed mainly by volunteers. They may have professional-level competency and skill sets in their careers — but not in the area in which they're toiling for the Church.
It usually comes down the individuals involved. Sometimes, for example, you'll see people who feel it's okay to “dumb down” when they show up to pitch in on a Church project. I know of one individual with impressive financial skills who has let his parish know that he is ready, willing and able to help out — with anything other than financial matters.
Then, too, let's face it: Volunteers act, well, like volunteers. Most will commit when other things don't get in the way, but other things often do get in the way. The mentality that often prevails is that we must be grateful for whatever a volunteer can provide. It wouldn't be right to hold people accountable — even for what, in a paid job, would be considered poor performance.
Now, as Pope John Paul II reminded us in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), all organizations should value the person more than his or her performance. But this is a call to improve respect, development and leadership, not an invitation to tolerate ineptness and complacency. Poorly run Church activities can lead to low morale, inefficiencies, wasted resources and added expenses. Worse still, they can lead to constricting the Kingdom of God.
And then there's the other side of the coin: Sometimes we want to bring our “A game” to the Church only to have the Church turn us away. I know of one highly accomplished professional who, upon retirement from his large corporation, offered his formidable financial acumen to his parish. The pastor declined to have him help with the books, but offered to have him serve as an usher. With all due respect for what ushers bring to the parish, this sounds to me like an unwise spurning of a great resource.
There shouldn't be anything inherently unprofessional in Church-sponsored or Church-led activities. Effectiveness, efficiency, customer focus and prudential business practices are virtues that a spiritual goal should embrace, not ignore.
In Luke 16:8, Christ is wondering why the children of darkness are more astute in their projects than the children of light. Practical, hardheaded intelligence is often what we're missing. And in 2 Peter 1:3, we are reminded that we are called to both glory and excellence. Not glory and shoddiness.
So go ahead and expect the best of the Church-based organizations and activities to which you're devoting your time. Make suggestions and offer feedback, albeit in a charitable and humble way, if you think your group could do better.
Let there be professionalism in the Church — and let it begin with you.
Art Bennett is director of Alpha Omega Clinic (aoccs.org).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Art Bennett ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Where Occult Is Promoted, 'Saint Fest' Takes Center Stage DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:SALEM, Mass. — Peter Campbell watched surprise spread across young faces in the rowdy Halloween crowd as they realized the rap music they're enjoying is Christian.
“Are you sure this is Catholic?” they asked.
The concert was part of Saint Fest, a musical evangelistic outreach to the teens and young adults who wander the streets of “Witch City” — Salem, Mass. — on Halloween weekend. This is the third year Campbell and his group, Proud2BCatholic.com, have staged this public witness.
Each year, thousands of party-goers descend on this historic seaport city. Most locals “stay hunkered down,” according to Father Timothy Murphy, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in the heart of downtown. It's in the parking lot of Immaculate Conception that Saint Fest took place.
“It's bizarre here,” he said of the drunken street-party that tops a month of events aimed at capitalizing on the Salem witch trials of 1692, and openly promoting the occult.
“To a certain extent, it's pushed commercially, but there is a large group that practices wicca [witchcraft] here all year,” Father Murphy said. He believes that many of the 50,000 curious people who bring gridlock to Salem in October don't really understand the spiritual warfare aspect.
Campbell, 34 and a youth ministry volunteer, stated plainly: “There is a real presence of evil.” Saint Fest is an “effort to inject a positive message of true faith and hope” in the midst of the revels that also draw Boston police canine units and 2,000 bikers.
With a stage and loudspeaker set up Saturday night, Oct. 29, in the church parking lot, singer Monica Ursino and Christian rapper Zealous performed outside.
“Go for the gold,” Zealous’ lyrics urge. “Don't sit around mopin’ at home, leavin’ your faith lukewarm, or frozen and cold. Run so as to win! The case is open and closed, and never look back, ‘cuz you were chosen to go.”
Even if listeners don't recognize the rap as based on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, St. Paul's message can speak to their souls.
Music can communicate on an emotional level, Campbell said. “It's a great tool for people who are outside the Church. This broadens their vision, puts the message of faith in a style young people can relate to. It's a soft approach to evangelization.”
Reclaiming Halloween
The message can help reclaim the meaning of All Hallows Eve, the vigil of the Feast of All Saints.
Inside the church, a vigil with Eucharistic adoration provides prayerful support for the music ministry. Religious Education Coordinator Domenico Bettinelli guards the one door left unlocked for worshipers. Last year, a group vandalized the historic church — the first in New England dedicated to Mary — by setting off fire extinguishers.
“This is basically a kind of white martyrdom, putting yourself on the line for the Gospel,” said Bettinelli, 37, who recently was appointed editor of Catholic World Report magazine.
Although the foot traffic is not always friendly to Saint Fest, the message is sometimes well received. “Some people are grateful we're here. You'll see them dressed in wild costumes, but they go into the church, genuflect and pray,” Bettinelli said.
While Saint Fest is aimed at the young out-of-towners who encircle the parish, Father Murphy does have two “reformed witches” in the congregation who can witness year-round.
Paula Alyce Keene is one. Now an elementary school art teacher and a Third Order Carmelite, she is a cradle Catholic who in the 1980s rebelled and dabbled in the occult. “I was very liberal, very contemporary,” she said.
After five years studying witchcraft under Laurie Cabot (whom former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis once proclaimed the “official witch of Salem”), Keene discovered that “white” witchcraft is a dangerous euphemism for pagan practices that lead to sorcery.
“Sorcery is the use of supernatural powers over others through the help of evil spirits,” Keene said. “It was the last thing I expected to have anything to do with when I got involved with Salem wicca.”
New Age religions can estrange people from the one true God, Keene said. “You're overtaken by a numbness, a spiritual stupor.” She knew that she was in trouble when she could not remember the words to the Hail Mary.
Years of anxiety culminated in a near-breakdown, until in 1989 she returned to the sacraments. “Christ healed me. If it wasn't for the Eucharist, I’d be dead or insane now,” Keene said.
“Darkness and evil are real. The devil is real.” Keene said she knows of other witches now who “want to get out. But you can't get out without Christ.”
City founders knew this nearly four centuries ago when they covenanted the city to God, she noted. The Salem Covenant of 1636 states in part, “We do bind our selves” to profess and walk “through the power and grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Thanks to Saint Fest 2005 and its youthful organizers who understand the Communion of Saints, those walking these same once-hallowed streets still hear of Christ's mercy and grace, albeit to a different beat.
Gail Besse is based in Hull, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Gail Besse ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Prom on the Ropes
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 16 — The principal of Long Island's Kellenberg Memorial High School has written to the parents of seniors about plans to cancel this year's spring prom due to an acceleration in the event's “bacchanalian aspects,” that “each year … get worse.”
In addition to addressing “the sex/booze/drugs” problem, Marianist Brother Kenneth Hoagland took issue with “the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake.”
Brother Hoagland began to object to the prom last spring after 46 seniors made a $10,000 down payment on a $20,000 rental in the Hamptons for a post-prom party in a deal that the school nixed.
Fraudulent Teacher Fired
The photo showed Bain ushering a young woman into the clinic, past pro-life protesters outside.
Bishop Wiegand's affirmed that “public participation in the procurement of abortions is morally inappropriate and unacceptable.”
Granting Religion
NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY, Oct. 17 — The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $1 million grant to the university for a new program dedicated to examining the role of religion in American public life.
Chosen from 36 applicants, Notre Dame was the only Catholic institution to receive the challenge grant, which will be administered over a three-year period.
The new “Religion in American Life” project is designed to elevate the level of public discourse on the role of religion in American life.
Careful Distinctions
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 19 — Judy Shepard, the mother of 1998 murder victim Matthew Shepard, spoke at Carroll College in Helena, Mon., at what has become an annual remembrance of Shepherd, a student at a nearby university.
The pro-homosexual Human Rights Network accused the college of “dancing around” the theory that Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was homosexual. Carroll administrators turned down a request by the organization to set up a “gay rights” table at the event.
A spokeswoman for the college said the “table request is where it gets difficult.” She said it would be “just asking for a confrontation” between an event designed to “promote tolerance” and the college's Catholic mission.
It was to avoid just that sort of contradiction that prompted Carroll to withdraw an invitation last month to Planned Parenthood to take part in a medical-ethics conference at Carroll.
No Stand — Yet
While Holy Ghost Father Charles Dougherty said he wanted to support students who feel “alienated,” he added, “We can't have any organization on campus whose activities are incompatible with Catholic teachings on human sexuality.”
However, the newspaper said, Father Dougherty “would not say where he stands on the issue,” pending the outcome of the committee's work.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Getting Out to Vote DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Californians vote Nov. 8 on whether to require the notification of a parent or legal guardian 48 hours before an abortion can be performed on a minor. If the measure passes, it will be a win for, among others, 61,000 Knights of Columbus members and 500 Knights councils in the state.
Also strongly backing the measure is Jim Holman, publisher of a San Diego alternative newspaper that refuses abortion and same-sex “personals” ads, and four lay Catholic newspapers. According to an Oct. 17 Los Angeles Times article, Holman contributed $1.1 million to the effort.
But getting to this point was rocky, even for people who believe that abortion is evil. Marvin Hayes, the Knights of Columbus’ state pro-life chairman, saw the merits of the initiative from the outset. He believes that “existing state law is tearing away at the fabric of the family, and this law is the first step in taking back parental responsibility.”
Although Hayes’ views were shared by many Knights, the state leaders were hesitant to back the initiative during much of the qualifying stage, when supporters were collecting signatures to get the measure on the ballot. Two competing initiatives were being proposed, attempting to accomplish the same objective.
The California Catholic Conference, the legislative lobby of the bishops in California, adopted a neutral position on both versions of the notification initiative, fearing the possibility that two competing initiatives would result in the failure of both. In a memo expressing their neutrality, the conference said that “individual Catholics are free to work at signature gathering for a parental notification initiative.”
Previously, in a communiqué, the conference cautioned “individuals and groups inclined to support the effort to qualify ‘a parental notification initiative’ to read the proposed language of both documents carefully.”
One Knight who did so was John Kupski, a long-time pro-life activist and former state pro-life committeeman for the Knights. He came to a different conclusion than the Catholic Conference about the initiative that became Proposition 73 because it included provisions for record keeping, reporting, bilinguality and criminal sanctions for violation of these provisions.
The conference was concerned that these provisions could change the focus of the initiative from a parental rights and child protection measure to one that is anti-abortion, which, in heavily pro-abortion California, might result in its defeat. Kupski maintained that “all of these provisions addressed the reality of the existing abortion situation” and are necessary to protect minor girls and parental rights.
The problem of two competing initiatives ended when the promoters of one never made a serious attempt to collect signatures. This, along with the eventual endorsement by several of the state's bishops, paved the way for the Knights’ state and national leadership to back the proposition and encourage membership to help it in any way possible.
On March 3, then State Deputy Robert Rodriguez issued this statement: “After passing muster with our hierarchy, I have determined that the K of C membership in California should whole-heartedly support this initiative.”
That support has included special training days throughout California to educate members and others about the initiative.
Once Proposition 73 qualified for the ballot with more than one million signatures, the state Catholic Conference endorsed it. It produced a brochure — “They Say, We Say” — which pits statements by the Campaign for Teen Safety for No on 73 against the conference's arguments. For instance, the “No on 73” group asserts that good family communications cannot be imposed by the government. But the state mandates parental permission for a child to go on a school field trip, procure an aspirin and participate in school sports, the conference points out.
“We hold,” said the conference in a statement, “that both the young woman's welfare and society's common good are best served when family communication is promoted in public policy. A minor faced with a serious emotional, psychological and medical decision needs her parents — their love, their wisdom, their counsel.”
In response to the pro-abortion propaganda that scared pregnant teens will turn to self-induced or “back-alley” abortions rather than talk to their parents, the conference brochure asks why they would do so when abortions will still be legal — and they can get a judicial bypass if their family situation is troubled.
The conference also points out that in the 30 states that already have parental involvement laws, there has been no spike in injury or deaths from illegal abortions. What has happened in these 30 states is a reduction in teen pregnancy and abortion.
Knights councils, too, have been taking every opportunity to disseminate materials supporting the measure — at tables outside churches, pancake breakfasts, dinner dances and other social events.
Without the efforts of Knights of Columbus Council 3051 based in Wilmington and the volunteers they recruited, much of this would not have been possible. During the qualifying stage of the initiative, they arranged phone calls to nearly 500 councils to determine how many petitions they needed. Later calls were made to verify they received the petitions.
Council 3051 also mailed an educational package, including yard signs, bumper stickers and brochures. The council and the initiative's sponsors believes what Pope John Paul II held — that the culture of death, which is manifested in current California law allowing a teenage girl to obtain an abortion without any parental involvement, emerged from the crisis of truth that permeates much of the Western world.
The sponsors of the initiative allowed Council 3051 to ship with this packet more than 60,000 copies of a leaflet the council produced that examines American public education's role in the crisis of truth. This leaflet is part of a special project to promote the importance of Catholic education for Catholic youth.
“The willingness of the campaign to allow us to ship these leaflets demonstrated that it recognized that the influence of the culture of death will not diminish until the moral relativity that undergirds it is repudiated,” said Mike Lee, the council's past grand knight.
Lee said Pope John Paul recognized this fact in Evangelium Vitae, where he wrote that “no less critical in the formation of conscience is the recovery of the necessary link between freedom and truth.”
James Coop is based in San Carlos, California.
----- EXCERPT: Californians will decide whether to enshrine parents' 'right to know' ----- EXTENDED BODY: James Coop ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Now You Lay Them Down to Sleep ... DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:For many children, bedtime prayers are a soothing ritual that helps bring another day to a close.
Astute Catholic parents see in them something more: an opportunity to introduce their children to the devotional life.
Wisely used, those twilight wind-downs can prove some of the most formative and fruitful moments in all of family life. Bedtime can be nothing less than a school of prayer.
Incorporate Bible stories and traditional prayers, and lessons learned right before tuck-in time can serve the sleepy-eyed “student” for a lifetime.
Then, too, the dark stillness offers that rare quiet moment when children can learn to speak with God from the depths and intimacy of their hearts.
Here are some resources to help make the last moments of the day a time for sweet endings and spiritual beginnings.
BEDTIME PRAYERS
written by Jean-Yves Garneau
translated by Madeleine E. Beaumont
Liturgical Press, 2004
104 pages, $6.95
To order: (800) 858-5450 or litpress.org
In this gentle book, Father Garneau offers mothers and fathers prayers to say for their babies just before the lay down the little ones for the night. “May She Discover That You Love Her” and “I Put Him in Your Hands” are two of the more than 30 such prayers. In the second part, the priest introduces about four dozen prayers from which children can choose to read each night. These prayers reflect kids’ very real concerns about themselves, their families, their friends and the needy. Prayers of praise and contrition (“For Praising You and Saying Thank You” and “I Forgot to Pray to You”) are included. All ages.
A CHILD'S GOOD-NIGHT PRAYER
written by Grace Maccarone
illustrated by Sam Williams
Scholastic, 2001
28 pages, $10.95
Available in bookstores
“Bless my pillow / Bless my bed / Bless me, too / From toes to head.” This playful rhyme invites God's blessings on each of the small, and not so small, parts of a child's world. Watercolor illustrations work together with childlike banter in this combination bedtime story and goodnight prayer. A board book version is available for younger kids under the title Bless Me. Ages 3 to 6.
WHILE YOU'RE ASLEEP
written by Terry A. Sites
illustrated by Christine Huddleston
Pauline, 1998
32 pages, $4.95
To order: (800) 836-9723
or pauline.org/store
What happens while we sleep? Many things: Grownups talk, pets play, airplanes fly and the world rolls on. But the most important thing that happens while we're asleep is that Jesus watches over us and loves us, each and every minute of the night. A terrific companion to bedtime prayers, this book drives home a reassuring reminder of God's continual love and care. Ages 3 to 6.
NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP
illustrated by Linda Clearwater
Standard Publishing, 2004
12 pages, $10.99
Available in bookstores
Little hands will reach out to touch the 3-D moon and shiny holographic foils accenting angel wings, stars and other sparkly things in this colorful board book. Moms and dads will enjoy reading aloud from its collection of comforting, well-known prayers and poems. One of our favorites (“Sleep My Child and Peace Attend You …”) brings the book to an evocative close. Each selection is coupled with a short Bible verse. Ages 18 months and older.
MY PRAYERS TO GOD
WITH LOVE AND JOY
edited by Rina Risitano, FSP
translated by Maria Healy, FSP
designed by Mary Lou Winters, FSP
Pauline, 2003
64 pages, $6.95
To order: (800) 836-9723
or pauline.org/store
As children grow, their prayers need to grow with them. This pocket-size resource provides an expanded repertoire of traditional and contemporary prayers for slightly older children.
Just right for bedtime and beyond, this bright, inviting collection includes prayers for many occasions, as well as an overview of the Rosary, tips for developing a spiritual life and a few well-chosen Scripture passages. Ages 9 to 12.
A KINGFISHER TREASURY OF BIBLE STORIES, POEMS AND PRAYERS FOR BEDTIME
selected and retold by Ann Pilling
illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
Kingfisher, 2000
92 pages, $18.95
Available in bookstores
Stories from the Old and New Testaments are retold in an engaging way for children. “A Marvelous Picnic,” for example, recounts Christ's multiplication of the loaves and fishes in words that are easy for children to understand. An eclectic and appealing mix of psalms, poems and songs are interspersed. Among the offerings are traditional bedtime lullabies (“Hush, Little Baby”) as well as the prayers of St. Francis of Assisi (“Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace”), St. Ignatius Loyola (“Teach Us, Lord”) and Dietrich Bonhoffer (“A Prayer from Prison”). Ages 5 to 10.
MY GOOD NIGHT BIBLE:
45 BEDTIME BIBLE STORIES FOR LITTLE ONES
written by Susan L. Lingo
illustrated by Kathy Parks
Standard Publishing, 1999
208 pages, $12.99
Available in bookstores
Bedtime is easier, this author says, when kids have a predictable routine. And it is all the sweeter when that routine includes snuggling up and “sleeping on” the Word of God.
This book lays out a game plan. Get the kids in their pajamas, tuck them in and together sing the featured “Bedtime Rhyme” song. Read aloud to them one of the short Bible stories.
Point out “Night-Light,” the “special firefly friend,” who asks a question or two about each story. Talk to God together using a “starter” prayer inspired by the Bible story and, finally, sing the “Slumber Song” lullaby. Sweet dreams! Ages 3 to 6.
Kerry A. Crawford writes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Patricia A. Crawford writes from Winter Park, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Kerry A. Crawford and Patricia A. Crawford ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Wordless Witness DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:“There is a spiritual solution to every problem.” That's what I was about to tell Kathy. But something told me the moment was not quite right for that sort of guidance.
A friend since childhood, Kathy was agitated over the slow pace of the extensive renovations being done to her home. In addition to the usual disruptions, the contractor was taking forever. What's more, the contractor was her brother.
I figured she would have found the favorite phrase of motivational speaker Wayne Dwyer about as welcome as I used to find the advice my mother used to offer as she turned off a big game with the score close or tied: “Offer it up.”
Still, both phrases are true, though “offer it up” is more Catholic because it makes an immediate connection to Christ and the cross; it admits the possibility that I may have to suffer without any earthly satisfaction — without the tidy “solution” promised by pop psychotherapist Dwyer.
A few weeks passed and, without any thought to the stalled renovation project, I invited Kathy's son to a popular payer event put on by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal for teens and young adults each month at St. John Baptist parish in Yonkers, N.Y. Because we would be coming from opposite directions, I proffered the invitation on the assumption that she would likely come along as chauffer for her 15-year-old. I had nothing further in mind.
The evening entails a big group of kids coming together for prayer before the Eucharist, exposed for adoration in a monstrance, and concludes with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and a kind of coffee house with lots of music. Almost all the participants also find time to go to confession.
The young — and anyone else who happens along — tend to have a new experience of the Blessed Sacrament. The friars erect not so much an altar as an embankment of candles with the exposed host atop.
At the time I offered the invitation, I was unaware that a second of Kathy's brothers had recently attempted to mediate some of the problems associated with the home renovation. This, I was to learn, had only led to new hostility in the family. The two brothers were not speaking. Kathy arrived at the church at her wits’ end, believing that she would likely have to fire her contractor-brother.
The holy hour proved tearful and cathartic for her, bringing her to the peaceful realization that she had to give her brother another chance — to let this purgatory play out in the confident hope that the project will eventually come together and family peace will some day be restored. She displayed a combination of resignation and joy.
So it was that my resisting the temptation to talk to her about the spiritual implications of her woes proved the best route to lead her to Christ.
“Preach,” St. Francis of Assisi once famously told his friars — but “only use words” when non-verbal means of presenting the Gospel have been exhausted.
To preach by means of our life, our prayer, our good example — and, as in the Yonkers trip, by means of a friendly invitation — can be more effective than words, which sometimes carry a whiff of judgment or superiority. For me, a guy who likes to talk, this was a pretty serious lesson.
As for Kathy, she found what I sensed God was trying to give her. Her problem had indeed found a “spiritual solution” — one in the shape of the host.
Joe Cullen writes from Floral Park, New York.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joe Cullen ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Episcopal Priests Leave Home For Rome DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Serving as a priest in the Episcopal church for 25 years, Alvin Kimel had retirement in sight. In just five more years, he could have taken early retirement.
But Kimel made a decision that will postpone his access to his pension. In May, he resigned his position as pastor of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Johnstown. In June he entered the Catholic Church.
It's a decision that is being made by an increasing number of Episcopal priests in the United States.
“When the 2003 General Convention [of the Episcopal Church] authorized the election and consecration of [openly homosexual Bishop] Gene Robinson, that was the last straw,” said Kimel. “After the convention, I knew that I could not in conscience wait for retirement.”
Kimel is not alone.
A small but growing number of Episcopal clergy are “swimming the Tiber,” and some of them desire to be ordained in the Catholic Church.
Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., was named recently by the Vatican to oversee the acceptance into the priesthood of former Episcopalian ministers in the United States.
“We've had several inquiries in the past week,” said Archbishop Myers in mid-October. As ecclesiastical delegate to oversee the so-called Pastoral Provision in the U.S., he succeeds Cardinal Bernard Law.
Cardinal Law was the first ecclesiastical delegate for the Pastoral Provision, appointed in 1981. He held the post until Archbishop Myers’ appointment. Since 2004, Cardinal Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002, has been archpriest of the patriarchal Basilica of St. Mary Major.
In 1980, in response to requests from priests and laity of the Episcopal church who were seeking full communion with the Catholic Church, the Vatican created the Pastoral Provision. Under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the provision makes it possible for married former Episcopal priests to be ordained Catholic priests.
To date, 79 former Episcopal priests have become Catholic priests under the provision. At least another 13 are inquiring or are somewhere in the process.
Archbishop Myers was approached about the possibility of overseeing the provision last winter, but with the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican was late in announcing his appointment.
“We had to wait until there was a new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” said Archbishop Myers. “My appointment came in July from Archbishop [William] Levada,” former archbishop of San Francisco and the new prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith congregation.
Archbishop Myers indicated that Episcopal clergymen increasingly seem to be interested in the Catholic Church.
“Some who are of the Episcopal communion are not happy with some of the directions that are being taken by the Episcopal church here and in England,” said Archbishop Myers. “I think it flows from some dissatisfaction and some awareness which was heightened over the last six months.”
Archbishop Myers described the process Episcopal clergy undergo.
“There is a transition period,” he said. “A faculty [episcopal committee] interviews the former priests as they begin the process. The receiving bishop assigns a theological mentor and spiritual mentor. After about 15 to 24 months, the faculty interviews the man again and communicates to the ecclesiastical delegate whether they think he is prepared for the priesthood or not. Almost invariably they are.”
The Role of Authority
Brad Colvis, former pastor of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, entered the Catholic Church with his wife and four children in May. He is now teaching Church history at Peoria Notre Dame High School in Peoria, Ill.
“The chief thing I was grappling with was the issue of authority,” said Colvis. “I picked up the Catechism of the Catholic Church at Houston's University of St. Thomas bookstore. It was most helpful.”
Colvis cites several influences in his decision to convert — the faculty at the University of St. Thomas, the work of Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, and Colvis’ access to an “Anglican-use” Catholic parish. Such parishes have special permission to incorporate elements from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer into the Catholic liturgy.
“One of my predecessors in the congregation that I served had converted to the Catholic Church,” said Colvis. “His experience was helpful to me.
“I came to the realization that at Holy Trinity I was trying to create a non-Catholic Catholic church,” said Colvis. “I started seeing how by rejecting authority in the first place and separating from the Catholic Church, the Anglican church didn't have any platform for being what they purported to be.”
Colvis works with another Episcopal convert, Douglas Grandon, who is director of catechetics in the Diocese of Peoria, Ill. Grandon started an evangelical church in Peoria before resigning to become Episcopalian. He has been Catholic for two years.
“I never dreamed I would be a Catholic,” said Grandon. From the outset “in the Pentecostal church, I had the worst kind of prejudice against the Catholic Church. I couldn't believe that the one true Church could be the Roman Catholic Church, so I was very happy to believe that the Anglicans represented this ancient kind of faith.”
He added, “I knew that the Episcopal church had huge problems, but our diocese stood against that.”
While he has converted, Grandon still believes that evangelicals and Catholics have something they can offer each other.
“Catholics have the papacy, apostolic succession, and the sacraments,” said Grandon. “What evangelicals can give to Catholics are a keen interest in Scripture study, zeal for evangelization, faithfulness in stewardship, and the vibrancy that comes from creating communities through small groups.”
A Bishop Threatens
Controversies within the Episcopal church continue to threaten its future.
On Oct. 2, six Florida congregations left the Episcopal Church. In addition, the Washington Times reported that a network of Episcopalians secretly met this summer to create a plan to unseat those bishops who oppose the consecration of Robinson as bishop.
With a July 12 decision by the Church of England's synod to move towards ordaining women bishops, some wonder whether this may not fracture the church even further, especially across the Atlantic.
Bishop Andrew Burnham of Ebbsfleet, England, declared that if the Church of England ordains women as bishops, he will join the Catholic Church.
“A woman bishop wouldn't be a bishop because a bishop is someone whose ministry is acceptable through the ages to all other bishops,” Bishop Burnham told London's Sunday Times.
Bishop Burnham estimated that if women were ordained bishops, 800 priests would leave the church in protest.
It wouldn't be the first time.
When the Anglican church first permitted female pastors in 1992, approximately 400 clergymen abandoned the church.
“For those who convert it's different in England than it is here,” said Grandon. “There could be a huge exodus there.”
Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: The Lion, the Witch and the Christians DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — While a funeral took place in the sanctuary at Hope Presbyterian Church, downstairs in the basement approximately 100 evangelical, mainline Protestant, and Catholic church leaders enthusiastically applauded.
They were watching a special 10-minute preview screening of Walt Disney's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which opens in theaters Dec. 9.
Walt Disney and Walden Media partnered with Motive Entertainment to set up more than 145 such screenings across the country in an effort to market the film to faith leaders. Walt Disney Studios hopes to create the kind of grassroots “buzz” and support that accompanied last year's The Passion of the Christ.
Based upon the response of those gathered in Minneapolis, the film may be headed to blockbuster status.
“We have an aging church,” said participant Steve Vannatta, from Redeemer Lutheran Church in Owatonna, Minn. “I’d like to use the film to connect with younger members and their families.”
“We partnered with The Passion of the Christ,” said John Quam, national facilitator for global ministries with Mission America Coalition, an evangelical organization that's been hired to help promote the film to pastors. “God loved that because he did it through an industry that despises him,” Quam told the pastors gathered at the church.
“People knew what they were getting with the Passion, so they either went or didn't go. With the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, God is going to do something mighty,” he added.
The seven books that make up C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia have sold a combined 85 million copies in more than 40 languages since 1950.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book in the series — second in newer, reordered sets. The film's producers have said that they hope to make movies of all the books depending upon how the first film is received.
In the allegorical story, four children stumble upon a wardrobe that transports them to the world of Narnia, a land that is trapped in an unending winter and is ruled by the White Witch. Aslan, the lion who created Narnia, sacrifices his life to save another, and is resurrected. Aslan and the children battle to defeat the witch and reclaim Narnia.
Lewis, a Christian convert, repeatedly drew parallels between the character of Aslan and the person of Jesus Christ. In a letter to a mother who was concerned that her son, Laurence, might love Aslan more than Christ, Lewis wrote:
“Laurence can't really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that's what he is doing,” said Lewis. “For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply things that Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus; and perhaps loving him more than he ever did before.”
Will it Be Faithful?
The question everyone wants answered is whether the movie retains the Christian elements found in the book.
“Is this faithful to the book in its story and imagery?” asked Quam. “Absolutely,” he responded. “The Christian story is in the movie. People will discover the truth from this film, but they will need help.”
In an effort to help audiences understand the imagery and metaphors, Vista, Calif.-based Outreach Inc., has created devotional guides and booklets, free sermons, promotional materials, a collection of C.S. Lewis experts, and a list of 18 ideas to help churches use the film for Christian outreach.
One of the promotional postcard designs shows the book's character Lucy Pevensie standing alongside the lit lamppost in Narnia's endless winter. Along the top, the postcard asks, “What if there were no Christmas?”
Catholics hope to use the film as a springboard as well.
Randy Mueller, faith formation director at Nativity parish in St. Paul, and youth minister Robert Fischer attended the screening.
“We hope to promote it in the parish, but we don't yet know how,” said Mueller. “I'm hoping to work with the archdiocesan evangelization initiative to reach those who have left the Church and those who have never been churched.”
Among Mueller's ideas are buying bulk tickets for screenings for families, and a showing for teens, followed by a Narnia party.
Hoping to reproduce the success of their Passion of the Christ book, which sold more than a million copies, Ascension Press is releasing A Guide to Narnia: 100 Questions About the Chronicles of Narnia” just in time for the release of the film.
“This has been a curious relationship between Disney and the Christian community,” said Quam. “Disney wants the church to promote their movie, but they don't want it coming out that they are producing a Christian movie.”
Key proponents of the film — Michael Flaherty, president of Walden Media, director Andrew Adamson, and even Lewis’ stepson — have sought to reassure potential moviegoers that the film is faithful to the story.
“People told us that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the No. 1 children's book,” said Flaherty. “But they also told us, ‘You must be faithful to this book.’”
“We made the commitment that Lewis’ values are intact in the film,” added Adamson, whose previous box office credits include Shrek and Shrek 2.
Not everyone's happy that the book has been made into a major motion picture.
In Florida, some are upset that a Christian book has been made a part of the state's “Just Read, Florida!” program at the same time that the film is coming out.
“What's the state of Florida doing in this cabal of Christian commerce?” asked Palm Beach columnist Frank Cerabino. “We're opening up the public schools to some backdoor catechism lessons in the guise of getting kids to read.”
“The highest virtue, we have on the authority of the New Testament itself, is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books,” long-time Lewis critic Phillip Pullman told The Observer. He described the Narnia books as, “a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice.”
C.S. Lewis scholars disagree.
“In the Chronicles, love is expressed through obedience and self-sacrifice,” said Joseph Pearce, Lewis scholar and writer-in-residence at Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla. “Love and responsibility go together. If Pullman says there is no sense of love in the Narnia books, he has no idea what love is.”
Act One Executive Director Barbara Nicolosi saw a nearly-finished version of the film and described it as “deep magic.”
“The tone of [the film] is as close to the book as probably could have been achieved,” Nicolosi wrote on her web log “Church of the Masses.” “All the lines the Christians are worrying about are in there. All the scenes you want to see are here and lovingly rendered. Aslan is absolutely discernible as a figure of Jesus — for those who have eyes to see.”
That excites Catholics, such as Dave Shaneyfelt, an attorney in Ventura, Calif. He can't wait for the film to open.
“I will be there on opening day with probably six of my seven kids,” said Shaneyfelt. “We were initially worried when we saw that Disney was behind this, but then I read that Disney did not exercise creative control over the movie. That means there's a good chance the movie will be faithful to what C.S. Lewis wanted — a good Christian allegory.”
Tim Drake writes from St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Alito's Way DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:EDITORIAL
In many ways, President Bush's new Supreme Court pick Samuel Alito is the opposite of Harriet Miers.
Let's hope that one of those ways isn't “confirmability.”
The New York Times made “to bork” a verb in honor of the successful campaign to demonize and destroy Ronald Reagan's nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. Harriet Miers may well go down as the first Supreme Court nominee who was widely regarded as confirmable but was borked by her own party and by the President's biggest supporters.
Pundits, legislators and GOP donors who have rallied around Bush for years denounced her as unqualified, as a woman with no paper trail, as an almost nepotistic candidate who was only nominated because of a long friendship with Bush.
Miers had obvious political benefits for Bush, however. She was promoted by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, greatly increasing her chances of passing a vote in the Senate. Those who know her best praised her pro-life credentials most.
Judge Alito, unlike Miers, has a long record and little or no support among Democrats to go along with his pro-life reputation.
Also, unlike the evangelical Christian Miers, he's Catholic. If Alito is confirmed, for the first time ever, the Supreme Court would have a Catholic majority — 5 out of 9.
That's fine by us. But it remains to be seen what the reaction will be by those who objected to John Roberts’ nomination because he would be the fourth Catholic on the court.
The first President Bush put Alito on the federal bench 15 years ago. Since then, his opinions have been compared to those of another Italian Catholic jurist, Antonin Scalia.
Like Scalia, Alito is from New Jersey and, like Scalia, he seems to be a judge who believes judges should judge, not legislate, from the bench. In a democracy, making laws is the job of the peoples’ representatives, not unelected judges.
In May, The Newark Star-Ledger quoted Alito saying, “Most of the labels people use to talk about judges, and the way judges decide [cases] aren't too descriptive. … Judges should be judges. They shouldn't be legislators, they shouldn't be administrators.”
What pro-lifers mainly want to know is: Will Alito be the kind of justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade? And the truth is, despite Alito's reputation as a conservative and the vocal opposition of abortion groups, we have no way of knowing. Two cases will be the focus of much discussion.
Pro-lifers will have questions about why Alito joined the majority of those on his court in striking down New Jersey's partial-birth abortion ban in 2000. At the time, Alito explained that New Jersey's law didn't meet the U.S. Supreme Court's requirement for such a ban to include an exception if a mother's health was endangered.
Pro-lifers will be more heartened by his role on the federal court that struck down a Pennsylvania abortion law in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It's this that gives Alito the distinction of being a rare U.S. Supreme Court nominee who has actually been involved as a judge in a high-profile U.S. Supreme Court abortion case. Alito was the only member of the lower court to dissent.
But ironically, the reason he dissented was because he thought the decision misapplied an abortion test that originated with Sandra Day O’Connor, the U.S. Supreme Court justice he is now nominated to replace.
He also took the occasion of that decision to reiterate the proper roles of judges:
“We have no authority to overrule that legislative judgment even if we deem it ‘unwise’ or worse. Whether the legislature's approach represents sound public policy is not a question for us to decide. Our task here is simply to decide whether Section 3209 meets constitutional standards.”
The decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court used it to further harden its pro-abortion stance. O’Connor voted to strike the pro-life law, and disagreed with Alito's analysis. Chief Justice William Rehnquist quoted from Alito's opinion in his own dissent.
What will all this mean about what kind of Supreme Court Justice Alito will be? We can't possibly know. But we're already witnessing what kind of nominee he will be. And that's a lightning-rod one.
As he faces fierce opposition in the weeks ahead, we pray that the debate will clarify the issues involved, and move our country a step closer to ending the blight of abortion.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: There's No Place Like Dorsetville DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Catholic author Katherine Valentine lives in the rustic Litchfield Hills of western Connecticut — rich ground from which to draw inspiration for her popular, small-town tales of Catholic friends and neighbors.
Her series of four novels, all set in the imaginary town of Dorsetville, are bestsellers in Christian markets. Having been picked up by a major publisher, they're now crossing over to find success in secular markets as well. There's also a chance they'll be dramatized for TV from 20th Century Fox.
Valentine spoke with Register correspondent Barb Ernster about how the genre of “gentle fiction” can greatly entertain its readers even as it subtly evangelizes and catechizes the culture.
Fiction is one of the hardest categories of writing to break into, never mind succeed in. How did you get started?
All of this started in 1980. I had thyroid cancer and I should have died. I had a dream one night that I stood on a mountaintop and God was at my side. I was looking down at the most incredibly beautiful valley and had a sense of incredible peace. I started down the mountain and got about halfway down when I heard his voice saying, “Kate, come back, it's not your time. There's something I want you to do. You have to tell the world that there are two things they must remember: that they never walk alone no matter how dark the valley and, if they really want to honor me, they do it by being servants to their brothers and sisters.”
When I woke up the cancer was gone. I was in my early 30s. I had left the Church when I was 17 or 18, and hadn't been in a church since they changed the Mass to English. I let everybody think this was some kind of spontaneous remission, but I knew in my spirit that God was real. I knew that my faith was real.
I went back to the Church and started talking to God as if he was there next to me. Over the course of several months, it became more fluid and I could speak from the heart as if we were good friends. From 1983 to 1994, I went on this quiet spiritual journey and became very close to the Holy Spirit, who is so important if you want to live an empowered spiritual life.
Eventually the storyline for A Miracle for St. Cecelia's, my first book, came into my heart. I wrote it in nine months and was given a multi-book contract with Viking Penguin publishers. I am now with Doubleday.
Where do your story ideas come from?
I live in a small town and you always tend to write about what you know. I do tell people the story of my spiritual journey, but sometimes people cannot grasp how God works in their lives.
My stories are really parables; [they let me] tell stories of faith in a fictional venue that people will not think is threatening. It's no different than when the Lord told people, “There was this vineyard. …” Once people start following that train of thought, they discover a part of their spirituality that is suddenly awakened. The miracles did not stop with the apostles and God still answers prayers. We miss that God is talking to us all the time. He talks to us through friends, through articles, through nature, and we miss it.
I'm just telling these wonderful little parables that God gives me and, through them, people are finding renewed faith in God's miracles.
Do you really think fiction can bring the Gospel to the world?
Absolutely. I think it's a very powerful form of evangelization, and I just wish that there were more Catholic novelists out there.
My books are working on two different levels: They're helping Catholics come back to the Church and they're helping those who are in the Church to perhaps walk a new path, not through rote prayers but through a deeper, more personal relationship with Jesus. Not the Jesus that's in the portrait with his eyes turned up to God, but the carpenter with dusty feet and the wonderful laugh who would stop and talk to anyone and who would never turn anyone away. That's the Jesus I want to portray, and I hope I do.
My ministry, as I see it, is to share my love of the Church. I try to show versus tell about our faith through the characters and their experiences, why we believe what we believe.
Your books are bestsellers in Christian markets. How do you know they're also reaching secular readers?
They're in the fiction section, not the religious section, at Barnes & Noble. They still haven't hit The New York Times list, but I'm hoping to have a breakthrough in sales — not for the sake of sales but so publishers will start hiring more Catholic fiction writers. They desperately need us. There are 65 million Catholics out there but the light is still under the basket.
What books or authors have influenced you the most?
My biggest influence is the Bible. I always tell people to start with the New Testament, and read it as if somebody had just sent you a letter in the mail and you were opening it to read it. So often God will speak to our hearts and a passage will pop out, or what you read in the morning becomes so pertinent in the afternoon.
We focus so much on the Eucharist. We've also got to focus on the Word, especially in this day and age, if we are going to get through to the culture. How do we expect to know why the Church has made these doctrinal issues against abortion or homosexuality? If we read the Bible we will realize they're not something the Church fathers decided, but that [doctrine] has its foundations in the Word and we're able to respond when people ask us why we believe the way we believe.
What kind of responses do you get from your readers?
I mostly hear about how different situations in the books have aligned with people's real lives. I love the stories about how someone was feeling desperate and alone, and somebody just happened to give them my book, or they happened to see it a bookstore and they don't know why it jumped out at them.
The ones I love the most are from Catholics who haven't been to church. I also have many [Protestant] fans who don't understand why we pray to the saints as intercessors. My books show that.
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: A CONVERSATION WITH CATHOLIC NOVELIST KATHERINE VALENTINE ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Say Wha? DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:FACTS OF LIFE
Researchers at Sheffield University in England have discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds. It turns out female voices trigger the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engage a simpler mechanism. “The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural ‘melody’ in their voices,” said researcher Michael Hunter.
Source: ABC News Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Advent Means Christlessness DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Advent is hard to make sense of.
Lent you can understand — you're supposed to give something up, imitating Christ in the desert and preparing yourself for Christ on the cross. Good Friday puts a fitting exclamation point on your weeks of sacrifice. Then comes Easter.
Christmas doesn't have that same trajectory.
Lent is also easier to handle because society-at-large hasn't maxed out its efforts to distract you during Lent. Yes, there are Easter bunnies and jelly beans at the drugstore. But you aren't bombarded with invitations to Easter parties on Good Friday, and there is no muzak version of “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today …” playing in the supermarket while you search for fish sticks on Friday afternoons.
We have no such luxury during Advent. Throughout Advent, Christmas is “in the air,” you're supposed to be getting “the Christmas spirit” — and even your Catholic newspaper is printing Christmas gift guides, like this one.
And even if it wasn't “beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” we would probably be asking: What the heck is Advent all about, anyway?
We know that it's a penitential season, but only a brave few people have ever successfully given something up for Advent like they do during Lent. We know that it is a combination of expectation for Christmas, expectation for the second coming, and also some sort of a John the Baptist thing. Whatever it is, it sounds confusing, like it was thrown into the Church calendar as an afterthought because it felt like there should be something there to justify all the cheer coming later on.
Well, after delving more deeply into what the Church wants us to do, there are a couple of important things we learned about Advent that have helped change our attitude about it.
Think of Advent like you think about Good Friday evening and Holy Saturday.
That's when the tabernacle is empty and there's really no big event to celebrate. There's just an emptiness and a waiting. But it's a profound emptiness. It's a profound waiting.
That's because it's a very specific emptiness — it's Christ-lessness. Your parish church is bizarre and creepy with the open tabernacle and the covered statues and the snuffed candles. And this reminds you how bizarre and creepy life is without Christ.
And it's a very specific waiting. It's waiting for normalcy to return, for the universe to be right-side-up again. It's waiting for Christ-lessness to end. It's a waiting for Christ. It's Advent!
The Vatican's Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy Principles and Guidelines puts it succinctly:
“Advent is a time of waiting, conversion and of hope,” it says (No. 96).
It's a time of waiting in memory of the first waiting for the Lord, but also a reminder that we still wait in anticipation of the second coming. It's a time of conversion, because we don't just wait for God to do something, we get ready for his coming. And it's a time of hope: We can compare the straits that we find the world in now to where the world was in history, and remember that God hasn't abandoned us. Help is on his way.
Focusing on this Christlessness is extremely important for us, and for our children. Not only should they know Old Testament stories, they should know that there was a radical shift before and after Christ.
To anchor these feelings, the Church presents us with the persons of John the Baptist and Mary. He's the last of the prophets, calling people to conversion. She's the Advent woman, pregnant with hope.
In the time before Christ, there wasn't just a different set of religious practices and a wild cast of odd characters — there was a restlessness in the people of God because something important was missing. Some one important, as it turned out. From the time Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden to the time of John the Baptist there was a great disconnect between man and God that both man and God longed to bridge.
The other thing the Church points us to in Advent is to the bridge that brought the two together, Mary.
It's providential that the feast of the Immaculate Conception and the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe fall in Advent. It gives us an opportunity to focus on Mary, who is the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes and of New Testament hopes, both at once.
How to teach this to kids?
The Vatican lists many ways Catholics do this. We have tried many of them, but usually are pretty poor on the follow-through.
On the previous page, see sources for the common Advent practices. We do many of them, with greater or lesser success. The important thing isn't the activities; it's communicating to the children the difficulty of a world without Christ.
We have one unique Advent practice, though. As the culture pushes Christmas earlier and earlier, our children have a hard time fighting against it. Push attempts to be penitential at Advent, and you may spark a revolt!
We have our own battles over this. Tom loves to put the Christmas tree up early. April has continually fought against this. So, we have compromised and we now put it up about halfway through Advent, on the Sunday when the priests wear pink — Gaudete Sunday — a Sunday dedicated to joy.
We put a gift box under it that looks like a Christmas present, but with a removable lid. Each morning we pray: “We want to make Christmas last all year. So, each morning we kneel beside the Christmas tree with Jesus. He has gifts for each of us under the tree.”
Then we open the box and each of us picks one of the gifts. They are slips of paper with writing on them.
We pray: “This morning, I humbly accept the gifts you have given me, Jesus. Thank you for my time, my things, my abilities and my family. During this day, please help me find ways I can give each of these gifts back to you, by giving them to others.”
Then each person reads his gifts and the action underneath.
Another thing that we do — and that all Register readers can do — is pass on the National Catholic Register's Advent guides to others.
At the end of the Jubilee Year, Pope John Paul II asked the Church to promote four things during the Jubilee Year: Sunday Mass, confession, prayer and community service. And ever since he asked, the Register has been publishing “How-to” guides that we can give to people who are interested.
The trick is to do it in a natural way. If someone asks how your weekend was, you can say, “Great. We didn't do much — but we went to Sunday Mass.” Then offer some of what you appreciate about Mass. If the person is interested in hearing more, you have a nice, low-pressure way of responding: a Register Advent guide to Mass.
The same kind of casual conversation can go in any direction you like: “I went to confession. Some people don't like to go, but I don't understand that. It's great.”
At any rate, whether we have children or no, it's up to us to preserve Advent and make it a time of preparation, conversion and hope.
We started out by saying that Advent — unlike Lent — is hard to grasp, and that it seems almost an afterthought. Well, after you spend some time thinking about it, perhaps the reason Advent is shorter and less emphasized is because it is more obvious.
We know what it's like to await a birth. We also know what it's like to feel that God is far away as we hope that he'll soon be very near.
Advent lets us go deeper into both those feelings, and fulfills them with the true hope of Christ. It's a gift the Church gives us to be able to pull back the reins on the materialism of the gift-giving season and focus on the ultimate meaning of our very presence here on earth.
Tom and April Hoopes are the editorial directors of Faith & Family magazine.
FaithandFamilyMag.com.
Advent Gifts
See story above about how to use this list of Advent gifts.
God gave me the gift of food, shelter and clothing. Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Little kids — not complaining between meals.
2. Big kids — offering up a sacrifice during a meal.
3. Adults — setting aside food to give away.
God gave me the gift of my family.Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Playing nicely with a sibling.
2. Complimenting each of my family members.
3. Spending some special time with kids.
God gave me the gift of my faith.Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Saying a Hail Mary at the Advent Wreath.
2. Writing a letter to Jesus to put in the manger.
3. Meditating on the Gospel.
God gave me the gift of my health.Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Offering up a special treat.
2. Offering up dessert or T.V.
3. Offering a sacrifice.
God gave me the gift of my country and peace. Today I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Praying for our troops.
2. Writing a letter to a soldier.
3. Reading a history story about sacrifice to kids.
God gave me the gift of my community. Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Playing fire-fighter or police.
2. Saying thank you to my teacher.
3. Bringing food or clothing to a drop-off.
God gave me the gift of priests and consecrated people. Today, I will give that gift back to him by:
1. Learning what priests do for us.
2. Writing to a priest or a consecrated person.
3. Writing to a priest or a consecrated person.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tom and April Hoopes ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: HIGH COURT: Miers Out, Alito Up DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Pro-life Catholics commended White House Counsel Harriet Miers for withdrawing her nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Then, as this story went to press, President Bush announced his replacement nomination: Judge Samuel Alito of Pennsylvania. If nominated, he would be the fifth Catholic on the present court, and the 11th Catholic justice in history.
Miers’ withdrawal won praise from Catholic court watchers.
“This is good news,” said James Bendell, West Coast counsel for the American Catholic Lawyers Association, which defends freedom of religion. “I remain at a loss to make any sense out of the Harriet Miers nomination. This appointment represents the most important decision this president has to make, by far, because of the balance of the court.”
Bendell believed Miers could not be trusted.
Others were less critical but still applauded Miers for stepping aside.
“We praise the courage of Harriet Miers in her decision to withdraw her name,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Ruse said he hoped the next nominee would have a well-documented record as a judicial conservative who will strictly interpret the Constitution.
Alito may fit that bill. In the early 1990s, he was the lone dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case in which the 3rd Circuit Court struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their husbands.
The case went before the Supreme Court, which struck down the spousal notification provision of the law. Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist cited Alito's dissenting opinion in his own dissent.
President Bush let little time pass to choose another nominee to take the place of soon-to-retire pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to the high court. His nomination of Miers became bogged down in criticism from his own political base that Miers was an unknown who had no judicial experience — or legal paper trail. The president had tried to assure pro-life constituents that he knows Miers well and knows what's in her heart.
As confirmation hearings drew near, however, statements Miers made in the past surfaced and alarmed much of the pro-life community. In a speech to the Executive Women of Dallas in 1993, she said, “The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion.”
Later in the speech, she told the audience that society has given up on “legislating religion or morality,” and added: “When science cannot determine the facts, and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act.”
The Family Research Council said the speech should have alarmed the White House before Miers was nominated, as her words reflect a sectarian view rather than one that harkens back to the Declarations of Independence and its promise of the inalienable right to life.
Kris Kobach, former chief counsel for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, told the Register that some pro-life conservatives apparently wanted a nominee who had done more than check a pro-life box on a questionnaire.
“It's extremely difficult to defend life from the bench, when confronted with the precedents established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey,” said Kobach, a professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
Kobach said pro-lifers are unwilling to take any chances regarding the next Supreme Court justice, and Miers wasn't considered a sure thing.
“This is a pivotal appointment, and its effect will be measured for decades,” said Kobach. “We have three solid originalist judges in [Antonin] Scalia, [Clarence] Thomas and now [Chief Justice John] Roberts. We have five who've shown themselves to be inclined toward the living, breathing document theory of the Constitution, which is a view essential to the survival of Roe v. Wade. If we're to have a majority of originalist thinkers on the court, the vacancy must be filled with an originalist with a paper trail. For originalists, it's an opportunity that cannot be missed.
Bendell said few lawyers have deep knowledge of the Constitution, and even fewer have the intellectual prowess and discipline to view it from an originalist perspective, in which principle outweighs cultural convenience and political expedience.
“The average lawyer doesn't even dabble in concepts like originalism, equal protection and due process,” Bendell said. “The average lawyer deals in easements, deeds, wills, taxes, and collection — not the egghead stuff that comes before the Supreme Court. That's why we need a nominee with a track record — a proven Constitutional scholar and intellectual.”
Though Bendell says the Supreme Court can have its most profound effect on the culture by overturning Roe v. Wade — which forces states to allow abortion — he said the court's balance has other important ramifications for Catholics.
“We're constantly dealing with the abuses of so-called ‘separation of church and state,’ which isn't even mentioned in the Constitution and doesn't exist in Constitutional law,” Bendell said. “This abuse leads to all sorts of restrictions for Catholics regarding free speech, especially when it comes to pro-life expressions.”
Kobach said Alito's credentials are so strong that he doubts the nominee's Catholic faith will be a hindering factor. However, before the nomination, he expressed concern that the Miers nomination elevated religion as a consideration.
“They made her religion something of a qualifier, whereas during the Roberts confirmation the White House was saying the nominee's religion is irrelevant,” Kobach said. “Now it will be hard to tell opponents, who may oppose a Catholic on the grounds that he or she is Catholic, to ignore the religion of the nominee.”
Wayne Laugesen is based in Boulder, Colorado.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Little Too Traditional DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:MORE CATHOLIC THAN THE POPE: AN INSIDE LOOK AT EXTREME TRADITIONALISM
by Patrick Madrid and Pete Vere
OSV, 2004
240 pages, $12.95
To order: (800) 348-2440
or catalog.osv.com
When Pope Benedict XVI met with Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society of St. Pius X, last August, the Holy Father pointed out the roadblocks the schismatic group needs to clear away before it can achieve full communion with the Church.
Yet many members of the Society of St. Pius X insist that they are not in schism at all but are, in fact, loyal Catholics in good standing with the Church.
How can there be such confusion about so basic a matter as membership — even among people who love the Church?
That's one of the questions you'll find taken up by Patrick Madrid and Pete Vere in More Catholic Than the Pope. In explaining the errors inherent in the “SSPX” movement (whose adherents are also known as “Lefebvrites,” after founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre), the authors recount the society's start and trace where it veered off track.
Another section introduces and explains some of the claims made by the society, and other capital-T Traditionalists like them, against the decisions of the Second Vatican Council.
One of those claims, for example, is that Vatican II was “merely a pastoral council,” so its judgments don't need to be understood as infallible. After all, the argument, goes, all of the ecumenical councils prior to Vatican II were dogmatic. These councils were called to clarify and define a truth of the Church. All Catholics must adhere to the truths proclaimed in a dogmatic council. Not so a pastoral council. Right?
Wrong. Pastoral theology, they write, “determines where a doctrine stands among the average Catholics in the pew. We don't study God for God's sake, but for our own. We study the mystery of God to better understand Him, to love Him all the more, and to live His truth more fully. … [D]octrinal theology teaches us about the mystery of transubstantiation during the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whereas pastoral theology teaches us when we can and cannot partake in this mystery.”
Just as Christ became a man to show us how to live, Madrid and Vere point out, pastoral theology teaches Catholics how to apply the mysteries of the faith to their own lives in today's world.
Elsewhere, the two turn things over to Pope Paul VI, who explains why Vatican II holds the weight of the magisterium of the Church: “All that was said in the council does not demand an assent of the same nature, only that which is affirmed as an object of faith or truth attached to the faith, by definitive acts, require an assent of faith. But the rest is also a part of the solemn magisterium of the Church to which all faithful must make a confident reception and a sincere application.”
Later, Madrid and Vere address some objections commonly heard from extreme traditionalists. While the pair's explanations here are concise and helpful, they admit that it is impossible in such a brief overview to examine the phenomenon of extreme traditionalism in all its permutations.
Finally, Madrid and Vere give a short list of the traditionalist groups the Church recognizes as “faithful alternatives” for Catholics in schism who desire to be reunited with Rome. Among these are the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Apostolic Administration of St. John Vianney and diocesan Ecclesia Dei Indult Mass centers.
Do you know someone who thinks he is more Catholic than the Pope? Do that person a favor. Point him to More Catholic Than the Pope.
Robyn Lee is the Register's editorial assistant.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robyn Lee ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Letters to the Editor DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Wonderful Counselors
Regarding “Get Thee to a Therapist” (Oct. 23-29):
It is true that faith is such an important part of helping people through difficult times. If problems are not dealt with, relationships can still fall apart. This is where therapists and/or psychiatrists are needed. We are not failures if we admit to needing some extra help to keep relationships strong and healthy. In fact, we are wise to do so, especially if there are some real issues, such as anxiety or mental-health problems.
Seeking the help of a professional can save relationships, and keep people from losing hope. This fact, coupled with the frequent use of the sacraments, can make a tremendous difference.
Our 8-year-old daughter suffers from an anxiety disorder. We went through a period of time where we felt helpless and lost. Though we had our strong Catholic faith to hang on to, we knew we needed more help. With the assistance of therapy, we have gained our lives back. Although it takes work, all of the relationships in our family are thriving once again. We have great hope and are thankful for the therapy we are receiving.
Of course, making good use of the tradition of our Catholic sacraments is vital. We have sought out the sacrament of reconciliation for the healing of forgiveness for the relationships that were temporarily damaged during our period of struggles. As often as we can, we also partake in the sacrament of the Mass. Nothing is more healing than receiving the gift of Jesus!
I also found it interesting that Gregory Popcak recommended clients to receive the sacrament of anointing for moderate or serious emotional disturbances. We have yet to do this and it is something that we may seriously consider.
Thank you for a wonderful article that was filled with encouragement and hope. It is nice to know that our family is not in this struggle alone. Thank you, also, for your awesome and inspiring publication. I love it!
SHARON CLOSSICK
Wakefield, Rhode Island
Down With Cronyism
I am compelled to disagree with Bradley Mattes’ letter “Hooray for Harriet” (Oct. 23-29). He claimed that, since President Bush has a record of appointing pro-life judges, Harriet Miers must also be a good selection.
In fact, President Bush does not have a record of appointing pro-life judges. Only about 8% of his judicial appointments have been identified as pro-life (18 out of 220). The real percentage may be even lower, as several of these 18 judges defend stare decisis to protect Roe v. Wade. Based on this abysmal track record, no one should have supported Miers.
A majority of the active judges on the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit were appointed by this President Bush. Yet the solicitor general did not even bother seeking their review of a decision by that court overturning the federal partial-birth abortion bill. The Bush appointees also failed to act on their own to reconsider that bad decision by their colleagues.
Judge John Jones III, who currently presides over the trial in Harrisburg on the issue of teaching evolution in school, is typical of Bush's appointments. Judge Jones’ qualification was that he served as co-chairman for the transition team of one of Bush's friends, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Tom Ridge is pro-choice and close enough to Jones to have appointed him to be chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, where Jones served for seven years. Judge Jones is widely expected to rule in favor of the ACLU in that trial.
Mr. Mattes does not justify how Bush passed over many superior candidates with solid pro-life records in order to pick Miers. Bush obviously picked Miers because she is his crony, not because of her views on abortion. Far too much is at stake to accept anything less than a top-notch nomination with a proven record on life issues.
ANDY SCHLAFLY
General Counsel
Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons
Far Hills, New Jersey
Mandating Imprudence?
I laud Bishop Robert Vasa and others who have made the wise decision not to support the letter of Article 12 of the 2002 Bishops Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (“Safety Programs in Dioceses Raise Questions,” Oct. 23-29).
Like too many of the U.S. bishops’ other knee-jerk reactions to the issue of clerical abuse of young people, Article 12 is much more politically correct than it is prudent.
Bishops have a serious responsibility to provide a safe environment for children who come in contact with members of the clergy. That responsibility is best met by eliminating from clerical ranks those who would abuse children. Bishops further meet their responsibility by making available, at the option and discretion of informed parents, programs designed to educate children regarding risks to them. Those programs, however, need to be based on sound Catholic doctrine and not developed in haste or borrowed from secular programs, which may or may not be consistent with Catholic teaching.
Further, such programs ought to be presented outside of regular school or religious-education classes. In-class hours would be better spent in other pursuits. Separating such programs from class time also avoids stigmatizing those whose parents opt to not have their children participate.
Like Teresa Kettlekamp, the executive director of the Bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, I too served for 29 years in law enforcement — including 15 years as a chief of police. That experience leads me to a much different conclusion than Ms. Kettlekamp. She appears to believe that, absent mandatory programs taught in class, many children will not “get the message.” My experience is that, when dealing with potential youthful victims, anything short of “the message” being taught by responsible parents is likely to be a lesson that is not learned.
As the article noted, The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1653) provides that parents are the primary teachers of their children. Let us, as parents, do the job for which God will hold us accountable.
It may be politically correct for the Church to provide programs that make it look better in a court of law when defending itself against claims of clerical abuse. However, such programs, if “mandatory,” do parents, children and the Church itself a disservice. They are far from prudent.
JERRY BOYD
Baker City, Oregon
Childless Yet Blessed
I would like to respond to Joanna Bogle's column titled “Married, Without Children” (Spirit & Life, Oct. 23-29).
This is probably the most honest article about being childless that I have ever read. Most publications, particularly religious ones, will feature articles about couples who were initially childless but, through the grace of God, were finally able to bring a child into the world. However, those articles leave out those of us who remain childless, wondering if we are somehow not worthy or bearing children.
When I was growing up, my dream was to have 12 children. As I got older, I realized that I would be happy with just one child of my own. When even that did not happen, I would live with the loss: While I was teaching others’ children, I was not teaching my own child at home.
Somehow, with age and maturity, I have come to accept that my vocation is to teach others’ children as I now teach profoundly affected children who need total care. My students will always be babies. They will never tire of hearing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round.”
I would be deceiving others and myself if I stated that I have no regrets about being childless. I bump into that pain and loss on a regular basis. However, I no longer avert eye contact in order to mumble, “God had other plans” when people ask me if I have children.
Just this week, as I was spoon-feeding one of my students, a member of my staff questioned whether I wanted children. I looked her straight in the eye as I stated, “God denied me children, but he sent me something far greater. These are my children.”
To echo Ms. Bogle: Christ has never let me down.
ELAINE HERLIHY
New Haven, Connecticut
Thank God for Catholic Media
As a faithful reader of the Register, I must tell you that I read and enjoy each and every issue. When I finish reading the latest issue of the Register, I just look forward to the next issue.
I would like to comment on Father C. John McCloskey III's commentary, “The Triumph of Rita Rizzo,” in the Oct. 23-29 issue.
His review of Raymond Arroyo's new book — Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve and a Network of Miracles — was excellent.
I only wish that the names of Father John Corapi and Marcus Grodi had been included in the list of noted Catholics whose series are regularly shown on EWTN. These men do an awesome job of teaching adult education to anyone who is faithful in watching their programs.
Father Corapi's 50-tape series on the revised edition of the Catechism is a wonderful teaching tool.
Mr. Grodi's interviews of Catholic converts on his show, “The Journey Home,” should be such an inspiration to every Catholic and especially cradle Catholics. Watching this program, listening to guest after guest tell the story of their search for truth, can only make every Catholic appreciate the awesomeness of our Church.
Since parents are the primary religious-education teachers of their children, every parish bulletin in the United States should list the time and channel of Father Corapi's and Mr. Grodi's programs. These programs give parents the Catechism information needed to do their job.
I am very appreciative of the fact that I am living at a time when both the National Catholic Register and EWTN are available. What a blessing.
JEANNE B. THOMAS
LaGrange, Georgia
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Vatican View No Post-Synod Let-Up for Benedict DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Though the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist has concluded, a look at Pope Benedict's calendar for November shows no signs of diminishing activity in the Apostolic Palace.
In addition to the weekly general audiences and praying the Sunday Angelus with the faithful in St. Peter's Square (both of which have been attended by record crowds during the first six months of this papacy), November includes a number of special audiences with heads of state or government, ad limina visits by the bishops of four countries, and a movie premiere.
On Thursday, Nov. 3, the bishops of Austria will begin their ad limina Apostolorum (to the threshold of the Apostles) visits to the Vatican. During these once-every-five-year visits, planned well in advance of their actual trip to Rome, the world's bishops call on various departments of the Roman Curia, are received individually by the Pope, and then are received as a group, at which time he addresses them concerning the specific situation of the Church in their country.
Bishops from Bulgaria are also scheduled to come to Rome (Nov. 9-12), as are the bishops of the Czech Republic (Nov. 14-19) and Poland (Nov. 21-26 and Nov. 28- Dec. 3).
Three beatification ceremonies, approved by Pope Benedict though not presided over by him, are scheduled for this month: Nov. 6 in Vicenza, Italy, and Nov. 13 and 20 in St. Peter's Basilica. The latter two will be celebrated by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Private audiences on the Holy Father's agenda include bishop Mark Hanson, president of the Lutheran World Federation, on Nov. 7, Prime Minister Sali Berisha of Albania on Nov. 10 and Samoa's prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, on Nov. 28.
Israeli President
Since the start of his pontificate April 19, Benedict XVI has shown great openness to dialogue with non-Catholic Christians, Jews and Muslims. In a historic first for both the Vatican and Israel, the Pope will welcome Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Thursday, Nov. 17.
Later that day, in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father is scheduled to attend the premiere of John Paul II. Directed by Canadian John Kent Harrison and starring Jon Voight in the role of John Paul and Cary Elwes as Karol Wojtyla before his 1978 election as Pope, the miniseries was filmed in Krakow, Poland, and in and near Rome.
Nov. 11 in St. Peter's Basilica, in a traditional papal appointment, Benedict will preside at a Mass for the repose of the souls of the cardinals and bishops who died over the past year. Two weeks later, on Friday, Nov. 25 at 11 a.m., he is scheduled to inaugurate the academic year at Rome's Sacred Heart Catholic University. The following day he will celebrate First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent at 5 p.m. in the Vatican Basilica.
Though not yet confirmed, it is expected that the Pope will grant an audience to members of the synod of the Chaldean Church, including 18 bishops from the Church in Iraq and the Chaldean diaspora, who are meeting in Rome from Nov. 7-14. The synod will focus on both the current situation in Iraq and the liturgical aggiornamento of the Chaldean Church, a community of approximately 700,000 faithful in the world, of whom 550,000 are in Iraq and 150,000 scattered throughout the world.
It is also likely that Benedict will grant audiences to participants in a three-day seminar promoted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the theme “Water and the Environment,” to the members of the Joint Working Group of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and of Social Sciences meeting Nov. 16-17 on “Globalization and Education,” and to participants in the 11th plenary session of the Academy of Social Sciences, headed by Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon. The academy meets Nov. 18-22 on the theme, “The Conceptualization of the Human Person in Social Sciences.”
The ‘Little House’
The academies’ meetings will take place in a building that is not only home to all three pontifical academies but one of the most thoroughly enjoyable sites to visit in Vatican City — the Casina Pio IV (Little House of Pius IV), a remarkable and well-preserved architectural complex dating from 1562 that consists of two buildings facing each other across an elliptical courtyard.
At month's end, Benedict XVI is expected to continue the tradition of sending a message — via a Holy See delegation — to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for the Nov. 30 feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, patron of the Church of Constantinople. The Orthodox Church sends a similar delegation to Rome for the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
Joan Lewis writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Lewis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: WHY CONVERTS CHOOSE CATHOLICISM DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Dave Shiflett, described by Chuck Colson as “one of the most astute culture watchers and writers I know,” has written Exodus to answer the question he poses in the subTITLE: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity (Sentinel, New York, 2005).
An accomplished journalist and a member of the White House Writer's Group, Shiflett writes in a breezy and personal style from a perspective that fairly represents the new religious styles but clearly favors religions that don't consider “dogmatic” a dirty word.
Why is his book important? Over the long term, a people's health can be measured by whom they worship, how they worship, and what difference it makes in their day-to-day lives.
Today, Christianity is spreading like wildfire in Africa and Asia, while its influence is rapidly diminishing in Europe. We will have to see whether Pope Benedict and his youthful troops in the new ecclesial communities can pull off a miracle, but the intermediate prognosis is grim.
That brings us back to Shiflett's America.
A recent survey shows that the United States, unlike Europe, continues to hold steady as a nominally Christian country, with over 80% of Americans identifying themselves as Christians. Given the drastic decline in public and private morals since 1960, the obvious question is: How can this be? Imagine a 1950s American mother waking up in 2005 and turning on the television or the radio, or picking up a popular magazine. She would probably suffer a fainting spell, if not cardiac arrest, from the assault of deeply immoral attitudes toward marriage, family and sexuality.
The reason this can happen in a nominally Christian country is that the definition of “Christianity” in America has changed, and this is the story that Shiflett's book tells.
The great culture clashes that divide our country presently are at their root theological: They pit those who acknowledge religious authority (either Biblical or exercised by a divinely guided inspired Church) against those who ground their principles on the unencumbered moral right of each person to create his own personal religion, regardless of objective morality and doctrinal belief.
Shiflett, who classifies himself “as an itinerant Presbyterian, with an emphasis on the itinerant,” demonstrates first with statistics, and then through interviews and anecdotes drawn from the northern Virginia and D.C.-area, that “Americans are vacating progressive pews and flocking to churches that offer more traditional versions of Christianity.”
Even The New York Times cannot duck the evidence: “Socially conservative churches that demand high commitment from their members grew faster than other religious denominations in the last decade.”
Shiflett turns first to the Episcopal church, which was once the prototype for a traditional denomination. Many former Episcopalians have fled to more conservative Protestant denominations, or to the more liturgically minded and doctrinally based Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Shiflett devotes considerable space to the Episcopalian membership drain provoked by the ordination of an openly practicing homosexual, Gene Robinson, as bishop (an event that continues to roil church members worldwide). Some Episcopalians consider this the last straw, but the same noise was heard when the Episcopal church revised the Book of Common Prayer, ordained women, and blessed homosexual unions.
To capture the “loyalist” position that embraces even a changed church, Shiflett presents the thinking of Rev. Hertherington, an Episcopal priest: “He called for broad-mindedness, justice, quality, equality and hospitality. … He made it clear that the contemporary virtues of openness, inclusion, hospitality and tolerance have won over Biblical admonition, especially regarding sexual sin.”
After examining “celebrity heretics” such as Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong and describing their “missionary” work in deconstructing traditional Christianity, Shiflett allocates the rest of the book to the destinations of refugees from heresy and ersatz religion.
Chief among these, as we might imagine, is the Catholic Church. As Shiflett puts it: “When heretics make headlines, they are also making Catholics, and very good Catholics at that. Some take a long while to reach Rome, but once there they have joined not only the ancients but also the rapidly expanding Catholic population of the Southern Hemisphere. Before many more decades pass by, those who fear Catholic power may find themselves pining for the days when all they had to worry about was a tunnel connecting the Vatican to the White House.”
In his section on the Catholic Church, Shiflett interviews converts such as Al Regnery, the well-known scion of a conservative publishing house of the same name. Regnery converted from Episcopalianism along with an old friend and writer, Andy Ferguson, who at one time wished to become an Episcopal priest.
Ferguson was strongly impressed by the Church's history and consistent liturgy, while Regnery was attracted by “commitment to principle, institutional vastness and forgiving attitude.”
Shiflett also discusses other high-profile converts, such as Judge Robert Bork, dean of Washington columnists Robert Novak, possible presidential candidate (and evangelical turned Catholic) Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and popular radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham.
Remaining chapters are quite helpful, particularly for Catholics seeking to understand the mindset of fellow Christians who are united with us on so many issues, except the fundamental ones of authority and the sacraments. (I refer to the Southern Baptists and the evangelicals.)
To gain insight into the Southern Baptists, Shiflett interviews two important and influential members: Richard Land and Albert Mohler. He writes that interviewing them gives an insight into how evangelical thinkers see the world:
“They aren't triumphalistic — quite the opposite. They are not chauvinistic, for they have little hope of stopping, on a societal scale at least, what they believe is an irresistible anti-Christian juggernaut. Nor does this type of orthodox Christian buy in to the argument that America is a shining city on the hill, or for that matter worthy of God's benevolence.”
Moving on to that broad group of generic Christians that come under the umbrella of “evangelicals,” Shiflett profiles Colson, for whom he once served as speech writer. Colson's story is well-known — how a Boston-born, Ivy league-educated, Republican henchman under President Nixon went to jail in the Watergate era, had a born-again experience, and founded the Prison Fellowship, which evangelizes criminals with notable success.
According to Colson, “the purest form of Christianity is practiced in prison. In prison you don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes if you talk about sin. As they say, the hangman's noose concentrates the mind.”
At the same time, he has tough words for the so-called “soft” evangelicals with their mega-churches:
“Colson says they are purveyors of ‘self-centered worship. ’ You may get people to come to those churches, and you may have church growth. But you will not have church impact. The reason is that church becomes increasingly like the culture. People go in, see a skit, listen to some music, hear a soothing sermon, and think they have done their Christian duty. They are entering the exact precarious position the mainline found itself in the ’60s and ’70s.”
Perhaps we Catholics, who lived through the last 40 years in the United States, know exactly what he means, as our own drop in Church attendance demonstrates.
Shiflett finishes his excellent survey of the exodus from “liberal” Christianity to “conservative” Christianity by re-telling perhaps the most dramatic conversion story of all to demonstrate the power of orthodox Christianity.
That is the conversion to Catholicism of the father of legal abortion in the United States, the Jewish-born former atheist Dr. Bernard Nathanson.
Colson, who attended his baptism, recounts, “It was a sight that burned into my consciousness, because just above Cardinal O’Connor was the cross. … I looked at the cross and realized again that what the Gospel teaches is true; in Christ is the victory. He has overcome the world, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against his Church.”
Shiflett's book moves the case for unity in the Church forward. Although he does not say so, his storytelling and interviews clearly show that Christianity without a divinely instituted authority to guide and govern leads inexorably to a total reliance on private judgment and utter chaos in doctrine and morals.
John Paul II's greatest goal of unity among all Christians was not accomplished in his lifetime. That project continues, however, and where else could it end except in returning home to Rome?
Opus Dei Father C. John McCloskey III is a research fellow of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. (frmccloskey.com)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father C. John Mccloskey ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Why Hispanic Heritage Month Wasn't Catholic DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Juan Mata, a Mexican immigrant, really feels at home this month in the United States.
In October, he was honored along with 35 million other Hispanics across the country by Hispanic Heritage Month. Schools took time out to honor Latino literature, history, music, food and other cultural gems. Juan, however, like many Hispanics in the United States today, didn't feel a need to honor the religious heritage of most Hispanic Americans — the Catholic faith. Juan isn't Catholic.
Not long ago, when you met a person with a Hispanic name like Juan Mata you assumed that person was Catholic. History backed this common assumption. For centuries, Latin America has been overwhelmingly Catholic. The millions of Hispanics that came to live in the United States have traditionally held to the Catholic faith. Now, that's changing.
It's changing not because Hispanics no longer believe in God or religion like the progressive American secularist. Latinos do believe. In fact, 53% of Hispanics say they strongly believe in God, and only 4% professed a strong disbelief in God. If secularism isn't responsible for Hispanics abandoning Catholicism, what is?
The reason stems from an American religious cultural phenomenon commonly known as Church shopping. It consists in choosing a house of worship where you feel comfortable.
Although Protestant in nature, many Catholics see nothing wrong with the idea of choosing another Christian denomination if a person feels comfortable with that option. Many Hispanics have caught onto the American idea of a consumer approach to religion. The Church you chose depends on your personal needs and interest. For this reason, people need to shop around.
The need for everyone to feel at home within the Catholic Church raises a legitimate pastoral concern. This concern demands that we look for acceptable solutions. Yet it can never justify the notion of Church shopping since it contradicts one fundamental truth about Christianity: The fact there is one true Church.
With more than 20,000 different brands of Christianity in the United States, how can anyone recognize the true Christian Church? As early as the third century, Christians could distinguish four marks or characteristics of the true Church. We recall every Sunday at Mass in the Creed these marks: “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” Let's take a closer look at these marks.
For many, to claim that there is one church requires some explaining. The matter can be summarized like this: Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, founded one universal or Catholic Church for all his disciples or followers.
Consequently, he did not found many churches but one. This is not a matter of faith or belief but of history. Anyone who reads and studies the earliest Christians writers will discover that Christ founded one catholic Church, meaning one universal church for all Christians.
The Church is one basically because her founder — Jesus Christ — is one. Sacred Scripture emphasizes this: There is “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Despite the fact that Christ founded one Church, Christians remain divided into numerous factions. Reunification of Christians will occur when all Christians place the will of the Lord for one Church above their own. If the Church is one because of its founder, then it is holy as well because of its founder. Holiness marks another fundamental trait of the Catholic Church. Many wonder how the Catholic Church can stand by this claim with the scandalous behavior of some of its members recently in this country.
The Church is holy in a way her members are not. Due to Christ's pure holiness as God and head of the Church, the Church will always remain holy in her doctrine, sacraments and moral precepts. In this sense, the Church draws her sanctity from an objective and inviolable holiness.
The fact that the Church poses an irrefutable holiness doesn't mean Catholics may do whatever they like. Let no one doubt this: Christ condemns sinful behavior. He will hold accountable those who persist in sinful lifestyles. Yet Christ remains forever merciful and forgiving. He calls everyone in his Church to holiness of life. If Christ calls everyone to holiness, this means his Church is universal, or catholic.
This is another mark of the Church founded by Christ. The word “catholic” means universal. There doesn't exist any other religion on the face of the earth with the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity like the Catholic Church. Christ extends a hand of welcome to everyone — without exception — who wishes to follow him. This invitation will remain until the end of time because the Church is apostolic.
This last mark of the Church points to the fact that Christ founded his Church upon the apostles and their successors, the bishops, to give continuity to its mission of evangelization. Christ commissioned his apostles to preach and to teach everything he taught them to others. The apostles, in turn, commissioned their successors, the bishops, to teach future generations of Christians what they received directly from the Lord Jesus. Consequently, in the Catholic Church, the teaching of Christ passes from one generation to the next through the apostles.
These marks of Christ's Church helped the early Christians to shun what we call today Church shopping.
These same marks can help us now to not go shopping for something we already have: the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Legionary Father Andrew McNair is a theology professor at Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Andrew Mcnair, LC ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Catholic NFL Owner Dies
“His priorities were his religion and his family, not the spotlight or money,” said his son Frank Mara, director of promotions for the Giants.
Mara contributed to several Catholic causes. In addition to supporting the Archdiocese of New York, he was also a pro-life advocate. In 1987, he assembled a group of Giants players to produce a pro-life video, “Champions for Life.”
Former Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell described Mara, a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, as the “conscience of the league.”
Birth Control Results in Church Membership Decline
ASSOCIATED BAPTIST PRESS, Oct. 19 — Sociologists suggest that the use of birth control accounts for 70% of the decline in mainline Protestant churches, reported Associated Baptist Press.
“The so-called decline of the mainline may ultimately be attributable to its earlier approval of contraception,” the sociologists wrote in Christian Century.
Many religious observers have previously attributed the decline to the growth of what the study terms “conservative churches” (such as Baptist, Assembly of God, or Pentecostal) in response to the impact of liberalism. The researchers studied shifts in church membership between 1900 and 1975 and compared fertility rates between women in those churches with women in Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran and other mainline Protestant churches.
But the study finds that fertility rates are now virtually the same between the two groups and will produce only a 1% decline in mainline membership over the next decade.
Diocese of Lincoln Leads Nation in Priest Ratio
According to the 2005 Official Catholic Directory, the Diocese of Lincoln has 121 active diocesan priests serving 89,236 Catholics. That's one priest for every 737 Catholics. Nationally, there is one priest for every 4,723 Catholics.
Father Robert Matya, pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, said, “We do try to act how God wants us to be, and I think that is very appealing to a lot of these young men.”
Mexican Priest Assassinated
10NEWS.COM, Oct. 26 — Hundreds of people turned out Oct. 26 for the funeral of a Mexican priest who was shot and killed in Tijuana in late October, the San Diego television station reported.
The body of Father Luis Velasquez Romero was found dumped in his car Oct. 24. He had been shot six times while his hands were cuffed behind his back.
The Channel 10 report said that by Oct. 26, there no suspects and that Father Velasquez had never mentioned to anyone that he had any enemies or that there were any threats on his life. Catholic News Service said Oct. 26 that the 52-year-old priest was known for his outspoken sermons that often criticized local politicians.
There have been 358 murders in Tijuana this year.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: A Couple of 'Bad Catholics' Help Others Get Better DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak admit to being bad Catholics.
But they're in good company. Mother Teresa also felt she was a bad Catholic, they say.
The duo has teamed up to write The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living— a zany but reverent look at Catholic life, with inspirational ideas for celebrating major feast days.
Zmirak is a contributing editor at Godspy.com and former editor of Faith and Family magazine. Matychowiak is a private chef who served as food editor at Faith & Family magazine.
The authors spoke to Register correspondent Patrick Novecosky about faith, food, fun and how their book aims to make bad Catholics into better ones.
John, tell me about your faith upbringing.
My high school was run by disaffected Catholics constantly attacking the pope and denying major aspects of the faith. I thought it sounded pretty good until they questioned the Eucharist and they explicitly denied transubstantiation, the virginity of Mary and the infallibility of the pope.
So I did a bunch of research and hitchhiked to Father John Hardon's classes at St. John's University [in Queens, N.Y.]. I pretty much learned the faith and spent the next three years trying to get the high school religion teachers fired.
You tell the story of going to see Pope John Paul II at Madison Square Garden in 1979. How did that affect your formation?
At the time, I was still under the influence of my religion teacher. I thought, “Oh, what a dear old man. What a shame he has these quaint old fashioned ideas. If only he’d grown up in America, he’d be more modern and enlightened.”
A little later, when I started doing more reading and thinking, I realized what a twit I’d been and what an insidious influence they were. Reading the Pope's encyclicals, seeing his courageous stand in Eastern Europe, and his attempts to bring order to the Church in a chaotic time, I began to find him an inspiring figure.
In the book, you introduce readers to the Vatican Space Program. Just what was that?
Zmirak: In the book, we lightheartedly theorize that Pius XII announced the Assumption in 1950 as a way of beating the Soviets into space. I think Pius XII's poetic side wanted to remind people that heaven was not about shooting rockets into space but about attaining holiness and unity with God. Who did that first — other than Christ — but Mary? It's sort of entertaining and inspiring to contrast our technological attempts to enter the heavens with the entrance of Mary into heaven.
If you go to badcatholics.com, we have an animated commercial, which is a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It shows Pius XII writing up a scroll about the Assumption of Mary and throwing it up in the air, then we see Mary shooting into the air and planting the Vatican flag on the moon. I'm confident this has not been done before.
What was the most inspiring saint story you came across?
Zmirak: St. Vincent de Paul. He was somebody who arose at a time when the Church seemed, on the surface, strong but in fact it was riddled with corruption and worldliness, and the poor in France were completely neglected. A lot of the clergy were worldly or not educated in the faith. He worked on both tracks — caring for the poorest of the poor, for prisoners and for the starving and for prostitutes, while also setting up programs to educate the clergy so they could really know their faith and teach it to the laity. In the book, I call him “The Godfather of the Soul,” saying that he did as much for the Church as James Brown did for funk.
What was the weirdest story you came across?
Zmirak: St. Rose of Lima was undoubtedly nuts — chew-the-paint-off-the-wall crazy. She wanted to be a nun, and she was very attractive, so her parents wanted to marry her off and men were constantly courting her, so she ruined her face with acid so men could leave her alone.
In your book, you suggest theme parties for saints’ days. Did you really have all the parties?
Zmirak: Most of them, and we're planning to have the rest.
Matychowiak: Modern Catholics don't know how to incorporate the faith into their daily lives. Celebration is the way to do it. Every day has a designated saint and I really think it's important to celebrate these, to have the rhythm of fast and feast in our lives.
What is the place of humor in explaining, defending and living the faith?
Zmirak: I think it's important that we don't seem naive to unbelievers, that we don't seem like hopelessly earnest people who have an unrealistic attitude toward human perfectibility or sinfulness. Having a supernatural overview of the world helps you see the absurdity of so many things in the secular world.
What effect do you hope the book will have on readers?
Zmirak: We hope it will stun them into silence. No, I'm just kidding. We hope that people will see that there's nothing unsophisticated about having an orthodox Catholic faith in the modern world, in fact, that we can be every bit as informed and clever and engaged in the world and we can be more culturally sophisticated than the unbelievers who have a rather simple reductionist view of the world.
Matychowiak: There's real theology in it, and we think that the humor is disarming enough that people will read it and be surprised, and say, “Oh, I didn't know that the Church taught that.”
How is the book different than other books that target the same readership?
Zmirak: We're trying to target a wide readership. We're trying to target both Sunday Catholics and disaffected Catholics, as well as what you’d call orthodox sub-culture Catholics. It's different in that we try to take for granted that the reader is probably a mediocre Catholic who wishes he were better.
What is next for you?
Zmirak: We're collaborating on another book called The Bad Catholic's Book of Booze. We're going to look at the role of wine and spirits in the Old and New Testaments and the role of monastic orders in making some of the best wine and beer and liqueurs in the world like Chartreuse, Trappist ale, and the wines of Burgundy. We'll talk about the theology of wine, like why the Church uses wine — not grape juice like the Protestants — in celebrating the Eucharist, and the fact that Christ's first miracle was the wedding at Cana. It will be a similar project in the same spirit.
No pun intended?
Zmirak: That's the thing with us — all puns are intended.
What led you to the titles of your books? What if you're a good Catholic?
Zmirak: Mother Teresa thought she was a bad Catholic, so the chances are that if you think you're a good Catholic, you're a really bad one. We're using the theological reality that being a faithful Catholic is hard. Nobody does it very well. We're doing this as an outreach to people who may be somewhat distant from their faith to draw them a little closer.
Patrick Novecosky writes from Naples, Florida.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patrick Novecosky ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Where Katrina Met Her Match DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans this summer, it was not the first time the Crescent City had been hit hard, and directly, by horrendous weather.
Hurricane Camille hit in 1969. Four years earlier, Hurricane Betsy had pummeled the city.
And, on a fall night in October of 1867, hundreds of faithful braved violent winds and torrential rains to make their way to St. Mary's Assumption Church to pay their respects to their beloved priest, Father Francis Xavier Seelos.
St. Mary's Church was the first German Catholic Church erected in Louisiana. The cornerstone of this Redemptorist parish was laid in January of 1844. The small wooden framed foundation on the corner of Josephine and Constance Streets did not last long, however, as the influx of European immigrants kept flowing.
In 1858, members of the community decided they needed a bigger church. Work began on a new St. Mary's. The parishioners labored side by side and brick by brick with the Redemptorist priests to build a magnificent house for God. During the construction, it was not uncommon to see women carrying bricks in their aprons along the muddy roads of the neighborhood.
On June 24, 1860, the church that is today's St. Mary's was blessed and dedicated.
New Orleans was, in fact, Father Seelos’ final assignment. He left his home in Germany at age 24 and joined the American Redemptorists. He had served in Pittsburgh, Annapolis and Baltimore before arriving at St. Mary's Assumption in September of 1866. Wherever he was stationed, people were naturally drawn to his cheerful and gentle demeanor. His legacy as confessor, friend of the poor and lively preacher followed him to New Orleans. Long lines formed outside his confessional. His fellow priests were astounded by his work ethic, which seemed to have only one speed: non-stop.
In the 1850s and ’60s, roughly 11,000 people died from yellow fever in New Orleans. The deadly disease, which causes uncontrollable fevers and delusions, struck in the fall of 1867. Knocking incessantly on the door of the rectory, the sick overwhelmed the Redemptorist community. Father Seelos was right there, administrating the sacraments, day and night.
Before long, he himself contracted the disease and died.
Although he never lived to see his 50th birthday, extensive biographies were written in newspapers in the cities Seelos had served. The Times Picayune newspaper of New Orleans wrote:
“No one could look upon him, especially when at the altar or in the pulpit, without feeling there was immeasurably more of heaven than of earth about this devoted servant of Christ. … Many who sought his spiritual guidance knew that his only human weakness was his overflowing sympathy and charity for poor, erring humanity.”
A Shrine Spared
The diocese buried Father Seelos below the Mater Dolorosa statue inside St. Mary's. By the time his official cause for canonization opened in 1900, his legacy of holiness was already well known.
The stream of pilgrims and visitors to the shrine has increased markedly over the last five years, for Pope John Paul II beatified Father Seelos in April of the Jubilee year 2000.
In 2004, more than 26,000 people visited the National Shrine of Blessed Francis Seelos, housed inside the church of St. Mary's Assumption. The blessed's remains are kept in a beautiful reliquary in a room off to the side of the main altar. Carved images on all four sides of the case depict the story of the holy priest's life.
A small museum housing many of Blessed Seelos's relics is connected to the back of the church. Here are kept personal items such as his rosary, which he wore strapped to the side of his cassock, as well an old wooden box in which he kept many of his personal letters.
Amazingly, the Seelos Shrine suffered little damage from Hurricane Katrina's onslaught. According to Father Byron Miller, executive director of the Blessed Seelos Shrine, there was no water damage in the vicinity of shrine. The intense winds slightly damaged the roof of the church near the bell tower, and a window was broken on the stairwell to the choir loft. Yet, Father Miller notes, the broken window was not one of the original 1860 stained-glass antiques from Munich, but rather one of plain glass.
“I believe the shrine was spared,” Father Miller told the Register, “so that we can resume our ministry in a timely manner for the many people who are in need of prayer, hope and healing.”
The shrine and the Seelos Center reopened their doors to the public on Oct. 3; regular Sunday Masses in the church resumed less than two weeks later.
“We invite everyone to visit us once again,” says Father Miller. “Let us join our prayers with theirs.”
Storm Survivor
On a stormy night in October of 1867, the bells of St. Mary's Assumption tolled for one of its own. The church was packed with people filing by the corpse of Father Seelos.
Due to the ferocity of the wind and rain that rattled the church windows, many of the faithful chose to stay all night, riding out the storm alongside the remains of their beloved priest. They knew that they were in good hands that night, and so was he: He had been there for them, and now they were there for him.
As New Orleans residents return home this fall, they return to homes and lives washed away. The devastation and chaos caused by Hurricane Katrina — not to mention her “little sister,” Rita — has uprooted this very Catholic city.
If there was ever a time that New Orleans was in need of prayers it is now — when the need is so great yet the nation's attention has moved on to other matters.
May the intercession of Blessed Seelos bring consolation and comfort to those once again in need of his gentle touch.
Eddie O’Neill is based in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Planning Your Visit
St. Mary's Assumption, along with the Blessed Seelos Shrine and the museum, can accommodate tour groups by appointment. Weekend Masses are celebrated in English at 4 p.m. on Saturday, 8:30 and 11 a.m. Sunday and in Spanish at 10 a.m. Sunday.
Getting There
The church, shrine and museum are located at 2030 Constance St. in the garden district of New Orleans. For more information, call the Seelos Center at (504) 525-2495 or visit seelos.org on the Internet.
----- EXCERPT: National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, New Orleans ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eddie O'Neill ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Sign of Peace, or Sign of Confusion? DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Will the sign of peace be moved? According to many bishops, priests and lay Catholics, as it's currently practiced the rite takes too long and creates confusion prior to reception of Communion.
In fact, dissatisfaction over the sign of peace is so widespread that at last month's Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, participants suggested Pope Benedict XVI authorize an examination into the possibility of moving it elsewhere in the Mass.
“The greeting of peace in the Holy Mass is an expressive sign of great virtue and depth,” reads the synod's Proposition 23. “Nevertheless, in certain cases, it takes on a weight that can become problematic when it goes on too long or actually provokes confusion before receiving holy Communion.”
The proposition adds that it might be “useful to appraise” the sign of peace to see if it “cannot take place at another moment of the celebration, also taking into account ancient and venerable customs.”
Concerns about the sign of peace were regularly raised during the scheduled synodal interventions and small group discussions. As a possible remedy, some bishops suggested the rite be moved to just before the Presentation of the Gifts, as practiced by the Eastern liturgies and the Ambrosian rite.
That option was broached in the instrumentum laboris (working document), which was circulated before the synod.
“The sign of peace in its present position in the liturgy of the Mass easily overshadows the fraction rite [the breaking of the bread] and Communion itself,” said Bishop Paul Mandla Khumalo of Witbank, South Africa. “There is among us a strong preference to adapt the usage referred to in the instrumentum laboris in [Proposition] No. 50, for the insertion of this particular rite at the point before the Presentation of Gifts.”
The Vatican is less eager to embrace the suggestion. In its March 2004 instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, the Congregation for Divine Worship acknowledged that problems have arisen with the sign of peace but stated specifically, “The practice of the Roman Rite is to be maintained according to which the peace is extended shortly before holy Communion” (No. 71).
The Ambrosian and other such rites allow the gesture to take place before the offertory because the emphasis there is upon human reconciliation, liturgical experts point out. However, the Roman rite assigns a different meaning.
“It is about the peace that comes from the altar, the peace of the Lord be with you always,” explained Legionary Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum University in Rome. “It's Christ who is giving his peace, so that people share the peace that comes from Christ as a means of preparing for Communion.”
In other words, changing the rite's position to before the offertory would implicitly mean making an “earthly peace” before making an “earthly offering” and thereby change the meaning of the Roman Rite.
“It might seem practical for bishops who are thinking about it from a pastoral point of view, not wishing to turn it into an overly messy rite, but by moving it they would be converting it into a different rite,” said Father McNamara, who stressed that the synodal bishops only requested an examination of the matter.
Furthermore, there is the historical tradition in having the rite of peace just before Communion, something not easily discounted. “The sign of peace has formed part of the Latin tradition for the last 1,800 years, so if you want to change it, you have to have good reasons,” said Father NcNamara.
Still, Benedict could conclude a change is necessary to reduce the disturbance the rite often generates in today's Masses.
“The Pope could do it,” Father McNamara said, adding that the “world wouldn't collapse if the Holy Father decided to make the change for pastoral reasons.”
Different Forms
The rite of peace has been practiced in different forms over the centuries. A version of the current rite, a handshake or placing hands on another's shoulders, was practiced by Catholics until around the 15th century before being restricted to clergy and the choir.
Later, the rite was changed to allow Catholic to kiss a tablet at the altar marked with the word “peace” — a practice that continued until the 18th century.
The current version of the practice was instituted after the Second Vatican Council. In 2004, in a bid to curb the excesses that had cropped up, the Congregation for Divine Worship emphasized in Redemptionis Sacramentum that priests should remain “always within the sanctuary, so as not to disturb the celebration” during the rite and that lay Catholics should “give the sign of peace only to those who are nearest and in a sober manner.”
The sign of peace is optional, and can be dropped from the Mass entirely by the celebrating priest.
Still, it remains disliked by many. One Rome priest characterizes it as “too chummy” and an “liable to misinterpretation, confusion and distraction.”
For one Caribbean bishop, by contrast, it's not informal enough.
“Many of the faithful resist the short handshake for the sign of peace,” he told the synod. “They want a more ‘feeling’ expression of fraternity, such as a bear hug or an embrace.”
Probably unsurprisingly, that suggestion never made it to the final list of synod propositions.
Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Mother Mary Comes to Me DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:PROLIFE PROFILE
When J. Gary Kuntz first audiotaped the Rosary adding music and his meditations, he never envisioned the number of people it would reach — or its effects.
From his home in Castle Rock, Colo., Kuntz soon heard from people like Sisters Josette and Georgette Markovitz, twin siblings and nuns working at the time in St. Anthony Hospital in Denver. One nun asked a patient disturbing the whole ward if he’d pray the Rosary with her, using the tape. He consented.
Away from the Church many years, the man began to cry after hearing the Rosary, asked for a priest and received the sacraments. He died in peace later that night.
A woman traveler stopped to tell a Knight of Columbus giving out Kuntz's tapes that her non-Catholic friend was so moved hearing the meditative Rosary she and her whole family converted to the Catholic Church.
A deacon stopped by Kuntz's parish of St. Francis of Assisi to tell of a woman he knew praying with the Rosary tape when she learned her teen son and daughter had been in an accident. She rushed to the scene to find their car completely wrecked, but the only injury was her daughter's slight scratch.
Through this feedback and in hundreds of letters, Kuntz has heard loads of similar stories since the tape came out in 1992, the year he produced it with his brother Knights of Columbus in their local St. Francis of Assisi Council.
Called the “The Knights of Columbus Rosary” until 2003 and given free, the tape is now re-named “Mother Mary's Rosary” and distributed through Kuntz's Mother Mary Ministries for whatever people can donate.
The apostolate developed in the early 1990s after Kuntz's spiritual journey deepened and he began writing down his vivid meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary. Shortly after, his local Grand Knight, Wayne Turner, asked him to be their council's church director.
“We had a Marian hour of prayer and I asked if he minded if I wrote up some meditations on the mysteries of the Rosary,” remembers Kuntz. Turner was delighted. Kuntz also sang “Watch the Lamb” for the sorrowful mysteries.
Soon he was leading this meditative Rosary at Marian conferences around Colorado. People began asking for a tape. That prompted the next step.
Kuntz first put the meditative Rosary in booklet form; the Knights distributed 9,000. Next, he recorded the 15-decade Rosary with the help of fellow Knights who prayed along and lead different decades. Besides his meditations, Kuntz and his wife Rita sang “Mary Had a Baby” for the joyful mysteries, and a version of the Hail Mary for the glorious. For both booklet and tape, he got an imprimatur from Bishop Michael Sheridan in the Colorado Springs diocese.
Putting together the final version was no easy task. Kuntz had to lie down much of the time because of major health problems. He contracted chronic fatigue syndrome from mold in his business office. He still suffers from it.
Despite the health battle, he completed the meditations and acted as the Knights’ state Rosary chairman. Now neither his chronic fatigue nor his wife's recent debilitating illness has stopped the distribution of this Rosary tape or his second recording (available on CD as well as audiotape).
Father William Vollmer, former pastor of St. Francis of Assisi, sees strength in this Rosary's combination of meditation and music.
“It isn't just a matter of sharing how you can meditate on this particular mystery,” says Father Vollmer. “Gary and Rita also have music which is inspiring and uplifting and enhances the recitation of the Rosary.
“People who have heard them sing their hymns have been very moved because they present a very inspirational and spiritual expression to the music,” adds the priest.
Father Vollmer finds the tape very beneficial for the homebound, seriously ill and travelers going to and from work.
“Driving from Denver to Glenwood in terrible rain and snow storms, I put the tape on and it had a calming effect,” attests Paul Brachle, of Albuquerque, N.M. After he heard the tape at a Knights’ convention he donated enough to supply a case of 250. Nearly all 100 members of his council wanted a copy.
“What touched them the most was the narration that went along with the mysteries,” Brachle explains. “It made the Rosary come alive for the men.”
Brachle, who's distributed more than 3,000 of the 31,000 copies Kuntz has given out so far, always took dozens along on his business travels all over England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy to give to priests by the handful.
Over the Internet, people have requested the tapes from Kuntz from Russia, Ukraine, the Far East, the Philippines, Sudan and the Congo. Yet because hardly anyone gives some affordable donation that he asks for the free tapes, he reminds, “Without donations we can't afford to continue our work.”
He's now hoping to send tapes/CD's free to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — if donors will come forward to cover actual costs.
Closer to home, Wayne Turner of Franktown, Colo., Grand Knight when Kuntz first made the tape, says his teenage son Buddy has had 28 major surgeries from his spinal bifida. Turner says, “Guaranteed he would not have made it if prayers and the Rosary hadn't been there.”
Because of Pope John Paul II's request for prayers for peace, Kuntz added the “Prayers for Peace” tape/CD. It features the luminous mysteries, children praying the joyful mysteries, and Stations of the Cross that Kuntz led at his parish with his meditations he says were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The original meditative music was composed by Micki Davi.
Despite his own and his wife's health problems, Kuntz isn't deterred from the main goal for “Mother Mary's Rosary.”
“From day one the goal was to make the Rosary come alive for people who don't pray the Rosary, to encourage them to pray it,” he says. “For people already praying it, it will add another dimension to their prayer.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
Information
www.MotherMaryMinistries.org
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: America's Swedes and Indians DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:That big dumb book The Da Vinci Code is being turned into a film.
Nobody is fretting that it's a falsehood-ridden piece of trash full of as many lies about Christians as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is about Jews. Hollywood hopes they've found a cash cow, and calumny against Christians isn't going to slow down the milkers.
Meanwhile, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces is not faring so well. A version starring Will Farrell was scheduled to be released in 2005, but was stopped in the midst of production. Word has it that Confederacy's sin consists of being a story crammed with characters who are stereotypes.
What's wrong with that you may ask? After all, isn't the Vatican assassin and all the sinister clerics who ply their trades in Da Vinci stereotypes straight out of the most ham-fisted 19th-century Know-Nothing literature?
Well, yes. But those are religious stereotypes, like the psycho Bible thumpers, big-haired hypocrites, evil repressed nuns and bloodthirsty Crusaders who inhabit the screens of so many cinemas and TVs.
More to the point, they are Christian stereotypes. Those are okay. But ethnic and gender stereotypes are a whole ’nother thing entirely. In that case, not just sensitivity but even insane hyper-sensitivity is barely enough to contain the raging lion of bigotry that threatens the soul of the republic.
Cases in point from the headlines over the past few years:
— A picnic to honor baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson at the State University of New York-Albany was protested by some 40 students who insisted that the word “picnic” originally referred to the lynchings of blacks.
Actually, “picnic” comes from a 17th-century French word for a social gathering in which each person brings a different food. Nonetheless, campus affirmative action director Zaheer Mustafa ordered all student leaders to refrain from using the word “picnic” with this astounding rationale: “Whether the claims are true or not, the point is the word offended.”
Students docilely agreed and the word “picnic” was changed to “outing.” This offended gay students, so the event formerly known as a picnic was publicized without a noun describing what was going on.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts:
— West Side Story, the 1950s Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents musical, was banned as racist at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School. Protesters charged that the show — which is about the folly of ethnic hatred — promoted stereotypes of Puerto Ricans. A few years ago, sensitivity vigilantes also forced a production of Peter Pan to remake the Indians of Never-Never Land into woodland sprites.
And, last but not least,
— Susan McClary, a feminist musicologist, announced that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was an expression of rape. Now another scholar, Rebecca Moore Howard of Syracuse University, says that the common idea of plagiarism also is a kind of rape. She believes the current concept of plagiarism relies on “gendered metaphors of authorship” that suggest originality is masculine, while collaborative writing is feminine.
So what drives this insanity? And why the double standard when it comes to religious stereotypes?
I think G.K. Chesterton was onto something 80 years ago when he visited America and noted that the great swaths of non-urbanized America “do not, like some peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called agriculture. Their culture comes from the great cities: and that is where all the evil comes from.”
Of course, Chesterton did not foresee the rise of the suburb, but he still grasped something about America as contemporary as a Red State/Blue State map. Namely, he saw, as Peter Berger puts it: “If India is the most religious nation in the world and Sweden the most secular, then America is best described as a nation of Indians ruled by Swedes.”
Our manufacturers of culture worship equality (and its twin, grieved feelings). That's because they are a small cadre of very rich and very vain people who are acutely aware of status. So they fret over the nano-sensitivities of various approved victim groups because they flatter themselves that they care for the downtrodden and see their own sense of grievance at inequality reflected in the approved victim.
But for exactly the same reason, the manufacturers of culture hold a transcendent God — the God worshiped in Red State America — in contempt. “Transcendence,” they snort! “How unfair is that? Why don't I get to be transcendent? I feel aggrieved feelings coming on at this shocking assault on my sense of I'm Just as Good as You!”
As Chesterton says, you can tell what is sacred to a culture by what it regards as blasphemy. Our manufacturers of culture don't regard insults to the Judeo-Christian God as blasphemy, because the don't hold him sacred. They do, however, hold equality and grievance sacred — because they hold themselves and their sense of status sacred.
Mark Shea is senior content editor
For CatholicExchange.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Shea ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:SUNDAY, NOV. 6
Life Is Worth Living:
The Call of the Desert
EWTN, 4 p.m.
Father Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), French army veteran, hermit and servant of the poor in the Sahara, will be beatified Sunday, Nov. 13. In this riveting episode of his 1950s hit series, Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979), whose own cause for canonization is underway, describes Charles's conversion and burning love for Jesus.
MONDAY, NOV. 7
Dream House
Home & Garden TV, 8:30 p.m.
In this episode, “Winter Weather and Roofing Woes,” new parents Christopher and Tina face obstacles as they guide the construction of their house.
TUESDAY, NOV. 8
Nova: Hitler's Sunken Secret
PBS, 8 p.m.
In February 1944, the Norwegian underground, following orders from London, blew up the ferry Hydro in Lake Tinnsjo even though it carried civilians, because destroying its cargo was a priority. Now, a Nova team recovers a barrel from the wreck to see if, as London believed, it contained heavy water intended for the German A-bomb project.
TUESDAY, NOV. 8
Frontline: The Last
Abortion Clinic
PBS, 9 p.m.
In this new documentary, abortionists in the South whine that more and more right-to-life state laws are curbing their bloody trade by requiring them to meet basic sanitation standards, report their injuries of women, not to kill later-term babies and so on. “We do want to protect the unborn,” says Amy Tuck, lieutenant governor of Mississippi, where just one abortion business remains. Pro-life counseling centers help many moms, and Clark Forsythe of Americans United for Life says more states plan baby-protecting laws.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 9
Pioneers of Primetime
PBS, 8 p.m.
Steve Allen, Milton Berle, Sammy Davis Jr., Buddy Ebsen, Bob Hope, Donald O’Connor, Rose Marie and Red Skelton reminisce about the creation of television's first comedy and variety shows in the 1950s.
THURSDAY, NOV. 10
Classroom: Chesty Puller
A&E, 7 a.m.
They called Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller (1898-1971) “a Marine's Marine” for his valor and leadership before and during World War II and Korea. Advisory: TV-PG.
FRIDAY, NOV. 11
Never Far From Home
EWTN, 2:30 p.m.
Catholic military chaplains explain their roles, and we see them saying Mass, hearing confessions, counseling and accompanying troops on military exercises.
SATURDAY, NOV. 12
Thanksgiving Shows
Food Network, all day
Mouth-watering how-to shows about Turkey Day run every half-hour from 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and delectable specials air at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Vatican Urges End to Tensions With China
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 16 — The Holy See hopes that tensions between the Catholic Church and China will end soon, Associated Press quoted the Vatican secretary of state as saying Oct. 25.
“Let's hope that soon these tensions of the moment will end,”’ Cardinal Angelo Sodano was quoted as saying by Ansa and Apcom, two Italian news agencies.
Pope Benedict XVI has been seeking to re-establish diplomatic relations with China, where worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches.
“The Holy See has always said that it is ready for dialogue, ready for contacts, ready to explain its traditions,” Cardinal Sodano said in the report. “However, we must always insist on this concept that the Church is one, in all the world, in all cultures, in all nations, and governments do not have the right to tell men and women how they must live their faith.”
Vatican Marks 40 Years of Jewish Dialogue
EUROPEAN JEWISH PRESS, Oct. 26 — The Vatican was to celebrate 40 years of dialogue with Judaism by holding a special conference Oct. 28 to retrace the relationship between the two religions, Cardinal Walter Kasper said.
The cardinal is the president for the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. The celebration is due to take place on the anniversary of Nostra Aetate (In Our Time), the declaration on the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions adopted by the Second Vatican Council and promulgated on Oct. 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.
Jewish-born French Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger and Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee were to retrace the four decades of dialogue between the Church and Judaism at Thursday's anniversary conference, Cardinal Kasper said.
The late Pope John Paul II made many efforts to improve this relationship, and Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the call for a deepening of the dialogue during his visit to the Cologne synagogue in Germany last August.
Joint Ceremonies Impossible Without Unity
AGENZIA GIORNALISTICA ITALIA, Oct. 11 — Cardinal Angelo Sodano went over Pope John Paul II's writings concerning the hosting of a joint Mass by Roman Catholic priests and priests of other denominations, Agenzia Giornalistica Italia reported.
The Pope's guidelines are contained in Ut Unum Sint according to which “no such ceremony is legitimate unless approved,” the cardinal said, adding that exceptions, if any, apply solely to provision of Communion to single persons of other Churches.
Hence, according to Cardinal Sodano, joint ceremonies “are impossible prior to an open joint acceptance of a common understanding” between the Church of Rome and other prospective Churches. Cardinal Sodano's comments were topped up by a call for greater unity among Catholic priests on this issue, as a means of ensuring that Christians of other denominations are drawn closer to Catholicism. According to the cardinal, “the only way for that to be achieved is through our strict abidance by the Church's current discipline.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Video Picks & Passes DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: PICK
(2005)
CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS: PASS
(2004)
PICKPOCKET: PICK
(1959)
New on DVD this week, Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is enough to make any fan of Roald Dahl's most beloved novel cry with delight at all the film gets so magically right, and with frustration that the film is still nearly ruined by Burton's obsessions and a spectacularly miscalculated performance by Johnny Depp.
Only Burton could have nailed Dahl's blend of whimsical fantasy and withering comeuppance, or the Dickensian glee of its morality-play tableau, with poverty and decency lavishly rewarded, and excess and decadence mercilessly punished. And only Burton could have thought it would be a good idea to give candy-maker extraordinaire Willy Wonka (Depp) unresolved issues from childhood stemming from a traumatic relationship with his father.
Yet take out Wonka, and what's left is little short of brilliant. From young Charlie Bucket (Freddy Highmore) — along with his extended family and their crazy ramshackle house — to the wonders of Wonka's factory, to the over-the-top rottenness of the other four children, this Charlie is both faithful and inspired. It has the makings of the dark childhood fantasy classic that all the Harry Potter films and Lemony Snicket are trying to be. That's good enough to warrant gritting one's teeth and looking past Depp.
Also new this week is Christmas With the Kranks, yet another alleged holiday comedy from one-man holiday-season lousy-movie machine Tim Allen (the Santa Clause movies, Joe Somebody). The premise: A suburban couple decides to abandon their empty nest and go on a cruise in lieu of the usual Christmas hoo-hah. Naturally, they must be punished.
Allen's so cranky he wants to “boycott” all Christmas activities — even charitable donations, despite the fact that the cruise is cheaper than typical seasonal expenditures. The neighbors are worse, browbeating the Kranks into submission before coming together in a heartwarming display of how communities support erring members after pummeling them into the ground. The film's big mistake is making the Allen character's obsession an almost valid protest against ugly enforced conformity — then giving the neighbors the moral high ground over Allen's character. Instead of the Kranks skipping Christmas, can't Allen skip future Christmas movies? Please?
Finally, long out of print in VHS, Robert Bresson's celebrated, confounding Pickpocket comes to DVD from the Criterion Collection, which already includes Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, and others. Inspired by Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pickpocket brings Bresson's stylistic rigor to a meditation on a bland, disaffected young intellectual named Michel (Martin La Salle) who takes up stealing, theorizing that ordinary rules don't apply to an elite class of supermen and that morality and final judgment are absurd concepts.
Bresson examines actions but doesn't clarify motives, perhaps suggesting that the protagonist's actions are a mystery to him, his theories only rationalizations. The subject matter, like Man Escaped, offers an ideal case for Bresson's insistence on naked actions devoid of acting, since for Michel visible emotion would be fatal. Redemption, as always in Bresson, is enigmatic but evocative. What changes for Michel at that critical moment when another hand meets his? Why is his relationship with Jeanne transformed by his ultimate circumstances? Bresson asks but never tells.
CONTENT ADVISORY: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory contains unsettling images, mild menace to children, and an instance of minor profanity, and might be a bit much for sensitive kids. Christmas With the Kranks contains crude language, suggestive humor, and slapstick violence, and could be watched by teens. Pickpocket contains skeptical discussion of morality as well as much petty theft, and could make provocative viewing for thoughtful teens.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Jesus Loves You! DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Register Summary
“Jesus loves you!” Pope Benedict XVI assured the more than 50,000 pilgrims who crowded into St. Peter's Square for his general audience on Oct. 26. His spontaneous remark concluded his meditation on a canticle from Philippians 2:6-11, one of many canticles found in the Liturgy of the Hours.
The Pope explained how the text contains two movements. One highlights Christ's sacrifice, even to the humiliation of death on a cross, while the other reveals his paschal glory as he reappears after death “in the splendor of his divine majesty.”
The Father exalts the Son, the Holy Father said.
“This exaltation is expressed not only by enthroning him at the right hand of God but also by bestowing on him ‘the name that is above every name.’”
This name, he explained, is “Lord” — the name that belongs to God himself.
“The Son's sacrificial obedience is followed by the Father's glorifying response, in which the adoration of mankind and of creation is united,” Pope Benedict pointed out. “The plan of salvation is totally fulfilled in the Son and the faithful are invited — especially in the liturgy — to proclaim it and to reap its fruits.”
The Holy Father concluded his teaching with a commentary on the canticle by St. Gregory Nazianzen.
Setting aside his prepared text at the end of his catechesis, the Holy Father continued to speak extemporaneously.
“At the end of this meditation, I would like to emphasize two words for our life. The first is a piece of advice from St. Paul: ‘Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.’ Let us learn to have the same sentiments that Jesus had, conforming our way of thinking, making decisions and acting to the sentiments that Jesus had. If we follow this path, we will live a good life and follow the right path. The other is the word from St. Gregory Nazianzen: ‘Jesus loves you!’ This word of tenderness is a great consolation for us and a source of comfort. But it is also a great responsibility day after day.”
Continuing our journey through the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours’ evening prayer, we have heard once again that marvelous and essential hymn that St. Paul included in his Letter to the Philippians (2:6-11).
In the past, we have pointed out that the text is composed of a downward movement and an upward movement. In the first movement, Jesus Christ, from the splendor of his divinity that belongs to him by nature, chooses to humble himself to “death on a cross.” Thus, he proves that he is truly man and truly our redeemer by participating in a real and full way in the reality of our suffering and death.
The second movement, the movement upwards, reveals the paschal glory of Christ, who manifests himself once again after death in the splendor of his divine majesty.
Christ Is Exalted
The Father, who had accepted the Son's act of obedience in the Incarnation and the passion, now “exalts” Christ in a way that is above all ways, as the Greek text says. This exaltation is expressed not only by enthroning him at the right hand of God, but also by bestowing on him “the name that is above every name” (verse 9).
In the language of the Bible, the word “name” indicates a person's true essence and specific role, and reveals an intimate and profound reality. The Father confers an incomparable dignity on the Son who, out of love, humbled himself in death — the most sublime “name,” the name “Lord,” the name that belongs to God himself.
Indeed, the proclamation of faith, which the chorus of those who are in heaven, on earth and under the earth intone while prostrated in adoration, is clear and explicit: “Jesus Christ is Lord” (verse 11). The Greek version states that Jesus is the Kyrios, which is undoubtedly a royal title and which is used in the Greek translation of the Bible to refer to God's name, a sacred name revealed to Moses that was not to be uttered.
We Reap the Fruits
On one hand, therefore, recognition is given to the universal lordship of Jesus Christ, to whom all of creation, which is envisioned as a servant prostrate at his feet, pays homage. On the other hand, however, this acclamation of faith declares that Christ subsists in the divine form or nature, and presents him, therefore, as worthy of adoration.
In this hymn, the reference to the scandal of the cross (see 1 Corinthians 1:23), and even earlier to the true humanity of the Word made flesh (see John 1:14), is connected to and culminates with the resurrection. The Son's sacrificial obedience is followed by the Father's glorifying response, in which the adoration of mankind and of creation is united. Christ's uniqueness emerges from his role as Lord of the redeemed world, which was bestowed on him because of his perfect obedience, “even to death.” The plan of salvation is totally fulfilled in the Son and the faithful are invited — especially in the liturgy — to proclaim it and to reap its fruits.
This is the goal towards which this Christ-centered hymn leads us and that the Church for centuries has meditated on, sang and considered as a guide to life: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
Jesus Loves Us
Let us now be guided by a meditation that St. Gregory Nazianzen in his wisdom composed based on this hymn. In a poem in honor of Christ, this great doctor of the Church from the fourth century declares that Jesus Christ “did not strip himself of any constitutive part of his divine nature, yet, despite this, he saved me as a healer who tends to fetid wounds. … He was of David's line, yet he was Adam's creator. He was made of flesh, yet he was also a stranger to the body. He was born of a mother, but of a virgin mother. He was circumscribed, yet he was also immense. He was laid in a manger, yet a star served as guide to the Magi, who arrived bringing him gifts and who knelt before him. As a mortal being, he wrestled with the devil, yet invincible as he was, he overcame the tempter in a threefold struggle. … He was a victim, yet he was also a high priest; he was the one who makes sacrifice and yet he was God. He offered to God his blood and in this way purified the whole world. A cross raised him from the earth, but sin was pierced by nails. … He walked among the dead, but rose from hell and resurrected many who were dead. The first event is part of our human misery, but the second befits the richness of a being that has no body. … The immortal Son assumed that earthly form because he loves you” (Carmina arcana, 2: Collana de Testi Patristici, LVIII, Rome, 1986, pp. 236-238).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: World Media Watch DATE: 11/06/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 6-12, 2005 ----- BODY:Zimbabwean Archbishop Calls for Mugabe's Ouster
Archbishop Pius Ncube said he fears 200,000 Zimbabweans could die by early next year because of food shortages caused by Mugabe's Operation Murambatsvina, the widely condemned slum demolition program which has left thousands of Zimbabweans in destitution.
“Let the man get banished if you don't want Zimbabweans to die,” said Ncube, who predicted that thousands will die by February unless there is dramatic change in the situation within Zimbabwe. “The amount of suffering is beyond imagination. Mugabe is the kind of character that even if 50% of Zimbabweans died, he would not care. We are dealing here with a force of evil that is beyond your imagination.”
‘Babies for Sale’ on Chinese eBay
BBC NEWS, Oct. 20 — Chinese police are investigating a report of attempted baby trafficking on an internet auction site, according to the BBC News.
The advertisement was reportedly placed on eBay's Chinese website, Eachnet. According to Eachnet, the advertisement was registered in Shanghai on Oct. 16.
Boys were advertised for $3,450 while girls were offered for $1,603, Eachnet manager Tang Lei told the China Daily. The offer could have been a hoax, but it comes as baby trafficking is seen as an increasing problem in China. The seller, under the user name Chuangxinzhe Yongyuan (innovator forever), said the babies would be available within 100 days of their birth. The seller said the service was being provided for the benefit of China's millions of infertile couples.
Although no deals were struck, more than 50 people browsed the listing before it was removed, including one who left an inquiry.
Sunday Should Remain a Day of Rest, Group Says
SWISSINFO, Oct. 24 — An ecumenical committee has come out against Sunday shopping in train stations and airports, the subject of a nationwide vote on Nov. 27, the Swiss news service reported.
Catholics and Protestants alike say the measure, if approved, would sound the death knell for family life, and would pave the way for extending opening hours across the country. Under the changes, shops in major railway stations and airports with sales of more than $15.5 million would be allowed to open on Sunday.
Wolfgang Bürgstein, general secretary of the Catholic Church's advisory commission, Justitia et Pax, said that Sunday workers were the big losers in the equation.
“Those who have to work more will be missed by their families and by church, religious and social communities,” he said at a news conference.
The ecumenical committee's president, Peter Oberholzer, said, “First they introduced working on Sundays in shops located in rail stations; now there are plans in the pipeline for making the whole of Switzerland a train station.”
Church plans $6.8 Million Quake Relief Package
NEWKERALA.COM, Oct. 26 — The Catholic Church in India is working on a $6.8 million comprehensive relief and rehabilitation project and arranging for 1,260 special tents for earthquake-hit villages in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian website NewKerala.com reported.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of India also has adopted 12 villages in the state through its social arm, Caritas India. The organization has been actively involved in relief and rehabilitation in seven villages in Uri and five in Baramulla, devastated after the Oct. 8 quake that killed 1,400 people in India and more than 50,000 in Pakistan.
Varghese Mattamana, assistant executive director of Caritas India, said the comprehensive project “would include construction and renovation of houses and three years of continuous support for education, health and livelihood for the 12 villages the army has already adopted for us.”
“What we are planning is a sustained support,” he added. “We will continue to work there for at least three years to provide them good education and health centers along with livelihood.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News --------