Rare is the Catholic teenager who doesn't feel that, sometimes, there's nothing less cool than being a Catholic teenager.
At a time when most of your peers are promiscuous and proud of it, the Church pleads with you to save yourself for marriage.
In a world that glorifies pleasure, experience and permissiveness, the Church preaches self-restraint, modesty and the value of suffering.
Not that Catholic teens are alone in these struggles. Today, young people from all backgrounds and belief systems must navigate a cultural landscape teeming with moral minefields and emotional booby traps. Not to mention spiritual black holes.
For generations, most American teens have felt the need to test limits, question authority figures, rebel against adults and experiment with risky activities.
Still, there's something about being Catholic in particular that, to many, feels like an extra layer of baggage they have to carry around for reasons they don't understand.
The good news is that perception, as is so often the case, is often at odds with reality. Catholic teens who can be taught to see their faith as an indispensable tool rather than an unnecessary weight are well-equipped to successfully transition from childhood into young adulthood — and enjoy the trip.
Then, too, there will always be those who insist on learning the wisdom of the faith the hard way.
Catholic Courage
“I have been Catholic my whole life,” says Sarah Lehman of LaGrange, Ga. “I have always loved church. When I was little, I even wanted to be a nun. But when I was a teenager, I rebelled.”
Her failure to take her faith seriously eventually led to Lehman's involvement in a number of immoral activities. She avoided the sacraments. She drank. She smoked. She skipped school. She hung out with questionable friends and succumbed to the worldliness of peer pressure in a variety of ways.
“I really didn't think about dying or being responsible at all,” she admits. “I was invincible. I must have one very strong guardian angel because I honestly don't know how I am alive today.”
The first wakeup call for Lehman was a surprise, out-of-wedlock pregnancy followed by a hurried marriage to the baby's father outside of the Church. As it turned out, with her newfound responsibility came a newfound interest in her spiritual life. She read more about the Catholic faith and wound up going to confession and then becoming what she calls “a pretty normal Catholic.”
Though she knew that her sins had been forgiven, Lehman says, she continued to suffer feelings of guilt and unworthiness. After a couple of years, though, her renewed faith finally did bring her peace and joy.
“I started helping with the youth group at our church and went with them to a Steubenville youth conference. When I was there I heard Jesus say, ‘It's okay. I forgive you.’ It was a very moving experience. I just broke down and started crying.”
At last, Lehman fully embraced the religion of her childhood that she had rejected so soundly as a teenager, and she and her husband decided to live chastely until arrangements could be made for their marriage in the Church.
“It felt great to finally obey God,” she says. “It felt great to not be a disappointment to anyone, especially God. I am still on my journey, learning as much as I can.”
Seeds of Faith
Julie (not her real name) shares a similarly sorrowful story of her own teenaged rebellion against the Catholic faith. Though she was raised in a church-attending Catholic family, she had a rocky relationship with her father. Eventually, faith and family became less important than peers and partying during her teenaged years.
“The ‘bad’ boys held great attraction for me, and I went with it,” says Julie. She sneaked around, lied to her parents, experimented with alcohol and, after one long night of partying, she was raped by a “bad boy” boyfriend.
“Now my world had ended,” she says. “Why did God let this happen? I hated God. Something was taken from me that night and I was now worthless. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror for a long time.”
Julie hid her misery from her parents, began to smoke marijuana, and went from one abusive relationship to another over a period of several years. She suffered from such low self-esteem and deep depression that eventually she even considered suicide.
Though there was much about the faith that she rejected, some parts of her Catholic upbringing stuck with the struggling teen. Julie never truly doubted that God was real.
“I was constantly recalling the plaque my mom had hanging up in her bathroom at home,” she told the Register. “I looked at it and read it every morning: ‘God, help me to remember that nothing is going to happen today that you and I can't handle together.’
“I also recalled the one Bible verse I was made to remember as a young girl,” she continues, citing Philippians 4:13. “‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. These are the two things that kept me going. I knew that God was real. I knew I’d turned away from him and I knew that I was lost.”
As it turns out, recognizing that she was lost was a first step in Julie's long journey home. In time, a friend opened Julie's eyes to the fact that her life was a valuable gift. Through a return to her faith, she came to recognize that she was a precious child of God and rejected her abusive personal relationships.
Today, the mother of five is a joyful Catholic who has full confidence in the goodness of God and hopes to inspire a deep love of the faith in her own children.
“Looking back, I can see that the seeds my parents planted in me when I was younger were my saving grace,” says Julie. “There were certain things I would not do and certain places I would not go because of it. I can see how God was still there with me all along. I didn't know it then, but I was still being gently guided by him.”
It's Okay to Ask
Catholic author Amy Welborn has a wealth of experience with teenagers who struggle with their Catholic faith. In fact, she was inspired to write her popular Prove It! series of apologetics books, aimed at Catholic teenagers, after spending nine years teaching theology in a Catholic school.
Welborn explains that questioning one's faith during adolescence is a natural and even a good thing for most people — but she is quick to draw a distinction between questioning and rebelling.
“The only way we grow in knowledge is through questions,” she points out. “Not rebellion, but questions. Rebellion is problematic because it results in closed-mindedness. But questioning is not to be feared.”
Welborn cautions that, although teens might struggle with the big questions of good versus evil and relativism versus absolute truth, for many young Catholics one of the greatest sources of spiritual struggle is making sense of the hypocrisy they see in the Catholic adults around them.
“Teens have a keen hypocrisy-radar,” she says. “They have a difficult time understanding that faith is real and powerful and joyful when they are surrounded by adults who say they have faith but don't.”
Welborn offers words of advice for despairing parents of wayward teens: “Keep praying and modeling faith. Eventually, most children come back, not because someone gave them satisfactory answers, but because they saw the truth of God's love lived out.”
That kind of lived love is something Julie's children are likely to find in her example.
“I am trying to teach them all I know and all that I am learning [about the faith],” she says. “I have much more to learn and am excited to do so — but I want my kids to learn it with me.”
Danielle Bean writes from Belknap, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: It's not easy to be a Catholic teen today - but consider the alternatives ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: What Makes Prince Charles Human? DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:In one of those great historical moments where even if it really didn't happen this way, it should have, it has been reported that when General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and the Continental Army in 1781, he ordered the British Army Band to play an old lament entitled “The World Turned Upside Down.”
The first stanza goes like this:
If buttercups buzz’d after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way around,
Then all the world would be upside down.
Well, tune up the band, because if recent events are any indication, the world is once again standing on its head.
Charles, Prince of Wales, recently made news with his royal visitor to our shores. Now, the prince is not the most reliable source for any kind of definitive statement on just about anything I can think of, but that's the Irish in me talking. Still, he is one day destined to be the head of the Church of England but in the interview he granted the London Telegraph he gave some rather urgent pleas for his subjects and the rest of the world to get back in touch with nature.
After describing a boyhood where he sang to seals (yes your ears did not deceive you, animals of the family phocidae that live in the ocean), Charles came up with this interesting quote. “I just think we need to remember that we are a part of nature and not apart from it, which I think has been one of the great problems of the 20th century.”
Perhaps he was thinking of the London Zoo.
This past August, the powers that be at the London Zoo, one of the oldest and most revered zoological entities in existence, opened an exhibit of a new kind of “animal,” one that can be migratory, nocturnal, diurnal, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, and has shown over time to have some rather handy tool making capabilities that would make a bonobo Chimpanzee green with envy.
If you haven't already guessed, the London Zoo has put the species homo sapiens in an enclosure for the zoo going public.
The name of the exhibit — “Humans” — is simple enough, but the officials at the London Zoo, in the interest of public safety no doubt, could not resist adding a caveat to the exhibit banner stating: “Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment.”
In a related Associated Press article, one of the volunteers inside the exhibit waxed enthusiastic over his personal role in the undertaking and was quoted saying, “A lot of people think humans are above other animals. … When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special.”
Aye, there's the rub, to paraphrase another tool-using human animal (quill and parchment counts). For, if this person who is wearing swim trunks and is cavorting around a zoo enclosure in a city that was once the juggernaut of Western civilization is correct, then somebody else has got to be wrong. To quote a source greater than the Associated Press, “Then God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and cattle, and over all the animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground” (Genesis 1:26).
Maybe there's something in the River Thames because just after the London Zoo story came an interview of the Prince of Wales on the subject of husbandry of the earth.
Somehow, I can't imagine Charles’ distant ancestor St. Edward the Confessor coming up with such a non-Christian approach to man's place in the universe. I can't even imagine his more recent ancestor George III coming up with that even while he might have been trying to make a tree the Royal Exchequer.
Yes, we are part of nature in a very real sense, as hurricane and tsunami survivors will attest, but a Christian perspective of the earth and creation just doesn't allow for this kind of cross-species parity.
Only man is created in God's image. That seems to be a radical thought these days but those who want to maintain the moral equivalence between man and all creatures God created for man to manage, do so at their peril.
For those who missed it on cable news, Bobo was a chimp who had been kept by a couple in Southern California as a pet. That is until Bobo became so large and unevenly tempered that he was wont to bite as he attempted to get in touch with his “inner ape.” When the ape relieved a neighbor of one perfectly fine opposable thumb, the couple who owned Bobo knew it was time for the chimp to take a hike.
The hike ended at some kind of halfway house for other exotic animals that were once cute and cuddly pets but now large, impressive bundles of instinct with teeth, claws, attitudes and four to five times the strength of the average occupant of the London Zoo “Human” exhibit.
One fateful day, Bobo's “parents” came for a visit. They had brought a birthday cake for the ape but unfortunately the party never got started because two other large, adult male chimpanzees had escaped from their cages in the complex and immediately attacked the couple. They only bit the thumb off the woman, but her husband was really in for it. He was savagely mauled with horrific wounds that are too grotesque to put in print here. The man survived, barely, but his quality of life is forever marginalized.
Days later, the woman, recovering from her wounds, made the mandatory appearance on the national cable news circuit. She retraced the steps of the horrific encounter with the escaped apes that set upon her and her husband. Then she recounted how her husband tried to “reason” with the two marauding apes in an attempt to ward off the attack. This poor woman with all the sincerity in the world just couldn't comprehend why these two fellow primates would not sit down and listen to “reason.”
I do hope she finds peace, but I don't know if she's ever going to comprehend that the two apes that attacked her and her husband could not be reasoned with because they had not been given that ability by God.
The attacking chimpanzees weren't good or bad; they had no pity and they had no villainy; they merely saw another male primate in their territory and did what any self respecting chimpanzee would do.
When I start to hear choruses of “The World Turned Upside Down,” I usually seek refuge in the wisdom of the late Bishop Fulton Sheen. He comes to the rescue here again of course when he wrote “Man is not a risen ape, but a fallen angel.”
You might have a hard time convincing the London Zoo inhabitants of that, and you might have a hard time convincing the London palace inhabitants of that as well; but the poor woman keeping a vigil over her seriously wounded husband might take some solace from Bishop Sheen's pronouncement.
Thus spoke the Elephant Man, “I am not an animal. I am a human being.”
Human beings have been designed for a grander purpose than merely communing with the playing surface the Almighty has provided.
To paraphrase another antidote to topsy-turviness: “Who made you? God made me. Why did God make you? To know him, love him, and be with him forever in eternity.”
Sorry Bobo, you didn't make the cut.
Robert Brennan is a television writer living in Los Angeles.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Brennan ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Some Roads Lead to Rhodes DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:On the Greek island of Rhodes, on Kathopouli Street, beyond a small stucco wall and wrought-iron gate, is a small cobblestone courtyard.
Walk across and you're standing under the A-framed façade of the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. Look to the right and you'llsee a Franciscan monastery.
This is just one of the church's entrances. The structure presents a very different exterior around the corner, on Dragoumi Street. Here the church is set beyond a larger, treed square. It's got a walkway framed by columns and arches, and it offers a great view of its whitewashed dome and bell tower.
In fact, while Catholic to the core, from here it looks very much like the Greek Orthodox churches along the coast. You've probably seen these in 1,000 pictures, the bright white of the churches contrasted with the deep blue of the Aegean waters.
Inside, whitewashed walls bordered in local stone rise up to a vaulted ceiling. The church is filled with light as open windows near the roof let in the sunshine along with the occasional breeze.
Large marble tiles of black and white cover the center aisle. Beyond the dozen or so pews leading to the marble altar, you come to an icon of Our Lady. It is affixed to the wall, framed by a profusion of plaster cherubim above the domed tabernacle. In the image, Mary holds the Christ-child, leaning her head toward him. Beside the sacred image but included in the plaque is a small coat of arms.
This coat of arms hints at the history of the Knights of St. John Hospitaller in Rhodes. It is also the story of Mary's patronage over the island and its varied inhabitants.
The image commemorates the victory of the Knights of St. John over the Turks on the island during an attack in 1480. The knights ruled the island during the Middle Ages. During the attack, the Virgin Mary appeared in a break of the fortified city's wall. Later, a church in honor of Santa Maria della Vittoria (Our Lady of Victory) was built at that site. That church was subsequently destroyed and the image was lost.
About 40 years later, the knights lost control of the island to the Turks, and many Christians fled Rhodes. From there, the knights went to Malta where they became known as the Knights of Malta.
Franciscan Flair
But it is the Franciscans who have continued bringing the sacraments to the remaining Catholics on the island all these centuries, up to the present day.
Documents show that the Franciscans were there from at least 1457, but most believe they were there well before then. Many Christians became slaves on the ships under Turkish rule. The sacraments were performed in the ships’ galleys.
It was not until 1742 that the Franciscans bought a house and laid the cornerstone for a new church, where the vestry currently stands. The image referred to as the Madonna of the Faneromeni (Greek for appeared or found) was brought to this site in 1743 when the first Mass was celebrated on Holy Thursday. Some also refer to the image as Our Lady of the Slaves, because it was the slaves who found the image sometime under the rule of the Turks.
There is another icon on the wall near the altar leading to the transept on the right. It is a copy of the icon of Our Lady of Filerimos. Tradition holds that St. Luke painted the original image, which features Mary with a somber gaze and which ended up going into exile with the knights.
Construction for the present church began in 1849. The church is cruciform by design, except a small chapel just inside the door to the left. The small chapel was recently restored and dedicated to St. Anthony. Its walls are covered with murals of the life of St. Francis’ most famous follower. Each year, the parish celebrates St. Anthony's feast with a gathering in the monastery gardens.
Although tiny in appearance from the entrance, the church and monastery extend like a paper chain unfolding in the hands of its creator — unfolding, too, like the mystery of the Church through the ages.
St. Paul Was Here
The current church is in New Town, at the northern part of the city of Rhodes. This area developed outside the Byzantine walled city, which the locals refer to as Old Town. After the Turks, the Italians were appointed as administrators by the League of Nations in 1912. That is when many of the medieval buildings were restored, including the walls of the Old Town.
Santa Maria Church is one of only three remaining Catholic churches on the island. The faith was first brought to the island by St. Paul as mentioned in Acts 21.
There are Byzantine Christian ruins on the island and elsewhere evidence that the “Latins” (as the Western Christians were called) had their own churches. The two rites co-existed from early on.
Because of its strategic position in the Mediterranean, the island was often under attack and subject to the whims of varying rulers. The island was returned to the Greeks in 1948 as were many of the medieval churches which the European knights had built. Today the inhabitants are primarily Greek and Greek-speaking.
The exterior of the Church strikes an interesting balance of Eastern and Western architecture, just like the island itself, which sits poised at the easternmost point in Greece, facing Asia Minor, as the locals often refer to Turkey.
During the summer months, tourists comprise a large portion of the Mass participants. For that reason the Mass is celebrated in Latin on Sundays and in Greek on weekdays and feast days. Mass books are provided in several languages with Latin on one side and other languages on the opposite page.
To this pilgrim, the significance of the Catholic Church being the universal Church could not have been more apparent as the Mass attendees responded in Latin or in their own vernacular.
Santa Maria della Vittoria offered me a glimpse of heaven, where Jesus reigns with all the saints at his side.
Janet Labatut Davies, a resident of New Orleans, writes from Houston.
Planning Your Visit
Sunday Mass is celebrated at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Daily Mass is at 6 p.m., as is the Saturday vigil. Confessors are available before and after each Mass.
Getting There
Rhodes is reached by a short flight or ferry ride from Athens. To find the church coming from Mandraki Harbor along side Old Town, turn right from Alexander Diakou Street, onto Sofokli Venezelou Street. Then turn left on Ioani Kazouli Street, which runs to the Church courtyard at 45 Kathapouli St.
----- EXCERPT: Santa Maria della Vittoria Church, Rhodes, Greece ----- EXTENDED BODY: Janet Labatut Davies ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Who Am I and Where Am I Going? DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:One of the most often heard defenses homosexual persons make concerning their lifestyle is that it reflects “the way we are, the way God made us.”
In other words, people ought to have the right to be and to act in accordance with the way they have been created. The invocation of God is particularly interesting given the fact that all the major religions strongly condemn homosexual practices.
What most interests me about this defense, however, is not its theological claim, but its facile reduction of the “ought” to the “is,” which is tantamount to the complete elimination of the “ought” and along with it, all morality. Mere logical consistency would therefore permit pyromania, kleptomania and manias of any stripe to make the same claim. Does the legal code, then, constitute hate literature against those disposed by nature (or God) to engage in maniacal activities?
That redoubtable political philosopher, Nicolo Machiavelli, whose Il Principe (The Prince) also served as a handbook for the Mafia, endeavored “to study man as he is and not as he ought to be.” He was, in his view, simply being “realistic.”
The “is” is all there “is.” For this early 16th-century thinker, Plato's morality was unrealistic since it was founded on an idealism that did not correspond to the way people actually live.
Yet, the whole burden of ethics is to enlighten man about what he ought to do. And it is the task of religion to give him the strength to become what he ought to become. Alfred Lord Tennyson was both sagacious and succinct when he wrote: “And ah for a man to arise in me, / That the man I am may cease to be.”
The Catholic Church has always been very evolutionary in its attitude toward human beings. She wants people to change for the better, and such moral evolution requires a great deal of grace as well as effort. Change is an inescapable part of life. As Cardinal John Henry Newman has remarked, “Here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
By reducing the “ought” to the “is,” we do not really abolish the “ought,” we merely transfer it to the “is.” But this view legitimizing everything that is is morally static and robs people of any end or purpose that would give their life meaning. We ought to become more than what we are at the moment, just as “man's reach should exceed his grasp.”
The question, “Who am I?”, which has plagued man from the beginning of philosophy, is the most crucial of all existential questions. If we answer it wrongly, the consequences can be tragic.
George Weigel has stated, in his splendid book Letters to a Young Catholic, that “in the first half of the 20th century, perhaps as many as a hundred million human beings have paid with their lives for the consequences of some desperately defective ideas of who we are.”
Who are we? Are we merely pawns of the state or radical individuals? Are we completely driven by biological impulses or are we totally conditioned by culture? Are we spirits trapped in an alien body or are we purely material entities?
The Catholic Church answers this vexing and crucial question by pointing out that Christ reveals to us who we are. In Christ, we learn that we are called to know and to love.
Therefore, we are persons who can discover the truth about things and live in communal harmony with other persons. We are “bodified” and we are free. We know something about our end to which we are naturally inclined. We know that our destiny is to be complete and integrated persons. We are called to holiness.
In his apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio John Paul II writes, “Family, become what you are.” By this paradoxical exhortation, he refers simultaneously to both the family's “identity, what it is, but also to its mission, what it can and should do.” The family, since it is composed of persons, is essentially dynamic. It can never be complacent about any particular stage of development, but is always striving to realize more completely the promise of its prototype.
The claim made by those who defend homosexual acts, that one must “be who he is,” ignores the challenge to moral growth, personal wholeness, and a life that has a positive trajectory. It commends a life that would be just as stifling for heterosexuals as for homosexuals.
Sinners can change to saints. Homosexuals can often change their sexual orientation. J. Nicolosi and others, for example, have reported in Psychological Reports (86, 2000), that in a study of more than 800 dissatisfied homosexuals who received “Reparative Therapy,” more than 34% perceived themselves as having become either exclusively or almost entirely heterosexual.
The injunction to remain enclosed in the moment is not a defense of anything. We all need a hearth and a horizon, a ground and a goal, a present and a promise. Life is surely a journey, and every journey has a destiny. To know who I am implies a sense of how our present self needs to be transformed in order to become what it was meant to be.
In the words of G. K. Chesterton: “If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?”
Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Donald Demarco ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Archbishop Sheen's Cause Advances DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:PEORIA, Ill. — The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen may be one step closer to being declared a saint.
Three years after Archbishop Sheen's cause for beatification was officially opened, a medical tribunal has been set up to investigate the claims of a “favor” that a family feels it obtained through the intercession of this “Servant of God.”
“A medical tribunal was opened in the Diocese of Peoria in the month of September,” said Franciscan Friar of the Renewal Father Andrew Apostoli, vice postulator for the cause. “A family feels they received an extraordinary favor through the prayers and intercession of Archbishop Sheen.”
Father Apostoli told the Register that a woman who had undergone an operation had complications, and was not expected to live. Her husband said that he prayed specifically to Archbishop Sheen during the two hours that his wife was in the operating room.
“When she survived, the family felt they had received a special favor,” said Father Apostoli. “All of this, from the medical point of view, will be investigated.”
Father Apostoli declined to reveal any other details of the case.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen Foundation chairman Walter Miller said that the medical case is one of two that are being investigated.
The favor involving the woman who almost died after an operation has already been forwarded to Rome, “but we think both are worthy,” said Miller. “In January, the diocesan tribunal will meet regarding the second one.” No details were available about the latter case.
Meanwhile, the diocesan inquiry into the famous radio and television evangelist's life continues.
“Witnesses have been testifying to his life and his virtue,” said Msgr. Richard Soseman, episcopal delegate with the tribunal investigating the cause. Msgr. Soseman reviews all facets of the investigation on behalf of Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky. One of the tribunal's chief roles is collecting the testimony of those who knew Archbishop Sheen or who are experts.
Since the opening of Archbishop Sheen's cause, the Diocese of Peoria has interviewed approximately 35 of a total of 200 individuals. Additional interviews will be conducted with witnesses in England, where Archbishop Sheen taught, and in Ireland, where he frequently preached and led retreats.
“The endeavor is made to find witnesses who are both positive and negative,” added Msgr. Soseman.
Controversies
The final decision comes from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. It's the postulator's job to sift through the evidence, both in support of and against the candidate. Andrea Ambrosi is serving as the postulator for Archbishop Sheen's cause. Ambrosi also serves as the postulator for Cardinal John Henry Newman and Father Patrick Peyton, among others.
As with any candidate, Archbishop Sheen's life has come under intense scrutiny.
In a 2002 review in Crisis magazine of Thomas Reeves’ biography, America's Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton Sheen, Joseph Bottum noted Archbishop Sheen's feuds with Cardinal Francis Spellman, former Archbishop of New York, and the “divinity doctorate that Sheen falsely claimed to have earned and continued to claim long after it ceased to have any importance to his career.”
According to Reeves’ research, Sheen invented an S.T.D., which appeared after his name in 1928 and remained on his letterhead until 1966.
“There's something about Sheen that's hard to pin down — something that both excites one's admiration and strains one's charity,” wrote Bottum. “He was, without doubt, a great man, but it was, somehow, a thin kind of greatness: greatness as conceived by the impoverished imagination of the 1950s.”
Sheen biographer and historian Kathleen Riley doesn't think the allegations will hinder Archbishop Sheen's cause.
“Saints aren't supposed to be perfect,” said Riley, associate professor of history at Ohio Dominican University and author of Fulton J. Sheen: An American Catholic Response to the Twentieth Century.
Riley noted that Archbishop Sheen's secretary, Msgr. John Ellis, wrote of Archbishop Sheen's one character flaw being vanity.
“Given his many talents, that's understandable,” said Riley.
Riley pointed to Archbishop Sheen's three years as bishop of Rochester, N.Y.
“That was an extremely painful experience for him,” said Riley. “Everything else he had tried he had succeeded at quite well. In Rochester, he met setbacks. He asked to retire after three years, and he learned from it. He spent the last decade of his life giving priestly retreats.”
Behind the cause for beatification is the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Foundation. The foundation's role is to spread the word and work of Fulton Sheen, and promote and raise funds for the cause.
The path to modern-day canonization is expensive. Miller acknowledged that the cost for promotion, and the necessary investigation and tribunals can run upwards of $1 million.
“The process is more expensive for Archbishop Sheen because of the large number of witnesses involved,” said Miller, “and because he was so prolific in his writings, which must be translated and forwarded to Rome.”
In addition to the gathering of testimony, the tribunal also has a historical commission and theological censors. The historical commission examines the archives. The theological censors examine Archbishop Sheen's work — more than 70 books, as well as numerous audio — and videotapes.
One of the ways the foundation is promoting Archbishop Sheen's work is through the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Military Prayerbook Campaign. To date, the foundation has distributed nearly 50,000 of Archbishop Sheen's pocket-sized prayer books — originally published during World War II — for servicemen and women in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Because of the shortage of Catholic military chaplains, the prayer book has been in high demand.
“They are filling an enormous need,” said Father Apostoli. “We received a letter from a soldier who had been unable to receive holy Communion the last time he was in Iraq. He found the prayer book a comfort.”
The foundation continues to hear from individuals who have been affected by Archbishop Sheen's words.
“We receive many testimonies from individuals who were drawn to him through radio or television,” said Father Apostoli. “We just received a beautiful testimony from a man who was a prisoner and had been converted during a Christmas retreat the archbishop had given.”
No one knows how long the cause will take.
“The Congregation for the Causes of Saints stresses that we try to be prompt,” said Msgr. Soseman. “Within a few years we hope to have what we need.”
Msgr. Soseman added that the interest in Archbishop Sheen's cause has heightened interest in the canonization process diocese-wide.
“We've received many calls from people wondering how to establish causes, but who don't know how to go about it,” said Msgr. Soseman. “The Second Vatican Council told us that we should all try to be saints … that holiness should be everyday. It's been interesting for me to see that there are many possible candidates out there.”
Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Abuse Progress: Board Winning Uphill Battle DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — After three years, members of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People are used to seeing their efforts misunderstood. When the board meets with U.S. bishops at their annual meeting, it will try to set the record straight.
The past three months are a typical example. In September, a spate of stories hit the media about the Vatican's investigation of seminaries, quoting some people's complaints that the investigation was too focused on homosexuals. Then, in October, grisly stories of homosexual predators in the priesthood made headlines — a multiple-murder/suicide in Wisconsin and an Army chaplain's sentencing to five years in prison.
But these incidents didn't spark a spate of stories vindicating Vatican concerns about predatory homosexuals in the priesthood. The media failed to put two and two together.
The National Review Board was scheduled to make just that point to bishops this week in Washington, however. The board was also to hear from someone who works in the field of restorative justice on how that has been used to bring healing between abusers and victims, and from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York about the work they've done studying sex abuse.
“We are all anxious to further understand the data that they collected,” said National Review Board member Jane Chiles, who is director of a public relations firm in Lexington, Ky.
After an exhaustive review of sex abuse in the priesthood, among the John Jay study's findings was the revelation that the majority of sexual abuse by clergy took place during the 1960s and ’70s, with 81% of the victims being males between the ages of 11 and 17.
Board member Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described that finding as “remarkable.”
“I'm amazed that this fundamental bombshell has not been the subject of greater interest and discussion,” he told the Register. “I'm astonished that people throughout America are not talking about it, thinking about it, and wondering about what the mechanisms were that set this alight.
“If you collect all of the seminary graduates between 1970 and 1973, 10-11% of them abused children,” said McHugh. “That's an amazing fact. This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth, yet it's not being discussed.”
Three Years Later
More than three years have passed since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Dallas Charter and created the National Review Board. The bishops’ conference meets this week, and the Review Board was to have met Nov. 10-12 — both in Washington, D.C.
A joint meeting between the two entities also was planned. The U.S. bishops’ permanent Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People was to meet with the Review Board Nov.10-12 to assess the recommendations the board made three years ago and to move forward with the board's next assignment: choosing a research organization to conduct an in-depth study looking into the causes and context of the abuse crisis.
The board first came together “in the midst of great crisis and turmoil,” said William Burleigh, recently retired chairman of media giant E.W. Scripps Co. He served on the National Review Board until 2004. “In spite of the various sideshows and the mistrust that some bishops had for the board, there was a sense of clarification. While all the sideshows were going on, we were doing the work that culminated in the [John Jay] report.”
Those “sideshows” would include former National Review Board Chairman Frank Keating's remark comparing some bishops to the Mafia, and former board member Pamela Hayes’ resignation after her admission in the Register that she was proud of her record of promoting abortion rights.
The board's accomplishments included overseeing the creation and the work of the Office of Child and Youth Protection, the 2004 John Jay College of Criminal Justice study, “Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 1950-2002,” and a list of 25 recommendations for the bishops.
Among the board's recommendations was the need for ongoing diocesan audits, an examination of seminaries’ screening processes, training and formation, greater financial transparency, improved interaction with civil authorities, and greater cooperation with the laity.
Overall, board members feel confident that the recommendations have been taken seriously.
“The recommendations are being thought through and worked through in the Church,” said McHugh. “The Church said it was going to be transparent, and it has been so far.”
“I certainly am pleased to see that the Apostolic Visitation of the seminaries is being undertaken with such apparent seriousness,” said Burleigh, referring to a Vatican-ordered inspection of U.S. seminaries that began this fall. “During our deliberations we heard that the previous visitation had taken care of the problems that led to the abuse. We certainly didn't think that was the case. We were hearing too much about problems that still lingered.”
‘Epidemic’ Is Over
Still, Burleigh believes greater attention ought to be paid to some of the recommendations.
“The process of choosing bishops should involve greater lay consultation,” said Burleigh. “Lay people have insight into diocesan needs that the nuncio and that process may not be able to find.”
The board had expected this week to be updated on the progress made on the recommendations.
“We've asked our new director to look at the recommendations and give us a status report on that,” said Jane Chiles, a current member and director of a public relations firm in Lexington, Ky.
In addition to Chiles and McHugh, the board consists of Chairwoman Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, Dr. Michael Bland, Thomas DeStefano, Dr. Angelo Giardino, Ralph Lancaster Jr., Judge Petra Jimenez Maes, William McGarry, Judge Michael Merz, Dr. Joseph Rhode, Joseph Russoniello and Milann Siegfried.
McHugh said the evidence shows that the “epidemic” of clerical sex abuse is one that came and went. He cited three resources that identify the surge.
“First, The New York Times’ Lexis-Nexis search noticed that all of the cases came up from the 1960s and came down after the 1990s,” he said. The Times, using the media and legal database service Lexis-Nexis, found that all the cases stemmed from the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s and declined in the 1990s.
“Second, we found the same evidence in every diocese in America,” McHugh continued. “Third, since 2002, we have had annual reports of what happened. Every one of them shows the same thing. They are building the size of the surge, but it's the same shape.”
McHugh added that one of the study's limitations is that while it is comprehensive, there is nothing to compare it with. Similar studies do not exist of abuse of students by teachers, or of patients by physicians.
“The Church is catching hell about it even though they are the ones who have been the brave pilgrims to have opened the doors,” said McHugh. “We have nothing like this study in the doctor world, even though voluntary questionnaires done in 1990 show that 6.5% of physicians had sexually abused their patients.”
The next step for the National Review Board is choosing a research organization to complete the “Causes and Context” study. That study will attempt to identify the causes of abuse and the circumstances surrounding the crisis from which measures can be taken to prevent future offenses.
“It will look at host, agent and environment,” said McHugh. “This is a public health matter, not just a Church matter.”
A request for grant proposals was released a year ago. Board chairwoman Patricia Ewers said that the Review Board has made its selection, but could not reveal its decision until the bishops had been notified.
According to an unamed source, the Review Board will again use john Jay for the Causes and Context Study.
“At the U.S. bishops’ conference in June, they voted on a $1 million commitment to fund the Causes and Context study,” said Ewers, chairwoman of the Review Board. “What hasn't been resolved is the final cost of the project, and the sources of the funding beyond the $1 million.”
The Review Board, and the bishops’ conference, will take that up at their November meeting.
“The Causes and Context study is the biggest thing on their plate,” said Burleigh. “It will be expensive and will take two to three years to complete, but it will drill down deep into the questions raised by the John Jay statistical study.”
“We are in this for the long haul,” said Chiles, whose term on the board expires in 2007. “This problem took many years to evolve, as will the solution.”
Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Abuse Progress: Board Winning Uphill Battle DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — After three years, members of the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People are used to seeing their efforts misunderstood. When the board meets with U.S. bishops at their annual meeting, it will try to set the record straight.
The past three months are a typical example. In September, a spate of stories hit the media about the Vatican's investigation of seminaries, quoting some people's complaints that the investigation was too focused on homosexuals. Then, in October, grisly stories of homosexual predators in the priesthood made headlines — a multiple-murder/suicide in Wisconsin and an Army chaplain's sentencing to five years in prison.
But these incidents didn't spark a spate of stories vindicating Vatican concerns about predatory homosexuals in the priesthood. The media failed to put two and two together.
The National Review Board was scheduled to make just that point to bishops this week in Washington, however. The board was also to hear from someone who works in the field of restorative justice on how that has been used to bring healing between abusers and victims, and from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York about the work they've done studying sex abuse.
“We are all anxious to further understand the data that they collected,” said National Review Board member Jane Chiles, who is director of a public relations firm in Lexington, Ky.
After an exhaustive review of sex abuse in the priesthood, among the John Jay study's findings was the revelation that the majority of sexual abuse by clergy took place during the 1960s and ’70s, with 81% of the victims being males between the ages of 11 and 17.
Board member Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, described that finding as “remarkable.”
“I'm amazed that this fundamental bombshell has not been the subject of greater interest and discussion,” he told the Register. “I'm astonished that people throughout America are not talking about it, thinking about it, and wondering about what the mechanisms were that set this alight.
“If you collect all of the seminary graduates between 1970 and 1973, 10-11% of them abused children,” said McHugh. “That's an amazing fact. This behavior was homosexual predation on American Catholic youth, yet it's not being discussed.”
Three Years Later
More than three years have passed since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Dallas Charter and created the National Review Board. The bishops’ conference meets this week, and the Review Board was to have met Nov. 10-12 — both in Washington, D.C.
A joint meeting between the two entities also was planned. The U.S. bishops’ permanent Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People was to meet with the Review Board Nov.10-12 to assess the recommendations the board made three years ago and to move forward with the board's next assignment: choosing a research organization to conduct an in-depth study looking into the causes and context of the abuse crisis.
The board first came together “in the midst of great crisis and turmoil,” said William Burleigh, recently retired chairman of media giant E.W. Scripps Co. He served on the National Review Board until 2004. “In spite of the various sideshows and the mistrust that some bishops had for the board, there was a sense of clarification. While all the sideshows were going on, we were doing the work that culminated in the [John Jay] report.”
Those “sideshows” would include former National Review Board Chairman Frank Keating's remark comparing some bishops to the Mafia, and former board member Pamela Hayes’ resignation after her admission in the Register that she was proud of her record of promoting abortion rights.
The board's accomplishments included overseeing the creation and the work of the Office of Child and Youth Protection, the 2004 John Jay College of Criminal Justice study, “Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 1950-2002,” and a list of 25 recommendations for the bishops.
Among the board's recommendations was the need for ongoing diocesan audits, an examination of seminaries’ screening processes, training and formation, greater financial transparency, improved interaction with civil authorities, and greater cooperation with the laity.
Overall, board members feel confident that the recommendations have been taken seriously.
“The recommendations are being thought through and worked through in the Church,” said McHugh. “The Church said it was going to be transparent, and it has been so far.”
“I certainly am pleased to see that the Apostolic Visitation of the seminaries is being undertaken with such apparent seriousness,” said Burleigh, referring to a Vatican-ordered inspection of U.S. seminaries that began this fall. “During our deliberations we heard that the previous visitation had taken care of the problems that led to the abuse. We certainly didn't think that was the case. We were hearing too much about problems that still lingered.”
‘Epidemic’ Is Over
Still, Burleigh believes greater attention ought to be paid to some of the recommendations.
“The process of choosing bishops should involve greater lay consultation,” said Burleigh. “Lay people have insight into diocesan needs that the nuncio and that process may not be able to find.”
The board had expected this week to be updated on the progress made on the recommendations.
“We've asked our new director to look at the recommendations and give us a status report on that,” said Jane Chiles, a current member and director of a public relations firm in Lexington, Ky.
In addition to Chiles and McHugh, the board consists of Chairwoman Patricia O’Donnell Ewers, Dr. Michael Bland, Thomas DeStefano, Dr. Angelo Giardino, Ralph Lancaster Jr., Judge Petra Jimenez Maes, William McGarry, Judge Michael Merz, Dr. Joseph Rhode, Joseph Russoniello and Milann Siegfried.
McHugh said the evidence shows that the “epidemic” of clerical sex abuse is one that came and went. He cited three resources that identify the surge.
“First, The New York Times’ Lexis-Nexis search noticed that all of the cases came up from the 1960s and came down after the 1990s,” he said. The Times, using the media and legal database service Lexis-Nexis, found that all the cases stemmed from the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s and declined in the 1990s.
“Second, we found the same evidence in every diocese in America,” McHugh continued. “Third, since 2002, we have had annual reports of what happened. Every one of them shows the same thing. They are building the size of the surge, but it's the same shape.”
McHugh added that one of the study's limitations is that while it is comprehensive, there is nothing to compare it with. Similar studies do not exist of abuse of students by teachers, or of patients by physicians.
“The Church is catching hell about it even though they are the ones who have been the brave pilgrims to have opened the doors,” said McHugh. “We have nothing like this study in the doctor world, even though voluntary questionnaires done in 1990 show that 6.5% of physicians had sexually abused their patients.”
The next step for the National Review Board is choosing a research organization to complete the “Causes and Context” study. That study will attempt to identify the causes of abuse and the circumstances surrounding the crisis from which measures can be taken to prevent future offenses.
“It will look at host, agent and environment,” said McHugh. “This is a public health matter, not just a Church matter.”
A request for grant proposals was released a year ago. Board chairwoman Patricia Ewers said that the Review Board has made its selection, but could not reveal its decision until the bishops had been notified.
According to an unamed source, the Review Board will again use john Jay for the Causes and Context Study.
“At the U.S. bishops’ conference in June, they voted on a $1 million commitment to fund the Causes and Context study,” said Ewers, chairwoman of the Review Board. “What hasn't been resolved is the final cost of the project, and the sources of the funding beyond the $1 million.”
The Review Board, and the bishops’ conference, will take that up at their November meeting.
“The Causes and Context study is the biggest thing on their plate,” said Burleigh. “It will be expensive and will take two to three years to complete, but it will drill down deep into the questions raised by the John Jay statistical study.”
“We are in this for the long haul,” said Chiles, whose term on the board expires in 2007. “This problem took many years to evolve, as will the solution.”
Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Can the Lion Save the Mouse? DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:In Aesop's famous fable The Lion and the Mouse it is the mouse who saves the lion, setting the bound lion free.
“Now you know that is it possible for even a mouse to benefit a lion,” says the mouse.
This Christmas, however, the tables may be turned. More than likely, the lion (Aslan) will be benefiting the mouse (Mickey).
Hollywood and Walt Disney have had a tough go of it as late. Motion picture companies have had one of the most dismal box-office slumps in years. According to Variety, grosses have been between 6%-10% less than last year, and the theater chains are hurting from fewer moviegoers. Disney's studio entertainment division showed a 15% decrease in revenues through the third quarter of 2005.
Come Dec. 9, C.S. Lewis’ Aslan the lion could change all that.
In what the studio hopes, and many Christian moviegoers predict will be the box-office success of the year, Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will open on the big screen.
Marketing companies such as Motive Entertainment and Outreach Inc. have been hired by Disney and Walden Media to promote the film specifically to leaders of faith. Their hope is that they can re-create the grassroots “buzz” that made The Passion of the Christ a blockbuster.
Well, their hope is well founded. At the event they invited me to, I and others from the religious media were deeply impressed by the brief preview we saw.
It's interesting to note that Hollywood's most successful films over the past few years have been films deeply rooted in faith. That certainly was true for the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, and for Mel Gibson's The Passion.
With The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe comes an allegory that is plainly obvious for all those who have eyes to see.
The story features the central character of Aslan the lion, not only in the first story, but in the later stories in The Chronicles of Narnia as well. Aslan describes himself as the “son of the Emperor Beyond the Sea.” In the most moving passage of the book, he lays down his life for the “sins” of Edmund and is later “resurrected.” There can be no denying Aslan's role as a sacrificial Christ-like figure.
In one of the stories, Aslan tells the children that they are growing too old for Narnia, and that they must come to know him by his other name.
A young girl once wrote to Lewis inquiring what Aslan's other name might be. Lewis responded:
“Has there ever been anyone in this world who 1) arrived at the same time as Father Christmas, 2) said he was the son of the Great Emperor, 3) gave himself up for someone else's fault, to be jeered at and killed by wicked people, 4) came to life again, and 5) is sometimes spoken of as a lamb?”
Whereas The Passion was in-your-face Christianity, The Lion is a bit more nuanced.
Many Christian leaders have wondered and worried whether the film will be faithful to Lewis’ story, especially given its affiliation with Disney. Others, who have seen previews, have noted that Disney did not exert creative control over the film, allowing the story to be told much as Lewis had written it.
If that's true, and I suspect that it is from a 10-minute preview screening I saw last week, then there's much to look forward to in December.
Good is clearly good, and evil is clearly evil.
Leaders of faith are rightly excited about the possibility for using the film to introduce filmgoers to Christ. They see it as an evangelization tool and are coming up with ideas for promoting the film among their neighbors, families and congregations.
One evangelical pastor described how he planned to put up posters and a life-size cardboard cut-out of a lion in his gathering space. Another spoke of inviting neighbors to see the film, and them asking them over to his house afterwards for dessert and discussion.
Such are the ways of our evangelical brothers and sisters. They seem to understand evangelization in a way that Catholics sometimes fail to grasp.
Catholics could borrow a page from Protestants on this one. While the Catholic Church doesn't endorse movies, there's no reason why individual Catholics can't imitate their Protestant brothers and sisters in using the film to reach out to others.
That could mean inviting a fallen-away family member to see the film, hosting a Narnia party for teens or booking a theater for a special showing in the community. If the film can help lead people to Christ, then we as Catholics ought to be doing our part.
In Hollywood, nothing speaks quite as loudly as money. If the film does as well as people seem to think it will, it will not only send yet another undeniable message to the ailing industry of the importance of faith, but it will also ensure that the remaining six children's books written by Lewis will be faithfully translated for the big screen.
If the “Lion” saves the “Mouse,” it could give knew meaning to the expression “Christ saves.”
Tim Drake is the author of Young and Catholic:
The Face of Tomorrow's Church
(2004, Sophia Institute Press).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- *************************** Missing file Drake-Today's Bishops *************************** TITLE: The Cube, On Fire DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:EDITORIAL
Could we suffer France's fate?
In France, rioting on a massive scale spread to more than 300 cities as thousands of cars were torched, along with nursery schools and, in one particularly grisly incident, a handicapped woman.
The riots shone a spotlight on the Muslim neighborhoods that France has virtually abandoned.
How bad is it? A firsthand account of life in a Muslim slum was a French bestseller in 2002. It was called Dans l’enfer des tournantes (In Gang Rape Hell). “It recounts the life of a courageous French Muslim teenager, Samira Bellil, who was repeatedly gang-raped, and in order to survive became a racaille (hooligan), beating up other girls to get protection and respect,” said reporter Olivier Guitta.
The book is a realistic account of life there, said Guitta. “The culture of violence is reinforced on every side, by the anti-police, anti-West gangsta rap kids listen to, and by the blogs where young thugs parade their exploits of arson or mugging at gunpoint, thereby becoming neighborhood ‘stars’ and raising the stakes for other gangs.”
How is such a thing possible in modern, enlightened France?
George Weigel may have given us a clue earlier this year. In his book The Cube and the Cathedral, Weigel describes a trip he took to Paris in 1997. He visited La Grande Arche de la Défense, a gigantic cube-shaped structure made of glass and marble. It houses the International Foundation for Human Rights.
Weigel noticed that his guidebook pointed out that the cube is large enough to contain the Cathedral of Notre Dame. France seems eager to trump its old Catholic culture with its new, secular one.
“Which culture, I wondered, would better protect human rights?” wrote Weigel. “Which culture would more firmly secure the moral foundations of democracy? The culture that built this stunning, rational, angular, geometrically precise but essentially featureless cube? Or the culture that produced the vaulting and bosses, the gargoyles and flying buttresses, the nooks and crannies, the asymmetries and holy ‘unsameness’ of Notre-Dame and the other great Gothic cathedrals of Europe?”
His book suggests that the culture built by the Church is more likely to protect Europeans’ human rights. As Weigel put it in a recent talk in New York:
Europe is “in the midst of depopulating itself and having that demographic vacuum filled by people from another cultural experience, who in some instances take a very aggressive stance toward the host culture in which they find themselves. That kind of cultural transformation … if successful, would mean the end of, or at least the severe attenuation of, Europe's commitments to human rights, democracy, the rule of law, civility and tolerance.”
As riots enflame France, Weigel's words look prophetic.
France is the nation that led the charge in keeping Europe's Christian roots out of the EU's constitution. France is the nation that believes that its Catholic past is a hindrance to its future flourishing. Yet this same France has utterly failed to inculcate human rights, democracy, the rule of law, civility and tolerance in its people. Why?
Because each of those concepts originated in a world that was committed to Christ and had learned about him from the Church.
We learned to appreciate human rights because the Church taught that God became man out of love for every human being. Where religion was strong enough to inculcate people with the virtues they needed to govern themselves, democracy flowered. Those who learned that Christ himself was obedient respected the rule of law; those who learned Christ's Golden Rule honored civility and tolerance.
If we turn away from God the way Europe has, expect the same decline here. Ask Mar Del Plata, Argentina.
As Paris burned, some 10,000 protesters descended on the small town to protest President Bush's visit, egged on by Church foe Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Protesters carried peace slogans, sharp sticks and American flags to set on fire. They pelted police with stones, broke open store fronts, looted and set a bank on fire as the town's elderly and children fled.
This should come as no surprise. Christianity built the best virtues of the West. Where faith is in decline, Western virtues will be in decline — and hate will be on the rise.
To compare Weigel's two symbols again, the biggest difference between the cube and the cathedral isn't the shape of the buildings — it's what's inside. The cathedral houses Christ himself in the Eucharist. Its architecture functions the way a tabernacle does — it is meant to draw our attention to something deeper. The cube, of course, is empty, and draws our attention to that emptiness.
In America, which symbol will prevail?
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Degreed Moms DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:FACTS OF LIFE
Even Ivy League women prefer motherhood to careerism. Interviewers recently surveyed a sampling of female students at Yale and found that some 60% plan to cut back on work or stop working altogether once they have children. Meanwhile, the women said that pursuing a rigorous college education was worth the time and money because it would help them find meaningful part-time work while their children are young or to land good jobs when their children leave home.
Source: The New York Times, Sept. 20 Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: A Dream for the Future of the Holy Land DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Father John Solana has a dream.
The Legionary priest wants to build a center for pilgrims in the North of Israel, Galilee — an area of the Holy Land where few centers exist to serve spiritually-minded Christian travelers.
Father Solana is director of the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem — a guest house for pilgrims and a center for ecumenical events and for dialogues for peace. Prior to this he was the rector at Our Lady of Thornwood, a New York training and education center including philosophy studies for Legion of Christ seminarians.
He spoke with Register correspondent Sabrina Arena Ferrisi.
Tell me about your background. Did you grow up Catholic?
Yes. I come from a strongly practicing Catholic family. My parents were very fervent. I owe them my vocation. They had real love and conviction. We were 13 children, which says a great deal. We all went to Catholic school in Puebla, Mexico, about 62 miles east of Mexico City. I grew up in a ranching area. Both my mom and dad grew up on farms.
When and how did you discern your vocation to the priesthood?
I had thought about being a priest when I was 12 years old, after a missionary priest had come to my school to talk about it. But as I see the priesthood now, this happened in October 1976, when I was 16. I went to Mass almost every day during this time in my life. And I went to a certain Church because that was where my girlfriend went.
Mass was celebrated by two priests: one very fervent, the other a little bit cold. One day, I asked myself, “Why does one priest celebrate this way and the other that way?” Then I wondered how I would celebrate Mass.
When I walked home with a friend, I told him that I had had a crazy thought at Mass. He said, “You thought about being a priest.” Later on, I met the Legionaries during Holy Week of 1977. I met the founder, who impressed me very much. I began seminary during the brief pontificate of John Paul I.
What has been your focus as a priest?
I have worked all my life in the houses of formation for the Legionaries. The news that I was to go to Jerusalem to be the director of the Pontifical Center Notre Dame, in March of 2004, came as a very big surprise to me.
Tell me about this center.
It is principally a center of hospitality for pilgrims in the Holy Land, also called a guest house. It is also a center of cultural importance. We host many ecumenical events and dialogues for peace. The center is located exactly between the east and west of Jerusalem. It is considered a neutral area of the Holy See. On Nov. 26, 2004, the center was entrusted to the Legionaries of Christ. It is also a school for poor people who want to work in the tourism sector. We have 100 youth who want to get jobs in the areas of cooking, administration and reception. Though the school is open to all; almost every student is Arab.
Tell me about your latest project — Notre Dame Galilee — to purchase land in the town of Magdala near Lake Tiberias.
I was recently visiting Lake Tiberias [also called Lake Genezareth and the Sea of Galilee] at sunrise. It was very beautiful, and I thought, “It would be great to have a place here — to present the life and doctrine of Our Lord with modern technology.” For example, this is a historical village. We could have multimedia — like an IMAX and computer screens — as a teaching tool. But this could also be a place where one could have a house for spiritual retreats.
This center could also sow seeds in the dialogue for peace. I think that an aspect which will favor peace is employment. There must be more employment because there is lots of poverty. A center which can sustain 200 families would be a concrete action in this area.
Do you think pilgrims would come here?
In the north of Israel is Galilee, and in the south, Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, there are many guest houses. But in the north, there is virtually nothing. There may be 500 beds altogether. I thought it would be nice to increase the number of beds, to offer the appropriate atmosphere to pilgrims and also offer spiritual retreats and formation. I then discovered that this land was for sale. I thought it was perfect. It's a holy area, and it's large enough to build on.
What about the fact that it located in Magdala?
This is the area where Mary Magdalene came from. She is an important figure. I thought we could also have a center on the spirituality of women. This is very attractive to people now. There is a very valuable feminism which must be developed.
What stage is your project at right now?
We have already spoken to the owner. Now we need economic help to see this project through.
Is it safe for pilgrims to travel to the Holy Land?
The vision of safety here is presented in an exaggerated way. Many people are too afraid, and it is not justified. There are cities in the world with far more deaths than Jerusalem. Yes, there are areas of conflict, but they are far away from the itineraries of pilgrims. I have never heard of a single pilgrim getting hurt.
Sabrina Arena Ferrisi writes from Jersey City, New Jersey.
Information
NotreDameCenter.org:
click on “The Galilee Project.”
Or: CatholicWorldMission.org
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Sabrina Arena Ferrisi ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Alito's Experience on the Bench Includes 4 Abortion Cases DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — President Bush's choice of Judge Samuel Alito Jr. to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court is historic in many ways.
If confirmed, Alito, who has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia for 15 years, would be one of the most experienced new members of the Supreme Court in history. His nomination would also increase the number of Catholics on the high court to five, making it a mostly Catholic panel for the first time in history.
His nomination Oct. 31 came days after White House Counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the same vacancy. That nomination earned the president a severe rebuke from his political base because Miers lacked judicial experience and a clear paper trail indicating her judicial philosophy.
Whereas the Miers nomination was calculated to avoid friction with Senate Democrats in the confirmation process, Bush's choice of Alito has reassured restive Republicans at a time when the president's administration and party are suffering from scandals and need support from their political base.
But a major political fight in the U.S. Senate awaits Alito that will center on the issue of abortion.
“President Bush has picked a nominee whom he hopes will stop the massive hemorrhaging of support on his right wing,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in a statement released moments after the nomination. “This is a nomination based on weakness, not on strength.”
Still, with Republicans holding a 55-seat majority in the Senate, Bush will probably prove strong enough to win confirmation for Alito.
“With Sam Alito, you've got 15 years on the bench and a long record, which I was hoping for,” said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a staunch pro-lifer whose quiet opposition helped to kill Miers’ nomination.
Brownback, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the Register that he looked forward to confirmation hearings, to begin Jan. 9.
“I don't know that we'llget a discussion on” Roe v. Wade, he said, “but we will get a chance to talk about the Constitution, and whether it is to be strictly rendered, or whether it is a living, breathing document.”
Brownback, who had a long meeting scheduled with Alito for Nov. 10, said he wanted to learn more about the nominee. But he was already encouraged by what he had seen — as are most political conservatives in Washington.
There are no indications that Democrats will filibuster Alito's nomination, but if they do, Republicans are certain to resort to the so-called “nuclear option,” a parliamentary tactic by which they would prevent a filibuster. Alito could then be confirmed with as few as 50 votes.
Religious Freedom
A graduate of Princeton and of Yale Law School, Alito served as a U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan Administration. A native of Trenton, N.J., he was appointed to the Third Circuit by President George H.W. Bush. Supporters note that Alito's years of litigation and judicial experience make him one of the most qualified nominees to the high court in U.S. history.
His confirmation would mean that four Catholics — including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia — would make up the court's entire conservative bloc.
“It's one sign that Catholics have come a long way — that religion doesn't seem to matter,” said Bill May, president of Catholics for the Common Good.
May, whose group promotes Catholic social teaching, praised Alito for his rulings on religious freedom. He cited a ruling in which Alito upheld the right of Sunni Muslim policemen in Newark, N.J., to grow out their beards and another in which he upheld the right of Jersey City, N.J., to display a Christmas-Hanukah exhibit on city property.
“He indicates that he has an understanding of the establishment clause that really is freedom for religious expression rather than freedom from religious expression,” said May.
Alito's long tenure on the bench has left quite a paper trail, but in many ways defies simple ideological labels. He has ruled in favor of the habeas corpus rights of criminals and rights for the handicapped and asylum seekers. In a 1996 case, he applied a recent Supreme Court precedent and argued that a Congressional ban on machine gun possession should be struck down.
But of greatest importance during confirmation hearings will be Alito's rulings on four cases involving abortion. The most famous was his opinion in the landmark 1991 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In his dissent, Alito voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law requiring women to notify their husbands before getting abortions, arguing that such a restriction is consistent with the precedent of Roe v. Wade. His opinion was rejected in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, led by Justice O’Connor.
At first glance, Alito's rulings in the other abortion cases do not offer pro-lifers clear signs of hope because Alito simply followed pro-abortion precedents from the higher court. But Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said these cases should not worry opponents of abortion since they show that Alito was doing his job as a lower court judge properly.
“The settled understanding is that lower court judges, in living up to their oath, must accept Supreme Court rulings as binding,” said Whelan, who added that Alito would be in a position to reject bad precedents if he becomes a Supreme Court justice. “Justices take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not their predecessors’ mistaken interpretations of it,” Whelan said. “Everything in Alito's background, training and broader record persuades me that he deeply understands the proper role of a Supreme Court Justice.”
Question of Precedent
Not all pro-lifers agree.
Alito “just follows the abortion precedents without really expressing any hesitation about it,” said Richard Collier, a New Jersey attorney who argued and lost a partial-birth abortion case before Alito and two other judges in 2000. “No criticism, no effort to lay any intellectual foundation for overturning the precedents. He follows them instead of dissenting or at least remarking on how he's reluctantly constrained to follow them,” said Collier, president of the Legal Center for the Defense of Life.
May and Whelan disagreed with Collier's criticism.
“A good judge who takes his faith seriously will follow the law, his oath of office, which he takes before God,” said May. “Other pro-life judges have had to do the same thing because of the precedents set before the Supreme Court.”
“It's dangerous to endorse a notion of judging that pretends that the law is indeterminate and that judges have legitimate discretion to choose which way to go,” said Whelan. “The mess we're in results from judges indulging their own policy preferences.”
David Freddoso writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Freddoso ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Habemus Papem Half a Year On DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:GOD'S CHOICE: POPE BENEDICT XVI AND THE FUTURE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
by George Weigel
HarperCollins, 2005
320 pages, $26.95
Available in bookstores
Millions of people will long be able to pinpoint where they were the moment, on April 2, 2005, when they learned that Pope John Paul II had returned to his Father. The masses that converged on Rome for his funeral were a “gathering of the family,” as papal biographer George Weigel puts it. But these were no ordinary papal obsequies; many Catholics experienced the unique and yawning personal loss felt when a father dies.
“In a world bereft of paternity and its unique combination of strength and mercy,” writes Weigel in his latest book, “John Paul II had become a father to countless men and women living in an almost infinite variety of human circumstances and cultures. That radiation of fatherhood … was rooted in the Pope's singular capacity to preach and embody the Christian Gospel.”
God's Choice details the last days of Pope John Paul II and the conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. The book is both retrospective and prospective, trying to sum up the achievements of the Pope Weigel unabashedly (and rightly) calls “the Great,” while seeking to anticipate the challenges facing his successor.
Weigel argues that John Paul II rejuvenated the Church, making holiness exciting and appealing, especially to the young. He recaptured the true meaning of Vatican II, taking it back from those who hijacked the council's “spirit” in the name of various dead-end agendas. Weigel does not deny that the Church has problems but, in hindsight, the Church in 2005 is far more vigorous that some might have thought, in 1978, it would be three decades later.
As a title, God's Choice discloses Weigel's perspective: One cannot understand the Church apart from the primacy of God's will and man's appropriate response. Karol Wojtyla's fiat led an actor to the priesthood and the papacy. Joseph Ratzinger's fiat led a humble, if successful, priest-professor from the classroom to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ultimately, that fiat led him to the Chair of Peter.
“Forty-eight hours before the Conclave of 2005 was sealed, the possible futures of Joseph Ratzinger came into focus,” writes Weigel. “By September, the 78-year-old Ratzinger would be back home in Bavaria — living with his brother Georg, surrounded by his beloved books, embarked on a retirement of writing and lecturing. … Or he would be marking his fifth month as pope. There is not the slightest doubt which future he would have preferred. God … had … other ideas.”
Weigel successfully blends a variety of styles (journalistic, diary-like and analytical) to ferret out a cohesive, still-unfolding narrative from behind recent events. As with any book rushed out three months after a historic event, some discussions seem wanting for depth.
For example, while Weigel is optimistic about Benedict XVI carrying on John Paul's legacy, he does not really consider whether Ratzinger, the introverted septuagenarian, can engage people as effectively as did extrovert Wojtyla, who had the advantage of starting his papacy 20 years younger.
This is a minor lack, for, on whole, God's Choice is an expansive read. It's got the power to enlarge the reader even as it entertains him.
John M. Grondelski, a moral theologian, writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: John M. Grondelski ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: In Abortion Fight, Ireland Caught in Euro Crosshairs DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:DUBLIN, Ireland — International pro-abortion lobbyists are taking direct aim at Catholic Ireland.
A case making its way through the European Court of Human Rights is aimed at undermining the Republic of Ireland's constitutional protection for the unborn and may lead to calls for legalized abortion in Ireland, pro-life advocates warn.
According to official court documents, an Irish woman known in court papers only as “D” is bringing the case. She became pregnant with twins in 2001. In early 2002 a test indicated that one unborn child had stopped developing at eight weeks, and that the second had a fatal chromosomal abnormality. “D” decided that she could not carry the pregnancy to term, and traveled to England for an abortion.
“D” is claiming that her rights under the European Convention on Human Rights have been infringed on a number of grounds, including that the lack of abortion in Ireland amounts to “inhuman and degrading” treatment and is a disproportionate interference with her private and family life.
The Irish abortion issue has a long and complicated history spanning two decades.
A constitutional referendum in 1983 inserted wording into Ireland's Constitution that sought to give equal legal protection to both mothers and unborn children. This was universally understood to guarantee legal protection for the unborn and ensure that abortion could not be introduced without a further referendum of the people.
However, in a surprising Supreme Court judgment in 1992 known as the X Case, it was held that a 14-year-old girl who was suicidal was entitled to an abortion in Ireland. The ruling had potentially far-reaching legal consequences.
There were two efforts to amend the constitution to limit the effects of the 1992 court case. They were defeated in national referendums in 1992 and 2002. The 1992 amendment was rejected mainly because it would have created an explicit, albeit limited, right to abortion in the Constitution. The 2002 wording was rejected because the Irish pro-life movement split over the implications of the proposed constitutional wording.
Consequently, the 1992 Supreme Court judgment still represents the official legal position. However, abortion is not peformed in Ireland due to the practical difficulties — and political unpopularity — of introducing legislation to put the court's judgment into effect.
Indirect Attack
The European Court of Human Rights is not part of the official European Union's legal infrastructure and currently has no direct legal role in Ireland. Sinead Gleeson, a faculty member of the School of Law in Dublin's Trinity College, said that there is “no onus on the Irish government to give effect to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. In one case where Ireland was found to be in breach of the convention, the government simply ignored the issue for 10 years.”
However, a change to the law in 2003 meant that the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into Irish law, and that Irish citizens can now seek to enforce their rights under the convention in Irish courts.
“This means that the judgment in the D Case might have to be considered by Irish judges in Irish courts if a similar case came before them,” Gleeson said. “It is still unclear what weight such a decision would have, especially if it conflicted with Irish constitutional law.”
To date, the European Court of Human Rights has refused to rule on the right to life of the unborn in any cases that have appeared before it.
The Irish Family Planning Association, an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, is backing the D Case and three similar upcoming cases. In a statement, the association praised “the brave step taken by the woman at the center of the D case” and argued that Ireland's status quo on abortion was no longer tenable.
Said the statement, “Over a decade after the X Case, we still do not have basic legislation giving a sound statutory basis to that judgment. It is time for the political establishment to recognize the reality of abortion for thousands of Irish women, and to respond in a humane and rational manner.”
The first stage for the European Court of Human Rights is to decide if the case is admissible. If so, a judgment is expected within a year.
‘Typical’ Tactic
Ireland's Pro-Life Campaign sees the D Case as only the start of a renewed push for legal abortion in Ireland, and says it is typical of the tactics that are used to introduce abortion in other pro-life countries.
Pro-Life Campaign spokesman John Smyth said that the D Case was “motivated more by a desire to embarrass Ireland on the international stage than out of any real expectation that the court will rule in its favor.”
Smyth said that the Irish Family Planning Association was hoping to use both judicial activism and the power of international institutions to pursue its agenda.
“We have seen tactics like this in the attempts to create a ‘universal right to abortion’ at U.N. conferences,” he said. “It seems to be a tactic that is used when abortion cannot be introduced using other means, especially when public opinion remains pro-life as in Ireland.”
The Pro-Life Campaign has been granted leave to make a submission to the Court of Human Rights in defense of the unborn. Pro-Life Campaign Education Officer Dr. Ruth Cullen said that pro-lifers “do not accept that D's rights were contravened by Ireland's prohibition on abortion. If abortion were permitted on grounds of disability, it would dramatically alter Ireland's ethos of care for its weakest members.”
Added Cullen, “The right to life is the most basic right of all. Everybody by virtue of their dignity deserves to have this right vindicated.”
Patrick Kenny writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patrick Kenny ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: In the Eye of the Ivy League, Life DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Yale University Professor Emeritus Boah-Teh Chu believes the first signs of the “new springtime” that Pope John Paul II predicted have arrived.
According to Chu, a new student pro-life group, Choose Life at Yale — Clay — is a sign of the emerging generation's desire to seek the truth about life and to change the culture.
“I do see the springtime of the Church coming, much faster than I thought,” says Chu. “Things in our culture can turn around in one generation. These kids are bright. They have access to information, and are quick to search out and grasp the truth about life. In less than a year, many become very firm and strong in their convictions.”
Chu, who began his career at Yale as a professor of field mechanics in 1963, has remained a steadfast supporter of student pro-life groups since the first one emerged shortly after Roe v. Wade in 1973. Since that time, Chu says, numerous groups have come and gone. But pro-life leadership inevitably fails as students graduate and organized efforts to support life dissolve.
But the professor is optimistic about Clay. The student members of Clay, he points out, are impressive. They are sharp, dedicated, creative and dynamic. Each has come to a conviction about life through careful reflection and with remarkable integrity. All agree that abortion is an issue of justice. Together they are crafting a change in the prevailing culture by their openness to dialogue and firm conviction that life is precious and that “choice” oversteps its bounds when it infringes upon the rights of others.
Although Clay itself is nonsectarian, some of its members are Catholic.
Against the Grain
Clay was founded in 2002 by two women in response to a prayer service hosted by a pro-abortion group honoring the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Dismayed by the absence of any pro-life voice on campus, Sarah Hyman, a 2004 graduate, and Mary Hollis, now a senior religious-studies major, formed Clay. Hollis says that Clay's presence on campus challenges the prevailing notion that abortion is implicitly accepted as part of a widely celebrated “open-minded” mentality.
“When I first wore a T-shirt saying ‘Abortion is homicide,’ my suite-mates seemed shocked,” recalls Hollis. “It was well established that abortion was the only view on campus. It's taken for granted that everyone is pro-abortion.”
Clay's first public activity, a candlelight vigil with one flame for each child aborted hourly across the United States, drew a mild protest on the part of ardent pro-abortion students who sought to disrupt the event by playing loud, vulgar music.
Junior Debbie Bedolla, president of Clay, says that protests by a handful of pro-abortion activists continue. Posters depicting the development of a child in utero, Clay's “Baby Lucy” campaign, are torn down repeatedly. “The posters last for a few minutes before someone comes and tears them down,” Bedolla says.
But this has not hindered Clay's growing membership, which now numbers about 50 and has a mailing list of 200. Clay members believe that the group's non-confrontational, nonpartisan and nonsectarian approach to all life issues, including euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research and the death penalty, is slowly gaining acceptance and attracting people by raising awareness about the moral dimensions of abortion.
Last year when Clay members protested death row prisoner Michael Ross's execution, other student groups expressed surprise at Clay's willingness to work with groups who were pro-abortion.
“This opened dialogue,” Bedolla says. “Many people believe that if you are pro-life, you are also a religious zealot or aligned with conservative politics. But when we spoke out against the execution, people began to see that we are pro-life in every respect and are concerned with justice. We don't adopt a political stance but we welcome dialogue.”
While Clay's official policy is not to engage in political debate or to align itself with political parties or religious bodies, members do seek to find common ground in addressing issues, especially problems that pregnant students might face.
Clay members believe that pregnant women on campus lack the resources they need to choose life. For instance, while student health services allow women at Yale to have an unlimited number of abortions, there are no resources for women who might want to carry a child to term.
“We know people are having sex,” Bedolla says. “But you never see a pregnant woman on campus.” One of Clay's goals is to raise awareness and resources so that students consider choosing life.
Junior Geoffrey Ellis, Clay's secretary, says he never thought much about abortion prior to arriving at Yale. But the culture of “choice” on campus, coupled with a growing sensitivity to the life issues, made him keenly aware of the problem.
“I always had a gut instinct that abortion was wrong, but I never thought much about it,” says Ellis. “But I began to see how important the problem of abortion is.”
Ellis, who experienced a conversion to the Catholic faith during his freshman year, says he felt very alone when his deepening convictions about life issues placed him at odds with the culture on campus.
He found support in Clay, where others in the pro-life community shared both his conviction about life and his view that abortion is a flawed solution to real issues that women and society face.
The newest member of Clay, Helen Danilenko, is a native of Russia and a junior with a double major in politics and international studies. Danilenko, who says she is surprised by the tone of debate about abortion in this country, believes abortion is an issue of fairness and equality, and above all, of causing no harm. Clay's philosophy, she said, is similar to her own: Be a force for good and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
“In a culture where we value innocence and life,” she says, “abortion is just too big a risk.”
Irene Lagan writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Irene Lagan ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Letters to the Editor DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:All for Alito
President Bush is to be enthusiastically congratulated for his outstanding appointment of Judge Samuel A. Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court (“Miers Out, Alito Up,” Nov. 6-12).
While [the Senate was] under Democrat control, Judge Alito was unanimously confirmed as an appellate judge in 1990, by both the Judiciary Committee and full Senate. At that time, Sen. Ted Kennedy said Alito has “a distinguished record … [w]e look forward to supporting you.” Judge Alito has since served with distinction on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
President Bush has honored his commitment to appoint Supreme Court justices in the molds of Justices Scalia and Thomas. Judge Alito has acquired the nickname “Scalito” because of his similarity to Justice Antonin Scalia.
In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Judge Alito voted to uphold informed consent, parental consent, and reporting and public disclosure requirements. He also supported that the husband first be informed if his wife was having an abortion.
It should be noted that Judge Alito voted to strike down a partial-birth abortion ban, citing that it is the “responsibility” of judges “to follow and apply controlling Supreme Court precedent.” As an appellate judge, he was powerless to overturn a Supreme Court decision, and demonstrated judicial restraint. There is little doubt, however, that, as a Supreme Court justice, he would vote to stop this grisly abortion procedure.
Judge Alito is a nominee the entire pro-life movement can, without hesitation, get behind. President Bush has hit a home run by nominating Judge Alito. We call on the liberal pro-abortion senators to give Judge Alito a fair up-or-down vote by the end of the year.
This is a great day for unborn babies and their parents!
BRADLEY MATTES
Executive Director
Life Issues Institute
lifeissues.org
‘Eagles Soar Together’
I have just finished Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica. To Mr. Arroyo I say, “More, write more for us! More on Mother Angelica, Padre Pio or Mother Teresa!”
To Father C. John McCloskey I say thanks for the wonderful, inspiring commentary on the book, “The Triumph of Rita Rizzo” (Oct. 23-29). I truly hope that a clarion call occurs to make the biography into a movie, as Father McCloskey mentions. As for keeping the book on file in the Congregation of Saints in Rome, I couldn't agree more.
I first saw Mother Angelica while in the hospital in 1997 after delivery of my first child, and I couldn't wait to get this network into my home. Mother Angelica, through EWTN, adds another Catholic facet to my family's daily lives, especially for my school-age sons.
Also, more than once I have heard the Franciscan Friars of the Eternal Word during the homily of their daily Mass mention the National Catholic Register and recommend it as superior Catholic reading. It only makes sense that the Register, through Father McCloskey's essay, would echo the “Triumph of Rita Rizzo” and EWTN. Eagles soar together, through God's grace.
MARY ANN WENSKE
Moulton, Texas
Mother Angelica's Mettle
Relevant to “EWTN Energizes” (Letters, Oct. 30-Nov. 5):
May I add my comments to others thanking God for Mother Angelica and EWTN, please?
I would like to ask your readers if they remember the confusion following Vatican II. Or the even-more confused state of catechetics, when children and their parents followed blindly into a Eucharist-before-penance mindset — even when that meant that first confession was put off until seventh and eighth grades? Do you remember being told that going to confession was just “going into a black box with a grocery list of sins”?
If you remember even these few items, though there are many more, you will know how far we've come when you consider, for a moment, the vocations of beautiful young men and women to the religious life now, the growth and identity of orthodox Catholic colleges and the World Youth Days of recent memory. We owe this, you might say, to John Paul II, of blessed memory. Yes, we do.
But, we owe it, too, to that strong woman of faith, who — often alone and publicly ridiculed — upheld, taught and promulgated the faith, the devotions and the teachings of Mother Church that our Holy Father spent himself throughout his life to spread.
A former writer said that EWTN embodies the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. She was right. Many of us will never see Jesus in a stranger, or feed him in a hungry child, or visit him in the loneliness of a prison cell — but EWTN does. That bit of charity will stand us in good stead when we face him at the end of our personal journeys.
ANN KIELY
Baltimore, Maryland
Not Defined by Down Syndrome
I loved your editorial “A Turn in the Tide?” (Oct. 30-Nov. 5).
I agree with Patricia Bauer; it is extremely painful for my husband and me to realize that some of our acquaintances believe that we should have aborted our 15-year-old son, who happens to have Down syndrome. Our James has a happy, rich life and “suffers” no more than the average 15-year-old with terminally dorky parents.
One small point, however: There is a movement among advocates for persons with disabilities to refer to them as “people first.” For instance, Patricia Bauer has “a daughter with Down syndrome,” not “a Down Syndrome daughter.” With the former, her “daughter” is seen first and the “Down syndrome” is secondary to her personhood, just a small part of who she is, as it were. Which is probably true.
MARY SALTER
Miami, Florida
Order in the Historical Court
Your reply to the letter titled “Catholic Chief Justices” was somewhat confusing (Oct. 23-29).
Edward White was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1894 to 1910. In 1910 he was appointed chief justice by President W.H. Taft, who was president from 1909 to 1913. Edward White served as chief justice from 1910 to 1921, when he died.
He served as an associate justice for 16 years, as chief justice for 10 years.
Interestingly, he was succeeded as chief justice by W.H. Taft, the president who had made him the chief justice back in 1910.
FATHER PAUL ZYLLA
Saint Cloud, Minnesota
Public-School Blues
Responding to “Professor Calls Intelligent Design ‘Dangerous’” and “Some Worry Hurricane Relief Aid for Schools Helps Voucher Cause” (Oct. 9-15):
I think it is a Godsend that this paper printed these two articles on facing pages. I believe it shows the link between the two topics and another topic from the previous week, the previous topic being about the United States and China being on the same level for funding religious schooling.
Here's the thing. If the government wants to dictate what gets taught in public schools, such as evolution (an unproven theory) as fact, then they should provide those families who want different for their children the means to provide such — whether it be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or private schooling.
As it stands, if you have no money to send your children to a tuition-based school you have no choice. Yet to send those children to public schools is to indoctrinate them into secular and atheistic ideologies, and to brainwash them with erroneous propaganda on life matters such as abortion, euthanasia and birth control/sex education. I was a product of such public schooling. It caused me much grief before learning the truth.
I'm not saying to teach religion in public schools. I'm saying that, if the public school system is to teach ideological theory as truth, then other schooling options must be made available. Otherwise public schools should teach the numerous theories about how life on this planet started, as such: theories.
The entire debate between church and state has been thrown so far out of proportion that the youth of this country are paying for it. It's another case in this country where the people that have, get. And the people that have not, get the bottom of the barrel.
WILLIAM M. BISSON
Westfield, Massachusetts
Exorbitant Catholic Education
Relevant to “Back to School (Barely)” (Sept. 18-24):
It is time that all of us make up our minds that we are going to have good, affordable Catholic education for all our children. It is unjust that parents with ordinary incomes, who are trying to live their faith, often find it impossible to send their children to the high-tuition Catholic schools.
It is wrong that some parents, in order to bear the cost of reinforcing the precious teachings of our Church by Catholic school education, often feel they need to severely limit their number of children, thus depriving their offspring of the priceless gift of brothers and sisters, and/or the mother must work outside of the home, which causes little preschool children to be separated from their mother for a large part of the day. Both of these things are contrary to the wishes of the Holy Father.
Some parents are struggling valorously, and overworking themselves in the process, to help their children know and follow the wonderful truths of our faith. The days of such parents are often filled with fatigue and stress, and at times their children suffer imbalance in their lives because of the emphasis on achievement and activity, perhaps to the detriment of holiness.
We are responsible for passing on the truths that Jesus spent three years teaching his apostles, so we are obliged to make affordable Catholic education a higher priority than it is now. In some parishes, parishioners tithe especially for this and those who don't have school-age children also contribute. Dioceses also need to help parish schools.
When more of our children know and obey the teaching of God's Church, we will find that we need not spend so much money on charitable and social-service works. It is lack of strong Catholic teaching that causes the problems that make many of these works necessary, and which fiscally drain our dioceses.
CONNIE DERRICK
Nashville, Tennessee
Dispose of Darwinism
“Intelligent design is evidence resulting in a conclusion,” declares Dr. David Stevens (“Design or Dumb Luck? Origin of Life on Trial in Pennsylvania,” Oct. 30-Nov. 5). Any child who has had to prepare and defend a science project knows this. Intelligent design is the core of every hypothesis.
It is remarkable that, even after all these years, some academics still anchor their reputations and their universities to Darwin's un-provable theory of evolution. What they call the science of evolution is actually the political science of evolution; little wonder that the ACLU is involved.
It's about time that Darwinism joined Marxism in the trash heap of failed ideologies.
GEORGE A. MORTON
Hopewell Junction, New York
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Hurricane Evacuees Charged in Murder of Samaritan
Blair, 77, was the mother of three daughters and the widow of former Pasadena school board president Robert Blair. Jimmy Hoang Lee, Stephanie Jacobo, and Roosevelt Smith Jr. of Louisiana were charged with strangling Blair during a robbery at her home Oct. 28.
“It appears that those she tried to help were the ones that murdered her,” said Vance Mitchell, Pasadena Police Department spokesman. They were arrested Oct. 28 driving Blair's vehicle.
Blair was chairwoman of the church's extraordinary ministers of Communion and had served at the church as a teacher.
Catholic School Tells Students: Thou Shall Not Blog
Students, the majority of whom protested the rule, were told to dismantle existing accounts on MySpace.com and similar sites, even if they were posted from students’ home computers. Free speech advocates argue that the move oversteps individuals’ rights.
“It would be better if they taught students what they should and shouldn't do online rather than take away the primary communication tool of their generation,” said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
But the school's principal said the new rule was designed to protect students from online predators.
“I don't see this as censorship,” said Father Kieran McHugh. “If this protects one child from being near-abducted or harassed or preyed upon, I make no apologies for this stance.”
Arizona Court Says a Fertilized Egg Isn't a Person
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 29 — According to an Arizona Court of Appeals, a days-old human embryo preserved outside of the womb isn't a person, reported the Associated Press.
The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed by a Phoenix couple who accused the Mayo Clinic of losing or destroying some of their fertilized eggs. The couple had asked the Court of Appeals to expand the definition of “person” under the state's wrongful-death statute to include viable embryos.
The court used the term “pre-embryo” to describe the days-old embryo, saying that calling fertilized eggs “embryos” could imply that the egg was a person.
The court said that it's a matter for the Legislature to decide.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Darwin's Limits DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Catholics believe that God created everything, and that creation contains evidence of meaningful design.
So what else is new? Just this: Stating these two points can stir up a whole lot of controversy.
It began with an opinion piece Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn published in The New York Times this past July 7. He noted that, ever since Pope John Paul II said, in 1996, that evolution was “more than just a hypothesis,” defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often “invoked the supposed acceptance — or at least acquiescence — of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith.”
They're wrong to do so, the cardinal wrote. A theory of evolution positing common ancestry might be true, he argued, “but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.”
The uproar was swift and surprisingly hot. Two days later, The Times opined — in almost wounded tones — that evolution was being abandoned by the Church, “which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution.” Schönborn, it fretted, “is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.”
It is here, I think, that an old and significant problem was again highlighted: the popular notion that there is just one type of “evolution” and that is has been unanimously approved by the scientific community.
This, of course, is hardly the case. John Paul noted the diversity of scientific opinion in his 1996 speech. He said that, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. This is because there are different explanations advanced by scientists regarding how physical — or biological — evolution may have transpired.
Granted, such matters can be complex and esoteric. But those non-specialists trying to make sense of the controversy didn't find much help in the mainstream media, which presented it yet another round of “Evolutionists vs. Creationists.” The intention seemed to be that, if Catholics question “evolution,” they will almost inevitably become science-denying fundamentalists who believe that God created everything in six 24-hour days.
Yet, as with evolution, there are many understandings of creationism. But, if you are a Christian (or Jew, Muslim), you believe in some type of creationism: You believe that God somehow did create all that exists. How he went about it is open to a wide range of speculation and scientific theories. But a theory of evolution that denies God and is completely materialistic in its philosophical basis is not compatible with Catholic doctrine. Is it that so hard to understand?
Apparently it is. So Cardinal Schönborn recently sought to clarity his original comments.
“Darwin pulled off quite a feat with his main work, and it remains one of the very great works of intellectual history,” he said. “I see no problem combining belief in the Creator with the theory of evolution, under one condition — that the limits of a scientific theory are respected.”
While the Church respects the limits of scientific theory, will science admit those limits exist? Time will tell how the answer to that question will evolve.
Carl E. Olson is editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Carl E. Olson ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Amid Conflicting Signals, Rome and Beijing Move Towards Closer Ties DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — It was dinnertime in Yongqiang parish on China's southeast coast. After celebrating Mass Oct. 27 for 600 Catholics to mark the end of the Year of the Eucharist, Father Shao Zhumin headed to a local restaurant along with four other priests, some religious and lay Catholics to mark the end of the special year with a peaceful dinner.
But it was not to be. Chinese security officers soon followed, arresting Father Shao, UCA News service reported. The remaining four priests were quietly hustled to safety through a kitchen and out a back door by their religious and lay friends. Another priest at the Mass, Father Paul Jiang Sunian, did not join the group for dinner but was stopped at a tollbooth on his way back to his parish.
Both he and Father Shao — members of the unofficial, underground Catholic Church — were detained in custody, having earlier been observed talking to a foreign journalist for the Italian magazine L’Espresso.
The continued harassment of Catholics in China is so extensive that it's often hard to believe that religion is, as one commentator put it, “on a roll” there or that formal relations might soon be established between Beijing and Rome. Priests continue to be imprisoned or disappear for refusing to join or opposing the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association of China, the country's “official” Catholic Church that is not in communion with the Holy See.
Bishops, such as Julius Jia Zhiguo of Hebei province who runs an underground orphanage, are repeatedly arrested for the same reason. And last month, four Chinese bishops, three of whom belong to the official Church, were refused exit visas to attend the Synod on the Eucharist in Rome.
Bishops’ Ordinations
Yet amid the continuing persecutions, there are also signs of improving relations. In October, two Chinese bishops were ordained into the official church with the explicit approval of both Rome and Beijing (China usually forbids Vatican appointment of bishops).
Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong said Oct. 21 that the ordinations have were unique in that the government did not pressure Church leaders to keep the Vatican's approval a secret, “so I think this is a breakthrough.”
“As far as I know, first came the appointment by the Pope, and then the local bishop tried to help this candidate be elected by the clergy, by the people, and then the government has no choice but to recognize, to accept, to approve” that bishop, he said.
Said Bishop Zen, “I hope the government draws conclusions from the facts. It's futile to be rigid on their position, because they must see they're losing control.”
Last month, in an article in the influential Jesuit publication Civilta Cattolica, Father Hans Waldenfels said that, after visiting China in June, he had discerned “signs of a future understanding” between China and the Vatican and reported that the official and underground Churches are increasingly operating in harmony.
His assessment is backed up by Bishop Zen who believes that up to 85% of government-approved bishops have reconciled with Rome. “There is nothing confrontational between the two churches,” he told Vatican Radio Oct. 19. “In general, they coexist peacefully because the division is not created by Catholics, it's created by the government — they are both victims of the government.”
However, Joseph Kung of the Stamford, Conn.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation was skeptical of reports of progress. He believes that for authentic unity to materialize, there must be changes to China's constitution.
“How can there be unity when we know it [the official Church] is not in communion because they have a constitution in which it states they have autonomy from the Pope and the Church of Rome?” he asked.
Like other experts on China, he believes the Chinese government must abandon its insistence on a state-controlled church. Furthermore, like other Sino-Vatican watchers, he considers China's insistence that the Vatican must break diplomatic relations with Taiwan before dialogue can begin to be merely a smokescreen intended to prevent reform (cutting relations with Taiwan has never been a precondition for dialogue with China in the past).
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, told reporters Oct. 26 that while the Vatican is ready to make concessions over Taiwan, guarantees of religious freedom must come first. The Church, he said, must be “undivided” and civil governments “do not have the right to tell men and women how to live their faith.”
For Kung, the government must also release all Catholics jailed for their faith. So far, he said, “there has been no indication in that direction.”
Nevertheless, the evidence appears overwhelming that Chinese Catholics are becoming more united as the official church increasingly acknowledges Rome's authority. A further positive sign is an increase in religious fervor and the continued overall advance of Christianity, considered the country's fastest growing religion.
This presents a serious dilemma for Chinese authorities. Beijing's communist leaders have long feared that religious freedom would bring social chaos. But today, many fear their society is careening towards catastrophe for another reason.
Fifty-six years of state-driven Marxist atheism has left China bereft of ideological, moral and religious beliefs with which to balance the rampant consumerism that has been fostered by the explosive economic growth of recent years.
So now, instead of viewing religion as a threat, some leaders think it might actually bring stability. Not all are convinced, however. While some members of the government are pushing for more openness with the Vatican, and have succeeded to a degree — “conversations” between China and the Vatican began in June — Stalinist stalwarts are putting up resistance, leading to the confusing signals from Beijing.
The current challenge, according to Father Bernardo Cervellera, director of Asia News and a former missionary in China, is to help the government understand what true religious freedom means and show them that it must exclude government control.
“China's leaders can no longer govern as if religion didn't exist,” said Father Cervellera, former director of the Vatican's missionary news service Fides. “They have to deal with it, and the sooner the better so they can have people who will cooperate with them rather than have religious populations as their enemies.”
Despite “lights and shadows” in China today, the country is at a “turning point,” Father Cervellera said. True religious freedom, he predicted, is “just a question of time.”
(CNS contributed to this report.) Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Conversion Issue Looms Over 40th Anniversary Celebration of Nostra Aetate DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) is the shortest of the Second Vatican Council's 16 documents, but it has had long-lasting repercussions — particularly in the area of Catholic-Jewish relations.
In his Angelus address Oct. 30, Pope Benedict XVI noted that the declaration, which laid the groundwork for the Church's interreligious dialogue, had set forth “with clarity the special bond that unites Christians with Jews.”
And, in a message read four days earlier to a high-level Rome conference marking the declaration's 40th anniversary, the Holy Father said the Vatican II document “opened up a new era of relations with the Jewish people and offered the basis for a sincere theological dialogue.”
Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, and chairman of the Rome conference, summed up Nostra Aetate's achievements as proclaiming the Church's No to anti-Semitism and Yes to the Jewish roots of Christianity.
Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Relations, and a keynote speaker at the conference, said the “implications” of the document were “truly revolutionary” for Jews.
“A people — formerly viewed at best as a fossil but more often as cursed and condemned to wander and suffer — was now officially portrayed as beloved by God and somehow very much still part of the divine plan for humankind,” he said.
Nostra Aetate is credited for making three important clarifications: a clear disavowal of the ancient charge of deicide (which held Jews collectively responsible for the killing of Christ), a recognition that God does not take back gifts or choices he has made, meaning that the Old Testament Covenant with the Jews remains valid, and an unequivocal rejection of anti-Semitism (or prejudice against Jews).
The result, according to Rabbi Rosen, has been a “sea change in attitudes” among the American Jewish community towards the Catholic Church “to the point where arguably no other religious community is viewed by U.S. Jewry as more important and empathic to its well-being.”
Boycott
However, the recurring question of whether the Church has an irrevocable mission to convert the Jews clouded the celebration of Nostra Aetate's anniversary. Rome's chief rabbi, Ricardo Di Segni, boycotted the commemoration because of the presence of another keynote speaker and convert from Judaism — Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, archbishop emeritus of Paris.
Rabbi Di Segni, a skeptic of the Catholic-Jewish dialogue that Nostra Aetate helped foster, said the cardinal's participation was “inappropriate” because it would “celebrate the resolution of the conversion policy.” In comments to the Associated Press, he asked: “What is dialogue? If it means losing one's identity and crossing over to the other side, then it's not dialogue.”
The rabbi's absence was also a response to remarks made by Cardinal Avery Dulles at another commemoration of Nostra Aetate in March, where the American cardinal said it is still “an open question whether the Old Covenant remains in force today.”
In fact, Jews have long harbored concerns about the Church's attitude to Jewish conversions, and contradictory voices from Church leaders have increased the ambiguity. This is partly because Nostra Aetate is primarily a pastoral document, not a doctrinal one, and consequently is regarded as holding little theological weight regarding the conversions question.
Nonetheless, some Catholics engaged in interreligious dialogue have interpreted the document as mandating an end to efforts to convert Jews. In 2002, for example, an unofficial document published through a committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, entitled “Reflections on Covenant and Mission,” stated that conversion to Christ, baptism and Church membership are no longer theologically acceptable for Jews.
In an article published in America magazine in October 2002, Cardinal Dulles responded that “Reflections on Covenant and Mission” did not “forthrightly present what I take to be the Christian position on the meaning of Christ for Judaism.”
Cardinal Dulles, a theologian at Fordham University, wrote that while Pope John Paul II, in his 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio (the Mission of Christ the Redeemer), “does not ‘target’ Jews in any special way for conversion, he makes no exception for them.
“He simply assumes, as all Christians must, that if Christ is the redeemer of the world, every tongue should confess him,” he added. “If Jesus offers a share in his divine life through the sacraments, all men and women — not excluding Jews — should be invited to the banquet.”
Cardinal Dulles’ views strongly contrast with those of Cardinal Kasper, who has argued that the Church's “mission does not extend to Jews, who already believe in the one true God.”
In a 2002 speech at Boston College, those of Cardinal Kasper said that Jews need not become Christians to be saved “if they follow their own conscience and believe in God's promises as they understand them in their religious tradition.”
As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict addressed the same question in his 2000 book God and the World. He wrote that Christians believe Jews should acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah — but should not be forced to do so — and that the Church is waiting for the moment when Jews “will say Yes to Christ.”
Clarity Requested
Such differing signals led Rabbi Rosen to call at the Rome conference for “a clear reaffirmation of the magisterium in this regard.” Without this, he said, “there will remain not only an unhealthy ambiguity in our relationship, but we will continue to have to deal with unfortunate and unnecessary tensions regarding motives, including the presence and role of specific personalities in the Church whose background is particularly pertinent to this relationship.”
Catholic and Jewish scholars agree the issue is key to moving forward in dialogue.
“This presents us with the first major obstacle as we move beyond the past 40 years,” said Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, director of Interfaith Affairs at the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League. “Each faith tradition must grapple with the validity of the other.”
Still, even though tensions are likely to persist, Cardinal Lustiger underlined the importance of Christians and Jews in building social unity, respect and providing care for the weakest. And he expressed hope that both religions would allow their differences to “become a goad for reaching — carefully and obediently — ever deeper into the mystery of which we are joint heirs.”
(CNS contributed to this report.) Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Angelic Images in America DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:If Thomas Aquinas is the Angelic Doctor, fellow Dominican Fra Angelico is surely the Angelic Painter.
But maybe I'm biased. I've just come from the landmark exhibit of Fra Angelico's works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — and been awed by what I saw.
Having assembled the first wide-ranging retrospective of Fra Angelico's works ever put on display in this country, the Met has timed its show with the 550th anniversary of the artistic master's death in Rome. The exhibit opened Oct. 26 and will run until Jan. 29. (For hours and directions, go to metmuseum.org.)
Here for the ogling — and contemplating — are more than 70 of his paintings, drawings and illuminations, along with an additional 40 or so works by his assistants and imitators.
Step by step, this visual feast reminds you why Fra Angelico was the preeminent painter in 15th-century Florence and beyond. This was clearly a Renaissance artist whose vision and talent were natural extensions of his faith.
This, in turn, helps explain why Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro between 1390-95, is now counted among the blesseds: Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1984, naming him patron of painters.
The friar's paint itself seems to have been snatched straight out of heaven. Right from his earliest efforts, he managed to bring forth vibrant, shimmering, seemingly self-illuminating images. Based on that aspect alone, the term “sacred art” seems apt.
And then there's the content. Clearly, Fra Angelico did nothing less than shout the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the rooftops, and tirelessly. It's just that his rooftop was the canvas and his voice, the brush.
I noted that he was particularly gifted, and particularly interested in, Virgin and Child motifs. I gazed long upon the large Virgin and Child Enthroned, watching Jesus sit happily on his mother's lap, reaching playfully for a perfect bunch of grapes she's holding.
This tempura-on-wood painting from his early years already hints at the powerful way he was to infuse all his scenes throughout his career with carefully considered spirituality and emotion. Both Mary and Jesus appear with a majestic humility — or is it a humble majesty? Mary doesn't look directly at her Son but gazes off, as if into the future. Her contemplative eyes already seem to catch a distant glimpse of the Last Supper and Crucifixion.
In the “Years in Transition” section is probably the most remarkable depiction of mother and child I've ever laid eyes on, Virgin and Child with Five Angels. It's an astonishing scene, possibly the first Fra Angelico did in what would be considered Renaissance style, boasting some of the most brilliant colors in the house. Jesus stands on Mary's lap, his cheek to hers. He clutches a lily; she holds a golden vase with three flowers and a lily. Mary's serenity surpasses human understanding; Jesus’ joy is palpable.
The Virgin's wide golden halo glistens three-dimensionally, and it's embossed with fancy gold-on-gold filigrees. Into the halo Fra Angelico wove letters proclaiming: “Ave Maria Gratia Plena.” The same words are repeated in the delicate, embroidered edges of her bright blue cloak.
The ornate tapestry that three of the angels drape for the royal background behind Mary and Jesus is an intriguing study of intricate floral and geometric detail.
Several similar pictures are called Virgin of Humility. In one from c.1436-38, Mary looks directly and humbly at her young son, who again and again stands on her lap.
Subtle touches, provoking thought as well as emotion, characterize all Fra Angelico's depictions of Gospel events. Indeed, making my way through the paintings, I couldn't help but note that Fra Angelico had an exceptionally keen intuition for translating the Word of God into works inspired by God.
Directly so? The friar himself seems to have thought that. “It was his habit never to retouch or alter any of his paintings,” wrote Georgio Vasari in his 16th-century Lives of the Artists, “but to leave them as they came the first time, believing, as he said, that such was the will of God.”
For example, even in this show's predella altarpieces — small scenes beneath large pieces from the high altars — Fra Angelico turns the saints’ facial expressions into insightful snapshots of their thoughts and emotions. On either side of Christ the Man of Sorrows, for instance, St. John weeps in silent anguish while Mary Magdalene's face reflects the pain in her heart.
In another, a wing from a triptych, St. Dominic gazes unfocused to ground as his mind carefully ponders a point John the Baptist makes on their walk together.
Dramatic narrative and riveting realism characterize all the scenes, from the last-minute rescue in the panel depicting St. Nicholas Saving Three Innocent Men Condemned to Death, to the more serene Naming of John the Baptist, one of a set of five predella panels. Like so many scenes, Fra Angelico sets this event amid Tuscan details, from the courtyard architecture to the expectant women neighbors decked out in Renaissance clothing.
One of his most recognizable paintings, tempura and gold on panel, is the head and shoulders portrait of Christ Crowned With Thorns. I stood speechless before the unforgettably pained eyes and expression of our Lord. His blood-filled eyes and mouth beneath the crown of thorns, and above his wide golden collar inscribed Rex Regnum — King of Kings — was inspired most likely by the accounts of the Passion by 14th-century mystic St. Bridget of Sweden.
Vasari gives another hint as to Fra Angelico's interior life when he writes: “He … [was] often saying that he who represents the things of Christ should always live with Christ.”
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Fra Angelico at the Met ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Life - What A Beautiful Vocation DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:PRIEST PROFILE
A little over three years ago, Father Thomas Euteneuer was pastor of a migrant parish in his Palm Beach, Fla., diocese. He was already a tireless worker for pro-life initiatives.
But since 2002, when be became president of Front Royal, Va.-based Human Life International, Father Euteneuer (pronounced EYE-ten-our) has crisscrossed the continent, appeared numerous times on EWTN and traveled to more than 40 countries to spread the gospel of life.
The change was no surprise to Don Kazimir, director of the Respect Life Office of the Diocese of Palm Beach, knowing what he did about the young priest from the first time he met him praying the Rosary at an abortion clinic.
“He was full of energy — very dedicated to the issues, very strongly pro-life, very personable, a fun guy,” says Kazimir. “And very holy. Everything you want in a priest.”
Ordained in 1988, Father Euteneuer was greatly influenced by Father Lou Roberts, a priest in the Palm Beach Diocese who died of Parkinson's disease.
“I was brought into his circle of friends while he was dying,” recounts Father Euteneuer. “It seemed to me he was praying for me and offering his sufferings for the unborn children. He died on my birthday.
“The day I went to concelebrate his funeral was the first day I actually stopped at an abortion mill to pray,” he continues. “I consider that to be the fruit of this priest's sacrificial prayer for my priesthood. He gave me the focus by passing on the pro-life torch to me.”
A pro-life spark appeared years earlier when he was a college student and a friend asked to borrow his car.
“He wanted to take his girlfriend for an abortion,” recalls Father Euteneuer. “I refused. Thankfully. At that moment abortion ceased to be an abstract concept for me but became a concrete reality. I saw the injustice of killing a baby. I was invited to take part in it and I refused.”
With these and other incidents, he believes, Christ was drawing him into the pro-life activities of the Church.
“I experience it as a calling — a vocation within a vocation, so to speak,” he says.
The “torch” Father Roberts passed on to him became a blaze when he arrived to head Human Life International, probably the largest pro-life and pro-family educational apostolate in the world.
There, preaching the gospel of life is a dimension of the New Evangelization for him.
“Abortion and the culture of death is the greatest threat to the souls of people,” he says. “The Gospel addresses that need of conversion from the world of darkness and to the God of life. Our Church has every answer and understanding of God's plan for life, marriage, and family — all the most important things. So when we preach the gospel of life, we are evangelizing.”
That he does abundantly even in non-Christian cultures like India, Indonesia and Singapore.
“Through my words and the message of the Church,” he says, “they now understand something about Jesus Christ and God's plan for everyone's life, not just Christians’ lives. I tell pro-lifers in these areas pro-life is primary evangelization.”
The non-Christians usually lend a willing ear. “I have more Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims listen to me,” he says, “than liberal Catholics.”
One trip to Peru amazed Maryknoll Father Martin Keegan, who accompanied Father Euteneuer on it and was Human Life International's chaplain at the time.
“The thing that stood out was the way he handled himself,” Father Keegan says. He tells how he watched the Human Life International president handle every situation deftly, from hearing out a hostile crowd at a press conference to speaking with students at a Salesian high school in Lima.
Winsome Witness
The most difficult part of Father Euteneuer's ministry, he says, is bringing the culture of life anywhere abortion is already legal. In those places, including the United States, the deadly procedure enjoys broad cultural acceptance.
“You're like trying to attack a fortress, whereas, in other parts of the world where they have not yet legalized abortion, the pro-life culture is the fortress that you are defending,” he explains. “And usually in those parts of the world the Church is very much in the forefront in defending life, so we work hand-in-hand with the official Church — bishops and priests — easily. Where abortion is already legalized, it's much tougher to work with the Church.”
His apostolate, he says, is spiritual warfare. “I've always seen it not just as a battle of flesh and blood but also a battle with ‘the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens,’ as St. Paul says in Ephesians 6.”
He has vivid memories of the battles. One exceptionally moving moment came in Vienna, where the Human Life International affiliate had bought a former abortion clinic and turned it into a pro-life counseling center. Father Euteneuer picks up the story:
“I was able to celebrate Mass where they had done thousands of abortions. They had left all the abortion instruments in the room. It became almost like a museum. The Mass celebrated in that room was the symbol of the victory of life over death.”
It seems Father Euteneuer has made an impact as a priest in many ways, and they're not all directly related to the defense of life. For example the priest's witness was instrumental in inspiring at least one young man to become a priest himself.
Now at St. Juliana Catholic Church in West Palm Beach, Father Joe Papes explains what he saw in Father Euteneuer.
“He really loved the priesthood, which really attracted me,” says Father Papes. “Here's probably the first priest I remember who was very outspoken, who wasn't afraid to stand up and speak the truth, and speak it with love. That really made an impression in me.”
How does Father Euteneuer look upon his own priesthood?
“I love it,” he says. “I'm so grateful God called me into it. I can't imagine myself doing anything else.”
Two days later, he was off to bring the gospel of life to Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:VARIOUS
Faith Works:
Across the USA 2005
ABC; check local listings
From our U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communications Campaign, this 60-minute program shows Catholic individuals and groups serving their neighbors. Profiles include: Minnesota grandma Mary Larsen feeding more than 150 needy families out of her home each month in a 30-year effort; Houston Catholics sheltering Katrina victims; Jesuit Father Greg Boyle's Homeboy Industries reclaiming Latino gang members in Los Angeles through job training; and the Boston-area Chernobyl Children Project hosting radiation-stricken children from Ukraine and Belarus for vacations and medical care.
VARIOUS
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger:
My Vatican
PBS; check local listings
In this 45-minute special, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger escorts us through the Vatican's archives, museums, catacombs and other areas that members of the public rarely see.
SUNDAY, NOV. 13
Nature: Can Animals
Predict Disaster?
PBS, 8 p.m.
Animals often seem to sense earthquakes and other disasters before they happen. The Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami in South Asia last year provided fresh examples, with reports of elephants, hippos, antelope and flamingoes becoming anxious and fleeing coastlines. Scientists are studying ground contact, low-detection sound waves and shifts in magnetic fields and electrical current intensities as possible explanations.
TUESDAY, NOV. 15
Nova: Newton's Dark Secrets
PBS, 8 p.m.
Even geniuses can make mistakes when they venture outside their areas of expertise. English scientist Isaac Newton (1642-1727) laid the foundation for modern mathematics and science but also made unfortunate forays into theology and alchemy.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16
In Search of Myths
And Heroes
PBS, 9 p.m.
Tonight, historian Michael Wood goes to East Africa and Yemen to probe the history of the Queen of Sheba and travels to Ireland, Scotland and the other Celtic nations to seek out a real-life basis for King Arthur. Next Wednesday, same time, Wood searches for the real Shangri-La and asks if Jason and the Argonauts really did exist.
FRIDAY, NOV. 18
The World Over:
USCCB Wrap-Up
EWTN, 8 p.m.
This two-hour news special sums up the U.S. bishops’ fall meeting.
SATURDAY, NOV. 19
God Touches a Life:
Catherine Laboure, Messenger of Mary Immaculate
EWTN, 8 p.m.
This show tells how the Blessed Mother visited St. Catherine Laboure (1806-1876) in her convent in Paris in 1830 and gave her the Miraculous Medal for all of us.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Pope Urges Christians to Avoid Temptations of Success
AGENZIA GIORNALISTICA ITALIA, Nov. 2 — Pope Benedict said that to be happy it is necessary “to follow a morally unexceptionable life, against any illusory alternative of success obtained via injustice and immorality,” the Italian news service reported.
The Holy Father exhorted the 30,000 faithful who attended his general audience in St. Peter's to accept the constant call of the prophets to side with the marginalized, supporting them with abundant aid.
He explained that for Christians, “loyalty to the divine word consists in fundamental choice, which is charity towards the poor and needy: respecting the biblical call to be generous towards the poor and to brothers and sisters in need, without self-interest or the usury that destroys the lives of the poor.”
Vatican Deplores Barbaric Act in Indonesia
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 31 — The Vatican called the beheading of three Indonesian girls from a Christian high school a barbaric act, and said that the Pope was praying for peace among the people of the region.
Unidentified assailants attacked a group of girls from a private Christian school in the tense province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding another. Police said that one of the heads was left in front of a new Christian church and the others near a police station.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but Central Sulawesi has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians. A sectarian war in the region in 2001 and 2002 killed about 1,000 people from both communities. Beheadings, burnings and other atrocities were common. The Government mediated a truce, but the killing of Christians resumed.
Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, said: “The Holy Father charged Msgr. Joseph Theodorus Suwatan, bishop of Manado, to offer his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and the diocesan community.”
Vatican Condemns Iran President's Remarks
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Oct. 29 — The Vatican condemned as “unacceptable” Irans President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel should be wiped off the map, the French News agency reported.
“The grave events of the past days in the Holy Land have caused great concern in the Holy See, which in unison with the international community strongly condemns all acts of violence: the terrorist attack in Hadera [in northern Israel], the reprisals that followed, and particularly grave and unacceptable comments denying the right to existence of Israel,” said a Vatican statement.
Ahmadinejad told a conference Oct. 26 in Tehran entitled “The World Without Zionism” that “the establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map,” he said, quoting Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The Holy See “called on all leaders in the Middle East to listen to the ardent desire for peace and justice of their peoples, to avoid acts leading to division and death, and to engage with courage and determination to create the conditions necessary to resume dialogue, the only path to ensure a peace and prosperity for all children of this world.”
Pope slips out of Vatican, prays at shrine
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 30 — Pope Benedict XVI made an unannounced trip Oct. 29 to a shrine outside Rome that was beloved by Pope John Paul II, Associated Press reported.
Benedict celebrated Mass in honor of the Madonna during the “private pilgrimage” to the Mother of the Graces of Mentorella shrine, about 30 miles from Rome, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said. The previously unannounced visit fell on the 27th anniversary of the first time John Paul prayed at the shrine as Pope, the ANSA news agency reported.
The Polish-born John Paul had prayed at the shrine two days before his Oct. 16, 1978, election, and returned there on Oct. 29, 1978, as well as several more times during his pontificate.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Video Picks & Passes DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:THE SOUND OF MUSIC 40TH ANN. EDITION: PICK
(1965)
OKLAHOMA! — 50TH ANN. EDITION: PICK
(1955)
OLD YELLER/SAVAGE SAM: PASS
(1957/1963)
Three old classics are new again on DVD racks in a week of tepid new releases. Spectacular new anniversary editions of the two best cinematic Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, make previous editions obsolete. Classic childhood tearjerker Old Yeller is also back in an unnecessary pairing with its inferior sequel, Savage Sam.
Other than The Wizard of Oz, no Hollywood musical is as familiar, reassuring, and beloved of all ages as The Sound of Music. The new 40th-anniversary edition boasts an improved transfer that makes those mountain landscapes and shooting locations in Germany and Austria more beautiful than ever, as well as commentaries by director Robert Wise and stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, new documentary and reunion material, and much more.
The loosely fact-based story has its earliest origins in the memoirs of Baroness Maria von Trapp, and was turned into a stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein in their final collaboration (and their only joint effort to rival their first collaboration, Oklahoma!). Julie Andrews is the quintessential Maria — radiantly joyful, earnest and energetic, clear of diction and powerful in song. Her performance anchors the film: Any flicker of condescension or insincerity on her part, and the whole thing would have collapsed into treacle and camp. But cynics will search her face in vain: Her sincerity is absolute, and she sells the role and the film.
Oklahoma! was the first of Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical collaborations, and it changed the face of musical theater. Breaking from both traditional musical comedies and Gilbert & Sullivan style operettas — in which show-stopping production numbers and comedy came first and character and story were secondary — Oklahoma! for the first time placed lyrics and dance at the service of character and story development. With this inversion, Rodgers & Hammerstein created a distinctively modern dramatic form, the musical play.
Many of the songs are worthy classics, including “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” and “Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City.” A couple of omitted songs were less savory and aren't missed, and a few lyrics have been sanitized as well. Leads Gordon McRae and Shirley Jones (in her first role) bring ample charm as well as strong singing to the story's depiction of frontier romance as a battle of the sexes with plenty of fraternizing with the “enemy.” Rod Steiger makes menacing Jud Fry more human, and therefore creepier, than he's often portrayed; the film effectively debunks his creepy antisocial isolation and fantasy fixations, extolling instead healthy social engagement.
Robert Stevenson's Old Yeller occupies a unique place in our cultural heritage. “It's not just a dog story; it's a rite of passage for American children,” writes Annie Dingus in Texas Monthly. If you don't remember the sequel, Savage Sam, you're not alone; this inferior film has largely been forgotten, and justifiably so. If this two-fer were the only available DVD edition of Old Yeller, it would be worth it just for the one film. However, the Disney Vault edition of Old Yeller— without Savagex Sam— is still available at a lower price, making this repackaging unnecessary.
CONTENT ADVISORY: The Sound of Music contains nothing objectionable. Oklahoma! contains romantic complications, a few suggestive lyrics and references; some menace; content relating to the antagonist's licentiousness, and is appropriate for teens and up. Old Yeller contains menacing situations and a wrenching climax that may be hard on young viewers. Savage Sam contains much menace to children and sometimes deadly violence.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Boston Catholic Charities Defends Homosexual Adoptions DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:BOSTON — Boston Catholic Charities’ president said placement of state foster children to homosexual adoptive parents is a case of “material cooperation.” As such, said Father Bryan Hehir, it is sometimes permissible under Catholic moral teaching.
But at least one critic of the policy said Catholic Charities should not be placing children with same-sex couples.
“You can justify anything you want with that argument” — material cooperation — said Charles Coudert of Sherborn, Mass. Couder is one of many critics of the practice, rumored about in the past but confirmed by the Boston Globe in an article on Oct. 22. “Homosexual behavior, which is what homosexual couples would be doing presumably, is inherently disordered.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a 2003 document, stated that homosexual adoptions “mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.”
Father Hehir doesn't disagree. Earlier this year, when talk surfaced that Catholic Charities might be helping homosexuals adopt, he told the Register that homosexual placement “is never a good fit” for the agency. But he said it was still the best choice that could be made under the circumstances: the state department of social services’ requirement in Catholic Charities’ contract that it place foster children in a non-discriminatory manner.
This is where “material cooperation” comes in, as in “cooperation” with evil. During the last presidential election, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, declared that American Catholics would be “formally” cooperating with evil if they voted for a pro-choice candidate because he or she supported abortion, which would always be wrong. But when “a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.”
The proportionate reasons in this case, Father Hehir told the Register, are the benefits flowing from its more than 50 community services and the $18 million-plus funding it gets from various levels of government, as well as the benefit to foster children from their placement in the best homes possible.
The number of children Catholic Charities has placed with homosexuals since the state contract was signed in 1987, he points out, is miniscule — five (less than 1%) over the past 10 years.
In addition, most children in foster care are not easy to place. They are not attractive newborns, but are mostly older children from dysfunctional families that have left them emotionally scarred. Or they are handicapped, often severely and from birth. Many, moreover, have been passed from foster home to foster home.
“We try to keep our eyes on the kids,” Father Hehir said.
Conscience Clause?
The best way out of the quandary, said Father Hehir, would be for the state Legislature to enact a “conscience clause” for Catholic institutions, exempting them from state anti-discrimination laws. But given that the Legislature has just overwhelmingly defeated a bid for a similar exemption, this seems unlikely, he added. Boston Catholic Charities would be looking for other options, he told the Register.
C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Action League, said the state government was far more at fault than Catholic Charities, and agreed with Father Hehir that the chances of an exemption were slim.
“Nonetheless, Catholic Charities ought to stand their ground,” he said. “It ought to withdraw from participation in such programs rather than compromise. The Church can't claim to promote the truth if it doesn't vindicate its faith with its own actions.”
Some Catholic social service agencies resolve the moral dilemma by referring homosexual candidates for adoptive parenthood to other non-government agencies.
That is what Catholic Charities of Worcester, Mass., does, executive director Catherine Loeffler told the Register.
“You use good common sense to work with people to achieve goals,” she said. “And this was a workable solution to their [the state department of social services] non-discrimination policy.”
When a homosexual couple is referred to another agency, the state's fee for conducting the home study follows. Worcester Catholic Charities has handled more than 2,000 adoptions since the 1950s and has never had a complaint about discrimination.
“There are lots of agencies doing this work,” said Loeffler, so referring them causes no hardship. She nonetheless said she was choosing her words carefully so as to not antagonize the department of social services. (A department spokeswoman, Denise Monteiro, promised the Boston Globe that “DSS would investigate” Worcester Catholic Charities for apparently flouting of the rules with its referrals.
Effect on Children
Is there any empirical evidence that homosexual parenting makes a difference? Yes, says Dean Byrd, a clinical psychologist and clinical professor of medicine at the University of Utah school of medicine.
“We know for sure that the children are different,” he said. “The girls behave more like boys and the boys like girls.”
For example, girls raised by lesbian couples experiment with sex earlier than the average, while boys experiment later. Both are more likely to engage in homosexual relations.
Byrd added that research shows fathers and mothers contribute to parenting in complementary rather than interchangeable ways. For example, women provide more security and men more freedom, while at the same time women are more flexible and men more consistent. Children also learn how to get along with the other gender from their heterosexual parents.
A spokesman for the archdiocese, Kevin Shea, said Archbishop Sean O'malley would review the matter upon his return from a recent trip to Rome.
Steve Weatherbe is based in Victoria, British Columbia.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steve Weatherbe ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Happiness Is Doing God's Will DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope Benedict XVI met with 20,000 people in St. Peter's Square Nov. 2, the Commemoration of All Souls’ Day. He continued his series of reflections on the psalms and canticles from the Liturgy of the Hours’ evening prayer with a teaching on Psalm 112, “The Blessings of the Just.”
The Holy Father pointed out that it was an appropriate day to reflect on the meaning of death, but with an attitude of peace and hope.
“According to Scripture, death is not an end but a new birth,” he said. “Those who model their life here on earth according to God's word must pass through it in order to attain the fullness of life.”
According to Psalm 112, happiness begins with a fear of the Lord.
“It is manifested in docility to God's commandments,” Pope Benedict noted. “He who ‘greatly delights’ in God's commandments, finding in them peace and joy, is proclaimed blessed.”
This is also the source of peace of conscience, the Holy Father said. Furthermore, as people experience the value of a life of moral rectitude, they confidently reject the deceitful promises of success that is attained through unjust and immoral means.
The Pope also pointed out that the psalmist clearly states that the generous love of one's neighbor in need is a fundamental trait of those who walk according to God's Word.
“The faithful man is generous,” he said. “Responding to the prophets’ persistent admonitions, the just man aligns himself with society's outcasts and sustains them with abundant help.”
The Holy Father concluded his talk with a passage from Clement of Alexandria, who exhorted Christians to share generously with their neighbors by giving “without regret, distinction or pain.”
After celebrating the solemn feast of all the saints of heaven yesterday, today we remember all the faithful departed. The Liturgy invites us to pray for our loved ones who have died and to reflect on the mystery of death — a legacy that all men share.
Enlightened by faith, we look upon the enigma of human death with peace and hope. According to Scripture death is less an end than a new birth. Those who model their life here on Earth according to God's word must pass through it in order to attain the fullness of life.
Fear of the Lord
Psalm 112, a wisdom psalm, presents a portrait of the just, who fear the Lord, acknowledge his transcendence and follow his will with trust and love, in the hope of meeting him after death.
A blessing has been reserved for these faithful people: “Happy are those who fear the Lord” (verse 1). The psalmist immediately makes it clear what this fear consists of: It is shown in docility to God's commandments. He who “greatly delights” in God's commandments, finding in them peace and joy, is proclaimed blessed.
Thus, docility to God is the root of hope and of interior and exterior harmony. The observance of moral law is the source of a deep peace of conscience. Indeed, according to the biblical notion of “retribution,” the just are covered with the mantle of God's blessing, marking their endeavors and the endeavors of their descendants with stability and success: “Their descendants shall be mighty in the land, a generation upright and blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in their homes” (verses 2-3; see verse 9). Of course, the bitter observations of the just man, Job, who experiences the mystery of pain and sorrow and feels that he has been unjustly punished and subjected to apparently senseless trials, runs counter to this optimistic notion. It is necessary, therefore, to read this psalm in the wider context of the whole of Revelation, which embraces the reality of human life in all its aspects.
Nevertheless, the trust that the psalmist wishes to transmit to, and to be experienced by those who have chosen to follow the path of morally irreproachable conduct — as opposed to any illusion of success obtained through injustice and immorality — is still valid.
Charity to the Poor
At the core of this faithfulness to God's word is a fundamental choice, namely charity to the poor and needy: “All goes well for those gracious in lending. … Lavishly they give to the poor” (verses 5, 9). The person who is faithful is therefore generous. Respecting the Bible's teaching, he gives loans to his brothers in need without charging interest (see Deuteronomy 15:7-11) and without falling into the scandal of usury, which is devastating in the life of the poor.
Responding to the prophets’ persistent admonitions, the just man sides with society's outcasts and provides for them abundant help. “Lavishly they give to the poor,” verse 9 says, thereby expressing an extreme generosity that is completely devoid of any self-interest.
Besides the description of the faithful and charitable man who is “gracious, merciful and just,” at the end of Psalm 112 a single verse (see verse 10) presents a portrait of the wicked man. Such an individual looks at the success of the just man, and is consumed by rage and envy. This is the torment of the man who has a bad conscience, as opposed to the generous man whose heart is “steadfast” and “tranquil” (verses 7-8).
Clement of Alexandria
Fixing our gaze on the peaceful face of the faithful man “who gives lavishly to the poor,” let us by guided in our concluding reflection by the words of Clement of Alexandria, who, commenting on Jesus’ invitation to make friends with dishonest wealth (see Luke 16:9) in a piece entitled As a Rich Man He Will Be Saved, made the following observation: With this affirmation, Jesus “declares unjust by nature any possession that one has for one's self as one's own good and does not share in common with those who are in need. But he also declares that from this injustice it is possible to accomplish a work that is just and salutary, by providing relief to one of those little ones who have an eternal dwelling with the Father (see Matthew 10:42; 18:10)” (31,6: Collana di Testi Patristici, CXLVIII, Rome, 1999, pp. 56-57).
Addressing the reader, Clement warns: “Keep in mind, first of all, that he has not commanded you to demand to be asked or to wait to be begged, but to seek out yourself those who are well worthy of being heard, inasmuch as they are disciples of the Savior” (31,7: ibid., p. 57).
Then, citing another text from the Bible, he makes this comment: “Beautiful, therefore, is the apostle's saying: ‘God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9:7) — a person who enjoys giving and does not sow sparsely so as not to gather in the same way, but shares without complaint, favoritism or regret. This is truly what it means to do good” (31, 8: ibid.).
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- *************************** Missing file Word Work File D_2646 *************************** TITLE: World Media Watch DATE: 11/13/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: November 13-19, 2005 ----- BODY:Nigerians Tell the West to Practice What It Preached
“Homosexuality is against the book,” said Dayo Okusami, 58, as she picked up a Bible at this month's opening of the National Ecumenical Center, a multi-denominational cathedral in this capital city. “Here we still follow the book. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of homosexuality. That's it. God doesn't change. He's not human.”
As the descendants of Nigerians who abandoned their traditional values under the influence of Western preaching, some Christians here say they feel betrayed and offended that the spiritual descendants of those missionaries are now trying to change the rules.
There are now more Anglicans in Nigeria than anywhere but England, and the Catholic Church, with 150 million faithful in Africa, is growing faster there than on any other continent.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian in a country split between a largely Muslim north and a Christian and animistic south, told a conference of African Anglican bishops last year, “Surely the good Lord, who created us male and female, knew exactly what he was doing. Any other form of sexual relationship is a perversion of the divine order, and sin.”
Rwandan Priest to Deny Genocide
BBC NEWS, Oct. 31 — A Catholic priest charged on four counts of genocide in Rwanda is due to start his defense at the war crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, BBC News reported.
Father Athanase Seromba denies telling some 2,000 ethnic Tutsis to seek shelter in a church and sending bulldozers in to raze it to the ground.
Defense arguments were meant to begin in March but were delayed by disputes between Father Seromba and his lawyer. Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the 1994 killings.
Father Seromba was the first Catholic priest to go on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Bishops Pray for Bomb Victims, and Condemn Violence
ASIANEWS, Oct. 31 — The Indian Bishops’ Conference assured families who lost loved ones in the Oct. 29 bombings in New Delhi that killed 61 of its prayers,” AsiaNews reported.
Speaking about the tragedy, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, president of the bishops’ conference, said: “We pray that God may grant peace to those departed souls and give strength to all those who bear serious losses. Axcts of violence can, by no means, be a solution to grievances of any kind. On the contrary violence will only further aggravate the situation and create more disorder and chaos in society.”
The militant Islamic Inquilab Mahaz (Front for Islamic Uprising) had admitted it staged the bombings.
John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union, said, “The Pope has spoken for all of us in describing terrorism as a sin and a scourge of the present times. … The Christian community abhors violence and condemns the massacre of innocents in the name of ideology or religion or politics. We pray for the victims, the survivors and for the bereaved families who must live with this terrible loss all their lives.”
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